it, it was necessary to be sure that the suspendees never got much above fifty degrees temperature for any length of time. Above that, they had an unwelcome tendency to decay.
This was, I realized, the first full-scale “clinic” I had ever seen. I had known that the Company had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them scattered all over the world.
I had heard that the Company had enough of them, mostly in out-of-the-way locations, to deep-freeze the entire human race at once, though that seemed hardly reasonable.
I had even heard some ugly, never-quite-made-clear stories about why the Company had so many clinics…but when people began hinting at such ridiculous unpleasantness, I felt it was my duty to make it clear that I wanted to hear no subversive talk. So I had never got the details—and certainly would never have believed them for a moment if I had.
*
It was very early in the morning, as I say, but it seemed that I was not the first to arrive at the clinic. On the sparse grass before the main entrance, half a dozen knots of men and women were standing around apathetically. Some of them glared at me as I came near them, for reasons I did not understand; others merely stared.
I heard a hoarse whisper as I passed one group of middle-aged women. One of them was saying, “Benedetto non é morte.” She seemed to be directing it to me; but it meant nothing. The only comment that came to my somewhat weary mind was, “So what if Benedetto isn’t dead?”
A huge armed expediter, yawning and scratching, let me in to the executive office. I explained that I had been sent for by Mr. Defoe. I had to wait until Mr. Defoe was ready to receive me and was finally conducted to a suite of rooms.
This might have once been an authentic clinic; it had the aseptic appearance of a depressing hospital room. One for, say, Class-Cs with terminal myasthenia. Now, though, it had been refitted as a private guest suite, with an attempt at luxurious drapes and deep stuffed armchairs superimposed on the basic adjustable beds and stainless steel plumbing.
I hadn’t seen Defoe in some time, but he hadn’t changed at all. He was, as always, the perfect model of a Company executive of general-officer rank. He was formal, but not unyielding. He was tall, distinguished-gray at the temples, spare, immaculately outfitted in the traditional vest and bow tie.
I recalled our first meeting. He was from the side of Marianna’s family that she talked about, and she fluttered around for three whole days, checking our Blue Plate policies for every last exotic dish we could squeeze out to offer him, planning the television programs allowed under our entertainment policies, selecting the most respectable of our friends—“acquaintances” would be a better description; Marianna didn’t make friends easily—to make up a dinner party. He’d arrived at the stroke of the hour he was due, and had brought with him what was undoubtedly his idea of a princely gift for newlyweds—a paid-up extra-coverage maternity benefit rider on our Blue Blanket policies.
We thanked him effusively. And, for my part, sincerely. That was before I had known Marianna’s views on children; she had no intentions of raising a family.
*
As I walked in on Defoe in his private suite at the clinic, he was standing with his back to me, at a small washstand, peering at his reflection in a mirror. He appeared to have finished shaving. I rubbed my own bristled chin uneasily.
He said over his shoulder, “Good morning, Thomas. Sit down.”
I sat on the edge of an enormous wing chair. He pursed his lips, stretched the skin under his chin and, when he seemed perfectly satisfied the job was complete, he said as though he were continuing a conversation, “Fill me in on your interview with Zorchi, Thomas.”
It was the first I’d known he’d ever heard of Zorchi. I hesitantly began to tell him about the meeting in the hospital. It did not, I knew, do me very much credit, but it simply didn’t occur to me to try to make my own part look better. I suppose that if I thought of the matter at all, I simply thought that Defoe would instantly detect any attempt to gloss things over. He hardly seemed to be paying attention to me, though; he was preoccupied with the remainder of his morning ritual—carefully massaging his face with something fragrant, brushing his teeth with a maddening, old-fashioned insistence on careful strokes, combing his hair almost strand by strand.
Then he took a small bottle with a daub attached to the stopper and touched it to the distinguished gray at his temples.
I spluttered in the middle of a word; I had never thought of the possibility that the handsomely grayed temples of the Company’s senior executives, as inevitable as the vest or the watch chain, were equally a part of the uniform! Defoe gave me a long inquiring look in the mirror; I coughed and went on with a careful description of Zorchi’s temper tantrum.
Defoe turned to me and nodded gravely. There was neither approval nor disapproval. He had asked for information and the information had been received.
He pressed a communicator button and ordered breakfast. The microphone must have been there, but it was invisible. He sat down at a small, surgical-looking table, leaned back and folded his hands.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what happened in Caserta just before Hammond disappeared.”
Talking to Defoe had something of the quality of shouting down a well. I collected my thoughts and told him all I knew on the riot at the branch office.
While I was talking, Defoe’s breakfast arrived. He didn’t know I hadn’t eaten anything, of course—I say “of course” because I know he couldn’t have known, he didn’t ask. I looked at it longingly, but all my looking didn’t alter the fact that there was only one plate, one cup, one set of silverware.
He ate his breakfast as methodically as he’d brushed his teeth. I doubt if it took him five minutes. Since I finished the Caserta story in about three, the last couple of minutes were in dead silence, Defoe eating, me sitting mute as a disconnected jukebox.
Then he pushed the little table away, lit a cigarette and said, “You may smoke if you wish, Thomas. Come in, Susan.”
He didn’t raise his voice; and when, fifteen seconds later, Susan Manchester walked in, he didn’t look at all impressed with the efficiency of his secretary, his intercom system, or himself. The concealed microphone, it occurred to me, had heard him order breakfast and request his secretary to walk in. It had undoubtedly heard—and most probably recorded—every word I had said.
How well they did things on the upper echelon of the Company!
Susan looked—different. She was as blonde and pretty as ever. But she wasn’t bubbly. She smiled at me in passing and handed Defoe a typed script, which he scanned carefully.
He asked, “Nothing new on Hammond?”
“No, sir,” she said.
“All right. You may leave this.” She nodded and left. Defoe turned back to me. “I have some news for you, Thomas. Hammond has been located.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Not too badly hung over, I hope.”
He gave me an arctic smile. “Hardly. He was found by a couple of peasants who were picking grapes. He’s dead.”
Chapter Six
Hammond
