Chapter 9

In the library, between Smith’s corner office and the conference room that adjoined the communications center, Westervelt sat and watched Lydman pore over a technical report in the blue binding of the Department of Interstellar Relations. Half a dozen other volumes, old and new, technical and diplomatic, were scattered about the table between them.

The youth caught himself running a hand through his hair in Smith’s usual manner, and stopped, appalled. He judged, after due reflection, that it might be worse: he could have picked up some of Lydman’s peculiarities instead.

Probably, he told himself, he ought to show some better sense and imitate the suavity of Parrish if he had to adopt the manners of anyone in the department. Unfortunately, he did not like Parrish very well, even when he was not engaged in being actively jealous of the man.

Some day, Willie, he mused, you’ll snap too. When you do, it would be just your style to take after this mass of beef in front of you.

Immediately, he was ashamed of the thought. Lydman had been, in his way, nicer to him than anyone else. Moreover, he was far from being a mass of beef. Westervelt recalled the sight of Lydman on an open beach, where he seemed more at ease than anywhere else. The man kept himself hard-muscled and trim. Despite the gaunt look that sometimes crossed his features, he was probably on the low side of thirty.

So he’s still quick as well as strong, thought Westervelt. If he does go for the door the way Joe predicts, Willie my boy, you be sure to get out of the way!

In theory, he was supposed to be helping Lydman research some problems Smith had thought up. So far, he had read one short article which had bored the ex-spacer and twice gone to the files for case folders. He was very well aware that the real idea was to have someone with Lydman constantly. For this reason, he was prepared further to assume the courtesy of answering any interrupting phone calls. He was determined that any news not censored by Pauline would be a wrong number, no matter if it were the head of the D.I.R. himself.

Lydman looked up from his reading.

“I’m getting hungry; aren’t you, Willie?”

“I guess so. I didn’t notice,” said Westervelt.

“How about phoning down for something? Get whatever you like.”

That was typical of Lydman, Westervelt realized. The man did not care what he ate. Smith would have been specific though unimaginative. Parrish would have sent instructions about the seasoning. The girls would choose something sickening by Westervelt’s standards. He shoved back his chair and stood up.

“I’d better see what they’re doing up front,” he said. “I think Mr. Smith was talking about it being quicker to raid our own food locker. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Lydman raised his gray-blue eyes and stared through him curiously.

“No hurry,” he said mildly.

Westervelt thought that the man was still watching him as he walked through the door, but he did not like to look back. It might have been so.

When he reached the main office, he found both girls replacing folders in the bay of current files opposite Simonetta’s desk.

“How about letting me at the buried treasure?” he asked. “The thought of food is infiltrating insidiously.”

“Willie,” said Simonetta, “you’ll go far here. None of the other brains had such a good idea. I’ll phone for something if you’ll see what people want.”

“I think Mr. Smith wants to use stuff we have in the locker,” said Westervelt, blocking the way to her desk. “Hold it a second while I check.”

He rapped on Smith’s door as he opened it. He found the chief with most of the papers on his desk shoved to one side so that a built-in tape viewer could be brought up from its concealed position. Smith was scowling as if obtaining little useful information from whatever he was watching.

“They’re getting hungry,” Westervelt whispered. “Is it all right to raid our guest locker?”

Smith shut off his machine, and scrubbed one hand across his long face.

“Right, Willie,” he agreed. “The sooner the better. Take out whatever you think best and pass it around. Meanwhile, I’d better check on the situation downstairs--come to think of it, when you called, did you get an outside line and punch the numbers yourself?”

“No, but I have an understanding with Pauline,” said Westervelt.

He was thinking that Smith had put him in charge of the food, which was perhaps a little better than being sent around to take personal orders as the girls had assumed he would do, but which was still a long way beneath the conference status he had appeared to have an hour earlier.

“Good boy!” Smith approved. “Then she’ll know who I want to talk to and that she shouldn’t listen in.”

Westervelt was far from sanguine about the last condition, but left without trying to cause his chief any unhappiness.

Well, so it goes, he reflected. One minute a project man, the next an office boy! If I pick out what everybody likes, I’ll be a project man again. But if they like it too much, I’ll turn out to be the official chef around here whenever someone important stays to lunch.

The picture of sitting in on a talk with some potent official of the D.I.R. and expounding his brilliant solution to a problem, only to be requested to slap together a short order meal, made him pause outside the door, frowning.

“Now what, Willie?” asked Simonetta.

He roused himself.

“Leave it to me, Si,” he answered, working up a grin. “I have everything under control.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Beryl commented. “I won’t stand for a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy, or anything that fattening.”

“You’ll have your choice,” Westervelt promised. “I wouldn’t want anything to spoil that figure. Just let me at the locker.”

He slipped an arm around her waist to move her aside. The flesh of her flank was softly firm under his fingers, and he made himself think better of an impulse to squeeze.

Beryl stepped away, neither quickly enough to be skittish nor slowly enough to imply permissiveness. Westervelt shrugged. He stepped forward to the blank wall at the end of the file cabinets, and slid back a panel to reveal a white-enameled food locker.

It was divided into an upper and lower section, with transparent doors that rolled around into the side walls. The lower half was refrigerated. Westervelt opened the upper to explore more comfortably.

Most of the foiled packages contained sandwiches, many of them self-heating. Somewhat bulkier containers held more substantial delicacies: Welsh rabbit, turkey and baked potato, filet mignon, rattlesnake croquettes, and salmon salad. There were sealed cups of coffee, tea, or bouillon that heated themselves upon being opened, and ice cream and fruits in the freezer section.

“Si, let me have a couple of ‘out’ baskets,” said Westervelt, holding out his hand.

“Empty?”

“All right--your ‘in’ and Beryl’s ‘out’ trays. Do you expect me to go around with everybody’s supper stuffed in my pockets?”

“Frankly, yes,” said Beryl. “But not with mine. Let me see what they have in there!”

She examined the array while Westervelt experimented with balancing two empty desk trays across his forearm. By the time he was ready, the girls had blocked him off, and he had to wait until the possibilities had been debated thoroughly. In the end, Simonnetta selected veal scallopini; and Beryl took a crabmeat sandwich for herself and a filet mignon for Parrish. Westervelt grinned when he saw that she also chose four sealed martinis.

His own decisions were simple. Putting aside a budding curiosity about rattlesnake meat, he took a package of fried ham and eggs--to see if it could be possible--and a self-heating package of mince pie. For Smith, Lydman, and Rosenkrantz, he piled a tray with half a dozen roast beef or turkey sandwiches, a selection of pie and ice cream, and all the coffee containers he could fit in.

“Si, pick out something nice for Pauline,” he requested, noting that Beryl was already on the way across the office to Parrish’s door.

Simonetta exclaimed at her forgetfulness, pushed aside the container that she had been warming on her desk according to instructions, and told him to go ahead.