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Gland extract, fake a heroin prescription, shot of Scotch?"
The beaked youth said loftily: "Our findings are set forth precisely, Dr.
Bennington. The fluid contains an alkaloid which appreciably eroded the myelin
sheaths of the autonomic nerve trunks."
Denzer blanched, but the semi-kook administrator agreed carelessly, "Right,
that's what I said.
It's that word 'appreciably.' Anything less than 'markedly,' we write it down
as negative." He slipped it in an envelope that was already marked
Confidential Findings, Aztec Wine of Coca
Corporation, Sponsor, and sailed it across to Denzer. "Well, what about
C.S.B., boy? They gonna get us dug in before it's too late?" He made them
promise to stop in at the snack-bar or bar-bar before leaving the building,
then offered them a drink out of his private stock. They refused, of course.
That was just his way of saying good-bye. It was the only way he knew to end a
conversation.
With the certification in his pocket and the issue locked up, Denzer began to
feel as though he might live, especially if he made it to the B-l vitagunk
dispenser in the snack-bar. He took
Maggie Frome by the arm and was astonished to feel her shaking.
"Sorry, Denzer. I'm not crying, really. If somebody's going to sell
crazy-making dope to the public, why shouldn't it be you and me? We're no
better than anybody else, d-d-damn'it!"
He said uncomfortably, "Maybe a drink's not such a bad idea. What do you say?"
"I'd love it," she sobbed. But then the sirens began to wail and they said,
"Damn it," and "Oh, dear" -respectively, she did and he did-and they took
their bearings by the signs and made for the shelters. Under Lobby House was
nothing like enough space, so the air-raid shelter was the interior parts of
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the 10th through 85th floors, away from the flying glass of the curtain walls
but not too near the elevator shafts. It was not a bad shelter, actually. It
was proof against any
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l%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt bomb that the world had
ever known, up to say, early 1943.
There was plenty of room but not enough benches. Maggie and Denzer found a
place on the floor where they could put their backs against a wall, and he
allowed her to lean against Ms shoulder.
She wasn't such a bad kid, he thought sympathetically, especially as the
perfume in her hair was pleasant in his nostrils. There wasn't anything really
wrong with Female Integration. Maggie wasn't a nut. Take baseball. Why, that
was the Integrationist's major conquest, when women demanded and got equal
representation on every major-league team in spite of the fact that they could
not throw or run on competitive terms with men. They said that if all the
teams had the same number of women it wouldn't matter. And it hadn't. And
Integrationists were still crowing over the victory; and yet Maggie had
refused to fall into the All-Star hysteria.
A roar like an outboard motor in the crown of your hat shook the building; A.
A. "carpet" cannon laying a sheet of sudden death for missiles across the sky
above them. Denzer relaxed. His headache was almost gone. He inclined his head
to rest his cheek against Maggie's hair. Even with a hangover, it had been
pleasant in the cab with his arms around her. He had been kind of looking
forward to the return trip. If Denzer were indeed a nucleus, as in a way he
was, he was beginning to feel a certain tugging of binding energy toward
certain other nuclear particles.
As soon as the noise stopped, he thought he would speak to her.
The noise stopped. The voices of the men beside them bellowed into the sudden
quiet: "-damned foolish idea of Therapeutic War was exploded ten years ago!
And that's what we'd be if your idiot
Crockhouse was in-exploded!"
And the man next to him: "At least Crockhouse wouldn't have us sitting ha
these fool imitation shelters! He'd do something."
"Whadya think Braden wants, for God's sake? Not these things. He's right on
the record for C.S.B."
And then Maggie Frome, breathing fire, her head no longer resting on Denzer's
shoulder: "What the hell is so great about C.S.B.? Shelters, no shelters,
can't you get it through your head that if this keeps up we're dead? Dear God
above, deliver me from fools, baseball players and p-p-
politicians!"
Denzer tried to look as though he'd never met her; he was white-faced. Round,
yes, sweet-smelling, yes, warm-but how could he ever get used to her dirty
talk?
iii
If Denzer was a nucleus and Walter Chase a neutron, what can we call the
President of the United
States? He played a part. Without him nothing could happen. Perhaps what he
did was to shape the life of the neutron before fission happened; in that
sense one could call him a "moderator." This was an apt term for President
Braden. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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