“Rosenthal Webb, you are fifty-five years old. You tend to limp when the humidity’s high—we’ve all seen it.” Virginia Quale motioned around the conference table. “We agreed to this mission—with much debate and mountainous reservations—and, well, I’m sorry, but there are younger and stronger men. They have more endurance and agility. It’s hard fact, Rose.” She flushed. “Rosenthal. And you’re a man of hard facts.”
Webb, too, was reddening. A tiny wildfire was spreading across his cheeks and forehead and he was helpless to stop it. He detested what he thought of as Quale’s motherly nature. And with logic on her side it was all the more exasperating. His words came slowly, in measured tones calculated to sound frighteningly controlled, as if any more resistance might bring an explosion of fury. His being eliminated from one mission was not the only thing at stake—if he lost this one, he would never be granted another. Cranking windmills for the rest of his life.
“I am aging,” he said. “Yes, by plumb, I am. You could not really say that I am going soft, though. I am strong. I work out daily, even through the winter. You all know that. The younger men, well, most of what they know about fieldwork they have learned from me and they have a small fraction of my experience.
“And there is the matter of our field contacts, people who have known me for years. Some of them only I am aware of; they will deal with no one else.” He pointed for emphasis with his left index finger, and seven sets of eyes followed the motion. “We are privileged with an insulated existence. We can forget that out there, in real life, trusting a stranger is risking your life.”
“May I interject?” asked Winston Weet. “I grant you the physical ability, even if some at our table will not. I am older than you, Rosenthal, and I am soft. And I concede the need for the mission, and I voted for it. I don’t doubt that Takk is bumbling badly and is about to be caught, or that he will very likely take some good people down with him. But I want to bring up another point. I am a scientist, and perhaps I consider causes and effects differently from some people and—oh, that doesn’t really matter.” Weet cleared his throat. “What do you say to the skeptic who wonders if you didn’t create the need for this mission in the first place? You did send Anton Takk a wheelbarrow load of money.”
Webb stood and pushed his chair back. Virginia Quale flinched, and Webb himself wondered if he could refrain from shouting. “The money,” Webb said, “merely served as assistance to a project already set in motion by Anton Takk. The young man is very resourceful. He had an entire warehouse at his disposal. He even has the services of a printing press for forgeries.
“But money, I gully, from what Takk said in the letter, was going to be a problem. From our distance, it was the assistance that could travel fastest without being detected—a coded wireless transmission to New Chicago, and from there, the actual money was hidden in a direct shipment to Camp Blade. Money—it was juss five thousand centimes, not ‘a wheelbarrow load’—is the most versatile of tools for what Takk was needing to do. But anyway, no—it’s a situation of Takk’s creation.”
“You seem to take Takk’s letter at face value now,” said Quale.
“I have believed all along that the essence of the letter is true,” answered Webb, “although I am aware of a couple of blatant lies—probably used to protect friends.”
“What lies?”
“Well, about Ben Tiggle for one—the warehouse manager.” Webb’s face darkened. “I have known him for a long … long … time. Now he has disappeared.”
“I do wish Mr. Takk had just stayed put,” Quale said.
“Virginia,” Webb responded, “you’re starting to sound like the Government.”