All the Colors of Darkness. Lloyd Biggle jr.
it would cost a fortune in cameras.”
“To start with, just enough for the New York Terminal.”
“Why just New York?”
“So far it’s the only terminal that’s losing passengers.”
Arnold shook his head admiringly. “Either you’re sheer genius, or I’m too shook up to think. I’ll get someone started on it. Anything else?”
“I find myself suddenly very curious about your past difficulties. You mentioned the other night that you’d been tailed frequently, and that things had happened that looked like sabotage to you. Of course everyone knows you’ve had a long series of technical failures. I’m wondering what the sabotage was, and if some of those technical failures could have had outside encouragement. I probably won’t understand half of it, but go ahead and talk.”
Arnold elevated his feet again and talked for half an hour, while Darzek listened meditatively. “Well, you asked for it,” Arnold said. “Want more?”
“No. I don’t understand a tenth of it. What much of it adds up to is that you’d have a problem, and you’d keep trying things until something solved it. But often as not you wouldn’t know precisely what it was that caused the problem, and you wouldn’t entirely understand how you managed to correct it.”
“Something like that. We’re delving into unexplored scientific territory, and it’ll be years before our knowledge will be anything like definitive. This sort of thing happens whenever man takes on the unknown.”
“You’re welcome to it. I’ll have to think about this. It’s hard for me to read sabotage into your technical failures, and even the more obvious things—the fires, the stuff that fell and smashed when no one was looking—those things could have been accidents.”
“Sabotage with finesse. Or else we’re the most accident-prone corporation that ever—”
The telephone rang. Arnold answered, listened briefly, and said, “Now? I’ll be right up.”
“Another one?” Darzek asked.
“No. It was Watkins. He’s in the Public Relations Office, and they want to have a press release ready when the storm breaks about the missing passengers. Got any ideas about that?”
“No, but I suggest that you corner the gate attendants and all the other employees who know about this, and tape their mouths.”
“I already have,” Arnold said grimly.
Darzek waited for Arnold to tie his shoes, and they left the office together. At the stairway they separated. “Where will you be?” Arnold asked.
“I’m going to spend some time browsing around the terminal, and then I’ll go back to my office and hire some people. If I find anything to think about, I might even do some thinking.”
“I’ll send down a pass so you can see whatever you want to see.”
“I hope Universal Trans took in enough money today to pay me an advance on expenses.”
“If I told you how much the New York Terminal took in today, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Darzek took an elevator to the mezzanine. The lobby below was deserted, now that the free demonstration had been canceled, but the mezzanine was more crowded than it had been that afternoon. Darzek threaded his way through to the information desk. “Open all night?” he asked.
The young lady smiled sweetly. “People traveling conventionally arrive in New York at all hours. We have to be available if they want to transmit from here. We’re the only U.S.—European connection, you know.”
“I didn’t,” Darzek said. “You mean anyone traveling to Europe by transmitter has to come to New York first?”
She nodded.
“Well, I suppose it’s no special inconvenience to walk from one transmitter to another here in the New York Terminal.”
“It requires fewer transmitters that way. Transmitters are our biggest problem right now.”
Darzek smiled back at her, thinking that what she didn’t know about the company’s biggest problem wouldn’t hurt her. “Very interesting,” he said. “Thank you.”
Perrin found him a moment later, and handed him a pass bearing the potent signature of Thomas J. Watkins III. “Do you have time to give me a guided tour?” Darzek asked.
“Sure. What do you want to see?”
“I’d like a leisurely look at the layout of these passenger gates.”
“They’re all alike. Come back this way, and you can look at some that aren’t in use.”
Perrin led him into a closed-off section of the mezzanine, and opened a passenger gate. Darzek walked slowly to the end of the passageway, and retraced his steps. The partitions were six feet high and met the wall solidly. A metal frame with an overhead crosspiece was the only clue to the location of the transmitter.
“Only a pole vaulter could have got out of there without going through the transmitter,” Perrin said.
“Are the receiving gates the same?”
“Exactly the same. Even the instrumentation is the same. Throw a switch, and the transmitter becomes a receiver.”
“Interesting. I’m beginning to see why Arnold is so upset about this.”
“Upset? Listen—it’s a wonder it hasn’t made a screaming idiot out of him. This is no job for a detective. It wants either a magician or a priest, and if I was the Board I’d hire both. Want to see anything else?”
“Nothing now, thank you.”
Darzek spent another twenty minutes poking about the terminal, getting the enormous place firmly in mind. Then he seated himself near the ticket windows and watched the unending throng of passengers. Ted Arnold found him there, and sat down beside him.
“Anything new?” Darzek asked quickly.
Arnold shook his head. “Nothing. And I do mean nothing. I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to proceed.”
“That describes my state of mind exactly. I might as well go back to my office.”
“I’ll telephone you if anything happens. I’ll be here until midnight, in case you want me.”
“Right. If I’m not at my office, I’ll be home, or on my way there.”
“We’ll have the mirrors and cameras ready by morning. I got that much taken care of. We’ll also have all the North American operations moved downstairs by morning, which won’t make your problem any simpler.”
“Or any harder,” Darzek said. “See you later.”
Outside he found a long line of passengers waiting at the taxi stand. “So I might as well travel ‘conventionally,’ “ he told himself, and set off on foot.
As soon as he turned off Eighth Avenue he knew that he was being followed—doubly followed, for there was a car and at least one foot operative. He slowed his pace to think the situation over.
Someone rated a capital E in efficiency. If he, or they, were half as effective in other things, Darzek was inclined to believe that Arnold had enjoyed more sabotage than he realized.
Someone also had contacts. Darzek ticked off on his fingers the individuals who knew that Universal Trans had hired Jan Darzek: the six directors, Ted Arnold, and the engineer Perrin.
And someone had blundered badly. Darzek strolled along leisurely, feeling inordinately pleased with himself as he examined the ways in which he might turn this development to his advantage. The foot-snooper matched his stride and kept a half-block behind him—too far back for Darzek to get a look at his face. The car passed him at intervals, its driver carefully looking