All the Colors of Darkness. Lloyd Biggle jr.
Her face was really quite lovely, her figure lithe and well proportioned, and her white summer suit had a style and simplicity that only an expensive tailor could have imparted to it. Her appearance was striking enough to attract attention anywhere. Affectations were abominable in a woman who looked like that.
The high-pitched brittleness of her voice turned faces in her direction from the far end of the mezzanine. “Are you sure? I mean, all that water—”
Finally she turned and stepped out of sight into the passageway. There was a momentary lull while the gate attendant alternated anxious glances between his instrument board and the transmitter, and then the blonde was back.
“What do I do?” she asked. “Just keep on walking? There isn’t anything there but a wall at the end.”
The gate attendant threw up his hands. “Look, lady. You walk straight down there, and you’ll walk through the transmitter and come out in Honolulu. Do you want to make the trip or don’t you?”
“I don’t want to walk all the way.”
Darzek was staring at the blonde. “What the devil!” he muttered.
A hand touched his arm. “Paris, sir?” the hostess said. Darzek surrendered his ticket.
“Walk straight ahead, sir.”
Darzek turned for another look at the blonde.
“We’re waiting for you, sir.”
He shrugged. It was, after all, none of his business. He passed through the turnstile and strode down the passageway towards the blank wall at the end. Suddenly, instead of the wall, he saw an exit gate and a smiling attendant waiting for him. He was directed to a fast-moving customs line for passengers with light luggage, and a minute later he strolled out of Universal Trans’ Paris Terminal onto the Champs-Élysées.
* * * *
At the New York Terminal the blonde continued to argue. Waiting passengers set up a volley of blended derision and encouragement. The gate attendant put in a call for his supervisor, and that worthy individual took in the situation at a glance and invited the balky passenger back to a ticket window for a refund. Suddenly the blonde turned, walked down the passageway, and disappeared. The gate attendant sighed with relief and watched his instrument board.
Five minutes later he called his supervisor again. “I don’t get any acceptance light from Honolulu,” he said.
“Damn! How long has it been?”
“Over five minutes.”
The supervisor stroked his face thoughtfully. “Maybe your light is burned out. I’ll get someone down here from maintenance.”
“Sure. What about—” He gestured at the waiting passengers.
“We’ll have to shift them to the other lines. Get some hostesses over here.”
They distributed the Gate Ten passengers among the other gates, which took time and did not generate any customer good will. A technician arrived, checked the Gate Ten board, and pronounced it in proper working order. The supervisor swore violently, and hurried off to the staff transmitter for a fast trip to Honolulu.
Three minutes later he was back again, his face a noticeable shade whiter. “The dame never showed at Honolulu,” he said. “Her handbag came through, but she didn’t. They’re still waiting there. She must have ducked out.”
“She did not,” the gate attendant said stoutly. “She stepped through the transmitter. I was watching her.”
“Then where did she go?”
“How should I know?”
The supervisor was perspiring profusely. “I’d better get Arnold down here,” he said.
Ted Arnold interviewed the gate attendant, made a round trip to Honolulu, and summoned his staff for a hurried conference. He scattered his men in all directions, to Honolulu, to every Universal Trans terminal in operation, and nervously tabulated the results. Three hours later the chief engineer had to face up to the staggering truth.
On its second day of operation, Universal Trans had lost a passenger.
CHAPTER 5
It was not the best speech in the long career of Thomas J. Watkins III, but it was his most important. “The mission of the Universal Transmitting Company,” he said, “has been everywhere misunderstood. I have read dozens of surveys, I have heard lectures and debates and discussions and interviews. The gist of this uncontrolled flow of words has been the erroneous assumption that Universal Trans stood poised for the ultimate conquest of linear space.
“These self-appointed experts could not be more mistaken. Man has long since conquered space on this planet. Given the necessary amount of money and time, man has, for years, been able to go anywhere on the surface of the Earth and stay as long as he liked. Universal Trans has changed only the temporal qualification.
“The relationship between time and distance has plagued man since the Pleistocene, and the great transportational developments of the past century and a half have not altered that relationship; they have merely alleviated it. Now the matter transmitter has effaced it completely. Let me repeat: the matter transmitter represents man’s ultimate victory over time. You, wherever you are, are no more distant from me—in time—than these gentlemen sitting around the table with me. The next room is now no further away—in time—than the next hemisphere.
“Since this fact has not been even partially understood, no one has evaluated its significance, not even the officers of Universal Trans. We have been far too busy with the practical problem of making our transmitters work. But we do know that we are today in the second day of a new era. The transmitter will have a greater immediate impact upon civilization than any other invention in history. By comparison, the notable career of the automobile will appear as no more than a ripple upon the pages of time. And further—”
Watkins leaned forward and touched a button. The television screen darkened. “Enough of that,” he said.
“But very nicely put,” said the man at his right.
This was Charles Grossman, whose position as treasurer of Universal Trans had been reduced to a purely nominal one until the previous day. He had just read a report on the receipts for the first day’s business, and he was in a jovial mood. “What I especially liked,” he went on, “was the way you left the implication that one still needs money to travel, even if Universal Trans has eliminated the time requirement. How long do you suppose we’ll get away with charging airlines rates?”
“Too long,” Watkins said. “At present we need all the money we can get, to clear up our debts and expand our operations. But the time will come when lower rates will give us enough additional business to make them profitable. That’s when the railroads and the bus companies will start screaming. Right now we’re only competing with the airlines. Where were we when that program came on? Oh—the Police Commissioner. He wanted us to call off the lobby demonstration so he could restore order. We were happy to oblige. We needed the transmitters, and that crowd was scaring away paying passengers.”
Grossman chuckled. “We certainly don’t want that to happen.”
“Next item,” Watkins said. “We have telegrams from everywhere and everybody. Anyone want to read them?”
He glanced around the table. There were only six men present, including himself. It had been planned as a full board meeting, but some directors were not available on short notice, and others hadn’t wanted to brave the crowd on Eighth Avenue.
“I have three secretaries sorting them out,” Watkins said. “Some of them should be answered, I suppose—the President, members of Congress, heads of foreign governments, and so on. I’ll see that it’s taken care of. Well, gentlemen, that completes the agenda, unless any of you have business that we should consider. Yes, Miller?”
Carl Miller, a small, dark, intense-looking man, asked matter-of-factly,