Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 59

Grimes commenced.

'Delighted,' Waldo answered lazily, 'but shan't we dine first? Have you an appet.i.te, sir?'

Waldo full, Stevens decided, might be easier to cope with than

Waldo empty. Besides, his own midsection informed him that wrestling with a calorie or two might be pleasant. 'Yes, I have.'

'Excellent.' They were served.

Stevens was never able to decide whether Waldo had prepared the meal by means of his many namesakes, or whether servants somewhere out of sight had done the actual work. Modern food-preparation methods being what they were, Waldo could have done it alone; he, Stevens, batched it with no difficulty, and so did Gus.

But he made a mental note to ask Doc Grimes at the first opportunity what resident staff, if any, Waldo employed.

He never remembered to do so.

The dinner arrived in a small food chest, propelled to their midst at the end of a long, telescoping, pneumatic tube.

It stopped with a soft sigh and held its position. Stevens paid little attention to the food itself - it was adequate and tasty, he knew - for his attention was held by the dishes and serving methods. Waldo let his own steak float in front of him, cut bites from it with curved surgical shears, and conveyed them to his mouth by means of dainty tongs. He made hard work of chewing.

'You can't get good steaks any more,' he remarked. 'This one is tough. G.o.d knows I pay enough - and complain enough.'

Stevens did not answer. He thought his own steak had been tenderized too much; it almost fell apart. He was managing it with knife and fork, but the knife was superfluous. It appeared that Waldo did not expect his guests to make use of his own admittedly superior methods and utensils. Stevens ate from a platter clamped to his thighs, making a lap for it after

Grimes's example by squatting in mid air. The platter itself had been thoughtfully provided with sharp little p.r.o.ngs on its service side.

Liquids were served in small flexible skins, equipped with nipples.

Think of a baby's plastic nursing bottle.

The food chest took the utensils away with a dolorous insufflation.

'Will you smoke, sir?'

'Thank you.' He saw what a weight-free ashtray necessarily should be: a long tube with a bell-shaped receptacle on its end. A slight suction in the tube, and ashes knocked into the bell were swept away, out of sight and mind.

'About that matter-' Grimes commenced again. 'Jimmie here is Chief

Engineer for North American Power-Air.'

'What?' Waldo straightened himself, became rigid; his chest rose and fell. He ignored Stevens entirely. 'Uncle Gus, do you mean to say that you have introduced an officer of that company into my - home?'

'Don't get your dander up. Relax. d.a.m.n it, I've warned you not to do anything to raise your blood pressure.' Grimes propelled himself closer to his host and took him by the wrist in the age-old fas.h.i.+on of a physician counting pulse. 'Breathe slower. Whatcha trying to do?

Go on an oxygen jag?'

Waldo tried to shake himself loose. It was a rather pitiful gesture; the old man had ten times his strength. 'Uncle Gus, you-

'Shut up!'

The three maintained a silence for several minutes, uncomfortable for at least two of them. Grimes did not seem to mind it.

'There,' he said at last. 'That's better. Now keep your s.h.i.+rt on and listen to me. Jimmie is a nice kid, and he has never done anything to you. And he has behaved himself while he's been here. You've got no right to be rude to him, no matter who he works for. Matter of fact, you owe him an apology.'

'Oh, really now, Doc,' Stevens protested. 'I'm afraid I have been here somewhat under false colours. I'm sorry, Mr Jones. I didn't intend it to be that way. I tried to explain when we arrived.'

Waldo's face was hard to read. He was evidently trying hard to control himself. 'Not at all, Mr Stevens. I am sorry that I showed temper. It is perfectly true that I should not transfer to you any animus I feel for your employers though G.o.d knows I bear no love for them.'

'I know it. Nevertheless, I am sorry to hear you say it.'

'I was cheated, do you understand? Cheated - by as rotten a piece of quasi-legal chicanery as has ever-'

'Easy, Waldo!'

'Sorry, Uncle Gus.' He continued, his voice less shrill.

'You know of the so-called Hathaway patents?'

'Yes, of course.'

'"So-called" is putting it mildly. The man was a mere machinist.

Those patents are mine.

Waldo's version, as he proceeded to give it, was reasonably factual, Stevens felt, but quite biased and unreasonable. Perhaps

Hathaway had been working, as Waldo alleged, simply as a servant - a hired artisan, but there was nothing to prove it, no contract, no papers of any sort. The man had filed certain patents, the only ones he had ever filed and admittedly Waldo-ish in their cleverness. Hathaway had then promptly died, and his heirs, through their attorneys, had sold the patents to a firm which had been d.i.c.kering with Hathaway.

Waldo alleged that this firm had put Hathaway up to stealing from him, had caused him to hire himself out to Waldo for that purpose.

But the firm was defunct; its a.s.sets had been sold to North

American Power-Air. NAPA had offered a settlement; Waldo had chosen to sue. The suit went against him.

Even if Waldo were right, Stevens could not see any means by which the directors of NAPA could, legally, grant him any relief. The officers of a corporation are trustees for other people's money; if the directors of NAPA should attempt to give away property which had been adjudicated as belonging to the corporation, any stockholder could enjoin them before the act or recover from them personally after the act.

At least so Stevens thought. But he was no lawyer, he admitted to himself. The important point was that he needed Waldo's services, whereas Waldo held a bitter grudge against the firm he worked for.

He was forced to admit that it did not look as if Doc Grimes's presence was enough to turn the trick.

'All that happened before my time,' he began, 'and naturally I know very little about it. I'm awfully sorry it happened. It's pretty uncomfortable for me, for right now I find myself in a position where I need your services very badly indeed.'

Waldo did not seem displeased with the idea. 'So? How does this come about?'

Stevens explained to him in some detail the trouble they had been having with the deKalb receptors. Waldo listened attentively.

When Stevens had concluded he said, 'Yes, that is much the same story your Mr Gleason had to tell. Of course, as a technical man you have given a much more coherent picture than that money manipulator was capable of giving. But why do you come to me?

I do not specialize in radiation engineering, nor do I have any degrees from fancy inst.i.tutions.~