Eye in the Sky (1957) (8 page)

“Hear?”
Hamilton said weakly.

“He’s getting along quite well.
He misses you, naturally.” Tillingford indicated the intercom system on
his
desk. “If you’d like—”

“No,” Hamilton said,
backing away. “I’m still under the weather from my accident. I couldn’t
stand it”

“Suit
yourself.” Tillingford clapped a friendly hand on
the younger man’s
shoulder. “Want to have a look at the labs? We’ve got some darn good
equipment, let me tell you.” In a confidential whisper, he revealed,
“Took a
mighty lot of praying, though.
Over at your old bailiwick,
Cal Main, they were sending up quite a noise
thems
elves.”

“But
you got it.”

“Oh, yes. After all, we set up
the communication lines.” Grinning and winking slyly, Tillingford led him
toward the door. “I’ll turn you over to our Personnel Director … he’ll
do the actual hiring.”

The Personnel Director was a florid,
smooth-jowled man who beamed happily at Hamilton as he fumbled in
his desk for his forms and papers. “We’ll be
happy to ac
cept your application, Mr. Hamilton. EDA needs men of your
experience. And if the Doctor knows you per
sonally—”

“Put
him right through,” Tillingford instructed. “Waive
the bureaucratic stuff; get right to the
qualifications
test”

“Right,”
the Director agreed, getting out his own copy
of the
Bayan of the Second Bab.
Laying it on the desk, dosed, he
shut his eyes, ran his thumb down the pages, and opened the book at random.
Tillingford leaned in
tently over his
shoulder; conferring and murmuring,
the
two men examined the passage.

“Fine,”
Tillingford said, withdrawing in satisfaction.
It’s
a go.”

“It
certainly is,” the Director agreed. To Hamilton he
said, “You might be interested; it’s one of
the clearest
okays I’ve seen this
year.” In a rapid, efficient voice he
read: “Vision 1931: Chapter 6, verse 14, line 1. ‘Yes, the
True Faith melts the courage in the unbeliever;
for he
knows the measure of God’s
wrath; he knows the meas
ure to fill
the clay vessel.’” With a snap, he closed the Bayan and put it back on his
desk. Both men beamed
fondly at
Hamilton, radiating good will and professional
satisfaction.

Dazed,
not sure how it felt, Hamilton reverted to the thin, clear thread that had
brought him here. “Can I ask
about
the salary? Or is that too—” He tried to make a
joke out of it. “Too crass and
commercial?”

Both
men were puzzled. “Salary?”

“Yes,
salary,” Hamilton repeated, in rising hysteria.
“You remember, that stuff the bookkeeping
department
hands out every two weeks.
To keep the hired help from getting restive.”

“As
is customary,” Tillingford said, with quiet dignity,
“you will be credited with the IBM people
every ten
days.” Turning to the
Personnel Director, he inquired,
“What
is the exact number? I don’t remember those
things.”

“I’ll
check with the bookkeeper.” The Personnel Di
rector left his office; a moment later he
returned with
the information.
“You’ll go on as a Four-A rating. In six
months you’ll be Five-A.
How’s that? Not bad for a
young man of
thirty-two.”

“What,”
Hamilton demanded, “does Four-A mean?”

After
a surprised pause, the Personnel Director glanced
at Tillingford, wet his lips, and answered,
“IBM main
tains the Book of
Debits and Credits. The Cosmic Rec
ord.”
He gesticulated. “You know, the Great Unalterable
Scroll of Sins
and Virtues. EDA is doing the Lord’s
work; ergo,
you’re a servant of the Lord. Your pay will
be four credits every ten days, four linear units toward
your salvation. IBM will handle all the details;
after all,
that’s why they
exist.”

It
fitted. Taking a deep breath, Hamilton said: “That’s
fine. I forgot—excuse my confusion. But”—frantically,
he
appealed to Tillingford—”how’ll
Marsha and I live? We have to pay our bills; we have to
eat.”

“As
a servant of the Lord,” Tillingford said sternly,
“your needs will be provided for. You have
your Bayan?”

“Y-yes,”
Hamilton said.

“Just make certain you don’t
run short on faith. I
should say a man of
your moral caliber, engaged in this
work,
should be able to pray for and get at least—” He
computed. “Oh, say, four hundred a week. What
do you
say, Ernie?”

The Personnel Director nodded in
agreement “At
least”

“One
thing more,” Hamilton said, as Doctor Tilling
ford started briskly off, the matter—to his
satisfaction—
settled. “A little
earlier I was asking about a psychia
trist
… . .”

“My
boy,” Tillingford said, halting. “I have one thing
and one
thing only to say to you. It’s your life and you can conduct it as you please.
I’m not trying to tell you
what to do and
what to think. Your spiritual existence is
strictly a matter between yourself
and the One True
God. But if you wish to
consult quacks and—”

“Quacks!”
Hamilton echoed feebly.

“Borderline crackpots. It’s all
right for the layman. Uneducated persons, I realize, flock to psychiatrists in
vast numbers. I’ve read the statistics; it’s a sorry commentary on the state
of public misinformation. Ill do this for you.” From his coat he got a
note pad, pencil, and quickly scribbled a note. “This is the only correct
road. I suppose if you haven’t got onto it by now, this
won’t make any difference. But we’re instructed to keep
trying. After all, eternity is a long time.”

The
note read
The Prophet Horace Clamp, Sepulcher
of the Second
Bab. Cheyenne, Wyoming.

“Exactly,”
Tillingford said. “Right up to the top. Does
that surprise you? It
shows how concerned I am, my
boy.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said,
mindlessly pocketing the
note. “If you
say so.”

AS
HAMILTON
uncertainly made his way
from the EDA
buildings, a small group of men followed quietly along
behind, hands in their pockets, faces blank and be
nign. While he was fumbling for his car keys, the men
moved
purposefully forward, across the gravel parking lot, and up to him.

“Hi,”
one of them said.

All
were young. All were blond. All had crew cuts and
wore ascetic white lab smocks. Tillingford’s
bright young
technicians,
super-educated employees of EDA.

“What
do you want?” Hamilton asked.

“You’re leaving?” the
leader inquired.

“That’s
right”

The group considered the
information. After a time
the leader
observed, “But you’re coming back.”

“Look,” Hamilton began,
but the young man cut him off.

“Tillingford hired you,”
he stated. “You’re showing up for work next week. You passed your entrance
tests and now you’ve been poking and nosing around the labs.”

“I may have passed my
tests,” Hamilton acknowledged, “but that doesn’t mean I’m showing up
for work. As a matter of fact—”

“My name’s Brady,” the
leader of the group broke in. “Bob Brady. Maybe you saw me in there. I was
with Tillingford when you showed up.” Eying Hamilton, Brady finished:
“Personnel may be satisfied, but we’re not. Personnel is run by laymen.
They have a few routine bureaucratic qualification tests and that’s all.”

“We’re not laymen,” one of
Brady’s group put in.

“Look,” Hamilton said,
with partially regained hope.
“Maybe
we can get together. I wondered how you quali
fied people could agree to
that random book-opening
test. That’s no
adequate measure of an applicant’s train
ing and ability. In advanced
research of this type—”

“So
as far as we’re concerned,” Brady continued inexorably, “you’re a
heathen until proved otherwise. And no
heathens go to work at EDA. We
have our professional
standards.”

“And you’re not
qualified,” one of the group added. “Let’s see your N-rating.”

“Your N-rating.” Extending
his hand, Brady stood waiting. “You’ve had a nimbusgram taken recently,
haven’t you?”

“Not that I can recall,”
Hamilton answered uncer
tainly.

“That’s what I thought. No
N-rating.” From his coat pocket Brady got out a small punched card.
“There isn’t anybody in this group with less than a 4.6 N-rating. Offhand,
I’d guess you don’t reach 2.0 class. How about
that?”

“You’re
a heathen,” one of the young technicians said
severely. “Some nerve, trying to worm your
way in here.”

“Maybe
you better get going,” Brady said to Hamilton.
“Maybe you
better drive the hell out of here and not
come
back.”

“I have as much right here as
any of you,” Hamilton
said,
exasperated.

“The ordeal approach,”
Brady said thoughtfully. “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

“Fine,”
Hamilton said with satisfaction. Pulling off his
coat, and tossing it in
the car, he said, “I’ll wrestle any
of
you.”

Nobody paid attention to him; the
technicians were clustered around in a circle, conferring. Overhead, the late
afternoon sun was beginning to set. Cars moved along the highway. The EDA
buildings sparkled hygienically in the fading light.

“Here we go,” Brady decided.
Brandishing an ornate cigarette lighter, he solemnly approached Hamilton.
“Stick out your thumb.”

“My—thumb?”

“Ordeal by fire,” Brady
explained, igniting the lighter.
A flash of
yellow flame glowed. “Show your spirit. Show you’re a man.”

Tm
a man,” Hamilton said angrily, “but I’ll be damned
if I’m
going to stick my thumb into that flame just so
you lunatics can have your frat-boy ritualistic initiation.
I
thought I got out of this when I left college.”

Each technician extended his thumb.
Methodically, Brady held the lighter under one thumb after another. No thumb
was even slightly singed.

“You next,” Brady said
sanctimoniously. “Be a man, Hamilton. Remember you’re not a wallowing
beast.”

“Go to hell,” Hamilton
retorted hotly. “And keep that
lighter
away from me.”

“You refuse to subject yourself
to ordeal by fire?”
Brady inquired
significantly.

With reluctance, Hamilton extended
his thumb. Perhaps, in this world, cigarette lighters did not burn. Perhaps,
without realizing it, he was immune to fire. Perhaps—

“Ouch!”
Hamilton shouted, jerking his hand violently
away.

The technicians shook their heads
gravely. “Well,”
Brady said,
putting away his lighter with a flourish of tri
umph. “That’s
that.”

Hamilton stood impotently rubbing
his injured thumb.
“You sadists,”
he accused. “You God-mongering zealots. All of you belong back in the
Middle Ages. You—Mos
lems!”

“Watch
it,” Brady warned. “You’re talking to a Cham
pion of the One
True God.”

“And don’t forget it,” one
of his assistants chimed in.

“You
may be a Champion of the One True God,” Ham
ilton said, “but I
happen to be a top-flight electronics man. Think that over.”

“I’m thinking,” Brady
said, undisturbed.

“You can stick your thumb into
the arc of a welding torch. You can dive into a blast furnace.”

That’s
so,” Brady agreed. “I can.”

“But
what’s that got to do with electronics?” Glaring
at the young man,
Hamilton said, “Okay, wise guy. I
challenge
you to a contest. Let’s find out how much you
know.”

“You challenge a Champion of
the One True God?”
Brady demanded,
incredulous.

“That’s right”

“But—” Brady gestured.
“That’s illogical. Better go
home,
Hamilton. You’re letting your thalamus get hold
of you.”

“Chicken,
eh?” Hamilton taunted.

“But
you can’t win. Axiomatically, you lose. Consider the premises of the situation.
By definition, a Champion
of the One
True God triumphs; anything else would be a denial of His power.”