Goblin Reservation

Chapter 10

The waiter brought the scrambled eggs and bacon, poured the coffee, then went away and left Maxwell at the table. Through the wide expanse of window, Lake Mendota stretched away, a sheet of glassy blue, with the faint suggestion of purple hills on the other shore. A squirrel ran down the bole of the gnarled oak tree that stood just outside the window and halted, head downward, to stare with beady eyes at the man sitting at the table. A brown and red oak leaf planed down deliberately, from branch to ground, wobbling in the tiny thermal currents of air. On the rocky shore a boy and girl walked slowly, hand in hand, through the lakeshore's morning hush.

It would have been civilized and gracious, Maxwell told himself, to have accepted Longfellow's invitation to eat breakfast with him, but by that time he had had all that he could take of the appointments secretary and all that he wanted, at the moment, was to be alone, to gain a little time to sort out the situation and to do some thinking-although probably he could not afford the time for thinking.

Oop had been right; it was apparent now that to see the university president would be no easy task, not only because of that official's busy schedule and his staff's obsession of doing things through channels, but because for some reason, not entirely understood, this matter of twin Peter Maxwells had assumed the proportions of a scandal from which Arnold had the fervent wish to be disassociated. Maxwell wondered, sitting there and gazing out the window at the popeyed, staring squirrel, whether this attitude of the administration might go back to the interview with Drayton. Had Security zeroed in on Arnold? It didn't seem too likely, but it was, Maxwell admitted, a possibility. But be that as it may, the depth of Arnold's jittery attitude was emphasized by the hurried offer of the post on Gothic IV. Not only did administration want nothing to do with this second Peter Maxwell, it wanted him off the Earth as well, buried on a planet where in the space of a little time he would be forgotten.

It was understandable that his post at Supernatural had been filled after the death of the other Peter Maxwell. After all, classes must go on. Gaps could not be left in the faculty. But even so, there were other positions that could have been found for him. The fact that this had not been done, that the Gothic IV position had been so quickly offered, was evidence enough that he was not wanted on the Earth.

Yet, it all was strange. Administration could not have known until sometime yesterday that two Peter Maxwells had existed. There could not have been a problem, there'd have been no basis for a problem, until that word had been received. Which meant, Maxwell told himself, that someone had gotten to administration fast-someone who wanted to get rid of him, someone who was afraid that he would interfere. But interfere in what? And the answer to that seemed so glib and easy that he felt, instinctively, that it must be wrong. But search as he might, there was one answer only- that someone else knew of the hoard of knowledge on the crystal planet and was working to get hold of it.

There was one name to go on. Carol had said Churchill-that Churchill somehow was involved in the offer that had been made to Time for the Artifact. Was it possible that the Artifact was the price of the crystal planet's knowledge? One couldn't count on that, of course, although it might be so, for no one knew what the Artifact might be.

That Churchill was working on the deal was no surprise at all. Not for himself, of course, but for someone else. For someone who could not afford to have his identity revealed. It was in deals such as this that Churchill might prove useful. The man was a professional fixer and knew his way around. He had contacts and through long years of operation undoubtedly had laid out various pipelines of information into many strange and powerful places.

And if such were the case, Maxwell realized, his job became much harder. Not only must he guard against the rumormongering that was implicit in administration channels, he must now be doubly sure that none of his information fell into other hands where it might be used against him.

The squirrel had gone on down the tree trunk and now was busily scrounging on the slope of lawn that ran down to the lake, rustling through the fallen leaves in search of an acorn he might somehow have missed before. The boy and girl had walked out of sight and now a hesitant breeze was softly rumpling the surface of the lake.

There were only a few others at breakfast in the room; most of those who had been there when Maxwell entered had finished now and left. From the floor above came the distant murmuring of voices, the scuffling of feet as the daily flow of students began to fill the Union, the off-hours gathering place of undergraduates.

It was one of the oldest structures on the campus and one of the finest; Maxwell told himself. For over five hundred years it had been the meeting place, the refuge, the study hall of many generations and in the course of all these generations it had settled easily and comfortably into the functional tradition that made it a second home for many thousand students. Here could be found a quietness for reflection or for study, here the cozy corners needed for good talk, here the game rooms for billiards or for chess, here the eating places, here the meeting halls, and tucked off in odd corners little reading rooms with their shelves of books.

Maxwell pushed back his chair, but stayed sitting, finding himself somehow reluctant to get up and leave-for once he left this place, he knew, he'd plunge into the problems he must face. Outside the window lay a golden autumn day, warming as the sun rose in the sky-a day for showers of golden leaves, for blue haze on the distant hills, for the solemn glory of chrysanthemums bedded in the garden, for the quiet glow of goldenrod and aster in the fields and vacant lots.

From behind him he heard the scurrying of many hard-shod feet and when he swung around in his chair, he saw the owner of the feet advancing rapidly across the squared red tiles toward him.

It looked like an outsize, land-going shrimp, with its jointed legs, its strangely canted body with long, weird rods-apparently sensory organs-extending outward from its tiny head. Its color was an unhealthy white and its three globular black eyes bobbed on the ends of long antennae.

It came to a halt beside the table and the three antennae swiveled to aim the three eyes straight at Maxwell.

It said in a high, piping voice, the skin of its throat fluttering rapidly beneath the seemingly inadequate head, "Informed I am that you be Professor Peter Maxwell."

"The information happens to be right," said Maxwell. "I am Peter Maxwell."

"I be a creature out of the world you would name Spearhead Twenty-seven. Name I have is of no interest to you. I appear before you in carrying out commission by my employer. Perhaps you know it by designation of Miss Nancy Clayton." "Indeed I do," said Maxwell, thinking that it was very much like Nancy Clayton to employ an outlandish creature such as this for an errand boy.

"I work myself through education," explained the Shrimp, "doing anything I find."

"That's commendable," said Maxwell.

"I train in mathematics of time," declared the Shrimp. "I concentrate on world-line configurations. I am in tizzy over it."

The Shrimp didn't look as if it were in any sort of tizzy.

"Why all the interest?" Maxwell asked "Something, in your background? Something in your cultural heritage?" "Oh, very much indeed. Is completely new idea. On my world, no thought of time, no appreciation such a thing as time. Am much shocked to learn of it. And excited, too. But I digress too greatly. I come here on an errand. Miss Clayton desires to know can you attend a party the evening of this day. Her place, eight by the clock."

"I believe I can," said Maxwell. "Tell her I always make a point of being at her parties."

"Overjoyed," said the Shrimp. "She so much wants you there. You are talked concerning."

"I see," said Maxwell.

"You hard to find. I run hard and fast. I ask in many places. Finally victorious."

"I am sorry," Maxwell said, "I put you to such trouble."

He reached into his pocket and took out a bill. The creature extended one of its forward legs and grasped the bill in a pair of pincers, folded it and refolded it and tucked it into a small pouch that extruded from its chest.

"You kind beyond expectation," it piped. "There is one further information. Occasion for party is unveiling of painting, recently acquired. Painting lost and gone for very long. By Albert Lambert, Esquire. Great triumph for Miss Clayton."

"I just bet it is," said Maxwell. "Miss Clayton is a specialist in triumphs."

"She, as employer, is gracious," said the Shrimp reprovingly.

"I am sure of that," said Maxwell.

The creature shifted swiftly and galloped from the room.

Listening to its departure, Maxwell heard it clatter up the stairs to the street level of the building.

Maxwell got up and headed for the stairs himself. If he were going to witness the unveiling of a painting, he told himself, he'd better bone up on the artist. Which was exactly, he thought with a grin, what almost every other person invited to Nancy's party would be doing before the day was out.

Lambert? The name held a slight ring of recognition. He had read somewhere about him, probably long ago. An article in a magazine, perhaps, to help pass an idle hour.