Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER TEN

The phone was painted a brilliant scarlet. Nowadays a thoughtful telephone company provides-for an extra fee — instruments to blend with any mood, decor or costume, but this mechanism of communication did not look like a creation of the phone company.

For one thing, the scarlet was brushed on and not baked in. For another, a padlock secured the dial to all but the initiated. For another, an armed guard stood over it, day and night, watching through the soundproof glass booth.

The man in the tropical worsted suit entered the booth, unlocked the dial with a key from his pocket, and lifted the phone. He dialed a single number and waited, sweating a little. Outside, the armed guards stood at attention, their flinty eyes regarding him without expression.

He said, "Reporting, sir."

Then he listened, and said, "We don't know, sir. Absolutely no trace. Yes, helicopters, and a regiment of Marines. I thought of trying boy scouts. No? Well, all right. Yes, the two sailors are with him. I have our files in Washington going over their records. It's a possibility they kidnapped him. Or that agents killed the sailors and kidnapped him alone."

Then he listened some more. It was hot in the glassed-in booth, and that may have been why his face began to take on some of the color of the phone instrument. Or it may have been why the phone was enameled scarlet in the first place — to match.

Finally, he spoke again. "Yes, sir. Now, one thing has to be decided at your level, sir. I can't take the responsibility. May we shoot on sight?"

And again he listened, and now he leaned against the glass wall. 'Yes, sir," he said, when he had a chance. "But I questioned him, and so did my best men, and he is not going to tell us the secret of a super-luminous flight. He isn't going to tell us anything, not because we're us, but because we're men. But if the other side got him, they might get it out of him with torture or truth serums or— Yes, sir."

For a third time he listened, and listened closely. And then he issued a final "Yes, sir," and hung up the phone. He snapped the padlock and tested it. He opened the door of the glass cage.

The guards did not come to attention, because they were already at attention.

He came out of the booth and looked at the nearest guard, standing so rigidly with his rifle and his sidearm and his bayonet. "He's become a great national asset," the man said. "He's going on television for ten thousand dollars a week. The mothers of America seem to demand that their children see him, every seven days."

The guard did not answer him, because the guard was at attention.

The man said, "But you know what he is to me? To me he is a goddam — fugitive — ape."

The guards remained rigid.