Why Call Them Back from Heaven

6

From the window of his office, on the topmost floor of Forever Center, Frost stared out across the tapestry that was old New York. The Hudson was a strip of silver, shining in the morning sun, and the island of Manhattan was a patchwork of faded colors.

Many times before he had stood at this window and gazed out, seeing the scene below, framed by the blue haze of distance and of water, as a symbolic thine;—a glimpse into the past of mankind from the vantage of the future.

But today the symbolism was not there. There was

nothing but the nagging question and the worry that hammered at his brain.

There was no question but that Appleton had tried, deliberately, to put him on the spot, and while that, in itself, was frightening enough, the crux of the entire question was why Marcus had felt it necessary. Had it been Appleton alone, or had the man been acting for other interests, perhaps more involved?

Office politics-that would be die normal answer. But Frost, through the years, had studiously avoided involvement in office politics. Someone might want his job—perhaps many people did. But none of these, he was fairly certain, could engineer what Appleton had done.

And that left only one thing—that someone was afraid of him, that he knew something or suspected something that could be damaging, perhaps not to Forever Center, but to some of its department heads.

Which was ridiculous on the face of it. He did his job and minded his own business. He was consulted only on matters which touched upon his duties. He was not involved in policy other than whatever implementation of policy he was able to carry out promotionally.

He always had minded his own business, but this morning, he reminded himself, he'd stepped beyond the rule he had placed upon himself. He had told B.J. that it was ridiculous to pretend that Forever Center did not run the world. It was true enough, of course, but he should not have said it. He should have kept his mouth shut. There had been no need to say it. The one excuse he had was that he had been angered by Appleton and had acted in anger rather than in common sense.

What Appleton had said was the truth. There was a network of undercover people, but it was a system which had been handed on to him and it was small and restricted in its purpose. Appleton, for his own purposes, had blown it up far beyond the fact.

Frost turned from the window and went back to his desk. Sitting down, he reached out and pulled in front

of him the stack of papers that Miss Beale had placed there. On top of the pile, as usual, was the deadly report on vital statistics.

He picked it up and glanced at it.

There was simply the date, June 15, 2148, and then two lines of type:

In Abeyance-96,674,321,458 Viable^? 128,932,076

Scarcely glancing at the sheet, he crumpled it in his fist and dropped it in the wastebasket, then picked up the second paper off the stack.

There was a rustle at the door of the outer office and Frost looked up. Miss Beale stood there.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Frost," she said. "You weren't here, so I read the morning paper, then forgot to put it on your desk."

"It's quite all right," he said. "Anything of interest?" "It has the release on the Cygnian expedition. They used it just the way we wrote it. You'll find it on page three."

"Not page one?" he asked. "No. There was this Chapman case." "Chapman case?"

"Yes, you know. The man whose rescue car broke down."

"Oh, that one. It's been in the news for days." "He was sentenced yesterday. It was on TV." "I missed it. I didn't turn on the set last night." "It was so dramatic," said Miss Beale. "He has a wife and children and now he can't go with them into second life. I feel so sorry for them."

"He broke the law," said Frost. "He failed a plain and simple duty. The lives of all of us depend on men like him."

"That is true," Miss Beale admitted, "but I still feel sad about it. Such a dreadful thing. To be only one out of many billions who is condemned to everlasting death, to miss the second chance."

"He is not the first one," Frost reminded her. "And he will not be the last."

She laid the paper on the corner of the desk.

"I heard," she said, "you had some trouble at tnis morning's meeting."

He nodded bleakly, saying nothing.

She had heard, he thought. Already the story of what had happened had been leaked somehow and now was racing like wildfire through the building.

"I hope it's not too bad," she said.

"It's not too bad," he told her.

She turned and started for the door.

"Miss Beale," he said.

She turned around.

"I'll be gone this afternoon," he told her. "There's nothing coming up, is there?"

"You have a couple of appointments. Not important. I can cancel them."

"If you would," he said.

"There may be a confidential file."

"Put it in the safe."

"But they don't like…"

"I know. It should be checked at once and…"

And that was it! he thought.

That was the answer to what Appleton had done.

It was simply something he had not thought about.

"Mr. Frost, is there something wrong?"

"No, not a thing. If a confidential file shows up, just put it in the safe. I'll tend to it, come morning."

"Very well," she said, a little stiffly to express her disapproval.

She swung about and went into the outer office.

He sat limply at his desk, remembering that day three months or so ago—when the messenger boy had somehow left, instead of his own confidential file, the one that should have gone to Peter Lane, and how he had opened it without looking at the name.

He had taken it back, personally, and explained to Lane and it had seemed to be all right. The messenger

boy had been fired, of course, but that was all that happened. It had been a mistake, a grave mistake, on the part of the messenger, and he had deserved the firing. But as between himself and Lane it had seemed the matter was forgotten.

Except, Frost told himself, it had not been forgotten, for there'd been the missing paper, the one that had slipped out of the envelope when he had opened it and which he had found, when he returned, on the floor beside his desk.

He remembered now, standing with the paper in his hand, knowing he should take it back to Lane. But if he took it back it would require another explanation and it would be embarrassing, and the paper did not seem to be of any great importance. Which was the case, he told himself, of half the stuff that went shuttling back and forth in the confidential files.

Some unremembered official, full of pomposity and with a penchant for cloak and dagger games, had started the system many years ago and it had been carried on and on, another of the moldy old traditions of the office routine. Some of it, of course, was of a confidential nature, or at least semi-confidential, but the rest of it was simply inter-office matters with no need of secrecy attached.

So to avoid the embarrassment of another explanation, he had simply chucked the paper in a desk drawer and had forgotten it, knowing that if it had no more value than it seemed to have it would not be missed.

But he had made the wrong decision. Or it seemed so now.

And if what Appleton had done this morning was tied to the missing paper, then it was not only Apple-ton, but Lane involved as well.

He jerked open the center desk drawer and searched through the papers and the other junk and the paper was not there.

If he could only remember what was written on it! Something about putting something on some sort of list.

He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember. But the details still stayed fuzzy.

He searched the other drawers and there was no paper.

And that was how they'd known, he thought.

Someone had searched his desk and found it!