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"I see," Moneygrinder answered. "Well, keep checking on it."
He chuckled as he hung up. "Good old Nathan. Great at theory, but hopeless in the real world."
Still, when his secretary finally showed up and brought him his morning coffee and pill and nibble on the
ear, he said thoughtfully:
"Maybe I ought to talk with those bankers in New York, after all."
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"But you said that you wouldn't need their money now that business is picking up," she purred.
He nodded, bulbously. "Yes, but still& arrange a meeting with them for next Thursday. I'll leave
Wednesday afternoon. Stay the weekend in New York."
She stared at him. "But you said we'd& "
"Now, now& business comes first. You take the Friday night jet and meet me at the hotel."
Smiling, she answered, "Yes, Cuddles."
Matt Climber had just come back from a Pentagon lunch when Nathan's phone call reached him.
Climber had worked for Nathan several years ago. He had started as a computer programmer, assistant
to Nathan. In two years he had become a section head, and Nathan's direct supervisor. (On paper only.
Nobody bossed Nathan, he worked independently.) When it became obvious to Moneygrinder that
Climber was heading his way, the lab chief helped his young assistant to a government job in Washington.
Good experience for an up-and-coming executive.
"Hiya Nathan, how's the pencil-pushing game?" Climber shouted into the phone as he glanced at his
calendar-appointment pad. There were three interagency conferences and two staff meetings going this
afternoon.
"Hold it now, slow down," Climber said, sounding friendly but looking grim. "You know people can't
understand you when you talk too fast."
Thirty minutes later, Climber was leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, tie loosened, shirt collar
open, and the first two meetings on his afternoon's list crossed off.
"Now let me get this straight, Nathan," he said into the phone. "You're predicting a major quake along
the San Andreas Fault next Thursday afternoon at two-thirty Pacific Standard Time. But the CalTech
people and your own computer don't agree with you."
Another ten minutes later, Climber said, "Okay, okay& sure, I remember how we'd screw up the
programming once in a while. But you made mistakes too. Okay, look tell you what, Nathan. Keep
checking. If you find out definitely that the computer's wrong and you're right, call me right away. I'll get
the President himself, if we have to. Okay? Fine. Keep in touch."
He slammed the phone back onto its cradle and his feet on the floor, all in one weary motion.
Old Nathan's really gone 'round the bend, Climber told himself.Next Thursday, Hah! Next Thursday.
H'mmm &
He leafed through the calendar pages. Sure enough, he had a meeting with the Boeing people in Seattle
next Thursday.
If thereisa major 'quake, the whole damned West Coast might slide into the Pacific. Now& don't be
silly. Nathan's cracking up, that's all. Still& how far north does the Fault go ?
He leaned across the desk and tapped the intercom button.
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"Yes, Mr. Climber?" came his secretary's voice.
"That conference with Boeing on the hypersonic ramjet transport next Thursday," Climber began, then
hesitated a moment. But, with absolute finality, he snapped, "Cancel it."
Nathan French was not a drinking man, but by Tuesday of the following week he went straight from the
laboratory to a friendly little bar that hung from a rocky ledge over the surging ocean.
It was a strangely quiet Tuesday afternoon, so Nathan had the undivided attention of both the
worried-looking bartender and the freshly-painted whore, who worked the early shift in a low-cut, black
cocktail dress and overpowering perfume.
"Cheez, I never seen business so lousy as yesterday and today," the bartender mumbled. He was sort of
fidgeting around behind the bar, with nothing to do. The only dirty glass in the place was Nathan's, and he
was holding on to it because he liked to chew the ice cubes.
"Yeah," said the girl. "At this rate, I'll be a virgin again by the end of the week."
Nathan didn't reply. His mouth was full of ice cubes, which he crunched in absent-minded cacophony.
He was still trying to figure out why he and the computer didn't agree about the fourteenth set of
equations. Everything else checked out perfectly: time, place, force level on the Richter scale. But the
vector, the directional value somebody was still misreading his programming instructions. That was the
only possible answer.
"The stock market's dropped through the floor," the bartender said darkly. "My broker says Boeing's
gonna lay off half their people. That ramjet transport they was gonna build is getting scratched. And the
lab up the hill is getting bought out by some East Coast banks." He shook his head.
The girl, sitting beside Nathan with her elbows on the bar and her styrofoam bra sharply profiled, smiled
at him and said, "Hey, how about it, big guy? Just so I don't forget how to, huh?"
With a final crunch on the last ice cube, Nathan said, "Uh, excuse me. I've got to check that computer
program."
By Thursday morning, Nathan was truly upset. Not only was the computer still insisting that he was
wrong about equation fourteen, but none of the programmers had shown up for work. Obviously, one of
them maybe all of them had sabotaged his program. But why?
He stalked up and down the hallways of the lab searching for a programmer, somebody, anybody but
the lab was virtually empty. Only a handful of people had come in, and after an hour or so of wide-eyed
whispering among themselves in the cafeteria over coffee, they started to sidle out to the parking lot and
get into their cars and drive away.
Nathan happened to be walking down a corridor when one of the research physicists a new man, from
a department Nathan never dealt with bumped into him.
"Oh, excuse me," the physicist said hastily, and started to head for the door down at the end of the hall.
"Wait a minute," Nathan said, grabbing him by the arm. "Can you program the computer?"
"Uh, no, I can't."
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"Where is everybody today?" Nathan wondered aloud, still holding the man's arm. "Is it a national
holiday?"
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