Clifford D. Simak

“I suppose then you wouldn’t be thrown out. You might even get to see the president. But I can assure you that under circumstances such as those you’d not get whatever it may be you want.”

“So,” said Maxwell, “I’d lose, no matter how I went about it.”

“As a matter of fact,” Longfellow told him, “I had come this morning on quite a different mission. I was bringing happy news.”

“I can imagine that you were,” said Maxwell. “What kind of sop are you prepared to throw me to make me disappear?”

“Not a sop,” said Longfellow, much aggrieved. “I was told to offer you the post of dean at the experimental college the university is establishing out on Gothic IV.”

“You mean that planet with all the witches and the warlocks?”

“It would be a splendid opportunity for a man in your field,” Longfellow insisted. “A planet where wizardry developed without the intervention of other intelligences, as is the case on Earth.”

“A hundred and fifty light-years distant,” said Maxwell. “Somewhat remote and I would think it might be dreary. But I suppose the salary would be good.”

“Very good indeed.”

“No, thanks,” said Maxwell. “I’m satisfied with my job, right here.”

“Job?” asked Longfellow.

“Why, yes. In case you have forgotten, I’m on the faculty.”

Longfellow shook his head. “Not any longer,” he said. “Have you, by any chance, forgotten? You died, more than three weeks ago. We can’t let vacancies go unfilled.”

“You mean I’ve been replaced?”

“Why, most certainly,” Longfellow told him nastily. “As it stands right now, you are unemployed.”

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.