Peter Reed - Gift of Darkness

His name was Crispin Tyler and he had worked very hard for twenty-nine of his fifty-two years. Intersystem Metals had automatically acquired his talents through the standard screening tests, had installed him in the junior executive training program and, except for the mechanical memories of the bank of Ref-dex equipment in Personnel, had forgotten him.

There had been a long succession of desks, stretching back through twenty-nine years, and as he sat in his office, wrapped in a spell of mellow sadness that had become endemic, it was as though he could see those desks reflected in angled mirrors, stretching back into dusky shadows.

And this, of course, was the best desk of them all styled and designed for him after the rather frighteningly brisk young lady from Office Engineering had spent two days watching him work. The communi-phones were right here, of course, and the wall screen buttons right there, and the slightest foot pressure over on that spot slid the file drawer open with greasy silent movement. Dicto-writing was made simple by the microphones set in just such a way that his normal tone reproduced the necessary letters and memos. It was best not to sigh, because then the metal throat of the interrogator would say, Repeat, please, electronically disturbed by a sound that could not be spelled.

Crispin Tyler was a small man, paunchy and soft from the office years, with a mild sweetness in the expression around his mouth, a spaniel-like defenselessness in his weak brown eyes.

He had come slowly up out of anonymity into what could be called the number six slot in the huge, convoluted operations of Intersystem, only because of a small, still, cold spot in his mind that could integrate all factors of a policy problem and come up with the right solution for other men to put into effect.

Let Crispin Tyler take a shot at that. Old Tyler ought to take a look at this. Heres Tylers solution, Joe. Yes, I know how rough its going to be, but have you ever known him to be wrong?

Decisions over the years. On Alpha Crusis 10 the blackened dredges on the dead seas were towed to a forgotten shore and dismantled. On Zeta Tauri 7 humans were slowly eliminated from the work crews, until at last the bitter suns threw only the divergent shadows of the Claw People against the blue clay, as they marched to board the elevators that would drop them seven thousand meters into the torn bowels of the planet. The pitchblende deposits on Gamma Aquilae 3 were abandoned and all the planets within two parsecs of mighty Antares were resurveyed.

He was a poniard scabbarded in gelatine, an axe blade with a haft of feathers, a projectile robbed of its charge.

For twenty-seven of the twenty-nine years there had been the hope the delusion that one day there would be authority and responsibility, and with it would come the flowering of latent abilities to be a leader of men; a hope that the brown eyes would gleam, the soft voice harden, the warm fatty fist pound a table with authority.

...she had been so slim and young and unaware. When they were together she wore low shoes and he stood very erect, gaining thereby a half-inch of height. But now he could look at her firm tallness and it was hard to believe that she had been pliant in his arms, had borne him a golden daughter, a strong-muscled son. He was still certain of her love, but he knew that it was more tinged with pity than respect, whereas one of his dominant emotions toward her was pure awe...

Desperate loneliness in the midst of life. His mother had called him Cris. No one else had ever done so. Always on the edge of groups, trying to join in with a shy smile, with a funny remark that no one ever seemed to hear. Secretly he had taken the course from that doctor, the one who promised to develop dominance. But no one had ever noticed any difference.

He was the man who could be at the club, and the steward would not know he was there. He could watch the games and never be invited to join. Once he memorized four stories that he thought were quite funny. It was a full week before he had a chance to tell the first one. They listened politely, laughed politely, went back to the game. He walked out with the smile stiff on his lips. That smile was such a constant. Smile and people will like you. Be a good listener. Ask people about their problems. He had been smiling for twenty years.

It was in not having a friend one true friend. He wanted a friend he could sit with and talk to and listen to. He felt, without egotism, that he had certain things worth saying. In childhood there had been a friend. Billy. But of course Billy had been invisible to everyone else. Crispin Tyler had never told anyone about Billy.

There was some joy, of course, in the hobbies. In his study were the cases containing first flight spacemail covers to all colonized planets, including that extremely rare and valuable one dating back to 1959, a letter sent from New Mexico to New York via the moon. And there was the portfolio of water colors, done with neat precision. And the boxes of uncut gems.

But the golden daughter and the strong son and the statuesque wife had a way of taking the flavor and dignity out of such pursuits.

Your fathers upstairs playing with those envelopes again. Pops daubing up some more pictures, Janie. Yes, dear, I suppose it is quite interesting, if you understand all about gems.

He knew they loved him, and he loved them in turn.

But there was not one friend.

No one.

Ever.

Valentine McGuire was the head of Intersystem Metals. It was correctly reported that once, in fevered speech, he had split a mahogany board table with his fist.

His voice was lute, French horn, tempest and summer breeze. The face of a character actor, clown, Viking and soldier. He played on the minds and emotions of men with all the ruthlessness of hypersonics. He won at poker, bribed the air police, and married two actresses and a female poet called the most beautiful woman in the known universe one after the other, of course. His grey hair was thick and alive and his laugh smashed against distant walls like ripe fruit.

Crispin, said Valentine McGuire, no man has been more valuable to this great organization.

Im... thank you.

I am the figurehead. I am the man the public knows. It is your keen intelligence that has brought us through trying times, Crispin.

I wouldnt say

You know that it is the policy of Intersystem Metals to retire all executive personnel at fifty-five, I believe. Warmth in the McGuire voice chilled a trifle.

Yes, sir, I realize that.

You are, of course, conversant with our current problem on the three planets of Beta Virginis and the four planets of Delta Virginis in the Spica Mines Subsidiary.

Of course, sir. Thats been a bad one for over ten years, with the way

Exactly, Tyler. Exactly! If we are to maintain our just and proper share of the universe market in Spica-chrome, the most valuable known metal, an end must be made to the infamous political maneuverings of that upstart competitor, Transpace. They have succeeded in setting up such a preferential tax structure in the whole Virginis System that, at the current moment, we are delivering Spica-chrome to forty-three percent of customer planets at a loss. This is such a large operation that we cannot afford to handle Spica-chrome as a marginal product. I have your last report here. Im sorry, Tyler, but Im not at all satisfied with your recommendations.

Im sorry, sir, but

I know, I know. Man, I can read. You state clearly that there are too many unknowns in the equation. Valentine McGuire leaned back and smiled like a large sleepy cat. Crispin, how would you like to take a little run out there and equate those unknowns?