‘Well - the lack of definite orientation, I believe. That and the remarkable mechanical novelties. I suppose I am a bit of a groundlubber, but I keep expecting a floor underfoot and a ceiling overhead.
‘Mere matters of functional designs, Mr Stevens; the conditions under which I live are unique; therefore, my house is unique. The novelty you speak of consists mainly in the elimination of unnecessary parts and the addition of new conveniences
‘To tell the truth, the most interesting thing I have seen yet is not a part of the house at all.
‘Really? What is it, pray?
‘Your dog, Baldur.' The dog looked around at the mention of his name. ‘I've never before met a dog who could handle himself in free flight.
Waldo smiled; for the first time his smile seemed gentle and warm. ‘Yes, Baldur is quite an acrobat. He's been at it since he was a puppy.' He reached out and roughed the dog's cars, showing momentarily his extreme weakness, for the gesture had none of the strength appropriate to the size of the brute. The finger motions were flaccid, barely sufficient to disturb the coarse fur and to displace the great ears. But he seemed unaware, or unconcerned, by the disclosure. Turning back to Stevens, he added, ‘But if Baldur amuses you, you must see Ariel.
‘Ariel?
Instead of replying, Waldo touched the keyboard of the voder, producing a musical whistling pattern of three notes. There was a rustling near the wall of the room ‘above' them; a tiny yellow shape shot towards them - a canary. It sailed through the air with wings folded, bullet fashion. A foot or so away from Waldo it spread its wings, cupping the air, beat them a few times with tail down and spread, and came to a dead stop, hovering in the air with folded wings. Not quite a dead stop, perhaps, for it drifted slowly, came within an inch of Waldo's shoulder, let down its landing gear, and dug its claws into his singlet
Waldo reached up and stroked it with a fingertip. It preened
‘No earth-hatched bird can learn to fly in that fashion,' he stated. ‘I know. I lost half a dozen before I was sure that they were incapable of making the readjustment. Too much thalamus.
‘What happens to them?
‘In a man you would call it acute anxiety psychosis. They try to fly; their own prime skill leads them to disaster. Naturally, everything they do is wrong and they don't understand it
Presently they quit trying; a little later they die. Of a broken heart, one might say, poetically.' He smiled thinly. ‘But Ariel is a genius among birds. He came here as an egg; he invented, unassisted, a whole new school of flying.' He reached up a finger, offering the bird a new perch, which it accepted
‘That's enough, Ariel. Fly away home.
The bird started the ‘Bell Song' from Lakmé
He shook it gently. ‘No, Ariel. Go to bed.
The canary lifted its feet clear of the finger, floated for an instant, then beat its wings savagely for a second or two to set course and pick up speed, and bulleted away whence he bad come, wings folded, feet streamlined under
‘Jimmie's got something he wants to talk with you about,' Grimes commenced
‘Delighted,' Waldo answered lazily, ‘but shan't we dine first? Have you an appetite, sir?
Waldo full, Stevens decided, might be easier to cope with than Waldo empty. Besides, his own midsection informed him that wrestling with a calorie or two might be pleasant. ‘Yes, I have.
‘Excellent.' They were served
Stevens was never able to decide whether Waldo had prepared the meal by means of his many namesakes, or whether servants somewhere out of sight had done the actual work. Modern food-preparation methods being what they were, Waldo could have done it alone; he, Stevens, batched it with no difficulty, and so did Gus. But he made a mental note to ask Doc Grimes at the first opportunity what resident staff, if any, Waldo employed. He never remembered to do so
The dinner arrived in a small food chest, propelled to their midst at the end of a long, telescoping, pneumatic tube. It stopped with a soft sigh and held its position. Stevens paid little attention to the food itself - it was adequate and tasty, he knew - for his attention was held by the dishes and serving methods. Waldo let his own steak float in front of him, cut bites from it with curved surgical shears, and conveyed them to his mouth by means of dainty tongs. He made hard work of chewing
‘You can't get good steaks any more,' he remarked. ‘This one is tough. God knows I pay enough - and complain enough.
Stevens did not answer. He thought his own steak had been tenderized too much; it almost fell apart. He was managing it with knife and fork, but the knife was superfluous. It appeared that Waldo did not expect his guests to make use of his own admittedly superior methods and utensils. Stevens ate from a platter clamped to his thighs, making a lap for it after Grimes's example by squatting in mid air. The platter itself had been thoughtfully provided with sharp little prongs on its service side
Liquids were served in small flexible skins, equipped with nipples. Think of a baby's plastic nursing bottle
The food chest took the utensils away with a dolorous insufflation. ‘Will you smoke, sir?
‘Thank you.' He saw what a weight-free ashtray necessarily should be: a long tube with a bell-shaped receptacle on its end. A slight suction in the tube, and ashes knocked into the bell were swept away, out of sight and mind
‘About that matter-' Grimes commenced again. ‘Jimmie here is Chief Engineer for North American Power-Air.
‘What?' Waldo straightened himself, became rigid; his chest rose and fell. He ignored Stevens entirely. ‘Uncle Gus, do you mean to say that you have introduced an officer of that company into my - home?
‘Don't get your dander up. Relax. Damn it, I've warned you not to do anything to raise your blood pressure.' Grimes propelled himself closer to his host and took him by the wrist in the age-old fashion of a physician counting pulse. ‘Breathe slower. Whatcha trying to do? Go on an oxygen jag?
Waldo tried to shake himself loose. It was a rather pitiful gesture; the old man had ten times his strength. ‘Uncle Gus, you- ‘Shut up!
The three maintained a silence for several minutes, uncomfortable for at least two of them. Grimes did not seem to mind it
‘There,' he said at last. ‘That's better. Now keep your shirt on and listen to me. Jimmie is a nice kid, and he has never done anything to you. And he has behaved himself while he's been here. You've got no right to be rude to him, no matter who he works for. Matter of fact, you owe him an apology.
‘Oh, really now, Doc,' Stevens protested. ‘I'm afraid I have been here somewhat under false colours. I'm sorry, Mr Jones. I didn't intend it to be that way. I tried to explain when we arrived.
Waldo's face was hard to read. He was evidently trying hard to control himself. ‘Not at all, Mr Stevens. I am sorry that I showed temper. It is perfectly true that I should not transfer to you any animus I feel for your employers though God knows I bear no love for them.' ‘I know it. Nevertheless, I am sorry to hear you say it.
‘I was cheated, do you understand? Cheated - by as rotten a piece of quasi-legal chicanery as has ever-
‘Easy, Waldo!
‘Sorry, Uncle Gus.' He continued, his voice less shrill. ‘You know of the so-called Hathaway patents?
‘Yes, of course.
‘"So-called" is putting it mildly. The man was a mere machinist. Those patents are mine
Waldo's version, as he proceeded to give it, was reasonably factual, Stevens felt, but quite biased and unreasonable. Perhaps Hathaway had been working, as Waldo alleged, simply as a servant - a hired artisan, but there was nothing to prove it, no contract, no papers of any sort. The man had filed certain patents, the only ones he had ever filed and admittedly Waldo-ish in their cleverness. Hathaway had then promptly died, and his heirs, through their attorneys, had sold the patents to a firm which had been dickering with Hathaway
Waldo alleged that this firm had put Hathaway up to stealing from him, had caused him to hire himself out to Waldo for that purpose. But the firm was defunct; its assets had been sold to North American Power-Air. NAPA had offered a settlement; Waldo had chosen to sue. The suit went against him
Even if Waldo were right, Stevens could not see any means by which the directors of NAPA could, legally, grant him any relief. The officers of a corporation are trustees for other people's money; if the directors of NAPA should attempt to give away property which had been adjudicated as belonging to the corporation, any stockholder could enjoin them before the act or recover from them personally after the act
At least so Stevens thought. But he was no lawyer, he admitted to himself. The important point was that he needed Waldo's services, whereas Waldo held a bitter grudge against the firm he worked for
He was forced to admit that it did not look as if Doc Grimes's presence was enough to turn the trick. ‘All that happened before my time,' he began, ‘and naturally I know very little about it. I'm awfully sorry it happened. It's pretty uncomfortable for me, for right now I find myself in a position where I need your services very badly indeed.
Waldo did not seem displeased with the idea. ‘So? How does this come about?
Stevens explained to him in some detail the trouble they had been having with the deKalb receptors. Waldo listened attentively. When Stevens had concluded he said, ‘Yes, that is much the same story your Mr Gleason had to tell. Of course, as a technical man you have given a much more coherent picture than that money manipulator was capable of giving. But why do you come to me? I do not specialize in radiation engineering, nor do I have any degrees from fancy institutions.~ ‘I come to you,' Stevens said seriously, ‘for the same reason everybody else comes to you when they are really stuck with an engineering problem. So far as I know, you have an unbroken record of solving any problem you cared to tackle. Your record reminds me of another man-
‘Who?' Waldo's tone was suddenly sharp