Excalibur and the Atom.

Theodore Sturgeon.

IN A FACE that was a statement of strength, two deep lines formed parentheses. They enclosed a mouth that was a big gentleness. Into the mouth he thrust the soggy end of the pretzel stick he had been dunking in his coffee. He grunted. The cla.s.sified ad read: that was a statement of strength, two deep lines formed parentheses. They enclosed a mouth that was a big gentleness. Into the mouth he thrust the soggy end of the pretzel stick he had been dunking in his coffee. He grunted. The cla.s.sified ad read: Lose something? Or maybe you want something found. Or maybe you just want something. Convince me it exists, pay my expenses, and I'll charge you a fee for finding it. Hadley Guinn, HE 6-2420.

"A h.e.l.l of a way to get business," he said to the coffee container. It had two flyspecks and a brown stain that together looked like a grinning rat. "Go ahead," he growled. "Laugh."

She came in then, straight through the waiting room into his office. "Hadley Guinn?" She had a voice to go with olive skin, the kind with a glow under it.

"You read signs on doors?"

"I still have to ask questions. You forgot to wear your dog-tag." She came forward and sat down. She moved across the floor as if she were on tracks. She sat down as if she were folding wings.

"Have a wet pretzel?"

"Thanks, no. I just threw one away." She regarded him evenly. She had not smiled, she had not raised a brow or arched a nostril. She was everything in the world that was completely composed. She was about twenty, with blue-black hair. Her blue eyes didn't belong with that complexion at all. They didn't belong with her age either. They were wise eyes. They were ten thousand years old. She wore a black dress with a built-on cape around her shoulders and a neckline down to here. She used a brown-red lipstick that went with the skin but not at all with the eyes or the dress. On her it looked fine.

"Reckon it'll rain tomorrow?" he asked eventually.

She took the remark at face value. "Not in Barenton."

"Where's Barenton?"

"Sorry" she said. "Cla.s.sical reference. There's a hawthorne bush there."

"Would that be the one you're beating around?" The thick lashes did not bat. "You can find anything?"

"I'm near enough to being legal to be able to handle the language," he said. He quoted: " 'Convince me it exists...'"

"I see. If it's too much trouble, you're not convinced."

He quoted: " '...pay my expenses...'"

"Mmm. And then the fee comes automatically."

"When I find it. You examine more clauses than the guy who manicures for Clyde Beatty."

She said, deadpan, "That job really gives one pause."

His appreciation was in his eyes and in the parentheses. He left it there. "It was nice of you to drop in, Miss Jones."

"Morgan," she said.

He drained the container, crushed it, filed it in the wastebasket. He swept the remaining pretzel sticks into the drawer. "Lunch time's over," he explained. "Shall we dance?"

"Not while we have to watch our steps...What's your special signal that means you're about to go to work?"

"I answer a businesslike question."

She nodded. "Want to find something for me?"

He waited.

She said, coolly, "Want to find something for me if I convince you that it is, and pay your expenses?"

He said nothing.

"In advance?"

"Certainly," he said.

"Very well. I'm looking for a stone. It's a big one-seven or eight karats. Not a diamond. A diamond looks like a piece of putty beside it. It glows in the dark."

"Where is it?"

She shrugged.

"Well, is it loose, or in a ring, or what?"

"It's on a cup. It looks like gold, but it isn't. The cup holds about a quart, and it has a five-sided pedestal and a five-sided foot."

He closed his eyes, looked at the mental picture her words drew, and said, "Got a lead?"

"There's a man in town who almost had it once. His name's Percival."

Guinn reached under the desk and scratched his lower shinbone. "You mean the Caveman?"

"That's the man."

"h.e.l.l. He doesn't have any use for baubles. He doesn't even believe in money."

"You meet all kinds of people," she said gently.

"All right. I'll go see him. What else do you know about this cup?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Where did it come from? Where was it last seen? Why do you want it?"

"No one knows where it came from. The stone is supposed to have come from the sky. The cup was made in the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. It's been seen only twice, and that was too long ago to bother about. I do know it's been seen near here. As for why I want it..." The wise eyes looked deep into his. "I want it very badly," she whispered.

The intensity of her gaze, of her voice, gave him a genuine shock. It was the first break in her incredible composure and he hadn't been ready for it.

"I'll look for it," he said.

She stood up. "Here's five to start with."

He watched her open her purse. "Five? Don't knock yourself out, Miss Morgan."

"There'll be more when you need it," she said. She put five bills down on the desk. They were C-notes.

"It's that important?" he asked.

"At least that important," she said soberly.

"Guys get killed over things that important."

"Lots of guys have gotten killed over this." She looked at him for a moment. "Shall I pick up those bills now?"

"Allow me," he said graciously. He scooped them, stacked them, fingered his smooth brown wallet out of his hip pocket and slipped the money into it. "Now tell me more."

She looked him straight in the eye and shook her head very slowly, twice. Her eyes, her wise eyes, slid in their long sockets as her head moved. "It's your cooky, Guinn."

He shrugged. "You're just going to make me use up more of your expense money. What's your first name?"

"Morgan."

"All right, if you don't want to tell me. Where can I get in touch with you?"

"For the time being," she said coolly, "I'll worry about that." She stood up. "Be careful."

"Should I really be careful?"

"I keep telling you," she said, "this job isn't just difficult." She turned and walked out.

When she got to the outer door, he called her: "Miss Morgan!"

"Yes?"

"Goodbye."

She set the shoulder strap of her bag and pa.s.sed the doork.n.o.b from one hand to the other as she sidled through it. "You're so formal," she said, and was gone.

Guinn sat staring at the door. His face was completely impa.s.sive; he was suddenly conscious of it, that he was imitating hers. He grunted loudly, spread one big hand and drummed the desk top, once.

He saw the girl called Morgan crossing the sidewalk. He knew how women walked. He'd never seen one move like this. He wondered some things about her and then felt his wallet without taking it out. He bent it; his sensitive fingers could feel it crackle. They were nice new bills.

He shook his head and went back to the desk. From the second drawer he took a shoulder harness and strapped it on. In the middle drawer were two guns. He took the dull-gray .32 and slipped the magazine out. He ejected the sh.e.l.l that was in the breech, pressed it into the magazine and, holding the c.o.c.king-piece back, twisted the breech-block and broke the gun. He sighted the bore to the window, nodded, and deftly put the gun together again, returning the top cartridge to the breech. He dropped it into the holster, picked up the other gun, thought for a moment and then put it back. It clinked. He bent, peered, palmed out a four-fifths of rye. He sighted it exactly and as carefully as he had the gun-bore, then put it back in the drawer.

He went to the door, felt for his keys, thumbed the spring catch. The bolt shot out with a disapproving tsk! tsk! He pulled at his square chin, returned to the desk, opened the middle drawer again and found an unpaid telephone bill in a well-thumbed envelope. He took out his wallet, put three of the C-notes in with the bill, and dropped the envelope back in the drawer. He felt the bottle staring at him, muttered, "If that's the way you feel," and resentfully drank from it. There were only a couple of fingers left. Then he went out and slammed the door behind him. He pulled at his square chin, returned to the desk, opened the middle drawer again and found an unpaid telephone bill in a well-thumbed envelope. He took out his wallet, put three of the C-notes in with the bill, and dropped the envelope back in the drawer. He felt the bottle staring at him, muttered, "If that's the way you feel," and resentfully drank from it. There were only a couple of fingers left. Then he went out and slammed the door behind him.

It wasn't quite two o'clock.

There was a two-year-old station wagon on the street that looked as if it had run two hundred thousand miles and rolled sidewise the last four. A lean youth sat on the front fender with his feet on a fireplug. On the pavement by the plug were four dog-eared cheesecake magazines.

Guinn asked him, "What goes, Garry? You take the pledge?"

The youth looked down at the magazines. "Those I don't need," he said, and flashed a sudden, loose-lipped grin. He had clumped hair that looked like the oozings at the top of a cotton-bale, and steel-gray eyes that were very pale pink all around the edges. "I just seen a chick, hey. She has hair like this, see," and he made a motion as if he were saluting with both hands at once, "and it's so black it's blue. She's stacked like wheatcakes, but with honey. Mostly, she's got a face like a pyramid."

"You mean a sphinx."

"Same thing. So why should I look at pictures? Hey-you know her, hey?"

Guinn reached in through the window of the station wagon and opened the door. "A client." He got in.

Garry trotted around the street side, grasped the window frame, and pulled. The door opened and sagged. He got in, lifted the door and pulled it until it latched, and tramped on the starter. The motor responded instantly and quietly. "Yeah, huh," said Garry enthusiastically. "What's she want?"

Guinn said shortly, "Just because this wagon's a dog doesn't mean you have to keep it by a hydrant all the time. Let's go."

The car moved forward. Garry said, "Is she-"

"Take the hill road and turn off at the Spur."

Garry nodded. "Will she-"

"I changed the subject twice," said Guinn.

Garry tightened his lips and raised his eyebrows in a facial shrug. Guinn sat silently, his big hands lax on his knees, his eyes on the road.

After a time he said, "I mean that about the fireplugs."

"Well," said Garry, "I got to have some place to put my feet."

"Put 'em in your pockets."

About two miles further on Garry asked, "Now, how am I going to do that and keep my pants on?"

The two lines at the corners of Guinn's mouth deepened. Suddenly he straightened. "Slow down."