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Back The Tin Men Save as PDF
Chapters (41)
  1. By the Same Author
  2. Copyright
  3. Introduction by the Author
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
  7. 4
  8. 5
  9. 6
  10. 7
  11. 8
  12. 9
  13. 10
  14. 11
  15. 12
  16. 13
  17. 14
  18. 15
  19. 16
  20. 17
  21. 18
  22. 19
  23. 20
  24. 21
  25. 22
  26. 23
  27. 24
  28. 25
  29. 26
  30. 27
  31. 28
  32. 29
  33. 30
  34. 31
  35. 32
  36. 33
  37. 34
  38. 35
  39. 36
  40. 37
  41. About the Author

But even as he woke Fiddlingchild Rowe felt a pang of remorse. Perhaps after all the man had a right to take a nap and get his strength up. The infallible perceptivity of Nina, Anna, Rick, and Nunopolos was such that there seemed to be no reason why they should not all sit there with their vodka in their hands and intuit their way right through the whole plot without a hand being turned or a word spoken. One continuous session of twenty-four hours should see them home and dry.

Suddenly the laboratory door opened, and Goldwasser stood there, leaning against the jamb. Rowe gazed at him absently. There was something about his expression that seemed to demand a response – some sort of quizzical look.

‘What is it?’ Rowe demanded impatiently.

‘What do you think it is?’ said Goldwasser.

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘Oh, come, come, Rowe.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea, Goldwasser. You want to borrow a cigarette?’

‘You know I don’t smoke, Rowe.’

‘It’s not something about the way I voted on those traffic diversions for the Official Opening, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Goldwasser. I’m not clairvoyant.’

‘It’s lunch-time, Rowe. I just wondered if you felt like going out for some.’

‘Oh,’ said Rowe. ‘Not now. I’m busy.’

What a damn’, silly thing to expect him to guess! Where was he? Oh, yes, rescuing Fiddlingchild from his imbecility.

Fiddlingchild glanced up at Rick. In a flash he understood what it was that Nina had signalled to him about Nunopolos – that Nunopolos had realised that Anna was scornful of his failure to understand why Nunopolos accepted a third vodka with such transparent resignation. Fiddlingchild raised a quizzical eyebrow. The rest of the company took the point at once. The counterpoint of intuition died down, and Fiddlingchild knew that they knew that he knew that they knew that – it was time for lunch.

28

28

When he got down to it, Goldwasser rather enjoyed his work as Chairman of the Ethics Wing Utilisation Committee. He was profoundly sick of newspapers, and it gave him a certain sense of relief to tear them up and make papier-mâché out of them, from which, together with cardboard, hardboard, chicken wire, tarred twine, and bits and pieces of electronic equipment borrowed from other departments, he and a team of craftsmen from a scenery workshop built the dummy experiments to go in the new Ethics Wing.

It was undoubtedly fun. They installed machines that lit up, machines that hummed, machines that ticked, machines that produced vari-coloured Aurora Borealis effects in low-pressure discharge tubes. They installed hundreds of graphs, cages of white rats and hamsters, banks of oscilloscopes, leaded anti-­radiation screens, and an operating table. By the time they had finished it looked much more like a laboratory than any of the real laboratories.