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She did not seem suprised to see them, nor did she seem inclined to take Colin and Ed to her own office- She halfturned away from the manager, the papers still clutched in a fist, to face them. "You're back," she snapped. "I told you you would be."
The waspish tone of her voice might have made Colin turn around and walk away from her only the day before. Now, in some perverse way, it made him stand his ground.
He was surprised at how quiet his voice sounded. "Yes, Mrs. Bullitt. i think we're ready to accept your assignment."
The woman in the striped coat and boots made an abrupt motion to one of the clerks and the girl came to her immediately. "There's a blue envelope on my desk. Get it," Mrs.
Bullitt snapped. The girl scurried out the door.
"I knew you'd be back," she said to Colin and Ed. "You see, it's all a question of understanding people. It always is.
People never know what they can really do until they absolutely have to do it or else."
She smiled and her face looked smug. "All I ever do is provide the 'or else.' " ^ Colin held his tongue, but beside him he could hear Ed t breathing heavily. H The girl clerk came back and Abby Bullitt took the long |1 blue envelope from her hand and dropped it on the Manager's I. counter in front of Colin.?
"Sign it," she said, leaving it to him to take out and! ^ unfold the long shape of the contract for himself. ^ Colin ignored the slight, but at his first glimpse of the $ printed form he looked up at Mrs. Bullitt, puzzled. "This ^ … this contract is with the University. I don't understand.
Yesterday your husband…"
"Yesterday's contract was with me. Today's is with the University."
She smiled and now she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. "1 told you then that I wouldn't be as easy to get along with again."
And suddenly Colin was aghast as the full implication of what she meant to do struck him. She meant to have her flying animal, and she meant to compel them to give it to her for nothing. Absolutely nothing… or elseUnder a University grant they could, of course, use its facilities, its equipment, but at no profit to themselves, not even a mention of their names if the University was not disposed to lift them from anonymity.
He ran his eyes down the page- It was the standard University form, printed, with the usual blank spaces for additional items left to be filled in.
But the items filled in were anything but usual.
"Sixty days," Colin gasped, his eyes, unbelieving and dazed, moving from the smiling woman, to Ed, and back again. "Sixty days?"
"A little added incentive to keep you from dawdling," she said. "I know how you people like to stretch things out when you think you have hold of someone you can take advantage of. Surely in sixty days you ought to have something to show me. Now sign."
Ed took the contract from Colin's nerveless fingers, it rustled loudly in his shaking hand as he glanced down it. "Sixty days and we guarantee results." He flung the contract on the counter. "The way that's phrased, we could go to jail for outright fraud if we don't deliver."
Abby Butlitt had her arms crossed in front of her, tight.
She said nothing.
Silence hung in the room.
Abruptly Ed snatched the Manager's chained-down pen from its stand and scribbled his name across the bottom of the stiff paper. He shoved contract and pen at Colin. "Here, sign this and let's get out of here."
Through a haze that was red and gathering, Colin signed and flung down the pen. "Would you like your horse to be of any particular color?" he said bitterly, and was aghast to see that Mrs. Builitt seemed to be taking the question seriously.
"Arnold." she said to the balding manager, "what is the name of that liqueur we had at me Hunt di
"Chartreuse, Mrs. Bullitt. Chartreuse."
"That's it," she said, and then to Colin. "Make it chartreuse."
And suddenly beside Colin, Ed was laughing and he didn't seem able to stop. "A chartreuse horse. A flying, flaming, chartreuse horse."
And in the open air of the street Ed was still gasping. "Oh, a chartreuse horse."
"Why not? A chartreuse horse is just as logical as a flying one."
Ed went off in another fit of laughter. "Logic. Oh, my aching… logic. He's talking about logic-'* But logic was what they used at first. Logic and Colin's wild idea to start with a living animal that already flew. "It's a cosmetic problem now. Not engineering. It doesn't have to be a horse, it just has to look like a horse."
Weight against size. Colin thought of fish that could distend themselves with air. There was large size with small weight. He thought of a litter of fox terrier pups he'd once handled. Ail were solid, chunky, heavy in the hand. All but one. The same size, but lighter than the others, so much so that his hand had come up unexpectedly when he'd picked it up- It died, but it had been lighter.
They slept in the University dorm, ate in the cafeteria, and they worked. Together at first, then, as time pressed them and there was stil! not a glimmer of success, they worked separately to spread their investigations.
They worked with the cells of birds. Searching for size without weight. Speeding the development of their dividing cells as much as they dared, projecting the rest of me development by computer when they had even a tentative pattern to program, guessing at more than they should have.
Anything, anything at all, that was large and could lift itself from the ground. That to start and the hope of plastic surgery, transplants, for the rest.
Nothing. Not a thing.
Sixty days. Mrs. Bullitt. A reckoning… and a reprieve.
Not of their asking, but of her brother-in-law's, the Dean's, pleading for them, for more time.
A reprieve. A reprieve and a new contract. A contract the Dean walked out of the room and would not watch them sign.
Sixty days- No more. And this time a cash penalty. Added.
If they fail, they must reimburse the University in full for the loss.
They seldom saw each other now, Colin and Ed. They slept when they could, worked when they could, ate if they could. Ed was trying irradiated cells now. Gathering them from wherever he could.
"Sure it's as subtle as a shotgun," he'd said, "but nothing alive today is of any help to us. We've got to come up with something new."
"That is a typical panic response," Colin said.
"What else have we got left but panic?" Ed wanted to know.
And then one bleary afternoon Colin came awake in the dorm to Ed's shaking him. "Wake up," Ed was saying, excited. "I think I've got a lizard that's trying to make like a bird."
Colin tried to shake the weariness out of his eyes. "A lizard?"
"Yes, I got to thinking about how birds and reptiles are distantly related, so I went over to the reptile house, picked up what ceils 1 could, brought them back and set them up to be bombarded. This one projected pretty light for its size so I let it develop. Just now it tried to attack me."
He held up a hand, the edge of it was bleeding. "It ran on its hind legs and took off right into the air at me, its front ones going like crazy. So help me, Cotin, I think it was trying to fly."
It was a lizard all right, nondescript brown, the size of a small dog, sitting on its haunches. And Ed was right, it did look as though it was trying to fly when it leaped for their throats and struck its teeth at their padded arms instead.
They took what cells they might need from it and, because it was so patently vicious, they destroyed it.
Cells died. That was expected. Others went awry and were destroyed. But one. One cell developed well and its tapes projected well. Sleek reptile head forming. Earless. No problem. Ears are easy to form and attach later. Front legs shaping up as true wings now, clawed toes long, well membraned. Transplant leg buds from another developing cell to chest of prime animal and hope musculature will develop enough to support them.
Compatability of tissue no problem. After all, aren't they actually all from the same animal?
Coloring a bonus feature, though. They did not work for it, did not plan it, but their animal seemed to be developing a greenish, golden cast to its sleek skin. Ed laughed. "She might have her chartreuse horse after all."
And the tension. The unholy tension. Out of its tank for days now, still won't eat, but seems to be doing well on penetra-dermal regimen. And as light, beautifully light as the tapes had predicted.
University gym. Transmitting implants in position, tapes set up, monitoring screen ready. Long tether. Ru
They were working together now, but exhilarated. Intuition mostly, no mapping. Pointless. To map, you needed the developed animal to see what its genes would become. And if they did manage to develop one to suit Abby Bullitt, what was the need for a map?
More trials. Flying now. Really flying, no tether, comes when whistled for, obeys hand signals too. Open air, too large for gym now, needs open air. Try it tomorrow. Call Mrs. Bullitt.
University Field. Clear, beautiful day. They'd produced a magnificent animal.
Golden green in color. Its natural position at rest seemed to be sitting on its haunches, front feet resting on the ground; the claws had fused into very acceptable-looking hoofs. Its great wings not folded flat and down against me body, but carried high so that their tops, the leading bony edges curving gracefully behind its head and high arched neck, gave it a remotely haloed look.
The tail, although Colin could not see it from this angle, was not like a horse's, and not like a lizard's either, but flat and used like an airfoil. A handsome beast, and, holding it by the bridle it had learned to wear, Colin was at once proud yet fearful of it. Made uneasy by the look in its eyes of waiting, of a biding of time. Where is thai Bullitt woman?
She came, and riding a horse, Ed swore and reached to help Colin hold their animal's bridle, but it did not shy. It had never seen any animal larger than a lab dog before, but it seemed no more than mildly interested and stayed sitting.