Drowned Hopes

Five days earlier, Andy had brought him this problem of the reservoir and the ring—just like an episode in interactive fiction! — and he’d leaped to the challenge. Andy gave him before and after topographical maps of the territory, and Wally’s software already included a number of useful informational programs—weights and measures, physical properties, encyclopedia entries, things like that—and all he had to do to get whatever other software he needed was to look it up in the manufacturer’s catalogue, give Andy the name and stock number, and the next day there Andy would be, gri

In any event, late last night Wally had finished the reservoir program and was really quite pleased with it. Andy had already told him, “Call me any time, day or night. If I’m asleep or not around, the machine’ll take it,” so Wally had phoned the instant the program was ready, expecting to leave a message on the machine. But Andy himself had answered the call, whispering because, as he said, “My cat’s asleep.”

Andy had been very pleased to hear the reservoir program was ready and had wanted to come over and see it as soon as possible. Wally himself, of course, was available at any time, so it was Andy’s own complicated schedule that had kept him away until three-thirty this afternoon. “I’ll be bringing a couple of pals of mine,” he’d said. “They’re very interested in this project. From a theoretical point of view.” So this would be him. Them.

Nice. Wally buzzed his guests in through the downstairs door, and went off to get the cheese and crackers.

NINE

Dortmunder and Tom followed Kelp up the dingy metal stairs three flights to a battered metal door, where Kelp cheerily poked another bell button. Looking at the scars and dents on the door, Tom said, “Why do people bother breakin into a place like this?”

“Maybe they forgot their keys,” Kelp suggested, and the door opened, and one of the Seven Dwarfs looked out. Well, no; a previously unknown Eighth Dwarf: Fatty.

“Come on in,” Fatty said, smiling wetly in welcome and gesturing them in with a stubby-fingered hand at the end of a stubby arm.

They went on in, and Kelp said, “Wally Knurr, these are my pals John and Tom.”

“Nice to meet you,” Fatty said. (No; Wally said. If I think of him as Fatty, Dortmunder told himself, sooner or later I’ll call him Fatty. Sure as anything. The best thing is, get rid of the risk right now.)

Wally’s living room looked like a discount dealer’s repair department, with display terminals and printers and keyboards and memory units and floppy disks all over the place, sitting on tables, on wooden chairs, on windowsills, on the floor. One little space had not as yet been invaded, this space containing a sofa, a couple of mismatched chairs, a couple of lamps, and a coffee table with a tray of cheese and crackers on it. Pointing to this latter, Wally said, “I put out some cheese and crackers here. Would you all like a Coke? Beer?”

“I want,” Tom Jimson told him, “to see this reservoir thing you did.”

Wally blinked, undergoing the normal human reaction to the presence of Tom Jimson, and Kelp moved in smoothly, saying, “We’re all excited to see this, Wally. We’ll sit around afterward, okay? I mean, to do all this in five days. Wow, Wally.”

Wally ducked his head, giggling with embarrassed pleasure. Looking at him, Dortmunder wondered just how old the little guy was. In some ways he was a grown-up, if not very far up, but in other ways be was like a grade-school kid. However old he was, though, Kelp sure knew how to handle him, because Wally immediately forgot all about his cheese and crackers and said, “Oh, sure, of course you want to see that. Come on.”

He led them across to a complete PC system on its own desk, with a worn-looking cushioned swivel chair in front. Seating himself at this, he massaged his pudgy fingers together for an instant, like a concert pianist, and then began to play the machine.

Jesus, that was something. Dortmunder had never seen anything like it, not even at a travel agency. The little man hunched over the keyboard, eyes fixed on the screen while his fingers led their own existence down below, poking, sliding, jumping, tap-dancing over the keys. And after a preliminary few displays of columns of numbers, or of masses of words that went by too fast to be read, here came a picture.

The valley. The valley as it was before the dam was built, seen from just above the highest hilltop to its south. The picture wasn’t realistic, was very cartoony, with dividing lines that were too regular and right-angled, perspective that was just a little off, and all primary colors (mostly green), but it was damn effective anyway. You looked at that TV screen and you knew you were looking at an actual valley from the air. “Hmm,” Dortmunder said.

“Now, your town,” Wally said, his sausage fingers moving on the keys, “was Putkin’s Corners. The big one.”

“County seat,” Tom said.

Dortmunder, turning his head to look at Tom’s profile, realized that even he was impressed, though, being Tom, he’d rather kill than admit it.

On the screen, the valley was in motion. Or the observer was, moving in closer and lower, the valley turning slightly as they descended, showing squared-off bits of red and yellow that were becoming the buildings of a town. The predominant green of the valley made no effort to imitate trees, but was simply a green carpet with topographical markings faintly visible on it.

I’ve seen this kind of thing on television, Dortmunder thought, as the screen showed the town growing larger and larger, the buildings all turning slowly at once as the perspective altered. As though they were in a cartoon helicopter over this cartoon landscape, circling lower, coming in on the town from above.

“That’s pretty much what it looked like, all right,” Tom said. “Only cleaner.”

Keeping eyes on the screen and fingers on the keys, Wally explained, “I input photographs from the local newspaper. I think I got just about everything we need in your part of town. You’re the one who hid the treasure, I bet.”

Tom, cold eyes flashing, said, “Treasure?”

Smiling easily, Kelp said, “You remember, Tom. The treasure hunt.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tom said.

Kelp had explained his scam before they’d come here. The idea was, an u

Soon afterward, as the yarn went, Tom had gone away—cough, cough—and had not been back to this part of the world for many years. On his recent return, finding the reservoir now in place where Putkin’s Corners had once stood, Tom had remembered that unfound clue—a valuable diamond ring around a rolled sheet of cryptic doggerel poetry hidden in a box—and was amused (Tom Jimson! Amused!) at the idea of its still being hidden there, beneath so much water.

When Tom had told Kelp the anecdote of the buried clue, as Kelp’s cover story continued, Kelp had bet him that the new wonder of the time, the PC—our age’s genie-out-of-the-bottle—could show how the clue might be salvaged. Tom had accepted the bet, with a two-week time limit to come up with a solution. If Kelp—and Wally—solved the problem, and the diamond ring was actually salvaged from its watery grave, Tom would sell it and share the proceeds with Kelp, who would share with Wally. If Kelp—and Wally—failed, Kelp alone would have to pay Tom an unspecified but probably pretty substantial sum of money. Before accepting the bet, Kelp had talked it over with Wally, who had assured him the PC was every bit as magical and useful as Kelp believed. In fact, Wally had volunteered (as Kelp had expected he would) to do the reservoir program himself. And so here they all were.