“No. Anyhow I’m wound up tight with Roni Fugate. One at a time is enough for any normal man.” Barney eyed his employer severely.
“I agree. Lord, I only can see one at a time, myself; what do you think, I’ve got a harem up there at Winnie-the-Pooh Acres?” He bristled.
“The last time I was up there,” Barney said, “which was at that birthday party for you back in January—”
“Oh well. Parties. That’s something else; you don’t count what goes on during parties.” He accompanied Barney to the door of the office. “You know, Mayerson, I heard a rumor about you, one I didn’t like. Someone saw you lugging one of those suitcase-type extensions of a conapt psychiatric computer around with you… did you get a draft notice?”
There was silence. Then, at last, Barney nodded.
“And you weren’t going to say anything to us,” Leo said. “We were to find out when? The day you board ship for Mars?”
“I’m going to beat it.”
“Sure you are. Everyone does; that’s the way the UN’s managed to populate four planets, six moons—”
“I’m going to fail my mental,” Barney said. “My precog ability tells me I am; it’s helping me. I can’t endure enough Freuds of stress to satisfy them—look at me.” He held up his hands; they perceptibly trembled. “Look at my reaction to Miss Fugate’s harmless remark. Look at my reaction to Hnatt bringing in Emily’s pots. Look at—”
“Okay,” Leo said, but he still was worried. Generally the draft notices gave only a ninety-day period before induction, and Miss Fugate would hardly be ready to assume Barney’s chair that soon. Of course he could transfer Mac Ronston from Paris—but even Ronston, after fifteen years, was not of the same caliber as Barney Mayerson; he had the experience, but talent could not be stored up: it had to be there as God-given.
The UN is really getting to me, Leo thought. He wondered if Barney’s draft notice, coming at this particular moment, was only a coincidence or if this was another probe of his weak points. If it is, he decided, it’s a bad one. And there’s no pressure I can put on the UN to exempt him.