Richard Blade awoke with a vicious headache.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and turned off the alarm clock on his bedtable. The headache was probably a hangover. Blade was not much of a drinker, but last night, in order to convincingly play the role of his cover identity, he had had to swallow one, and more than one, too many.
As he prepared a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, his eye lit on an article in the London Times. The headline announced, «What's Ahead in Technology.»
He folded the paper neatly at the place, and sat down to enjoy a feast for mind and body. He was a skeptic, but not about science. It was what men did with science that was a cause for concern and cynicism. Blade had been a top man in British espionage for nearly twenty years and held no delusions about the human animal.
He was between jobs; spring had come to London and his chief, the man known as J, was leaving him alone as he had promised. Zoe Cornwall, the sloe-eyed beauty he eventually meant to marry, was waiting for him at his cottage in Dorset. When he finished breakfast he would drive his little MG down to the channel coast and spend the weekend with her.
For a moment the image of Zoe, her expectant body awaiting him on a crisp and fresh-smelling bed, interposed between Blade and the paper. He banished the image with resolution and read that as early as 1990 the scientists expected to establish direct electromechanical interaction between the human brain and a computer.
Direct electromechanical interaction! Blade, who had always had a vague distrust of computers, wondered what it meant. Would they make a man into a computer, or a computer into a man?
The phone rang.
Blade, a fork halfway to his mouth, stared at the offending instrument. He had two phones and the wrong one, the red phone connected to J's desk in Copra House, was ringing. It had to be J. Simple logic. That meant a job. Blade swallowed, cursed and considered not answering.
On any other morning he would have finally, fatalistically, picked up the receiver and said, «Hello.»
This morning his headache made him stubborn.
J had promised him this little vacation. And Zoe was waiting.
Richard sat and counted fifteen rings, then, when the phone had at last fallen silent, he collected his dishes without haste, washed them, and left the apartment.
The MG, not always reliable, performed beautifully on the drive to Dorset, and Richard was in an excellent humor as he roared down the winding country lane to his cottage. The headache had vanished, as such headaches often did when he took them out for a run in the cool morning air.
Zoe heard him coming and met him at the gate.
She wore a kind of white sailor suit that clung delightfully to her small pointed breasts, and her long dark hair blew in the wind off the sea.
«There was a phone call for you, darling,» she said.
With a sinking feeling, Richard asked, «Who was it from?»
«From your boss at the Bureau of Economic Planning.»
The Bureau of Economic Planning was a Special Services front, part of Blade's cover story.
«Was it J?» he demanded.
«That's right. He wants you to call him back. Said it was important.»
«Damn and blast!»
After he had parked the car beside the house he came stamping in, muttering to himself. Zoe stood near the phone and watched him.
«Do you love me, Dick?» she asked blandly.
He looked at her with surprise. «Of course I do.»
«Then don't phone.»
There was a hardness in her voice he had never suspected until now. What was she up to? There was no clue in those wide-set dark eyes that now regarded him so calmly, so firmly.
«Don't phone?» he said. «Why not?»
«I know what the Bureau of Economic Planning is. I've looked into it. Father has friends, I have friends, and all our friends have friends. They tell me you have an office there, in Whitehall, and a pretty little thing as a secretary, and you spend about an hour a week there, signing papers that mean nothing. What's your real job, darling?»
Blade closed his eyes. Wait until J heard about this! The plumbing was leaking. It had, of course, been a hasty setup. «I can't tell you,» he said softly.
«You're some sort of secret agent, aren't. you?»
«I can't tell you. I can't tell you anything at all.»
«Not even yes or no?»
«Nothing.»
«I can't live like that, Richard.» He was no longer Dick, but Richard. In a moment, if he didn't play his cards right, he would become Mr. Blade.
«Listen, Zoe. Let me make the call. Then we can talk.»
She shook her head. «You asked me to marry you. I can give you my answer now. I will marry you, but on one condition.»
He knew what the condition was, but he asked anyway, «What's that?»
«You must quit your job.»
He collapsed into the overstuffed couch, thinking faster than he had ever thought before, even in the field. He'd been with Special Services a long time. He could leave now with no dishonor. There were other, younger men who wanted his job, and he was slowing down. He knew he was slowing down. Someday he would be slower than someone in the MVD… Zoe a widow? Perhaps with children? It was not a pretty thought. And it must have been a thought that had crossed her mind more than once.
Finally he said quietly, «Agreed.»
She was surprised. «No argument? You agree just like that?»
«Just like that. Now can I make the call?»
«All right.» She kissed him lightly on the forehead.
The switchboard at Copra House put him through to J immediately. He leaned back in the sofa while Zoe ran her fingers through his hair.
J was saying, «A little something has arisen. Nothing to do with your line of work, really, but they seem to want you. I don't have much of the picture myself, except that it's terribly top secret and urgent. I understand it won't take long-say a few hours at the most. If you'll drop by the House, Richard, I'll tell you more about it. Which, as I say, isn't a great deal. I can expect you?»
There was a long pause, then Richard said, «No, I think not.» It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say.
«What's that? Are you all right?»
«Yes, quite all right, and I hope to stay that way. I want to… leave the Service.»
There was another long silence, then J said stiffly, «May I ask why?»
«I'm getting married and … «
«I see, I see. Family responsibilities and all that. The Cornwall woman? Yes, of course. She comes of excellent family.» He laughed raggedly. «I've been looking into her background, in a manner of speaking. You understand what I mean.» Blade understood well enough. J had been running a security check on her, keeping it to himself. «You're quite sure about this-?» said J.
«Quite sure.» Blade's arm encircled Zoe's waist.
«I'll have your things sent to your flat,» said J.
«I can come down to Copra House and pick them up»
«No, no, there's no need for that.» The old man's voice was shaking. «I'd rather you didn't come around. We're awfully busy here, you know. I wouldn't be able to see you.»
Blade was astonished. «Not even to say goodbye?»
J's voice rose with a flare of anger. «Don't be a sentimental fool, Richard. Damnit! You made your choice, now live with it.»
Before Blade could reply, he found himself listening to a dead phone. He hung up slowly, pensively.
Zoe leaned over to whisper in his ear, «You are a brave man, Richard Blade.»
He looked up at her over his shoulder. «Then why do I feel like such a coward?»
«It will pass,» she murmured. «We have another choice facing us, and I hope you will be as quick in making this decision as you were in making the other.»
«What decision?»
She nibbled at his ear. «Which shall we have first, the marriage or the honeymoon?»
«The honeymoon.» He reached up and pulled her down to him, but even as he kissed her his mind was racing.