An Ornament to His Profession

by Charles L. Harness

This story copyright 1966 by Charles L. Harness.

Reprinted by permission of Linn Prentiss.

This copy was created for Jean Hardy’s personal use.

All other rights are reserved. Thank you for honoring the copyright.

Published by Seattle Book Company, www.seattlebook.com.

For ten years I had been very busy just being a patent attorney, and hadn’t written anything. But now Shan was heading off to college, and I was looking at new expenses. Time to get back into the arena. Write what you know about, the experts say. So I wrote this little novelette about life in a patent department in a chemical laboratory. Plus ghosts… plus a demon…. stuff that ordinarily would make John Campbell turn purple. But he took it anyway.

The locale is real. The lab is right up the road from where I live. The little woodlot, the stream, the stone desk (sinking slowly into the creek) are my own. The lilacs (now dead) were genuine Charles Joli’s. (Wife Nell called them “Jolly Chollies.”) How did she and Shan react to the story? They eventually forgave me. I think.

The world has different owners at sunrise… Even your own garden does not belong to you.

— Anne Lindbergh

Conrad Patrick reached over and shut off the alarm. The dream of soft flesh and dark hair faded into six o’clock of a Friday morning. Patrick lay there a moment, pushing Lilas out of his thoughts, keeping his mind dark with the room, his body numb.

To move was to accept wakefulness, and this was unthinkable, for wakefulness must lead to knowledge, and then the problem barbs would begin to do their ulcerous work in his brain. They would begin, one by one, until all were in hideous clamor. None of them seemed ever to get really solved, and getting rid of one didn’t necessarily mean he had solved it. More often, getting rid of it just meant he had found some sort of neutralizing paralysis, or that he had once more increased his pain threshold.

Patrick got up heavily, found his robe and slippers, and stumbled into the bathroom, where he turned on the light and surveyed his face with overt distaste. It was a heavy, fleshy face, and the red hair and mustache were awry. He was not exactly thin, but not really fat, either. His cheeks and stomach showed the effects of myriad beers in convivial company. He considered these beers, these cheerful hours, one by one, going back, in a mirrored moment of wonder and gratitude. He considered what life would have been like without them, and as the realization hit, his forehead creased uneasily. He scowled, dashed water over his eyes, and reached for a towel.

“Patrick,” he muttered to himself in the mirror, “it’s Friday. Another day has begun, and still the Company hasn’t found you out.”

Patrick no longer knew exactly what he meant by this routine, which he had started some years before, when he was the newest chemical patent attorney with Hope Chemicals. He had first been a chemist, but not a very good one, and then, after he and Lilas had got married, he had gone to law school at night. After he got his LL. B. he had discovered, with more fatalism than dismay, that he was not a very good lawyer, either. Yet, all was by no means lost. He was accepted by Hope’s Patent Department. And not just barely accepted; he was accepted as an excellent chemical patent attorney. He found this incredible, but he did not fight it. And finally, he deliberately masked his supposed deficiencies; when he was in the company of chemists, he spoke as a lawyer, and when with lawyers, he was a chemist. And when with the chemical patent lawyers, he didn’t mind being just a fifty-fifty chemist-lawyer. They had his problem, too. It was like group therapy. Patent lawyers had a profound sympathy for each other.

From the beginning he had thrown himself into his work with zest. And now, with Lilas and the baby gone, his work was not just an opiate; it was a dire necessity.

He got the kettle boiling in the kitchen. There was now a pink glow in the east. He looked out the kitchen window and almost smiled. It was going to be a beautiful morning. He made the coffee quickly, four spoons of coffee powder in his pint mug, took the first bitter, exhilarating sip, tightened his robe about him, stepped out the kitchen door, and padded off down the garden path, holding his coffee mug carefully.

This, again, was all part of his morning routine. Today, of course, there was a special reason. Theoretically the house and grounds were ready and waiting for the little party tonight, but it would do no harmed to take a look around, down by the pool.

The flagstone path lay down a grassy slope, and was lined with azaleas. He and Lilas had put them in together. At the foot of the slope was a tiny stream, fed mostly by a spring half a mile away, on his neighbor’s property. In this little stream Patrick had contrived a series of pools by dint of fieldstone and mortar, slapped together with such indolence into the stream side that the result was a pleasing but entirely accidental naturalness. These little pools wee bordered with watercress, cat-o’-nine-tails, arrowhead, water iris, and lovely things with names he could no longer remember. He and Lilas had splurged one summer and bought all manner of water plants by mail. They had got very muddy planting them, and they had sorrowed over those that had died the next spring or that the baby had happily yanked. And then suddenly everything had begun to grow like weeds, and in a wild way, it was all very pretty.

The path along the stream led toward a grassy sward. Patrick stopped on the path a moment, and listened. Yes, there it was, very faint, like a tinkling of tiny bells. He held his breath. Around the turn of the path, and so far invisible, was the bench. He and Lilas used to sit here, overlooking the lily pond. Only then, of course, it wasn’t the lily pond, but the baby’s wading pool. It was… how long ago?… that she had splashed in the pool and her baby delight had shattered the garden peace. And that was what he heard now. And he could hear Lilas’ answering laughter. This had happened to him on many past mornings. To him, it was not a conjured thing; it was faint, very far away, but it was real.

He began to walk again, and rounded the bend in the path. But as son as the pool and the bench came in view, the sounds stopped abruptly. He had tried to deal with the phenomenon logically. This led him to various alternative conclusions, neither of which he completely disbelieved: (a) he was subject to hallucinations; (b) Lilas and the baby were really there.

Patrick sighed and looked about him. Here, all within a few steps of each other, were the lily pool, the benches, the outdoor grill, and the arbor. The arbor was a simple structure, framed with two-by-fours, bordered with lilacs that had never bloomed, and which enclosed his “work table.” This was a stone-stepped table with a drawer, which contained writing materials and a few scribbled pages.

He looked into the arbor. From somewhere up in the ceiling of honeysuckle there was a flutter of wings. Sparrows. The “room” seemed to concentrate the odor of grass clippings, fresh from yesterday’s mowing. Patrick glanced over at the stone table, and permitted himself the habitual morning question: Would he have a few moments to work on his article? This was followed by a prompt companion thought: He was being stupid even to think about it. In three years he had not even finished the first chapter. And already the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals had wrought far-reaching revisions in the law of prior printed publication. Maybe he should pick another subject. An article he could do quickly, get into print quickly, before the Court could hand down a modifying decision. Somehow, there must be a way to get this thing off dead center. A top-flight professional in any field ought to publish. Not that he was really that good. Still, as Francis Bacon had said, a man owed a debt to his profession.

He opened the drawer and pulled out the sheaf of papers. But he knew that he wasn’t going to work on it this morning. A breeze fluttered the sheets. His eye cast about for a paperweight and found the candle-bottle; a stub of candle sticking in the neck of a wine bottle, used when he sat here at night and did not want to use the floodlights. He put the bottle on the papers.

Glumly he accepted his first inadequacy of the day. No use trying to hold the others back. The line forms to the right. The magic was gone from the morning; so be it. Let them come. He finished off his coffee. In his own garden he was a match for all of them. He felt girded and armored.

They came.

One. His department was about to lose a secretary— Sullivan’s Miss Willow. He hadn’t told Sullivan. But maybe Sullivan knew already. Maybe even Miss Willow knew. These things always seemed to get around. He didn’t mind interdepartmental promotions for the girls. He’d used it himself on occasion. But he didn’t like the way Harvey Jayne was using company personnel policy to pressure him. And right now was a bad time to lose a secretary, with all those Neol cases to get out. As an army travels on its stomach, so his Patent Department traveled on its typewriters, or, more exactly, on the flying fingers of its stenographers as applied to the keys of those typewriters, “thereby to produce,” as they say in patentese, a daily avalanche of specifications, amendments, appeals, contracts, and opinions.

He halfway saw an angle here. Maybe he could boomerang the whole thing back on Harvey Jayne. Have to be careful, though. Jayne was a vice-president.

Two, and getting worse. Jayne wanted publication clearance for the “Neol Technical Manual,” and he wanted it today. It had to be cleared for legal form, proofread, and back to the printers tonight, because bright and early Monday morning twenty-five crisp and shining copies, smelling beautifully of printer’s ink, had to be on that big table in the Directors’ Room. Monday, the Board was going to vote on whether the company would build a six-million-dollar Neol plant.

Three, and still worse. John Fast, Neol pilot plant manager, wanted the Patent Department to write a very special contract. Consideration, soul of the party of the first part, in return for, inter alia, guarantee of success with Neol. It was impossible, and there was something horrid and sick in it, and yet Patrick was having the contract written by Sullivan, his contract expert, and in fact the first draft should be ready this morning. He was not going to refer Fast to the company psychiatrist. At least not yet. Maybe in two or three weeks, after Fast was through helping Sullivan get those new Neol cases on file in the Patent Office, he might casually mention this situation to the psychiatrist. Why did it always happen this way? Nobody could just go quietly insane without involving him. Forever and ever, people like John Fast sought him out, involved him, and laid their madness upon him, like a becoming mantle.

Fourth, and absolutely and unendurably the worst. The patent structure for the whole Neol process was in jeopardy. The basic patent application, bought by the company from an “outside” inventor two years before, was now known to Patrick, and to several of the senior attorneys in his department, to be a phony, a hoax, a thing discovered to have been created in ghastly jest— by a man in his own department. This was the thing that really got him. He could think of nothing, no way to deal with it. The jester, Paul Bleeker, was the son of Andy Bleeker, his old boss and good friend. (Did anybody have any real friends at this crazy place any more?) And that was really why he had come up with an answer. It would kill Andy if this got out. Certainly, he and both Bleekers would probably have to resign. After that there would come the slow, crushing hearings of the Committee on Disbarment.

Problems.

Was this why he couldn’t write, why he couldn’t even get started? He blinked, shook his head. Only then did he realize that he was still staring, unseeing, at the handwritten notes in front of him.

He leafed slowly through the scribblings. How long ago had he started the article? Months? Nearly three years ago, in fact. He had wanted to do something comprehensive, to attain some small measure of fame. This was the real reason lawyers wrote. Or was it? Some time soon, he’d have to re-examine this thing, lay bare his real motives. It was just barely conceivable it would be something quite unpleasant. He gave a last morose look at the title page, “The College Thesis as Prior Art in Chemical Patent Interferences,” and put the papers back in the envelope. He just didn’t know how to put this thing back on the rails. Fundamentally he must be just plain lazy.

But time was wasting. He looked at his wristwatch, put the papers back, closed the drawer, and walked out to the lily pond again.

It was in the same wet sparkle of sunlight that he remembered his baby daughter, splashing in naked glee that warm summer day so many months ago. Lilas had stood there and called the baby out of the pool to get dressed, for that fatal Saturday afternoon trip to the shopping center. And his daughter had climbed out of the pool, ignored the tiny terry cloth robe, and dashed dripping wet into her father’s arms. At least her front got dried as he held her writhing wetness against his shirt, patting her dancing little bottom with the palm of his hand.

Slowly he sat down again. It must have been that sunbeam on the pool. It was going to be bad. He began to shudder. He wanted to scream. He bent over and buried his face in his hands. For a time he breathed in noisy rasps. Finally he stood up again, wiped his gray face on the sleeve of his robe, and started back up the garden path to the house. He would have to be on his way to the office. As soon as he got to the office, he would be all right.

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays…

— Omar Khayyam

Patrick sometimes had the impression that he was just a pawn on Alec Cord’s chessboard. Cord was always looking seven moves deep, and into a dozen alternate sequences. Patrick sighed. He had long suspected that they were all smarter than he was, certainly each doing his job better than Patrick could do it. It was only the trainees that he could really teach anything anymore, and even here he had to fight to find the time. Nothing about it made sense. The higher you rose in the company, the less you knew about anything, and the more you had to rely on the facts and appraisals developed by people under you. They could make a better patent search than he; they could write a better patent specification, and do it faster; they could draft better and more comprehensive infringement opinions. In a gloomy moment he had wondered whether it was the same way throughout the company, and if so, why had the company nevertheless grown into the Big Ten of the American chemical industry? But he never figured it out.

He looked up at his lieutenant. “I understand it was the crucial game, in the last round. If you beat Gadsen, you won the tournament, and if he beat you, he won.”

“Didn’t realize you followed the sports page, Con,” said Alec Cord.

“Gadsen had white, and opened with the Ruy Lopez. You defended with Marshall’s Counter Gambit. They gave the score in the paper. Somebody said it was identical,, move for move, with a game between Marshall and Capablanca, in 1918, when Marshall first pulled his gambit on Capablanca.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s a surprise. They say you even had an article in Chess Review last year on the Marshall Counter Gambit.”

Cord was silent. Patrick took a new tack. “Gadsen’s that Examiner in Group 170, the one handling your Neol cases?”

“That’s right.”

“Including the basic case, the one we know now is the phony? The one our whole Neol plant depends on?”

“The very one.”

“The one you would have given just about anything, even the Annual DC Chess Tournament, for Gadsen to allow?”

“All right, Con. But it’s not what you think. I didn’t throw the tournament. And Gadsen didn’t throw the allowance. We didn’t discuss it at all. I admit I let him win that game, but there wasn’t any deal. It would have to occur to him, with no help from me, that there was something he owed me. He could have done it either way, and I’d have had no kick. Maybe he’d have given the allowance anyhow. In fact, for all you now, maybe he allowed the case despite the game, and not because of it.”

“I won’t argue the point, Alex. We may never know. Anyhow, the thing I came to see you about is this.” He handed the other a legal-size sheet.

Cord’s eyes widened. “An interference!”

“So maybe Gadsen allowed the claims just to set you up for an interference.”

“Maybe. But not likely. If he were going to do that, he would have just sent the interference notice, this thing, without the allowance.”

“Any ideas who the other party is?”

“Probably Du Santo. We’ve been picking up their foreign patents in the quick-issue countries, like Belgium. We’ll know for sure after the inventors file their preliminary statements. Which brings me to the next question: How can we file a preliminary statement sworn to by a phony inventor who doesn’t even exist?”

“I don’t know. I want you to figure out something after we talk to Paul Bleeker.”

“Take it from the beginning, Paul,” said Patrick.

Paul Bleeker’s face rippled with misery.

Cord said: “Maybe I’d better go.”

“Stay put,” said Patrick shortly. “Paul, you understand why we have to have Alec in on this. You’re emotionally involved. You might not be able to do what has to be done. Alec has to listen to everything, so he and I together can plan what do to. You trust him, don’t you?”

The young man nodded.

“It began as sort of a joke…?” prompted Patrick.

“Yes, a joke,” said Paul. “When I was a freshman in law school. Harvey Jayne and those others were teasing Dad. That was when Dad was still Director of the Research Division, before they promoted him.”

The light was dawning, Patrick sat up. “They were teasing him about the Research Division?”

“Yes, then Mr. Jayne said Dad’s Research Division was essential, but only to verify outside inventions he bought.”

“So you decided to booby-trap Mr. Jayne?”

“Yes.”

“You then wrote those patent attorneys in Washington?”

“Yes, I mailed them the examples for the patent application. They took them and changed them around a little bit, the same way we do here in the Patent Department. They added the standard gobbledygook at the front, and eight or ten claims at the back. They sent the final draft back to me for execution. The standard procedure. They sent me a bill for three hundred dollars. I paid that out of the money Mr. Jayne sent them, when he bought the invention. I still have the rest— four thousand and seven hundred dollars. I haven’t spent any of it.” He looked uncertainly at Patrick. “You won’t tell Dad about this, will you?”

“Certainly not.” Patrick looked at him with genuine curiosity. “But how were you able to make the oath? What notary would notarize the signature of ‘Percy B. Shelley’?”

“Absolutely any, Con. They all just assume you are who you say you are, so long as you pay the fee.”

Patrick was momentarily shaken. “But that’s the whole idea of notarizing, to make the inventor swear he’s truly the inventor, the person named in the oath.”

Cord smiled faintly. “Not all notaries waive identification, Con.”

“Well,” said Patrick, “now we’ve committed perjury, sworn falsely to the United States Patent Office. So far, all they can do to you, Paul, besides disbarring you, followed by imprisonment in the Federal Penitentiary, is to strike your Shelley case from the files in the Patent Office.”

The young man was silent.

Cord said: “Harvey Jayne bought the patent application only after he knew it worked. The whole thing depended on whether John Fast could reproduce it in the lab. Paul, how could you be so sure it would work?”

“If John did it right, it couldn’t not work. I copied the examples right out of something in the library. Somebody’s college thesis.”

Patrick brightened. “Alec?”

Cord shook his head. “Nothing like that ever turned up in our literature searches. We hit the Dissertation Abstracts, all the way back to the beginning.”

Patrick turned back to Paul Bleeker. “You’ll have to tell us more about this thesis. What was the name of the student? We’d also like the name of the university, and the year. In fact, anything and everything you can remember.”

“All I can remember is these runs, tucked away in the back pages. They didn’t really seem pertinent to the main body of the thesis. Other than that, I can’t remember anything.”

“You must have seen the title page,” pressed Patrick.

“I guess so.”

“You could identify it if you saw the thesis again?”

“Sure, but it’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“The library just had it on loan. They have hundreds come in, this way. Our people keep them a while, then send them back. You know the procedure.”

“There must be some record.”

Cord shook his head. “We’ve checked all the inter-library loans for the past five years. We found nothing. If Paul’s memory is correct on the facts, that it was within the last five years, and the library did have it on loan, we are led to the conclusion that the thesis was done by somebody here at Hope, and lent on a personal basis to the library, without any formal record.”

Patrick groaned. “Our own inventor, here all the time? That’s all we need. He’ll scream. He’ll take it to court. We’ve got to find him first, before he finds us.” He turned to Cord. “Alec, add it all up for us, will you?”

“It admits of precise calculation,” said Cord, “in the manner of a chess combination. There are two primary variations. Each of these has several main subvariations. None of them is really difficult. The only problem is to recognize that our tactics are absolutely controlled, move by move, events as they develop.”

Patrick raised his hand. “Not so fast. Let’s take the main angles. The primary variations.”

“First primary. We do nothing. If we’re senior party in the interference, this means we take no testimony, but rely purely on our filing date. Chances: better than even. If we’re junior party, we lose hands down.

“Second primary. We fight. Firstly, this gives subvariant A. With Paul’s help we find the real inventor. We buy his invention from him, and, if he hasn’t already published, we file a good and true application for him. We enter a motion to substitute the new case for Paul’s case, and then we expressly abandon Paul’s case. If this inventor actually has published in the way Paul remembers, this gives subvariant B. We find that thesis, then we move to dissolve the interference, contending that the sole count is unpatentable over the disclosures in the thesis.”

Patrick twisted his mustache nervously. “However you state it, we wind up with no chance of a patent. Maybe we can live with that. Perhaps we can forgo a patent-based monopoly. But there’s one thing we must have— and that’s the right to build the plant, free and clear from interference or infringement of anybody else’s patent. Can we tell the Board we have that right? The Board wants to know. They’re going to vote on it Monday. And I don’t think we can tell them anything… not yet. The economics and market are there. Everything hangs on the patent situation. Bleeker says the vote will be to build, if the patent picture is clear. We’re holding the whole things up in our shop right here.” He turned back to Cord . “Alec, take it from the college thesis. Run the variations off from that.”

“Variation One,” said Cord, “the thesis is a good reference. This means it adequately describes the invention, that it was at least typewritten, that it was placed on the shelves at the University Library, available to all who might ask for it, and that all of this was done more than one year before either Paul or his opponent filed their respective cases. This would support the motion to dissolve. Both parties would lose, and neither would get a patent, fraudulent or otherwise. With no basic patent to be infringed, it follows that anybody could build a Neol plant. Paul’s application would be given a prompt final rejection and would be transferred to the abandoned files in the Patent Office. Then it would lie buried until destroyed under the twenty-year rule. Nobody would never learn about it.

“Variation Two. The thesis for some reason is not citable as a good, sufficient, and competent reference under the Patent Office rules. For example, we might not find it in time, or if we do find it, it might really present substantial differences from Paul’s disclosure. Even if we are senior party, we will not be able to negotiate a settlement of the interference without grave danger of discovery of what Paul did. If we turn out to be junior party, it’s even more certain we can’t settle the interference, but there’s actually less risk of being found out, if only because the opposition won’t talk to us.”

Patrick’s mouth dropped. “All right. We always come back to the thesis. We’ve got to find it. If we find it, we can build a Neol plant. If we can’t find it, we can’t build a plant, and even worse things will probably happen to a number of people in this company.” He turned to Cord. “Have you and Paul exhausted every possibility, every lead?”

Cord nodded glumly. Paul Bleeker bent over and put his face in his hands.

Patrick sighed. He thought, “I’ll have to do it the hard way. Tonight.” He said, “Paul, you’ll be over tonight, won’t you?”

“Yes, Con.”

“Thanks, fellows. Paul, would you ask Sullivan to come in?”

He must needes goe whom the devill doth drive.

— John Heywood

Patrick smiled at Sullivan. “Good morning, Mike. How are those Neol cases coming?”

“We’re in good shape. John Fast and I will need a couple of more weeks, though. It’s a whole series of cases. Covers the catalysts, the whole pilot-plant set up, the vapor phase job, everything. John and I get together every morning and dictate this stuff to Willow. She types her notes in the afternoon. Except that as of now she’s about a week behind in transcription. If she left right now, the Neol patent cases would be in quite a hole.”

Patrick met Sullivan’s studied gaze noncommittally. “He knows,” he thought. “They all know about Willow.” He said easily, “I guess you’re right. How about John? Will he stick with your program?”

Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. “He’d better. We need him. But, like I said, he needs us, too. And he insisted that you approve the contract. Do you want to see it?”

Patrick shifted uncomfortable. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. He’ll be here in a minute. You can read it to both of us, then.”

Sullivan smiled. “You’re getting off easy.”

Patrick said, “I know what you’re thinking, Mike. And you’re right. We are going to turn him over to the psychiatrist. But not just yet. Not until you get these last three Neol disclosures written up. Another couple of weeks won’t hurt him.”

Sullivan’s smile deepened.

Patrick said, “Medically, it certainly can’t hurt to humor him.”

Sullivan laughed. “Con, you’re a sham, a fraud, and a hypocrite. Preserve him long enough for him to file his cases, then let him drop dead.”

Patrick bridled. “That’s putting it a little strong. If I thought for a moment…”

“Oh, come off it, Con. We’re all on edge with this thing. Anyhow, you can take comfort in the thought that the Patent Department has simply ground out one more contract, one out of a hundred a year, doing their daily hacking, what they are paid to do, and therefore what they rejoice in doing. If you look at it that way, you have served your client to the very best of your ability, and at night you can sleep with sound conscience.”

Patrick growled, “If I didn’t need you— “

Sullivan held up his hand. “Speak of the devil— “

“Come in,” called Patrick.

John Fast entered the room. He was an average looking man, average size, of an average grayness. His face was almost without expression, perhaps a little sad. There was something unnerving in his eyes. They were acquainted with—

“Horror?” thought Patrick, wondering. No. That was too simple. John Fast was acquainted with the sub-elements of horror, with the building stones of terror, and with the unrest of darkness. And this was the man whom he would need tonight. “Hello, John,” he said genially. “I hear your Neol cases are going a mile a minute.”

“Going nicely, Con, thanks.” Fast looked at Sullivan, then back at Patrick. “Is my contract ready?”

“Contract? Yes, of course, the contract. Mike and I have been going over it. Before we read it to you, though, we’d like to make sure we’ve covered everything. Now Mike here has heard your story, but I haven’t. I’d like to hear it from you, straight, exactly the way it happened.”

“It’s a long story, Con.”

“We’ve got lots of time.”

“All right, then.” Fast took a deep breath; his eyes grew distant. “I think it began with the ozonator. You know what ozone smells like? It’s sharp, electric. In certain concentrations it’s hard to distinguish from chlorine or sulfur dioxide. You know how the Bible talks about brimstone? Brimstone is sulfur, but there wasn’t any sulfur in Palestine. The old prophets were just trying to identify an odor that was there long before they learned about sulfur. This creature moves in an atmosphere of ozone. He moves around in time and space, and to do this he applies an electrical field on the space-time continuum. Ozone is sort of a byproduct, the same as when you run an electric motor. So this thing moves around in a fog of ozone. Not only that, ozone seems to attract him, the way nectar attracts bees.

“For a long time I didn’t really realize he was around. And then last week I met him. It might have been an accident. But with all this Freudian theory, maybe there’s no such thing as an accident. Maybe, on a subconscious level, I did it deliberately. Anyhow, you know we have a big structural formula of pentacyclopropane drawn in white paint on the floor of the pilot plant. This makes a star, with the methylene groups as the five points. It is also a pentagram— a starlike geometric design used in certain… rituals. Within the history of the United States, people have been burnt for making a pentagram. The stage was set. Just one more thing was needed: the Lord’s Prayer recited backwards. This was provided. I’m a steady churchgoer. Bible class on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday I took my office tape recorder to Bible class. Yes, we said the Lord’s Prayer. It was still on the tape when I was going to dictate my monthly progress report. I rewound the tape, so there it was, everything going backwards on audio. I was inside the pentagram. And suddenly, there— it— was, on the other side. I was so scared I was petrified. I wasn’t surprised. Just scared. Maybe that means I knew what I was doing. So we stared at each other. Except I wasn’t sure what I was staring at. But it was definitely a shape, with arms, head, eyes…”

“You were tired,” said Patrick. “You know how fatigue can induce hallucinations.”

“It’s not that simple, Con. There— was— there is— something there, some kind of elemental force, It’s a being, an intelligent being. And powerful, in strange ways. It can… alter the laws of chemistry and physics. I got it to increase the yield of terpineol— ‘Neol’. At first, by about ten per cent. Then another ten per cent. It was easy. And then last night we started up the pilot plant. We ran the C-10 through first, cold, just to flush the lines and check the flowmeters. We got the ozonator tied in about midnight. Now you understand the ozone won’t start reacting with the C-10 until you hit about one sixty F., and we’d planned to turn steam into the jacket after the ozone concentration had built up to about five per cent. But the reactor began to warm up. It hit one sixty in a matter of seconds. The two technicians on shift were scared. They ran over behind the explosion mat. I stayed put. I knew what was going on. He was doing it. I wanted to know how far he could push it. I shunted the C-10 through the flowmeter. I switched in the product receiver. It took about thirty minutes to feed one pound mole of C-10… exactly one hundred and thirty pounds. I shut everything off. I had been watching the product scales all along, so I knew what it was going to be. It was one hundred fifty-four pounds, one pound mole of Neol, exactly. Yield: one hundred per cent of theory.

“They came out from behind the mats, then. They looked at the graphs. Nobody believed the graphs. They looked for a weighing error. They knew it couldn’t happen. So I told them to check the meters. The meters were all right. I knew there was nothing wrong with the meters. Then we started another run. The reaction didn’t start cold this time. So we turned the steam into the jacket. That was supposed to start the reaction. We usually start getting terpineol in the receiver at about one sixty. We watched it for a good hour. Not a drop of product. Just C-10 going in, C-10 coming out. We couldn’t explain it. We were making ozone. The ozonator was OK. We had the right concentration of C-10, the right temperature, mole ration, space velocity, everything was right. But not a grain of terpineol was coming out. He wanted to show me, you understand, that he could control it either way. But he was going to leave it up to me which way it went. I didn’t want to decide right then. I didn’t know what to do. Just then I didn’t even know how I could tell him, if I did decide. So we simply shut down and knocked off.

“I went home, but I couldn’t sleep. I tried to think it through. And I guess I did think it through. This being can put me through. With him on my side I can do anything. There’s no position in this corporation I couldn’t have. And that would just be a starter. I don’t know where the end would be. So I want to make the deal. I know exactly what I want. And what he wants. He wants, well, he wants me. Not my body, really, or anything like that. It’s more like something mental. He wants to take it from me a little at a time, like a parasitical drain. But it wouldn’t affect me physically or mentally. In fact, I’d get sharper all the time. And whatever it is, it would go so slowly, day-by-day, that I wouldn’t notice it. This goes on for years. I’ll even have a normal life expectancy. When he’s got all of it, I’ll die. And that’s the deal. The next thing is to get it down on paper. Something he and I can both sign. A binding contract. It doesn’t matter whether you believe he exists. Call him the Devil if you like. And call the thing I’m giving him, my soul. A lot of people who believe in God don’t believe the Devil exists. And some of them don’t believe in souls, either. Although, as I said, it isn’t really that simple.”

There was a long silence.

“The contract?” prompted Fast.

Patrick nodded, as in a dream, to Sullivan.

Sullivan began: “This Agreement, made as of this blank day of blank, in the year of our Lord— “

“Not ‘of our Lord’,” said Fast.

“Quite so,” said Sullivan. “I’ll fix that.” He continued: “…By and between John Fast, hereinafter sometimes referred to as ‘Fast,’ and His Satanic Majesty, hereinafter sometimes referred to as ‘The Devil,’ Witnesseth: Whereas Fast is desirous of certain improvements in his present circumstances; and Whereas The Devil is able to cause and bring about said improvements; now therefore, in consideration of the mutual promises herein contained, and for other good and valuable consideration, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the parties agree as follows: Article One. The Devil shall promptly cause the Hope Chemical Company to erect a plant for the production of terpineol, hereinafter referred to as ‘Neol,’ and to make Fast the manager thereof. The Devil shall, with all deliberate speed, cause Fast to become a world-famous chemist, rich, respected, and to win at least two Nobel prizes. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, The Devil will immediately enter upon the performance, and will continue same, for the full term of this Agreement, of every obligation set forth on Exhibit A, annexed hereto, and incorporated by reference herein.”

Sullivan looked up at Fat. “You wrote out the list?”

“Right here.”

“Mark it ‘Exhibit A,’ said Sullivan. He continued. “Article Two. Fast hereby assigns, grants, conveys, sets over, and transfers all his right, title, and interest in and to his soul, to the said Devil, on the death of Fast; provided, however, that Fast shall live until the age of seventy, and that during said period The Devil shall have met faithfully, and in a good and workmanlike manner, all his obligations, both general and specific, as above set forth.”

Patrick nodded. “That’s fine.”

“We had to change some of our ‘boiler-plate’ clause,” said Sullivan. “Others we had to leave out altogether. For example, we thought it best to omit completely the ‘Force Majeure’ clause, whereby the Devil is relieved from his obligation to perform, if prevented by an Act of God, but can nevertheless require you to perform, that is, give up your soul!”

“Logical,” agreed Fast.

“And we had to change the ‘construction and validity’ clause. Ordinarily we provide that our contracts shall be construed, and their validity determined, under the laws of the State of New York. However, we think that under New York law, the contract might be held invalid, as having an immoral object, and hence unenforceable by either side. So we changed it to Hawaiian law.”

“Yes,” said Fast. “It’s all ready to sign, then?”

“Right there, there’re lines for the signatures of both, ah, parties,” said Sullivan. “Are we to understand, John, that the Devil will actually affix his signature to this document, in real pen and ink?”

“I sign in blood,” said Fast calmly. “How he signs, I’m not really sure. All I know is, he’ll do something, maybe make a special appearance, to let me know that he accepts.”

“I see,” said Patrick. (He saw nothing.) He asked curiously, “But why do you think you need the Devil? An energetic man with a solid technical background and a high IQ in a big, growing chemical company doesn’t need assistance such as this.”

Fast looked at him in surprise. “Coming from you, Con, that’s a very strange question.”

“How is that?”

“I accept aid from any source, because I am totally committed. But so are you, and therefore, you, too, will accept assistance without asking the cost, or to whom the payment will be made.”

Patrick felt a flurry of confusion. “And to what am I totally committed?”

“To your patents. Did you not know?”

Patrick had to think about this. Finally, he shook his head, not in denial, but to admit incomprehension. “Well,” he defended, “it’s my job.”

Fast’s mouth, immobile and cryptic as the Mona Lisa’s, seemed almost to smile. “Yes, but only because you have contracted for it. So you see, what I have done is not a particularly strange thing. You… everyone… has entered into his own private contract, with something. My only difference is that I have put mine in writing. This does not necessarily mean that I am more honest than you. Perhaps I am merely more perceptive.

“True, my deal is with the Devil. But is that immoral? Morality is relative. My action, my way of life, has to be evaluated against the background of your action, and your way of life. You think me immoral, if not insane. Yet you wrote this contract for me. Why? Because you want to keep me happy. And why do you want to keep me happy? So that I’ll keep your patents coming. Therefore you’ve made your own contract— with your patents. You resolve all questions of sin, virtue, and morality in light of the effect on our patents. With you, nothing can be sinful— even an assignment to hell— if it helps your terpineol patents. Before you judge my contract, take a look at your own.”

Patrick stared at the gray man. Finally he smiled uneasily. “Whatever you say, John.”

“And now I’ll do you a favor, Con. Change the name.”

“Change what name?”

“Neol. It’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The sound; wrong altogether. If you should ever have to… call… anyone with it, you wouldn’t do it. Also, you ought to have five letters, exactly, one letter for each point of the pentagram. Correct symbology is essential.”

“Whom would I be calling?” said Patrick. “And why?”

“You know… for your patents.”

Patrick looked blank, then frowned, then finally he smiled. “All right, John. Whether or not you’re a mystic, I’ll give you ‘x-plus,’ for mystification.”

After Fast had gone, Patrick and Sullivan stared at each other.

“Do you believe any of that?” said Patrick.

“I believe he thinks he saw something. A kind of self-hypnosis.”

How about the yield? You know one hundred per cent of theory is impossible.”

“No, Con, I don’t know that. And neither do you. Within experimental errors, he may well have got one hundred per cent. And even if he didn’t, he really might have got fairly close to it. A pilot plant always does much better than a bench-scale unit. You just naturally expect the yield to be high. All the variables are optimized, easily controlled.”

“So you think he just hypnotized himself into seeing the Devil?”

“Why not? Actually, he’s an accomplished amateur hypnotist. I’m told he is quite a parlor performer, if you can catch him.”

“I know. He’ll be at the party tonight, for something like that. But he’s wrong about me. I’m not totally committed to my patents. It’s my job, the same as it’s your job. John Fast doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Sullivan’s eyes twinkled wickedly. “You’re absolutely right, Con. There are some things you would not resort to, even to save the Neol patent position. You would not sell your own grandmother into white slavery even if it would win the interference and solve the whole problem.” He paused, then added maliciously, “Would you, Con?”

Patrick snorted. “Don’t tempt me!”

“Are you going to change the name?” asked Sullivan.

“‘Neol’?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, maybe. There’s nothing really wrong with ‘Neol’.”

“Except that John Fast thinks it’s wrong.”

“…Without saying how to make it right,” added Patrick. “I want to think about it. And I might change it, just to be ornery.”

That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

— Shakespeare

Patrick sat in his office, looking at the proofs of the “Neol Technical Manual,” and thinking hard. This was Harvey Jayne’s Manual, and Jayne was trying to steal Miss Willow. But Jayne needed Patent Department clearance for his Manual. Right away, this suggested possibilities. This morning, he had it nearly figured. And then John Fast had decided the name was wrong. And what difference did it make to John Fast? He wasn’t even going to ask, because tonight he was going to need the man.

But could he change the name? How sacred was this Manual to Jayne?

Patrick considered the matter.

He knew, certainly, that a technical manual prepared and published by an American chemical giant was like nothing else in the world of books. It was the strange child of the mating of the laboratory with Madison Avenue, midwifed by the corporate public relations committee. It told all. It was rich in history, process descriptions, flow sheets, rotogravures, chemical equations, and nomographs. It was comprehensive, and its back pages were filled with thousands of arrogant footnotes. The stockholders of Hope Chemical were given the impression that the sole function of the “Neol Technical Manual” was to incite an unendurable craving for Neol in the hearts of purchasing agents throughout the country. But Patrick knew that the compiler privately harbored other motives. For that man, Harvey Jayne, it represented an opportunity for creativity that comes only when the company builds a new plant; it could not happen to Jayne twice in one lifetime.

In this manual, Harvey Jayne would have a ready-made solace for whatever disasters might lie ahead. His wife might on occasion fail to recognize his greatness; his son might fail in school; he might, alas, even be laterally transferred within the company. Yet, withal, his faith in himself would be restored, and the blood brought back into his cheeks, when he gets out his old Technical Manual, to read a little in it, to fondle its worn covers, and to look at the pictures. So doing, Harvey Jayne might murmur, with tears in his eyes, as did Jonathan Swift, re-reading Gulliver’s Travels, “God, what genius!”

So, thought Patrick, this volume will be cherished forever by Harvey Jayne. He will keep it in his office bookcase, with a spare in his den at home. When he transfers, it will be carefully packed. Years later, for presentation at his retirement dinner, his lieutenants will borrow his last copy from his wife, or perhaps steal one from the company library. They will have it bound in the company colors, blue and gold; and the chairman of the board, the president, and numerous fellow vice-presidents will autograph its pages.

Now, brooded Patrick, the whole of this immense and immemorial undertaking, this monster, this Manual, centers around the product trademark, which is as essential to it as the proton to the atom, the protoplasmic nucleus to the growing cell. The Manual is known by this name. Once thus baptized, the name is sacred. And to deny this book its name, to suggest that its name is wrong, that it should have another name, is to invite the visitation of the Furies, for this is desecration, a charge so sinister that it must rank with defamation of motherhood, or with being against J. Edgar Hoover.

Yes, there were possibilities. For personal disaster. He could not change the name of the Manual. And yet he was going to. Why? he wondered. Why am I going to do this? I am as crocked as John Fast. His mind floundered, searching. I have to fight Harvey Jayne, that’s why. No. That’s not why. It’s something else. John Fast said the name was wrong. The new name should have five letters. He tugged briefly at his mustache, then leaned over to the intercom.

Books cannot always please.

— George Crabbe

“Con,” said Cord, “it’s not really bad. A few editorial changes should do the job.”

Patrick’s face was a blank. “How about ‘Neol’?”

“It’s clear. The closest thing is ‘Neolan,’ registered for textiles.”

Patrick brightened. “Clear? It’s a clear case of infringement!”

Cord stared at him. “What… what did you say?”

“I said it infringes. And I hasten to add, Cord, my boy, that you look quite strange, with your mouth open.” He reached for the phone and dialed Jayne.

“Oh, hi there, Harvey… No, I didn’t call to protest about Miss Willow. We’re really grateful you can do something for her, Harvey. Her place is with you, Harvey. On one condition… It’s this, Harvey, that you double her raise. She’s worth every bit of it. Good, Harvey, splendid you see it our way… Tech Manual, Harvey? Yes, we’re looking at it right now. No, Harvey, I’m afraid we can’t do that. There’s a very close prior registration that will probably kill Neol as a trademark. No, Harvey, please get that out of your head. Miss Willow has nothing to do with it. She will transfer with our very best wishes… That is indeed your privilege, Harvey. If you want to present the Manual to the Board on Monday morning without Patent Department clearance, go right ahead. It would, of course, be my duty to give Andrew Bleeker a memo itemizing my objections, absolving the Patent Department of all responsibility for the content of the Manual. There will be carbons, of course, to… You will? Why, that’s fine, Harvey.” He hung up. “He’s coming over.”

“I’m amazed,” said Cord dryly.

“Keep your fingers crossed on Willow.”

“But you said the louse could have her, with a double raise,” said Cord.

“Alex, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what is about to happen. So I won’t waste time. We have only a few minutes before Harvey is due to show. So— Cord.”

“Yes, Con?”

“I didn’t address you. I merely stated your name. It turns crisply from the tongue, like honest bacon in the griddle. A fine name. Cord, Cord, Cord. A good word to say. Here, I’ll write it, too. Flows easily on paper. Cord looks good. Listens good. Charming. A man’s name is the best thing about him. Like Narcissus. Hello, there, you beautiful name!”

Cord flushed red. “Con, for goodness’ sake. It isn’t at all remarkable!”

“Yes, my boy, it is… to you.” He leered at his lieutenant. “A man’s name is his most enchanting possession. For you, for me, for Harvey Jayne, for anybody.”

“So?”

“That’s how we find a substitute for Neol. We will derive us a new word, from ‘Jayne’. Harvey will find it irresistible. And it will be a good trademark. Think of the trouble American Cyanamid had, trying to find a trademark for their acrylic fiber. They finally named it after the project leader, Arthur Cresswell. They called it ‘Creslan’. And Cluett-Peabody, naming their ‘Sanforize’ process for preshrunk fabric after the inventor, Sanford. And think of how many of Willard Dow’s products are ‘Dow’ something or other, ‘Dowicide,’ for example. And look at Monsanto’s ‘Santowax,’ ‘Santowhite,’ ‘Santomerse’. And Du Pont’s ‘Duponol,’ and W. R. Grace’s ‘Grex’ polyethylene. So we’ll name our terpineol after Harvey Jayne. ‘Jayne-ol’. We’ll have to fix it so he won’t recognize it. Some phonetic equivalent.”

“He’ll recognize it, Con. It’ll just make him madder.”

“No, I don’t think he will. A man has a selfish complex on his own name. He loves it, and he doesn’t want other people to have it. He has trouble remembering people who have similar names. So if we do this right, he won’t recognize it when he hears it. It’ll fascinate him, but he won’t understand why. He’ll approve it on the spot. But first, we’ll have to work him over, soften him up a little. So listen carefully as to what you have to do.”

“Harvey,” said Patrick, “you’re making us revise our company leaflet on trademarks.”

“I didn’t know you had one,” said Harvey Jayne suspiciously.

“It lists everything that shouldn’t be done— all possible error. At least it did. Now, you’ve added a few more. We’ll have to revise.”

“This brochure. You wouldn’t happen to have a copy— “

Patrick handed him the leaflet. “Brand-new edition, just off the press this afternoon.”

Jayne read slowly. “‘The trademark should be capitalized, and preferably set in distinctive type. If the trademark is registered in the United States Patent Office, follow it with the registration symbol, ®. If no application for registration has been filed, or, if filed, not yet granted, then use an asterisk after the trademark, with footnote identification. Hope Chemical Company’s trademark for…’.” He looked up. “I’m not sure I follow your reasoning on this particular point. For example, I didn’t capitalize ‘neol.’ I don’t care whether it’s capitalized or not. And I didn’t say ‘trademark’ every time I said ‘neol.’ I just said plain old neol. I want it to become so familiar to our customers that they’ll think of it as a household word.”

Patrick shook his head sadly. “Harvey, I understand your viewpoint, and I deeply sympathize. Such charity and philanthropy are all too infrequent in this hatchet-hearted corporation.”

“Charity? Philanthropy?”

“Yes. Really touching. Gets me, here.” Patrick struck his fist to his chest. “You want to give the trademark to the general public, including our competitors. Come one, come all, anybody can use this name, which isn’t a trademark any more, because Harvey doesn’t want it spelled with a capital.”

“I don’t see how spelling it lowercase prevents it from being a trademark.”

“It converts it into the thing itself. Remember ‘cellophane’? It used to be Du Pont’s trademark for transparent wrappings, and it was spelled with a capital ‘C’. And then it became so well known that the newspapers and magazines began spelling it lower case; and they never mentioned it was Du Pont’s brand of anything, because everybody by that time thought of cellophane only as the transparent wrapping itself. It had become the common name of the thing itself: it had become generic. Now anybody can sell his own transparent wrapping and call it ‘cellophane’. Cellophane has now joined the list of irresistible trademarks that are wide open to the public: shredded wheat, mineral oil, linoleum, escalator, aspirin, milk-of-magnesia.”

“Anything else wrong?”

“We don’t like your trademark, “Neol’,” said Patrick. “We think it infringes at least one mark already registered. Besides which, it’s a weak mark, made up of weak syllables.”

“What… what are you saying?” sputtered Jayne. “There’s nothing wrong with ‘Neol’. How can it be weak?”

“Look at it this way,” said Patrick smoothly. “Fashions in trademarks come and go, like women’s hats. At the moment, the ad people are conditioned to think in terms of certain well-worn prefixes and suffixes. The suffix is supposed to classify the product as a liquid, a solid, a plastic, a synthetic fiber, a flooring compound, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and so on. True, they have their differences, but these are minuscule. The pack of them are so much alike you’d take them for a children’s a capella choir.”

“That’s probably true for most trademarks,” said Harvey Jayne smugly, “but not for ‘Neol’. ‘Neol’ was selected by our computer, which was programmed to synthesize words form certain mellifluous-sounding syllables, and to discard everything harsh. And now only that, but to present a final list of one hundred names graded according to final audial acceptance. ‘Neol’ headed the list.”

Patrick shook his head pityingly. “Look, Harvey, when you use a computer, you’ve got two-and-a-half strikes against you from the start. In the first place, the only marks the computer can grind out will be made up of these forbidden syllables we’ve already ruled out. And secondly, no computer can zero in on the gray area between the legally acceptable ‘suggestive’ marks and the legally unacceptable ‘descriptive’ marks. Even the courts have a hard time with this concept. To demonstrate this, we are gong to decomputerize ‘Neol’ for you.”

“De… computerize…?”

“Yes, our decomputer takes a computerized trademark and tells us whether it’s too close to known marks or names to be registrable.”

“May I see it, this decomputer?”

“You could, but that won’t be necessary. It’s so simple, I’ll just describe it to you briefly. It consists of two cylinders, rotating on the same shaft, one next to the other. On the left cylinder we have prefixes; on the right suffixes. All our syllables were compiled from trademarks in the chemical and plastics fields. When a new trademark comes in, we break it down into syllables and see if it’s in our decomputer. If it’s not here, we search it in the Trademark Division of the Patent Office, in Washington.”

“What syllables do you have on your, ah, decomputer?” said Jayne uneasily.

“Really only the extremely common ones. For prefixes, things like ‘ray,’ ‘hy,’ ‘no,’ ‘ko,’ ‘kor,’ ‘di,’ ‘so,’ ‘ro,’ the ‘par-per-pro’ set, ‘vel,’ ‘var,’ and of course, ‘neo’.”

“Neo, you said?”

“Yes, ‘neo,’ which is simply the Greek variant of ‘new,’ which again frequently comes out as ‘nu,’ or in the Latin form, ‘novo’.”

“And I presume ‘ol’ is among your proscribed suffixes?” demanded Jayne bitterly.

“Yes, that’s ‘ol,’ from Latin, ‘oleum,’ oil. So that gives us ‘Neol,’ or ‘new oil’.”

Jayne frowned and looked at his notes. “Well, now about ‘Neolan’? Or do you have ‘lan’ in your suffixes, too?”

“Yes, indeed. But there again, we consider ‘lan’ as a species of the ‘on’ family, from ‘rayon,’ of course. Between vowels, ‘on’ takes a consonant, so you would come out with ‘lin,’ ‘lan,’ ‘lon,’ and so you have ‘neolan’.”

Jayne threw up his hands. “Well, then, you fellows just do whatever you have to do, to fix this. Say the right words over it. Do your legal mumbo jumbo.”

Patrick studied Jayne quietly for a moment. “Harvey. I’m going to do something I shouldn’t. I’ll clear a trademark— no, not Neol. Some other mark.”

Jayne looked dubious. “We would have to originate it. Our ad people have to screen these things. All kinds of image and audio requirements.”

“Impossible, Harvey. This is not a job for the agency. All they can do is put together syllables to skirt along the fringes of what they think your customers will almost but not quite recognize. The way they draw up those lists, they practically guarantee their mark will be weak. Leave them out of this. I’ll give you a mark I will guarantee you will like and that will not infringe any existing mark.”

“But if it isn’t on my list, how can you be so sure I’ll like it?”

Patrick smiled. “We’ve never lost a customer.”

“Probably it will be very similar to a trademark on my list.”

Patrick picked up the list and scanned it briefly. “No, I think not. But we’re wasting time. Let’s move on to the next item.”

“Next item?”

“Payment.”

“Charge my department.”

“You don’t quite understand, Harvey. Let’s go over it again. I’m promising you a clean, desirable trademark. I’m giving you a guarantee— on something that as yet doesn’t even exist. I don’t have to do it. This is above and beyond the call of duty. A big favor to you.”

“So?”

“If the company gets sued, you’re in the clear, but it’s a black eye for me. They’ll say Hope needs a younger man in their Patent Department. Patrick is slipping. And then the next time it happens, I’m out on my ear. So I’m taking a chance, and I want payment.”

Jayne was suspicious. “Like what?”

“We need not be crass. You could offer a prize for a suitable mark.”

“And you would win it?”

“The Patent Department would win it.”

“Go on,” said Jayne acidly.

“The prize couldn’t be money.”

“I can see that. As you say, crass. How about wall-to-wall carpeting?”

“No.”

“A conference room…”

“Not that, either.”

“Electric typewriters…”

“Not exactly what I had in mind.”

“Then what do you want?”

Patrick leaned over and murmured, “Willow.”

Jayne was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I don’t know what to say. It’s cheap, shoddy, not in character with you, Con. Furthermore, I don’t make the rules. This promotion program is a company policy. It’s not anything you or I have anything to do with. I need a secretary. I have a vacancy. I either fill it by promoting a girl from the lab, or I go outside. I think it’s a good policy.”

“So do I,” said Patrick morosely. “I hate to do this.”

“You don’t have to do it. In fact, you’re being absolutely unreasonable. If you insist on doing this to me, I’ll have to take it up with Andrew Bleeker.”

“If you do that, you could get me in trouble.”

“As you say, I would hate to have to do it.”

“At the same time, you will also have to mention to Bleeker that you couldn’t get the Manual out in time for the Board. You won’t have to tell him why, though. He’ll be first on my list of carbons of my trademark infringement report to you. He will not be happy.”

The room became very quiet. The pale drift of typewriters ebbed and flowed in the outer bays.

Jayne’s restraint was massive. “You win.”

“Thank you, Harvey. And now, just so we won’t have any misunderstandings, when Miss Willow comes back to us from having been your secretary, she’ll keep her double raise?”

“I thought that she was never leaving you. How can she come back to you?”

“It’s all over the place, Harvey, that she’s being transferred to you. If we kept her here, she’d be entitled to think that we cheated her out of a raise. So we have to get her transferred to you on the books, get her double raise, and then transferred back to us on the books. Physically, of course, there would seem to be no reason for her to transfer… that is, clean out her desk, or anything like that.”

“So that not only I don’t get a secretary, Willow gets two raises.”

“But you get a clean bill of health for your Manual.”

“And a good trademark?”

“Absolutely.” Patrick was solemn. “We can pick one here and now. We guarantee we can get the trademark application on file this afternoon. All we need is a more exotic name— one not made out of these garden-variety building units. A really beautiful name.”

Cord picked up the cue. “How about some foreign words that mean ‘beautiful’?”

“Well, there’s a thought. Harvey, what do you think?”

Jayne shrugged his shoulders. “Like what?”

“Pulchra— Latin for ‘pretty,’ said Cord.

“Hard to do anything with it,” said Patrick. “What else?”

“Kallos— ‘beautiful’ in Greek.”

Patrick looked doubtful.

“Bel?” said Cord.

“That’s a little better. What is it in Italian?”

“Bella.”

“Still not quite right,” said Patrick.

“You could take a big jump. ‘Beautiful’ in German is schön. You’d have to Anglicize the accent a little, give it a long ‘a’.”

“Ah yes. ‘Shane’. Shane!” Patrick’s eyes lit up. “I really like that, Harvey?”

“Not bad. Shane. Hm-m-m. Yes, I must admit, there’s something about it. Something tantalizing.”

“I hear it, too, Harvey.”

Cord’s eyes rolled upward briefly.

“How long will it take to search it out in the Washington trademarks?” demanded Jayne.

“We can do it this afternoon. My man will call in, any minute now, and we’ll tell him to go ahead.”

“I’ll take it,” said Jayne.

“Good enough. If it’s clear in the Trademark Division, we’ll get the application on file this afternoon.”

Jayne looked surprised. “You’ll have to have labels made up. Then you’ll have to make a bona fide sale in interstate commerce. And then have the trademark application executed by Andy Bleeker. I don’t think you can do all that in three hours. And I won’t pay off on a phony.”

“Of course not.” Patrick smiled angelically as the other left.

In the early afternoon Patrick walked across the court to the terpineol pilot plant and into the cramped dusty office of John Fast. As he stepped inside, his eyes were drawn immediately across the cubicle, beyond Fast’s desk, to a large painting, in black and white, hanging on the wall behind Fast. He poised at the doorway, slackjawed, staring at this… thing.

Within the plain black frame were two figures, one large, and, in front, a smaller. The outlines of the larger figure seemed initially luminous, hazy, then, even as he squinted, perplexed and uneasy, the lines seemed to crystallize, and suddenly a face took form, with eyes, a mouth, and arms. The arms were reaching out, enfolding the figure in front, a man wearing a medieval velvet robe and feathered beret.

Unaccountably, Patrick shivered. His eyes dropped, and found themselves locked with those of John Fast, unquestioning, waiting.

Fast murmured, “it is an oversize reproduction of Harry Clarke’s pen-and-ink drawing, the end-piece of Bayard Taylor’s translation of Goethe.”

“What is it?” blurted Patrick.

“Mephistopheles, taking Faust,” said John Fast.

Patrick took a deep breath and got his voice under control. “Very effective.” He paused. “John, I’m here to ask a favor.”

Fast was silent.

“I understand you have a certain skill in the art of hypnosis.”

Fast’s great dark eyes washed like tides at Patrick. “That’s not quite the right word. But perhaps the result is similar.”

“I’ll come to the point. All this is highly confidential. Our basic terpineol patent application is in interference in the Patent Office. We intend to dissolve the interference by a motion contending that the interference count is unpatentable over the prior art. This prior art is a college thesis. The problem is, Paul Bleeker is the only one who has seen the thesis, and he can’t remember anything about it. Is it possible for him to remember, under hypnosis?”

“It’s possible,” said Fast, “But by no means a certainty.”

“But isn’t it true that everyone records, somewhere on his cerebrum, everything he has ever experienced?”

“Possibly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we can remember it all. Recall is a complicated process. The theory in fashion today is the ‘see-all-forget-nearly-all’ theory. In this one, every bit of incoming sensation is recorded and filed away in your subconscious. But to bring it up again, you not only have to call for it, you also have to walk it out, holding it by the hand, chopping along with a mental machete to clear away all the subconscious blocks along its path. Persistence will turn up many a forgotten item in this way. But if it’s quite old, there may be so many blocks that it will never be able to penetrate the conscious mind. In this case you have to get down there with it, in your far subconscious— take a good look at it, and then holler out to somebody what you see. Hypnosis is the accepted procedure. In the hands of an expert, all kinds of oddities can be turned up in this way: stimuli the subject barely had time to receive; or things, which if recalled on a conscious level, would be intolerable.”

“I want you to try it on Paul Bleeker tonight.”

Fast hesitated a moment. “I gather you renamed ‘Neol’?”

Patrick’s eyebrows arched. “Yes. How did you know?”

“It was best for your patents, and you always do what’s best for your patents.”

“‘Neol’ was a poor trademark,” said Patrick doggedly. “That was the only reason we changed.”

“What is the new name?” asked Fast

And now Patrick hesitated. He found himself unwilling to answer this question. Suddenly, he almost disliked John Fast. He shook himself. “‘Shane’,” he said curtly.

Tiny iridescent lights seemed to sparkle from somewhere deep in the eyes of the other.

“Well?” demanded Patrick.

“Exquisite,” murmured Fast. “I will do this thing for you. It may involve something more than hypnotism. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t, at least not yet. But no matter. If Paul is willing, I will do it for you anyway. Since you are totally committed, it cannot be otherwise.”

Those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. They are the only persons who, in one sense, retain it always.

— Leigh Hunt

Andrew Bleeker swung his swivel chair slowly back and forth as he motioned to the two chairs nearest his desk.

Patrick said cheerfully, “Good afternoon, Andy.”

Harvey Jayne grunted. He was not cheerful.

Bleeker’s eyes flickered broodingly at Patrick’s face. He had a horror of these nasty internecine arguments. Patrick beamed back, and Bleeker sighed. “I’ll come to the point, Con. There seems to be some question about the way you handled Harvey’s Neol Manual.”

“Really? I realize I wasn’t able to satisfy him completely, but I didn’t think he felt strongly enough about it to take it to the head office.”

“What was the problem, Con?”

Harvey rose out of his chair. “Andy, let me state— “

“Con?” said Bleeker quietly.

“I sort of blackmailed him, Andy. I pressured him into giving one of our secretaries a double raise, out of his budget. In return I got him a good trademark, made an infringement search on it, and got the trademark application on file in the Patent Office, all within four hours. He still has time to get his brochure proofs corrected and back to the printers tonight. But it isn’t the Neol Manual anymore. We changed the trademark to ‘Shane’.”

“‘Shane’?”

“Harvey picked it out, all by himself.”

“You don’t say,” murmured Bleeker.

“The name is all right,” grumbled Jayne. “It’s the trademark application I’m protesting. It’s a fraud, a phony. Andy, you perjured yourself when you made oath that the company had used the trademark in commerce. The mark didn’t even exist until a few hours ago, and I know for a fact our shipping department hasn’t mailed out anything labeled ‘Shane’ across a state line. It has to be interstate commerce, you know. But there hasn’t been any shipment at all. Not one of the packages has left the Patent Department. I just checked.”

Bleeker hunched his shoulders and began to swing his chair in slow oscillations. “Con?”

“He has the facts very nearly straight, Andy, but his inference is wrong. There was no fraud. When you signed the declaration, you did not commit perjury.”

“But doesn’t the form say that the goods have been shipped in interstate commerce? Didn’t I sign something to that effect?”

“The trademark application simply asks for the date of first use in commerce. The statue defines commerce as that commerce regulated by Congress. That’s been settled for over a hundred and fifty years. Congress controls commerce between the states and territories, commerce between the United States and foreign countries, and commerce with the Indian tribes.”

“But we didn’t ship in interstate commerce,” said Jayne.

“That’s right,” said Patrick.

“Nor in foreign commerce?” asked Bleeker.

“No, Andy.”

“That leaves— “

“The Indians,” said Patrick.

“Apaches,” said Jayne acidly, “disguised as patent attorneys.”

“Not exactly Apaches, Harvey,” said Patrick. “But we do have a lawful representative of the Sioux tribe, duly accredited to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington. Commerce is with the Sioux, through their representative. A sale to her is a sale to the tribe. If you checked on the packages, you probably noticed that one was on her desk.”

“Her desk,” rasped Jayne. “This… Indian… you mean— “

“Miss Green Willow, late of the Sioux reservation? Of course. Drives a hard bargain. We finally settled on fifteen cents for the gallon jug of terpineol. Her people back in Wyoming will make it into soap for the tourists.”

Bleeker seemed suddenly to have problems with his face, and this was detectable largely by the efforts he was making to freeze his mouth in an expression of polite inquiry. Then his cheeks turned crimson, his stomach jumped, and he hastily swiveled his chair away from his visitors.

There was a long silence. Jayne looked from Bleeker’s back to Patrick’s earnest innocence. He was bewildered.

Finally Bleeker’s chair swung around again. His eyes looked watery, but his voice was under control. “Harvey, can’t we be satisfied to leave it this way?”

Jayne stood up. “Whatever you say, Andy.” He refused to look at Patrick.

Bleeker smiled. “Well, gentlemen.”

Jayne walked stiffly out the door. Patrick started to follow.

“Just a minute, Con,” said Bleeker. He motioned Patrick back inside. “Close the door.”

“Yes, Andy?”

Bleeker grinned. “One day, Con, they’ll get you. They’ll nail you to the wall. They’ll hang you up by the thumbs. You have got to stop this. Is Willow really an Indian?”

“Certainly, she is.” Patrick was plaintive. “Doesn’t anybody trust me? The arrangement is legal.”

“Of course, of course,” soothed Bleeker. “I was just thinking, how convenient to have your own Indian when you need a quick trademark registration. It’s like having a notary public in your office.”

“All our secretaries are notaries,” said Patrick, puzzled.

Bleeker sighed. “Of course. They would be. I stepped into that one, didn’t I?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Bleeker’s chair began its slow rhythm again. “How’s that chess player getting along? Alec Cord?”

“He made second place in the DC Annual.”

“He’s still not in your league, though, Con. Nobody, absolutely nobody, can equal your brand of chess.”

Patrick squirmed. “I don’t even know the moves, Andy.”

“And your contract man, Sullivan? Can he write as good a contract as you?”

“Much better,” said Patrick.

“Did he write the contract that bound you to the Hope Patent Department?”

“What do you mean, Andy?”

“Oh, never mind. I don’t know what I mean. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you patent fellows. Take Paul. Chemists become lawyers; lawyers never become chemists. Paul can’t— or won’t— explain it. There’s probably something profound in this, but I’ve never been able to unravel it. Does it mean chemists have the intellect and energy to rise to advocacy, but that lawyers could never rise further into the realm of science? Or does it mean that the law is the best of all professions, that once in the law, other disciplines are attainted?”

Bleeker’s chair began to swivel slowly again. Patrick knew what was coming. He got everything under control.

“How is Paul the patent lawyer?” asked Bleeker.

“A competent man,” said Patrick carefully. “We’re glad you sent him around to us.”

Bleeker was almost defensive. “You know why I did it, Con. There’s nobody else in the company I could trust to make him toe the mark. Really make him. You know what I mean.”

“Sure, Andy, I know. He’s a bright kid. I would have hired him anyway. Quit worrying about him. Just let him do a good job, day by day. Same as I did when I worked for you.”

“I worked you hard, Con. Make Paul work hard.”

“He works hard, Andy.”

“And there’s one more thing, Con. You switched trademarks. Neol to… Shane, you said?”

“That’s right. Neol is a poor trademark. Shane is better.”

“That’s another thing Jayne is going to hold against you, Con. Switching marks on his cherished Manual.”

“It isn’t really that bad, Andy.” Patrick marveled at the older man’s technique. At no time during the conversation had Bleeker asked Patrick whether the Patent Department was going to approve the terpineol plant, nor in fact had he asked him anything at all about the terpineol patent situation, even though they both knew this was vital to Bleeker’s future in the company. And yet the questions and the pressure were there, all the same, and the questions were being asked by their very obvious omission. Patrick decided to meet the matter with directness. He said simply: “We haven’t completely resolved the patent problem, Andy. But we certainly hope to have the answer for you well before the Board meeting Monday morning. With luck, we may even have it tonight.”

Bleeker murmured absently, “That’s fine, Con.”

Patrick started to get up, but Bleeker stopped him with a gesture.

“Shane,” said Bleeker thoughtfully. “Very curious.” His eyes became contemplative. “Perhaps you never realized it, Con, but we regarded your wife as an outstanding scientist. You were wise, however, to take up law in night school.”

Patrick nodded, wondering.

“We got interested in her,” continued Bleeker, “when she was just finishing up her master’s degree at State. I think we still have her thesis around somewhere. Old Rohberg made a special trip to drive her up for her interview. She was so pretty, I made her an offer on the spot. My only error was in turning her over to you for the standard lab tour. You louse.”

Patrick smiled, his face warmly reminiscent.

Bleeker studied the other man carefully. “What was the name of your little girl?”

“Shan.”

“Odd name.”

“Lilas picked it. It’s short for ‘chandelle,’ French for ‘candle’. Lilas was French, you know. Lilas Blanc. White lilac. And Shan was our little candle. The wallpaper in the nursery was designed with a candle print. The lights above her crib were artificial candles. We painted fluorescent candles inside her crib. She would pat them every night before I tucked her in.”

Bleeker cleared his throat. “Con, sooner or late somebody’s going to tell Harvey Jayne that you renamed Neol after your baby daughter.”

Patrick didn’t get it. He stared back, stupidly. “After… Shan?”

“Well, didn’t you? Shan… Shane…?”

Patrick felt his insides collapsing. “But I didn’t…” he blurted. “It didn’t occur to me.” Then his mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. “At least, consciously. But there it is, isn’t it? So maybe you’re right. Andy, I really walked into that one. There I was, telling Cord that Jayne’s mental blocks wouldn’t let him see why he liked Shane. The same rule applied to me, although I don’t want my daughter’s name on terpineol, plastered on tank cars, warehouses, stationery, magazine ads. Too late now. Botched the whole thing.”

Bleeker regarded him gravely. “Con, how long has it been now, since the… accident?”

“Three years.”

“You’re still a young man, Con. Relatively speaking. Our young ladies think it’s about time you got back into circulation.”

“You might be right, Andy.”

Bleeker coughed. “You’re just being agreeable to avoid an argument. Believe me, Con, it’s one thing to remember the dead. It’s an altogether different thing to have your every waking thought controlled by your memories. You ought to get away from that place.”

Patrick was shocked. “Move? From the garden? The house? It has our bedroom. Shan’s room. How about Lilas? How about Shan? They’re buried there. Their ashes— “

“Ashes?”

“They were cremated. Lilas wanted it that way. I spread the ashes in the lilacs.”

The older man looked at him with compassion. “Then release them, Con. Let them go!”

“I can’t, Andy.” Patrick’s face twisted. “They’re all I have. Can’t you understand?”

“I guess I do, Con. I guess I do. I’m sorry. None of my business, really.”

On this night of all nights in the year,

Ah, what demon has tempted me here?

— Edgar Allan Poe, “Ulalume”

The evening was warm, and along about ten o’clock the party drifted down into the garden.

Patrick, as usual drinking only beer, was, for all practical purposes, cold sober, a condition that enhanced rather than alleviated an unexplainable and growing sense of anxiety. The nearness of the lilacs, usually a thing of nostalgic pleasure, somehow contributed to his edginess. He was startled to note that several clusters were on the verge of opening. He started to call Cord’s attention to this, then thought better of it. And then he wondered, “Why didn’t I? What’s the matter with me? What’s going on?”

The group was in the arbor now. He would have to get on with it, the reason why they were all here. Paul Bleeker and John Fast knew what they were supposed to do. All he had to do was to ask them to start. Paul was already seated at the stone table. As he watched, Paul pulled the table drawer out in an ideal exploratory gesture.

“My notes for a patent law article I started… a couple of years ago,” said Patrick wryly. “I just can’t seem to get back to it.”

“Then perhaps you should be thankful,” said Fast.

“What do you mean?”

“A professional man writes for a variety of reasons,” said Fast. “I’m working now on my ‘Encyclopedia of Oxidative Reactions.’ I know why I’m writing it. And I know why you’re not writing, Con. It’s because life has been kind to you. Let it stay that way.”

Paul Bleeker broke in. “You say a professional man writes for a variety of reasons, John. Name one. Why do you write?”

Fast’s dark eyes turned on Paul Bleeker. “You have heard it said, a man owes a debt to is profession. This may be true. But no professional man pays his debt by writing for the profession. If he is an independent, say a consulting engineer, or a partner in a law firm, or a history professor in a big university, he publishes because it’s part of his job to advertise himself and his establishment. There’s very little money in it per se. If he’s a rising young man in a corporate research or corporate law department, he writes for the reputation. It helps him move up. If his own company doesn’t recognize him, their competitors will. But if he’s already at the top of his department in his company, he has none of these incentives. But he doesn’t need them. If such a man writes, he has behind him the strongest force known to the human mind.”

“And what might that be?”

“Guilt,” said Fast quietly. “He writes to hide from the things he has done in the name of his profession. It gives him a protective cocoon to burrow into. A smoke screen to hide behind.”

“In the name of the patent system,” said Patrick firmly, “I’ve committed every crime known to man. And still I can’t get started.”

“You’ve done very little, really,” said Fast in his nearly inaudible monotone. “But when you really have done something, you’ll know it. You won’t have to wonder or conjecture. Then, you’ll begin to write. It’ll come instantly. No floundering. No lost motion. You’ll leap to it. The words, pages, and chapters will pour out in a torrent. It will be your salvation, your sure escape.”

They stared at him. Cord laughed nervously. “So why do you write, John? What is your unspeakable crime?”

Fast turned his great black eyes on the other, almost unseeing. “I cannot tell you, my friend. And you wouldn’t believe me if I did tell you. Anyhow, it can never happen to you.” He looked away to Patrick. “But to you, Con, it could happen. And it could happen soon. Tonight. In this place.”

Patrick laughed shakily. “Well, now, John. You know how careful I am. Nothing is going to happen to me. It’s spare time I need to start writing, not penitence.”

Fast looked at him gravely. “You do not weep. You smile. Before the Nazarene called Lazarus up, He wept.” His toneless eyes seemed almost sad. “How can I explain this to you. Then let it be done. I have placed the Shane Manual at the five angles of the pentagram. I think they are waiting.”

“They?” stammered Patrick. “Oh yes, of course. The fellows. Perhaps we should begin.”

“What’s that smell?” called Sullivan.

“It’s a terpineol,” said Fast, sniffing a moment. “Like ‘Shane’. Maybe a mixture of alpha and gamma terpineols.” He snapped his fingers. “Of course!”

“Of course… what?” said Patrick. His voice was under control, but he felt his armpits sweating copiously.

“The mixture… very correctly balanced, I’d say. Just right for synthetic oil of lilac.”

Patrick was struck dumb.

“That’s very odd,” said Sullivan. “Con’s lilacs are not open yet.”

“The odor must be coming from somewhere.”

“Maybe we’re all tired,” said Cord. “Breeds hallucinations, you know.”

Patrick looked at him in wonder.

“It’s hard to convince anybody that odor can have a supra-chemical source,” said Fast.

Cord laughed incredulously. “You mean there’s something out there that is synthesizing oil of lilac… or Shane… or whatever it is?”

“We are so accustomed to thinking of the impact of odors on people that we don’t think too much about the creation of odors by people. Actually, of course, everyone has his characteristic scent, and it’s generally not unpleasant, at least under conditions of reasonable cleanliness. In this, man is not really basically different from the other animals. But man— or rather, a certain few extraordinary people— seem to have the ability, quite possibly involuntary, of evoking odors that could not possibly have come from the human sweat gland.”

“Evoking?” said Sullivan.

“No other word seems to describe the phenomenon. Chemically speaking, in the sense of detectable air-borne molecules dissolving in the olfactory mucosa, the presence of odor is indeed arguable. On the other hand, in the strictly neuro-psychic sense, that an ‘odor’ response has been received in the cerebrum, there can be no real doubt. The phenomenon has been reported and corroborated by entire groups. The ‘odor of sanctity’ of certain saints and mystics seems to fall in this category. Thomas Aquinas radiated the scent of male frankincense. Saint John of the Cross had a strong odor of lilies. When the tomb of Saint Theresa of Avila— the ‘great’ Theresa— was opened in 1583, the scent of violets gushed out. And more recently, the odor of roses has been associated with Saint Theresa of Lisieux— the ‘little’ Theresa.” He looked at Patrick. “I think— everyone is ready.”

Patrick wiped his face with his handkerchief. “Go ahead,” he said hoarsely.

Ma chandelle est morte…

— French Nursery Rhyme

Paul Bleeker was seated in the iron chair at the stone table. John Fast faced him, from one side. The others stood behind Paul.

“You are in a long dark tunnel,” said John Fast quietly. “Just now everything is pitch black. But your eyes are beginning to adjust.”

There was absolute silence. Then Fast’s voice droned on. “In a little while, far ahead of you, you will be able to see the tunnel opening. It will be a tiny disk of light. When you see this little light, I want you to nod your head gently.”

From far down stream drifted the plaintive call of a whippoorwill.

Paul Bleeker’s eyes were heavy, glazed. His stony slump in the iron chair was broken only by his slow rhythmic breathing.

“You now see the little light— the mouth of the tunnel,” monotoned Fast. “Nod your head.”

“Candle,” whispered Paul.

Patrick started, then recovered himself instantly.

Fast picked it up smoothly. “Watch the candle,” he said. “Soon it will start to move toward you. It is beginning to move.”

“Closer,” murmured Paul.

In a flash of feverish ingenuity Patrick stepped forward, seized the wine bottle and its stub of candle from the stone table, struck his lighter, then lit the candle. He replaced the bottle on the table front. The flame wavered a moment, then flickered up. Patrick stole a glance at Paul’s face. It was frozen, impassive.

Fast continued gravely: “Soon you will have enough light to see that you are sitting at your desk in the library. In a moment you will see the piles of books on the tables near by. There are several books on your desk. There’s a big book just in front of you. Now the candle is close enough.”

“Close,” murmured Paul.

The hair on Patrick’s scalp was rising. The odor of lilacs was stifling. And he then noticed that the lilacs were opening, all around him. He somehow realized that lilacs do not bloom in minutes. It was a botanical impossibility. He could almost hear the tender calyxes folding back.

Fast continued, “You are opening the front cover. You are looking at the title page. It is typewritten. It is a thesis. You are able to read everything. You can see the name clearly. The name of the student is— “

Patrick heard gasps behind him, and his eyes suddenly came into focus. Beyond Paul, on the far edge of the stone table, beyond the candle, he saw the two figures. They were wavering, silent, indistinct, but they were there. The larger one would just about reach his chin. The eyes of the small one came barely to the table edge.

He wanted to scream, but nothing would come out of his throat.

The taller figure was leaning over the table towards Paul, and she was holding something… an open book. But neither figure was looking at Paul. Both of them were looking at him. He knew them.

In this frozen moment his nose twitched. The scent of lilacs wavered, then was suddenly smothered by something sharp, acrid. Patrick recognized it, without thinking. It was ozone. And as if in confirmation of its olfactory trademark, a luminous… thing… was taking shape behind the two figures. Suddenly it acquired a face, then eyes. Then arms, reaching out, encircling.

Patrick had a horrid, instantaneous flash of recognition. The portrait in John Fast’s office. Mephistopheles taking Faust.

“The name of the student is Lilas Blanc,” said Paul Bleeker metallically. “State U— “

“Oh, God, NO!” screamed Patrick.

The candle blew out instantly. Paul struggled in his chair. “Hey, what… where?” he knocked the chair over getting up.

The voices rose up around Patrick in the darkness.

He dropped in a groaning heap on the grass. “Lilas, Shan, forgive me. I didn’t know.” But he must have known. All along.

And now his mind began to swing like a pendulum, faster and faster, finally oscillating in a weird rhythm of patterns so bewildering and contradictory that he could hardly follow them. His mind said to him, they escaped. It said to him, they did not escape. It said to him, they were there. It said, nothing was there. And then it started again. His throat constricted, his teeth bit the turf, and by brazen command his thoughts slowed their wounded flailing. He ceased to ask, to wonder. And finally he refused to think at all.

He heard Cord’s firm voice. Somebody found the light switch. There were querulous whispers. And then there was something on his back. Some of them had dropped their jackets on him. A man’s hand lingered briefly on his shoulder. It was a gentle, even affectionate gesture, and he recognized the touch as that of a man accustomed to tucking small children into their beds at night. He had used the same touch, many times, and long ago.

And now the sound of footsteps fading. And then, motors starting. And finally nothing, just the splash of the little falls, the crickets, and far away, the whippoorwill.

He did not want to move. He wanted only never to have been born.

He closed his eyes, and sleep locked him in.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which, as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.

— Francis Bacon, Preface to Maxims of the Law

It was early morning, and with the pink of dawn on his cheek, waking was instantaneous. His mind was clear and serene as he threw the jackets aside and got to his feet. He rubbed his eyes, stretched with enormous gusto, and walked over to the lily pond. A green frog was sitting on a pad of the yellow lotus, but jumped in as Patrick bent over to splash water on his face. He dried his face on his shirttail, which was flopping out over his belt.

The sun was now barely over the little hill, and a shaft of light was slicing into the pond. Patrick considered this phenomenon briefly, then peered into the bottom of the pool for the refracted beam. There was some kind of rule of optics— law of sines. Somebody’s law. Check into it. Meanwhile, there was work to be done. Important work.

He walked into the arbor, picked up the overturned iron chair, sat down at the stone table, and pulled a pencil and paper pad out of the drawer. After a moment, he began to write; slowly, at first.

“Ex parte Gulliksen revisited. The typewritten college thesis as a prior printed publication. This decision from the Patent Office Board of Appeals in…”

Then faster and faster. “…essential, of course, that the thesis be available to the public. This requirement is satisfied by…”

Now, he was writing furiously, and the pages were accumulating.

He was going to make it. Just a question of staying with it, now, and it would give him complete protection. No need to worry about what to work on after this article, either. He knew he could turn out a text. No trouble at all. Or even an encyclopedia. Patrick, “Chemical Patent Practice,” four volumes. He could see it now. Red vinyl covers, gilt lettering.

The stack of sheets torn from his pad was now quite bulky. He pushed the pile to the table corner, and in so doing knocked the bottle and candle unheeding to the ground and into the withering lilacs. Already he could visualize his “Preface to the First Edition.” It should be something special, based perhaps on a precisely apt quotation. What was that thing from Bacon? He frowned, puzzled. No. There was something not quite right about that. But never mind. Plenty of others. Somehow, somewhere, there would be a word for him.

Published by Alexandria Digital Literature.

(http://www.alexlit.com/)

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