straightened and pushed through the creaking gate. Flagstone stepscurved toward the porch, and he minced along them, uncertain, now thathe had arrived, of what he would say to Millet. The damned house, hethought--so different from what he had expected; it had thrown his wholethinking out of order.
He hated himself for feeling uneasy.
There was neither vodor nor contact system of any kind at the door, andhe brushed his hand against his forehead in a gesture of frustration. Hestared at his palm--it had come away wet with sweat, and he wondered ifit were all because of the desert sun.
Tentatively, he banged on the door with his fist. There was no answer.
_Damn Millet_, he thought, wiping his forehead again. Why couldn't theman have a videophone like any normal person so you could find out if hewere home without taking a trip halfway across the country?
He turned, stamping angrily as he did so, and was startled to see a man,wearing work clothes and holding a pair of heavy soiled gloves in hisleft hand, standing on the ground by the end of the porch. He was nearlybald, intensely bronzed, and he was smiling.
"Wondered when you'd see me." He nodded toward the gate. "I was standingright there when you came up. You just breezed right past." His smilebroadened. "You were so interested in being surprised that you couldn'tsee what you came for."
"It must have been that damned glare," muttered Walker, shaking hishead. Then, impolitely, "Are you Millet?"
"Otto Millet," the other replied, inclining his head slightly. "You'refrom the government. I can tell because of the uniform, you see." Walkerflushed. "The government hasn't thought about me in a number of years,"the scientist added. He came up onto the porch and peered at the symbolon the left lapel of Walker's jacket. "Ah! Alma mater. WeaponsDevelopment." He squinted at Walker. "David Walker, I presume?" Hechuckled loudly but Walker failed to see the humor. "I remember you, yousee; what a shame you can't return the compliment."
"It's hot out here," complained Walker, in growing discomfort.
Millet opened the door. "Won't you come in? It's better inside."
There it was again, thought Walker; the insolence, the imperturbablesmile. He grunted and went in; it was, mercifully, considerably cooler.
He looked around. It was a very cluttered living room, not messy buttossed about with the artifacts that the man obviously liked to havearound him. There was an ancient painting by Bonestell hanging on onewall, a startlingly accurate twentieth-century concept of the appearanceof Mars; several long pipe racks, filled to overflowing, in variousspots around the room; a typewriter on a table in a corner, and piles ofpaper; books lining the walls, and stacked on the floor in heaps and onthe table beside the typewriter; a map of the earth on the wall abovethe typewriter, a three-dimensional Waterson projection. The furniturewas clean but--not old; _lived with_.
Walker went over to the wall map and peered closely.
"One of Waterson's first," remarked Millet, closing the door. "Sit down,Walker, and tell me all about Weapons Development. How is the massmurder department doing these days?"
Walker felt his ears redden and he was arrested in the very act ofsitting down. "Really," he said, "it's not something we _like_ to thinkabout, you know."
"Suppose not." Millet fiddled with several pipes in a rack beside hischair, selected one, and began filling it with rough-cut tobacco from abattered canister. "To business, then. Why the visit?"
Walker cleared his throat and tried to remember the little prefatoryweasel words he had painfully assembled during the flight from Omaha."First of all, Dr. Millet, I find myself a little embarrassed. Afterall, your parting from government service was not of the happiest naturefor you--"
"Don't be foolish. Happiest day of my life, Walker."
Walker had a sudden sense of being impaled, and the rest of the littlespeech was dissipated in the wave of shock which swept over him. Heforced his mouth shut, and gasped, "You're not serious!"
Millet shook out his second match and puffed until the pipe bowl glowedwarmly, edge to edge. "Of course I'm serious." He jabbed his pipe atWalker. "You like your job?"
"It's a job that has to be done."
Millet smiled and shrugged. "You haven't really answered my question."
Walker, sensing that he had already lost control of the conversation,waved his hands in dismissal. "Well, that is not really important. Thefact remains, you did leave Weapons Development at the ... ah ...request of the government."
"Talk on, talk on--you'll get to the point eventually. When you'rethrough, I'd like to show you around the place. I'm very proud of mygardens. You're sort of responsible for them, you know."
Walker set his jaw and bored ahead. "However, at the time you leftgovernment service, you were pursuing certain lines of research--"
Millet leaned back and began laughing, his eyes squinted shut. "Walker,don't tell me they want me _back_!"
It seemed his chance to dominate the discussion again. "I don't thinkyou'd be allowed back."
"Good," said Millet, looking up, his laughter fading into a smile. "Iwas a bit concerned for a moment."
There was silence in the room. Walker began to wish that he weresomewhere else: Millet simply baffled him. He obviously did not careabout his disgrace. Walker felt a resurgence of the old resentment.
Millet's face suddenly became very kindly. "Perhaps, as a fellowscientist"--Walker almost winced, and knew, furiously, that his responsehad shown--"you would be interested in knowing what I've been doingsince my unhappy marriage with bureaucracy ended."
It was a welcome gambit, and Walker accepted it eagerly. "I certainlywould. One of the reasons I came here, as a matter of fact."
Millet waved his pipe. "Good. Afterwards, you can stop beating aroundthe bush, eh?"
"Yes, of course," mumbled Walker.
"You know," said Millet as he got up and went to a bookcase, "a man'sgot to earn a living. Do much reading?"
"Not these days. Used to." He scratched a cigarette on the sole of hisshoe and inhaled hugely. "Not enough time these days for reading."
Millet reached into the bookcase and came out with a stack of magazines."Well, that's how I make my living." He handed the stack to Walker."Writing. Use a pen name of course." He chuckled. "Writeeverything--always happiest doing science fiction, though."
Walker flipped through the magazines; he looked up. "Obviously, you'redoing rather well at it."
"Have been for the last seven or eight years. Lot of fun."
"And this has been your life since you left us?" Walker set the stack ofmagazines aside. "Seems a waste of genius, somehow."
"As a matter of fact, this is not my life's work. As I said, a man's gotto earn a living. This is just a lucrative hobby that pays the way. Yousee, I've been involved in an expensive research program."
"Ah." Walker sat forward and smashed out his cigarette. "This may beimportant."
"Oh, it is, it is. But not, I am afraid, in the way you mean."
"You can never tell. What have you been doing?"
"Completing a unified theory of life. Why a crystal grows but isn'talive, why an organism that dies isn't like a crystal. What is theprocess we call life? What is its relationship to the space-timecontinuum--"
He said it so casually that Walker was caught off his guard completely."Are you serious, Millet?" he said.
"Certainly. I expect to publish in about two years."
"Is this an independent effort?"
"Not entirely. Others have contributed. Some pioneers long dead, someamong the living." His eyes twinkled. "You see, important things besidethe development of weapons of destruction do continue in the scientificworld. Did you think that was the end of everything for me, ten yearsago?" He shook his head in mock gravity. "It was just the beginning. I_wanted_ out, you see."
"You wanted out?" Walker leaned forward, unwilling to believe what hehad heard. "Are you trying to tell me that you _arranged_ yourdischarge?"
Millet shrugged. "Why, of course. Nobody ever has bothered to ask meabout t
hat up to now, but I certainly did arrange it. It wasn't hard,you know. All I had to do was set up some sort of relationship with aso-called security risk, and I was on my way out."
"Why ... that's damned near treason."
"Don't be silly. I had other important things to do. In order to dothem--to continue work on the unified life theory--it was necessary forme to contact scientists with whom professional relationships were