2
It was only a short time later that Tom heard the sound of tires on thedrive. He went out to find that it was Sandy in the beach-wagon. Thename Sandy fitted her, even if it was short for Sandra. Blonde, withsomething of a tendency to freckle, she had a quick alertness that wasalmost tomboyish. Almost, but not quite, for she was very much a woman.
"Need help?" Tom asked, giving her a quick kiss and moving to the backto start unloading the bundles. "How did you make out?"
"Not bad," she said; "In fact, it was fun. I don't know whether it wasworth it or not; it's a long drive down there. Maybe I saved enough topay for the gasoline. But they're more used to dealing with the clans.The stores around here play both sides of the fence. Much more congenialatmosphere down there."
Tom could guess what she meant. The clans, buying in semi-quantity fortheir groups of people, could demand and get preferential treatment of asort. But a number of the stores that still wanted the business ofprivate individuals--many of whom were bitterly anti-clan--did theirbest to balance the issue with a lack of courtesy. He looked at the girlwith sympathy but she seemed cheerfully unconcerned. She was, hethought, the kind to take that kind of treatment without a murmur ofcomplaint, and without giving any overt recognition to it. And yet shewas also the kind to feel it deep inside her.
When the car was unloaded, they sat down at the kitchen table to rest amoment. Tom sat back in his chair, eyes brooding. It was not for severalminutes that he noticed that Sandy was watching him, her chin on herpalms, her elbows on the table. And he knew that she knew he wastroubled and was waiting to see if he wanted to talk about it. "Rickythinks we ought to decide about Marcia, tonight," he said, his voicesounding blunt even to himself.
"You mean whether we should take her in or not?" she asked.
"Yeah," Tom answered. "He thinks we should, whether she fits ornot--just so we can get the contract with Eltron Electric. Becauseotherwise we would have to pull up stakes and go take that thing atUniversal."
"And you don't think we should?" she prompted.
"No, I don't," he said. "It seems to me like we'd be selling out if wedid that. Maybe I'm being a purist about it, but damn it all...."
"But you can stop it easily," she said. "According to the charter, avote of membership has to be unanimous. All you have to do is say no."
"Yeah--well, that's true," he said. "Only this is more than that. Thatrule is just about ordinary members, the idea being to keep feuds out.If somebody isn't going to be able to get along with a new member, whylet's find it out at the start. And, since the old member is moreimportant than the new one, let's block the new one.
"But this thing's different; this isn't just a case of whether she'scompatible or not. I have nothing against Marcia, personally; I justdon't like this way of doing business. But this ties up our wholefuture, economic and everything else. If I blackball her, I'mblackballing our contract with Eltron; and matters of contract, oreconomics, or whatall, are not supposed to be subject to veto. No ... Iwon't vote against her all by my lonesome. If the clan is pretty wellsplit, maybe I will pull a technicality. But I won't just up andblackball her all by myself, just because I think I'm right."
Sandy was thoughtful. "What about this job at Eltron," she asked,finally. "Can we swing it? It's bigger than the job here at Midland, andbigger than the one at Universal. Is it too big?"
"No," Tom said. "We can handle it. Oh, we may have to hire a few privatecitizens, but we can do most of it ourselves. If we can average ninepeople a week, we'll be all right. And we can' do that if we leave twoto take care of the kids, one to manage the house and cook and all, andone to fill in, taking care of other outside matters, having babies, andwhatnot. But even if we can only average eight ourselves, it is stillreasonable with a couple of private citizens. No, I'm not afraid of thejob."
"It'll be funny working alongside of private citizens," Sandy said,musingly; "I hope we pick better ones than those guys at SanfordRadio."
Tom laughed. "We will," he said. "The trouble there was that we didn'thire them; the company did. And the guys were good enough--they justdidn't like the clans."
"That's one way of putting it," Sandy said. "They just had somepreconceived ideas as to what kind of woman would join a clan. Happensthey were wrong, but it took a bit of jiujitsu to convince them."
"Well, that won't happen here," Tom said. "We'll be hiring themourselves, and we'll probably be able to pick up all we want from theother assembly clans. Times are rough all over, and they're not tooloaded with work, either. Of course, the rest of the plant is anothermatter; but I don't think there'll be any open trouble. Things havegotten a little better since those early days. People know a little moreabout the clans, even if they don't approve."
"So there is just the question of whether we want to do it, or not," shesaid. He nodded but said nothing. "And you would much rather we didn'twant to.... Tell me, what's she like? I've only seen her the couple oftimes that Ricky's brought her to lunch."
"That's about all I have," Tom answered. "Oh, I've seen her out at herold man's place a couple of times, too, but then I was working on theold man. As far as I know, she is what she seems to be. Beautiful in away. A bit of a mantrap. Probably spoiled. I don't know. What did youthink of her?"
"That's a damning sketch if I ever heard one," Sandy said. "I wonder ifthat's all there is to her. Is she just a spoiled brat with awell-developed body? Is that all she is? What's her background like? Imean aside from money?"
"Background?" Tom hesitated. "Well, she went through college, somewheresor other. She's traveled in Europe a bit Generally circulated around.Cultured, I guess you'd call it.
"Certainly her old man knows what it's about. He's quite a character,you know. Very dignified, very polished. Fine oak paneling in his study.Lots of books, and he's probably read them, too. Quite a collection ofclassical music, and he knows his way around it too--at least he knowsmore about it than I do. The very picture of a cultured gentleman. Andit is with a perfectly gentlemanly manner that he tears you apart intolittle pieces."
"Oh?" Sandy raised her eyebrow. "What happened?"
Tom smiled ruefully; "We had an argument." He shrugged. "The clansversus Free-Trading. He has a fine and delicate hand with sarcasm. No, Itake that back. I don't know whether it was sarcasm or not; maybe hewas just leading me out. Anyway, I came out of there feeling as if I'dbeen wrung dry."
He was silent a moment, and Sandy made no move to break his thoughts."The logical question here, of course, is to what extent this makes methink the way I do. And maybe it does, I don't know. I'm afraid of theguy; I got the feeling he knows exactly what he's doing and why. And Ithink he may be too strong for us."
"You think we might end up as his puppets?" Sandy said, her voiceneutral.
"Something like that," Tom admitted. "Oh, I know that's probably afoolish thought. In fact, now that I look at it, I know it is. The guyjust impressed me; frankly I came out feeling somewhat awed by him. I'mnot used to the feeling. I guess it's just that he comes from abackground that I don't know anything about."
Sandy pursed her lips and nodded. There was a pixyish gleam to her eyesas she got up and started towards the door. As she left she asked him:"And Marcia, is she anything like her old man?" She was out the door andgone before he realized what her question meant.
He sat there, staring after her for five full minutes before he got upand started to put the food away.