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"Eileen . . . ?" he said.
But there was no response. Eileen was once again out of contact. It did not
matter. He was sure now he could reach her any time he really wanted to do so.
He went down into the platform, desuited, and descended to Marti's office.
Waiting for him there was not only Marti and Ethrya but Jai, also. Marti, at
least, was in no good hu-mor. He questioned
Chaz several times over about exactly what he had experienced after Ethrya
left him. Chaz, a veteran of such inquisitions since he had been ten years
old, calmly repeated that he had felt a slight dizziness after being left
alone by Ethrya; but that this had cleared up immediately and afterwards he
had made contact with the Mass. He was factual in his description of what it
had been like, once contact had been made;
except that he made no mention of his conversation with Ei-leen.
The interview followed classical lines, according to Chaz' experience. Having
failed to make any dent in Chaz' story, Marti fell into a tempo-rary silence,
drumming his fingers on his desk top.
"Of course," he said at last, "we've only got your word for it that you made
Mass contact. That, in itself, could be a hallucination like the
hal-lucination you evidently had the first time you were up there with Jai.
Don't you think so, Jai?"
"I suppose," said Jai. The tall man looked, Chaz thought, somewhat
un-comfortable.
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"In which case, with two halluci-nations in a row, we probably shouldn't let
you up on the Mass again for fear you might hurt your-self permanently "
"Wait a minute!" said Chaz.Marti broke off, staring at him.
"You may be Director here," said Chaff, grimly. "But maybe you'll tell me if
it's normal practice to take a man off the Mass permanently be-cause of a
first instance in which you only suspect he hallucinated, and a second
instance in which he says he made contact. What did you do when the other
workers first came down saying they'd made contact? Did you suggest they'd
been halluci-nating? Or did you take their word for it? Should I ask around
and find out, in case you've forgotten?"
Marti's face went darkly furious. But before he could answer, Ethrya had
stopped him with a small hand on his arm.
"We're only trying to protect you, Chaz," she said. "Isn't that right, Jai?"
"That's right," said Jai. "And Chaz, there are reasons other than
hallucinations for barring people from the Mass. The Director has to have
authority for the good of all the work being done here. On the other hand . .
." he looked at Marti, ap-pealingly.
Marti had himself back under control.
"All right," he said dryly. "If you feel that strongly, Chaz, you can have
another try at the Mass. But one more instance of suspected hal-lucination and
you're off it permanently."
"Good." Chaz, sensing a psycho-logical victory, got to his feet quickly. "I'm
ready to go back up right now."
"No," said Marti, definitely. "We'll want at least to give you a thorough
checkup and keep you un-der medical observation for a few days. You can
understand that, I hope. You'd better report to the Medical
Section now." He reached out and punched on the desk phone before him. "I'll
let them know you're on your way down."
In actuality, it was eight days, as those in the platform counted them, before
Chaz was able to get back up on the Mass. The Medical Section held on to him
for tests and observa-tions for three days, then bucked the matter back up to
Marti, with a re-port they would not let Chaz see.
But I don't see why you should worry very much," said the physician in charge
of Chaz' case, unofficially.
Marti, however, decided to take time to consider the report. He con-sidered
through a fourth and fifth day of idleness for Chaz. The sixth day found Chaz
camping in Marti's outer office, without success.
The seventh day, Chaz went to find Jai.
"I came out here to work," Chaz told the tall Assistant Director, bluntly.
"I'm able to work. He knows it. I don't care how you put it to him, but say I
know I'm getting different handling than anyone else on the
Mass who's qualified to work is gets ting; and if I'm not cleared to go
up-stairs tomorrow, I'm going to start finding ways to fight for my rights.
And take my word for it I'm good at finding ways to fight when
I have to."
"Chaz . . ." protested Jai, softly, "that's the wrong attitude. Leb has to
think of the good of the Mass and the people working here as a whole "
He broke off, looking away from Chaz' eyes, which had remained un-movingly on
those of the
Assistant Director all the while.
"All right," said Jai, with a sigh. "I'll talk to Leb."
He went off. The morning of the next day he came to Chaz.
"Leb says there's only one way you can prove you made contact with the Mass,"
Jai said. "That's by doing some work on it that will show up as an obvious
addition to it, in the perceptions of the other workers. Do that, and you'll
have proved your case. But he'll only give you one more shot at it. Leb says
you can go up and take that shot right now; or you can take as long as you
like to get ready before trying it."
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"Or, in other words," said Chaz, "I can sit around until self-doubt starts to
creep in. No thanks. I'll go up now. Want to come along with me and take a
look at my airsuit before I put it on, to make sure it's all right?"
Jai stared at him.
"Why wouldn't your airsuit be all right?"
"I have no idea," said Chaz, blandly. "Why don't you have a look at it
anyway?"
Jai stared at him a second longer, then nodded with sudden vigor.
"All right," he said. "I'll do that. In fact, I'll go out on the Mass with
you, unless you have some objec-tion."
"No objection. Let's go."
They went upstairs, where Jai ac-tually did examine Chaz' airsuit carefully
before they dressed and went out. They went up a nearby mast and changed to a
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