Page 135 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

The Quantum Reticulator

Simeon Gibbons didn’t answer the bell—not for the first time, as
I would have expected; nor the last, as I was to find out. Preceded by
a reputation for tardiness, his absence at the time and place of my
appointment with him was unsurprising. From the dossier I’d been
studying, I concluded he conformed in many ways to the absent-
minded-professor stereotype: forgetful of objects and obligations,
careless in personal habits and socially inept. It was also clear,
however, that he was single-minded in the pursuit of his goals. That
put him squarely in the category of reliable crackpots: nothing could
deflect or distract him from the straight and narrow path of his
obsessions.
The prophets, pundits and pariahs for whom I had been chosen
by Al Magnus to act as proxy fairy godmother all possessed that
unswerving incorruptibility of purpose; I surmised that it was an
absolute prerequisite for them to be on the list. Otherwise they could
easily take the money—attached to very tenuous strings, owing to
Magnus’s need and my desire to remain untraceable after the gift had
been accepted—and decamp to sunnier climes and less refractive
problems. I was certain Magnus himself shared that trait; thus he
could be sensitive to it in others. At any rate, by now I had
abandoned any suspicion that his intended recipients of sufficient
funds to realize their schemes might suddenly change their minds
once they had the largesse in hand.
I hadn’t long to wait, fortunately. Gibbons scuttled up the
walkway to his ramshackle residence while I leaned on a button
which might not have been activating a doorbell somewhere within.
“I’m almost home now,” said he, to my back. Following that
precise expression he cackled, a high-pitched nasal noise I instantly
detested. Of course, I was all smiles when I turned to greet him.
“Professor Gibbons, I presume? I am E. Petty Larson,
representing the Psychometrics Research Foundation. We talked
yesterday on the telephone, you may recall, and arranged to meet here
today at this hour.” I had taken on a rather formal tone and manner
for this job, as well as a somber suit worthy of a small-town
undertaker.
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