LEX
By W. T. HAGGERT
Illustrated by WOOD
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1959.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Nothing in the world could be happier and
mere serene than a man who loves his work—but
what happens when it loves him back?
Keep your nerve, Peter Manners told himself; it's only a job. But nervehas to rest on a sturdier foundation than cash reserves just above zeroand eviction if he came away from this interview still unemployed.Clay, at the Association of Professional Engineers, who had set up theappointment, hadn't eased Peter's nervousness by admitting, "I don'tknow what in hell he's looking for. He's turned down every man we'vesent him."
The interview was at three. Fifteen minutes to go. Coming early wouldbetray overeagerness. Peter stood in front of the Lex Industries plantand studied it to kill time. Plain, featureless concrete walls, notlarge for a manufacturing plant—it took a scant minute to exhaust itssightseeing potential. If he walked around the building, he could, ifhe ambled, come back to the front entrance just before three.
He turned the corner, stopped, frowned, wondering what there was aboutthe building that seemed so puzzling. It could not have been plainer,more ordinary. It was in fact, he only gradually realized, so plain andordinary that it was like no other building he had ever seen.
There had been windows at the front. There were none at the side, andnone at the rear. Then how were the working areas lit? He looked forthe electric service lines and found them at one of the rear corners.They jolted him. The distribution transformers were ten times as largeas they should have been for a plant this size.
Something else was wrong. Peter looked for minutes before he found outwhat it was. Factories usually have large side doorways for employeeschanging shifts. This building had one small office entrance facing thestreet, and the only other door was at the loading bay—big enough tohandle employee traffic, but four feet above the ground. Without anystairs, it could be used only by trucks backing up to it. Maybe theemployees' entrance was on the third side.
It wasn't.
Staring back at the last blank wall, Peter suddenly remembered the timehe had set out to kill. He looked at his watch and gasped. At a run,set to straight-arm the door, he almost fell on his face. The door hadopened by itself. He stopped and looked for a photo-electric eye, buta soft voice said through a loudspeaker in the anteroom wall: "Mr.Manners?"
"What?" he panted. "Who—?"
"You are Mr. Manners?" the voice asked.
He nodded, then realized he had to answer aloud if there was amicrophone around; but the soft voice said: "Follow the open doors downthe hall. Mr. Lexington is expecting you."
"Thanks," Peter said, and a door at one side of the anteroom swung openfor him.
He went through it with his composure slipping still further from hisgrip. This was no way to go into an interview, but doors kept openingbefore and shutting after him, until only one was left, and the last ofhis calm was blasted away by a bellow from within.
"Don't stand out there like a jackass! Either come in or go away!"
Peter found himself leaping obediently toward the doorway. He stoppedjust short of it, took a deep breath and huffed it out, took another,all the while thinking, Hold on no