“You do?” He seemed on the verge of inexpressible relief.
“I know it morally. I would have been notified! It may be that those incalculable damned fools have started some sort of a crazy air-alert practice again. They did it before, you’ll remember. It could even be a real foul-up-an alert the military started, because they made some error. That has happened. But—”
Beau’s hope was perishing before her eyes. “If you’d step into Mr. Pavley’s office, where there’s a TV set… ”
“I will,” Minerva said. “I will. Because, believe me, this hysteria has got to stop!”
Her first, creepy inkling came when she saw the live show in progress at the local station.
The actors were saying their rather stupid lines, but merely saying them. Their gestures were somewhat alien to their words. And their eyes kept straying from the business in hand, as if they were watching something or somebody in the studio, rather than playing to each other. It was not, as Beau had said, normal.
Minerva picked up a phone. She dialed a number. It was busy, so she tried another. She gave that up because she got the busy signal with the first digit: the automatic switching station was busy as a whole. “ Something’s happening,” she admitted.
She went out on the Boor of the bank. Her eyes roved over the place slowly, from the vaulted windows to the huge light fixtures that hung down on chains from the remote ceiling; she looked at the balcony that ran around three sides and at the figures moving there hurriedly. She gazed at the spread of gleaming marble, big as a skating rink, usually peopled by hurrying depositors, people making withdrawals, people doing business—with her. From nowhere, unwonted, a line came into her mind: This, too, shall pass away.
It annoyed her greatly. But it alarmed her slightly, too.
Another thought entered her busy brain. Suppose, right now, the sirens let go? Whether in earnest or in some crazed drill, they would catch her here. Right here. In the middle of town, in the bank. At best, she’d he delayed for hours, getting home. At worst! But the worst was preposterous.