Dead as a Dinosaur (11 page)

As Tyrannosauria went, this one was not prodigious. Some millions of years ago it had become personally extinct before reaching full growth, so that the skeleton stood not more than twice the size of a tall man and was barely thirty feet in length. No doubt its fellow Dinosauria had considered it something of a runt. It still showed big teeth to Pamela, who looked up at it.

“My,” Pam repeated. “Whatever he says, people are better. And what difference does it make if they
did
live?”

“People like to read about them,” Gerald North said, speaking as a publisher and removing the boxed manuscript from beneath his coat, where it had been sheltered from the rain. “Fortunately,” he added. “I'll find somebody to talk to.”

He consulted a guard. Pamela walked thoughtfully around the medium-size Tyrannosaurus, shaking her head. Nature had once been unrestrained. Tyrannosaurus, when clothed and on its hind legs, had been a very showy animal, even an excessive one.

Jerry North intercepted his wife; asked whether she wanted to stay among the exhibits or go with him to see Dr. Agee. “Paul Agee,” he amplified. “The director.”

Pam chose the human and, on reaching the third floor by elevator, the director's office down a long corridor by foot, was glad she had. Introduced, Dr. Agee showed his teeth also, but in a smile. He was a slight man, hardly larger than Preson had been, but a good deal more self-contained. He sat behind a modern desk in a modern office. He was, it proved, also efficient. He said that Dr. Orpheus Preson was, indeed, a great loss, not only to the Institute but to science. He said this as if he meant it, but he did not brood over it. As for the book—

“I'm told he left everything to the Institute,” Dr. Agee said. “I'm not surprised. His life was here, I felt. He had signed a contract for this, I assume?” He indicated the manuscript.

“Yes,” Jerry told him.

“Binding on his heirs, of course?” Dr. Agee said.

“Oh yes,” Jerry said.

“Excellent,” Dr. Agee said. “We were all pleased with the success of the first volume—all of us here. You people did an admirable job. Wouldn't have thought there were so many people interested in paleozoology.”

“It was an excellent book,” Jerry told him.

Dr. Agee knew. He had read it. He had been surprised, as well as pleased. He had not known that Dr. Preson, whom he knew as a good—a very good—mammal man, had this—“knack,” should he call it?

“Scientists often have, as a matter of fact,” Jerry told him. “Do you want a copy of the contract?”

As a form, only as a form, Dr. Agee supposed it would be more businesslike. It was, however, early days, and he pointed this out to Jerry. The will had not yet been filed; until it was, the whole matter remained in, should he say,
incertae sedis?
He agreed, without prompting, that this was entirely a formality. At any rate, he assumed so?

So did Gerald North, and said so. Meanwhile, there were practical matters. Jerry explained the most pressing—the manuscript was not completed.

It might, presumably, be published as it stood. Jerry would know more when he had finished reading it. Possibly—and here he looked involuntarily at Pam—they were premature. But, if they were to try to complete volume two of
The Days Before Man
, they would need scientific help. Provisionally, could Dr. Agee suggest someone?

“Steck,” Dr. Agee suggested without hesitation. “Far and away the best—” He stopped, and looked from one to another of the Norths. “The name seems to mean something,” he said.

“Dr. Preson mentioned Dr. Steck once or twice,” Jerry said. “There seemed to be an area of disagreement.”

“Oh, that,” Dr. Agee said, and waved a hand. “Nothing to that. One calls the other a ‘splitter'; the other calls the first a ‘lumper.' A technical disagreement about taxonomy. Actually, neither's primarily a taxonomist. Both very good zoologists. Both primarily mammal men although Preson did some very good work on invertebrates and Steck's excellent on reptiles. Set up Teddy downstairs.”

“Teddy?” Pam North said.

“Oh,” Dr. Agee said, and for a moment looked a little embarrassed. “Force of habit. The Tyrannosaurus in the Great Hall. It—er—reminded somebody of—”

“Paleopolitics,” Pam North said.

Dr. Agee was surprised and showed it. But then he laughed. “Exactly,” he said. “The teeth, of course.”

“To get back,” he said, then. “I do suggest Steck, if you find you need somebody. He's a very good general man in zoology—paleozoology, neozoology. He writes very agreeably, it seems to me, although that isn't my line, of course. We'd feel great confidence in him for a job like this. And, of course, it's in the family.”

“You mean he works here, too?” Pam North said. She was surprised, this time.

“Why—yes,” the director of Broadly said. “He works here.” His voice put the faintest possible emphasis on the word “works.” “He's associated with us,” he added. “As a matter of fact, he'll probably take over mammals. Been an associate, you know.”

“With Dr. Preson?” Jerry North said.

“Yes,” Agee said. “For the past year or so. Before that, he was with the Museum.” He smiled. “Quite a compliment to us, his coming here,” he said. “Usually the other way about, if they can make it.”

There had been, of course, no particular reason why Dr. Preson, in his discussion of Dr. Steck as a possible persecutor, should have mentioned that Steck, too, was a Broadly Institute man. Probably, Jerry realized, Dr. Preson had assumed it was a fact generally known, as Jerry himself might assume the connection of a Mr. Cerf with Random House to be a phenomenon universally recognized. Then he realized, simultaneously, why he was surprised and the element he had overlooked: When he had written Steck for his opinion of
The Days Before Man
, Steck had been with the American Museum of Natural History. That had been two years ago. All that had happened was that, subsequently, Steck had changed jobs. Or, as Dr. Agee obviously would prefer, “associations.”

“Didn't they fight?” Pam North said. “Over—splits and lumps?”

“Certainly not,” Dr. Agee said. “I explained that. A minor scientific disagreement.” He smiled. “I realize Dr. Preson could be—emphatic,” he said. “That his emphasis might be misleading to people in another field.”

Probably that was it, Jerry thought; probably it did not come to more than that.

“I don't want to seem insistent,” Dr. Agee said. “But if you're thinking of what Dr. Preson's wishes would have been, I'm quite sure he would have approved Steck. After all, this isn't a Classification. We're not competing with Dr. Simpson. A difference in taxonomic approach hardly arises. Why not talk to Steck, when you're ready? Or now, if you like?”

“After I've—” Jerry began to say, but Pam said, more clearly, “Why
don't
you see him now, Jerry?”

“Well,” Jerry said.

“Since we're here,” Pam pointed out.

Dr. Agee communicated by telephone with Dr. Steck, found him available, advised him of the approach of Mr. and Mrs. North. The Norths stood up to go. Then Pam said, “Do you happen to know a Mr. Landcraft, Dr. Agee? A Mr. Jesse—”

Agee had stood up behind his desk, smiling them out. He ceased to smile. He shook his head.

“Poor old Landcraft,” he said. “Preson's brother-in-law. Yes, I know him. Why?”

Pam had, she said, merely wondered.

“Used to be an invertebrate man,” Dr. Agee said. “Quite sound, once. But he doesn't do much now, I'm afraid. Er—bad health. That is, not the man he was, I'm afraid. Why did you ask?”

Pamela North amplified, this time. She said they had just met him. She said she had just happened to ask. She said—“oh, he talked a little strangely.”

“I'm afraid so,” Dr. Agee said. “He does, I've heard. His interests have become channeled. Is that what you mean?”

Pam thought for a moment. It was one way of putting it, certainly. So she said, “Yes.”

“Nothing that's happened in thousands of years means anything, really,” she added. “I mean since thousands of years ago. That's what he made me feel.”

“Millions of years, probably,” Dr. Agee said. “Of course, we all get a certain frame of reference. Our interests get special. Perhaps our values do. It may be that Landcraft carries it to extremes. But—why? He isn't involved in the book?”

“Oh no,” Pam said. “I'm just—curious. He is very happy that the Institute is going to get Dr. Preson's money. Even if Dr. Preson did have to die first.”

Dr. Agee merely regarded her, his eyebrows slightly raised, his attention polite.

“The acquisition of knowledge,” Pam North said, “seems to him more important than life. At least, he spoke that way.”

“Academically, it is, of course,” Dr. Agee said.

“I only wondered if he recognizes any difference,” Pam said. “He said he didn't, actually. But people say things.” She waited, but the director of Broadly, after a moment, did no more than shake his head. “Why would Dr. Preson kill himself, Dr. Agee?”

“We've all wondered,” Agee said. “I suppose he'd been overworking. Although when he was in last—” He broke off. “Is there any doubt he did?”

“Oh, apparently not,” Pam said. “But we're keeping Dr. Steck waiting, aren't we?”

Dr. Agee, who looked as if he were moving through a fog, did not deny this. He repeated directions for reaching the office of the new curator of Fossil Mammals. They went along a corridor from Dr. Agee's corner office, overlooking Fifth Avenue, down a long central corridor and found a door with a printed sign, “Albert James Steck, Associate Curator, Fossil Mammals.” The door stood a little open and, after knocking and receiving no response, the Norths opened it wider and looked in.

They looked into a large room, lined with books. At the end were two tall windows, in need of washing. Under the windows was a long table, covered with objects. Halfway down the room, on the right, was a desk, its back to the book-lined wall, and at it there was a large man, crouched over the desk, his head resting on his hands. From the distance of the doorway, his attitude appeared to be one of the utmost depression. Jerry North knocked again on the now largely opened door. Nothing happened. “Er-ah!” Jerry North said. The man looked up.

“Come in,” he said. His voice was very deep. “Come in.” He considered them. “Everybody does,” he added.

The Norths went in. Dr. Albert James Steck stood up. He was a very large man indeed, being both tall and wide. He had a round, tanned face; his gray hair, cut short and bristling upward, grew vigorously, and low on his forehead. He spoke again, and his voice rumbled.

“You the people Agee called about?” he asked. “People about Preson's book?”

Jerry agreed. The Norths walked toward the large man at a desk which, as he bulked over it, seemed inadequate.

“Trying to get some work done,” Dr. Steck said. “Always trying to get some work done. Too bad about Preson.”

The Norths continued their advance.

“Mr. and Mrs. North. That's who you are,” Dr. Steck rumbled. “Thought you were detectives.”

Jerry explained that, as well as it could be explained. He also explained, more fully than Dr. Agee had on the telephone, his present mission. Before he finished, Dr. Steck was shaking his head. As he finished, Dr. Steck said, “Not your man. Sit down, anyway.” He looked at two chairs by the desk. Both were already occupied, one with half a dozen books, piled precariously; the other with a box containing small bones. Dr. Steck came around his desk, removed the books from the chair, looked around the room, appeared to despair, and put the books on the floor. The box of bones he put on his desk. The Norths thanked him and sat down.

“I'm not a writer,” Dr. Steck said. “Preson was. That's what it comes to.”

“Dr. Agee doesn't agree,” Jerry told him.

“Good of him,” Steck said. “Perhaps he's not a judge, though. Actually he's an ethnology man, you know. Although I don't really know that that proves anything, does it?” Then, for the first time, he smiled. The smile faded quickly. “Too damn bad about Preson, isn't it? Everybody loses.”

“Except the Institute,” Pam North said.

“Everybody,” Dr. Steck repeated, his deep voice rumbling. “The Institute gets a few thousands—and loses one of the best men in the field. When it comes to that, Preson financed a good deal of work here anyway. Just before—just the other day—he agreed to put up the money for an expedition in the southwest. We hear there are some interesting things down there. Leave out his taxonomy—he was an outrageous lumper, you know—and there wasn't a sounder man anywhere. Good general zoologist; good paleontologist to boot. Best man we had here, if you ask me. And he used to spend a good deal of time jumping down my throat, too.”

“You didn't mind?” Pam North asked him.

“Mind?” Steck repeated. “Certainly not. I jumped down his. It didn't mean anything.”

“Precisely,” Pam North said, “what is a lumper?”

“Um-m,” Dr. Steck said. “Well, you know what taxonomy is? The—call it the science of arranging. Classifying. Putting all the chairs in one room, even if they differ a good deal, and saying, ‘these are chairs.' All the tables in another room. ‘Tables.' It gets more complicated with animal life, principally because most animals are extinct. We establish and define relationships, or try to. Postulate orders, super-orders, families and down to genera and species and put animals, living animals and extinct ones, where they belong, or where we think they do. Well—lumpers make fewer and larger units; big, simple groups. They come across a carnivore, say, and it isn't a dog or a bear. So, it's a cat. They call us splitters. Say if we can tell two animals apart, we place them in different genera; if we cannot tell them apart, we place them in different species. That's what Simpson said, anyway. Very clever man, Dr. Simpson.”