Never Meet Again
By Algis Budrys
Illustrated by Bill Bowman
He had spent fifteen patient years of
painstaking work, all to construct an
exit—which could be used only once!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity March 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The breeze soughed through the linden trees. It was warm and gentleas it drifted along the boulevard. It tugged at the dresses of thegirls strolling with their young men and stirred their modishly cuthair. It set the banners atop the government buildings to flapping,and it brought with it the sound of a jet aircraft—a Heinkel or aMesserschmitt—rising into the sky from Tempelhof Aerodrome. But whenit touched Professor Kempfer on his bench it brought him only the scentof the Parisian perfumes and the sight of gaily colored frocks swayingaround the girls' long, healthy legs.
Doctor Professor Kempfer straightened his exhausted shoulders andraised his heavy head. His deep, strained eyes struggled to breakthrough their now habitual dull stare.
It was spring again, he realized in faint surprise. The pretty girlswere eating their lunches hastily once more, so that they and theiryoung men could stroll along Unter Den Linden, and the young men inthe broad-shouldered jackets were clear-eyed and full of their ownawakening strength.
And of course Professor Kempfer wore no overcoat today. He was notquite the comic pedant who wore his galoshes in the sunshine. It wasonly that he had forgotten, for the moment. The strain of these lastfew days had been very great.
All these months—these years—he had been doing hisgovernment-subsidized research and the other thing, too. Four orfive hours for the government, and then a full day on the much moreimportant thing no one knew about. Twelve, sixteen hours a day. Home tohis very nice government apartment, where Frau Ritter, the housekeeper,had his supper ready. The supper eaten, to bed. And in the morning;cocoa, a bit of pastry, and to work. At noon he would leave hislaboratory for a little while, to come here and eat the slice of blackbread and cheese Frau Ritter had wrapped in waxed paper and put in hispocket before he left the house.
But it was over, now. Not the government sinecure—that was just madework for the old savant who, after all, held the Knight's Cross ofthe Iron Cross for his work with the anti-submarine radar detector.That, of course, had been fifteen years ago. If they could not quitepension him off, still no one expected anything of a feeble old manputtering around the apparatus they had given him to play with.
And they were right, of course. Nothing would ever come of it. Butthe other thing....
That was done, now. After this last little rest he would go back to hislaboratory in the Himmlerstrasse and take the final step. So now hecould let himself relax and feel the warmth of the sun.
Professor Kempfer smiled wearily at the sunshine. The good, constantsun, he thought, that gives of itself to all of us, no matter who orwhere we are. Spring ... April, 1958.
Had it really been fifteen years—and sixteen years since the end ofthe war? It didn't seem possible. But then one day had been exactlylike another for him, with only an electric light in the basement wherehis real apparatus was, an electric light that never told