There were what appeared to Lee to be a multitude of people waiting as
they landed. Eager and intelligent white faces all lifted up to him and
pressed forward with bewildering offerings and requests. A Western Union
messenger handed him a telegram in which one Dr. Howard K. Scriven
proffered greetings, expressing a desire to interview him. Some cleancut
youngster, obviously a scientific worker, assured Lee that he was fully
familiar with the care and feeding of "_Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_", that
Lee need not concern himself about their welfare, that the mounds would
be immediately transferred to Experimental Station 19 G. The "Flying
Wing's" supercargo and two truck-drivers came forward with papers for
Lee to sign, as the first of the heavy steelboxes which harbored the
mounds were lowered into a van with the whine of an electric hoist.
Meanwhile somebody who said he was an assistant manager of the Cranium
hotel informed Lee that reservations had been made for him and that he
had a car waiting to conduct Dr. Lee to his suite. It was all very
mysterious, but efficient. Feeling more and more like some prize exhibit
handled without a will of its own on a whirlwind tour, Lee allowed
himself to be whisked from the airport to the hotel. With the din of the
jets still in his ears, overpowered by impressions which crowded his
senses from all sides, he listened politely to the hotel manager's
explanations of the sights without understanding a word of them.
There were flowers in his suite, the carpets were deeper, the bathtub
was bigger, the towels piled higher, the breakfast more abundantly rich
than anything Lee could remember in the 38 years of his life. "So this
is America in 1960," he thought. "It must have advanced by leaps and by
bounds over these past ten years."
He felt embarrassed because he had almost forgotten the uses of all
those comforts, and at the same time deeply moved over the way they
embraced him, him, the lost son, the voluntary exile who once had turned
his back on them in despair and disgust. But why was all this? He had
done nothing to deserve this kind of hospitality. Entomologists as a
rule were not transported by magic carpets into Arabian Nights for
modest achievements such as the discovery of a new species. All the
things which had happened within the last 24 hours were riddles wrapped
up in enigmas. Fatigued as he was he couldn't lie down, he was
desperately resolved to get at the bottom of this thing.
There came a buzz from the telephone. A soft and melodious contralto
voice announced that its carrier was Dr. Howard K. Scriven's secretary
and would Dr. Lee be good enough to come over to the Braintrust Building
to meet Dr. Scriven at 9:30 A.M.? Lee said that he would.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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