The Stardroppers by John Brunner

snatched from him. But it was no more real to him now than a dream, or the transitory euphoria which followed the use of his personal spoken code.
    “Let’s get the hell out,” he said. “I imagine you could use a drink, and I’m damned sure I could.”
    The downstairs bar was already crowded with the members of the club, being interrogated by the ordinary customers about why they were so upset. Dan sent Angel to a corner table that was still vacant and somehow contrived to avoid being questioned himself while he was collecting double Scotches for them both. Others, Jerry Bartlettamong them, had not been so lucky, and there was a buzz of muted alarm in the air.
    Yet …
    He shook his head in incredulity. Redvers had hit on the right point when he said, “Try thinking of it as ‘performing a miracle.’ ” Yet these people didn’t react as though they’d been present when a miracle happened. It might have been nothing more than—than, say, the breaking of a storm, which was now offending the ear with dismal rain.
    In the case of those who hadn’t been upstairs, that was predictable. But in the case of those who had …
    He sat down beside Angel, handed her her drink, and offered cigarettes. Taking one, she gave a sudden harsh laugh.
    “It’s different actually being there when it happens, isn’t it? I’m sort of having to rearrange my private universe.”
    Noticing that his hand shook visibly when he held his lighter out, Dan said, “Didn’t you believe it was true?”
    “Oh, I believed it in my mind.” Breathing smoke, Angel leaned back with a mutter of thanks. “I had to. After all, I was engaged to Robin Rainshaw. But I didn’t believe it in my guts, where it matters.”
    “You
were Robin Rainshaw’s fiancée?” Dan halted the lighter in midmovement so abruptly the flame blew out.
    “I was. Am, I suppose, failing his return to collect this.” She turned a ring on her finger which he hadn’t noticed. “But you sound as though you knew him. Did you?”
    There was a pleading note in the words, but wistful, as though she was prepared to be disappointed. He disappointed her.
    “I’m afraid not. I only heard about him.”
    “Not many people even heard.” Angel moved her glass on the, table between them as on a chessboard—a knight’s move, with the unique diagonal kink in the middle of it. And fell silent, though Dan had expected her to continue.
    His hand still trembling, he finally got his own cigarette lit, and said when he was sure Angel didn’t propose to add anything, “You know what beats me?”
    “Probably the same that beats me. But go ahead anyway.”
    “The—the way all these people are shrugging it off! Asthough there wasn’t anything extraordinary about a man disappearing into thin air!”
    She gave him a curious look. “You’re a real novice, aren’t you?” she said. “In spite of claiming to know Berghaus, and being so well informed in so many ways.”
    “Yes—hell! I
am
a novice, I guess. But how do people stop being novices if they won’t learn by asking questions?”
    “In this business you don’t learn by asking. You only learn by experience.”
    “But if you’re apt to vanish in a clap of thunder, what in hell can induce anyone to want more—
experience?”
    Before Angel could reply, there was a distraction. The red-haired Mrs. Towler rushed down the stairs from the clubroom and forced a path to the street door, tears streaming down her face. A murmur of incredulous comment followed her.
    In her wake Watson appeared, his face tired and pale. He stood watching until Mrs. Towler had gone out, then collected himself a drink at the bar and glanced around. Spotting a vacant chair at the table Dan and Angel were using, he sat down unbidden.
    “Did you cool her down?” Angel asked, with a headshake toward the door through which the weeping woman had left.
    “Sort of. I promised her a private session with Jock Neill’s equipment. It was all I could think