58

Somehow Oedipa got lost. One minute she was gazing at a mockup of a space capsule, safely surrounded by old, somnolent men; the next, alone in a great, fluorescent murmur of office activity. As far as she could see in any direction it was white or pastel: men's shirts, papers, drawing boards. All she could think of was to put on her shades for all this light, and wait for somebody to rescue her. But nobody noticed. She began to wander aisles among light blue desks, turning a corner now and then. Heads came up at the sound of her heels, engineers stared until she'd passed, but nobody spoke to her. Five or ten minutes went by this way, panic growing inside her head: there seemed no way out of the area. Then, by accident (Dr Hilarius, if asked, would accuse her of using subliminal cues in the environment to guide her to a particular person) or howsoever, she came on one Stanley Koteks, who wore wire-rim bifocals, sandals, argyle socks, and at first glance seemed too young to be working here. As it turned out he wasn't working, only doodling with a fat felt pencil this sign:

'Hello there,' Oedipa said, arrested by this coincidence. On a whim, she added, 'Kirby sent me,' this having been the name on the latrine wall. It was supposed to sound conspiratorial, but came out silly.

'Hi,' said Stanley Koteks, deftly sliding the big envelope he'd been doodling on into an open drawer he then closed. Catching sight of her badge, 'You're lost, huh?'

She knew blunt questions like, what does that symbol mean? would get her nowhere. She said, 'I'm a tourist, actually. A stockholder.'

'Stockholder.' He gave her the once-over, hooked with his foot a swivel chair from the next desk and rolled it over for her. 'Sit down. Can you really influence policy, or make suggestions they won't just file in the garbage?'

'Yes,' lied Qedipa, to see where it would take them.

'See,' Koteks said, 'if you can get them to drop their clause on patents. That, lady, is my axe to grind.'