Between Planets (13 page)

He decided to settle that problem at once by spending the note the banker had given him. He recalled a restaurant a short distance back and stopped suddenly, whereupon a man jostled him.

Don said, “Excuse me,” and noted that the man was another Chinese—noted it without surprise as nearly half of the contract labor shipped in during the early days of the Venerian colonies had been Orientals. It did seem to him that the man’s face was familiar—a fellow passenger in the
Nautilus
? Then he recalled that he had seen him at the dock at the foot of the street.

“My fault,” the man answered. “I should look where I’m going. Sorry I bumped you.” He smiled most charmingly.

“No harm done,” Don replied, “but it was my fault. I suddenly decided to turn around and go back.”

“Back to the bank?”

“Huh?”

“None of my business, but I saw you coming out of the bank.”

“As a matter of fact,” Don answered, “I wasn’t going back to the bank. I’m looking for a restaurant and I remembered seeing one back there.”

The man glanced at his bags. “Just get in?”

“Just down in the
Nautilus
.”

“You don’t want
that
restaurant—not unless you have money to throw away. It’s strictly a tourist trap.”

Don thought about the single credit note in his pocket and worried. “Uh, where can a chap get a bite to eat? A good, cheap restaurant?”

The man took his arm. “I’ll show you. A place down by the water, run by a cousin of mine.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“Not at all. I was about to refresh the inner man myself. By the way, my name is Johnny Ling.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Ling. I’m Don Harvey.”

The restaurant was in a blind alley off the foot of Buchanan Street. Its sign advertised TWO WORLDS DINING ROOM—
Tables for Ladies
—WELCOME SPACEMEN. Three move-overs were hanging around the entrance, sniffing the odors and pressing their twitching noses against the screen door. Johnny Ling pushed them aside and ushered Don in.

A fat Cantonese stood behind the counter, presiding over both range and cash register. Ling called out, “Hi Charlie!”

The fat man answered, “Hello, Johnny,” then broke into fluent cursing, mixing Cantonese, English, Portuguese, and whistle speech impartially. One of the move-overs had managed to slip in when the door was opened and was making a beeline for the pie rack, his little hooves clicking on the floor. Moving very fast despite his size the man called Charlie headed him off, took him by the ear and marched him out. Still cursing, Charlie returned to the pie rack, picked out half a pie that had seen better times and returned to the door. He tossed the pie to the fauns, who scrambled for it, bleating and whimpering.

“If you didn’t feed them, Charlie,” commented Ling, “they wouldn’t hang around.”

“You damn mind your own business!”

Several customers were eating at the counter; they paid no attention to the incident. Ling moved closer to the cook and said, “Back room empty?”

Charlie nodded and turned his back. Ling led Don through a swinging door; they ended up in a booth in the back of the building. Don sat down and picked up a menu, wondering what he could get that would stretch his one credit as far as possible. Ling took it from him. “Let me order for you. Charlie really is a number-one cook.”

“But—”

“You are my guest. No, don’t argue. I insist.” Charlie showed up at that point, stepping silently through the booth’s curtain. He and Ling exchanged remarks in a rapid singsong; he went away, returning shortly with crisp, hot egg rolls. The aroma was wonderful and Don’s stomach put a stop to his protests.

The egg rolls were followed by a main dish which Don could not place. It was Chinese cooking but it certainly was not the chop suey of the trade. Don thought that he could identify Venerian vegetables out of his childhood in it but he could not be sure. Whatever it was, it was just what he needed; he began to feel a warm glow of content and ceased to be worried about anything.

While he ate he found that he was telling Ling his life history with emphasis on recent events that had landed him unexpectedly on Venus. The man was easy to talk to and it did not seem polite simply to sit, wolfing his host’s food and saying nothing.

Ling sat back presently and wiped his mouth. “You’ve certainly had an odd time of it, Don. What are you going to do now?”

Don frowned. “I wish I knew. I’ve got to find a job of some sort and a place to sleep. After that I’ve got to scrape up, or save up, or borrow, enough money to send word to my folks. They’ll be worried.”

“You brought some money with you?”

“Huh? Oh, sure, but it’s Federation money. I can’t spend it.”

“And Uncle Tom wouldn’t change it for you. He’s a flinty hearted old so-and-so in spite of his smiles. He’s still a pawnbroker at bottom.”

“‘Uncle Tom?’ The banker is your uncle?”

“Eh? Oh, no, no—just a manner of speaking. He set up a hock shop here a long time ago. Prospectors would come in and pawn their Geiger counters. Next time out he’d grub-stake ’em. Pretty soon he owned half the hot pits around here and was a banker. But we still call him ‘Uncle Tom.’”

Don had a vague feeling that Ling was too anxious to deny the relationship but he did not pursue the thought as it did not matter to him. Ling was continuing, “You know, Don, the bank isn’t the only place where you can change Federation money.”

“What do you mean?”

Ling dipped his forefinger in a puddle of water on the table top and traced out the universal credit sign. “Of course, it’s the only legal place. Would that worry you?”

“Well…”

“It isn’t as if there were anything wrong about changing it. It’s an arbitrary law and they didn’t ask you when they passed it. After all, it’s your money. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“It’s your money and you can do what you please with it. But this talk is strictly on the quiet—you understand that?”

Don didn’t say anything; Ling went on, “Now just speaking hypothetically—how much Federation money do you have?”

“Uh, about five hundred credits.”

“Let’s see it.”

Don hesitated. Ling said sharply, “Come on. Don’t you trust me? After all it’s just so much waste paper.”

Don got out his money. Ling looked at it and took out his wallet, started counting out bills. “Some of those big bills will be hard to move,” he commented. “Suppose we say fifteen per cent.” The money he laid down looked exactly like that Don had placed on the table except that each note had been overprinted with VENUS REPUBLIC.

Don did a rapid calculation. Fifteen per cent of what he had came to seventy-five credits, more or less—not even half what he needed to pay for a radiogram to Mars. He picked up his money and started putting it back into his wallet.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s no use to me. I told you I needed a hundred eighty-seven fifty to pay for my radiogram.”

“Well—twenty per cent. And I’m doing you a favor because you’re a youngster in trouble.”

Twenty per cent was still only a hundred credits. “No.”

“Be reasonable! I can’t move it at more than a point or two over that; I might take a loss. Commercial money draws eight per cent now, the way things are booming. This stuff has to go into hiding, losing eight per cent every year. If the war goes on very long, it’s a net loss. What do you expect?”

Fiscal theory was over Don’s head; he simply knew that anything less than the price of a message to Mars did not interest him. He shook his head.

Ling shrugged and gathered up his money. “It’s your loss. Say, that’s a handsome ring you’re wearing.”

“Thanks.”

“How much money do you say you needed?”

Don repeated it. “You see, I’ve just got to get word to my family. I don’t really need money for anything else; I can work.”

“Mind if I look at that ring?”

Don did not want to pass it over but there seemed no way to avoid it without being rude. Ling slipped it on; it was quite loose on his bony finger. “Just my size. And it’s got my initial, too.”

“Huh?”

“My milk name, ‘Henry.’ I’ll tell you, Don, I’d really like to help you out. Suppose we say twenty per cent on your money and I’ll take the ring for the balance of what you need to send your ’gram. Okay?”

Don could not have told why he refused. But be was beginning to dislike Ling, beginning to regret being obligated to him for a meal. The sudden switch aroused his stubborn streak. “It’s a family keepsake,” he answered. “Not for sale.”

“Eh? You’re in no position to be sentimental. The ring is worth more here than it is on Earth—but I’m still offering you much more than it’s worth. Don’t be a fool!”

“I know you are,” Don answered, “and I don’t understand why you are. In any case the ring is not for sale. Give it back to me.”

“And suppose I don’t?”

Don took a deep breath. “Why then,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’ll have to fight you for it.”

Ling looked at him for a moment, then took off the ring and dropped it on the table. He then walked out of the booth without saying anything more.

Don stared after him and tried to figure it out. He was still wondering when the curtain was pushed aside and the restaurant keeper came in. He dropped a chit on the table. “One and six,” he said stolidly.

“Didn’t Mr. Ling pay for it? He invited me to have dinner with him.”

“One and six,” Charlie repeated. “You ate. You pay.”

Don stood up. “Where do you wash dishes around here? I might as well get started.”

B
EFORE
the evening was over the job of washing dishes for his dinner developed into a fixed arrangement. The salary was small—Don calculated that it would take him roughly forever to save enough money to send a radiogram to his parents—but it included three meals a day of Charlie’s superlative cooking. Charlie himself seemed a very decent sort under his gruffness. He expressed a complicated and most disparaging opinion of Johnny Ling, using the same highly spiced
lingua franca
that he had used on the move-overs. He also denied any relationship to Ling while attributing to Ling other relationships which were on the face of them improbable.

After the last customer was gone and the last dish dried Charlie made up a pallet for Don on the floor of the back room in which Don had dined. As Don undressed and crawled into bed he remembered that he should have phoned the space port security office and told them his address. Tomorrow would do, he thought sleepily; anyhow the restaurant had no phone.

He woke up in darkness with a feeling of oppression. For a terrified moment he thought someone was holding him down and trying to rob him. As he came wider awake he realized where he was and what was causing the oppressed feeling—move-overs. There were two of them in bed with him; one was snuggled up to his back and was holding onto his shoulders; the other was cradled in his lap, spoon-fashion. Both were snoring gently. Someone had undoubtedly left a door open for a moment and they had sneaked in.

Don chuckled to himself. It was impossible to be angry with the affectionate little creatures. He scratched the one in front of him between its horns and said, “Look, kids, this is
my
bed. Now get out of here before I get tough.”

They both bleated and snuggled closer. Don got up, got each of them by an ear and evicted them through the curtain. “Now stay out!”

They were back in bed before he was.

Don thought about it and gave up. The back room had no door that could be closed. As for chucking them outside the building, the place was dark and still strange to him and he was not sure of the locations of light switches. Nor did he want to wake Charlie. After all there was no harm in bedding down with a move-over; they were cleanly little things, no worse than having a dog curl up against one—better, for dogs harbor fleas. “Move over,” he ordered, unintentionally renaming them, “and give me some room.”

He did not go at once to sleep; the dream that had awakened him still troubled him. He sat up, fumbled in the dark, and found his money, which he tucked under him. He then remembered the ring, and, feeling somewhat foolish, he pulled on a sock and stuffed the ring far down into the sock.

Presently all three of them were snoring.

He was awakened by a frightened bleating in his ear. The next few moments were quite confused. He sat up, whispered, “Pipe down!” and started to smack his bedmate, when he felt his wrist grasped by a hand—not the thumbless little paw of a move-over, but a human hand.

He kicked out and connected with something. There was a grunt, more anguished bleating, and the click-click-click of little hooves on bare floor. He kicked again and almost broke his toe; the hand let go.

He backed away while getting to his feet. There were sounds of struggle near him and loud bleating. The sounds died down while he was still trying to peer through the darkness to find out what was happening. Then a light came on blindingly and he saw Charlie standing in the door, dressed in a wrap-around and a big, shiny cleaver. “What’s the matter with you?” Charlie demanded.

Don did his best to explain but move-overs, dreams, and clutching hands in the dark were badly mixed together. “You eat too much late at night,” Charlie decided. Nevertheless he checked the place, with Don trailing after.

When he came to a window with a broken hasp he did not say anything but went at once to the cash register and the lock box. Neither seemed to have been disturbed. Charlie nailed up the broken catch, shoved the move-overs back into the night, and said, “Go to sleep,” to Don. He returned to his own room.

Don tried to do so but it was some time before he could quiet down. Both his money and the ring were still at hand. He put the ring back on his finger and went to sleep with his fist clenched.

Next morning Don had plenty of time to think as he coped with an unending stack of dirty dishes. The ring was on his mind. He was not wearing it; not only did he wish to avoid plunging it repeatedly into hot water but also was now reluctant to display it.

Could it be possible that the thief was after the ring rather than his money? It seemed impossible—a half-credit piece of souvenir counter junk! Or perhaps five credits, he corrected himself, here on Venus where every important item was expensive. Ten at the outside.