Between Planets (4 page)

The lights went up and the music resumed. Dr. Jefferson’s lips were stretched back in a mirthless grip. “How appropriate!” he commented. “How timely! The handwriting on the wall.”

Don started to blurt out a comment, but was distracted by the start of the show. The stage floor by them had sunk out of sight, unnoticed, during the news flash. Now from the pit thus created came a drifting, floating cloud lighted from within with purple and flame and rose. The cloud melted away and Don could see that the stage was back in place and peopled with dancers. There was a mountain in the stage background.

Dr. Jefferson had been right; the ones worth staring at were on the stage, not serving the tables. Don’s attention was so taken that he did not notice that food had been placed in front of him. His host touched his elbow. “Eat something, before you faint.”

“Huh? Oh, yes, sir!” He did so, busily and with good appetite but with his eyes on the entertainers. There was one man in the cast, portraying Tannhäuser, but Don did not know and did not care whom he represented; he noticed him only when he got in the way. Similarly, he had finished two thirds of what was placed before him without noticing what he was eating.

Dr. Jefferson said, “Like it?”

Don did a double-take and realized that the doctor was speaking of food, not of the dancers. “Oh, yes! It’s awfully good.” He examined his plate. “But what is it?”

“Don’t you recognize it? Baked baby gregarian.”

It took a couple of seconds for Don to place in his mind just what a gregarian was. As a small child he had seen hundreds of the little satyr-like bipeds—
faunas gregariaus veneris Smythii
—but he did not at first associate the common commercial name with the friendly, silly creatures he and his playmates, along with all other Venus colonials, had always called “move-overs” because of their chronic habit of crowding up against one, shouldering, nuzzling, sitting on one’s feet, and in other ways displaying their insatiable appetite for physical affection.

Eat a baby move-over? He felt like a cannibal and for the second time in one day started to behave like a groundhog in space. He gulped and controlled himself but could not touch another bite.

He looked back at the stage. Venusberg disappeared, giving way to a tired-eyed man who kept up a rapid fire of jokes while juggling flaming torches. Don was not amused; he let his gaze wander around the room. Three tables away a man met his eyes, then looked casually away. Don thought about it, then looked the man over carefully and decided that he recognized him. “Dr. Jefferson?”

“Yes, Don?”

“Do you happen to know a Venus dragon who calls himself ‘Sir Isaac Newton’?” Don added the whistled version of the Venerian’s true name.

“Don’t!” the older man said sharply.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t advertise your background unnecessarily, not at this time. Why do you ask about this, uh, ‘Sir Isaac Newton’?” He kept his voice low with his lips barely moving.

Donald told him about the casual meeting at Gary Station. “When I got through I was dead sure that a security cop was watching me. And now that same man is sitting over there, only now he’s not in uniform.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’m sure.”

“Mmm…you might be mistaken. Or he might simply be here in his off hours—though a security policeman should not be, not on his pay. See here, pay no further attention to him and don’t speak of him again. And don’t speak of that dragon, nor of anything else Venerian. Just appear to be having a good time. But pay careful attention to anything I say.”

Don tried to carry out the instructions, but it was hard to keep his mind on gayety. Even when the dancers reappeared he felt himself wanting to turn and stare at the man who had dampened the party. The plate of baked gregarian was removed and Dr. Jefferson ordered something for him called a “Mount Etna.” It was actually shaped like a volcano and a plume of steam came out of the tip. He dipped a spoon into it, found that it was fire and ice, assaulting his palate with conflicting sensations. He wondered how anyone could eat it. Out of politeness he cautiously tried another bite. Presently he found that he had eaten all of it and was sorry there was not more.

At the break in the stage acts Don tried to ask Dr. Jefferson what he really thought about the war scare. The doctor firmly turned the talk around to his parents’ work and branched out to the past and future of the System. “Don’t fret yourself about the present, son. Troubles, merely troubles—necessary preliminaries to the consolidation of the System. In five hundred years the historians will hardly notice it. There will be the Second Empire—six planets by then.”

“Six? You don’t honestly think well ever be able to do anything with Jupiter and Saturn? Oh—you mean the Jovian moons.”

“No, I mean six primary planets. We’ll move Pluto and Neptune in close by the fire and we’ll drag Mercury back and let it cool off.”

The idea of moving planets startled Don. It sounded wildly impossible, but he let it rest, since his host was a man who maintained that everything and anything was possible. “The race needs a lot of room,” Dr. Jefferson went on. “After all, Mars and Venus have their own intelligent races; we can’t crowd them much more without genocide—and it’s not dead certain which way the genocide would work, even with the Martians. But the reconstruction of this system is just engineering—nothing to what else we’ll do. Half a millennium from now there will be more Earth-humans outside this system than in it; we’ll be swarming around every G-type star in this neighborhood. Do you know what I would do if I were your age, Don? I’d get me a berth in the
Pathfinder
.”

Don nodded. “I’d like that.” The
Pathfinder
, star ship intended for a one-way trip, had been building on, and near, Luna since before he was born. Soon she would go. All or nearly all of Don’s generation had at least dreamed about leaving with her.

“Of course,” added his host, “you would have to have a bride.” He pointed to the stage which was again filling. “Take that blonde down there. She’s a likely looking lassie—healthy at least.”

Don smiled and felt worldly. “She might not hanker after pioneering. She looks happy as she is.”

“Can’t tell till you ask her. Here.” Dr. Jefferson summoned the
maître d’hôtel
; money changed hands. Presently the blonde came to their table but did not sit down. She was a tom-tom singer and she proceeded to boom into Don’s ears, with the help of the orchestra, sentiments that would have embarrassed him even if expressed privately. He ceased to feel worldly, felt quite warm in the face instead and confirmed his resolution not to take this female to the stars. Nevertheless he enjoyed it.

The stage was just clearing when the lights blinked once and the sound system again brayed forth: “Space raid warning! Space raid warning!” All lights went out.

F
OR AN
infinitely long moment there was utter blackness and silence without even the muted whir of the blowers. Then a tiny light appeared in the middle of the stage, illuminating the features of the starring comic. He drawled in an intentionally ridiculous nasal voice, “The next sound you hear will be… The Tromp of Doom!” He giggled and went on briskly, “Just sit quiet, folks, and hang on to your money—some of the help are relatives of the management. This is just a drill. Anyhow, we have a hundred feet of concrete overhead—and a darn sight thicker mortgage. Now, to get you into the mood for the next act which is mine, the next round of drinks is on the house.” He leaned forward and called out, “Gertie! Drag up that stuff we couldn’t unload New Year’s Eve.”

Don felt the tension ease around the room and he himself relaxed. He was doubly startled when a hand closed around his wrist. “
Quiet!
” whispered Dr. Jefferson into his ear.

Don let himself be led away in the darkness. The doctor apparently knew, or remembered, the layout; they got out of the room without bumping into tables and with only one unimportant brush with someone in the dark. They seemed to be going down a long hall, black as the inside of coal, then turned a corner and stopped.

“But you can’t go out sir,” Don heard a voice say. Dr. Jefferson spoke quietly, his words too low to catch. Something rustled; they moved forward again, through a doorway, and turned left.

They proceeded along this tunnel—Don felt sure that it was the public tunnel just outside the restaurant though it seemed to have turned ninety degrees in the dark. Dr. Jefferson still dragged him along by the wrist without speaking. They turned again and went down steps.

There were other people about, though not many. Once someone grabbed Don in the dark; he struck out wildly, smashed his fist into something flabby and heard a muffled grunt. The doctor merely pulled him along the faster.

The doctor stopped at last, seemed to be feeling around in the dark. There came a feminine squeal out of the blackness. The doctor drew back hastily and moved on a few feet, stopped again. “Here,” he said at last. “Climb in.” He pulled Don forward and placed his hand on something; Don felt around and decided that it was a parked autocab, its top open. He climbed in and Dr. Jefferson got in behind, closing the top after him. “Now we can talk,” he said calmly. “Someone beat us to that first one. But we can’t go anywhere until the power comes on again.”

Don was suddenly aware that he was shaking with excitement. When he could trust himself to speak he said, “Doctor—is this actually an attack?”

“I doubt it mightily,” the man answered. “It’s almost certainly a drill—I hope. But it gave us just the opportunity that I had been looking for to get away quietly.”

Don chewed this over. Jefferson went on, “What are you fretting about? The check? I have an account there.”

It had not occurred to Don that they were walking out on the check. He said so and added, “You mean that security policeman I thought I recognized?”

“Unfortunately.”

“But—I think I must have made a mistake. Oh, it looked like the same man, all right, but I don’t see how it would have been humanly possible for him to have followed me even if he popped into the next cab. I distinctly remember that at least once my cab was the only cab on an elevator. That tears it. If it was the same cop, it was an accident; he wasn’t looking for me.”

“Perhaps he was looking for me.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. As to following you—Don, do you know how these autocabs work?”

“Well—in general.”

“If that security cop wanted to tail you, he would not get into the next cab. He would call in and report the number of your cab. That number would be monitored in the control-net board at once. Unless you reached your destination before the monitoring started, they would read the code of your destination right out of the machine. Whereupon another security officer would be watching for your arrival. It carries on from there. When I rang for an autocab my circuit would already be monitored, and the cab that answered the ring likewise. Consequently the first cop was already seated at a table in
The Back Room
before we arrived. That was their one slip, using a man you had seen but we can forgive that as they are overworked at present!”

“But why would they want
me
? Even if they think I’m uh, disloyal, I’m not that important.”

Dr. Jefferson hesitated, then said, “Don, I don’t know how long we will be able to talk. We can talk freely for the moment because they are just as limited by the power shutdown as we are. But once the power comes on we can no larger talk and I have a good deal to say. We can’t talk, even here, after the power comes on.”

“Why not?”

“The public isn’t supposed to know, but each of these cabs has a microphone in it. The control frequency for the cab itself can carry speech modulation without interfering with the operation of the vehicle. So we are not safe once power is restored. Yes, I know; it’s a shameful set up. I didn’t dare talk in the restaurant, even with the orchestra playing. They could have had a shotgun mike trained on us.

“Now, listen carefully. We must locate that package I mailed to you—we
must
. I want you to deliver it to your father…or rather, what’s in it. Point number two: you must catch that shuttle rocket tomorrow morning, even if the heavens fall. Point number three: you won’t stay with me tonight, after all. I’m sorry but I think it is best so. Number four: when the power comes on, we will ride around for a while, talking of nothing in particular and never mentioning names. Presently I will see to it that we end up near a public common booth and you will call the
Caravansary
. If the package is there, you will leave me, go back to the Station, get your bags, then go to the hotel, register and pick up your mail. Tomorrow morning you will get your ship and leave. Don’t call me. Do you understand all that?”

“Uh, I think so, sir.” Don waited, then blurted out, “But why? Maybe I’m talking out of turn, but it seems to me I ought to know why we are doing this.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well…what’s in the package?”

“You will see. You can open it, examine it, and decide for yourself. If you decide not to deliver it, that’s your privilege. As for the rest—what are your political convictions, Don?”

“Why…that’s rather hard to say, sir.”

“Mmmm—mine weren’t too clear at your age either. Let’s put it this way: would you be willing to string along with your parents for the time being? Until you form your own?”

“Why, of course!”

“Did it seem a bit odd to you that your mother insisted that you look me up? Don’t be shy—I know that a young fellow arriving in the big town doesn’t look up semi-strangers through choice. Now—she must have considered it important for you to see me. Eh?”

“I guess she must have.”

“Will you let it stand at that? What you don’t know, you can’t tell—and can’t get you into trouble.”

Don thought it over. The doctor’s words seemed to make sense, yet it went mightily against the grain to be asked to do something mysterious without knowing all the whys and wherefors. On the other hand, had he simply received the package, he undoubtedly would have delivered it to his father without thinking much about it.