Baxter swore under his breath. Then he reached across the desktop and
tossed me the Amnesty.
* * * * *
"I hope you know what you're doing," said Baxter at the gleaming glass
doorway of the spaceport. "Why a man who has absolute authority should
choose to ride public transportation when he could have his pick of the
fleetest government ships on Earth--"
I didn't tell him it was because of little details like stereovision,
autobars, and, not least of all, comfort, that I had chosen to ride
the _Valkyrie_. She sat waiting even now, far out in the center of the
landing strip, two hundred towering feet of silver, crammed with all
the luxuries engineering ingenuity could put aboard her. I had, thanks
to a government credit card, a private cabin. I intended to enjoy
myself, this trip.
I'd managed to convince Baxter that it was less likely the public would
suspect there was anything amiss if I went to Mars incognito, with
the Amnesty worn under my clothing, for use only in emergencies. An
Amnesty-bearer arriving on Mars in a government ship might cause talk.
Disastrous talk.
Baxter was rattling on and on, giving me the names of my contacts on
Mars for the seventeenth time, and I was giving him perfunctory nods as
though I was paying attention, though I was actually watching the other
passengers leaving the check-in desk. After all, I'd be in space with
them for almost two days. You never know what might develop.
The co-rider I had in mind was a girl, with hair like irridescent
cornsilk, and a figure that made the stereovision starlets look 2-D in
comparison. She had her back to me, but even before she turned around,
I knew she was beautiful. It was just the way she stood there, facing
the passenger-check robot. She--well, she _stood_ like a girl who is
beautiful.
Then she turned around, and I gave my instincts an A plus.
Her eyes were the deepest of blues, actually a purple tone, and they
were wide, serious and shining. There was a certain determination
about the set of her jaw that I liked, and her lips were like soft red
velvet. A man could kiss those lips and sink slowly into warm crimson
seas; lose himself in the heated softness of their gentlest pressures.
"Delvin!"
Baxter's voice shattered my reverie, and I tore my eyes from the
girl, though the after-effects of dreaming left my mind in confused
fragments. "Huh?" I said, looking at his face and almost failing to
recognize it.
"I said--" Baxter's voice was impatient and over loud, "--that you had
best, in the interests of open-space safety, not flash that Amnesty
while you're aboard the _Valkyrie_. Passengers have a way of working
themselves into a panic that is almost an uncanny gift! They'll all
start suspecting their neighbors of treason, or worse, and--"
But I wasn't hearing his diatribe any more. As he'd spoken that first
sentence, the girl with the shimmering cornsilk hair had been passing
within a few feet of us, and I'd felt, rather than actually seen, her
slender shoulders stiffen beneath the blue silken fabric of her blouse.
And she'd hesitated for a moment in midstep, as though she were going
to turn about and see which man in the universe was the one to whom the
Amnesty had been given.
I watched her move out into the sunlight, crossing the field in brisk
but dainty strides. Any second now, I told myself. She thinks she
hasn't been seen. She's getting far enough away so that--Aha! Now!
Halfway to the ship, the girl turned, apparently busily concerned about
the clasp of her handbag, as though it had come open without warning. I
kept my head turned, to look as though I were watching Baxter. But my
eyes were still on her. She looked at me. Then she turned and went on
toward the ship.
"Had to see who I was!" I said to myself. "So now she knows I've got
the Amnesty. And so--And so, _what_?"
5
Since antigravity, artificial gravity, and low-thrust take-offs were
still in the realm of science-fiction, even the luxury liners like
the _Valkyrie_ had to bed their passengers down in shock-absorbing
couches until the ship was free of gravitation. So it wasn't until we'd
achieved escape velocity from Earth that I saw the girl again.
I'd decided to wander into the lounge and try to locate her. It would
be an easy task if she were present, what with her startling good
looks. But it turned out to be even simpler than that.
She came to me.
I was just easing myself out of my couch, when my cabin door opened and
closed. And locked.
That last part intrigued me even before I turned about. I was wondering
what sort of menace I had to meet, and bewailing the fact that the
collapser was still in my luggage, when I saw who my visitor was. I
started to smile, but the smile left as I saw the saw-edged steak knife
in her hand.
"Listen, whoever you are!" she said. Her voice was low, angrily
intense, but still a pleasure to hear, somehow.
"I'm listening, I assure you!" I said, politely. "A voice like yours
doesn't caress these tired old eardrums every day."
She accorded my compliment a smile, but it was a bleak one, and there
was a certain wry lift to her left eyebrow. "Very suave, I'm sure," she
said. "But I'm not in the mood, thank you. Now, you just sit down on
your bunk and behave, and--"
"Mind if I get a cigarette?" I asked, gesturing toward my traveling
case. I tried to be casual about it, but I must have failed. I lose my
head around women, as I've said.
"I'll get them for you," she said, waving the knife's glittering blade
at me. I moved away and sat on the edge of my bunk. She flicked the
clasp open, and spread the two halves apart. There were two shirts and
some underwear in the case, plus the collapser. Not a cigarette to be
seen. She looked at me, narrow-eyed.
"I don't smoke," I explained weakly.
"You Amnesty-bearers!" she grated between even, white teeth. "Ready to
destroy everybody with impunity, aren't you! You wouldn't even wait to
find out what I wanted!"
"I haven't said a word," I pointed out delicately.
"You lied about the cigarettes," she accused.
"How would you treat a stranger who burst into your cabin with an
unsheathed knife?" I said, exasperated.
She looked down at the knife, and reddened. "Maybe I was a bit abrupt
about this. It's just that--" Her face suddenly crinkled up, and her
deep blue-violet eyes burst into tears. Then the knife fell to the
carpet, and her face was buried in her hands. I leaned forward and
removed the knife from within her reach, then took her by the shoulders.