Noting his bearings carefully, he hobbled painfully westward, with
thirty pounds of money on his back. He would intersect the major
North-South Intercontinental highway by at least noon.
Two hours later, he came to a small plastic cabin in a clearing at the
edge of a forest.
Wincing now with each step, he made his way to the door. He knocked.
There was a long wait.
The door opened. A girl stood before him in a dressing gown. She
frowned and asked, "_Itsil obwatly jer gekompilp?_"
Hearing Itraian spoken by a native in the flesh had a powerful
emotional impact on Shamar the Worker.
Stumblingly, he introduced himself and explained that he was camping
out. During the previous night he had become lost and injured his
ankle. If she could spare him food and directions, he would gladly pay.
With a smile of superiority, she stepped aside and said in Itraian,
"Come in, Chom the Worker."
He felt panic, but he choked it back and followed her. Apparently he
had horribly mispronounced his own name. It was as though, in English
he had said Barchestershire for Barset. He cursed whatever Professor
had picked that name for whatever obscure reason.
"Sit down," she invited. "I'm about to have breakfast. Eggs and
bacon--" the Itraian equivalent--"if that's all right with you. I'm
Garfling Germadpoldlt by the way, although you can call me Ge-Ge."
The food was quite unpleasant, as though overly ripe. He was able to
choke down the eggs with the greatest difficulty. Fortunately, the hot
drink that was the equivalent of Earth coffee at the end of the meal,
was sufficiently spicy to quiet his stomach.
"Good coffee," he said.
"Thank you. Care for a cigarette?"
"I sure would."
He had no matches, so she lit it for him, hovering above him a moment,
leaving with him the fresh odor of her hair.
The taste of the cigarette was mild. Rather surprisingly, it
substituted for nicotine and allayed the sharp longing that had come
with the coffee.
"Let's look at your ankle," she said. She knelt at his feet and began
to unlace the right shoe. "My, it's swollen," she said sympathetically.
He winced as she touched it and then he reddened with embarrassment. He
had been walking across dusty country. He drew back the foot and bent
to restrain her.
Playfully she slapped his hand away. "You sit back! I'll get it. I've
seen dirty feet before."
She pulled off the shoe and peeled off the sock. "Oh, God, it is
swollen," she said. "You think it's broken, Shamar?"
"Just sprained."
"I'll get some hot water with some MedAid in it, and that'll take the
swelling out."
When he had his foot in the water, she sat across from him and arranged
her dressing gown with a coquettish gesture. She caught him staring
at the earring, and one hand went to it caressingly. She smiled that
universal feminine smile of security and recklessness, of invitation
and rejection.
"You're engaged," he noted.
She opened her eyes wide and studied him above a thumbnail which she
tasted with her teeth. "I'm engaged to Von Stutsman--" as the name
might be translated--"perhaps you've heard of him? He's important in
the Party. You know him?"
"No."
"You in the Party?" she said. She was teasing him now. Then, suddenly:
"Neither am I, but I guess I'll have to join if I become Mrs. Von
Stutsman."
They were silent for a moment.
Then she spoke, and he was frozen in terror, all thoughts but of
self-preservation washed from his mind.
"Your accent is unbelieveably bad," she said.
"I'm from Zuleb," he said lamely, at last.
"Meta--Gelwhops--or even Karkeqwol, that makes no difference. Nobody on
Itra speaks like you do. So you must be from that planet that had the
Party in a flap several years ago--Earth, isn't it?"
He said nothing.
"Do you know what they'll do when they catch you?" she asked.
"No," he said hollowly.
"They'll behead you."
* * * * *
She laughed, not unkindly. "If you could see yourself! How ridiculous
you look, Shamar. I wonder what your real name is, by the way? Sitting
with a foot in the water and looking wildly about. Here, let me fix
more coffee and we can talk."
She called cheerily over her shoulder, "You're safe here. No one will
be by. I'm not due back until Tuesday."
She brought him a steaming mug. "Drink this while I dress." She
disappeared into the bedroom. He heard the shower running.
He sat waiting, numb and desperate, and drank the coffee because it was
there. His thoughts scampered in the cage of his skull like mice on a
treadmill.
When Ge-Ge came back, he had still not resolved the conflict within
him. She stood barefoot upon the rug and looked down at him, hunched
miserably over the pan of water, now lukewarm.
"How's the foot?"
"All right."
"Want to take it out?"
"I guess."
"I'll get a towel."
She waited until he had dried the foot and restored the sock and shoe.
The swelling was gone. He stood up and put his weight on it. He smiled
wanly. "It's okay now. It's not broken, I guess."
She gestured him to the sofa. He complied.
"What's in the field pack?" she asked. "Money? How much?" She moved
toward it. He half rose to stop her, but by then she had it partly
open. "My," she said, bringing out a thick sheaf of bills. She rippled
them sensuously. "Pretty. Very, very pretty." She examined them for
texture and appearance. "They look good, Shamar. I'll bet it would cost
ten million dollars in research on paper and ink and presses to do this
kind of a job. Only another government has got that kind of money to
throw around." She tossed the currency carelessly beside him and came
to sit at his side.
She took his hand. Her hand was warm and gentle. "Tell me, Shamar," she
said. "Tell me all about it."
So this is how easily spies are trapped in real life, Shamar told
himself with numb disbelief.
The story came out slowly and hesitantly at first. She said nothing
until he had finished.
"And that's all? You really believe that, don't you? And I guess
your government does, too. That all we need is just some little idea
or something." She turned away from him. "But of course, that's
neither here nor there, is it? I never imagined an adventurer type
would look like you. You have such a soft, honest voice. As a little
girl, I pictured myself being carried off by a tanned desert sheik on
a camel; and oh, he was lean and handsome! With dark flashing eyes
and murderously heavy lips and hands like iron! Well, that's life, I
guess." She stood and paced the room. "Let me think. We'll pick up a
flyer in Zelonip when we catch the bus next Tuesday. How much does the
money weigh?"
"Eighty pounds."
"I can carry about 10 pounds in my bag. You can take your field pack.
How much is in it? Thirty pounds? That'll leave about forty which we
can ship through on extra charges. Then, when we get to Xxla, I can
hide you out in an apartment over on the East side."
"Why would you run a risk like that for me?" he asked.
* * * * *
She brushed the hair from her face. "Let's say--what? I don't really
think you can make it, because it's so hopeless. But maybe, just maybe,
you might be one of the rare ones who, if he plays his cards right, can
beat the system. I love to see them licked!
"Well, I'm a clerk. That's all. Just a lowly clerk in one of the Party
offices. I met Von Stutsman a year ago. This is his cabin. He lets me
use it.
"He's older than I am; but there's worse husband material. But then
again, he's about to be transferred to one of the big agricultural
combines way out in the boondocks where there's no excitement at all.
Just little old ladies and little old men and peasants having children.
"I'm a city girl. I like Xxla. And if I marry him, all that goes up the
flue. I'll be marooned with him, God knows where, for years. Stuck,
just stuck.
"Still--he is Von Stutsman, and he's on his way up. Everyone says that.
Ten, twenty years, he'll be back to Xxla, and he'll come back on top.
"Oh ... I don't know what I want to do! If I marry him, I can get all
the things I've always wanted. Position, security. He's older than I
am, but he's really a nice guy. It's just that he's dull. He can't talk
about anything but Party, Party, Party.
"That's what I came out to this cabin for. To think things over, to try
to get things straightened out. And then you came along. Maybe it gives
me a chance for something exciting before I ship off to the boondocks.
Does that make sense to you?
"I'll get married and sit out there, and I'll turn the pages of the
Party magazine and smile sweetly to myself. Because, you see, I'll
always be able to lean forward and say, 'Dear? Once upon a time, I
helped hide an Earth spy in Xxla.' And that'll knock that silly and
self-satisfied look off his face for once.... Oh, I don't know! Let me
alone!" With that, she fled to the bedroom and slammed the door behind
her.
He could hear her sobbing helplessly.
In the afternoon, she came out. He had fallen asleep. She shook him
gently to waken him.
"Eh? Oh! Huh?" He smiled foolishly.
"Wash up in there," she told him. "I'm sorry I blew up on you this
morning. I'll cook something."
When he came back, she was serving them their dinner on steaming
platters.
"Look, Ge-Ge," he said over coffee. "You don't like your government.
We'll help you out. There's this Galactic Federation idea." He
explained to her the cross-fertilization of the two cultures.
"Shamar, my friend," she said, "did you see Earth's proposal? There was
nothing in it about giving us an interstellar drive. We were required
to give Earth all transportation franchises. The organization you used
to work for was to be given, as I remember it, an exclusive ninety-nine
year right to carry all Earth-Itra commerce. It was all covered in the
newspapers, didn't you see it?"
Shamar said, "Well, now, I'm not familiar with the details. I wasn't
keeping up with them. But I'm sure these things could be, you know,
worked out. Maybe, for Security reasons, we didn't want to give you the
interstellar drive right off, but you can appreciate our logic there.
Once we saw you were, well, like us, a peace-loving planet, once you'd
changed your government to a democracy, you would see it our way and
you'd have no complaints on that score."
"Let's not talk politics," she said wearily. "Maybe it's what you say,
and I'm just naturally suspicious. I don't want to talk about it."
"Well, I was just trying to help--"
The sentence was interrupted by a monstrous explosion.
"Good God!" Shamar cried. "What was that?"
"Oh, that," Ge-Ge said, shaking off the effects. "They were probably
testing one of their damned automated factories to see if it was
explosion proof and it wasn't."