"I play a little tennis myself," Lindsay told him. "How come they sent a
man like you on such a mission?"
"Top gladiator--top assignment," said the athlete. "We're supposed to do
something besides play games for our keep."
"That's a wrinkle in the social setup I didn't know about," said
Lindsay. "Mind telling me who sent you?"
"Not at all. It was my sponsors, the New Hibernian A.C." He frowned.
"According to the computers I was in. There's going to be hell to pay
over my muffing it."
"How do you feel about that?" the Martian asked him.
O'Ryan shrugged. "It's okay by me," he said. "They can hardly degrade me
for fouling up this kind of a job. I'll simply tell them their
information was incomplete. No one knew you knew _judo_." He eyed the
gin, added, "A good thing you didn't feed me whiskey. I'm allergic to
all grain products--even in alcohol. Comes from being fed too much
McCann's Irish oatmeal when I was a kid."
"Interesting," said Lindsay, wondering how the conversation had taken
this turn. "What does whiskey do to you?"
The gladiator shuddered. "It usually hits me about twenty-four hours
afterward. Makes my eyes water so I can't see much. I've got a match at
the Colosseum tomorrow night. I hope you'll be there."
"So do I," said Lindsay dryly. "You wouldn't know _who_ gave you this
little chore on me, would you?"
"Not likely," said the gladiator. "When we report at the club every
evening we find our assignments stuck in our boxes. Usually we get
orders to meet a dame. This was something different."
"I see what you mean," Lindsay told him.
O'Ryan got up, said, "Well, I might as well be running along. I'll give
them hell for fouling up the computer-prophecy. Look me up after the
match tomorrow. And thanks for not having me pinched. I might have had
to spend the night in a cell. That's bad for conditioning."
"You're quite welcome," said Lindsay, feeling like a character in a
semi-nightmare. "Will I be seeing you again--this way?"
"Unlikely," the gladiator told him. "They'll have to run a lot of checks
on you after this before they try again. See you tomorrow."
Lindsay looked after his visitor with amazement. Then it occurred to him
that computers were substituting not only for human judgment but for
human conscience as well. And this, he felt certain, was important.
Turning in on his contour couch, Lindsay recalled that he had given
whiskey to the allergic athlete. He decided then and there that he would
be in attendance at the match in the Colosseum that evening.
* * * * *
He got to his office about eleven o'clock. His desk was stacked high
with messages, written and taped, and all sorts of folk wished to talk
with him on the vidarphone. Nina, looking more slovenly than ever, had
arranged them neatly, according to their nature and importance in
separate little piles.
"Next time you tear up the pea-patch," she informed him resentfully,
"I'm going to get in some help." She eyed him with somber speculation,
added, "I hear the Sec-Gen turned in early last night."
"You've got big ears," said Lindsay.
"I get around," she said. "I'm supposed to keep tabs on you, boss."
"Then you must know someone tried to kill me early this morning when I
came back from Natchez."
Nina's eyes narrowed alarmingly under the glasses that covered them. She
said, "Why didn't you report it?" She sounded like a commander-in-chief
questioning a junior aide for faulty judgment.
"I won," Lindsay said simply. "There was no danger."
"Who was it?" she asked. And, when he hesitated, "I'm not going to shout
it from the housetops, boss."
"It was Pat O'Ryan."
"_You_ handled _Pat_?" she asked, apparently astonished. Something in
her tone told him Nina knew his would-be assassin.
"Why not?" he countered. "It wasn't much of a brawl."
"But Pat...." she began, and hesitated. Then, all business again, "We'd
better get at some of this. You have a date to be psyched by Dr. Craven
at two o'clock."
"What for?" he asked, startled.
"Routine," she told him. "Everyone connected with UW has to go through
it. But cheer up, boss, it doesn't hurt--much."
"Okay," he said resignedly. "Let's get to work."
While he dictated Lindsay found himself wondering just who was paying
Nina's real salary. If she were a spy for the same group that had sent
O'Ryan to kill him, his position was delicate, to put it mildly. But for
some reason he doubted it. There were too many groups working at once to
make any such simple solution probable.
When she departed briefly to superintend a minor matter out of the
office, he found himself staring at the wastebasket by his tilt-chair. A
heart-shaped jewel-box of transparent crystoplastic lay within it.
Curious, Lindsay plucked it out. It had evidently held some sort of
necklace and bore the mark of Zoffany's, the Capital's costliest
jeweler. Within it was a note that read: _For Nina, who lost last
night--as ever...._ The signature was an indecipherable scrawl.
Lindsay stuck the card in his wallet, returned the box to the
wastebasket. Who in hell, he wondered, would be sending this sort of
gift to his slatternly thick-bodied secretary. The answer seemed
obvious. The sender was her real boss, paying her off in a personal way
that would obviate suspicion. Lindsay wondered exactly what Nina had
lost.
He was not surprised when she said she would come along to the
psychiatrist's with him after an office lunch of veal pralines, soya
buns and coffee. He suggested she might be tired, might want the day
off.
She said, "Night soil, boss! Between the Sec-Gen's daughter and things
like Pat O'Ryan I'm going to keep an eye on you."
As if on signal the vidar-screen lit up and Maria's face appeared on it.
She had not donned harmopan or glasses and looked quite as lovely as she
had the night before. She said, "Zalen, I've got to see you tonight.
Something has come up."
Lindsay nodded. He figured out his schedule, suggested, "I'm going to
the match in the Colosseum. Why not take it in with me?"
She shook her head, told him, "I'm tangled up at a banquet for the
Egypto-Ethiopian delegation. I can meet you afterward though. How about
the Pelican?"
"That's not very private," he protested.
"All the more reason," she announced. "This is _important_!"
"And seeing me in private isn't?" Despite himself a trace of wounded
male entered his tone.
Maria laughed softly, her dark eyes dancing. "Perhaps later," she said
softly. "You'll understand when I talk to you." She clicked off and the
screen was empty.
"Damned cat!" said Nina through a haze of cigarette-smoke. "Watch out
for her, boss--she's a cannibal."
"And I'm a bit tough and stringy," he told her.
Nina said, "Night soil!" again under her breath and led the way out of
the office. Lindsay wondered if she were jealous.
* * * * *
Dr. Craven received them in a comfortable chamber, the north wall of
which was all glass brick, the south wall a solid bank of screens and
dials. He was a soft-faced man who wore lozenge-shaped light blue
spectacles and seemed afflicted with a slight chin rash. He caught
Lindsay's regard, rubbed his chin in mild embarrassment, said, "I've a
mild allergy to paranoids."
Lindsay looked at Nina distrustfully but she nodded and said, "Go
ahead--he won't break your arm. I'll wait outside."
The psychiatrist closed his office door. After settling him in a
comfortable contour couch, Dr. Craven opened up with, "I don't want you
to have any worries about this test, Ambassador. If anybody's crazy here
it's me. According to very sound current theory all psychiatrists are
insane. If we weren't we wouldn't be so concerned with sanity in
others."