"Thanks, darling," she promised. "We'd better go separately. There will
be a blue copter-cab waiting outside when you leave." She leaned across
the table to brush his lips briefly with hers, squeezed his hand and
glided off.
* * * * *
He wondered, while he waited for the check, just how foolhardly he was
being, allowing himself to be summoned to a meeting of palace
conspirators. It could very easily be a trap, whether Maria knew it or
not. It could be a ruse to add fuel to the fire being lit under him for
his recall as a _legate persona non grata_ on Earth.
"You _haven't_ forgotten our date, have you darling?" The voice was
throatily reproachful above him and he looked up in surprise at a
glittering female figure, who seemed to be clad entirely in blazing
brilliants.
She was tall and blonde, her hair an ocean helmet of gold, sprinkled
with gems. Her face was beautifully boned, with broad cheeks and
forehead pierced by a decided widow's peak. Light green eyes slanted
upward beneath brows like the wings of some tiny graceful bird. Nose,
lips and chin gained fascination from the perfection they skirted but
just escaped. Face, arms, upper bosom and shoulders wore the even tawny
golden tan that only some blondes can achieve.
Her figure, ashimmer with gems, was lithe of waist, firmly full of
breast and pelvis, moved with the enticing grace of an Indonesian temple
dancer as she slipped into the seat Maria had so recently vacated.
"Sorry, your highness," he said with a look of honest admiration. "I
didn't know we _had_ a date."
"We have now," she stated. She laid a handbag solidly encrusted with
diamonds, emeralds and rubies on the table, said to the dwarf waiter,
"Bring me the usual, Joe--and give Ambassador Lindsay another of
whatever he's drinking."
_At any other time_, Lindsay thought. He said, "I regret this more than
you'll ever know, my dear, but I've got a copter-cab waiting for me
outside."
"It will keep." The girl pouted prettily, then leaned toward him and
said huskily, "We'll have just one here. Then we can go to my place.
It's just outside of Biloxi, almost on the Gulf. We can watch the dawn
come up over the water. We can--"
"Stop twisting my arm," said Lindsay, trying to keep his thoughts in
focus. Who had sent _this_ girl and why? And what, he wondered, awaited
him in Biloxi.
He got up, tossed a twenty-credit note on the table. "This will pay the
check," he informed her.
"Not so fast," said the houri, rising with him. Trying to ignore her, he
headed toward the door as fast as he could.
She kept after him and his ears burned as he plunged out into the night,
saw the blue copter-cab waiting with its door open at the curb. But when
he tried to plunge toward it he was halted by an arm whose sharp-faceted
jeweled adornments cut his adam's apple. He gasped but the girl got in
front of him, waving her bag.
There was a faint popping noise as the door closed and the copter-cab
swiftly and silently darted away. Stunned by the swiftness of events,
Lindsay was utterly incapable of resistance when his decorative
tormentor thrust him into another vehicle. As they took off he said, "I
suppose this is the prelude to another assassination try."
"Night soil!" said a familiar voice. "What the hell do you think I just
saved you from, boss?"
* * * * *
Lindsay uttered one word--a word which, he thought later, was singularly
revealing as to his native flair for diplomacy. He said, briefly and
succinctly, "_Huh?_"
"Listen, my fine unfeathered Martian friend." She sounded like a primary
school teacher addressing an overgrown and somewhat backward pupil.
"Somebody fired a glass bullet at you from that cab."
"How do you...?" he began helplessly.
For answer she turned on the copter-cab light, revealing the back of a
uniformed chauffeur, and showed him her handbag. There was a slight tear
in one side of its begemmed surface and, when she shook it, bits of
glass fell to the floor. "Careful," she warned when he reached for the
bag. "It was probably packed with poison." Then, "Can you think of a
better shield than diamonds?"
He said, "_Ulp!_" Unquestionably, now that she had revealed herself,
this glittering creature was his slovenly office Nina. Seeking
desperately to recover what had at best been a shaky boss-secretary
relationship, he said, "Where are you taking me?"
"Out of the city, boss," she informed him. "We really are going to my
place in Biloxi. You're much too hot a property to be allowed to wander
around loose. Two tries in less than twenty-four hours."
"Then Maria..." he said, wonderingly.
Nina picked his thought up crisply. "We don't know whether your little
playmate put the finger on you consciously or not. But she did it. Some
of that sweet little crew she pals around with are desperate. They don't
believe they can lick the computers and their only hope is to foment
incidents that will lead to an interplanetary war. Nice kids!"
"But why pick on me?" he asked. "From what Maria said tonight I'm their
one hope of beating the machines."
Nina shook her head at him sadly. "And you're the best brain our Martian
cousins could send us. Here it is in words of one syllable. Maria's mob
wants war. They believe they can light the powder train by arranging the
assassination of a Martian Plenipotentiary.
"Meanwhile your speech yesterday and your fouling up Doc Craven's
computer this afternoon, and whatever you did at the tennis tonight,
have the Computer crowd screaming for your recall before you upset their
little red wagon." She paused, added, "Naturally Maria's crowd wants to
have you killed before you become a mere private citizen of Mars. Once
you're removed from office you aren't important enough to cause a war."
"Good God!" said Lindsay as the double pattern became apparent. Then,
curiously, "And just whom do you represent, Nina?"
She eyed him steadily, mockingly for a moment. Then she said, "Let's
just say for now that I represent the Model's Union. We don't want any
wartime austerity wrecking our pitch. Will that do?"
"I guess it will have to," he said. Then, plucking a diamond-and-emerald
necklace from among the half-dozen about her throat, "You certainly
didn't give poor Anderson much for his money."
"Stop it!" she snapped. "Do you want my eyes to swell up again? In a way
what happened tonight was all your fault. Fernando and I were going to
keep close tabs on you but you fouled me up with your beastly remark
about my business at Doc Craven's and then put poor Fernando out of
commission by getting mixed up in that riot at the Colosseum. I barely
made the Pelican in time."
He thought of giving Nina the receipt from Zoffany's in his pocket,
decided not to take the chance. So he said, "Is Fernando working for the
Model's Union too?"
"Stop trying to be funny," she told him. "Night soil! You make me so
damned mad. Letting that little tramp Maria nail you."
"At the time there wasn't much alternative," he said. Then, eyeing her
closely, "How come you're mixed up in UW politics? I thought models were
strictly for fun and games."
Nina said matter-of-factly, "I won top model rating when I was
seventeen. I still hold it and I'm twenty-six now. A girl can get tired
of being and doing the same thing--even in my profession. Besides, I've
got brains. So I try to use them."
"How come you decided to be my secretary?"
"We drew lots and I lost," she informed him.
* * * * *
The copter dropped by searchlight to a flagged terrace in front of a
dark cottage just off the beach. "Thanks, Bob," said Nina. "Tell the
boys to stand by with their guard beams up." Then, to Lindsay, "Come on,
boss, let's get out of this heap."
She walked swiftly toward the cottage, pressed something. Soft lights
came on, revealing a charming simulated wood dwelling in the fine
antique Frank Lloyd Wright tradition. She ushered him into a
delightfully gay bathroom looking out on the water, said, "Wait here
while I get this armor off."
Lindsay felt a slight qualm as he considered what being a top model at
seventeen must mean. And then he thought, Why not? Certainly he had no
claim on Nina's morals. He doubted if anyone had a claim of any kind on
her.
She emerged, looking unexpectedly like a young girl in simple clout and
cup-bra, which exposed most of her gorgeously tanned body. Her hair,
innocent of jewels like the rest of her, was clubbed back simply with
some sort of clip. She lit a cigarette and said, "Now--how the hell are
you fouling up the computers?"
"I'm not," he told her promptly. "At least not in the case of the tennis
match. I just happened to know something about Pat O'Ryan the people who
fed facts to the computer didn't."
"That goon Pat!" she said. "He's so damned dumb."
"You know him well?" he asked with a trace of jealousy.
"I know him." She dismissed it with a flick of her cigarette. "It's a
good thing you knew _judo_ too, boss. But what did you do to him that
fouled up the match?"
"While he was out cold I gave him a shot of whiskey to bring him
'round," Lindsay told her. "He didn't know about it and I didn't tell
him when he informed me about his grain-alcohol allergy. So for once the
computer didn't get full facts. And I had them."
For the first time Lindsay basked in a smile of approval from Nina. She
said, "And then you had to mess me up at Doc Craven's so I couldn't sit
in on the match."
"I'm sorry about that," he said sincerely. "You might brief me so I
don't do it again."
"Well...." She hesitated. "I don't want to set myself off. It's not
uncommon among us--models. You see, we're proud of our careers, not like
the two-credit whores who wear glasses and harnesses. And it hurts us
when someone refers to our work as business. You see, there's nothing
really commercial about it. So when you--"
"But how the devil was I to know you were a model?" he asked her.
"I know," she said illogically. "But it still made me mad." Then,
frowning, "But if the computer was wrong because of incomplete knowledge
at the Colosseum, what was wrong at Doc Craven's?"