It took twenty minutes by helitaxi to reach the metropolitan area
from the spaceport. Handling the Terran currency as if he had used
it all his life, Harris paid the driver, tipped him, and got out. He
had asked for and been taken to a hotel in the heart of the city--the
Spaceways Hotel. There was one of them in every major spaceport city in
the galaxy; the spacelines operated them jointly, for the benefit of
travelers who had no place to stay on the planet of their destination.
He signed in and was given a room on the 58th floor. The Earther at the
desk said, "You don't mind heights, do you, Major?"
"Not at all."
He gave the boy who had carried his bags a quarter-unit piece, received
grateful thanks, and locked the door. For the first time since leaving
Darruu he was really _alone_. Thumbing open his suitcases, he performed
the series of complex stress-pressures that gave access to the
hidden areas of the grips; miraculously, the suitcases expanded to
nearly twice their former volume. There was nothing like packing your
belongings in a tesseract if you wanted to keep the customs men away
from them.
Busily, he unpacked.
First thing out was a small device which fit neatly and virtually
invisibly to the inside of the door. It was a jammer for spybeams. It
insured privacy.
A disruptor-pistol came next. He slipped it into his tunic-pocket.
Several books; a flask of Darruui wine; a photograph of his birth-tree.
Bringing these things had not increased his risk, since if they had
been found it would only be after much more incriminating things had
come to light.
The subspace communicator, for example. Or the narrow-beam amplifier
he would use in making known his presence to the other members of the
Darruui cadre on Earth.
He finished unpacking, restored his suitcases to their
three-dimensional state, and took a tiny scalpel from the toolkit he
had unpacked. Quickly stripping off his trousers, he laid bare the
desensitized area in the fleshy part of his thigh, stared for a moment
at the network of fine silver threads underlying the flesh, and, with
three careful twists of the scalpel's edge, altered the thermostatic
control in his body.
He shivered a moment; then, gradually, he began to feel warm. Closing
the wound, he applied nuplast; moments later it had healed. He dressed
again.
He surveyed his room. Twenty feet square, with a bed, a desk, a closet,
a dresser. An air-conditioning grid in the ceiling. A steady greenish
electroluminescent glow. An oval window beneath which was a set of
polarizing controls. A molecular bath and washstand. Not bad for twenty
units a week, he told himself, trying to think the way an Earthman
might.
The room-calendar told him it was five-thirty in the afternoon, 22 May
2562. He was not supposed to make contact with Central for ten days or
more; he computed that that would mean the first week of June. Until
then he was simply to act the part of a Terran on vacation.
The surgeons had made certain minor alterations in his metabolism to
give him a taste for Terran food and drink and to make it possible for
him to digest the carbohydrates of which Terrans were so fond. They had
prepared him well for playing the part of Major Abner Harris. And he
had been equipped with fifty thousand units of Terran money, enough to
last him quite a while.
Carefully he adjusted the device on the door to keep intruders out
while he was gone. Anyone entering the room would get a nasty jolt of
energy now. He checked his wallet, made sure he had his money with him,
and pushed the door-opener.
It slid back and he stepped through into the hallway. At that moment
someone walking rapidly down the hall collided with him, spinning him
around. He felt a soft body pressed against his.
A woman!
The immediate reaction that boiled up in him was one of anger, but he
blocked the impulse to strike her before it rose. On Darruu, a woman
who jostled a Servant of the Spirit could expect a sound whipping. But
this was not Darruu.
He remembered a phrase from his indoctrination: _it will help to create
a sexual relationship for yourself on Earth_.
The surgeons had changed his metabolism in that respect, too, making
him able to feel sexual desires for Terran females. The theory was that
no one would expect a disguised alien to engage in romantic affairs
with Terrans; it would be a form of camouflage.
"Excuse me!" Harris and the female Terran said simultaneously.
His training reminded him that simultaneous outbursts were cause for
laughter on Earth. He laughed. So did she. Then she said, "I guess I
didn't see you. I was hurrying along the corridor and I wasn't looking."
"The fault was mine," Harris insisted. _Terran males are obstinately
chivalrous_, he had been told. "I opened my door and just charged out
blind. I'm sorry."
She was tall, nearly his height, with soft, lustrous yellow hair and
clear pink skin. She wore a black body-tight sheath that left her
shoulders and the upper hemispheres of her breasts uncovered. Harris
found her attractive. Wonderingly he thought, _Now I know they've
changed me. She has hair on her scalp and enormous bulging breasts and
yet I feel desire for her._
She said, "It's my fault and it's your fault. That's the way most
collisions are caused. Let's not argue about that. My name is Beth
Baldwin."
"Major Abner Harris."
"Major?"
"Interstellar Development Corps."
"Oh," she said. "Just arrived on Earth?"
He nodded. "I'm on vacation. My last hop was Alpheratz IV." He smiled
and said, "It's silly to stand out here in the hall discussing things.
I was on my way down below to get something to eat. How about joining
me?"
She looked doubtful for a moment, but only for a moment. She
brightened. "I'm game."
* * * * *
They took the gravshaft down and ate in the third-level restaurant,
an automated affair with individual conveyor-belts bringing food to
each table. Part of his hypnotic training had been intended to see him
through situations such as this, and so he ordered a dinner for two,
complete with wine, without a hitch.
She did not seem shy. She told him that she was employed on Rigel XII,
and had come to Earth on a business trip; she had arrived only the day
before. She was twenty-nine, unmarried, a native-born Earther like
himself, who had been living in the Rigel system the past four years.
"And now tell me about you," she said, reaching for the wine decanter.
"There isn't much to tell. I'm a fairly stodgy career man in the IDC,
age forty-two, and this is the first day I've spent on Earth in ten
years."
"It must feel strange."
"It does."
"How long is your vacation?"
He shrugged. "Six to eight months. I can have more if I really want it.
When do you go back to Rigel?"
She smiled strangely at him. "I may not go back at all. Depends on
whether I can find what I'm looking for on Earth."
"And what are you looking for?"
She grinned. "My business," she said.
"Sorry."
"Never mind the apologies. Let's have some more wine."
After Harris had settled up the not inconsiderable matter of the bill,
they left the hotel and went outside to stroll. The streets were
crowded; a clock atop a distant building told Harris that the time
was shortly after seven. He felt warm now that he had adjusted his
temperature controls, and the unfamiliar foods and wines in his stomach
gave him an oddly queasy feeling, though he had enjoyed the meal.
The girl slipped her hand through his looped arm and squeezed the
inside of his elbow. Harris grinned. He said, "I was afraid it was
going to be an awfully lonely vacation."
"Me too. You can be tremendously alone on a planet that has twenty
billion people on it."
They walked on. In the middle of the street a troupe of acrobats was
performing, using nullgrav devices to add to their abilities. Harris
chuckled and tossed them a coin, and a bronzed girl saluted to him from
the top of a human pyramid.
Night was falling. Harris considered the incongruity of walking
arm-in-arm with an Earthgirl, with his belly full of Earth foods, and
enjoying it.
Darruu seemed impossibly distant now. It lay eleven hundred light-years
from Earth; its star was visible only as part of a mass of blurred dots
of light.
But yet he knew it was there. He missed it.
"You're worrying about something," the girl said.
"It's an old failing of mine."
He was thinking: _I was born a Servant of the Spirit, and so I was
chosen to go to Earth. I may never return to Darruu again._
As the sky darkened they strolled on, over a delicate golden bridge
spanning a river whose dark depths twinkled with myriad points of
light. Together they stared down at the water, and at the stars
reflected in it. She moved closer to him, and her warmth against his
body was pleasing to him.
Eleven hundred light-years from home.
_Why am I here?_
He knew the answer. Titanic conflict was shaping in the universe. The
Predictors held that the cataclysm was no more than two hundred years
away. Darruu would stand against its ancient adversary Medlin, and all
the worlds of the universe would be ranged on one side or on the other.
He was here as an ambassador. Earth was a mighty force in the
galaxy--so mighty that it would resent the role it really played, that
of pawn between Darruu and Medlin. Darruu wanted Terran support in
the conflict to come. Obtaining it was a delicate problem in consent
engineering. A cadre of disguised Darruui, planted on Earth, gradually
manipulating public opinion toward the Darruu camp and away from
Medlin--that was the plan, and Harris, once Aar Khiilom, was one of its
agents.
They walked until the hour had grown very late, and then turned back
toward the hotel. Harris was confident now that he had established the
sort of relationship that was likely to shield him from all suspicion
of his true origin.
He said, "What do we do now?"
"Suppose we buy a bottle of something and have a party in your room?"
she suggested.
"My room's a frightful mess," Harris said, thinking of the many things
in there he would not want her to see. "How about yours?"
"It doesn't matter."
They stopped at an autobar and he fed half-unit pieces into a machine
until the chime sounded and a fully wrapped bottle slid out the
receiving tray. Harris tucked it under his arm, made a mock-courteous
bow to her, and they continued on their way to the hotel.
The signal came just as they entered the lobby.
* * * * *
It reached Harris in the form of a sudden twinge in the abdomen; that
was where the amplifier had been embedded. He felt it as three quick
impulses, _rasp rasp rasp_, followed after a brief pause by a repeat.
The signal had only one meaning: _Emergency. Get in touch with your
contact-man at once._
Her hand tightened on his arm. "Are you all right? You look so pale!"
In a dry voice he said, "Maybe we'd better postpone our party a few
minutes. I'm--not quite well."
"Oh! Can I help?"
He shook his head. "It's--something I picked up on Alpheratz."
Turning, he handed her the packaged bottle and said, "It'll just take
me a few minutes to get myself settled down. Suppose you go to your
room and wait for me there."
"But if you're sick I ought to--"
"No. Beth, I have to take care of this myself, without anyone else
watching. Okay?"
"Okay," she said doubtfully.
"Thanks. Be with you as soon as I can."
They rode the gravshaft together to the 58th floor and went their
separate ways, she to her room, he to his. The signal in his abdomen
was repeating itself steadily now with quiet urgency: _Rasp rasp rasp.
Rasp rasp rasp. Rasp rasp rasp._
He neutralized the force-field on the door with a quick energy impulse
and opened the door. Stepping inside quickly, he activated the spy-beam
jammer again. Beads of sweat were starting to form on his skin.
_Rasp rasp rasp. Rasp rasp rasp._
He opened the closet, took out the tiny narrow-beam amplifier he had
hidden there, and tuned it to the frequency of the emergency signal.
Immediately the rasping stopped as the narrow-beam amplifier covered
the wavelength.
Moments passed. The amplifier picked up a voice speaking in the code
devised for use by Darruui agents alone.
"Identify yourself."
Harris identified himself according to the regular procedure. He went
on to say, "I arrived on Earth today. My instructions were not to
report to you for about two weeks."
"I know that. There's an emergency situation."
"What kind of emergency?"
"There are Medlin agents on Earth. Normal procedures will have to be
altered. Meet me at once." He gave an address. Harris memorized it and
repeated it. The contact was broken.
_Meet me at once._ The orders had to be interpreted literally. _At
once_ meant right now, not tomorrow afternoon. His tryst with the
yellow-haired Earthgirl would just have to wait.
He picked up the house-phone and asked for her room. A moment later he
heard her voice.
"Hello?"
"Beth, this is Abner Harris."
"How are you? Everything under control? I'm waiting for you."
Hesitantly he said, "I'm fine now. But--Beth, I don't know how to
say this--will you believe me when I say that a friend of mine just
phoned, and wants me to meet him right away downtown?"
"Now? But it's after eleven!"
"I know. He's--a strange sort."
"I thought you didn't have any friends on Earth, Major Harris. You said
you were lonely."
"He's not really a _friend_. He's a business associate. From IDC."
"Well, I'm not accustomed to having men stand me up. But I don't have
any choice, do I?"
"Good girl. Make it a date for breakfast in the morning instead?"
"Lousy substitute, but it'll have to do. See you at nine."