"It seemed as though somebody ought to say good-bye."
"Who told you I was leaving?"
"I have a friend in the travel office. She tells me if anybody I know
books passage home."
"Convenient."
"Yes."
The drinks came. There was a clatter of voices, speaking in a thousand
tongues, laughing, crying, saying hello and good-bye and till we meet
again. Susan turned her glass round and round in her fingers, and
Durham watched her.
"I'm sorry, Lloyd. Sorry everything could not have turned out better."
"Yes. So am I."
"I hope you'll have better luck at home."
"Thanks."
Another silence in which Durham tried hard to figure her angle.
He said, "I heard you tried to talk your father into giving me another
chance. Thanks for that."
She stared at him blankly and shook her head. "You know how Dad feels
about you. I've never dared mention your name."
A cold feeling settled in the pit of Durham's stomach. _There's
somebody else, Lloyd, who wanted you to have another chance._ Fatherly
intuition?
Or a big fat lie?
Let's face it, Durham, why would Hawtree send you on a mission to the
dog pound? There are ten billion people on The Hub. He could have found
somebody else.
The whole business smells. It reeks.
But wait. Suppose he sent Susan here to test me; to see if I'd talk?
Not too believable, but a pleasanter belief than the alternative. Let's
see.
"Susan. Look, I can say this now because I'm going home and that's the
end of it. We won't see each other any more. I should never have got
engaged to Willa, I didn't love her. It was you all the time."
He caught the quick glint of tears in her eyes and was appalled. Tears
for him? From Susan Hawtree?
"That's why I went with you that night," she whispered. "I thought I
could take you from her. I thought I could make you be what you ought
to be--oh, damn you, Lloyd, I should never have come here!"
She jumped up and walked rapidly away from the table. He followed her,
with his eyes and his mouth both wide open and something very strange
happening inside him.
One thing sure. She was no plant.
"Susan."
"Don't you have to get aboard, or something?"
"Yes, but--Susan, ride down with me, I want to talk to you."
"There's nothing to talk about."
But she went to the stairwalk with him, and rode down, her face turned
away and her head held so high she seemed to tower over him.
"Susan," he said. "Do you think--could you give me--"
No, that's not the gambit. But what do you say--Susan, I'm a changed
man. Susan, wait for me?
The stairwalk slid them gently off onto a very long platform. There was
a crowd on it, sorting itself into the endless lines of purple monorail
taxis that moved along both sides.
"Susan."
"Good-bye, Lloyd."
"No, wait a minute. Please. I don't know quite how--"
Suddenly they were not alone. A young couple had joined them. The color
of their skin had changed from pale green to a warm burnt orange,
and their clothing was different, but Durham recognized them without
difficulty. A hard object prodded him in the side, and the young man,
smiling, said to him, "Get into that cab." The young woman, also
smiling, said to Susan Hawtree, "Don't scream. Keep perfectly quiet."
Susan's face went white. She looked at Durham, and Durham said to the
young man, "Let her go, she has nothing to do with this!"
"Get in the cab," said the young man. "Both of you."
"I think," said Susan, "we'd better do it."
They got in. The doors closed automatically behind them. The young man,
with his free hand, took out a ticket and laid it in the scanner slot,
with the code number of the ship's docking area uppermost. The taxi
clicked, hummed, and took off smoothly.
Durham saw the ticket as the young man removed it from the scanner. It
was a passage to Nanta Dik aboard the freighter _Margaretta K_.