"Yes."
"Good. Let me know." Seu walked out, as hastily as he had entered.
Nick Pappageorge had roused himself and was polishing a tall, fluted
silver vase. Cudyk said, "Nick, go and find out where Mr. Harkway is.
If he isn't busy, ask him if he'll do me the favor of dropping around
to see me. Otherwise, just come back and tell me where he is; I'll go
to him."
Nick said, "Sure, Mr. Cudyk," and went out.
Cudyk stared at the tray of unsorted gems on the desk before him.
He stirred them with his forefinger, separating out an emerald, two
aquamarines, a large turquoise and a star sapphire. That was all he
had had to begin with--his dead wife's jewels, carried half across
Europe when a loaf of bread was worth more than all the gem stones
in the world. The sapphire had bought his passage on the alien ship;
the others had been his original stock-in-trade, first at the refugee
center on Alfhal, then here on Palumbar. Now he was a prosperous
importer, with a business that netted him the equivalent of ten
thousand pounds a year.
But the wealth was ashes; he would have traded all of it for one
loaf of bread, eaten in peace, on an Earth that had not sunk back to
barbarism.
Momentum, he told himself. Momentum, and a remnant of curiosity. Those
are the only reasons I can think of why I do not blow out my brains.
I wonder what keeps the others from it? Seu? Chong Yin? I don't know.
Burgess has his fantasy, though it cracks now and then. Ferguson has
the sensibility of a jackal. Rack, as Seu said, is a fanatic. But why
do the rest of them keep on? For what?
* * * * *
The doorway darkened again as Harkway came in, followed by Nick. Nick
gestured toward the rear of the shop, and Harkway advanced, smiling.
His lower lip was stained by a purple substance with a glossy surface.
Cudyk greeted him and offered him a chair. "It was good of you to come
over," he said. "I hope I didn't interrupt your work."
Harkway grinned stiffly. "No. I was just finishing lunch when your boy
found me. I have nothing more to do until this evening."