The lawyer grimaced. "Why? I don't believe in astrology. I have been
told it's Taurus."
Harvey smiled. "This is a fine coincidence. My fiancee's sign is also
Taurus. I am Pisces. The two signs are especially in affinity with one
another. I believe you can trust me, sir." He looked straight into the
lawyer's eyes.
* * * * *
The lawyer grinned lopsidedly after a moment and turned to Gramenger.
"We can trust him," he said. "He's right all the way down the line.
Anyway, we couldn't waste time in finding out."
"All right!" Gramenger rapped the words out half-angrily. "Take care of
it, Phil. Get Parsons & Carey on the 'phone, and ask them to send all
their engineers and equipment out. Pronto!" The lawyer nodded briefly
at Harvey and left the room.
"As for you," said Gramenger. He gulped and stopped. With trembling
fingers he began shoving the pile of dirt back into the paper bag.
Harvey thought a minute.
"I wonder if I could use your 'phone?" he asked.
Gramenger growled an assent. Harvey sat on the edge of the desk. "Get
me outside," he told the operator, who turned out to be a machine
somewhere in the building. The mechanical voice told him to press the O
key. He pressed the O key. "Get me Mars," he said. The mechanical voice
changed to a human voice. "Get me the Hotel de Mars on Mars," he said.
Gramenger was staring at him. A voice at the other end came through
thinly. "Let me speak to Anna Christina Morley at the Registration
desk," he said. Gramenger sat down, beginning to smile and staring
at Harvey as if not only a new planet but a new type of man had been
discovered.
Harvey said, "Anna, dearest? I shall speak very plainly, very quickly.
I am a man of few words--What?"
His leathery face lost a little color. "But you _are_ my fiancee, you
know."
"Am I?" she cried. "What makes you think so? What makes you think you
can talk fifteen minutes with a girl, have her fall in love with you,
assume she'll go crazy waiting for you, waiting ten months--when four
months have already passed without hearing from you--"
"My dear Anna," he said. "If this is a joke--"
"You're a joke." She sobbed. She broke down. "I don't know what you
did to me. Only fifteen minutes. How could you have done that to me in
fifteen minutes?"
He frowned. "I'm always certain of a situation before I leave it,"
he explained. "That is a common precaution that we men of space must
take, an ordinary survival mechanism, I should say. Besides, you are a
Taurus, and I am a Pisces and I computed that numerologically--"
"Bother your astrology and your numerology," she snapped.
There was silence, a long half minute of it stretching between Venus
and Mars at a half-credit a second. Gramenger continued to get more and
more amused.
"What do you want?" she asked. "When will you come back, if ever?"
His singed eyebrow went up in puzzlement. "I told you ten months,
Anna. I meant ten months. As for what I want, please, at once, send
a space-wire to your father in Oregon. Have him ship five hens and a
cock by fast passenger express to the spaceport depot on Venus. Ask him
also to include whatever special medicines, feeds, and instructions are
necessary for the raising and nurturing of Plymouth Rocks--"