Frankie looked around -- if it was Frankie -- with his grin broadening. "Don't you feel bad, Misser Jones," he said. "We surprise mos' people, don't we, Misser Ruell?"
Ruell's laughter was trailing off into a series of little sighs, Ahuh. Ahuh! Finished with these, he asked solemnly, "Exactly how many are there of you at the present moment, Frankie?"
Frankie's expression grew equally serious. "This morning," he said, "they was two hun'red forty-three of me exackly. You know las' month they was only two hun'red twelve, the mos', but this month we doing so much work to build up the Long Corridor where it fell down, they need us bad. We the bes' servan' in Eagles, Misser Ruell. Nex' nearest is Hank the carrier, and I think they only a hun'red, a hun'red ten of him. Well, Misser Jones, you never see a fellow so many, eh?" He laughed with pleasure.
They turned away. "There used to be some fabulous number of him," Ruell said, "I don't recall, three hundred fifty or so, and Frankie's one ambition is to beat his own record. He counts himself every morning, and if he's lost any, he goes around with a long face for the rest of the day. Is anything the matter?"
"It doesn't seem sensible," said Dick. He started to sit, then, remembering that he was technically at home, offered Ruell a chair first. "How do you tell which one you've sent on an errand? Or suppose you want one of them to remember something for you, how do you find him again?"
"Oh, Frankie tells himself everything," said Ruell, sitting gracefully upright, legs crossed, hand on his stick. "That's why he's so useful -- he knows everything, goes everywhere; besides which, if you have a useful servant, why experiment?"
It was the fifth or sixth time he had heard the word "servant" that day. "Don't you call them slobs here?" he demanded irritably. "Or even slaves?"
Ruell shrugged. "My dear boy -- " His ironic glance sharpened. "Let me see now. You ride well, your small-arms shooting is just fair, your swagger-stick work is quite good, as you have demonstrated; with coaching, you might become exceptional. You swim, no doubt, dance, I suppose; know nothing, want to know nothing ... " Dick stood up.
"Don't lose your temper," said Ruell evenly. "It's your worst fault, except for ignorance: sit down, I have something to tell you. I say, sit down."
For some reason, Dick sat. "You are of a prime age," Ruell went on in the same tone, "strong, well set up and not bad looking. Above all, you are a new face. I think that will be our best line of attack."
"I don't understand you," said Dick.
"Don't you? Let me put it this way. At Eagles, everything is power; orbits and spheres of power, tides of power. As you have none yourself, you must have a protector: the question is, which? Now, nothing is ever given for nothing, at Eagles; what have you to offer? Let's see; no particular talents nor skills, no connections at Eagles except myself -- and nothing to expect from me but good advice, incidentally -- no supporters, no special information, in short, nothing but your person. Now let me think." He paused, two curved fingers at his chin. "If only you had let Keel drown, there would have been an opening. Keel is Randolph's boy, and you could hardly ask for anything better than that; Randolph is the Boss's secretary of entertainment. Very nice; it's too bad. However -- " he scanned Dick's face more closely -- "I don't believe you're the type; curious, I had rather expected ... Well, that leaves us just one alternative." He sat back. "We shall have to make a ladies' man of you. It's a shorter career as a rule, and a chancier one -- the dear ladies are capricious -- but we'll see what we can do. I'll introduce you to one or two of them; I assure you, some of them are not bad-looking at all; and if nothing happens, or if it doesn't last, well, we'll try again."
Dick had a baffled feeling that anger would be out of place; he felt half disgusted, half incredulous.
"Are you serious?"
Ruell's eyes narrowed slightly; he frowned, and did not answer.
Dick stood up. "Ruell, I listened to you because, well, my father mentioned your name -- "
"Yes?"
" -- but there's a limit to that. I don't like you, and I don't want your advice. So you can get out."
Ruell stood up slowly. His paper-gray face was shut and still. Dick felt his heartbeat accelerate. Ruell's thin hand, on the knob of his stick, tightened and relaxed. "For the 'sake of your father," he said, "I'll let this pass -- just this once. You are a very foolish young man; you had better learn wisdom, and learn it soon." At the door, he turned briefly. "Au revoir."
Dick let out the breath he had been holding, and sank down in the chair. He felt suddenly tired again; his head was beginning to ache and his eyes burned.
Duped slobs, and hand-carved paneling that had to be finished on the spot. Lampreys in the fountain; what had Ruell meant by that sentence in French, 'The more it changes, the more it's the same thing'? The horrifying implications of the things Ruell had said so calmly, sitting there across the room: "protectors"; "Randolph's boy"; "ladies' man." What if it were all true?
But there: it couldn't be.
8
For ten days, he had been walking the corridors of Eagles, jostled by slobs pushing chair-carts, stared at and (he was sure) laughed at behind his back. The Colorado-style clothes he was wearing were clumsily cut, but the best he had been able to get; the fabrics seemed dull, too, although they had looked all right when the tailor brought them to his rooms. He was beginning to get the feel, now, of Eagles "style," and becoming acutely aware that he didn't have it -- the richly folded garments, the ornaments, the touches of color, the odd feather or rosette, the whiff of perfume; the manner, the angle of the cocked elbow, the walk, a thousand things.
He passed a scaffolding that covered half a wall. From the next corridor came the stuttering roar of jack-hammers; Eagles, it seemed, was constantly being rebuilt, redesigned, redecorated.
He had gotten himself lost innumerable times, in spite of the map one of the Frankies had given him, but the manifold sights of Eagles were beginning to pall on him. He was sick of his narrow rooms; there was no gymnasium in them, no library, not even a decent pool.
He knew not a soul in Eagles except Ruell, unless you counted the Frankies and other slobs; and the devil of it was, he couldn't seem to get to know anybody else, either. He had not even succeeded in meeting Colonel Van Etten, the Army officer in charge of commissions. Twice he had cooled his heels in Van Etten's cream-and-gold outer office, the first time to learn that you needed an appointment to see Van Etten, the second time, having got an appointment, to find, that Van Etten had been called away. When you telephoned Van Etten, he was not in.
From the corridor in which he was walking, broad, curved steps fell away into the cool green dimness of an antique cocktail lounge. The bottles and glasses behind the bar were aglow with spectral colors; the bartenders were only silhouettes. Hungry for company, he paused and looked in; at a nearby table, a woman glanced up at him and stared incuriously for a moment before she turned back to her companion. Dick hesitated, then drew back: the place might be a private preserve of some kind, he had no way of knowing. He passed on.
The corridor curved and twisted obliquely down a row of little artisans' workshops (coral jewelry, wooden bookbindings, batiks, painted gourds) and emptied onto the main corridor again. Now he was in territory he knew; this was the main artery at mid-level. It was always crowded, always colorful day or night. Here came a man in purple robes with a miter on his head, trident in one hand and censer in the other. Dick had seen him before and asked about him; according to Frankie, he was a priest of Eblis -- whatever that might be. Here came a chattering group of girls, all young, most of them pretty -- slobs, worse luck; he had hardly seen a young freewoman since he got here. Behind them walked two swarthy fellows in black, with truncheons and scowling faces; he knew them, too, by the uniform -- Gismo Guards.