When she paused, Ronny looked at his superior. “What’s this got to do with me?”
Metaxa had slugged back the drink he had poured. As he wiped the heel of his beefy hand over his mouth, he said, “Sid didn’t bring you completely up to date. Yesterday, when we found out it was Baron Wyler, who had tipped off Interplanetary News, we sent out a call to have him picked up. Until we are able to concoct some mutually satisfactory plans to present to United Planets as a whole, we want to keep the existence of the aliens secret in order to minimize confusion. However, the good Baron has flown the coop.”
Ronny stared at him. “He’s gone? Where?”
“Evidently, back to Phrygia. He came to the conference in his own official yacht. Which is, by the way, at least as fast as any Space Forces cruiser, or public transportation. You won’t be able to beat him back to his home planet, no matter how soon you start.”
It was clearing up now. Ronny looked from one of them to the other. “You want me to go to Phrygia, eh? What do I do there?”
Ross scowled at him. “If we knew, then we wouldn’t have to send as good a man. You play it by ear. Do what has to be done.”
Ronny grunted at the left-handed compliment. “How big is our Section G force on Phrygia?”
Metaxa looked at Sid Jakes.
Sid was amused. “Only one man,” he said. “And he’s incognito. Operates under the guise of a member of the UP Department of Trade. The Phrygians are as stute as they come and evidently suspect the true nature of Section G. They don’t want any of our operatives stirring around in their affairs.”
Ronny came to his feet. “I suppose I’d better get under way.” He hesitated. “What happened to Rita Daniels and Rosen?”
Sid shrugged. “We memorywashed them and sent them back to Interplanetary News. They can’t complain. They’ve been violating Article Two in return for news beats.”
Irene Kasansky had made the arrangements for his trip out to Phrygia. When Ronny issued forth from Metaxa’s sanctum sanctorium, she had looked up at him from her multiple duties on phone screen and order box, at desk mike and auto-files.
“Got your marching orders, eh? Before they’re through in there, there won’t be an agent left on Mother Earth.” She handed a slip of paper to him. “Your shuttle for Neuve Albuquerque leaves at six. You’ll have only one hour stopover. It’s all on the paper there. Take care of yourself, Ronny.”
It occurred to him only then, why Metaxa and Jakes had sent but one agent to Phrygia. Section G must be impossibly short of men in this crisis. Metaxa must have a thousand sore spots with which to deal. Metaxa had been right, up there on the podium, man was in the clutch and must soon alter all his most basic institutions, or he would be a sitting duck for the ultra-advanced aliens.
Ronny Bronston packed sparsely. He had no idea how long he might remain on the distant planet, which was his destination. It might be a matter of hours or years; he might spend the rest of his life there. However, if the stay were lengthy, he could augment his possessions on the spot. To date, he had no idea of what Phrygia climate or clothing styles might be. Why overload himself with non-essentials?
The roof of his apartment building was a copter-cab pickup point, and it took him little time to make his way to the Greater Washington shuttleport. Within three hours of his exit from Ross Metaxa’s office, he was being lobbed over to the spaceport at Neuve Albuquerque.
Irene had made him reservations on an interplanetary liner, rather than assigning a Space Forces cruiser. More comfortable than the military craft, of course, but not so fast. He shrugged. It was a long trip, and one to which he didn’t look forward.
When Ronny Bronston had been a younger man, working in Population Statistics in New Copenhagen, had someone suggested that he wouldn’t enjoy interplanetary travel, he would have thought the other mad. Getting into space was every earthborn boy’s dream, and few there were who realized it. Long since, the authorities had taken measures to keep Earth’s population from leaving wholesale. These days, when new planets were colonized, the colonists came from older settled planets, other than Earth. Earth, the source of man, could not spare its people. Its sole “industry” had at long last become the benevolent direction of human affairs, a super-government. More than four thousand man-populated worlds looked to it, in one degree or another, even those not members of United Planets.
However, no matter how strong the dream, no matter how wrapped up in interplanetary affairs, Ronny Bronston soon came to realize that the actual time involved in getting from one colonized planet to the next was the sheerest of boredom. All passenger activity in space was manufactured activity. There was little to do, certainly nothing to see, once the ship has gone into underspace.
One sits and reads. One plays battle chess, or other games. One talks with one’s fellow passengers. One watches the Tri-Di tapes, if one is mentally of that level.
Thus it was, on the first day out, that Ronny Bronston made his way to the lounge, hoping that at least the craft was stocked with reading material new to him.
He sank into an auto-chair, as far as possible from the Tri-Di stage, and reached his hand for the stud, which would activate the reading tape listing, set into the chair’s arm. His eye, however, hit upon the fellow passenger seated a few feet to his right.
He frowned, and said, “Don’t we know each…” and then broke it off. Of course. It was Rita Daniels, the Interplanetary News reporter. He hadn’t recognized her at first, since she had been wearing a heavy makeup disguise-trying to look like the Supreme Matriarch, Harriet Dos Passos—when he had seen her last. Now, in her own guise, he realized that she was considerably younger than he had thought—and considerably more attractive.
She was blonde, a bit too slim, with a pert, slightly freckled face, and ignored current hair style in favor of a rather intricate ponytail arrangement. In spite of her pertness, there was another more elusive quality, a certain vulnerableness about her mouth. She was clad in a businesslike, inconspicuous crimson suit, and she obviously was of the opinion that this somewhat colorless young man was attempting to pick her up.
She said coolly, “I am afraid not”—and turned away.
What in the name of the Holy Ultimate was she doing on this vessel? The implication was obvious.
He snapped his fingers. “Citizeness Daniels. Interplanetary News.”
She turned on him, her eyebrows high, in surprise. “I’m sorry. You do seem to know me. But… I’m afraid…”
It came to him suddenly that to reveal his true identity would put her on guard. However, he had an advantage. He knew she had been memorywashed. There was a period of at least twenty-four hours, probably more, of which she remembered nothing whatsoever, nor did her immediate superior, Rosen. It must be a confusing situation, he realized. But advantage, it was.
He said easily, smiling, “You remember me. Just yesterday.”
She blinked, her eyes immediately alert. Without doubt, she was keen to take advantage of an opportunity to replace erased memories. “Oh, yes, of course, Citizen…”
He grinned at her, both on the surface and inwardly, in true amusement. “Smythe,” he supplied. “Jimmy Smythe, I helped you out of that trouble with the bottle of guzzle and the traffic coordinator. Wow, were you drenched, eh?”
She stared at him blankly.
V
“Where are you bound?” he said, the standard traveler’s gambit. He was less apt to be suspect if he asked it.
She hesitated, then smiled. “End of the line, I suppose. All the way to Phrygia.”
“Some special news story?”