And wished he had not said it.
"We'll send up the bags," the captain said. "No need to register. That is taken care of. If you'll permit me, sir."
The rooms were satisfactory.
There were three of them.
Sitting in a chair, Bishop wondered how he'd ever pay for them.
Remembering the lonely twenty credits, he was seized with a momentary panic.
He'd have to get a job sooner than he planned, for the twenty credits wouldn't go too far with a layout like this one. Although he supposed if he asked for credit it would be given him.
But he recoiled from the idea of asking for credit, of being forced to admit that he was short of cash. So far he'd done everything correctly. He'd arrived aboard a liner and not a battered trader; his luggage - what had the native said? - it was in splendid taste; his wardrobe was all that could be expected; and he hoped that he'd not communicated to anyone the panic and dismay he'd felt at the luxury of the suite.
He got up from the chair and prowled about the room. There was no carpeting, for the floor itself was soft and yielding and you left momentary tracks as you walked, but they puffed back and smoothed out almost immediately.
He walked over to a window and stood looking out of it. Evening had fallen and the landscape was covered with a dusty blue - and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but rolling countryside. There were no roads that he could see and no lights that would have told of other habitations.
Perhaps, he thought, I'm on the wrong side of the building. On the other side there might be streets and roads and homes and shops.
He turned back to the room and looked at it - the Earthlike furniture so quietly elegant that it almost shouted, the beautiful, veined marble fireplace, the shelves of books, the shine of old wood, the matchless paintings hanging on the wall, and the great cabinet that filled almost one end of the room.
He wondered what the cabinet might be. It was a beautiful thing, with an antique look about it and it had a polish - not of wax, but of human hands and time.
He walked toward it.
The cabinet said: "Drink, sir?"
"I don't mind if I do," said Bishop, then stopped stock-still, realizing that the cabinet had spoken and he had answered it.
A panel opened in the cabinet and the drink was there.
"Music?" asked the cabinet.
"If you please," said Bishop.
"Type?"
"Type? Oh, I see. Something gay, but maybe just a little sadness, too. Like the blue hour of twilight spreading over Paris. Who was it used that phrase? One of the old writers. Fitzgerald. I'm sure it was Fitzgerald."
The music told about the blue hour stealing over that city far away on Earth and there was soft April and distant girlish laughter and the shine of the pavement in slanting rain.
"Is there anything else you wish, sir?" asked the cabinet.
"Nothing at the moment."
"Very well, sir. You will have an hour to get dressed for dinner."
He left the room, sipping his drink as he went - and the drink had a certain touch to it.
He went into the bedroom and tested the bed and it was satisfactorily soft. He examined the dresser and the full-length glass and peeked into the bathroom and saw that it was equipped with an automatic shaver and massager, that it had a shower and tub, an exercising machine and a number of other gadgets that he couldn't place.
And the third room.
It was almost bare by the standards of the other two. In the center of it stood a chair with great flat arms and on each of the arms many rows of buttons.
He approached the chair cautiously, wondering what it was - what kind of trap it was. Although that was foolish, for there were no traps on Kimon. This was Kimon, the land of opportunity, where a man might make a fortune and live in luxury and rub shoulders with an intelligence and a culture that was the best yet found in the galaxy.
He bent down over the wide arms of the chair and found that each of the buttons was labeled. They were labeledHistory,Poetry,Drama,Sculpture,Literature,Painting,Astronomy,Philosophy,Physics,Religions and many other things. And there were several that were labeled with words he'd never seen and had no meaning to him.
He stood in the room and looked around at its starkness and saw for the first time that it had no windows, but was just a sort of box - a theater, he decided, or a lecture room. You sat in the chair and pressed a certain button and -
But there was no time for that. An hour to dress for dinner, the cabinet had said, and some of that hour was already gone.
The luggage was in the bedroom and he opened the bag that held his dinner clothes. The jacket was badly wrinkled.
He stood with it in his hands, staring at it. Maybe the wrinkles would hang out. Maybe -
But he knew they wouldn't.
The music stopped and the cabinet asked: "Is there something that you wish, sir?"
"Can you press a dinner jacket?"
"Surely, sir, I can."
"How soon?"
"Five minutes," said the cabinet. "Give me the trousers, too."
The bell rang and he went to the door.
A man stood just outside.
"Good evening," said the man. "My name is Montague, but they call me Monty."
"Won't you come in, Monty?"
Monty came in and surveyed the room.
"Nice place," he said.
Bishop nodded. "I didn't ask for anything at all. They just gave it to me."
"Clever, these Kimonians," said Monty. "Very clever, yes."
"My name is Selden Bishop."
"Just come in?" asked Monty.
"An hour or so ago."
"All dewed up with what a great place Kimon is."
"I know nothing about it," Bishop told him. "I studied it, of course."
"I know," said Monty, looking at him slantwise. "Just being neighborly. New victim and all that, you know."
Bishop smiled because he didn't quite know what else to do.
"What's your line?" asked Monty.
"Business," said Bishop. "Administration's what I'm aiming at."
"Well, then," Monty said, "I guess that lets you out. You wouldn't be interested."
"In what?"
"In football. Or baseball. Or cricket. Not the athletic type."
"Never had the time."
"Too bad," Monty said. "You have the build for it."
The cabinet asked: "Would the gentleman like a drink?"
"If you please," said Monty.
"And another one for you, sir?"
"If you please," said Bishop.
"Go in and get dressed," said Monty. "I'll sit down and wait."
"Your jacket and trousers, sir," said the cabinet.
A door swung open and there they were, cleaned and pressed.
"I didn't know," said Bishop, "that you went in for sports out here."
"Oh, we don't," said Monty. "This is a business venture."
"Business venture?"
"Certainly. Give the Kimonians something to bet on. They might go for it. For a while at least. You see, they can't bet - "
"I don't see why not - "
"Well, consider for a moment. They have no sports at all, you know. Wouldn't be possible. Telepathy. They'd know three moves ahead what their opponents were about to do. Telekinesis. They could move a piece or a ball or what-have-you without touching a finger to it. They - "
"I think I see," said Bishop.
"So we plan to get up some teams and put on exhibition matches. Drum up as much enthusiasm as we can. They'll come out in droves to see it. Pay admission. Place bets. We, of course, will play the bookies and rake off our commissions. It will be a good thing while it lasts."
"It won't last, of course."
Monty gave Bishop a long look.
"You catch on fast," he said. "You'll get along."
"Drinks, gentlemen," the cabinet said.
Bishop got the drinks, gave one of them to his visitor.
"You better let me put you down," said Monty. "Might as well rake in what you can. You don't need to know too much about it."
"All right," Bishop told him, agreeably. "Go ahead and put me down."
"You haven't got much money," Monty said.