When he left he paused at the brown metal door and glanced back. The picture was nearly perfect: the dignified woman in her green dress, sitting under the pale green leaves of the trees, backed by masses of brilliant flowers, with the gentle sounds of birds and falling water and the hum of drowsy insects. It was all so peaceful and restful. It all aroused yearnings in him that now could never be fulfilled.
He shut the door carefully. When he walked away he wasn’t seeing so clearly, and his hands were trembling very slighdy.
IV
The whimsical-looking man with the face that through years of labor had grown an indrawn, secretive look, was waiting for Caradine as he walked back to the Outworld Arms. Caradine remembered him from the fracas in the restaurant. The man lounged against the wall, idle in the sunshine. When Caradine was half a block along, the man pushed himself up with a shrugging motion from the wall, and sauntered after the outworlder.
So he was being tailed, then.
So he’d have felt naked if he wasn’t.
Harriet Lafonde would no doubt sort that little problem out when she reported in to her superiors. If he could persuade them he had no ulterior motive in visiting Alpha, they might lay off. Only then did the startling and rather funny thought occur to him that he’d gone to see the visa official with the more or less resigned acceptance that he wouldn’t get a permit. And that he’d rationalized that out. Oh, well. Times change and men have to change with them.
He made a good lunch at the hotel—a red, succulent fish not unlike salmon and heaps of fresh, crisp salad followed by a golden jelly and a generous pouring of rich double cream—and decided he’d better try one of the local cigars before he smoked through his stock of Kronos.
He stroded out into the foyer and stopped by the tobacco robot. Now here was one instance where a robot wasn’t in the same class as a human assistant. You could ask a robot what it recommended in the way of a smoke, and it would reply with great politeness and sauvity just as it had been programed by the concessionaires of the booth. Oh, well. Try one of those red blunderbusses Greg Rawson had been fuming.
He dialed his requirements and added his room number. Sliding open the transparent pack, he was about to light one when a voice from somewhere down by his stomach said: “If you’re used to Kronos, friend, I’d strongly advise against those firecrackers you’ve just bought.”
He looked down. The man was small and chirpy and wizened. He had crows’ feet radiating from the comers of his eyes and his mouth slit his face in half like a melon-man. Caradine felt a sudden warmth of affection, stemming, he supposed, from the instinctive liking in him for the small and cheerful.
“I appreciate your advice, friend. But I’ve bought them now. So I’m stuck with them.”
“Run out of Kronos?” The little fellow clucked his tongue. “Pity. Oh, well, try one of mine, they’re Western Ocean Kronos, and they’ll smoke differendy from yours.”
“True,” Caradine said peaceably. “Mine are Southern Jubilee.”
“Nice brand.” The little fellow tiptoed up and extended a light. Caradine sucked. That was one nice thing about Kronos; they hadn’t got around to fitting self-igniting tips yet. They hadn’t destroyed the artistry in smoking so far.
“Name’s Hsien Koanga. From Four.”
“John Carter. Five. Well, this calls for a little celebration.
On business?”
“Surely.” Koanga’s monkey-wizened face never seemed to be without that wide, quizzical smile. There was shrewdness there, masked, but plain to Caradine’s character-experienced eye. “Mind you,” Koanga went rattling on. “Gamma-Horakah isn’t so bad, compared with some planets I’ve horse-traded on. There was a dump out by the Barron Cluster— whew, boy, steer clear of there if you want your nostrils to function at all properly again.”
Caradine laughed. “Primitive?”
They were walking through to the bar of the Outworld Arms.
“Primitive? They still used internal combustion engines in their vehicles. The place stank. Incidence of lung cancer was staggering.” He shook his head. “I cut out smoking altogether whilst I was there. That would have been too much.”
They reached the bar and sat in a booth, opposite each other. The conversation flowed on over cool drinks, Caradine finding pleasure in introducing Koanga to the Pomcrush recommended by Harriet Lafonde. It was a nice drink. They, had a third and a fourth. By that time they’d dredged up two mutual acquaintances and were working over Shanstar Eight.
The sight and sound of a man from Shanstar reinvigorated Caradine. He’d been forgetting just how much Shanster had meant to him in the rush and scurry of Horakah and all the incidents, meaningless in themselves, that had happened. He mentioned the fracas in the restaurant and Koanga’s lined face frowned angrily.
“That’s a damned shame! All these worlds think they have to be one up on all the others. Just because those kids’ home worlds own a sizeable space fleet doesn’t give them the right to insult and maltreat a citizen from a planet that maybe doesn’t feel it necessary to maintain a gigantic space armada. It makes you sick.”
“It’s the way they think. I guess even we’d feel a little impatient with a man from a planet that was a single and owned perhaps only a couple hundred space battlewagons.”
“Well.” Koanga sipped his drink. “Perhaps I must own the truth of that. But anyway, a planet that is still a single with a space fleet as minuscule as that can’t be much good; can it? And the men from such a world must be pretty slack bums.”
Caradine thought wearily, And that’s the mentality all right, brother. You the same as all the rest.
The conversation naturally worked around to their line of business and Caradine was told that Koanga was here on Gamma-Horakah selling spice-woods and precious-gem cabinets, one of Shanstar Four’s specialities. So far he had filled a bulky order book. Caradine was told all this. He reserved judgement. That was his inherently suspicious nature, he supposed; but nothing was what it appeared on the surface and he was too wise a hand to be caught believing the first things he was told.
Oh, sure, Koanga probably was selling Shanstar Four’s renowned spice-woods and he very likely did have a fat order book. But Caradine wondered cynically if that was all.
Kbanga stood up, smiling. He was looking over Caradine’s shoulder. Caradine did not look around.
He smelled the perfume—heady, exciting, promising.
“Oh, Mr. Carter, this is my niece, Allura Koanga. Allura, this is Mr. John Carter. He’s from Five.”
Caradine rose, turning, and putting out his hand.
“How nice—” the girl smiled warmly “—to meet someone from home.” She shook hands with a firm, cool clasp.
Caradine looked at her. He’d thought that Sharon Ogilvie, Greg Rawson’s girlfriend from Ahansic, was a beauty. Now he notched up another credit to his choice of Shanstar as a home planetary system. Allura was nothing less than beautiful and yet, with that beauty, there was a warmness and an aliveness that sheer beauty so often lacked.
Her aubum hair was softly tumbled about a classically perfect face and her eyes sparkled in the bar’s many concealed lights with a freshness and vivacity that charmed as well as excited. She wore a wide-sleeved blouse of some shim-mery material that changed sheen as she moved, and tight black pants that on her looked good. A single pearl drop glowed miliary from her left ear.
Watch it! Caradine said to himself. This woman is dangerous.
She sat down with a graceful motion and the robot dispensed a third Pomcrush.
“Mm,” she said. “Good. What is itr”