Then he checked himself. A remark like that would bring up a casual, “Whose year’s that, then?”
And some fumbling answer that might brand him as a single-planet man. And an unknown planet, at that. Shanstar —he had to remember the fiddling littlest things. Shanstar’s year was four hundred and ten of Earth’s days. You had to remember so much… And yet, he’d been quietly boasting to himself that he was in the business of remembering details.
Correction. Had been in the business.
Trees flickered past below. Rawson’s grip on the controls was relaxed and confident. He lifted the nose of the car. Caradine took a firm grip on the armrest. Sharon, sitting in the middle, put one hand on the rail under the fascia. Caradine reached his right hand out, slid it about her waist and drew her to him. She responded at once, put her left arm around his waist. They waited, then, consciously relaxing.
“Coming up…”
The field was not as smooth as it had appeared from the air. The wheels hit, one burst, and the car slewed. Rawson applied the brakes frantically. The car rolled. It went over three times, finished up on its side.
Sharon said, quite distinctly, “Oaf.”
Then Caradine had the door open and was hanging one-handed, hauling her out. She dropped with a kick of multicolored tights, and jumped onto the grass. Caradine followed and reached back for Rawson, pulled him up the seating and over the canted side. The three of them stood in a row, their hands on their hips, surveying the wreck.
“Well,” Sharon said with a tight look on her face. “What now, Greg?”
She was very put out.
“That damn tire,” Rawson said. “I didn’t bargain for that.”
Caradine said peacefully, “The radio should be okay. We’ll have to call a cab.”
Rawson shinned up the side without speaking. He bent down over the fascia, out of Caradine’s view. He was some time. Sharon had wrinkled up her forehead. Caradine didn’t speak to her, since it was evident she was in deep thought.
Caradine, too, began to have thoughts about this accident. Sharon had been upset only when a crash seemed imminent. He didn’t believe her panicky start from the seat. People just didn’t behave like that in an age of safe and rapid robotic transport. But, when the robots failed, a certain amount of flap might be justified. But Sharon had reacted as he would have expected her to do only after the tire burst.
So he was not at all surprised when Rawson reappeared and reported that the radio was out. That sort of fitted the pattern. And just what that pattern was, Caradine, although he had no idea whatsoever, just didn’t like the whole sight and smell of it. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled around on them.
“Well, children, it seems we walk.”
Sharon swung on Rawson. They began wrangling violendy. Only semi-surprised at such infantile behaviour, Caradine leaned up against the wreck, soaking up the sunshine, letting them get it out of their system, and wondering how far they had to go before they found civilization. Gamma-Horakah was very much of a show, a garden, planet.
A high, muted whine drifted down to them. Sharon and Rawson stopped slanging each other and stared up. Caradine cocked a lazy eyebrow.
The car was handled superbly. It swooped wide and low, swinging across them at an angle so that the occupant could give them a good long look. Then it veered up, flopped over on its back, fell vertically, turning as it did so, and its extended wheels touched the grass in the same instant as the car reached an upright position. The canopy flipped open.
Allura Koanga stepped out in a flurry of white petticoat and scarlet skirt.
Caradine sat back to enjoy what might come.
He was a gravely disappointed man.
The two girls were as sweet as processed honey to each other.
And just as synthetic.
“My dear, I’m so glad I was passing.”
“Darling, so sweet of you to rescue us.”
“You must have itched when the car went wrong.”
“You drive so well, darling.”
“And you don’t look the teeniest bit upset.”
Caradine killed his smile. Sweet as honey, yes. But the barbs were there all right, jabbing with remorseless female viciousness.
Two of a kind, he supposed, would always hurt each other most.
That was the trouble with the galaxy, and the planetary groupings that were so much alike. Men always fought best— or worst—when he fought other Men.
That was the black tragedy that a million years hadn’t managed to obliterate from his heritage.
He roused himself. “Well, Allura. Are you going to give us a lift back to town or do we begin to walk?”
“Please get in, Mr. Carter. I shall be happy to assist you.”
Smiling to himself, Caradine entered the car. It was new, bright red, and a Mach One-plus job. He sat in the back seats. He particularly didn’t want to sit between Sharon Ogilvie and Allura Koanga.
He valued his eardrums.
All the way back Greg Rawson sat in a tight-lipped silence that he broke in monosyllables that were barely this side of rudeness. Something had evidently gone wrong for him. Caradine suspected that it was not the crack-up of a hired car. Machinery was so much mankind’s servant these days that any wreck could be written off, almost, without a second thought.
It would be nice, Caradine decided, very nice, to know just what was bothering Greg Rawson.
Allura was vivacious, full of the joys of living, and exuding a faint air of triumph that equally baffled Caradine.
Sharon rallied to that mood of gaiety, and was as hectic and scatter-brained in her jollity as Allura. Caradine was too wise a hand to think the outward facade meant anything, and he was equally sure that these three people knew that he must suspect all was not as it seemed. He wondered just how far they were prepared to push their hand.
And was it all merely because he had a visa to visit Alpha tucked away down at the office in the care of Harriet Lafonde?
One thing—they’d have to do better than they had so far to persuade him to start spying.
The red car swooped in over the city and Allura put it down in the park of the Outworld Arms. They all got out and the robot trundled the car off to the garage.
Caradine spoke first.
“I need a drink. Anyone interested?”
They all were. They went through into the lounge and Caradine dialed four Pomcrushes, adding his room number.
Greg Rawson reached down to the personal TV control inset in the arm of each of the lounging chairs. The TV came on and he selected a channel showing a fifteen-piece dance band just rounding off a number. The music was barbaric stuff from some outworld planet with jerky and nerve-pounding overtones. Caradine was glad when it had finished and the band leader let the robot music dispenser take over and begin to pump out canned stuff that dripped like syrup through the consciousness. The screen rippled and cleared and a human announcer began to read the news.
Mosdy, it was about the Horakah space navy buildup. Young men who craved excitement and adventure should rush down to their nearest recruiting depot and sign up for a man’s life, out there in the deeps between the stars, etc, blah, blah, blah.
It made Caradine a little sick.
With a beautiful world like Gamma-Horakah, men were still anxious to go off into space shooting and killing like maniacs. He’d had his gutful a long time ago. So he supposed he couldn’t blame the youngsters now. But it was all such a criminal and lunatic waste.
Local news followed. A bond issue. Results of racing and other sports. A couple of gang fights. A couple of murders. A couple of new buildings going up. Caradine checked an involuntary start as news of one murder came over.