So, thought Borel, that's why the old boy is so hospitable to a mere stranger. He said: "I see your point, Excellency. You know the risks, don't you?"
"The greater the risk, the greater the reward."
"True, but it would require most careful thought. I'll let you know when I've had time to think."
"I understand." Kubanan rose, and to Borel's surprise said: "I leave you now; Kuri will think I've forgotten her utterly. You'll stay the night, of course?"
"Why, I—thank you, Your Excellency. I'll have to send a note out to my man."
"Yes, yes, I'll send you a page. Meanwhile the Lady Zerdai shall keep you company, or if you've a mind to read there are ample books on the shelves. Take the second room on the left."
Borel murmured his thanks, and the treasurer departed, his furred robe floating behind him. Then, having no interest whatever in Kubanan's library, he sat down near Zerdai.
Eyes aglow, Zerdai said: "Now that we need talk finance no more, tell me of the Earth. How live you? I mean, what's your system of personal relationships? Have you homes and families like the commoners, or all in common as we Guardians do?"
As Borel explained, the girl sighed. With a faraway look she said: "Could I but go thither! I can imagine nought more romantic than to be an Earthly housewife with a home and a man and children of my own! And a telephone!"
Borel reflected that some Terran housewives sang a different tune, but said gently: "Couldn't you resign from the Order?"
"In theory, yes—but 'tis hardly ever done. 'Twould be like stepping into another world, and what sort of welcome would the commoners give? Would they not resent what they'd call one's airs? And to have to face the scorn of all Guardians… No, it would not do. Could one escape this world entire, as by journeying to Earth…"
"Maybe that could be arranged too," said Borel cautiously. While he was willing to promise her anything to enlist her cooperation and then ditch her, he did not want to get involved in more schemes at once than he could handle.
"Really?" she said, glowing at him. "There's nought I wouldn't do…"
Borel thought, they all say there's nothing they wouldn't do if I'll only get them what they want. He said: "I may need help on some of my projects here. Can I count on your assistance?"
"With all my heart!"
"Good. I'll see that you don't regret it. We'd make a wonderful team, don't you think? With your beauty and my experience, there's nothing we couldn't get away with. Can't you see us cutting a swath through the galaxy?"
She leaned toward him, breathing hard. "You're wonderful!"
He smiled. "Not really. You are."
"No, you."
"No, you. You've got beauty, brains, nerve— Oh well, I shall have plenty of chance to tell you in the future, when I eet this lottery orsranized."
"Oh." This seemed to bring her back to Krishna again. She glanced at the time candle and put out her cigar, saying: "Great stars, I had no idea the hour was so late! I must go to bed, Sir Felix the Red. Will you escort me to my room?"
III.
At breakfast, Sir Kubanan said: "Thanks to the stars, the Grand Council meets this forenoon. I'll bring up your lottery suggestion, and if they approve, we can start work on it today. Why spend you not the morning laying your plans?"
"A splendid idea, Excellency," said Borel, and went to work after breakfast, on the design of lottery tickets and advertising posters. Zerdai hung around, asking if she could not help, trying to cuddle up beside him and getting in the way of his pen arm, all the time looking at him with such open adoration that even he, normally as embarrassable as a rhinoceros, squirmed a little under her gaze.
However, he put up with it in a good cause, to wit: the cause of making a killing for Felix Etienne Borel.
By the middle of the day Kubanan was back, jubilant. "They approved! At first Grand Master Juvain boggled a little, but I talked him round. He liked not letting one not of our Order so deep into our affairs, saying, how can there be a secret Order if all its secrets be known? But I bridled him. How goes the plan?"
Borel showed him the layouts. The treasurer said: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Carry on, my boy, and come to me for aught you need."
"I will. This afternoon I'll arrange for printing this stuff. Then we shall need a booth. How about setting it up at the lower end of that little street up to the gate of the citadel? And I shall have to train a couple of men as ticket sellers and some more to guard the money."
"All shall be done. Harken, why move you not hither from your present lodgings? I have ample room, and 'twould save time as well as augment comfort, thus slaying two unhas with one bolt."
"Do come," sighed Zerdai.
"Okay. Where can I stable my aya and quarter my servant?"
Kubanan told him. The afternoon he spent making arrangements for printing. Since Mishe had but two printers, each with one little hand press, the job would not be finished for at least twenty days.
He reported this to Kubanan at supper, adding: "Will you give me a draft on the treasury of the Order for fifteen hundred karda to cover the initial costs?" (This was more than fifty percent over the prices the printers had quoted, but Kubanan assented without question.)
"And now," continued Borel, "let's take up the other matter. If Zerdai's your confidential secretary, I don't suppose you mind discussing it in front of her."
"Not at all. You've found a way to get around the technological blockade?"
"Well—yes and no. I can assure you it'll do no good for me to go to Novorecife and try to smuggle out a gun or plans for one. They have a machine that looks right through you, and they make you stand in front of it before letting you out."
"Have they no regard for privacy?"
"Not in this matter. Besides, even if one did succeed, they'd send an agent to bring one back dead or alive."
"Of those agents I've heard," said Kubanan with a slight shudder.
"Moreover I'm no engineer—a base-born trade—so I can't carry a set of plans in my head for your people to work from. Guns are too complicated for that."
"What then?"
"I think the only way is to have something they want so badly they'll ease up on the blockade in re-turn for it."
"Yes, but what have we? There's little of ours that they covet. Even gold, they say, is much too heavy to haul billions of miles to Earth with profit, and almost everything we make, they can make more cheaply at home once they know how. I know; I've discussed it with the Viagens folk at Novorecife. Knight though I be, my office requires that I interest myself in such base commercial matters."
Borel drew on his cigar and remarked: "Earthmen are an inventive lot, and they'll continue thinking up new things for a long time to come."
Kubanan shuddered. "A horrid place must this Earth of yours be. No stability."
"So, if we had an invention far ahead of their latest stuff, they might want the secret badly enough to make a deal. See?"
"How can we? We're not inventive here. No gentleman would lower himself by tinkering with machines, while the common people lack the wit."
Borel smiled. "Suppose I had such a secret?"
"That would be different. What is it?"
"It's an idea that was confided to me by a dying old man. Although the earthmen had scorned him and said his device was against the laws of nature, it worked. I know because he showed me a model."
"But what is it?" cried Kubanan.
"It would not only be of vast value to the Earth-men, but also would make Mikardand preeminent among the nations of Krishna."