"Inexcusably bad staff work, Mr. Gunnarsen," he said, nodding judgmatically. "It ought to make me feel good. But you know, it doesn't. It scares me. With the kind of power you throw around, you should always be right."
"Spit it out!"
"It's just that you lose your bet. Didn't you know there's an Arcturan in town right now?"
III
When I got back to the car, the phone was buzzing and the "Message Recorded" light blinked at me. The message was from Candace:
"Gunner, a Truce Team has checked into the Statler-Bills to supervise the election, and get this. One of them's an Arcturan!"
The staff work wasn't so bad, after all, just unpardonably slow. But there wasn't much comfort in that.
I called the hotel and was connected with one of the Truce Team staff-the best the hotel would do for me. The staff man was a colonel who said, "Yes, Mr. Knafti is aware of your work here and specifically does not wish to see you. This is a Truce Team, Mr. Gunnarsen. Do you know what that means, exactly?"
And he hung up on me. Well, I did know what it meant-strictly hands-off, all the way-I simply hadn't known that they would interpret it that rigidly.
It was a kick in the eye, any way I looked at it. Because it made me look like a fool in front of Connick, when I kind of wanted him scared of me. Because Arcturans do, after all, stink-not good public relations at all when your product smells like well-rotted garlic buds a few hundred feet away. I didn't want the voters smelling them.
And most of all because of the inference that I was sure any red-blooded, stubborn-minded, confused voter would draw: Jeez, Sam, you hear about that Arcturan coming to spy on us? Yeah, Charlie, the damn bugs are practically accusing us of rigging the election. Damn right, Sam, and you know what else? They stink, Sam.
Half an hour later I got a direct call from Haber. "Gunner boy! Good God! Oh, this is the reeking end!"
I said, "It sounds to me like you've found out about the Arcturan on the Truce Team."
"You know? And you didn't tell me?"
Well, I had been about to ream him for not telling me, but obviously that wasn't going to do any good. I tried, anyway, but he fell back on his fat ignorance. "They didn't clue me in from Chicago. Can I help that? Be fair now, Gunner boy!"
Gunner boy very fairly hung up.
I was beginning to feel very sleepy. For a moment I debated taking a brisk-up pill, but the mild buzz Connick's liquor had left with me was pleasant enough, and besides, it was getting late. I went to the hotel suite Candace had reserved for me and crawled into bed.
It only took me a few minutes to fall asleep, but I was faintly aware of an odor. It was the same hotel the Truce Team was staying at.
I couldn't really be smelling this Arcturan, Knafti. It was just my imagination. That's what I told myself as I dialed for sleep and drifted off.
The pillow-phone hummed, and Candace's voice said out of it, "Wake up and get decent, Gunner. I'm coming up."
I managed to sit up, shook my head, and took a few whiffs of amphetamine. As always, it woke me right up, but at the usual price of feeling that I hadn't had quite enough sleep. Still, I got into a robe and was in the bathroom fixing breakfast when she knocked on the door. "It's open," I called. "Want some coffee?"
"Sure, Gunner." She came and stood in the doorway, watching me turn the Hilsch squirt to full boil and fill two cups. I spooned dry coffee into them and turned the squirt to cold. "Orange juice?" She took the coffee and shook her head, so I just mixed one glassful, swallowed it, tossed the glass in the disposal hamper, and took the coffee into the other room. The bed had stripped itself already; it was now a couch, and I leaned back on it, drinking my coffee. "All right, honey," I said, "what's the dirt on Connick?"
She hesitated, then opened her bag and took out a photofax and handed it to me. It was a reproduction of an old steel engraving headed, in antique script, The Army of the United States, and it said:
Be it known to all men that
DANIEL T. CONNICK
ASIN AJ-32880515 has this date been separated from the service of the United States for the convenience of the government; and
Be it further known to all men that the conditions of his discharge are
DISHONORABLE
"Well, what do you know!" I said. "You see, honey? There's always something."
Candace finished her coffee, set the cup down neatly on a windowsill, and took out a cigarette. That was like her: She always did one thing at a time, an orderly sort of mind that I couldn't match-and couldn't stand, either. Undoubtedly she knew what I was thinking because undoubtedly she was thinking it, too, but there wasn't any nostalgia in her voice when she said: "You went and saw him last night, didn't you? . . . And you're still going to knife him?"
I said, "I'm going to see that he is defeated in the election, yes. That's what they pay me for. Me and some others."
"No, Gunner," she said, "that's not what M & B pay me for, if that's what you mean, because there isn't that much money."
I got up and went over beside her. "More coffee? No? Well, I guess I don't want any, either. Honey-"
Candace stood up, crossed the room, and sat down in a straight-backed chair. "You wake up all of a sudden, don't you? Don't change the subject. We were talking about-"
"We were talking," I told her, "about a job that we're paid to do. All right, you've done one part of it for me-you got me what I wanted on Connick."
I stopped, because she was shaking her head. "I'm not so sure I did."
"How's that?"
"Well, it's not on the fax, but I know why he got his DD. 'Desertion of hazardous duty.' On the Moon, in the U.N. Space Force. The year was 1998."
I nodded, because I understood what she was talking about. Connick wasn't the only one. Half the Space Force had cracked up that year. November. A heavy Leonid strike of meteorites and a solar flare at the same time. The Space Force top brass had decided they had to crack down and asked the U.S. Army to court-martial every soldier who cut and ran for an underground shelter, and the Army had felt obliged to comply. "But most of them got Presidential clemency," I said. "He didn't?"
Candace shook her head. "He didn't apply."
"Um. Well, it's still on record." I dismissed the subject. "Something else. What about these Children?"
Candace put out her cigarette and stood up. "Why I'm here, Gunner. It was on your list. So-get dressed."
"For what?"
She grinned. "For my peace of mind, for one thing. Also for investigating the Children, like you say. I've made you an appointment at the hospital in fifty-five minutes."
You have to remember that I didn't know anything about the Children except rumors. Bless Haber, he hadn't thought it necessary to explain. And Candace only said, "Wait till we get to the hospital. You'll see for yourself."
Donnegan General was seven stories of cream-colored ceramic brick, air-controlled, wall-lighted throughout, tiny asepsis lamps sparkling blue where the ventilation ducts opened. Candace parked the car in an underground garage and led me to an elevator, then to a waiting room. She seemed to know her way around very well. She glanced at her watch, told me we were a couple of minutes early, and pointed to a routing map that was a mural with colored lights showing visitors the way to whatever might be their destination. It also showed, quite impressively, the size and scope of Donnegan General. The hospital had twenty-two fully equipped operating rooms, a specimen and transplant bank, X-ray and radiochemical departments, a cryogenics room, the most complete prosthesis installation on Earth, a geriatrics section, O.T. rooms beyond number.
And, of all things, a fully equipped and crowded pediatric wing.