"Well, there really had been a small crack in the front bone. Those Fleet doctors are not careful enough. It had regrown by itself with no professional attention. It had filled itself with soft bone tissue and that all had to be scraped out. He must be from Manco. Their bones are quite hard and tough. I blunted a drill . . . ." He must have seen my impatience. He rushed on. "It made a perfect cavity for the two items. And, of course, they had to be treated and the bone cells conditioned so as not to reject them. They have tiny microscopic antennas and these have to be slotted in between the molecular cell bone joints."
"What about that sore place he had on his eyebrow?" I demanded, thinking he might have put them into a tender spot that would require a later operation that would discover the two bugs.
He seemed puzzled. Then he remembered. "Oh, there was no tender spot. That was my fingernail." He saw how impatient I was getting. He rushed on. "They are in there, they will never be detected. The scars are all gone. I think I passed my test very well." I snorted. "There was a young trainee my uncle ..."
"I thought Professor Slahb was your great-uncle?"
"I also have an uncle that's a cellologist," I said determinedly. "This young trainee was supposed to stay around and finish his contract." I was talking because he was in very elegant circumstances here. I didn't want anyone to put any ideas in his head. "But he met a young widow who was rich and he knocked right off his contract, violated all his promises and went on living with her right there!" He shook his head. "Oh, if you mean Pratia . . ." That clinched it. Pratia was the Widow Tayl's girl-name. Clearly they had gotten way into a relationship to be on a first-name basis. "So if you think I am going to pass you now, you are mistaken! I do not know if the operation works. Further, I do not know if you will talk to anyone and give away secrets. And you have no right to stand there and demand your contract be handed over. You will get that contract when you report to me on Bli . . . at your duty station. I will be there before you." He looked like he was going to stutter. It's a very good sign.
"So I have some instructions for you. Sit down!" He swallowed hard and sat down.
I had brought from the airbus a small case. "Here are three languages. They apply to your post. One is Turkish.Another is English.The other is Italian.There are books, dictionaries and a player machine in this case. Starting here and all during your six weeks voyage, you will study like mad. You will land on Bl . . . at your duty station, speaking, reading and writing English, Turkish and Italian. If you pass on this case as to workability and arrive knowing these languages, and if you have not violated secrecy – and believe me, I am having you watched every minute by unseen eyes – I will then consider handing over your contract. Do you understand this?"
"T . . . Turkish? It . . . it . . . whatever. Are these civilized languages? I have never heard of them!"
"Primitive tongues. Another galaxy. Do you understand?"
"Y . . . y . . . yes."
"Ten days from today, at ten o'clock in the morning, Zanco will send a lorry for all this equipment. They know exactly where to deliver it. They have a pass for that place." I had verified with the captain of the Blixohis exact blastoff time. I had spoken to him about all arrangements.
"Zanco," I continued, "will bring an empty case for the operating table and put that one in it."
"B . . . b . . . but it has a case! A long box."
"Exactly." I was taking no chances of the Widow Tayl detaining him. "You are going to bore holes in the ends and fix it to lock from within. When Zanco comes, you pretend to be showing them what to take. And you doshow them and you doget that operating table packed in the case they will bring. And then you will jump into that empty case and lock it from the inside and they will deliver you to the ship." He gaped. But it was a master stroke. He'd get loose from Tayl. Nobody would see him go aboard. I like things neat.
"C . . . can I pad the box inside? S . . . so I don't h . . . h . . . hit my h . . . h . . . head?" I was feeling indulgent. "Of course," I said. I pulled out a note to Captain Bolz. It just said, "This is him. Gris." I gave it to him.
"I guess . . . I guess there's a lot I don't know about secret operations," he confessed.
There's a lot you don't know about beautiful widows, I muttered to myself. "Now, two more things."
"M . . . more?"
"On that ship there will be a young homosexual. You are not to associate with or speak to him. You must remain unknown to him. He is an enemy spy."
"A . . . and?"
"And if you are not delivered to that ship, if you do not arrive as I have said, its captain will bring a ferocious, blastgun-packing crew right here, seize you and . . ."I was about to say "rape the Widow Tayl" but she'd be overjoyed by that. "... burn down this whole estate and maim and shoot your dear Pratia on suspicion of being an enemy agent. Understood?" He was paralyzed. Well, he'd have to get used to the operating climate. Might as well start now. I had worked out how he could make me a personal fortune. Except for that, I didn't need him and could have shot him right where he shivered. But, as Lombar says, money talks.
I sat there smiling in a Lordly way. Let him see I could also be his friend. Police psychology is the applicable branch. Crush them and then pretend friendship. But he didn't seem to be responding. However, if I sat there long enough with lifted lips, gazing down my nose at him in a superior way, it would eventually work.
But the psychotherapy was ruined. A voice came from the house, over a loud speaker. "Yoo-hoo, you boys," the musical lilt of the Widow Tayl. "Don't keep sitting out there like the dear little angels you are. Comeinto the house and get some lunch." So we went in. It was a gorgeous dining room. All done in blue and gold with little gold nymphs having a rare time of it all over the ceiling. There were soft couches at various levels. The center of the room was utterly sagging under the weight of canisters, platters of cakes and dried rare meats and fruits.
She was dressed in the filmiest of films and she had her hair piled up and held with diamonds. She looked at the two of us. "Where's the other one?"
"He won't come to for another three or four hours," I said brutally.
She looked at the spread. She glanced at herself in a wall mirror. And she got a very, very sad look on her face. "Well, go ahead and eat," she said dispiritedly.
I ate. Prahd was just sitting there.
Finally he said, "Not burn down the whole estate!" What a fool. To talk like that in front of the Widow Tayl. It was my lot to deal with fools and amateurs.
But the Widow Tayl had not heard him. She was sitting on the sofa behind him. Her eyes were dreamy. With one of her hands she was curling the hair on the back of Prahd's neck. In the other she idly grasped a large, soft fruit.
Prahd suddenly looked at me and said, "Oh, you mustn't doubt me. I'll come. I'll come!" The Widow Tayl's eyes went glassy. Her breathing quickened. She yelled suddenly, "And he put his red cap in . . . in . . . in ..." The fruit in her hand was clenched into an explosion of soft white meat. "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHH!" I was glaring. (Bleep) her. She was thinking of Heller. She had dressed and primped and laid out this huge lunch THINKING ABOUT HELLER!
I attacked a sweetbun like it had bit me!