However, the guard assigned to Hasselborg's pile had barely begun his job when he jumped up as if he had been jabbed from behind with a sharp instru-men. "Alb! What is this?" He had turned over the top layer of clothes and come upon the professional equipment.
Two guards rushed Hasselborg down the hall, while two others followed, one carrying his baggage. They ushered him into an office in which a fat man sat at a desk, and all four talked so fast that Hasselborg, despite a fair command of the language, could hardly follow. One of the guards went through Has-selborg's pockets, making excited noises as he came upon the pistol, the camera, and other items.
The fat man, whose name according to the sign on his desk was Cristovao Abreu, Security Officer, leaned back in his swivel chair and said: "What are you trying to get away with, senhor?"
Hasselborg said loudly: "Not a thing, Senhor Cristovao. What am I supposed to do, click my heels together and salute? What are you trying to get away with? Why are your men hauling me around in this undignified condition? Why do you treat incoming passengers like a bunch of steers arriving at the abattoir? What—"
"Quiet yourself, my friend. Don't bluster at me; it will not excuse your crime."
"What crime?"
"You should know."
"Sorry, chum, but I don't. My papers are in order, and I'm on legitimate—"
"It is not that, but this!" The fat man indicated the wire recorder and other apparatus as if they had been the parts of a dismembered corpse.
"What's wrong with them?"
"Don't you know they're contraband?"
"Mao do Deus! Of course I didn't know. Why are they?"
"Don't you know that the Interplanetary Council has forbidden bringing machinery or inventions into Krishna? Don't tell me anybody can be so ignorant!"
"I can be." Hasselborg gave a short account of the hurried departure that had brought him to Krishna without proper briefing. "And why are these gadgets forbidden?"
Abreu shrugged. "I merely enforce the regulations;
I don't make them. I believe there is some social reason for this policy—to keep the Krishnans from killing each other off too fast before their culture is more advanced in law and government. And here you come with enough inventions to revolutionize their whole existence! I must say— Well, I know my duty. Mauriceu, have you searched this one thoroughly? Then take him to the office of Gois for further examination." And Abreu went back to his papers with the air of having swatted one more noxious insect.
Julio Gois, assistant security officer, turned out to be a good-looking young man with a beaming smile. "I'm sorry you have had this trouble, Mr. Hasselborg, but you gave the Old Man a terrible turn with your apparatus. He was on duty here ten years ago when some visitor introduced the custom of kissing to Krishna, and the excitement from that hasn't died down yet. So he's sensitive on the subject. Now, if you will answer some questions—"
After an hour's interrogation, Gois said: "Your papers are as you say in order, and I'm inclined to agree that if you hadn't been honestly ignorant, you wouldn't have tried to bring your devices in openly. So I'll release you. However, first we'll sequester the things in that pile. You may keep the little club, the knuckle-duster, the notebook, the pen, the knife— No, not the pencil, which is a complicated mechanical device. Take an ordinary wooden pencil instead. No, the breastplate is one of those wonderful new alloys. That's all I can allow you." He switched to English: " 'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."
"Huh," said Hasselborg, "how do I catch these people without the tools of my trade?"
Gois shrugged. "You'll have to use the brain, I think."
Hasselborg rubbed his forehead as if to arouse that organ. "That puts me in a spot. Do you know where
Fallon and Miss Batruni took off for when they left Novorecife?"
"They were headed for Rosid, in the principality of Rüz, which is a dependency of the Kingdom of Gozashtand. Here's a map—" Gois ran a fingernail north from the green spot that symbolized Novorecife, the Viagens outpost.
"Were they traveling under aliases?"
"I don't know. They didn't confide in me."
"What does one need to travel around Krishna?"
"Some native clothes, weapons, and means of transportation. Our barber can give you the antennae and dye your hair. What will you go as?"
"How do you mean?" asked Hasselborg.
"You can't run around without means of support, you can't say you're a Terran spy for fear they'd kill you, and you have to use the disguise. Most nearby rulers are friendly to us, but the common people are ignorant and excitable, and there's no extraterritoriality. Once you leave Novorecife, we wash our hands of you, unless you disobey the regulation about inventions."
"What do you suggest for a cover? I can be an insurance salesman, or a telelog repairman, or—"
"Os santos, no! There's no insurance or radio here. You'd have to go as something that exists, like a palmer—"
"A what?"
"A religious pilgrim. However, that might get you into religious arguments. What's your church?"
"Reformed Atheist."
"Just so. Some of the Terran cults are established here, you know; missionaries got in before the ban went into effect. How about a troubadour?"
"That's out. When I sing, strong men pale, women faint, and children run screaming."
"I have it, a portrait painter!"
"Huh?" Hasselborg sat up with a jerk. He was about to say that he hated all painters, but that would involve explanations to the effect that his former wife had run off with one to live in a shack on the California coast. Instead he said: "I haven't painted anything but roofs for years." (He had been trained in sketching when he was entering the Division of Investigation but chose not to admit it.)
"Oh, you needn't be good. Krishnan art is mostly geometric, and their portraits are so bad by our standards that you'll be a sensation."
"Wouldn't they recognize my technique as exotic?"
"That's all right too; the Terran technique is a fad in Gozashtand. The Council hasn't tried to keep Earth's fine arts out of Krishna. Take a few days to practice your painting and learn Gozashtandou while you have your new equipment made. I see by your letter of credit that you can afford the best. I'll give you an introduction to the Dasht of Ruz—"
"The who of what?"
"I suppose you'd say a baron. He's Jam bad-Kone, a feudal underling of the Dour of Gozashtand."
"Look," said Hasselborg, "at least let me take my pills. I have to keep my health, and nobody'll know what's in them. Do you follow me?"
Gois smiled. "Perhaps we can allow the pills."
When Hasselborg reached the barber shop, he found his shipmate Chuen in the chair ahead of him. The barber had already dyed the man's hair a poisonous green and was affixing a pair of artificial antennae to his forehead by means of little sponge-rubber disks, which merged with the skin so that it was almost impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. The barber said:
"Those should stay for at least a month, but I'll sell you a kit to glue them back on if they should work loose. Remember to let your hair grow longer in back—"
Hasselborg also noted that the barber had glued artificial points to Chuen's ears, so that altogether the man now looked something like an overfed leprechaun. "Hello, Chuen; going out among the aborigines, too?"
"Indeed so. Which direction you taking?"
"They tell me my subjects have gone north. How about you?"
"I don't know yet. You know, I am afraid green hair doesn't become me."
"Better be glad they don't wear those haystack wigs they wore on Earth back in the time of James the Second. Aroint thee, scurvy knave!" Hasselborg made fencing motions.