Between Planets (14 page)

But he was beginning to wonder; too many people had taken an interest in it. He reviewed in his mind how he had come by it. On the face of it, Dr. Jefferson had risked death—had died—to make sure that the ring went to Mars. But that was preposterous and because it was he had concluded by what seemed to be strict logic that it must have been the paper in which the ring was wrapped that must reach his parents on Mars. That conclusion had been confirmed when the I.B.I. had searched him and confiscated the wrapping paper.

Suppose he did assume the wild possibility that it was the ring itself that was important? Even so, how could anyone here on Venus be looking for that ring? He had just landed; he had not even known that he was coming to Venus.

He might have thought of several ways that that news could have gone on before him, but he did not. Moreover, he found it difficult to imagine why anyone would take any special pains on his account.

But he had one quality in a high degree; he was stubborn. He swore a mighty oath into the dishwater that he and the ring, together, would travel to Mars and that he would deliver it to his father as Dr. Jefferson had asked him to.

Business slacked off a little in the middle of the afternoon; Don got caught up. He dried his hands and said to Charlie, “I want to go uptown for a while.”

“What’s a matter? You lazy?”

“We work tonight, don’t we?”

“Sure we do. You think this is a tea room?”

“Okay, I work mornings and evenings—so I take a little time off in the afternoon. You’ve got enough clean dishes to last you for hours.”

Charlie shrugged and turned his hack. Don left.

He picked his way through the mud and the crowd back up the street to the I.T.&T. Building. The outer room held several customers but most of them were using the automatic phones or waiting outside the booths for a chance to do so. Isobel Costello was back of the desk and did not seem too busy, although she was chatting with a soldier. Don went to the far end of the desk and waited for her to he free.

Presently she brushed off the enterprising soldier and came to him. “Well, if it isn’t my problem child! How are you making out, son? Get your money changed?”

“No, the bank wouldn’t take it. I guess you had better give me back my ’gram.”

“No hurry; Mars is still in conjunction. Maybe you’ll strike it rich.”

Don laughed ruefully. “Not likely!” He told her what he was doing and where.

She nodded. “You could do worse. Old Charlie is all right. But that’s a rough part of town, Don. Be careful, especially after dark.”

“I will be. Isobel, would you do me a favor?”

“If it’s not impossible, illegal, or scandalous—yes.”

Don fished the ring out of his pocket. “Would you take care of this for me? Keep it safe until I want it back?”

She took it, held it up to look at it. “Careful!” Don urged. “Keep it out of sight.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want anyone to know you have it. Get it out of sight.”

“Well—” She turned away; when she turned back the ring was gone. “What’s the mystery, Don?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t tell you any more than that. I just want to keep that ring safe. Somebody is trying to get it away from me.”

“But—Look, does it belong to you?”

“Yes. That’s all I can tell you.”

She searched his face. “All right, Don. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.”

“No trouble—I hope. Look—stop in again soon. I want you to meet the manager.”

“Okay, I will.”

She turned away to take care of a customer. Don waited around until a phone booth was free, then reported his address to the security office at the space port. That done, he returned to his dishes.

Around midnight, hundreds of dishes later, Charlie turned away the last customer and locked the front door. Together they ate a meal there had been no time for earlier, one with chopsticks, one with fork. Don found himself almost too tired to eat. “Charlie,” he asked, “how did you run this place with no help?”

“Had two helpers. Both joined up. Boys don’t want to work these days; all they think about is playing soldier.”

“So I’m filling two jobs, eh? Better hire another boy, or I might join up, too.”

“Work is good for you.”

“Maybe. You certainly take your own advice; I’ve never seen anybody work as hard as you do.”

Charlie leaned back and rolled a cigarette of the shaggy native “crazy weed.” “While I work I think about how someday I go home. A little garden with a wall around it. A little bird to sing to me.” He waved his hand through choking smoke at the dreary walls of the restaurant. “While I cook, I don’t see this. I see my little garden.”

“Oh.”

“I save money to go home.” He puffed furiously. “I go home—or my bones will.”

Don understood him; he had heard of “bone money” in his childhood. All the immigrant Chinese planned to go home; too often it was only a package of bones that made the trip. The younger, Venus-born Chinese laughed at the idea; to them Venus was home and China only a much-gummed tale.

He decided to tell Charlie his own troubles and did so, omitting any mention of the ring and all connected with it. “So you see, I’m just as anxious to get to Mars as you are to go home to China.”

“Mars is a long way off.”

“Yes—but I’ve got to get there.”

Charlie finished his cigarette and stood up. “You stick with Charlie. Work hard and I cut you in on the profits. Someday this war nonsense will be over—then we both go.” He turned to go. “G’night.”

“Good night.” This time Don checked personally to see that no move-overs had managed to sneak in, then retired to his cubbyhole. He was asleep almost at once, to dream of climbing endless mountain ranges of dishes, with Mars somewhere beyond.

Don was lucky to have a cubbyhole in a cheap restaurant as a place to sleep; the city was bursting at its seams. Even before the political crisis which had turned it into the capital of a new nation New London had been a busy place, market place for a million square miles of back country and principal space port of the planet. The
de facto
embargo on interplanetary shipping resulting from the outbreak of war with the mother planet might eventually starve the fat off the city but as yet the only effect had been to spill into the town grounded spacemen who prowled the streets and sampled what diversions the town offered.

The spacemen were hardly noticed; much more numerous were the politicians. On Governor’s Island, separated from Main Island by a stagnant creek, the Estates General of the new republic was in session; nearby, in what had been the gubernatorial mansion, the Executive General, his chief of State, and the departmental ministers bickered with each other over office space and clerical help. Already a budding bureaucracy was spilling over onto Main Island, South Island, East Spit, and Tombstone Island, vying with each other for buildings and sending rents sky high. In the wake of the statesmen and elected officials—and much more numerous—were the small fry and hangers-on of government, clerks who worked and special assistants who did not, world savers, men with Messages, lobbyists for and lobbyists against, men who claimed to speak for the native dragons but had never gotten around to learning whistle speech, and dragons who were quite capable of speaking on their own behalf—and did.

Nevertheless Governor’s Island did not sink under the load

North of the city on Buchanan Island another city was burgeoning—training camps for the Middle Guard and the Ground Forces. It was protested bitterly in the Estates that the presence of training grounds at the national capital was an invitation to national suicide, as one H-bomb could wipe out both the government and most of the armed forces of Venus—nevertheless nothing had been done about it. It was argued that the men had to have some place for recreation; if the training grounds were moved out into the trackless bush, the men would desert and go back to their farms and mines.

Many
had
deserted. In the meantime New London swarmed with soldiery. The Two Worlds Dining Room was jammed from morning until night. Old Charlie left the range only to tend the cash register; Don’s hands were raw from hot water and detergent. Between times he stoked the water boiler back of the shack, using oily
Chika
logs hauled in by a dragon known as “Daisy” (but male despite the chosen name). Electric water heating would have been cheaper; electric power was an almost costless by-product of the atomic pile west of the city—but the equipment to use electric power was very expensive and almost unobtainable.

New London was full of such frontier contrasts. Its muddy, unpaved streets were lighted, here and there, by atomic power. Rocket-powered sky shuttles connected it with other human settlements but inside its own boundaries transportation was limited to shank’s ponies and to the gondolas that served in lieu of taxis and tubes—some of these were powered, more moved by human muscle.

New London was ugly, uncomfortable, and unfinished, but it was stimulating. Don liked the gusty, brawling drive of the place, liked it much better than the hothouse lushness of New Chicago. It was as alive as a basketful of puppies, as vital as a punch in the jaw. There was a feeling in the air of new things about to happen, new hopes, new problems—

After a week in the restaurant Don felt almost as if he had been there all his life. Furthermore he was not unhappy at it. Oh, to be sure, the work was hard, and he still was determined to get to Mars—eventually—but in the meantime he slept well, ate well, and had his hands busy…and there were always the customers to talk and argue with—spacemen, guardsmen, small-time politicians who could not afford the better restaurants. The place was a political debating club, city news desk, and rumor mill; the gossip swapped over Charlie’s food was often tomorrow’s headline in the New London
Times
.

Don kept up the precedent of a mid-afternoon break, even when he had no business to transact. If Isobel was not too busy, he would take her across the street for a coke; she was, as yet, his only friend outside the restaurant. On one such occasion she said, “No—come on inside. I want you to meet the manager.”

“Eh?”

“About your ’gram.”

“Oh, yes—I’d been meaning to, Isobel, but there’s no point in it yet. I haven’t got the money. I’m going to wait another week and hit Old Charlie for a loan. He can’t replace me very easily; I think he’ll come across to keep me in durance vile.”

“That’s no good—you ought to get a better job as soon as you can. Come on.”

She opened the gate in the counter desk and led him into an office in the rear where she introduced him to a worried-looking middle-aged man. “This is Don Harvey, the young man I was telling you about.”

The older man shook hands. “Oh, yes—something about a message to Mars, I think my daughter said.”

Don turned to Isobel. “‘Daughter’? You didn’t tell me the manager was your father.”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“But—Never mind. Glad to know you, sir.”

“And you. Now about that message—”

“I don’t know why Isobel brought me in here. I can’t pay for it. All I have is Federation money.”

Mr. Costello examined his nails and looked troubled. “Mr. Harvey, under the rules I am supposed to require cash payment for interplanetary traffic. I’d like to accept your Federation notes. But I can’t; it’s against the law.” He stared at the ceiling. “Of course there is a black market in Federation money—”

Don grinned ruefully. “So I found out. But fifteen, or even twenty per cent, is too low a rate. I still couldn’t pay for my ’gram.”

“Twenty per cent! The going rate is sixty per cent.”

“It is? I guess I must have looked like a sucker.”

“Never mind. I was not going to suggest that you go to the black market. In the first place—Mr. Harvey, I am in the odd position of representing a Federation corporation which has not been expropriated, but I am loyal to the Republic. If you walked out of here and returned shortly with money of the Republic instead of Federation notes, I would simply call the police.”

“Oh, Daddy, you wouldn’t!”

“Quiet, Isobel. In the second place, it’s not good for a young man to have such dealings.” He paused. “But perhaps we can work something out. Your father would pay for this message, would he not?”

“Oh, certainly!”

“But I can’t send it collect. Very well; write a draft on your father for the amount; I’ll accept it as payment.”

Instead of answering at once, Don thought about it. It seemed to be the same thing as sending a message collect which he was willing to do—but running up debts in his father’s name and without his knowledge stuck in his craw. “See here, Mr. Costello, you couldn’t cash such a draft any time soon in any case: why don’t I just give you an I.O.U and pay it back as quickly as possible? Isn’t that better?”

“Yes and no. Your personal note is simply a case of letting you have interplanetary service on credit—which is what the rules forbid. On the other hand, a draft on your father’s commercial paper, equivalent to cash even if I can’t cash it right away. A space lawyer’s difference, granted—but it’s the difference between what I can do and can’t do with the corporation’s affairs.”

“Thanks,” Don said slowly, “but I think I’ll wait a while. I may be able to borrow the money elsewhere.”

Mr. Costello looked from Don to Isobel, shrugged helplessly. “Oh, give me your I.O.U.” he said snappishly. “Make it out to me, not to the company. You can pay me when you can.” He looked again at his daughter who was smiling approval.

Don made out the note. When Isobel and he were out of earshot of her father, Don said, “That was a mighty generous thing for your father to do.”

“Pooh!” she answered. “It just goes to show how far a doting father will go not to crimp his daughter’s chances.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

She grinned at him. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Grandmother Isobel was pulling your leg. Don’t take me seriously.”

He grinned back. “Then where should I take you? Across to the Dutchman’s for a coke?”

“You’ve talked me into it.”

When he got back to the restaurant he found, in addition to the inevitable stack of dishes, a heated discussion about the draft bill pending in the Estates General. He pricked up his ears; if conscription came, he was sure fodder for it and he wanted to beat them to it by enlisting in the High Guard. McMasters’ advice about the “only way to get to Mars” stuck in his mind.