“So!”
Ross flailed out of the bed, kicking the pistol out of Pilot Breuer’s hand in the process. He cried enthusiastically, “Helena, dear!”
“Don’t you “Helena-dear” me!” she said, moving in and kicking the door shut behind her. “I leave you alone for one little minute, and what happens? And you?”
“Sorry,” Pilot Breuer muttered, climbing into her coveralls. “Wrong room. Must’ve had one antigrav too many.” She licked her lips apprehensively, zipping her coveralls and sidling toward the door. With one hand on the knob, she said diffidently, “If I could have my gun back—? No, you’re right! I’ll get it tomorrow.” She got through the door just ahead of a lamp.
“Hussy!” spat Helena. “And you, Ross—”
It was the last straw. As Ross lurched toward her he regretted only one thing: that he didn’t have a hairbrush.
Pilot Breuer had been right. Nobody paid any attention to the noise.
“Yes, Ross.” Helena had hardly touched her breakfast; she sat with her eyes downcast.
“ ‘Yes, Ross’,” he mimicked bitterly. “It better be ‘Yes, Ross.’ This place may look all right to you, but it’s trouble. You don’t want to find yourself stuck here all your life, do you? Then do what I tell you.”
“Yes, Ross.”
He pushed the remains of his food away. “Oh, the hell with it,” he said dispiritedly. “I wish I’d never started out on this fool’s errand. And I double damn well wish I’d left you in the dye vats.”
“Yes, Ro—I mean, I’m glad you didn’t, Ross,” she said in a small voice.
He stood up and patted her shoulder absently. “Come on,” he said, “we’ve got to get over to the Cavallo place. I wish you had let me talk to them on the phone.”
She said reasonably, “But you said—”
“I know what I said. When we get there, remember that I do the talking.”
They walked through green-lit streets, filled with proud-looking women and sad-eyed men. The Cavallo Machine-Tool Corporation was only a few intersections away, by the map the desk clerk had drawn for Helena; they found it without trouble. It was a smallish sort of building for a factory, Ross thought, but perhaps that was how factories went on Azor. Besides, it was well constructed and beautifully landscaped with the purplish lawns these people seemed to prefer.
Helena led him through the door, as was right and proper. She said to the busy little bald-headed man who seemed to be the receptionist, “We’re expected. Miss Cavallo, please.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” he said with a gap-toothed smile, and worked a combination of rods and buttons on the desk beside him. In a moment, he said, “Go right in. Three up and four over; can’t miss it.”
They passed through a noisy territory of machines where metal was sliced, spun, hacked, and planed; no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Ross wondered who had built the machines, and had a sudden flash of realization as to where those builders were now: On “Minerva”, staring at the unattainable free sky.
Miss Cavallo was a motherly type with a large black cigar. “Sit right down,” she said heartily. “You, too, young man. Tell me what we in Cavallo Company can do for you.” Helena opened her mouth, but Ross stopped her with a gesture. “That’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’ll take over. Miss Cavallo,” he declaimed from memory, “what follows is under the seal.”
“Is it indeed! What do you know,” she said.
Ross said, “Wesley.”
Miss Cavallo slapped her thigh admiringly. “Son of a gun,” she said admiringly. “How this takes me back—those long-ago childhood days, learning these things at my mother’s knee. Let’s see. Uh—the limiting velocity is C.”
“But C2 is not a velocity,” Ross finished triumphantly. And, from the heart, “Miss Cavallo, you don’t begin to know how happy this makes me.”
Miss Cavallo reached over and pumped his hand, then Helena’s. To the girl she said, “You’ve got a right to be a proud woman, believe me. The way he got through it, without a single stumble! Never saw anything like it in my life. Well, just tell me what I can do for you, now that that’s over.” Ross took a deep, deep breath. He said earnestly, “A great deal. I don’t know where to begin. You see, it all goes back to Halsey’s Planet, where I come from. This, uh, this ship came in, a longliner, and it got some of us a little worried because, well, it seemed that some of the planets were no longer in communication. We—uh, Miss Cavallo?” She was smiling pleasantly enough, but Ross had the crazy feeling that he just wasn’t getting through to her.
“Go right ahead,” she boomed. “God knows, I’ve got nothing against men in business; that’s old-fashioned prejudice. Take your time. I won’t bite you. Get on with your proposition, young man.”
“It isn’t exactly a proposition,” Ross said weakly. All of a sudden the words seemed hard to find. What did you say to a potential partner in the salvation of the human race when she just nodded and blew” cigar smoke at you?
He made an effort. “Halsey’s Planet was the seventh alternate destination for this ship, and so we figured—That is, Miss Cavallo, it kind of looked like there was some sort of trouble. So Mr. Haarland—he’s the one who has the F-T-L secret on Halsey, like you do here on Azor—he passed it on to me, of course—well, he asked me to, well, sort of take a look around.” He stopped. The words by then were just barely audible anyhow; and Miss Cavallo had been looking furtively at her watch.
Miss Cavallo shrugged sympathetically to Helena. “They’re all like that under the skin, aren’t they?” she observed ambiguously. “Well, if men could take our jobs away from us, what would we do? Stay home and mind the kids?” She roared and poked a box of cigars at Helena.
“Now,” she said briskly, “let’s get down to cases, I really enjoyed hearing those lines from you, young man, and I want you to know that I’m prepared to help you in any possible way because of them. Open a line of credit, speed up deliveries, send along some of our technical people to help you get set up—anything. Now, what can I do for you? Turret lathes? Grinders? Screw machines?”
“Miss Cavallo,” Ross said desperately, “Don’t you know anything about the faster-than-light secret?”
She said impatiently, “Of course I do, young man. Said the responses, didn’t I? There’s no call for that item, though.”
“I don’t want to buy one,” Ross cried. “I have one. Don’t you realize that the human race is in danger? Populations are dying out or going out of communication all over the galaxy. Don’t you want to do something about it before we all go under?”
Miss Cavallo dropped all traces of a smile. Her face was like flint as she stood up and pointed to the window. “Young man,” she said icily, “Take a look out there. That’s the Cavallo Machine-Tool Company. Does that look as if we’re going under?”
“I know, but Clyde, Cyrnus One, Ragansworld—at least a dozen planets I can name—are gone. Didn’t you ever think that you might be next?”
Miss Cavallo kept her voice level, but only with a visible effort.
She said flatly, “No. Never. Young man, I have plenty to do right here on Azor without bothering my head about those places you’re talking about. Seventy-five years ago there was another fellow just like you; Flarney, some name like that; my grandmother told me about him. He came bustling in here causing trouble, with that old silly jingle about Wesley and C-square and so on, with some cock-and-bull story about a planet that was starving to death, stirring up a lot of commotion. Well, he wound up on “Minerva”, because he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Watch out that you don’t do the same.”
She marched majestically to the door. “And now,” she said, “if you’ve wasted quite enough of my time, kindly leave.”
• • • • Eight
“Stupid old bat,” Ross muttered. They were walking aimlessly down Fifteen Street, the nicely landscaped machine tool works behind them.
Helena said timidly: “You really shouldn’t talk that wa
y, Ross. She is older than you, after all. Old heads are—”
“—wisest,” he wearily agreed. “Also the most conservative. Also the most rigidly inflexible; also the most firmly closed to the reception of new ideas. With one exception.”
She reeled under the triple blasphemy and then faintly asked: “What’s the exception?”
Ross became aware that they were not alone. Their very manner of walking, he a little ahead, obviously leading the way, was drawing unfavorable attention from passers-by. Nothing organized or even definite—just looks ranging from puzzled distaste to anger. He said, “Somebody named Haarland. Never mind,” and in a lower voice: “Straighten up. Step out a little ahead of me. Scowl.”
She managed it all except the scowl. The expression on her face got some stupefied looks from other pedestrians, but nothing worse.
Helena said loudly and plaintively: “I don’t like it here after all, Ross. Can’t we get away from all these women?” Should the impulse seize you, placard ancient Brooklyn with twenty-four sheets proclaiming the Dodgers to be cellar-dwelling bums. Mount a detergent box and inform a crowd of Altairians that they are degenerate slith-fondlers if you must. Announce in a crowded Cephean bar room that Sadkia Revall is no better than she should be. From these situations you have some chance of emerging intact. But never, never pronounce the word ‘women’ as Helena pronounced it on Fifteen Street, Novj Grad, Azor.
The mob took only seconds to form.
Ross and Helena found themselves with their backs to the glass doors of a food store. The handful of women who had actually heard the remark were all talking to them simultaneously, with fist-shaking. Behind them stood as many as a dozen women who knew only that something had happened and that there were comfortably outnumbered victims available. The noise was deafening, and Helena began to cry. Ross first wondered if he could bring himself to knock down a woman; then realized after studying the hulking virago in their foreground that he might bring himself to try but probably would not succeed.
She seemed to be accusing Helena of masquerading, of advocating equality, of uttering obscenely antisocial statements in the public road, to the affront of all decent-minded girls.
There was violence in the air. Ross was on the point of blocking a roundhouse right when the glass doors opened behind them. The small diversion distracted the imbecile collective brain of the mob.
“What’s going on here?” a suety voice demanded. “Ladies, may I please get through?”
It was a man trying to emerge from the food shop with a double armful of cartons. He was a great fat slob, quite hairless, and smelling powerfully of kitchen. He wore the gravy-spotted whites of any cook anywhere.
The virago said to him, “Keep out of this, Willie. This fellow here’s a masquerader. The thing I heard him say—!”
“I’m not,” Helena wept. “I’m not!”
The cook stooped to look into her face and turned on the mob. “She isn’t,” he said definitely. “She’s a lady from another system. She was slopping up triple antigravs at my place last night with a gang of jet pilots.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing!” the virago yelled.
“Madam,” the cook said wearily, “after her third antigrav I had to trip her up and crown her. She was about to climb the bar and corner my barman.”
Ross looked at her fixedly. She stopped crying and nervously cleared her throat.
“So if you’ll just let us through,” the cook bustled, seizing the psychological moment of doubt. His enormous belly bulldozed a lane for them. “Beg pardon. Excuse us. Madam, will you—thank you. Beg pardon—”
The lynchers were beginning to drift away, embarrassed. The party had collapsed. “Faster,” the cook hissed at them. “Beg pardon—” And they were in the clear and well down the street.
“Thank you, sir,” Helena said humbly.
“Just ‘Willie’, if you please,” the fat man said.
One hand descended on Ross’s shoulder and another on Helena’s. They both belonged to the virago. She spun them around, glaring. I’m not satisfied with the brush-off,” she snapped. “Exactly what did you mean by that remark you made?”
Helena wailed, “It’s just that you and all these other women here seem so young.”
The virago’s granite face softened. She let go and tucked in a strand of steel-wool hair. “Did you really think so, dear?” she asked, beaming. “There, I’m sorry I got excited. A wee bit jealous, were you? Well, we’re broad-minded here in Novj Grad.” She patted Helena’s arm and walked off, smiling and jaunty.
Virgin Willie led off and they followed him. Ross’s knees were shaky. The virago had not known that to Helena ‘young’ meant ‘stupid’.
The cook absently acknowledged smiles and nods as they walked. He was, obviously, a character. Between salutes he delivered a low-voiced, rapid-fire reaming to Ross and Helena. “Silly stunt. Didn’t you hear about the riots? Supposed to be arms caches somewhere here on the south side. Everybody’s nerves absolutely ragged. Somebody gets smashed up in traffic, they blame it on us. Don’t care where you’re from. Watch it next time.”
“We will, Willie,” Helena said contritely. “And I think you run an awfully nice restaurant.”
“Yeah,” said Ross, looking at her.
Willie muttered, “I guess you’re clear. You still staying at that hot pilot’s hangout? This is where we say good-by, then. You turn left.”
He waddled on down the street. Helena said instantly, “I don’t remember a thing, Ross.”
“Okay,” he said. “You don’t remember a thing.”
She looked relieved and said brightly, “So let’s get back to the hotel.”
“Okay,” he said. Climbed the bar and tried to corner the . . . Halfway to the hotel he slowed, then stopped, and said, “I just thought of something. Maybe we’re not staying there any more. After last night why should Breuer carry us on her tab? I thought we’d have some money to carry us from the Cavallos by now—”
“The ship?” she asked in a small voice.
“Across the continent. Hell! Maybe Breuer forgave and forgot. Let’s try, anyway.”
They never got as far as the hotel. When they reached the square it stood on, there was a breathless rush and Bernie stood before them, panting and holding a hand over his chest. “In here,” he gasped, and nodded at a shopfront that announced hot brew. Ross thoughtlessly started first through the door and caught Bernie’s look of alarm. He opened the door for Helena, who went through smiling nervously.
They settled at a small table in an empty corner in stiff silence. “I’ve been walking around that square all morning,” Bernie said, with a cowed look at Helena.
Ross told her: “This young man and I had a talk yesterday at the plane while you were eating. What is it, Bernie?”
He still couldn’t believe that he was doing it, but Bernie said in a scared whisper: “Wanted to head you off and warn you. Breuer was down at the field cafe this morning, talking loud to the other hot-shots. She said you—both of you—talked equality. Said she got up with a hangover and you were gone. But she said there’d be six policewomen waiting in your room when you got back.” He leaned forward on the table. Ross remembered that he had been forced to sell his ration card.
“Here comes the waiter,” he said softly. “Order something for all of us. We have a little money. And thanks, Bernie.”
Helena asked, “What do we do?”
“We eat,” Ross said practically. “Then we think. Shut up; let Bernie order.”
They ate; and then they thought. Nothing much seemed to come from all the thinking, though.
They were a long, long way from the spaceship. Ross commandeered all of Helena’s leftover cash. It was almost, not quite, enough for one person to get halfway hack to Azor City. He and Bernie turned out their pockets and added everything they had, including pawnable valuables. That helped. It made the total almost enough for one person to get three-quarters of the way hack.
It didn’t help enough.
Ross said, “Bernie, what would happen if we, well stole something?”
Bernie shrugged. “It’s against the law, of course. They probably wouldn’t prosecute, though.”
“They wouldn’t?”
“Not if they can prove egalitarianism on you. Stealing’s against the law; preaching equality is against the state. You get the maximum penalty for that.”
Helena choked on her drink, but Ross merely nodded. “So we might as well take a chance,” he said. “Thanks, Bernie. We won’t bother you any more. You’ll forget you heard this, won’t you?”
“The hell I will!” Bernie squawked. “If you’re getting out of here, I want to go with you! You aren’t leaving me behind!”
“But Bernie—” Ross started. He was interrupted by the manager, a battleship-class female with a mighty prow, who came scowling toward them.
“Pipe down,” she ordered coarsely. “This place is for decent people; we don’t want no disturbances here. If you can’t act decent, get out.”
“Awk,” said Helena as Ross kicked her under the table. “I mean, yes ma’am. Sorry if we were talking too loud.” They watched the manager walk away in silence.
As soon as she was fairly away, Ross hissed, “It’s out of the question, Bernie. You might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”
Bernie asked, startled, “The what?”
“The—never mind, it’s just an expression where I come from. It means you might get out of this place and find yourself somewhere worse. We don’t know where we’re going next; you might wish to God you were back here within the next three days.”
“I’ll take that chance,” Bernie said earnestly. “Look, Ross, I played square with you. I didn’t have to stick my neck out and warn you. How about giving me a break too?”
Helena interrupted, “He’s right, Ross. After all, we owe him that much, don’t we? I mean, if a person does that much for a person, a person ought to—”
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