The Seventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by H. B. Fyfe

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Now, don’t take that so seriously too! Beryl’s a good sort, on the whole. In a day or two, this will all blow over. Come on with me to see Joe, then we’ll go back and say you got something in your eye.”

  “But when?”

  “Oh…during the message from Yoleen. You didn’t want to bother anybody at the time, so you foolishly kept rubbing until it got sore.”

  “That’s all right,” said Westervelt, “but Beryl knows dif­ferent.”

  “If she opens her mouth, I shall personally punch her in the eye!” declared Simonetta.

  She giggled at the idea, and he found himself grinning.

  They went along the corridor to deliver the tea to Rosen­krantz, and then returned to the main office. An air of com­plete informality prevailed, a reaction from the scene they had witnessed. There was a good deal of wandering about with drinks, sitting on desks, and inconsequential chatter.

  No one seemed to want to talk shop, and Westervelt guessed that Smith was just as pleased to be able to kill some time. He himself quietly slipped around the corner to his own desk, where he propped his heels up and sipped his coffee.

  Westervelt listened as Parrish and Smith told a few jokes. The stories tended to be more ironic than funny, and no one was expected to laugh out loud.

  Pauline, from her switchboard, buzzed the phone on Simonetta’s desk, since most of those present had gravitated to that end of the office. Smith looked around in the middle of an account of his struggles with his radio-controlled lawn mower.

  “Want to take that, Willie?” he said, with a bare suggestion of a wink.

  Westervelt lifted a hand in assent. He climbed out of his chair and went to the phone on Beryl’s desk, where he would be as nearly private as possible.

  “Who is it, Pauline?” he asked when she came on. “It’s Joe. He wants to talk to Mr. Smith.”

  “Give it here on number seven,” said Westervelt. “The boss is talking.”

  Pauline blanked out and was replaced by the communications man. Rosenkrantz showed a flicker of surprise at the sight of Westervelt.

  “Smitty’s in a crowd,” murmured the youth. “Something up?”

  “Not much, maybe,” said the other. “A message came in by commercial TV. I guess they didn’t think it was too urgent, but I’ll give you the facts if you think Smitty would like to know.”

  “Hold on,” said Westervelt. “Let’s see…where does Beryl keep a pen?”

  He dug out a scratch pad and something to scribble with, and nodded.

  “One of our own agents,” said Joe, “named Robertson, signed this. You’ve seen his reports, I guess.”

  “Yeah, sounds familiar.”

  “It says, after reading between our standard code ex­pressions, that two spacers and a tourist were convicted of inciting revolution on Epsilon Indi II. They gave the names, and all, which I taped.”

  “That’s practically in our back yard,” said Westervelt. “Maybe he just wants to alert us, but the D.I.R. ought to be working on that publicly. Sure there wasn’t any hint it was urgent?”

  “No, and like I said, it came by commercial relay.”

  “Okay. The boss has enough on his mind at the mo­ment. Let’s figure on having a tape for him to look at in the morning. I’ll find a chance to mention it to him, so he’ll know about it. All right?”

  “All right with me,” grinned Rosenkrantz. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll refer them to you. Be prepared to have your other eye spit in.”

  He cut off, leaving Westervelt with his mouth open and his regained aplomb shaky. The youth waited until he caught Smith’s eye, and shook his head to indicate the un­importance of the call. He wondered if he ought to take time to phone downstairs for a report on the situation. It did not strike him as worth the risk with all the people in the same room.

  He saw Beryl strolling his way and rose from her chair.

  “That’s all right, Willie,” she said calmly, setting her packaged drink on the desk. “I just wanted to give you back your handkerchief.”

  She produced it from the purse lying on her desk and said, “Thanks again. I’m sorry about the make-up marks.”

  “Forget it,” said Westervelt.

  “I’m sorry about the eye too,” said Beryl, raising her eyes for the first time to examine the damage. “It…doesn’t look as bad as Si said.”

  “Well, that’s a comfort, anyway. I got something in it and rubbed too hard, you know.”

  “Yes, she told me,” said Beryl. “To tell the truth, Willie, I didn’t know I could do it.”

  “Aw, it was a lucky swing,” muttered Westervelt.

  “Yes…I, well…you might say I was a little upset.”

  “I’m sorry I started it all,” said Westervelt. “How about letting me buy you a lunch to make up.”

  Beryl shrugged, looking serious.

  “I don’t mind, if we make it Dutch. It was as much my fault. I hope we’re both around to go to lunch tomorrow. It gives me the creeps.”

  “What does?” asked Westervelt.

  “The way Mr. Lydman looks. Something about his eyes…”

  Westervelt turned his head to stare across the room, won­dering if the worst had occurred.

  SEVENTEEN

  John Willard set a brisk pace through the streets of First Haven, as befitted a conscientious public servant. Maria Ringstad kept up with him as best she could. When she lagged, the thin cord tightened around her wrist, and he grumbled over his shoulder at her. Naturally, she car­ried her bag.

  He had explained that they would have been most in­conspicuous with her walking properly a yard behind him. Anyone would then have taken them for man and wife or man and servant—had it not been for her Terran clothing.

  “To walk the street with you in that rig would attract entirely too much attention,” was his explanation. “The only thing we can do is use the public symbol of restraint, so that everyone will know you are a prisoner.”

  “What good will that do? Won’t they still stare.”

  “It is considered improper, as well as imprudent. No law-abiding citizen would wish to risk being suspected of a sympathetic curiosity about a transgressor.”

  “You make it sound dangerous,” said Maria, holding out her hand obediently.

  Anything to be inconspicuous, she had thought.

  Now, turning a corner about three hundred yards from the jail, she had to admit that the system seemed to be working. The Greenies whom they met were nearly all in­terested in other things: a shop in the vicinity, another Greenie across the street, a paving stone over which they had just tripped, or the condition of the wall above Maria’s head.

  Willard led her to the far side of a broader avenue after they had negotiated the corner that put them permanently out of sight of the jail. Maria tried to recall the scanty information he had whispered to her against the outside wall of the prison.

  There had been time for him to tell her he was sent by the Department of Interstellar Relations of Terra to get her out, since it had proved impossible to alter the attitude of the Greenie legal authorities. Maria was not quite sure whether he was really the prison officer he said he was, in which case he must have been bribed on a scale to make her own “crime” ridiculous, or whether he was an independent worker friendly to the Terran space line, in which case the payment might more charitably be regarded as a fee.

  She knew that he planned to deliver her to a spaceship due to leave shortly. There had been no opportunity for her to ask the destination.

  To tell the truth, she reflected, I don’t care where it is. Anything would be a haven from Greenhaven!

  She began to amuse herself by planning the article she would write when back on Terra. “How I escaped from Paradise” might do it. Or “Prison-breaking in Paradise.�
� Or perhaps “Greenhaven or Green Hell.”

  Whatever I call it, she promised herself, I’ll skin them alive. And I’ll find a way to send the judge and the warden copies of it, too!

  Maybe, she pondered, it might even be better to stretch it out to a whole book and get someone to do a series of unflattering cartoons of Greenie characters.

  The cord jerked at her wrist. She realized that she had fallen behind again, and made an apologetic face at Willard when he looked back.

  “Don’t do that!” he hissed. “They’ll wonder why I toler­ate disrespect.”

  “Sorry!” said Maria, shrugging unrepentantly. “You take this pretty seriously, don’t you.”

  “You’d better take it seriously yourself,” he growled. “It’s your neck as much as mine!”

  He glared at a young Greenie who had glanced curiously from the opposite side of the avenue. The abashed citizen hastily averted his eyes. Willard gave the cord a significant twitch and strode on.

  They turned another corner, to the right this time, and went along a narrow side street for about two hundred yards. Waiting for a moment when he might meet as few people as possible, Willard crossed to the other side. A little further on, he led the way into what could almost be termed an alley.

  Willard stopped.

  “Now, we are going into this small food shop,” he in­formed Maria. “You would call it a cafe or restaurant on Terra. It will seem normal enough for an officer to provide his charge with food for a journey, so that will be reasonable.”

  “Is the food any better than what I’ve been getting?” asked Maria.

  “It doesn’t matter. We won’t stop there, since it would be impolite to inflict the sight of you upon honest citizens at their meal. I shall request a private room, and the keeper will lead us to the rear.”

  “Humph! Well if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is. So in the eyes of an honest Greenie I’m something to spoil his appetite. What can I do about that?”

  “What you can do is keep that big, flexible, active mouth of yours shut!” declared Willard. “Otherwise, I shall simply drop the end of the cord and take off. You can find your own way out.”

  “I’m sorry,” apologized Maria, a shade too meekly. “I prom­ise I’ll be oh-so-good. Do you want me to kneel down and lick your boots? Or will it be enough if I open a vein in the soup?”

  “It will be enough if I get out of this without committing murder,” mumbled Willard. “Now, the expression is fine; just wipe that grin off your mind and we’ll go in!”

  He pulled her along the few yards to the entrance of the food shop.

  He opened the door and entered. Maria followed at the respectful distance.

  There were half a dozen Greenies eating plain, whole­some meals at plain, sturdy tables and exchanging a plain, honest word now and then. The sight of the cord on Maria’s wrist counterbalanced the sight of her lascivious Terran cos­tume, and they kept their eyes on their food after one startled glance.

  A Greenie woman stood at a counter at one side of the food shop, and Willard made known his desire for a private dining room. A man cooking something that might have been stew looked around from his labor at a massive but primitive stove to the rear of the counter. Maria thought that he took an unusual interest in her compared to what she had been observing recently. It rather helped her morale, and she thought she did not blame the man if the counterwoman were his wife.

  The latter now came from behind her little fortress and led the way to a door at the rear of the shop. Willard followed, and Maria trailed along, restraining an impulse to wink at the cook. She was conscious of his analytical stare until the door had closed behind her.

  Willard seemed to have nothing to say to the Greenie woman, and Maria relented to the point of heeding his request to be silent. All this made for a solemn little pro­cession.

  They walked along a short hall, and the Greenie woman opened another door to a flight of stairs. What surprised Maria was that the stairs led down. She shrugged—on Greenhaven, they had their own peculiar ways.

  She was more puzzled when, at the bottom of the steps, they seemed to be in an ordinary cellar. The light was dim, and she did not succeed in catching the look on Willard’s face. She began to wonder if she might wind up buried under a basement floor while he spent his ill-gotten bribe.

  Then the Greenie woman pulled aside a large crate and opened another door. To pass through this one, they all had to stoop. Marie realized that they were then in the cellar of another building. The blocks of stone forming the walls looked damp and dirty.

  They proceeded to climb stairs again, and to traverse an­other hall. Maria thought they ended up going in a direction away from the street. The woman led them through a small, dark series of rooms, and finally into one with windows set too high in the walls to see out. There she halted and faced Willard.

  The Greenie prison official dropped the cord and reached into an inner pocket of his drab uniform. He withdrew a thick packet of Greenhaven currency. The numbers and units were too unfamiliar for Maria to guess at the value from one quick glance; but the attitude of their hostess suggested that it was substantial. Willard handed it over. Maria decided it was time to set down her bag.

  The woman went immediately to a large chest in a corner of the room and opened it. She set aside a mirror she took out of the chest, then began to pull out other objects. There was a case which she handed to Willard and a great many articles of clothing that were probably considered feminine on this world.

  “The point is,” Willard said in low tones, “you are going to have to have proper clothes to look natural on the street. See if that dress will fit you.”

  Maria took the thing distastefully, but it looked to be about the right length when she held it up against her. The Greenie woman nodded. She added a sort of full-length flannel slip and a petticoat to the dress.

  “Now I know why the Greenie women look so grim” said Maria. “It would be almost worth dying to stay out of such a rig.”

  “Hold your tongue!” said Willard.

  Maria made a face.

  “Present company excepted, of course!” she added.

  “Change!” ordered Willard. “We have no time to waste.”

  He took the mirror and the small case to a rude table under one of the windows. He opened the box so that Maria caught a glimpse of the contents, which looked like an actor’s make-up kit.

  The Greenie woman joggled Maria’s elbow and spoke for the first time.

  “I must not be long, or it will be noticed,” she hinted.

  “Give her your clothes to burn and get into the others,” said Willard, bending over the table with his back to her. “As soon as I get myself fixed here, I’ll change your face too.”

  Maria looked about in a manner to suggest that she hoped they knew what they were doing. The Greenie woman waited. Maria reached up and began to unbutton her blouse.

  She dropped it across her bag. The woman picked both of them up, and waited. She looked a trifle shocked at the sight of the thin slip when Maria unzipped her skirt and hauled it over her head. By the time the slip followed, she was standing with downcast eyes.

  Maria eyed the broad back in the drab uniform as she unfastened her brassiere. This would make a good story someday, but to tell it in the wrong company might be to invite catty remarks about her attractiveness. She could think of other men who might not have kept their backs so rigidly turned as did Willard. It was almost provocative.

  She slipped down the brief panties, stepped out of them, and handed them over. The Greenie woman pointed silently to the shoes. Marie kicked them off, and they were added to the pile. She hoped that whatever was in the chest for footwear would not be too hard to walk in.

  The Greenie woman thrust the flannel atrocity at her and left the room hastily. Maria watched the door close soft
ly, then held the garment out at arm’s length. It did not look any better. She took a few steps toward Willard.

  I’ll bet I could make him faint dead away, she thought mischievously. I’d love to see the look on his face if…well, why not? I will!

  “She’s gone,” she announced in a low voice. “How do I get into this thing?”

  Willard looked around, and the look was nothing she had ever seen before. His face appeared fuller in the cheeks, his eyebrows were black and heavy, his nose high at the bridge, and his whole complexion was darker.

  He nodded at her gasp.

  “Those papers I turned in for you won’t last too long. The estimate is that they will dissolve before tomorrow morning, but they just might come apart sooner. If he sends out an alarm, I don’t want to be on the streets in shape to be recognized.”

  “That’s wonderful!” said Maria enthusiastically. “Are you going to make me up too.”

  “Yes,” said Willard. “Get into those things so I can start!”

  Maria watched his eyes flicker to her breasts and then sweep down the rest of her body. She thought he was taking it very well, unless it was the make-up.

  “Will you help me with this thing?” she begged. “I never saw one before.”

  She held out the flannel garment with a helpless smile, planting the other hand on her bare hip.

  “Will you quit teasing, you little bitch!” Willard snapped. “I’m no Greenie, if that’s what you thought. You could get us involved to the point of missing the ship.”

  Maria felt her eyes popping. A tingling, hot flush lit her face. It spread back to her neck and crept down to her breasts. She snatched the flannel sack to her and turned her back.

  Somehow, she maneuvered it over her head. Then she fumbled on the starched petticoat and topped the whole with the dun-colored dress that fell chastely about her ankles. Willard handed her a pair of low heeled shoes that were only a little loose when she put them on.

  He had her stand facing one of the windows while he darkened her face and put a black wig on her. She looked up at the window and stood very still.