They had drifted away from the bar, their glasses in hand. He looked at her wryly. “They say, eh? Then you’ve never tried it?”
She gave her little snort. “Do I look like a masochist?”
He grinned at her. “If you are, I’ll gladly play sadist with you. But why do these construction workers put up with it? I’d think they’d be on the rough and tough side.”
“They are,” she said, her eyes checking around the room, as though she was not particularly interested in the subject. “But what can they do? It’s not as though they could just quit, drop their tools, jump in their cars or jeeps, and drive home.”
“Couldn’t they strike for better working conditions—better food, more tobacco, a reasonable amount of guzzle?”
She sighed and said, “You really are a prying freelancer, aren’t you?” She took a sip of the wine. “There’s a no-strike clause in their contracts. If they break it, their bonuses are forfeit. And that’s what brings most of them to Lagrange Five and what keeps them here. Even the least paid gets a twenty-thousand-a-year bonus, in L5 Corporation stock. Tax free.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Bruce said. And then, after looking around, “At the rate this champagne is being poured, that case the French President sent up won’t last very long.”
“Oh, there’s more available,” she told him. And, switching subjects, “Have you met the Prince, the guest of honor?”
“Not yet.”
“He seems to be alone for the moment. Shall we go over?”
Prince Abou ben Abel, as ever in spotless white Arab robes, wore the traditional agalas, a headdress of braided black ropes worn over white kaffiyehs. He was bearded, the black hair just touched with gray, his eyes were sharp, and his nose beaked in the family facial characteristic. He held a glass of wine in his hand.
Annette said, “Your Highness, may I present Mr. Bruce Carter?”
“As-salaam alaykum,” the Prince said graciously, bowing his head slightly but not offering his hand. The true Near Easterner, like his fellow Orientals, doesn’t like the Western personal contact of a handshake.
“La bas,” Bruce said politely.
“What in the devil are you two jabbering about?” Annette said. “Why don’t you speak Esperanto, like everybody else here?”
Abou ben Abel smiled forgivingly at her. He said, Eton and Oxford in the background of his perfect English, “The traditional Islamic greetings. It would seem that Mr. Carter has visited the Arab Union in his time, I shouldn’t wonder. I am afraid that my trip to Island One was planned so quickly that I had no time to take the customary crash course in Esperanto. Alas, I fear I am ignorant.”
Annette said, a glint in her eye, “Your Highness, I was of the opinion that Moslems were forbidden, ah, strong drink.” She eyed his glass of champagne.
His own dark eyes sparked back at her in amusement. “It is no coincidence that “alcohol” is an Arabic word. But in my case, Allah has created an amazing miracle. Whenever I bring a glass to my lips which contains the forbidden Al-kohl, it turns to water.”
She looked at him and snorted. “That’d be worse than that golden curse of Midas,” she said. Then, “Gentlemen, I see my lord and master, Sol Ryan, beckoning to me. A man works from sun to sun but a private secretary’s work is never done. If you’ll excuse me.”
When she was gone, the two men looked after her. “I say, what a beautiful woman,” the Prince murmured.
“I wouldn’t recommend her for your harem, Your Highness,” Bruce said.
The other raised his eyebrows. “Why not, old man?”
“She’d have it in an uproar before the first day was out. Women’s rights and all.”
The Prince laughed. “You’re Bruce Carter, the writer, I take it. I’ve enjoyed some of your things.”
“I seem to have more of a following up here than I do Earthside,” Bruce said. “Thanks.”
He saw someone about to pass them and said, “Pete. Have you met Prince Abel?”
The IABI man came to a halt. Where he had acquired the ill-fitting evening clothes, Bruce hadn’t the vaguest idea, but he suspected that it was the first time Pete Kapitz had ever been in formal wear. The colorless agent looked as though he had been wrestling in them.
Bruce said, “Your Highness, Mr. Peter Kapitz, of the Inter-American Bureau of Investigation.”
For the moment, the Prince had his drink in his left hand and couldn’t avoid having his right taken and pumped up and down.
“Ah,” he said. “I say, a G-Man.”
“I’m afraid that term is kind of out of date, Your, uh, Majesty,” Pete said.
The Arab smiled at him, taking the edge off the mockery in his voice. “I’m afraid that one is too, I shouldn’t think. Especially since I am not the king but only one of his many sons.”
Mark Donald, the lieutenant of Security, came up apologetically, nodded to Bruce and Pete, and said, “Pardon me, Your Highness. I dislike to interrupt, but Doctor Ryan and Mr. Moore would appreciate a few moments of your time in the library, if possible.”
“Certainly,” the other nodded. He turned back to Bruce and Pete Kapitz. “Trig esslama,” he said and then followed after the Security man.
Pete said, “What in the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“May the road lead to salvation,” Bruce told him.
“Sounds kind of fruity,” Pete said. “You think he’s queer? I’ve heard about these A-rabs.”
“Let’s go get another drink,” Bruce said. “How’re you doing on your search for Rocks Weil?”
“Haven’t had much time, so far,” Pete said as they wound in and out among the other guests on their way to the bar. He snagged a canapé from a tray being, carried about by one of the Security men and popped it into his mouth. “Jesus, that was good,” he said.
“Probably sent up by the King of England,” Bruce said. “You’d think this party was being held in Beverly Hills, rather than a half-finished, overgrown tin can floating in space.”
They got their drinks. Pete said, “Half-finished? I thought it was just about through and that pretty soon they were going to start on the next one, Island Two.”
“Well, it’s not, by a damn sight,” Bruce told him. “From what I’ve been able to pick up so far, every wheel and its cousin has come off.”
The LABI operative looked at his watch. He said, “Look, I’d like to get together with you some time and check notes, but I’ve got something to do now.”
“Wizard,” Bruce said. “I’m here at the hotel.”
When the other was gone, the freelancer drifted near a couple of middle-aged, scholarly looking types who seemed to be having an argument. They were, of course, talking shop, just as everyone else seemed to be.
One of them was saying, “What I’m asking is what would happen if a real disaster struck an island. Any island ranging from a population of 10,000, like this one, to the millions sometimes projected by Sol Ryan.”
“What kind of a disaster?” the other said.
“Any kind. On Earth, we can flee war, floods, hurricanes or tornados, earthquakes, even a plague. But no island would have available the spaceships to handle the refugees involved. How long would it take to move a million colonists from their island to one only fifty miles away?”
The other said sarcastically, “Look, John, I rather think that such disasters as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are unlikely to occur on even the largest island proposed.”
“Ah? But we have our own potential disasters. Suppose something suddenly happened to an island’s air supply? Suppose one was struck by that king-sized meteor that nobody expects to come, given percentages. Suppose there was an attack by some crackpot terrorists, such as the religious cranks who are sounding off against our flying up God’s nostrils by penetrating the heavens. And a plague is always possible; some new strain of bug escaped from our laboratories, perhaps. On Earth, doctors and nurses can be brought in to a disaster area from a nearby country in shor
t order. Even mobile hospital units. But suppose your island was stationed out in the Asteroid Belt. It takes a year to get there from Earth or from Lagrange Five.”
The other took a pull at his drink and scowled. “A plague doesn’t sound very likely.”
“But possible, damn it. And how about a war? Do you know how vulnerable one of these islands would be to an enemy spacecraft armed with nothing more destructive than, say, even a French 75 of the First World War? A few shells would rip an island apart, the atmosphere would flush out into space. And where would the population flee?”
“They could take to spacesuits,” his companion said grumpily.
“Balls,” the other said in disgust. “What spacesuits? I doubt if there’re more than two thousand space suits in Island One. And how long can you live in a spacesuit even if you were able to find one in a hurry?”
Bruce moved on. The idea had never occurred to him. A major disaster in a space colony. The guy was right. It’d have to be one king-sized rescue operation.
Across the room, cigars in hand rather than drinks, Leonard Suvorov, the Russian ecologist, and Rudi Koplin, the once-Polish biochemist, were worriedly discussing subjects dearest to their hearts. The two men were of a type—both middle-aged, both rotund, both sincere men of good will, but on the naive side when out of their own fields of endeavor.
The Soviet Nobel Laureate was saying, “The biologist, Howard Odum, one of your Americans, I believe, calculated that it would take about 2.5 acres of ecosystems combining water and land to sustain safely one person in a space colony. If my crude estimate of this first colony’s potential biotic area of one hundred acres free of structure, machinery, storage, and what have you is correct, Island One can support 40 people, not the 10,000 that it supposedly now contains. If Odum is right, that means that the other 9,960 people will have to continue to bring their own gases, food, and waste disposal units. Not to speak of all the other necessities.”
Rudi Koplin wet his lips and blinked his eyes many times. He said, “My dear Academician, surely Odum’s figures are exaggerated.”
The Russian shook his head. “I do not know. But even if he is way off the mark, as the Yankees say, I cannot see how one hundred acres could support 10,000 colonists. Besides, as yet, a valid, closed-cycle ecology system has not been devised.”
The other pushed his steel-rimmed glasses back on his nose and attempted a chuckle. “But, now that you have arrived, we shall see about that, my dear Suvorov.”
“Call me Leon, my friend,” the Soviet scientist told him. “But though I have been here but a single day, the magnitude of the task overwhelms me. I have been led to believe that my colleagues already on the job had gone far toward solving the problems involved. I had expected to find the celebrated Nils Petersen and Professor Chu Sing, both of whom have laurels as great as my own in the field of bionomics.”
Koplin said with a sigh, “Doctor Petersen met with an unexpected accident when all air, suddenly, and in a thus far unexplained manner, flushed from the hothouse in which he was working. Our Chinese comrade was rather hot-headed and could get along with but a few of us. I am glad to say that I was one of the few. However, finally, in high agitation, he argued with Sol Ryan over some point evidently above my head and insisted upon being returned to Earth. From the story that has come up to us, he had seemingly become used to the lack of vehicles here in Lagrange Five and was struck by a car in the streets of New York before being able to return to Peking.”
“I heard nothing of this in Leningrad,” Suvorov grumbled.
Koplin was apologetic but said, “I understand that the Soviet news system is somewhat different than that in the West.”
The Russian drew hard on his cigar. “That doesn’t apply to the sciences,” he said coldly. “In the Academy of Sciences, we keep up as well as is done anywhere. Possibly better. At any rate, those ecologists remaining on the project’s staff give me a first impression of being dolts. With Nils Petersen and Chu Sing, I would have at least had a team.”
Koplin said placatingly, “Many of our research people are at New Kingston University doing much of the work where there is more adequate equipment, such as the very latest computers.”
“We shall see,” Suvorov said, “However, at this early point, prospects look grim to me.” He glanced down at his cigar. “This is as good as I have ever enjoyed.”
“Havana,” Koplin beamed. “I shall tell Sol you appreciate them. He will certainly send you a few boxes.”
At the other end of the room, Mary Beth Houston said, in surprise, “Why, it’s Rick Venner. I didn’t expect you to be at this party, Rick.”
Rick, champagne glass in hand, looked quickly to right and left before answering her. None of the Security waiters seemed to be in the immediate vicinity. “Why not, honey?”
She looked embarrassed. “They told me that it was for the most influential people in Island One—Doctor Ryan, the Prince, Academician Suvorov, and all those other scientists. And you’re only an electrical engineer, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I’m more of an engineer than you’d think,” Rick said. He was immaculately dressed in evening wear that he had thoughtfully borrowed from Tony Black an hour before while the other was gone from the house the two occupied.
“Isn’t it exciting?” she gushed. “Imagine, a real, live Prince.”
“Yeah,” Rick said, turning so his face wouldn’t likely be seen by any of the Security-men-cum-waiters, and taking more of his wine appreciatively. It was damn good champagne.
“Oh, look,” she said. “There’s Joe Evola over there. The Security fellow who came up with us. They’ve made him be one of the waiters. Isn’t that funny? He’s such a gloomy Gus.”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Hey, let’s take a crack at the buffet. That looks like caviar to me.”
They made their way to the lengthy buffet table and Rick, in particular, shoveled a huge amount of the delicacies onto his plate. “I missed lunch,” he told her. “I’m on kind of a diet. What do you say we go out onto the terrace to eat this?”
“Oh, that sounds terribly romantic. Imagine being at a party in Island One with Doctor Solomon Ryan and a live Prince and going out onto the balcony with a real space construction engineer.”
He ushered her onto the terrace. There were only a couple of other guests. He took Mary Beth down to the far end and, as much as he had noticed thus far, besides Joe Evola, the only others present who would be aware of the fact that he had crashed the party were Bruce Carter and Pete Kapitz. He doubted if either of them would call him on it. However, it was just as well if they didn’t spot him. At least, until he had gotten as much of this superlative guzzle and food under his belt as possible.
“Is this caviar?” she said. “I’ve read about caviar all of my life, but this is the first time I’ve ever had any.” She tasted it and frowned. “Goodness, is that caviar? Tastes like salty fish eggs to me.”
Rick Venner closed his eyes in pain.
He said, “Are you staying here at the hotel?”
“Oh, yes. And I’m having the most wonderful time. I’ve just always got one of Mr. Rich’s publicity men, or one of the Security fellows dancing attendance on me. Tomorrow one of them is going to take me into space in what they call a space taxi, so I can see the men at work on the SPS’s. That’s the great big mirror that they’re going to use to collect solar power and beam it down to Earth. Oh, they’re going to occupy every minute of my time, until the next passenger freighter leaves for Earth orbit. Gosh, I’ll sure hate to go.”
“Ummm,” Rich said thoughtfully. “I’m staying in private quarters I share with a friend. How does the hotel work? For instance, how do you pay in the dining room?” She looked at him in surprise. “Nobody pays anything,” she told him. “Didn’t you know that? In Lagrange Five practically everyone except for a few visitors like myself and Bruce Carter and the Prince, are either space colonists or contract workers and they get everything they need for free.”
&n
bsp; “So, in the dining room you just sit down and order. They don’t look at your identification or anything?” “And the food is just delicious,” she gushed. “You’re lucky. You’ll be eating this wonderful space food for the next five years.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Imagine.”
She looked at him mischievously. “Longer than that, I’ll bet. You’ll probably sign up to be a life-long colonist, after your five years are over.”
He looked upward in appeal. Not that there was anything to see upward. Evidently, the mirrors had been so warped that the solar rays were cut off and the equivalent of night had fallen in Island One.
She said, “Come to think of it, there were few in the dining room who were dressed in space coveralls. I think that the waiters did ask them for identification, or something. I don’t know why.”
He looked thoughtful again. “Oh, they did, eh? They expect you to be in Earthside clothing.”
After they’d finished their food, they stared down at the town for a while. There wasn’t a great deal to see in the darkness, save for occasional lights in the windows of the houses and other buildings.
Rick cleared his throat and said softly, “You know, Mary Beth, I’m going to hate to see you leave after just a short stay. I wish I had told you sooner, but I suppose I’m shy.”
“Told me what?” she said. “Why, you’re the least shy man I’ve ever met.”
“I just, uh, cover it over. I should have told you I built up quite a crush on you. And now, here you are, leaving in a few days or so and I’ll be here all alone.” He managed to work a small sob into the end of that.
She looked at him in surprise and caught her breath. She said, a hitch in her voice, “I didn’t know that you felt that way, Rick.”
“Well, I do. And, well, I’ve never even kissed you. And you’re leaving.”
“Why, you poor man.” She put a hand on his arm, lowered her voice demurely, and said, “Rick, darling, I’d put out for any true spaceman.”
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