by Bob Shaw
Connor made a new effort to retain his grasp of the situation. He pointed to the safe and said, casually, “I assume that’s a two-way transporter.”
Smith was visibly shaken. “All right,” he said, after a tense silence, “who talked to you?”
“Nobody.” Connor felt he could get Angela into trouble of some kind by mentioning her name.
Toynbee cleared his throat. “I’ll bet it was that Miss Lomond. I’ve always said you can’t trust the nouveau riche —the proper instincts aren’t sufficiently ingrained.”
Smith nodded agreement. “You are right. She got a replacement table lighter, television and clock—the things this… person has just mentioned. She said they had been detuned by someone who broke into her house.”
“She must have told him everything she knew.”
“And broken her contract—make a note of that, Mr. Toynbee.”
“Hold on a minute,” Connor said loudly, brandishing the revolver to remind them he was in control. “Nobody’s going to make a note of anything till I get the answers I want. These products you deal in—do they come from the future or—somewhere?”
“From somewhere,” Smith told him. “Actually, they come from a short distance in the future as well, but—as far as you are concerned—the important thing is that they are transported over many light years. The time difference is incidental, and quite difficult to prove.”
“They’re from another planet?”
“Yes.”
“You, too?”
“Of course.”
“You bring advanced products to Earth in secret and sell or rent them to rich people?”
“Yes. Only smaller stuff comes here, of course—larger items, like the television sets, come in at main receivers in other cities. The details of the operation may be surprising, but surely the general principles of commerce are well known to you.”
“That’s exactly what’s bothering me,” Connor said. “I don’t give a damn about other worlds and matter transmitters, but I can’t see why you go to all this trouble. Earth currency would be of no value on… wherever you come from. You’re ahead on technology, so there is nothing…” Connor stopped talking as he remembered what Smith had been feeding into the black rectangle. An old oil painting.
Smith nodded, looking more relaxed. “You are right about your currency being useless on another world. We spend it here. Humanity is primitive in many respects, but the race’s artistic genius is quite remarkable. Our organization makes a good trading surplus by exporting paintings and sculptures. You see, the goods we import are comparatively worthless.”
“They seem valuable to me.”
“They would seem that way to you—that’s the whole point. We don’t bother bringing in the things that Earth can produce reasonably well. Your wines and other drinks aren’t too bad, so we don’t touch them. But your coffee!” Smith’s mouth curved even further downward.
“That means you’re spending millions. Somebody should have noticed one outfit buying up so much stuff.”
“Not really. We do quite a bit of direct buying at auctions and galleries, but often our clients buy on our behalf and we credit their accounts.”
“Oh, no,” Connor breathed as the ramifications of what Smith was saying unfolded new vistas in his mind. Was this why millionaires, even the most unlikely types of men, so often became art collectors? Was this the raison d’etre for that curious phenomenon, the private collection? In a society where the rich derived so much pleasure from showing off their possessions, why did so many art treasures disappear from the public view? Was it because their owners were trading them in against P-brand products? If that was the case, the organization concerned must be huge, and it must have been around for a long time. Connor’s legs suddenly felt tired.
He said, “Let’s sit down and talk about this.”
Smith looked slightly uncomfortable. “We don’t sit. Why don’t you use one of those crates if you aren’t feeling well?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, so don’t try anything,” Connor said sharply, but he sat on the edge of a box while his brain worked to assimilate shocking new concepts. “What does the P stand for on your products?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Perfect?”
“That is correct.”
The readiness with which Smith was now giving information made Connor a little wary, but he pressed on with other questions which had been gnawing at him. “Miss Lomond told me her installments were eight hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars—why that particular figure? Why not a million?”
“That is a million—in our money. A rough equivalent, of course.”
“I see. And the forty-three days.”
“One revolution of our primary moon. It’s a natural accounting period.”
Connor almost began to wish the flow of information would slow down. “I still don’t see the need for all this secrecy. Why not come out in the open, reduce your unit prices and multiply the volume? You could make a hundred times as much.”
“We have to work underground for a number of reasons. In all probability the various Earth governments would object to the loss of art treasures, and there are certain difficulties at the other end.”
“Such as?”
“There’s a law against influencing events on worlds which are at a sensitive stage of their development. This limits our supply of trade goods very sharply.”
“In other words, you are crooks on your own world and crooks on this one.”
“I don’t agree. What harm do we do on Earth?”
“You’ve already named it—you are depriving the people of this planet of…”
“Of their artistic heritage?” Smith gave a thin sneer. “How many people do you know who would give up a Perfect television set to keep a da Vinci cartoon in a public art gallery five or ten thousand miles away?”
“You’ve got a point there,” Connor admitted. “What have you got up your sleeve, Smith?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t play innocent. You would not have talked so freely unless you were certain I wouldn’t get out of here with the information. What are you planning to do about me?”
Smith glanced at Toynbee and sighed. “I keep forgetting how parochial the natives of a single-planet culture can be. You have been told that we are from another world, and yet to you we are just slightly unusual Earth people. I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that other races could have a stronger instinct toward honesty, that deviousness and lies would come less easily to them than to humans?”
“That’s where we are most vulnerable,” Toynbee put in. “I see now that I was too inexperienced to be up front.”
“All right, then—be honest with me,” Connor said. “You are planning to keep me quiet, aren’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, we do have a little device…”
“You don’t need it,” Connor said. He thought back carefully over all he had been told, then stood up and handed his revolver to Smith.
The good life was all that he had expected it to be, and—as he drove south to Avalon—Connor could feel it getting better by the minute.
His business sense had always been sharp, but whereas he had once reckoned a month’s profits in thousands, he now thought in terms of six figures. Introductions, opportunities, and deals came thick and fast, and always it was the P-brand artifacts which magically paved the way. During important first contacts he had only to use his gold lighter to ignite a pipeful of P-brand tobacco—the incredible leaf which fulfilled all the promise of its “nose,” or glance at his P-brand watch, or write with the pen which produced any color at the touch of a spectrum ring, and all doors were opened wide. The various beautiful trinkets were individually styled, but he quickly learned to recognize them when they were displayed by others, and to make the appropriate responses.
Within a few weeks, although he was scarcely aware of it, his outlook on life had undergone a profound c
hange. At first he was merely uneasy or suspicious when approached by people who failed to show the talisman. Then he became hostile, preferring to associate only with those who could prove they were safe.
Satisfying though his new life was, Connor had decided it would not be perfect until Angela and he were reunited. It was through her that he had achieved awareness, and only through her would he achieve completeness. He would have made the journey to Avalon much sooner but for the fact that there had been certain initial difficulties with Smith and Toynbee. Handing over the revolver had been a dangerous gambit which had almost resulted in his being bundled through their matter transmitter to an unknown fate on another world. Luckily, however, it had also convinced them that he had something important to say.
He had talked quickly and well that evening in the basement of the undistinguished little store. Smith, who was the senior of the pair, had been hard to convince; but his interest had quickened as Connor enumerated all the weaknesses in the organization’s procurement methods. And it had grown feverish when he heard how Connor’s worldly knowhow would eliminate much of the wasteful financial competition of auctions, would streamline the system of purchasing through rich clients, would institute foolproof controls and effective new techniques for diverting art treasures into the organization’s hands. It had been the best improvisation of his life, sketchy in places because of his unfamiliarity with the art world, but filled with an inspired professionalism which carried his audience along with it.
Early results had been so good that Smith had become possessive, voicing objections to Connor’s profitable side dealings. Connor smoothed things over by going on to a seven-day work schedule in which he also worked most evenings. This had made it difficult to find the time to visit Angela, but finally his need to see her had become so great that he had pushed everything else aside and made the time…
The guard at the gate lodge was the same man as before, but he gave no sign of remembering his earlier brush with Connor. He waved the car on through with a minimum of delay, and a few minutes later Connor was walking up the broad front steps of the house. The place looked much less awesome to Connor, but while ringing for admission he decided that he and Angela would probably keep it, for sentimental reasons as much as anything else. The butler who answered the door was a new man, who looked rather like a retired seaman, and there was a certain lack of smoothness in his manner as he showed Connor to the large room where Angela was waiting. She was standing at the fireplace with her back to the door, just as he had last seen her.
“Angie,” he said, “it’s good to see you again.”
She turned and ran to him. “I’ve missed you so much, Phil.”
As they clung together in the center of the green-and-silver room, Connor experienced a moment of exquisite happiness. He buried his face in her hair and began whispering the things he had been unable to say for what seemed a long, long time. Angela answered him feverishly all the while he spoke, responding to the emotion rather than the words.
It was during the first kiss that he became aware of a disturbing fact. She was wearing expensive yet ordinary perfume—not one of the P-brand distillations of magic to which he had become accustomed on the golden creatures he had dated casually during the past few weeks. Still holding Angela close to him, he glanced around the big room. A leaden coldness began to spread through his body. Everything in the room was, like her perfume, excellent—but not Perfect.
“Angela,” he said quietly, “why did you ask me to come here?”
“What kind of a question is that, darling?”
“It’s a perfectly normal question.” Connor disengaged from her and stepped back suspiciously. “I merely asked what your motives were.”
“Motives!” Angela stared at him, color fleeing from her cheeks. Then her gaze darted to his wristwatch. “My God, Philip, you’re in! You made it, just like you said you would.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t try that with me—remember, I was the one who told it all to you.”
“You should have learned not to talk by this time.”
“I know I should, but I didn’t.” Angela advanced on him. “I’m out now. I’m on the outside.”
“It isn’t all that bad, is it? Where’s Bobby Janke and the rest of his crowd?”
“None of them come near me now. And you know why.”
“At least you’re not broke.” Small solace.
She shook her head. “I’ve got plenty of money, but what good is it when I can’t buy the things I want? I’m shut out, and it’s all because I couldn’t keep myself from blabbing to you, and because I didn’t report the way you were getting on to them. But you didn’t mind informing on me, did you?”
Connor opened his mouth to protest his innocence, then realized it would make no difference. “It’s been nice seeing you again, Angela,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but things are stacking up on me back at the office. You know how it is.”
“I know exactly how it is. Go on, Philip—get out of here.”
Connor crossed to the door, but hesitated as Angela made a faint sound.
She said, “Stay with me, Phil. Please stay.”
He stood with his back to her, experiencing a pain which slowly faded. Then he walked out.
* * *
Late that afternoon, Connor was sitting in his new office when his secretary put through a call. It was Smith, anxious to discuss the acquisition of a collection of antique silver.
“I called you earlier, but your girl told me you were out,” he said with a hint of reproach.
“It’s true,” Connor assured him. “I was out of town—Angela Lomond asked me down to her place.”
“Oh?”
“You didn’t tell me she was no longer a client.”
“You should have known without being told.” Smith was silent for a few seconds. “Is she going to try making trouble?”
“No.”
“What did she want?”
Connor leaned back in his chair and gazed out through the window, toward the Atlantic. “Who knows? I didn’t stay long enough to find out.”
“Very wise,” Smith said complacently.
When the call had ended, Connor brewed some P-brand coffee, using the supply he kept locked in the drinks cabinet. The Perfection of it soothed from his mind the last lingering traces of remorse.
How on Earth, he wondered idly, do they manage to make it taste exactly the way it smells?
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Document creation date: 14.04.2011
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