The blonde smiled at him and then rolled over on her back, obviously figuring she showed to better advantage that way. She did.
The brunette gave him a gamin grin. “We’re more fun three at a time,” she said. “We know tricks.”
Crag said, “Get out, all of you.”
They didn’t argue; they didn’t even seem offended or annoyed. They got up calmly and went past him through the doorway of the bedroom and through the salon, through the door to the hallway, still stark naked but obviously completely unconcerned about the fact.
Crag laughed. He went back to the bar and poured himself another drink. Plain whiskey this time. Since none of the drinks tasted right to him just now, he might as well vary them.
He sat sipping it, trying not to think.
There was a soft knock at the door. Crag put down his glass and went to answer it. His luggage, probably, although he hadn’t expected it so soon; he’d told the clerk at the store that there was nothing he’d need tonight and that delivery tomorrow would be satisfactory.
But the bellboy outside his door didn’t have luggage. He was a very beautiful young man, rosy and handsome, with soft ringlets of curly hair.
He smiled at Crag. “The management sent me, Sir. Since you did not want women, they thought perhaps—Is there anything I can do for you?”
Crag looked him over carefully. He said, “Turn around.”
The young man smiled knowingly and turned gracefully around. He had a pleasingly plump posterior; he wriggled it a trifle, provocatively.
Crag drew back his foot and kicked hard.
He closed the door gently.
He got the glass of whiskey again and downed what was left of it instead of sipping. He started wandering again, wondering why he couldn’t get sleepy. He found another and smaller bedroom, but this one was untenanted. And he found the bathroom, with a sunken tub that was almost large enough to swim in. The tub was filled with lukewarm water and Crag stripped and got in.
But he got out quickly when he discovered that the water was perfumed. He finished washing himself with cold but unperfumed water from the tap of the washbasin. And then washed himself all over again when he found that he still smelled faintly of violets.
He put his shorts back on to sleep in—if he could sleep—and went into the master bedroom. But a look at the monstrous ebony bed there changed his mind; he went into the smaller bedroom and lay down on the smaller and less ornate bed there. Probably unspeakable things had happened on it too, but fewer of them. He turned out the light and tried to sleep.
But couldn’t. He wondered if there was a drug cabinet in the liquor room. He didn’t use drugs as such ordinarily, but he had to sleep. If he didn’t he’d start drinking seriously and a time when he was dead tired already was a bad time to start that.
He wondered if music would help. He’d noticed knobs and luminous dials of a radio built into the wall above the head of the bed and he reached up now and flicked the switch. The radio hummed and then blared; he got it turned down to a bearable volume just in time to catch the end of a news broadcast.
“…in the asteroid belt,” said a smooth voice. “Scientists of both Mars and Earth are working on the problem, but have thus far failed to formulate an acceptable theory to account for the unprecedented and incredible phenomenon. This concludes the two o’clock newscast; the next one will be presented at 3:15 A.M. Mars City time.”
Crag sat up and turned the light back on. He shut off the radio and reached for the phone beside the bed. An obsequious voice asked him to wait for a moment and then came the dry voice of the manager with the pince-nez glasses. “Carleton speaking. Yes, Mr. Ah?”
Crag said, “I just tuned in on the last few sentences of a newscast from the official Mars City station. About something happening in the asteroid belt. Could you arrange with the station to have that particular part of the newscast played back for me over my set here?”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Ah, that would require rewiring the set; it is automatically tuned to the main carrier wave of—”
“Over this phone, then,” Crag said. “They tape all broadcasts; for a fee they ought to be willing to play that part of the tape back for me.”
“I’ll see if that can be arranged, Sir. If you’ll please cradle your phone I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve found out what arrangement can be made.”
Crag cradled the phone and drew a cigarette into flame while he waited. In a few minutes the phone buzzed and he picked it up again.
“It can be done, Mr. Ah. There will be a fee of fifty dollars. Is that satisfactory?”
“Yes. Hurry it up or I might as well wait till the next newscast.”
“Very well. If you’ll please hang up again—”
Crag put down the phone again and watched it, wondering now why he was so interested and in such a hurry. Whatever was going on out in the asteroid belt didn’t concern him. If the alien out there was doing what he’d said he’d do, that still meant nothing to Crag. A new world, hell. For as long as his money lasted—and half a million dollars takes a lot of spending—he was going to enjoy a soft life here on a soft world, not help start a colony of criminals on a new, raw planet.
But just the same he watched the phone with mounting impatience until it buzzed for a second time.
“The station is ready, Sir. The management of the Luxor is glad to have been able to arrange—”
“Get off the wire, then,” Crag said.
There was another minute of waiting and then came the voice of the announcer of the newscast.
“According to many reliable reports, a strange and incredible thing is happening in the asteroid belt. The first report came eight hours ago from Bellini, an astronomer who was at that time using the big scope on Luna to observe Ceres—largest of the asteroids, with a diameter of four hundred and eighty miles—when suddenly it vanished from the field of the scope, which had been set to track it, to follow its course automatically. When Bellini found it again by using the manual controls, it had changed both speed and direction considerably. The directional change was quickly analyzed by the computing machine and it was found that Ceres had lost much of the eccentric and parabolic aspect of its orbit; it was following a new orbit, more nearly regular and more nearly in the plane of the ecliptic. Subsequent observations fed into the computer showed that the change is progressive, and still continues. Within another forty hours, Bellini believes, Ceres will be following a perfectly circular orbit about the sun instead of the irregular one it followed heretofore.
“Luna immediately notified other observatories on Earth and on Mars and those in a position to observe Ceres confirmed his observations within the hour. Also, observations were made and are still being made, of other of the asteroids, those large enough to be observable in telescopes. Hidalgo, whose eccentricity is—or rather was—point six five, was found with difficulty, considerably out of its former orbit. Upon study and analysis with the computer, it too was found changing in the direction of a perfectly circular orbit similar to that of Ceres—but Hidalgo is traveling at a far greater speed; it will overtake and crash into Ceres within a few days.
“The most amazing thing is that the speed of the asteroid Hidalgo in its new orbit and in relation to its mass is impossible according to the laws of angular momentum.
“Luna Observatory is now on the wrong side of Earth to enable continued observation of the asteroid belt, but every telescope on the night sides of Earth and Mars is now being used to check one asteroid after another—and as yet no single one has been found which is in its former orbit! All are now in, or tending toward the same identical circular orbit. And there is only one conclusion to be drawn—since they are moving at greatly different speeds, they will eventually all crash into one another and form a new planet!
“If it can be assumed that the smaller asteroids, those too tiny to be seen telescopically, are joining in this movement then the new planet about to be formed will be slightly larger than Mars.
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“Spaceships are now leaving Mars and Earth to place themselves near enough to observe this incredible development at close hand. Whatever its cause, an event of cosmic importance is taking place in the asteroid belt. Scientists of both Mars and Earth are working on the problem, but have thus far failed to formulate an acceptable theory to account for…”
Crag put the phone back on its cradle; that was the point at which he’d tuned in on the original broadcast ten or fifteen minutes before.
He thought, So the little devil is really doing it.
He chuckled and went back to the bar where he poured himself another drink, woji again this time. With it in his hand he wandered out onto the dark balcony and stood staring up at the moon Phobos hurtling across the Martian sky.
Then he stared at the stars until he had located the plane of the ecliptic and knew that he was looking at the belt in which the asteroids—each too small to be seen by the naked eye at this distance—were gathering themselves, or being gathered, to form a new planet. He chuckled again, but there was no real mirth in it.
He raised his fist at the sky and thought, Damn you, I died; why didn’t you leave me dead? Once is enough.
He drank his bitter drink and threw the glass out over the railing into the garden below.
And then staggered, not from intoxication but from exhaustion, back into the smaller bedroom, fell upon the bed, and slept.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CRAG woke, as always, suddenly and completely, instantly oriented. He was in his own suite at the Luxor, in the smaller of two bedrooms, and the dimness of the light coming in from outside didn’t confuse him; he knew that it was dusk, not dawn, and that he’d slept fourteen or fifteen hours.
He sat up on the edge of the bed and got a cigarette going, then he wandered out into the salon. His luggage, he saw, had arrived and had been brought to his suite, left just inside the door so its arrival would not disturb him. He carried it into the bedroom and opened it, chose garments and put them on.
He felt rested. Today was the day, or rather tonight was the night, when he was going to start a historic binge, the binge he’d worked for and waited for.
But he was hungry; he’d better eat first. Once he’d started drinking he wouldn’t eat until after he’d sobered up again, however long that might be. He considered having food sent up and then decided to go downstairs for it. The dining room of the Luxor was always open and served any kind of meal at any hour of the day, with a floor show every hour on the hour, twenty-four times a day. He was curious what the floor show would be.
A voice called, “Mr. Ah,” as he was passing the desk. Crag turned and saw it was Carleton, the manager. He stopped and rested an elbow on the desk.
“May I ask how long you are staying, Mr. Ah?”
“I don’t know,” Crag said. “A few more days at least. Maybe forever.”
“I see. I’m afraid, then, that I must ask you to pay for a second day. And besides smaller items, there are already two fifty-dollar debits against your account—”
Crag put a thousand-dollar bill on the desk. “Let me know when that’s used up. One fifty-dollar charge is for the newscast repeat. What’s the other?”
“A fee to the bellboy we sent to your room last night. You—ah—used his services in an unusual way, but what you did incapacitated hurt for a day and we thought it only fair—”
“Only fair,” said Crag solemnly. “And well worth it.”
He turned away but the manager’s “Mr.—ah—Ah,” made him turn back.
“The Luxor regrets that you did not care for the girls. Or for the bellboy, in the ordinary way. But we deem it a privilege to serve guests with extraordinary tastes. We can supply children of either sex, elderly people…If, as your treatment of the boy might indicate, you prefer satisfaction through the infliction of pain, we have a choice selection of very special equipment. And people in all categories who are willing, at a price, to submit to—ah—whatever you prefer.”
“Any category?” Crag asked.
“Any, Sir. The Luxor prides itself on being able to please.”
Crag said, “I like hotel managers. You might drop up yourself sometimes. And bring a corkscrew.”
He walked into the dining room. A girl in a costume so abbreviated as to be almost nonexistent met him smilingly, led him to a table and took his order for a drink. He looked around and saw that all the waitresses were similarly undressed, and wondered vaguely what the floor show could offer to distract attention from the waitresses. Then the floor show started, and he saw. After a while he got up in disgust and walked out of the dining room and out of the hotel. A few blocks away he found a restaurant that specialized in food instead of sex; he ordered a big meal and ate it.
Then, over a cigarette and a brandy, he wondered if he should go back to the Luxor only long enough to get the change from his thousand-dollar bill and pick up his luggage. But he decided not to; any hotel in Mars City would be almost as bad if it was big enough and luxurious enough to provide the kind of quarters he wanted. And by now he probably had enough of a reputation at the Luxor that he’d be left alone as long as he stayed in his own suite. The door had a good solid bolt that he could use and privacy was all he wanted for his binge. He could, of course, go to a cheap hotel like the one he’d stayed in the night before he’d taken off with Olliver for the asteroid belt, but a single cheap room would be depressing and since he had so much money he might as well have the best quarters he could buy, even if he wasn’t interested in all the sex and other vice—except drinking—offered with it.
What good was money if he didn’t spend it?
Or maybe that was what was wrong with him, the fact that he had money. A criminal with money is an unemployed man, with nothing in life to interest him—until he’s spent it and again has incentive to start casing another job. Maybe he should throw or gamble the money away and start working again. But that was ridiculous; he’d have admitted to himself that the new money he’d be working for would be worthless to him too. He’d be admitting to himself that he not only had no reason for stealing, but none for living.
Well, did he have?
There was only one answer to that, and it was to get drunk, so what was he waiting for?
He went back to the Luxor and to his suite; he put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign and bolted the door.
He went to the bar and started getting drunk. Slowly—he didn’t want to knock himself out right away; he wanted to enjoy the drinking—but very thoroughly. Dawn found him still at it, pacing like a caged tiger up and down the salon with a glass in his hand. But not staggering, never spilling a drop, except down his throat. Drunk but under control, not blind drunk or raging drunk.
Only once had he interrupted himself, an hour before when the bar’s supply of woji had run out. He was on a woji binge and didn’t want to switch drinks so phoned down to the desk and asked that a case of it be sent up to restock the bar. But he hadn’t wanted to see anyone or have anyone see him, so he’d unlocked the door and taken down the sign and then had gone into the bathroom and taken a shower. When he’d dressed and come out again the liquor was there. He’d relocked the door, put back the sign and started drinking again.
It was noon when he reached the stage of violence. He smashed gambling equipment, broke bottles, kicked in the eight-foot-wide television screen.
After that, he slept a while, woke feeling horrible and started drinking again. He lost track of time. Whenever he slept he had no way of knowing whether it was for a few minutes or for many hours. Nor could he even guess—or care about—the lengths of the periods when he drank. Sometimes it was light and sometimes it was dark, and neither mattered.
Nothing mattered except staying drunk and not thinking.
But not thinking about what? His mind shied away from that. Besides, he still hated her; the fact that she was dead couldn’t change that. She was, or had been, a woman.
Then came the time when he awakened feeling nauseated and
weak, and he knew the binge was over. He sat up on the edge of the bed—the one in the smaller bedroom—and picked up the phone, asked the day and the hour. He’d been drunk four days; again it was early evening, as it had been when he’d started his drinking. He made it to the bathroom and was sick. After that he felt better; he showered, shaved and put on clean clothes.
He looked around the suite and guessed the damage he’d done at close to a thousand dollars, which probably meant they’d charge him twice that. Which didn’t matter; maybe the sooner his half million was gone the better. He’d have to figure ways of spending money; thus far he’d hardly made a dent in it.
Maybe gambling would be the answer, if he could find an honest game so he could enjoy it. But finding an honest gambling game in Mars City—or in most other places in the system—was almost as hard as finding an honest woman. Maybe there wasn’t any such thing. There was no honesty anywhere, not only not in gambling or women, but not in politics, business or anything else.
He went downstairs, and stopped at the desk. Carleton, the manager, wasn’t on duty, but Crag told the clerk that a hurricane had struck his suite and that the hotel should make repairs immediately and bill him for them. He’d be gone a few hours and wanted the suite ready for use again when he got back. The clerk told him, “Yes, Sir.”
He walked to the restaurant where he’d last eaten four days ago. He wasn’t hungry but he forced himself to eat a fair meal and felt better. Only his mind still felt dull.
Walking, and the cool Martian night air, would cure that. And perhaps, now that he’d eaten, one pick-up drink. Besides, he had to kill time before going back to the hotel unless he wanted to be there while they were repairing or replacing the things he’d smashed.
He walked. Across the night and across the city he walked, and felt his mind clearing and his strength returning. He hated weakness, in himself or anyone else but especially in himself.
He passed a good many bars before he chose one for his pick-up drink, a plain simple bar that might have come out of the old days of a few centuries before. And was pleased when he entered it to see that he’d guessed right; there were no women there, and no homosexuals. Besides a bartender there were only two customers in the place, seated together at a table sipping drinks and talking quietly together.
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