“Really roughs it, eh?”
The compartment had stopped and the door opened into a living room. It was done in American Colonial antiques, and done very well, looking comfortable and certainly a damn sight more acceptable than either the dining room or the Gold Room in which they had spent the evening.
As they entered, she looked up from the side of her eyes and said, “Father has a good many interests, you must realize. It is quite impractical for him to go to hotels—that sort of thing. He must have one of his staffs, his business equipment, that sort of thing, immediately available. He must also be assured of security against the efforts of his business competitors. You know, bugging.”
“I suppose so,” Don said, taking in the room. He had seen a good deal of luxury recently but it occurred to him that when and if he made a permanent or semi-permanent establishment of his own in the near future, he might well have it done like this.
“Like it?” she said. “If it doesn’t appeal to you, there are other suites.”
“I like it very much.”
“Thank you. I designed it, selected the furniture, the paintings and so forth. Do you like Grant Wood?”
He hadn’t the slightest idea of who Grant Wood was. He said, “You’re an interior decorator?”
She said “An amateur. I have to find something to fill my time.”
He looked about. “Isn’t there an autobar? We could have a nightcap.”
Alicia shook her head. “No there isn’t. I don’t like autobars. I don’t much like automated things in general.”
She went over to what he had taken to be a bookcase and pressed something. The false front slid to one side. Behind was a large selection of bottles, glasses, bar equipment and even a small refrigeration compartment.
She said, over her shoulder, “What would you like?”
He said, “Holy smokes, where does your father get all this fancy guzzle of his?”
She sighed and said, “When it comes to food and drink, father doesn’t exactly stint himself. He has agents who continually comb the world seeking out the best potables still remaining. He’ll pay anything.”
“You mean he’s got collections like this in all of his, uh, establishments?”
“Yes, but this is nothing. This is just for temporary visitors, guests. Down below, he has extensive cellars. There is more guzzle in this building alone than he, and all his guests, could drink in a lifetime. Father hoards the things that mean the most to him, exotic foods, drink… and money.”
Don said, “Surprise me.”
She took down a long bottle. “This is a stone-age Metaxa.” It was sealed. She took up a small bar knife, cut away the lead shielding of the cork, then took up a corkscrew. Alicia Demming had opened bottles before.
Don had never seen a real cork before he had met Demming. They were a thing of the past.
“What’s Metaxa?” he said.
“Greek brandy. When it’s very old, it’s as good a brandy as there is. Quite different from French cognac, though.”
She half filled two snifter glasses for them. It was a rugged charge.
They took the drinks back to a couch and seated themselves comfortably, about two feet from each other.
Don sipped at the brandy. He had sampled some of the best guzzle in the world in the past couple of weeks. It hadn’t made him blase1.
He said easily, “You don’t particularly like your father, do you?”
She said, “I don’t believe I know anybody that does.” And then, after a sip at her Greek brandy, “What in the world are you doing, working with him and that vicious Max Rostoff?”
So. She wasn’t in on the secret. And he had to assume that her mother wasn’t either. Without doubt, the two tycoons were keeping every one in the dark, so far as the real nature of Don’s decoration was concerned. Which was obviously good sense. He felt that it behooved him to be careful now.
He said, “I suppose that my run-in with the Kraden cruiser made me see the light clearer than I ever had before. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only chance the human race has is to unite as never before in the face of a common foe.”
“Cheers,” she said, as she lifted her glass, and he didn’t know if there was an element of sarcasm there or not. “But what’s all this got to do with my father and Max Rostoff?”
He said carefully, “Probably our single biggest need is for an abundant supply of uranium for our space fleet. Your father and Rostoff are two of the wealthiest men in the solar system. It will need that kind of wealth to amalgamate all efforts to exploit the pitchblende and other sources of uranium in the satellites.”
She yawned. “What does father get out of it? I’ve never seen him go into anything that didn’t net one hundred percent a year.”
Don said, still carefully, “Your father will, of course, realize dividends. But that’s the socioeconomic system we live under. Someone is going to make a good deal of money. Why shouldn’t it be him? He’s a competent businessman with a huge staff to help him.”
She said softly, “What do you get out of it, Don?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at him skeptically. “How do you mean?”
“I own no stock. I receive no salary. My efforts are voluntary.” That was telling her.
“I see,” she said. “Why?”
This had to be good and, besides, he suspected that he was going to have to tell the story over and over again in the coming months and years. He had better get it down pat.
He said, “So far as I am concerned, Alicia, I died out there. There was no reason for me to expect to continue living. There wasn’t a chance in the world that I’d survive. But I did. I feel that I am living on borrowed time. And I expect to devote the rest of my life, borrowed as it is, to defeating the Kradens.” Once, again, that was laying it on the line sincerely.
Without expression, she finished her drink and said, “You mentioned a busy day tomorrow, shouldn’t you be getting to bed?”
He put his own glass down. “I suppose so. Where is the bedroom?”
She said, “Over here,” and led the way to a door. Even as she walked, she reached up to undo the shoulder strap of her golden gown.
Don blinked but said, “If you don’t like your father, why do you live here?”
“I don’t. I spend almost all of my time abroad. I came back to attend my mother’s fifty-fifth birthday. That’s when I met you, before. Then, after your defeat of the Kraden, father dropped the information that you would be returning to see him. So I stayed on.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because I wanted to go to bed with you,” she told him, letting her dress drop to her waist, even as she entered the bedroom.
That set back even Don Mathers.
And for more reasons than one. Among other things, he suspected that an operator such as Lawrence Demming would have even visitors’ rooms in his home bugged.
He said, virtuously, though his mouth was dry at the revealing of the upper portion of her fabulous body, “Look, I’m a guest in your father’s home. What would he think of my seducing his daughter?”
She turned to face him and her expression was mocking. “But you bear the Galactic Medal of Honor.”
He let air out of his lungs.
“And, besides,” she said, still mockingly, “who’s seducing whom?”
XII
When they awoke the next morning, she turned to him and said, “Would you consider marrying me?”
He stared over at her. “What?”
“I said, would you consider marrying me?”
“It never occurred to me. Why would someone in your position want to?”
She put her slim hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. “Why not? You’re nice looking and possibly the most eligible young man in the Solar System. You’re good in bed and… I like you.”
“And you’re one of the richest heiresses going. How come you haven’t already married? Surely you must have had a l
ot of opportunity.”
“Because I’m one of the richest heiresses in the system. Do you realize what that means? Half of the young men I meet would like to marry me for my money. The other half would like to marry me because they are already rich but would like to merge their fortune with mine and emerge possibly the most financially powerful magnate in the solar system. I never meet a man I don’t suspect of one of those two alternatives.”
“Why me?” Don Mathers was bewildered.
“Because you have proven that you have no interest in money. If you had you wouldn’t be contributing your efforts voluntarily, without even pay, to what will possibly be the largest single corporation in the system. I will know, if you marry me, that it is because you love me and want me—no other motivation.”
Don remained silent for a long moment. This was one for the book. It’d certainly be a joke on old Demming if he did marry the girl. The bastard had squeezed Don out of the stock ownership.
She misunderstood his silence and said, a shy quality there that didn’t go with her usual aristocratic aloofness, “I’m not pressing you. I realize that you’ve got to think it over. You hardly know me and you’ve already mentioned that it has only been a couple of months since your engagement was broken. And you must remember that very likely she now regrets it, since you are the toast of the race.”
That hadn’t occurred to Don Mathers. That Dian Keramikou might now be seeing him in a new light. Now that he did think about it, he realized that very possibly, there on Callisto, Dian was having people ask for her autograph, in view of the fact that she had once been engaged to him. He almost laughed.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed to the floor and sat up. He had to play this very earnestly now, no matter what decision he made.
He said, “You’re very sweet Alicia, and certainly this has been the most memorable night I have ever spent. However, as you say, we hardly know each other. I suggest that we both think about it.”
She remained in the bed, one of the black sheets up to her neck, as he went into the bath and showered and used depilatory on his face.
She watched him, her startling green eyes thoughtful, as he went to the closet for his clothes.
When he brought the uniform forth, she said, “Oh, good heavens, Don. You don’t want to wear that again. Just leave it there. One of the servants will pick up after you. There’s an order box in the dressing room, over there. Order fresh clothing.”
He looked at her. “I’ve only worn it once.”
“Once is enough,” she said, yawning.
“Don’t you ever wear anything more than once?”
“Seldom,” she said. “Only if it has some sentimental value, or something.”
He shrugged and went into the dressing room, to the screen of the large order box, and verbally ordered a fresh colonel’s uniform and the haberdashery to go with it.
When he had dressed, he went back to the bedroom and bent over and kissed her. If anything, she looked more beautiful than ever with her hair mussed every which way and her cosmetics a victim of the night’s tussling.
“Thank you,” he said simply and turned and left.
In the living room he approached the elevator door which opened automatically at his approach. Before he could say anything into the screen, it said, “There is a message for you, Colonel Mathers. A hover-limousine awaits you on the lawn.”
He had planned to go down to the motor pool in the basements of the Interplanetary Lines Building and take a hovercab to the space base.
But he said, “All right. Take me there.” He probably would have had his work cut out finding his way from the building. It was possibly small by the standards that applied to Lawrence Demming, but it was a labyrinth to Don Mathers.
The compartment moved sideways, for not too great a way, and then the door opened. He found himself looking out upon the extensive gardens, the groves of trees and the lawns, of the unbelievable park Demming had built atop his building.
He wasn’t too far from the terrace upon which he had first met Demming and Rostoff. The hover-limousine was even parked in approximately the same spot.
Cockney was standing next to the vehicle, holding the rear door open. His partner was up front at the controls.
Frank Cockney, his bluish lips in his thin face trying to make with a smile, said, “Good morning, Colonel Mathers. We’ve been instructed to take you to the base.”
“All right,” Don said, getting in.
The other hesitated before saying, “And congratulations on your victory, Colonel. There’s never been anything like that before. Ever.”
“Thanks,” Don said. So these two weren’t in on the secret either. Which was good, of course. It would seem that they were part of Demming’s security staff. Bodyguards, in other words.
Cockney got into the front, next to the other goon and the vehicle took to the air in a swoop.
On the way to the base, Frank Cockney turned and said to Don, “You know, Colonel. I never would have dreamed when we saw you that last time, you’d wind up the biggest hero in the solar system.”
“Neither did I,” Don said.
Cockney said, “You know, I never could figure out why Mr. Demming wanted to talk to you. He must’ve had some instinct, like, that big things were going to happen to you.”
“He’s a smart man, all right.”
Cockney frowned, as though in puzzlement. “But how could he have known you’d pull the big one, and finally it’d wind up with this big corporation?”
“What big corporation?” Don said warily.
“Oh, everybody knows about that.”
Don said, making it clear he didn’t want to continue the conversation. “It’s still unannounced.
We’re supposed to keep everything quiet for the time.”
Cockney said, “Yes, sir. I wasn’t trying to pry.” He turned back in his seat, obviously unhappy.
Don had expected to be left off at the main gate and to have to proceed to the administration buildings on a hovercart, but to his surprise the limousine flew right onto the base grounds. Evidently, Demming’s vehicles had clearance.
“Where to, Colonel?” Cockney said.
“To the Space Command Headquarters, Third Division. It’s over…”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot said, his voice as expressionless as his heavy face. “I know where it is.” Don remembered his name, Bil Golenpaul.
They slithered up before the main entry of the administration building and Golenpaul set it down, gently. If nothing else, he was a competent pilot.
Cockney popped out and ran around to open Don’s door.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “We’ll wait, right here.”
Don said, “No. Go on back. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Our orders were to wait and bring you back, when you got through with your business, Colonel Mathers.”
Don looked at him. “And my orders are that you get out of here. I’m not sure that I’m going back. Not immediately.”
Cockney’s faded eyes shifted, in furtive fashion. He said, “But our orders…”
Don was feeling belligerent. He said, “Get out of here or I’ll call over that squad of guards and have you thrown out.”
The small man looked at him in dismay. “Yes, sir,” he said. He climbed back into the hover-limousine looking apprehensive. Don assumed he was worrying about what to tell Demming.
Well, the hell with Demming. It was bad enough having to live in his establishment, as Alicia called it. He wasn’t going to put up with the other dictating every move he made.
He strode toward the entry and the squad of guards there sprang to stiff salute, presenting their laser rifles with precision. Inwardly, Don was amused. He had gone through these portals hundreds of times before and not a guard had ever batted an eye at him, not to speak of coming to attention.
Their lieutenant approached him and saluted snappily. “Could I be of assistance, Colonel?”
Don smiled and said, “No thanks, Lieutenant. I know my way around.”
The other was a few years younger than Don Mathers. He said, admiration in his voice. “You certainly do, sir.” He stepped aside.
The doors opened and Don entered and retraced the route he had been over so many times.
But this time was with a difference. The hustle and bustle dropped off. The chatter of the voco-typers and other electronic business machine equipment fell away. He could hear a multitude of whispers and even made out some of them.
“That’s him…”
“Holy Moses, the Galactic Medal of Honor…”
And a feminine voice, “How would you like to be able to date him, Gracie…?”
Doors opened magically before him. Guards presented arms, rather than asking for identification. If there was anyone in the solar system not acquainted with his face by this time, they must have been in remote areas indeed.
Eventually, he stood before his immediate commander, Commodore Walt Bernklau. Don came to attention and tossed the other a snappy salute.
The commodore returned it, just as snappily, and leaned his small body back in his swivel chair. He said, “Take a seat, Colonel. It’s nice to see you again.” He added, pleasantly, “Where in the world have you been?”
Don slumped into the indicated chair and said wearily, “On a bust, sir. The bust to end all busts. Wine, women and song—and I spent precious little time on the latter.”
The commodore chuckled. “I certainly can’t say that I blame you,” he said.
“It was quite a bust,” Don admitted.
“Well,” the commodore chuckled again. “I don’t suppose we can throw you into the guardhouse for being A.W.O.L. in view of your recent decoration.”
There was nothing to say to that.
“By the way,” the commodore said, “I haven’t had the opportunity to congratulate you on your Kraden. Everything seemed to move so fast, I never got around to it. That was quite a feat, Colonel.”
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