On the other side of the scanner was the counter with the customs agent behind it, looking harried, weary, and rapidly turning sullen.
How we could all have been stacked up six deep when there were only a dozen of us, I’ll never know. Thirteen, counting McLeod, but he wasn’t along just then. The customs agent wasn’t dragging his heels, either—he was just handing out a form, waiting while the person filled it out, then asking a couple of questions and waving him or her through the sensor door. Of course, he could have handed out the forms to all of us at the same time, or maybe even have had them waiting on a table—and he certainly didn’t have to take a fifteen-minute break every fifteen minutes. At least, I assume that’s why he had to go through that little door every so often, though I suppose his boss might have been there to cross-examine him about what the last three people had said. After the first half hour, we started getting impatient; after the second, we began to gripe, and Mamie tended to gripe very loudly. “Really, this is ridiculous!” she confided to the nearest hundred people—and there were only eleven in sight.
“Be patient, young lady,” Ogden advised. “He wasn’t even searching anybody’s suitcase.”
“Only because none of us brought a suitcase! After all, this was just supposed to be a short walk around town.”
“On the other hand, if this is what we’re going to have to go through every time we get off the ship,” Lacey opined, “hotels begin to look good.”
“A hotel room would even look good just as a change of scene,” Mamie snapped. “Really, this is insupportable!”
“No worse than the average technical rehearsal,” Ogden said affably. “Do strive for patience, Mamie.”
We all knew what Mamie’s patience level was, and everybody was dreading going through the next tech rehearsal with her.
“It’s all right for you, Ogden,” Mamie sneered. “You don’t have to stand. Give me a floater to sit in, and I wouldn’t mind waiting, either.”
Ogden’s face hardened, and he set a foot down on the floor.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Susanne was beside him in two quick steps. “You heard what Mr. Tallendar said—you’re only supposed to get out of that chair for your exercises!”
“Yes, listen to nursie,” Lacey purred.
Ogden scowled up at her. “Since she is the only one to show a bit of compassion, I will.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Susanne said. “I’m proud of what I am, Mr. Wellesley.”
Lacey reddened. I wondered why, but made a mental note never to ask.
“And don’t forget,” Susanne said, “that as soon as we’re past those customs gates, you’re going straight to the nearest doctor!”
“Unnecessary,” Ogden grumbled, though you could see he appreciated the attention. “And I’m rather curious to see the town.”
“I’m afraid we can’t, Ms. Souci,” Barry said gently.
“Can’t?” She looked up, startled. “Mr. Tallendar! You don’t take chances with a coronary!”
“Quite right, but the New Venus medical service does. Merlo called from the ship, but when he told them the robo-doc’s readouts, they said there was no emergency, and the soonest they could squeeze him in would be tomorrow at thirteen A.M.”
Winston frowned. “You mean ‘thirteen hundred hours,’ don’t you?”
“No, Winston, noon is fourteen o’clock here; the planet has a twenty-eight hour rotation period. Just enough to cause a whole panorama of medical problems, apparently, and the clinic is both understaffed and overloaded. Under the circumstances, tomorrow is really a concession on their part.”
“I suppose so,” Susanne said, with a glance at Ogden, “but it does seem negligent.”
“Not at all, not at all,” Ogden said, relieved. “The robo-doc warrants me as stable, young lady. I really don’t feel that the floater is at all necessary …”
“You’ll stay in it until a real live doctor says you’re fit enough to walk!” Susanne snapped, then immediately moderated her tone. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wellesley, but …”
Ogden had looked surprised, and the first signs of hardening had shown in his face—but now they melted again, and he took her hand to pat it. “I know, my dear, I know. It’s wonderful to see that someone cares. If you value my comfort, though, you might sneak me just a small bottle of—”
“Mr Wellesley!”
Ogden laughed wickedly and patted her hand again, then turned away, chuckling—but I think he had really been hoping to get a bottle out of the deal.
Meanwhile, Mamie had been growing more and more exasperated as she saw that somebody was getting attention, and it wasn’t her. “Really, if there were some shred of efficiency to this operation,” she said, rather more loudly than was necessary, “we would have been out that door long ago!”
The customs agent snapped her a glare that said he would have liked to have put her through a door, all right, but not the one she had in mind.
“They need a management consultant,” Mamie orated—to no one in particular, since everybody was busy looking the other way. “They need a whole team! Really, you’d think they didn’t want to be favored with the company of real live actresses!”
The customs agent cocked an eyebrow at her and gave a single, slow nod.
That gave Mamie blood in her eye. She turned on Barry. “Really, Barry! There must be something you can do to speed up this incompetent!”
The customs agent very slowly and deliberately stood up and stepped away from his desk.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” Mamie all but shouted.
“Some place where there’s a little peace and quiet,” he retorted, and went off toward his little door again, leaving Mamie fuming and sputtering behind him.
Lacey edged over to me. “Ramou—if I get to be a rich and famous actress, do I get to throw tantrums, too?”
I didn’t answer—mostly because I think she meant it.
Fortunately, Barry saved me from responding, and the situation from deteriorating—any further. “Come now, Mamie, you know the mind of the petty bureaucrat. How else can he know he has authority, other than by exercising his limited right to say no?”
“By saying yes,” she snapped.
“But if he did,” Horace pointed out, “nobody would be inconvenienced, and if nobody were inconvenienced, nobody would become upset—and if nobody became upset, he would have no proof of his own modicum of power.”
Mamie narrowed her eyes as she glared at him. “Are you trying to say that I’m rewarding this imbecile for his interminable delay?”
Horace nodded judiciously. “A vivid way of stating the issue. Yes, quite vivid. Not how I might put it, certainly …”
“Yes, Horace, but the way you might put it, nobody would know they’d been criticized!” Mamie snapped, then turned away, settling down to a simmer. “Oh, very well. I’ll be good—but it galls me, Barry, it galls!”
“We all appreciate your nobility and spirit of self-sacrifice, Mamie,” he murmured, and she looked mollified, at least a little. I glanced at Lacey, her face filled with resentment, and at Larry, who was allowing his contempt to show—though actually, I thought he only looked envious— and counted, on one hand, those who were really appreciating Mamie’s nobility.
Of course, Merlo, Grudy, and Winston were already through—they’d been the ones to hurry down from the bus that brought us in from the ship. Now I knew why—but they were looking pretty impatient, too. I wondered whether they were irritated with Mamie, or with the customs agent.
That worthy came sauntering back and handed a form to Susanne, deliberately bypassing Mamie. She almost exploded. “I was next, young man!”
“No you weren’t.” He was anything but young, and the smile he gave her wasn’t all that pleasant. “You’re last.” And he went back to his desk and started discussing Ogden’s form with him.
Mamie turned red and took a breath—and Barry, with impeccable timing, murmured, “How good of you to keep us tw
o old codgers company, my dear! It would be quite tedious without your presence to lighten our burden.”
Mamie paused on the verge of a scathing remark, then closed her mouth, still simmering. “Don’t you try to sweet-talk me, Barry Tallendar!”
“But why not?” Barry asked innocently. “Certainly it is no more than is due a beautiful lady.”
“You are unscrupulous and a scoundrel.” Mamie glared at him. “But you are also charming.”
“Indeed!” Barry gave her his most debonair smile. “It has been so long since we conversed merely as friends. Tell me, do you think the weather will be fair?”
“Oh,” Marnie said archly, “does this planet have weather?”
And on they chatted, just like two old buddies. You’d never guess Mamie was constantly at Barry’s throat—but she needed salve for the ego that the young clerk had wounded, and a face-saver for the humiliation imposed by the petty bureaucrat. Barry was willing to supply both—for the good of the company. If he hadn’t, we might still be standing in that line, since Mamie, so adept at antagonizing the customs agent, would have done the same to his replacement, too, when the first one went off duty. My respect for Barry went up yet one more notch—I admired his ability to sacrifice himself for the general good. He chatted and chuckled, and doggone if Mamie didn’t start flirting with him.
“Why, he’s flirting back!” Lacey gasped next to me.
“You don’t suppose he’s actually enjoying it, do you?” Larry asked, wide-eyed.
I was wondering myself. After all, Mamie had been the mistress of Barry’s billionaire brother for five years. Maybe that sort of susceptibility ran in the family.
Then I realized what I was thinking and gave myself a shake. How could I harbor such unworthy suspicions?
The customs clerk kept casting dark glances at Mamie, but she seemed blissfully unaware of him now, having a regular party with Barry and Horace, who was joining the Conversation Society now, too. That seemed to nettle the clerk, but there wasn’t much he could do about it except take more frequent breaks, and he was up to the maximum by now, I was sure—so pretty soon, he was crossexamining me about my form and confiscating my book.
“Any lethal substances?” he asked.
“No,” I said, discounting Mamie.
“Any currency in excess of fifty kwahers?”
I stared. “You folks don’t use kwahers?”
“Of course we do,” he said, with an impatient twist of his head. “It’s just that the Company prefers to issue its own bills, representing IDE currency.”
Oh. So they had found a way to make their own scrip. Which meant it was probably worth a lot less than an IDE bill. Interesting.
“How much?” he demanded.
“Ten kwahers.” I took out my wallet and showed it to him.
“No, that’s all right, I don’t have to look.” But he was peering pretty closely anyway. “Any cigarettes or other recreational alkaloids?”
“Never touch the stuff,” I assured him, and he nodded me on through. I went to join Ogden, Susanne, Grudy, Merlo, and Winston, and the clerk beckoned Larry over.
Larry didn’t do too well, either—he stepped into the scanner booth, and it screamed like a wounded banshee.
The agent was over beside him in a tenth of a second with a handgun leveled. “Okay, out of the booth, hands on the wall. No funny stuff.”
Larry went pale. “But this is ridiculous. Why, I would no more—”
“Do it.” The gun twitched.
Larry swallowed, set his palms against the wall, and endured the agent’s groping hand. He didn’t have to grope very far—he pulled a carton of cigarettes out of Larry’s inside coat pocket, another from his left coat pocket, and a third from his right-hand pocket. “Three cartons? You’re trying to bring in not one cigarette, but six hundred?”
“I’m a heavy smoker,” Larry said lamely.
The customs agent narrowed his eyes. “Thought you were only going to be here for four hours.”
“I’m a very heavy smoker.”
“What, with only one mouth?” But the agent wasn’t done; he started patting Larry’s pants pockets, then froze. “Empty ’em.”
With trembling hand, Larry scooped a dozen permatches out onto the counter.
“Fire-makers!” the agent gasped. “What are you trying to do—blow us all to kingdom come?”
“No,” Larry said, “just light the cigarettes.”
The agent pulled out a set of handcuffs. “Importing matches is a capital offense, mister. You can hope for a quick trial.”
“You can’t mean it!” Larry started to tremble.
“Certainly,” Barry said, “ignorance of your law—”
“Is no excuse. We have a satellite system that tells all incoming ships that tobacco and matches get the death penalty. One side.”
“But he hasn’t smuggled them in!” Barry said desperately.
The agent hesitated.
“He was merely carrying them on his person. Would he have carried them so plainly if he was knowingly trying to bring in contraband?”
Well, he knew, and we knew, that the answer was yes— Larry really was that dumb. Very intelligent, but not a shred of judgment. The customs agent didn’t know that, though. He only glowered at Larry, looking doubtful.
“He did not know about your laws,” Barry pressed. “All the members of the company were confined to quarters during landing, and we did not relay the feed from the communicator to their cabins. Only those of us on the bridge saw the warning.”
“You should have told the rest,” the customs agent snapped.
“Yes,” Barry said. “Quite so. We should have, indeed. I beg your pardon.”
The agent still stood, glaring at Larry. Then he shrugged a millimeter and said, “Okay. This time. This one time.”
And he turned, went behind his desk, and handed Larry the form.
I was standing with Merlo. My boss was livid and muttering under his breath. “Barry should have let him twist in the wind!”
“Be charitable,” Winston murmured. “Perhaps he was having visions of trying to train some local to do Larry’s parts.”
Larry came through, and Merlo clapped him on the shoulder with a mile-wide grin—and shoved him into the center of our little group, hissing in his ear, “You halfbrained wet-eared puppy, you could have gotten us all jailed!”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why would even you make such a stupid move?”
His face darkened with anger, and it gave him some of his poise back. He gave me a glance of withering contempt and said, “Because I read the traveler’s guide before I boarded the ship, and learned that cigarettes are worth their weight in gold here.”
As soon as the old United Nations had changed itself into the IDE, right after the Jerusalem Crisis, it had eschewed all precious metals as a basis for currency—but gold was still in great demand for jewelry, and greater demand for circuitry. It was worth more than when it had been used for money, if anything.
I just stared at Larry for a few moments. Then I said, “I never figured you for a black marketeer.”
“You don’t figure very well at all,” he sneered. “You’ll never be rich.”
“I won’t get stuck in jail, either,” I retorted, but I crossed my fingers; there was always the chance my temper might get me in worse trouble than any lawyer could get me out of. Much less chance than if I hadn’t gone through martial arts training, but still a chance.
Winston wasn’t about to give Larry even that much of a chance, though. “Money?” He gave Larry the cold-eyed stare that had chilled so many 3DT viewers. “Milled and minted dross? You would have sold us all into bondage for your own piddling gain?”
Larry tried to lock glares with him, but he had grown up watching the Mordant Emperor on 3DT, too, and even without the makeup, Winston looked so sinister and malevolent that Larry quailed and turned away, trembling.
The clerk took one more break before he was willing to
work on Mamie, and Barry and Horace loyally stayed with her until the moment she walked up to the counter. The clerk started grilling her, but her answers were downright civil, maybe even pleasant. He frowned; you could see he couldn’t figure it; but I noticed Barry’s closed eyes and silent moving lips, and knew our managing director had flattered her into such a good mood that even the clerk’s rudeness couldn’t quite throttle it. Close—but no tantrum.
She’d lost her smile by the time she came through to join us, but her eyes were glittering, and there was a certain swing to her step that stated her triumph—and not without reason; the clerk’s gaze followed her every inch of the way, until she joined our happy throng, at which point he reluctantly wrenched his attention back to Horace. He was glowering with hostility, but the old trouper’s charm and grace had him mollified within two questions, and Horace strolled through to join us with only Barry left to face our human Cerberus. The clerk looked as if he would have liked to pin Barry to the wall—after all, the “tourist” had spoiled his fun by reconciling Mamie to the vicissitudes of bureaucracy—but the aging leading man was so damned pleasant to chat with that the clerk forgot his hostility by question three and actually wound up telling Barry what life was like on New Venus for a few minutes, before he remembered himself and waved Barry on through.
Our leader came out with a jaunty step and a flourish of his hat. “Well done all! Now, let us be off to see the sights!”
The sights he was planning to see, as it turned out, were the posters our advance man, Publius Promo, had pasted up to announce our arrival, and the theater he had booked for us to perform in—or whatever passed for a theater on New Venus.
“There will be some difficulty,” Barry explained, “since we are coming considerably sooner than Publius expected. It is really too bad that radio waves cannot travel faster than light—it would have been so much more convenient if we could have sent word on ahead about our change in plans.”
“It certainly would have,” Horace said, “but until someone invents a system that allows communication more rapid than a spaceship, we will have to make do with the consequences. So, then, you and I shall seek out our stalwart Publius.”
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