Flandry had not been able to agree at the time. He was too lately out of a fighting unit and a subsequent school where competence was demanded. Over the months, though, he saw things for himself and drew his own sad conclusions.
There were times when he would have welcomed a set-to with a bandit. But it had not befallen, nor did it on this errand into Old Town.
The district grew around him, crumbling buildings left over from pioneer days, many of them simply the original beehive-shaped adobes of the natives slightly remodeled for other life forms. Streets and alleys twisted about under shimmering glowsigns. Traffic was mainly pedestrian, but noise beat on the eardrums, clatter, shuffle, clop, clangor, raucous attempts at music, a hundred different languages, once in a while a muffled scream or a bellow of rage. The smells were equally strong, body odors, garbage, smoke, incense, dope. Humans predominated, but many autochthons were present and space travelers of numerous different breeds circulated among them.
Outside a particular joyhouse, otherwise undistinguished from the rest, an Irumclavian used a vocalizer to chant in Anglic: “Come one, come all, come in, no cover, no minimum. Every type of amusement, pleasure, and thrill. No game too exotic, no stakes too high or low. Continuous sophisticated entertainment. Delicious food and drink, stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens, emphasizers, to your order, to your taste, to your purse. Every sex and every technique of seventeen, yes, seventeen intelligent species ready to serve your desires, and this does not count racial, mutational, and biosculp variations. Come one, come all—” Flandry went in. He chanced to brush against two or three of the creature’s arms. The blue integument felt cold in the winter air.
The entrance hall was hot and stuffy. An outsize human in a gaudy uniform said, “Welcome, sir. What is your wish?” while keeping eyes upon him that were like chips of obsidian.
“Are you Lem?” Flandry responded.
“Uh, yeh. and you—?”
“I am expected.”
“Urh. Take the gravshaft to the top, that’s the sixth floor, go left down the hall to a door numbered 666, stand in front of the scan and wait. When it opens, go up the stairs.”
“Six-six-six?” murmured Flandry, who had read more than was common in his service. “Is Citizen Ammon a humorist, do you think?”
“No names!” Lem dropped a hand to the stunner at his hip. “On your way, kid.”
Flandry obeyed, even to letting himself be frisked and leaving his gun at the checkstand. He was glad when Door 666 admitted him; that was the sado-maso level, and he had glimpsed things.
The office which he entered, and which sealed itself behind him, recalled Terra in its size and opulence and in the animation of a rose garden which graced a wall. Or so it seemed; then he looked closer and saw the shabbiness of the old furnishings, the garishness of the new. No other human save Leon Ammon was present. A Gorzunian mercenary stood like a shaggy statue in one corner. When Flandry turned his back, the being’s musky scent continued to remind him that if he didn’t behave he could be plucked into small pieces.
“G’evening,” said the man behind the desk. He was grossly fat, hairless, sweating, not especially clean, although his scarlet tunic was of the finest. His voice was high and scratchy. “You know who I am, right? Sit down. Cigar? Brandy?”
Flandry accepted everything offered. It was of prime quality too. He said so.
“You’ll do better than this if you stick by me,” Ammon replied. His smile went no deeper than his lips. “You haven’t told about the invitation my man whispered to you the other night?”
“No, sir, of course not.”
“Wouldn’t bother me if you did. Nothing illegal about inviting a young chap for a drink and a gab. Right? But you could be in trouble yourself. Mighty bad trouble, and not just with your commanding officer.”
Flandry had his suspicions about the origin of many of the subjects on the floor below. Consenting adults…after brain-channeling and surgical disguise…He studied the tip of his cigar. “I don’t imagine you’d’ve asked me here, sir, if you thought I needed threatening,” he said.
“No. I like your looks, Dominic,” Ammon said. “Have ever since you started coming to Old Town for your fun. A lot of escapades, but organized like military maneuvers, right? You’re cool and tough and close-mouthed. I had a check done on your background.”
Flandry expanded his suspicions. Various incidents, when he had been leaned on one way or another, began to look like engineered testing of his reactions. “Wasn’t much to find out, was there?’ he said. “I’m only a j.g., routinely fresh-minted after serving here for two months. Former flyboy, reassigned to Intelligence, sent back to Terra for training in it and then to Irumclaw for scouting duty.”
“I can’t really compute that,” Ammon said. “If they aim to make you a spy, why have you spend a year flitting in and out of this system?”
“I need practice in surveillance, especially of planets that are poorly known. And the no-man’s-land yonder needs watching. Our Merseian chums could build an advanced base there, for instance, or start some other kettle boiling, unbeknownst to us, if we didn’t keep scoutboats sweeping around.” Maybe they have anyway.
“Yes, I got that answer before when I asked, and it still sounds to me like a waste of talent. But it got you to Irumclaw, and I did notice you and had you studied. I learned more than stands on any public record, boy. The whole Starkad business pivoted on you.”
Shocked, Flandry wondered how deeply the rot had eaten, if the agent of a medium-scale vice boss on a tenth-rate frontier planet could obtain such information.
“Well, your tour’ll soon be up,” Ammon said. “Precious little to show for it, right? Right. How’d you like to turn a profit before you leave? A mighty nice profit, I promise you.” He rubbed his hands. “Mighty nice.”
“Depends,” Flandry said. If he’d been investigated as thoroughly as it appeared, there was no use in pretending he had private financial resources, or that he didn’t require them if he was to advance his career as far as he hoped. “The Imperium has my oath.”
“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything against His Majesty. I’m a citizen myself, right? No, I’ll tell you exactly what I want done, if you’ll keep it confidential.”
“It’d doubtless not do me any good to blab, the way you’ll tell me.”
Ammon giggled. “Right! Right! You’re a sharp one, Dominic. Handsome, too,” he added exploringly.
“I’ll settle for the sharpness now and buy the handsomeness later,” Flandry said. As a matter of fact, while he enjoyed being gray-eyed, he considered his face unduly long and thin, and planned to get it remodeled when he could afford the best.
Ammon sighed and returned to business. “All I want is for you to survey a planet for me. You can do it on your next scouting trip. Report back, privately, of course, and it’s worth a flat million, in small bills or whatever shape you prefer.” He reached into his desk and extracted a packet. “If you take the job, here’s a hundred thousand on account.” A million! Ye gods and demons! Flandry fought to keep his mask. No enormous fortune, really. But enough for that necessary nest-feathering—the special equipment, the social contacts—no more wretched budgeting of my pleasure on furlough—A distant part of him noted with approval how cool his tone stayed. “I have to carry out my assignment.”
“I know, I know. I’m not asking you to skimp it. I told you I’m a loyal citizen. But if you jogged off your track awhile—it shouldn’t cost more than a couple of weeks extra—”