“What do you think? The computers won’t let me buy it until I’ve saved up that number of hours.”
Guy was frowning. “You say you work in the sanitary system. But suppose another man was a…well, research chemist, a highly trained scientist. How would he be awarded these hour credits?”
“Exactly the same,” Zeke said in disgust. “The smartest man in the country doesn’t get anything more for his time, than the dumbest moron. In fact, he gets less, if you want to look at it that way. The moron gets taken care of for free, the big brain has to work if he wants to eat.”
Guy thought about it for awhile. “There’s no way for you to get ahead, really, eh? What’s your initiative? Why bother to try at all?”
“Initiative!” Zeke said, still bitterly. “Our initiative is that we like to eat.”
A window was beginning to gray with the first of dawn.
Guy, shaking his head, finished his wine and said, “There’s a lot still to go over but I suppose it’ll have to wait until I meet this Damon of yours. How can we get in touch with each other?”
“Where are you staying?” Zeke said.
Guy told him.
“One of those semi-prisons for single men,” Teucer sneered.
“Thus far,” Guy told him, “it’s been quite comfortable.”
“Jails can be comfortable, but they’re still jails.”
Zeke said, “All right, all right, Teucer. We can’t convert him all at once. Listen, Guy, I don’t know if we can contact you there or not. I don’t know what kind of guard they’ve got over you. We’ll find out; we’ve got spies everywhere. But you can always reach us here. This is one of our drops. If anything happens to this place, here’s the address of another.” He handed Guy a paper. “Memorize it, and destroy it. We take every precaution we can, but I guess you can be trusted. I guess you’re more up on these things than we are.”
Guy said, “Why do you guess that?”
Zeke looked at him. “I get the impression this isn’t the first assignment of this type you’ve been on.”
Guy said nothing to that.
Zeke said, “The first impression you give is kind of ineffectual, but if you look below the surface…”
Guy Thomas shrugged and came to his feet. “You can trust me,” he said. “I’d better be getting back.”
“You’ve got a shooter, eh? You said you winged whoever it was tried to crisp you.”
“Yes,” I’m armed.”
“How’d you ever get it past those custom mopsies? They’ve got a reputation.”
“We’ve got ways,” Guy said shortly.
Zeke saw him to the door.
Before leaving, Guy said, “How many men do you have in your organization, Zeke?”
The other hesitated. “Active? Thousands, tens of thousands. I mean real members of the Sons of Liberty. But inactive sympathizers who’ll rally round when the time comes? At least half the population. Half the men, that is.”
Guy said slowly, “How many of them are like Teucer?”
Zeke scowled, uncomprehending. “What’s the matter with Teucer?”
Guy said, “He’s not the most educated type in the world, and he’s on the emotional side. I’ve seen revolutionary organizations before, Zeke. In the clutch, you want…”
“Aw, Teucer’s all right. You got to get used to him.”
“How many have you got like Teucer?” Guy repeated. Zeke rubbed the bottom of his chin with a beefy paw. “Too many,” he growled. He opened the door for the Octagon operative. “He’s from Lybia,” he added. “On the run from the police over there. We’re hiding him out temporarily, till we can figure where to use him.” As a safety measure, Guy took a different route home, and covered the distance considerably more cautiously than he had in coming.
His gun was handy to his fingers, and he stopped at each street crossing, looking both ways. He wanted no repetition of the ambush of a couple of hours earlier. Pure luck had saved him there and pure luck seldom blesses you twice running.
The slower pace he had to take, to eliminate any further chance of attempted assassination, conflicted with his need to get back to his quarters before full dawn. He agonized, but there was nothing for it.
By the time he reached the sanctuary, it was too light to attempt to scale the wall to his window. Too great a chance that he would be spotted.
He marched deliberately up to the door through which the major had ushered him, some hours earlier, grasped the knob and pushed his way through. Again he was surprised at the lack of guard, or even lock. To hear the major and the others, a man wasn’t safe in the vicinity of a warrior who had less than three husbands in her home. How did this jibe with the fact that this building full of bachelors was so easily entered?
He started up the stairway to the second floor where his small suite was located.
A voice tittered, “Oh, good heavens! Where have you been, darling?” It was Podner Bates, coming down.
Guy said, making his voice grumpy, “I couldn’t sleep. I decided to take a walk.”
“A walk! Artimis! Dear boy, don’t you realize your freedom isn’t worth a nicker, not a flicker, out on those streets? Suppose some young warrior had spotted you?”
They’d met half way down the stairs.
Guy said, “Search me. What would have happened?”
Podner flicked his wrist, flabbergasted. “My dear, haven’t you been informed at all? Any warrior whosoever who spots you and decides she likes you, can simply place her hand on your shoulder and say, I thee take. Your only recourse, if you object to being taken under her wing, is to throw yourself on the mercy of some warrior you like better. If she refuses you, for whatever reason, darling, then you must…” Podner arched his eyebrows “…give yourself to the one who claimed you.”
Guy said, “I was just walking along the street, trying to think, getting a breath of air. How’d one of these warriors know I wasn’t already married?”
Podner fluttered, even as he turned to accompany Guy back to his suite. “Darling, you’re so naive. You see how my tunic tucks up over my shoulder here? That proclaims, me a widower. I am eligible for the taking, of course, but…” he cleared his throat delicately “…of course, it’s virgins that are always in demand.”
“Virgins?” Guy said blankly.
He looked at the shoulder of his own tunic.
“Your garb,” Podner tittered, “proclaims you to one and all a virgin.”
Guy Thomas closed his eyes in pain.
VI
Podner Bates saw him to his suite, gossiping along as they went.
Guy felt a coldness in his stomach. Along the way, had he run into any man-seeking Amazon, it would have either been a matter of shooting her, or submitting to the damnedest marriage custom he had ever heard of.
I thee take, yet! How informal could you get? And didn’t the man, or even the man’s parents, have anything to say about it? In all his readings on far-out societies, and they had some dillies in United Planets, Guy Thomas had never run into one quite this cavalier.
“How come?” he blurted to Podner, in protest.
“I beg your pardon, darling?” They were nearly to his door.
“Why’s it so easy for a…a warrior to latch onto any man who comes along? Isn’t there any way of avoiding being up for grabs?”
“Oh dear,” Podner sighed. “It’s so hard to realize you aren’t familiar with our ways. It seems so natural to me. Well, let me think. I have heard that wooing is somewhat different on your unnatural planets.”
“Unnatural?”
“Where…” Podner giggled delicately “…where we boys dominate. It’s so hard to believe, isn’t it? Anyway, I understand the Goddess Artimis first revealed her desires pertaining to a warrior taking a mate, when the early colony ships set down on Amazonia. She saw in her infinite wisdom that the need was to be…” Podner coughed gently “…fertile and populate the land. Girls were proclaimed warriors at the age of fourteen, and everything facilitated to hurry them into a relationship. If the medicos permitted, the first child was on its way at not later than fifteen.” Podner giggled. “As you can imagine, obstetrics was quite our foremost science. It has progressed to the point where a warrior is inconvenienced for but a week or so.”