"What is all this?"
"Tell you on the way. Hurry up."
A carriage was already waiting for us. Back of Beverly Hills, in the hills that name that town, is a very old hotel that is also very swank. It has the stink of money, an odor I don't despise. Between fires and the Big Quake it has been rebuilt several times, always to look just as it did but (so I hear) the last time it was rebuilt to be totally fire- and earthquakeproof.
It took about twenty minutes to drive, at a spanking trot, from the Shipstone Building to the hotel; Mosby used it to fill me in. "During this ride is about the only time that both of us can be sure that we don't have an Ear planted on usÄ"
(I wondered if he believed that. I could think of three obvious places for an Ear: my jumpbag, his pockets, and the cushions of the carriage. And there were always endless unobvious places. But it was his problem. I had no secrets. None, now that my bellybutton was a window to the world.)
"Äso let me talk fast. I'm meeting your price. Furthermore there will be a bonus on completed performance. The trip is from Earth to The Realm. That's what you're paid for; the trip back is deadhead but, since the round trip is four months, you'll be paid for four months. You collect your bonus at the far end at the imperial capital. SalaryÄone month in advance, the rest as you go. Okay?"
"Okay." I had to avoid sounding too enthusiastic. A round trip to The Realm? My dear man, only yesterday I was anxious to make this trip at petty officer's wages. "What about my expenses?"
"You won't have much in the way of expenses. Those luxury liners are all-expense deals."
"Gratuities, squeeze, groundside excursions, walking-around money, Bingo and such aboard shipÄat a minimum such expenses are never less than twenty-five percent of the price 6f the ticket. If I'm going to pretend to be a rich tourist, I must behave like one. Is that my cover?"
"Uh... Well, yes. All right, all rightÄnobody's going to fuss if you spend a few thousand pretending to be Miss Rich Bitch. Keep track and bill us at the end."
"No. Advance the money, twenty-five percent of the ticket cost. I won't keep records as it would not be in character; Miss Rich Bitch would not keep track of such trivia."
"All right already! Shut up and let me talk; we'll soon be there. You're a living artifact."
I had not felt that cold chill in quite a while. Then I braced up and resolved to make him pay heavily for that one crude, rude remark. "Are you being intentionally offensive?"
"No, I'm not. Don't get in a flutter. You and I know that an artificial person can't be told, offhand, from a natural person. You'll be carrying, in stasis, a modified human ovum. You will carry it in your navel pouch, where the constant temperature and the cushioning will protect the stasis. When you reach The Realm, you will catch a flu bug or some such and go to hospital. While you are in this hospital, what you are carrying will be transferred to where it will do the most good. You'll be paid the bonus and will leave the hospital... with the happy knowledge that you have enabled a young couple to have a perfect baby when they were dead-certain, almost, to have a defective one. Christmas disease."
I decided that the story was mostly true. "The Dauphiness."
"What? Don't be silly!"
"And it is considerably more than Christmas disease, which, by itself, might be ignored in a royal person. The First Citizen himself is concerned with this since this time succession is passing through his daughter rather than through a son. This job is much more important and much more hazardous than you told me... so the price goes up."
That pair of beautiful bays went clopping on up Rodeo Drive another hundred meters before Mosby answered. "All right. God help
you if you talk. You wouldn't live long. We'll increase the bonus.
AndÄ"
"You'll damn well double the bonus and deposit it to my account before we warp. This is the kind of a job where people grow forgetful after it's over."
"WellÄI'll do what I can. We are about to have lunch with Mr. SikmaaÄand you are expected not to spot the fact that he is personal representative of The First Citizen with an interworld rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Now straighten up and mind your table manners."
Four days later I was again minding my table manners at the right of the Captain of H. S. Forward. My name was now Miss Marjorie Friday and I was so offensively rich that I had been fetched up from groundside to Stationary Station in Mr. Sikmaa's own antigrav yacht and whisked through into the Forward without having to bother with anything so plebeian as passport control, health, and so forth. My luggage had come aboard at the same timeÄbox after box of expensive, stylish clothing, appropriate jewelryÄbut others took care of it; I did not have to bother with anything.
Three of those days I had spent in Florida in what felt like a hospital but was (I knew!) a superbly equipped genetic engineering laboratory. I could infer which one it was but I kept my guesses to myself as speculation about anything was not encouraged. While I was there I was given the most thorough physical examination I have ever heard of. I did not know why they were checking my health in a style ordinarily reserved for heads of state and chairmen of multinationals but I presumed that they were jumpy about entrusting to anyone not in perfect health the protecting and delivering of an ovum that would become, in the course of years, First Citizen of the fabulously wealthy Realm. It was a good time to keep my mouth shut.
Mr. Sikmaa used none of the sharpshooting that both Fawcett and Mosby had tried. Once he decided that I would do, he sent Mosby home and catered to me so lavishly that I had no need to dicker. Twenty-five percent for casual money?Änot enough; make that fifty percent. Here it is; take itÄin gold and in Luna City gold
certificatesÄand, if you need more, just tell the purser and sign for it, a draft on me. No, we won't use a written contract; this is not that sort of a missionÄjust tell me what you want and youshall have it. And here is a little booklet that tells you who you are and where you went to school and all the rest. You will have plenty of time in the next three days to memorize it and if you forget to burn it, don't fret; the fibers are impregnated so that it self-destroys in the next three daysÄdon't be surprised if the pages are yellow and somewhat brittle on the fourth day.
Mr. Sikmaa had thought of everything. Before we left Beverly Hills, he brought a photographer in; she shot me from several angles, me dressed in a smile, in high heels, in low heels, in bare feet. When my luggage showed up in the Forward, every item fitted me perfectly, all the styles and colors suited me, and the clothes carried a spread of famous designer's names from Italy, from Paris, from Bei-Jing, et al.
I'm not used to haute couture and don't know how to handle it, but Mr. Sikmaa had that covered, too. I was met at the airlock by a pretty little Oriental creature named Shizuko who told me that she was my personal maid. Since I had been bathing and dressing myself since I was five, I felt no need for a maid, but again it was time to roll with the blow.
Shizuko conducted me to cabin BB (not quite big enough for a volley-ball court). Once there, it appeared that (in Shizuko's opinion) there was just barely time enough to get me ready for dinner.
With dinner three hours away this struck me as excessive. But she was firm and I was going along with whatever was suggestedÄI did not need a diagram to tell me that Mr. Sikmaa had planted her there.
She bathed me. While this was going on, there was a sudden surge in the gray control as the ship warped away. Shizuko steadied me and kept it from being a wet disaster and did it so skillfully that she convinced me that she was used to warp ships. She didn't look old enough.