He said to Eric, “Didn’t you spot a Kraden once?”
“Yeah. About a year ago. Big excitement. That’s how I got my promotion.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. It was just for a couple of seconds. It looked like one of those Dorsi Class cruisers to me. Traveling like a bat out of hell. Then it disappeared.”
Don glanced at him from the side of his eyes. He said, “Eric, damn it, you sure you saw that Kraden?”
The other was mildly indignant. “Sure I’m sure. What the hell are you talking about?”
“How long were you out when you saw it?”
“I was just about to head in. The patrol was over.”
“Any space cafard at all?”
“Almighty Ultimate. Anybody’s got a touch of cafard after three or four weeks in space, all alone.”
Don finished his beer and made circular motions with a forefinger to request another from Harry, who came rambling down. Two strangers in civilian garb had entered and he had just waited upon them at one of the tables.
Don said to Eric, “Could it have been a hallucination?”
“What?”
“The Kraden.”
Eric finished his highball with a quick gesture of the practiced drinker. He was still mildly indignant, in fact, less so than previously. He said plaintively, “Of course it could have been hallucination. I only saw it for a few seconds. Hell, in my time, I’ve seen elves playing around in the cockpit after a couple of weeks in deep space. So have you, no doubt.”
“I usually see fairies,” Don said. “Real pretty ones, with gossamer pink wings.”
“You’re probably a latent homosexual,” Eric told him.
They sat there for a while. Eric got another drink. He said, “How long do you go on before you get the big jolt of space cafard and go completely tripe-ripe?”
“I don’t know,” Don said, knocking on the bar with his knuckles, though he knew damn well it wasn’t wood. “What do you mean the Kraden disappeared?”
“Just that. One second it was there. Then it was gone. The only thing I can figure is that Intelligence is right. The Kradens have some way of dropping into ultra-space, or qua-space, or hyper-space, or whatever gobbledygook name you want to call it, and take off faster than light.”
Don said, pulling at his drink, “Don’t be drivel-happy. Nothing can go as fast as light. That’s basic. You got that in training.”
“I didn’t say anything about traveling at the speed of light. I said traveling faster than light. The big double domes these days are working it over. How otherwise could the Kradens come from some, uh, other star system? Hell, even the closest ones, uh, Alpha Centauri A and B are 4.3 light years from here and we haven’t any reason to believe that’s where they came from. The next nearest is Epsilon Eridani and that’s almost eleven light years away. The Kradens have to have some way of traveling faster than light.”
The other was getting more drenched by the minute, Don realized, but he said, impatiently, “You can’t travel faster than the speed of light.”
“Balls. Einstein never said so.”
Don looked at him. “Where in the hell did you take your basic?”
“Einstein said you couldn’t travel at the speed of light. He didn’t say anything about traveling faster.”
“Chum-pal, you’ve really got a load on. I envy you. But how could you possibly travel faster than light, without at one point traveling at the same speed as light?”
Eric said glumly, obviously tiring of the subject, “How would I know? There must be some way of dodging through the crucial point.”
One of the two men who had entered and taken a table came up and said, “Are either of you gentlemen sub-lieutenant Donal Mathers?”
Don gave him the once over and said, “I am.”
The newcomer was well dressed. His face was on the pinched side and his hair was thinning, which was passingly strange since baldness had long since been cured. His lips were dark, almost bluish, and his eyes were faded and somehow evasive. He projected uncomfortableness.
The stranger said, “My name’s Cockney, Frank Cockney. I wonder if I could have a few words with you, Lieutenant, over at the table.” He made a gesture at the table where his companion sat.
Don instinctively didn’t like him. “Why?” he said.
Cockney regarded him patiently. “You’ll know that when we’ve had the few words, won’t you? One guarantee. You won’t lose any money.”
“I haven’t any to lose,” Don said. He looked over at the table the two strangers had taken. Harry’s bar didn’t usually have many customers who weren’t in Space Services uniform. The other sat there unperturbedly, an untouched drink before him. He was a larger man than this one, almost as large as Thor Bjornsen, but dark rather than light. His face was expressionless. For some reason, Don thought of both of them as the mobster types you saw in the old revival movie and TV shows that were all the thing these days and sent viewers into spasms of laughter.
Don said, “What the hell,” and came to his feet. He went over to the table, pulled out a chair and said, “What do you want?”
The smaller of the two strangers resumed his own chair and said, “Can you prove you’re sub-lieutenant Donal Mathers?” His voice was polite enough.
“Of course I can prove it. I have my Space Service I.D. and I’ve got my Universal Credit Card.”
“May we see them, please?”
“What are you, police or something?” Don Mathers couldn’t figure it out, and he didn’t particularly like the looks of these two. Besides, he wanted to get back to his drink.
“No,” the big one said.
Frank Cockney said, “This is Bil Golenpaul “No, we’re not police.”
Don Mathers-shrugged, ran a thumbnail over his mustache in irritation, but shrugged again and brought out his identification.
Cockney looked at it briefly and said, “The boss wants to see you.”
Don put his papers back into his pocket and said, “Great. And who in the hell is the boss?” It came to him now that by the looks of these two, their emptiness of facial expression, they were the kind of men fated to be ordered around at the pleasure of those with wealth or brains, neither of which they had or would ever have.
“Maybe he’ll tell you when he sees you,” the other said, patiently and reasonably.
Don came back to his feet. He said, “Well, you can tell the boss”
The one named Golenpaul said, “Suggest you check your pseudo-dollars credit, Lieutenant.”
Don squinted at him. “Why?”
Neither of the two said anything.
In continued irritation with this whole damn thing, he brought forth his Universal Credit Card and put it in the table’s slot and dialed the International Data Banks.
He said, “What is my credit standing?”
The mechanical voice answered almost immediately, “5324 pseudo-dollars and 64 cents.”
Don Mathers stared at the screen. He had never had five thousand pseudo-dollars to his credit at one time in his whole life. He said finally, “When was the most recent credit deposited to my account? And how much was it?”
The screen said, “This morning. The amount was five thousand pseudo-dollars.”
“Who deposited it?”
“It was transferred to your account by the Interplanetary Conglomerate.”
Don Mathers had never heard of the organization. He took back his Universal Credit Card, returned it to his pocket and looked across the table at Cockney and Golenpaul. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go see the boss. I haven’t anything else to do and his calling card intrigues me.”
He waved a farewell to Eric and Harry and followed the two strangers out to the street. There was a swank helio-hover parked at the curb, to his surprise. Privately-owned vehicles weren’t allowed on the surface streets of Center City.