A thought drifted through Dalt's head: If I'm going nuts, at least I'm not doing it halfheartedly!
II
Barre was there to meet him at the dock. "No luck, Steve?"
Dalt shook his head and was about to add a comment when he noticed Barre staring at him with a strange expression.
"What's the matter?"
"You won't believe me if I tell you," Barre replied. He took Dalt's arm and led him into a nearby men's room and stood him in front of a mirror.
Dalt saw what he expected to see: a tall, muscular man in the garb of a Kwashi serf. Tanned face, short, glossy brown hair ... Dalt suddenly flexed his neck to get a better look at the top of his head. Tufts of hair were missing in a roughly oval patch on his scalp. He ran his hand over it and a light rain of brown hair showered past his eyes. With successive strokes, the oval patch became completely denuded and a shiny expanse of scalp reflected the ceiling lights into the mirror.
"Well, I'll be damned! A bald spot!"
("Don't worry, Steve,") said the voice in his head, ("the roots aren't dead. The hair will grow back.")
"It damn well better!" Dalt said aloud.
"It damn well better what?" Barre asked puzzledly.
"Nothing," Dalt replied. "Something dropped onto my head in a cave down there and it looks like it's given me a bald spot." He realized then that he would have to be very careful about talking to his invader; otherwise, even if he really wasn't crazy, he'd soon have everyone on the ship believing he was.
"Maybe you'd better see the doc," Barre suggested.
"I intend to, believe me. But first I've got to report to Clarkson. I'm sure he's waiting."
"You can bet on it." Barre had been a research head on the brain project and was well acquainted with Dirval Clarkson's notorious impatience.
The pair walked briskly toward Clarkson's office. The rotation of the huge conical ship gave the effect of one-G.
"Hi, Jean," Dalt said with a smile as he and Barre entered the anteroom of Clarkson's office. Jean was Clarkson's secretary-receptionist and she and Dalt had entertained each other on the trip out ... the more interesting games had been played during the sleep-time hours.
She returned his smile. "Glad you're back in one piece." Dalt realized that from her seated position she couldn't see the bald spot. Just as well for the moment. He'd explain it to her later.
Jean spoke into the intercom: "Mr. Dalt is here."
"Well, send him in!" squawked a voice. "Send him in!"
Dalt grinned and pushed through the door to Clark-son's office, with Barre trailing behind. A huge, graying man leaped from behind a desk and stalked forward at a precarious angle.
"Dalt! Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to go down, take a look, and then come back up. You could have done the procedure three times in the period you took. And what happened to your head?" Clarkson's speech was in its usual rapidfire form.
"Well, this—"
"Never mind that now! What's the story? I can tell right now that you didn't find anything, because Barre is with you. If you'd found the brain he'd be off in some corner now nursing it like a misplaced infant! Well, tell me! How does it look?"
Dalt hesitated, not quite sure whether the barrage had come to an end. "It doesn't look good," he said finally.
"And why not?"
"Because I couldn't find a trace of the ship itself. Oh, there's evidence of some sort of craft having been there a while back, but it must have gotten off-planet again, because there's not a trace of wreckage to be found."
Clarkson looked puzzled. "Not even a trace?"
"Nothing."
The project director pondered this a moment, then shrugged. "We'll have to figure that one out later. But right now you should know that we picked up another signal from the brain's life-support system while you were off on your joyride—"
"It wasn't a joyride," Dalt declared. A few moments with Clarkson always managed to rub his nerves raw. "I ran into a pack of unfriendly locals and had to hide in a cave."
"Be that as it may," Clarkson said, returning to his desk chair, "we're now certain that the brain, or what's left of it, is on Kwashi."
"Yes, but where on Kwashi? It's not exactly an asteroid, you know."
"We've almost pinpointed its location," Barre broke in excitedly. "Very close to the site you inspected."
"It's in Bendelema, I hope," Dalt said.
"Why?" Clarkson asked.
"Because when I was on cultural survey down there I posed as a soldier of fortune—a mercenary of sorts— and Duke Kile of Bendelema was a former employer. I'm known and liked in Bendelema. I'm not at all popular in Tependia because they're the ones I fought against. I repeat: It's in Bendelema, I hope."
Clarkson nodded. "It's in Bendelema."
"Good!" Dalt exhaled with relief. "That makes everything much simpler. I've got an identity in Bendelema: Racso the mercenary. At least that's a starting place."
"And you'll start tomorrow," Clarkson said. "We've wasted too much time as it is. If we don't get that prototype back and start coming up with some pretty good reasons for the malfunction, Star Ways just might cancel the project. There's a lot riding on you, Dalt. Remember that."
Dalt turned toward the door. "Who'll let me forget?" he remarked with a grim smile. "I'll check in with you before I leave."
"Good enough," Clarkson said with a curt nod, then turned to Barre. "Hold on a minute, Barre. I want to go over a few things with you." Dalt gladly closed the door on the pair.
"It's almost lunchtime," said a feminine voice behind him. "How about it?"
In a single motion, Dalt spun, leaned over Jean's desk, and gave her a peck on the lips. "Sorry, can't. It may be noon to all of you on ship-time, but it's some hellish hour of the morning to me. I've got to drop in on the doc, then I've got to get some sleep."
But Jean wasn't listening. Instead, she was staring fixedly at the bald spot on Dalt's head. "Steve!" she cried. "What happened?"
Dalt straightened up abruptly. "Nothing much. Something landed on it while I was below and the hair fell out. It'll grow back, don't worry."
"I'm not worried about that," she said, standing up and trying to get another look. But Dalt kept his head high. "Did it hurt?"
"Not at all. Look, I hate to run off like this, but I've got to get some sleep. I'm going back down tomorrow."
Her face fell. "So soon?"
"I'm afraid so. Why don't we make it for dinner tonight. I'll drop by your room and we'll go from there. The caf isn't exactly a restaurant, but if we get there late we can probably have a table all to ourselves."
"And after that?" she asked coyly.
"I'll be damned if we're going to spend my last night on ship for who-knows-how-long in the vid theater!"
Jean smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."
("What odd physiological rumblings that female stirs in you!") the voice said as Dalt walked down the corridor to the medical offices. He momentarily broke stride at the sound of it. He'd almost forgotten that he had company.
"That's none of your business!" he muttered through tight lips.
("I'm afraid much of what you do is my business. I'm not directly connected with you emotionally, but physically ... what you feel, I feel; what you see, I see; what you taste—")
"Okay! Okay!"
("You're holding up rather well, actually. Better than I would have expected.")
"Probably my cultural-survey training. They taught me how to keep my reactions under control when faced with an unusual situation."
("Glad to hear it. We may well have a long relationship ahead of us if you don't go the way of most high-order intelligences and suicidally reject me. We can look on your body as a small business and the two of us as partners.")