"You want me to find out all this?"
"No," said Morley. "Not all that. All we want are clues. Somewhere there is the clue that we are looking for, the hint that will tell us what the actual situation is. All we need is the opening wedge - the foot in the door. Give us that and we will do the rest."
"There have been others," Bishop told him. "Thousands of others. I'm not the only one who ever went to Kimon."
"For the last fifty years or more," said Morley, "the section has talked to all the others, before they went out, exactly as I'm talking to you now."
"And you've gotten nothing?"
"Nothing," said Morley. "Or almost nothing. Or nothing, anyhow, that counted or made any sense."
"They failed - "
"They failed," Morley told him, "because once on Kimon they forgot about Earth... well, not forgot about it, that's not entirely it. But they lost all allegiance to it. They were Kimon-blinded."
"You believe that?"
"I don't know," said Morley. "It's the best explanation that we have. The trouble is that we talk to them only once. None of them come back. We can write letters to them, certainly. We can try to jog them - indirectly, of course. But we can't ask them outright."
"Censorship?"
"Not censorship," said Morley, "although they may have that, too; but mostly telepathy. The Kimonians would know if we tried to impress anything too forcibly upon their minds. And we can't take the chance of a single thought undoing all the work that we have done."
"But you're telling me."
"You'll forget it," Morley said. "You will have several weeks in which you can forget it - push it to the back of your mind. But not entirely - not entirely."
"I understand," Bishop had told him.
"Don't get me wrong," said Morley. "It's nothing sinister. You're not to look for that. It may be just a simple thing. The way we comb our hair. There's some reason - perhaps many little ones. And we must know those reasons."
Morley had switched it off as quickly as he had begun it, had poured another round of drinks, had sat down again and talked of their school days and of the girls they'd known and of weekends in the country.
It had been, all in all, a very pleasant evening.
But that had been weeks ago, and since then he'd scarcely remembered it and now here he was on Kimon, sitting on one of his bags in the middle of a park, waiting for a welcoming Kimonian to show up.
All the time that he'd been waiting, he had been prepared for the Kimonian's arrival. He knew what a Kimonian looked like and he should not have been surprised.
But when the native came, he was.
For the native was six-foot ten, and almost a godlike being, a sculptured humanoid who was, astonishingly, much more human than he had thought to find.
One moment he had sat alone in the little parklike glade and the next the native was standing at his side.
Bishop came to his feet and the Kimonian said, "We are glad you are here. Welcome to Kimon, sir."
The native's inflection was as precise and beautiful as his sculptured body.
"Thank you," Bishop said, and knew immediately that the two words were inadequate and that his voice was slurred and halting compared with the native's voice. And, looking at the Kimonian, he had the feeling that by comparison, he cut a rumpled, seedy figure.
He reached into his pocket for his papers and his fingers were all thumbs, so that he fumbled for them and finally dug them out - dug is the word exactly - and handed them to the waiting being.
The Kimonian flicked them - that was it, flicked them - then he said "Mr. Selden Bishop. Very glad to know you. Your IQ rating, 160, is very satisfactory. Your examination showing, if I may say so, is extraordinary. Recommendations good. Clearance from Earth in order. And I see you made good time. Very glad to have you."
"But - " said Bishop. Then he clamped his mouth shut tight. He couldn't tell this being he'd merely flicked the pages and could not possibly have read them. For, obviously, he had.
"You had a pleasant flight, Mr. Bishop?"
"A most pleasant one," said Bishop and was filled with sudden pride that he could answer so easily and urbanely.
"Your luggage," said the native, "is in splendid taste."
"Why, thank you - " then was filled with rage. What right had this person to patronize his luggage!
But the native did not appear to notice.
"You wish to go to the hotel?"
"If you please," said Bishop, speaking very tightly, holding himself in check.
"Please allow me," said the native.
Bishop blurred for just a second - a definite sense of blurring - as if the universe had gone swiftly out of focus, then he was standing, not in the parklike glade, but in a one-man-sized alcove off a hotel lobby, with his bags stacked neatly beside him.
He had missed the triumph before, sitting in the glade, waiting for the native, after the gig had left him, but now it struck him, a heady, drunken triumph that surged through his body and rose in his throat to choke him.
This was Kimon! He finally was on Kimon! After all the years of study, he finally was here - the fabulous place he'd worked for many years to reach.
A high IQ, they'd said behind their half-raised hands - a high IQ and many years of study, and a stiff examination that not more than one in every thousand passed.
He stood in the alcove, with the sense of hiding there, to give himself a moment in which to regain his breath at the splendor of what had finally come to pass, to gain the moment in would take for the unreasoning triumph to have its way with him and go.
For the triumph was something that must not be allowed to pass. It was something that he must not show. It was a personal thing and as something personal it must be hidden deep.
He might be one of a thousand back on Earth, but here he stood on no more than equal footing with the ones who had come before him. Perhaps not quite on equal footing, for they would know the ropes and he had yet to learn them.
He watched them in the lobby - the lucky and the fabulous ones who had preceded him, the glittering company he had dreamed about during all the weary years - the company that he presently would join, the ones of Earth who were adjudged fit to go to Kimon.
For only the best must go - the best and smartest and the quickest. Earth must put her best foot forward for how otherwise would Earth ever persuade Kimon that she was a sister planet?
At first the people in the lobby had been no more than a crowd, a crowd that shone and twinkled, but with that curious lack of personality which goes with a crowd. But now, as he watched, the crowd dissolved into individuals and he saw them, not as a group, but as the men and women he presently would know.
He did not see the bell captain until the native stood in front of him, and the bell captain, if anything, was taller and more handsome than the man who'd met him in the glade.
"Good evening, sir," the captain said. "Welcome to the Ritz."
Bishop stared. "The Ritz? Oh, yes, I had forgotten. This place is the Ritz."
"We're glad to have you with us," said the captain. "We hope your stay will prove to be a long one."
"Certainly," said Bishop. "That is, I hope so, too."
"We had been notified," the captain said, "that you were arriving, Mr. Bishop. We took the liberty of reserving rooms for you. I trust they will be satisfactory."
"I am sure they will be," Bishop said.
As if anything on Kimon could be unsatisfactory!
"Perhaps you will want to dress," the captain said. "There still is time for dinner."
"Oh, certainly," said Bishop. "Most assuredly I will."