Is That What People Do? [Collection]

"Steady," Gregor said. "Maybe we can shake him."

They continued walking. Gregor looked back and saw that the man — or Scarb — was still there. He was walking more rapidly, closing the gap between them.

But coming down the street now was a taxi, its flag up.

They hailed it and climbed in. The man — or Scarb — looked around frantically for another cab, but there was none in sight. When they drove off he was standing on the curb, glaring at them, his purple tie slightly askew.

Myra Ryan was waiting for them at the office. She nodded when they told her about the follower.

"I warned you it might be dangerous," she said. "You can still back out, you know."

"What'll you do then?" Arnold asked.

"I'll go back to Coelle," Myra said. "No Skags are going to keep me off my planet."

"We're going," Arnold said, gazing tenderly at her. "You know we wouldn't desert you, Myra."

"Of course not," Gregor said wearily.

At that moment the door opened, and in walked a man wearing a gray suit and a purple tie.

"The Scarb!" Arnold gaped, and reached for his paperweight.

"That's no Scarb," Myra said calmly. "That's Ross Jameson. Hello, Ross."

Jameson was a tall, beautifully groomed man in his early thirties, with a handsome, impatient face and hard eyes.

"Myra," he said, "have you gone completely insane?"

"I don't think so, Ross," Myra said sweetly.

"Are you really going to Coelle with these charlatans?"

Gregor stepped forward. "Were you following us?"

"You're damned right I was," Jameson said belligerently.

"I don't know who you are," Gregor said, "but—"

"I'm Miss Ryan's fiancГ©," Jameson said, "and I'm not going to let her go through with this ridiculous project. Myra, from what you've told me, this planet of yours sounds dangerous. Why don't you forget about it and marry me?"

"I want to live on Coelle," Myra said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I want to live on my own little planet."

Jameson shook his head. "We've been through this a thousand times. Darling, you can't seriously expect me to give up my business and move to this little mudball with you. I've got my work—"

"And I've got my mudball," Myra said. "It's my very own mudball, and I want to live there."

"With the Skags?"

"I thought you didn't believe in that sort of thing," Myra said.

"I don't. But some trickery is going on, and I don't like to see you involved. It's probably that crazy hermit. There's no telling what he'll try next. Myra, won't you please—"

"No!" Myra said. "I'm going to Coelle!"

"Then I'm going with you."

"You are not," Myra said coldly.

"I've already arranged it with my staff," Jameson said. "You'll need someone to protect you on that ridiculous planet, and you can't expect much from these two." He glared contemptuously at Gregor and Arnold.

"Maybe you didn't understand me," Myra said very quietly. "You are not coming, Ross."

Jameson's firm face sagged, and his eyes grew worried. "Myra," he said, "please let me come. If anything happened to you, I'd — I don't know what I'd do. Please, Myra?"

There was no doubting the sincerity in his voice. When Jameson dropped his commanding voice and lowered the imposing thrust of his shoulders, he became a very appealing young man, quite obviously in love.

Myra said softly, "All right, Ross. And — thanks."

Gregor cleared his throat loudly. "We blast off in two hours."

"Fine," Jameson said, taking Myra's arm. "We have time for a drink, dear."

Arnold said, "Pardon me, Mr. Jameson. How does it happen you are wearing gray and purple — the Skag Colors?"

"Are they?" Jameson asked. "Pure coincidence. I've owned this tie for years."

"And who is the hermit?"

"I thought you geniuses knew everything," Jameson said with a nasty grin. "See you at the ship."

After they had gone, a deep, gloomy silence hung over the office. Finally Arnold said, "So she's engaged."

"So it would seem," Gregor said. "But not married," he added sympathetically.

"No, she's not married," Arnold said, becoming cheerful again. "And Jameson is obviously the wrong man for her. I'm sure Myra wouldn't marry a liar."

"Of course she wouldn't marry a — Huh?"

"Didn't you notice? That purple tie he's ‘owned for years' was brand new. I think we'll keep an eye on Mr. Jameson."

Gregor gazed at his partner with admiration. "That's a very clever observation."

"The process of detection," Arnold said sententiously, "is merely the accumulation of minute discrepancies and infinitesimal inconsistencies, which are immediately apparent to the trained eye."

Gregor and the trained eye put the office into order. At eleven o'clock they met Jameson and Myra at the ship, and without further incident they departed for Coelle.

III

Ross Jameson was president and chief engineer of Jameson Electronics, a small but growing concern he had inherited from his father. It was a great responsibility for so young a man, and Ross had adopted a brusque, overbearing manner to avoid any hint of indecisiveness. But whenever he was able to forget his exalted position he was a pleasant enough fellow, and a good sport in facing the many little discomforts of interstellar travel.

Myra's Hemstet 4 was old and hogged out of shape by repeated high-gravity takeoffs. The ship had developed a disconcerting habit of springing leaks in the most inaccessible places, which Arnold and Gregor had to locate and patch. The ship's astrogation system wasn't to be trusted, either, and Jameson spent considerable time figuring out a way of controlling the automatics manually.

When Coelle's little sun was finally in sight and the ship was in its deceleration orbit, the four of them were able, for the first time, to share a meal together.

"What's the story on this hermit?" Gregor asked over coffee.

"You must have heard of him," Jameson said. "He calls himself Edward the Hermit, and he's written a book."

"The book is Dreams on Kerma," Myra filled in. "It was a bestseller last year."

"Oh, that hermit," Gregor said, and Arnold nodded.

They had read the hermit's book, along with several thousand others, while sitting in their office waiting for business. Dreams on Kerma had been a sort of spatial Robinson Crusoe. Edward's struggles with his environment, and with himself, had made exciting reading. Because of his lack of scientific knowledge, the hermit had made many blunders. But he had persevered, and created a home for himself out of the virgin wilderness of the planet Kerma.

The young misanthrope's calm decision to give up the society of mankind and devote his life to the contemplation of nature and the universe — the Eternals, as he called them — had struck some responsive chord in millions of harried men and women. A few had been sufficiently inspired to seek out their own hermitages.

Almost without exception they returned to Terra in six months or a year, sadder but wiser. Solitude, they discovered, made better reading than living.

"But what has he got to do with Coelle?" Arnold asked.

"Coelle is the second planet of the Gelsors system," Jameson said. "Kerma is the third planet, and the hermit is its only inhabitant."

Gregor said, "I still don't see—"

"I guess it was my fault," Myra said. "You see, the hermit's book inspired me. It was what decided me to live on Coelle, even if I had to do it alone." She threw Jameson a cutting glance. "Do you remember his chapter on the joy of possessing an entire planet? I can't describe what that did to me. I felt—"

"I still don't see the connection," Gregor said.

"I'm coming around to it," Myra said. "When I found out that Edward the Hermit and I were neighbors, astronomically speaking, I decided to speak to him. I just wanted to tell him how much his book meant to me. So I radioed him from Coelle."