I must have spent too much time gloating. She was speaking again. "Soltan, I know you are the handler for Mission Earth. You made that very plain back at Spiteos when you brought Jettero to me to language-train. A mission handler also handles mission expenses. I know that your boss, Lombar Hisst, thinks this is a pretty important mission. He told me so when I left. He said I was being sent to make sure the person on the mission was happy and not too overworked. And I know from the secret documents you showed me, His Majesty thinks it is very important, too. So I can't imagine their skimping on finance for it!"
His Majesty indeed! If she only knew: Those "Royal Proclamations" that guaranteed her and Heller a happy life back on Voltar were mere forgeries I had created to trick her. I had to get her off the subject.
Inspiration struck. "Actually, Countess, they don't use money on this planet very much. They have a thing called credit cards." Oh, man, was I going to mess Heller up!"The thing for you to do is get yourself a whole stack of credit cards and use them all you want. Just buy, buy, buy! That's the way it's done. So when you get to New York, use credit cards and buy anything you please. Load yourself up!"
"Credit cards?" she said. "That means 'money' cards. Oh, is THAT what they use instead of this gringy paper?"
"Exactly," I said. "Hardly any money actually changes hands. It's all done with CREDIT cards." I pulled a sheaf of the (bleeped) things out of my pocket and showed her.
"Ah, that's why you don't have any money!"
"True! That's too true!" I said with complete sincerity.
"Strange planet," she said. "You mean, you just take one of these cards and they give you anything you want? Weird."
"You can repeat that with fanfares," I said with a trace of bitterness. I took them all back and put them in my pocket.
She was thoughtful. "But I don't have any of these cards. I'll have to do something. I can't let Jettero see me like this." She sighed. She stood up. "Well, thank you for the briefing, anyway. You're a true friend, Soltan." And she patted me on the shoulder.
I flinched but I covered it up quickly. She must not suspect I had just conned her into ruining Heller utterly. I glanced at my watch. "Oh, Heavens!" I said. "We'll miss the plane!"
What a relief it would be to have her off my hands!
I got the taxi and we got her to the airport with the huge cases, hypnohelmet cartons and grip. Using the taxi driver and a porter, I got the luggage and her to the check-in counter. There was excess baggage, of course-$329! I had told her I didn't have any money. But I was up to it.
When they gave her her boarding pass, I led her over to a waiting-room seat and seated her. Then I went back to the counter. By the simple mechanism of giving the clerk a twenty-dollar bill for himself personally, I got the baggage marked Paid Excess through to New York.
She was looking around her at the several passengers who were waiting. Even if they were in cloaks and veils, the women were not badly dressed. White silk and gold brocade were visible through slits in the outer covering.
She looked down ruefully at herself. The comparison was not favorable. I suppressed my mirth. She did look pretty awful in that dingy cloak and hood with the holes in it. And the veil was gray with age. Oh, she'd force Heller to foot the bill for clothes, all right!
The echoey P. A. system was calling her flight, in Turkish and then in English, "Passengers now boarding THY Flight 19 for Istanbul. Gate One."
Afyon is just a little airport with only one plane a day and one gate, but since it reopened some years back, they like to do things big city style.
"That's your plane," I said urgently. Just being around her was a pretty nerve-wracking experience. If she guessed what I was putting her up to, she was quite capable of stamping me into the waiting-room floor.
"Wait," she said. "Haven't you forgotten something, Soltan?"
I looked down. I was still holding her flight envelope.
"Here," I said. "Here is the rest of your ticket and your baggage and excess check. The gate is right over there...."
"All right," she said, taking them and also pulling the boarding pass out of my other hand. "But I'm told New York is the biggest city on the planet. And although I am sure that everybody would know Jettero by this time, maybe he is using a different name like you did with me. And I don't even have his address!"
Oh, my Gods, how could I overlook that! If she couldn't find him they might send her straight back to point of origin.
The P. A. blared out hollowly again. Whoever was manning that P. A. system could visibly see he had passengers stalled and not moving toward the gate-namely us!"THY Flight 19! Gate One. You'll miss your flight, Sultan Bey! Move it!"
(Bleep) being too well-known. It threw me into confusion. I didn't have a pencil. I rushed to a counter and got one. There was no paper. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a scrap. I hastily wrote Heller's Earth name and address on the back of it. I rushed back to the Countess Krak, pushed it into her hand and shoved her bodily toward Gate One.
The man there took her boarding pass and urgently pointed at the plane. Everybody else was aboard. But the Countess Krak turned. She seized me by the shoulders and right through her veil gave me a kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you, Soltan," she said. "I appreciate what you have done. You are a good man, Soltan."
She turned and raced over to the plane, and sped up the steps. At the top she turned and waved back to me. Then she vanished inside.
I stood there, very uneasy indeed. On the surface of it, getting her here, getting her scars removed and getting her on her way to see the man she loved would seem to merit appreciation. But looking only at the surface could get one into deep trouble in dealing with the Countess Krak. She had been up to something. That burst of affection was so unlike her, I knew down to the roots of my soul that it boded no good. Yes, the more I thought of it, the more certain I became. Some horrible trick was involved! I knew her too well! And to my sorrow!
The plane rumbled away to the takeoff area and then, with a roar, rushed down the runway and into the sky.
I was not out of the woods yet. She might not transfer to the international flight at Istanbul. She might have second thoughts and come back.
The taxi rushed me back to the hospital. I entered the interview room and locked the door behind me. I unlocked the cabinet and got out the viewer.
There she was in the Turkish Airlines plane. She had taken off the veil. The stewardess was giving her coffee and a small, dried-out roll. She took the little tray and examined it minutely, feeling the paper, trying to read the label on the sugar cube-which was in Turkish. She didn't know that she was supposed to put the sugar cube in the coffee. A taste of the beverage did not meet with her approval. She saw a passenger ring a buzzer and get the stewardess so she tried it. The stewardess came over.
"This is awfully bitter," the Countess said in English. "Do you have some hot jolt?"
Oh, Gods. Code break! But it wouldn't have done any good to brief her. She would just have said, I'm not in the military!
The stewardess looked shocked. "We usually don't serve hard liquor on the early morning flight, ma'am."
"But this is so bitter!"
"Ah," said the stewardess, "you haven't put the sugar in." She opened a couple of cubes and dropped them in the cup. She must have thought the Countess Krak was feebleminded.
The Countess Krak studied the blunt, odd-shaped knife. She must have decided you could stir with it, for that is how she used it. Then she found the spoon still wrapped up in the napkin. She studied that. There was a pat of butter for the roll. She took some of it with the spoon and tasted it cautiously. She sipped at the coffee. Then she put everything back down on the tray. She muttered, in Voltarian, "Jettero must be starving to death on this planet!"