Tand stopped the car in front of their destination. The Kareenan equivalent of a bellhop loaded Carmody’s baggage on a graviton sled, and the two proceeded straight to Carmody’s suite. Since Tand had made arrangements, there was no registration to go through. But a group of reporters tried to interview Carmody. Tand waved them away. Even though they were as aggressive as their Terrestrial counterparts, they obeyed Tand, a Father of Yess.
Where once the two would have had to walk up great curving flights of stairs, they now shot up in a graviton cage. So wide were the stairwells, it had not been necessary to cut into the stairs to make space for elevator shafts.
“This building has always been a hotel,” Tand said.”It may be the oldest hotel in the universe. It was built more than five thousand years ago.”
He spoke with pride. “It has been occupied so long that it is said a man with a keen nose may detect the odor of flesh, absorbed by the stones during the ages of habitation.”
The cage stopped at the seventh floor, a lucky number and also chosen to honor Carmody as one of the Seven Fathers. His room was nearly two hectometers down the broad stone-walled corridor. The doors to the rooms were of iron, almost bank vault thick. Like many Kareenan doors, they were not hinged on one side but pivoted on pins in the middle. So secure were the rooms behind the doors, the occupants stayed inside during their Sleep instead of going into the mass vaults provided by the government.
Carmody investigated his three-room suite. The beds were carved out from the wall blocks, and the tables were fashioned from granite projections of the floor blocks.
“They don’t build like this any more,” Tand said with a shade of sadness. He poured out some thick dark-red wine into two multi-faceted cups of white-and-red veined wood. The wine descended slowly as if it were molten granite itself. “To your health, John.”
“To yours. And to good men and women everywhere, whatever their form, and to the redemption of the lost, and God bless the children.”
He drank and found the liquor was not sweet, as he had expected. It was very close to being bitter. Somehow, it did not become so. Instead, the tang became very pleasurable, and a glow spread through him and then, seemingly, out from him. The duskiness of the room became golden.
Tand offered him another cup. Carmody refused with thanks. “I want to see Yess. How soon before I can?”
Tand smiled. “You haven’t changed your impetuousness. Yess is just as eager to see you as you are to see him. But he has many duties; being a god doesn’t exempt him from the labors of a mortal. I’ll go see him—his secretary, rather—and make an appointment.”
“Whenever he wants,” Carmody said. He chuckled. “Although it doesn’t show much filial piety for a son to keep his long-absent Father waiting.”
“You are thrice welcome, John. However, your presence is a little embarrassing—or could be. You see the populace knows of you but not much about you. Very few have heard about your not being a worshiper of Boonta. When this becomes general knowledge, it could create much doubt and confusion in the simple-minded. Even in the more sophisticated. How could a Father not be one of Boonta’s faithful?”
“My own Church has asked me that. And I do not know. I’ve seen dozens of so-called miracles here, enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. Surely enough to convince the hardest-headed materialist. But I had no desire to convert.
“As a matter of fact, though I was not an atheist when I left Kareen for Earth, I had no inclination for any particular religion. While I was in Hopkins, I had a very strange—and essentially inexplicable—experience. It was this that led me into the Church. But I forgot. I wrote you about that.”
Tand rose from his chair and said, “I’m off to see Yess. I’ll phone you later.”
He kissed the priest and left.
Carmody unpacked and then bathed in a tub the interior of which had been worn deep by friction from five millenia of running water and sliding flesh. He had no sooner dressed than the huge iron knocker on the door clanged. He freed the bolt and began to open the door, pushing on one side to let it swing outward. Though massive, the door was perfectly balanced and revolved as lightly as a ballerina on tiptoes.
Carmody stepped back and raised his hand to stop the inward-swinging half. At the same time, the Kareenan male in the hallway dipped his hand into his open beltbag. Carmody did not wait. Old reflexes took over. He jumped forward, hurled himself against the side of the door moving out into the hall. The Kareenan, drawing the automatic from the bag, had started to enter on the inward-swinging side. Apparently, he had intended to run in and shoot Carmody. He must have hoped to be concealed long enough by the door to confuse his victim.
Instead, the other side of the door was impelled by Carmody’s shoulder driving against it. The entire assembly swung around much more swiftly than the assassin had planned. And the right-hand side came around and caught him as he recovered and turned. The weight sent him staggering backward. Carmody saw his look of surprise before the door, making a complete rotation, lost its momentum and closed the entrance again.
Then, the door swung out again as the Kareenan inside the room lunged at it, probably in a fury or panic to get to his man before he ran down the hallway. Carmody knew he could not run fast enough to reach the distant corner before the Kareenan got out. The hall was deserted, and there were no other doors open for him to take refuge behind.
He leaped in after the in-swinging section of the door. He heard a yelp of surprise and rage. Swiftly, Carmody stopped the door and shot the bolt. He was safe, for the moment, anyway. He ran to the phone and called the desk clerk. Within a minute, the hotel police were outside his door. The assassin, of course, was gone.
Carmody answered questions of the police, and, a little later, of the city police. No, he did not know the Kareenan. Yes, he had been threatened by a man named Fratt. Carmody described the letter from him and said that Tand had already promised to take care of the matter.
The police left, but two guards were posted outside the door. It was unthinkable that a Father should be exposed to attack, now it was known his life was in danger. Carmody did not care for the guards because they would hamper his movements. However, he did not think he would have much trouble in losing them.
While he calmed his nerves with another cup of wine, he puzzled. Had the Kareenan been hired by Fratt? It did not seem very likely. Fratt would want a personal revenge; his own hand would have to inflict whatever torture of death he was planning.
He wondered about Lieftin. If the man was not what he seemed to be, if his diaconus speech and appearance were a disguise, if he were the assassin hired by the Earth fanatics, he might want to kidnap Carmody. He might hope to get some information from Carmody about Yess.
Carmody finished the wine and began pacing back and forth. He was not able to leave his room because he did not want to miss a call from Tand, but it made him nervous to wait.
His phone rang. He passed his hand over the screen, and it came alive. Abog, secretary to the world government head, looked out at him.
“I’m a little early, Father. But I’m very eager to talk to you. May I come up?”
Carmody consented. A few minutes later, the knocker clanged. Carmody opened the door a trifle and peeked out. The guards must have been impressed by Abog’s splendid clothes and his credentials, for they were rigid with attention.
The secretary entered, and, immediately thereafter, the phone rang again. This time, an Earthman’s face was on the screen.
“Job Gilson,” he said in English. “ETS. I was told you wanted to see me.”