So I thanked him most sincerely and hugged him. Then he said, "Sis, how old would you say Girdle is?"
I began to understand his off-the-curve behavior. "I
really couldn't guess," I answered carefully. (Didn't need to guess, I knew.) "Why don't yau ask her?"
"I did. She just smiled at me and said that women don't have birthdays."
"Probably an Earth custom," I told him and let it go at that. "Clark, how in the world did you win so much money?"
"Nothing to it," he said. "All those games, somebody wins, somebody loses. I just make sure I'm one who wins."
"But how?"
He just grinned his worst grin.
"How much money did you start with?"
He suddenly looked guarded. But he was still amazingly mellow, for Clark, so I pushed ahead. I said, "Look, if I know you, you can't get all your fun out of it unless somebody knows, and you're safer telling me than anyone else. Because I've never told on you yet. Now have I?"
He admitted that this was true by not answering- and it is true. When he was small enough, I used to clip him one occasionally. But I never tattled on him. Lately clipping him has become entirely too dangerous; he can give me a fat lip quicker than I can give him one. But I've never tattled on him. "Loosen up," I urged him. "I'm the only one you dare boast to. How much were you paid to sneak those three kilos into the Tricorn in my baggage?"
He looked very smug. "Enough."
"Okay. I won't pry any further about that. But what was it you smuggled? You've had me utterly baffled."
"You would have found it if you hadn't been so silly anxious to explore the ship. Poddy, you're stupid. You know that, don't you? You're as predictable as the law of gravity. I can always outguess you."
I didn't get mad. If Clark gets you sore, he's got you.
"Guess maybe," I admitted. "Are you ~oing to tell me what it was? Not happy dust, I hope?'
"Oh, no!" he said and looked shocked. "You know what they do to you for happy dust around here? They turn you over to natives who are hopped up with it, that's what they do-and then they don't even have to bother to cremate you."
I shuddered and returned to the subject. "Going to tell me?"
"Mmm . .
"I swear by Saint Podkayne Not to Tell." This is my own private oath, nobody else would or could use it.
"By Saint Podkayne!" (And I should have kept my lip zipped.)
"Okay," he said. "But you swore it. A bomb."
"A what?"
"Oh, not much of a bomb. Just a little squeezer job. Total destruction not more than a kilometer. Nothing much."
I reswallowed my heart. "Why a bomb? And what did you do with it?"
He shrugged. "They were stupid. They paid me this silly amount, see? Just to sneak this little package aboard. Gave me a lot of north wind about how it was meant to be a surprise for the Captain-and that I should give it to him at the Captain's party, last night out. Gift wrapped and everything. 'Sonny,' this silly zero says to me, 'just keep it out of sight and let him be surprised-because last night out is not only the Captain's party, it's his birthday.'
"Now, Sis, you know I wouldn't swallow anything like that. If it had really been a birthday present they would just have given it to the Purser to hold-no need to bribe me. So I just played stupid and kept jacking up the price. And the idiots paid me. They got real jumpy when time came to shove us through passport clearance and paid all I asked. So I shoved it into
your bag while you were yakking to Uncle Tom-then saw to it you didn't get inspected.
"Then the minute we were aboard I went to get it-and got held up by a stewardess spraying your cabin and had to do a fast job and go back to relock your bag because Uncle Tom came back in looking for his pipe. That first night I opened the thing in the dark-and opened it from the bottom; I already had a hunch what it might be."
"Why?"
"Sis, use your brain. Don't just sit there and let it rust out. First they offer me what they probably figured was big money to a kid. When I turn it down, they start to sweat and up the ante. I kept crowding it and the money got important. And more important. They don't even give me a tale about how a man with a flower in his lapel will come aboard at Venus and give me a password. It has to be that they don't care what happens to it as long as it gets .into the ship. What does that add up to? Logic."
He added, "So I opened it and took it apart. Time bomb. Set for three days after we space. Blooey!"
I shivered, thinking about it.
"What a horrible thing to do!"
"It could have turned out pretty dry," he admitted, "if I had been as stupid as they thought I was."
"But why would anybody want to do such a thing?"
"Didn't want the ship to get to Venus."
"But why?"
"You figure it out. I have."
"Uh ... what did you do with it?"
"Oh, I saved it. The essential pieces. Never know when you might need a bomb."
And that's all I got out of him-and here I am stuck with a Saint Podkayne oath. And nineteen questions left unanswered. Was there really a bomb? Or was I swindled by my brother's talent for improvising
explanations that throw one off the obvious track? If there was where is it? Still in the Tricorn? Right here in this suite? In an innocent-looking package in the safe of the Tannhäuser? Or parked with his private bodyguard, Josie? Or a thousand other places in this big city? Or is it still more likely that I simply made a mistake of three kilograms in my excitement and that Clark was snooping just to be snooping? (Which he will always do if not busy otherwise.)
No way to tell. So I decided to squeeze what else I could from this Moment of Truth-if it was one. "I'm awful glad you found it," I said. "But the slickest thing you ever dld was that dye job on Mrs. Garcia and Mrs. Royer. Girdle admires it, too."
"She does?" he said eagerly.
"She certainly does. But I never let on you did it. So you can still tell her yourself, if you want to."
"Mmm .. ." He looked quite happy. "I gave Old Lady Royer a little extra, just for luck. Put a mouse in her bed."
"Clark! Oh, wonderful! But where did you get a mouse?"
"Made a deal with the ship's cat."
I wish II had a nice, normal, slightly stupid family. It would be a lot more comfortable. Still, Clark has
his points. -
But I haven't had too much time to worry about my brother's High Crimes and Misdemeanors; Venusberg offers too much to divert the adolescent female with a hitherto unsuspected taste for high living. Especially Dexter- I am no longer a leper; I can now go anywhere,
even outside the city, without wearing a filter snout that makes me look like a blue-eyed pig-and dashing, darling Dexter has been most flatteringly eager to escort me everywhere. Even shopping. Using both hands a girl could spend a national debt there on
clothes alone. But I am being (almost) sensible and spending only that portion of my cash assets earmarked for Venus. If I were not firm with him, Dexter would buy me anything I admire, just by lifting his finger. (He never carries any money, not even a credit card, and even his tipping is done by some unobvious credit system.) But I haven't let him buy me anything more important than a fancy ice cream sundae; I have no intention of jeopardizing my amateur status for some pretty clothes. But I don't feel too compromised over ice cream and fortunately I do not as yet have to worry about my waistline-I'm hollow clear to my ankles.