He looked surprised. "So? Don't you like him? Or have we brought too much Norse blood into the family?"
"I like Dexter just fine and you're crazy with the smog if you think Svenska blood is any colder than Polynesian. I could go for Dexter in a big way-and that's why I haven't kissed him."
He considered this. "I think you're wise, hon. Better do your practice kisses on boys who don't tend to cause your gauges to swing over into the red. Anyhow, although he's a good lad, he's not nearly good enough for my savage niece."
"Maybe so, maybe not. Uncle ... what are you going to do about Clark?"
His halfway happy mood vanished. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
"But we've got to do something!"
"But what, Podkayne?"
There he had me. I had already chased it through all the upper and lower segments of my brain. Tell the police? Mr. Chairman is the police-they all work for him. Hire a private detective? If Venus has any (I don't know), then they all are under contract to Mr. Cunha, or rather, the Venus Corporation.
Run ads in newspapers? Question all the taxi drivers? Put Clark's picture in the sollies and offer rewards? It didn't matter what you thought of, everything on Venus belongs to Mr. Chairman. Or, rather, to the corporation he heads. Same thing, really,
although Uncle Tom tells me that the Cunhas actually own only a fraction of the, stock.
"Poddy, I've been over everything I could think of with Mr. Cunha-and he is either already doing it, or he has convinced me that there, under conditions he knows much better than I do, it should not be done."
"Then what do we do?"
"We wait. But if you think of anything-anything- that you think might help, tell me and if it isn't already being done, we'll call Mr. Cunha and find out if it should be done. If I'm asleep, wake me."
"I will." I doubted if he would be asleep. Or me. But something else had been bothering me. "If time comes for the Tricorn to shape for Earth-and Clark isn't back-what do you do then?"
He didn't answer; the lines in his face just got deeper. I knew what the Awful Decision was-and I knew how he had decided it.
But I had a little Awful Decision of my own to make
and I had talked to Saint Podkayne about it for quite a while and had decided that Poddy had to break a Saint-Podkayne oath. Maybe this sounds silly but it isn't silly to me. Never in my life had I broken one
and never in my life will I be utterly sure about Poddy again.
So I told Uncle all about the smuggled bomb.
Somewhat to my surprise he took it seriously-when I had about persuaded myself that Clark had been pulling my leg just for exercise. Smuggling-oh, sure, I understand that every ship in space has smuggling. But not a bomb. Just something valuable enough that it was worthwhile to bribe a boy to get it aboard
and probably Clark had been paid off again when he passed it along to a steward, or a cargo hand, or somebody. If I know Clark- But Uncle wanted me to describe exactly the person
I had seen talking to Clark at Deimos Station.
"Uncle, I can't! I barely glanced at him. A man. Not short, not tall, not especially fat or skinny, not dressed in any way that made me remember-and I'm not sure I looked at his face at all. Uh, yes, I did but I can't call up any picture of it."
"Could it have been one of the passengers?"
I thought hard about that. "No. Or I would have noticed his face later when it was still fresh in my mind. Mmm ... I'm almost certain he didn't queue up with us. I think he headed for the exit, the one that takes you back to the shuttle ship."
"That is likely," he agreed. "Certain-if it was a bomb. And not just a product of Clark's remarkable imagination."
"But, Uncle Tom, why would it be a bomb?"
And he didn't answer and I already knew why. Why would anybody blow up the Tricorn and kill everybody in her, babies and all? Not for insurance like you sometimes find in adventure stories; Lloyd's won't insure a ship for enough to show a profit on that sort of crazy stunt-or at least that's the way it was explained to me in my high school economics class.
Why, then?
To keep the ship from getting to Venus.
But the Tricorn had been to Venus tens and tens of times- To keep somebody in the ship from getting to Venus (or perhaps to Luna) that trip.
Who? Not Podkayne Fries. I wasn't important to anybody but me.
For the next couple of hours Uncle Tom and I searched that hilton suite. We didn't find anything, nor did I expect us to. If there was a bomb (which I still didn't fully believe) and if Clark had indeed brought it off the ship and hidden it there (which seemed unlikely with all of the Tricorn at one end and all of the city at the other end to choose from), nevertheless
he had had days and days in which to make it look like anything from a vase of flowers to a-a anything.
We searched Clark's room last on the theory that it was the least likely place. Or rather, we started to search it together and Uncle had to finish it. Pawin through Clark's things got to be too much for me an Uncle sent me back into the salon to lie down.
I was all cried out by the time he gave up; I even had a suggestion to make. "Maybe if we sent for a Geiger counter?"
Uncle shook his head and sat down. "We aren't looking for a bomb, honey."
"We aren't?"
"No. If we found it, it would simply confirm that Clark had told you the truth, and I'm already using that as least hypothesis. Because... well because I know more about this than the short outline I gave to you ... and I know just how deadly serious this is to some people, how far they might go. Politics is neither a game nor a bad joke the way some people think it is. War itself is merely an extension of politics ... so I don't find anything surprising about a bomb in politics; bombs have been used in politics hundreds and even thousands of times in the past. No, we aren't looking for a bomb, we are looking for a man-a man you saw for a few seconds once. And probably not even for that man but for somebody that man might lead us back to. Probably somebody inside the President's office, somebody he trusts."
"Oh, gosh, I wish I had really looked at him!"
"Don't fret about it, hon. You didn't know and there was no reason to look. But you can bet that Clark knows what he looks like. If Clark-I mean, when Clark comes back, in time we will have him search the ID. files at Marsopolis. And all the visa photographs for the past ten years, if necessary. The man will be found. And through him the person the President has
been trusting who should not to be trusted." Uncle Tom suddenly looked all Maori and very savage. "And when we do, I may take care of the matter personally. We'll see."
Then he smiled and added, "But right now Poddy is going to bed. You're up way past your bedtime, even with all the dancing and late-sleeping you've been doing lately."
"Uh ... what time is it in Marsopolis?"
He looked at his other watch. "Twenty-seventeen. You weren't thinking of phoning your parents? I hope not."
"Oh, no! I won't say a word to them unless-until Clark is back. And maybe not then. But if it's only twenty-seventeen, it's not late at all, real time, and I don't want to go to bed. Not until you do."
"I may not go to bed."
"I don't care. I want to sit with you."
He blinked at me, then said very gently, "All right, Poddy. Nobody ever grows up without spending at least one night of years."
We just sat then for quite a while, with nothing to say that had not already been said and would just hurt to say over again.