"But we can't have everything depend on an insane child."
She's not insane, and we have no choice. She need not have written the letter, but she did it to keep us from going to the police after a lost child. Her letter suggests that we convert the entire matter into a friendly offer on the part of Munn to take an old friend's daughter off for a short vacation. And why not? He's been my friend for nearly twenty years. He's known her since she was three, when I brought her back from Trantor. It's a perfectIy natural thing, and, in fact, ought to decrease suspicion. A spy does not carry a fourteen-year-old niece about with him."
"So. And what will Munn do when he finds her?"
Dr. Darell heaved his eyebrows once. "I can't say - but I presume she’ll handle him."
But the house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter's mad little life was in danger.
The excitement on the Unimara, if involving fewer people, was considerably more intense.
***
In the luggage compartment, Arcadia found herself, in the first place, aided by experience, and in the second, hampered by the reverse.
Thus, she met the initial acceleration with equanimity and the more subtle nausea that accompanied the inside-outness of the first jump through hyperspace with stoicism. Both had been experienced on space hops before, and she was tensed for them. She knew also that luggage compartments were included in the ship's ventilation-system and that they could even be bathed in wall-light. This last, however, she excluded as being too unconscionably unromantic. She remained in the dark, as a conspirator should, breathing very softly, and listening to the little miscellany of noises that surrounded Homir Munn.
They were undistinguished noises, the kind made by a man alone. The shuffling of shoes, the rustle of fabric against metal, the soughing of an upholstered chair seat retreating under weight, the sharp click of a control unit, or the soft slap of a palm over a photoelectric cell.
Yet, eventually, it was the lack of experience that caught up with Arcadia. In the book films and on the videos, the stowaway seemed to have such an infinite capacity for obscurity. Of course, there was always the danger of dislodging something which would fall with a crash, or of sneezing - in videos you were almost sure to sneeze; it was an accepted matter. She knew all this, and was careful. There was also the realization that thirst and hunger might be encountered. For this, she was prepared with ration cans out of the pantry. But yet things remained that the films never mentioned, and it dawned upon Arcadia with a shock that, despite the best intentions in the world, she could stay hidden in the closet for only a limited time.
And on a one-man sports-cruiser, such as the Unimara, living space consisted, essentially, of a single room, so that there wasn't even the risky possibility of sneaking out of the compartment while Munn was engaged elsewhere.
She waited frantically for the sounds of sleep to arise. If only she knew whether he snored. At least she knew where the bunk was and she could recognize the rolling protest of one when she heard it. There was a long breath and then a yawn. She waited through a gathering silence, punctuated by the bunk's soft protest against a changed position or a shifted leg.
The door of the luggage compartment opened easily at the pressure of her finger, and her craning neck-
There was a definite human sound that broke off sharply.
Arcadia solidified. Silence! Still silence!
She tried to poke her eyes outside the door without moving her head and failed. The head followed the eyes.
Homir Munn was awake, of course - reading in bed, bathed in the soft, unspreading bed light, staring into the darkness with wide eyes, and groping one hand stealthily under the pillow.
Arcadia's head moved sharply back of itself. Then, the light went out entirely and Munn's voice said with shaky sharpness, "I've got a blaster, and I'm shooting, by the Galaxy-"
And Arcadia wailed, "It's only me. Don't shoot."
Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing.
The light was back on - all over the ship - and Munn was sitting up in bed. The somewhat grizzled hair on his thin chest and the sparse one-day growth on his chin lent him an entirely fallacious appearance of disreputability.
Arcadia stepped out, yanking at her metallene jacket which was supposed to be guaranteed wrinkleproof.
After a wild moment in which he almost jumped out of bed, but remembered, and instead yanked the sheet up to his shoulders, Munn gargled, "W… wha… what-"
He was completely incomprehensible.
Arcadia said meekly, "Would you excuse me for a minute? I've got to wash my hands." She knew the geography of the vessel, and slipped away quickly. When she returned, with her courage oozing back, Homir Munn was standing before her with a faded bathrobe on the outside and a brilliant fury on the inside.
"What the black holes of Space are you d… doing aboard this ship? H… how did you get on here? What do you th… think I'm supposed to do with you? What's going on here?"
He might have asked questions indefinitely, but Arcadia interrupted sweetly, "I just wanted to come along, Uncle Homir."
"Why? I'm not going anywhere?"
"You're going to Kalgan for information about the Second Foundation."
And Munn let out a wild howl and collapsed completely. For one horrified moment, Arcadia thought he would have hysterics or beat his head against the wall. He was still holding the blaster and her stomach grew ice-cold as she watched it.
"Watch out - Take it easy -" was all she could think of to say.
But he struggled back to relative normality and threw the blaster on to the bunk with a force that should have set it off and blown a hole through the ship's hull.
"How did you get on?" he asked slowly, as though gripping each word with his teeth very carefully to prevent it from trembling before letting it out.
"It was easy. I just came into the hangar with my suitcase, and said, 'Mr. Munn's baggage!' and the man in charge just waved his thumb without even looking up."
"I'll have to take you back, you know," said Homir, and there was a sudden wild glee within him at the thought. By Space, this wasn't his fault.
"You can't," said Arcadia, calmly, "it would attract attention."
"What?"
"You know. The whole purpose of your going to Kalgan was because it was natural for you to go and ask for permission to look into the Mule's records. And you've got to be so natural that you're to attract no attention at all. If you go back with a girl stowaway, it might even get into the tele-news reports."
"Where did you g… get those notions about Kalgan? These… uh… childish-" He was far too flippant for conviction, of course, even to one who knew less than did Arcadia.
"I heard," she couldn't avoid pride completely, "with a sound-recorder. I know all about it - so you've got to let me come along."
"What about your father?" He played a quick trump. "For all he knows, you're kidnapped… dead."
"I left a note," she said, overtrumping, "and he probably knows he mustn't make a fuss, or anything. You'll probably get a space-gram from him."
To Munn the only explanation was sorcery, because the receiving signal sounded wildly two seconds after she finished.