“It’s ready. I’ll send it down as soon as it gets good and dark. In the meantime, how about Brother Rat? Have you anyone watching him?”
“No, I didn’t think it was necessary. But it might be, at that. From up there, would you say?”
“Definitely. And Shiro and Lotus haven’t much to do at the moment. I’ll make arrangements.”
“Do that, guy, and so long ’till dark.”
“Just a sec, Dick,” Dorothy said then. “I’m not done with you yet. You remembered the no-neighbors bit, I think?”
“I sure did, Honey-Chile. No neighbors within half a mile, So, any dark of the moon, slip down here in one of the fifteen-footers and all will be well.”
“You big, nice man,” Dorothy purred. “Comes dark, comes me! an’ you can lay to that.”
Countless parsecs away, DuQuesne made proper entry into the Solar System, put his Capital D into a parking orbit around Earth, and began to pick up his tremendous order of machine tools and supplies. It went well; Brookings had done his job. There was, however, one job DuQuesne had to do for himself. During the loading, accordingly, he went in person to Washington, D.C., to the Rare Metals Laboratory, and to Room 1631.
That room’s door was open. He tapped lightly on it as he entered the room. He closed the door gently behind him.
“Park it,” a well-remembered contralto voice said. “Be with you in a moment.”
“No rush.” DuQuesne sat down, crossed his legs, lighted a cigarette, and gazed at the woman seated at her electronics panel. Both her eyes were buried in the light-shield of a binocular eyepiece; both her hands were manipulating vernier knobs in tiny arcs.
“Oh! Hi, Blackie! Be with you in half a moment.”
“No sweat, Hunkie. Finish your obs.”
“Natch.” Her attention had not wavered for an instant from her instruments; it did not waver then.
In a minute or so she pressed a button, her panel went dark, and she rose to her feet.
“It’s been a long time, Blackie,” she said, stepping toward him and extending her hand.
“It has indeed.” He took her hand and began an encircling action with his left — a maneuver which she countered, neatly but still smilingly, by grasping his left hand and holding it firmly.
“Tsk, tsk,” she tsked. “The merchandise is on display, Blackie, but it is not to be handled. Remember?”
“I remember. Still untouchable,” he said.
“That’s right. You’re a hard-nosed, possessive brute, Blackie — any man to interest me very much would have to be, I suppose — but no man born is ever going to tell me what I can or can’t do. Selah. But let’s skip that.” She released his hands, waved him to a chair, sat down, crossed her legs, accepted the lighted cigarette he handed her, and went on, “Thanks. The gossip was that you were all washed up and had, as Ferdy put it, “taken it on the lam.” I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. I’ve been wanting to tell you; you’re a good enough man so that whatever you’re really after, you’ll get.”
This woman could reach DuQuesne as no other woman ever had. “Thanks, Hunkie,” he said; and, reaching out, he pressed her right hand hard then dropped it. “What I came up here for — have you a date for Thursday evening that you can’t or won’t break?”
Her smile widened; her two lovely dimples deepened. “Don’t tell me; let me guess. Louisa Vinciughi in Lucia.”
“Nothing else but. You like?”
“I love. With the usual stipulation — we ‘Dutch’ it.”
“Listen, Hunkie!” he protested. “Aren’t you ever going to get off of that ‘Dutch’ thing? Don’t you think a man can take a girl out without having monkey-business primarily in mind?”
She considered the question thoughtfully, then nodded.
“As stated, yes. Eliding the one word ‘primarily’, no. I’ve heard you called a lot of things, my friend, but ‘stupid’ was never one of them. Not even once.”
“I know.” DuQuesne smiled, a trifle wryly. “You are not going to be obligated by any jot or iota or tittle to any man living or yet to be born.”
Her head went up a little and her smile became a little less warm. “That’s precisely right, Marc. But I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I enjoy your company a lot. So, on that basis, okay and thanks.”
“On that basis, then, if that’s the way it has to be, and thanks to you, too,” DuQuesne said, and took his leave.
And Thursday evening came; and all during that long and thoroughly pleasant evening the man was, to the girl’s highly sensitive perception… well, different, although very subtly so. He was not quite, by some very small fraction, his usual completely poised and urbane self. Even Vinciughi’s wonderful soprano voice did not bring him entirely back from wherever it was he was. Wherefore, just before saying goodnight at the door of her apartment, she said:
“You have something big on your mind, Blackie. Tremendously big. Would it help to come in and talk a while?” This was the first time in all their long acquaintance that she had ever invited him into her apartment. “Or — wouldn’t it?”
He thought for a moment. “No,” he decided. “There are so many maybes and it’s and buts in the way that talking would be even more futile than thinking. But I’d like to ask you this: how much longer will you be here in Washington, do you think?”
She caught her breath. “The Observer says it’ll take me a year and a half to get what I should have.”
“That’s fine,” DuQuesne said. His thoughts were racing, but none of them showed.
What were those observers doing? And why? He knew the kind of mind Stephanie de Marigny had — they were feeding with a teaspoon a mind fully capable of gulping it down by the truckload… why? Why? So as not to play favorites, probably — that was the only reason he could think of. DuQuesne was playing for very high stakes; he could not afford to overlook any possibility, however remote. Had his interest in Hunkie de Marigny been deduced by the Norlaminians? Was it, in fact, possible — even likely — that he was under observation even now? Was their strange slowdown in her training meaningful? He could not answer; but he decided on caution. He went on with scarcely a noticeable pause, “I’ll see you well before that — if I may?”
“Why, of course you may! I’d get an acute attack of the high dudgeons if you ever came to Washington without seeing me!”
He took his leave then, and she went into her apartment and closed the door… and stood there, motionless, listening to his receding footsteps with a far-away, brooding look in her deep brown eyes.
19. THE COUP
As the days had passed, more and more of the Skylarkers had come to ground in Seaton’s temporary home on the planet Ray-See-Nee; until many of them, especially Dorothy, were spending most of their nights there. On this particular evening they were all there.
Since the personal gravity-controls had been perfected long since, Dunark and Sitar were comfortable enough as far as gravity was concerned. The engineers, however, had not yet succeeded in incorporating really good ambient atmosphere temperature-controllers into them; wherefore he was swathed in wool and she wore her fabulous mink coat. They each wore two Osnomian machine pistols instead of one, and they sat a couple of feet apart — in instant readiness for any action that might become necessary.
Lotus and Shiro, a little closer together than the two Osnomians but not enough so to get into each other’s way, sat cross-legged on the floor. He was listening intently, while she wasn’t. Almost everything that was being said was going completely over her head.