“For a meal, mostly,” the girl said. “You’ve had a hard pull and you can stand some relaxation. We can dance a little, after the drinks and food, if you feel like it.”
“And after the meal and the drinks and the dancing?” Mantell asked. “Won’t it be too early to call it an evening?”
“Well—we’ll see about that,” she said.
Mantell looked at her strangely. For just a moment he wished he were a telepath—just for that moment. He wanted to know what was going on behind those radiant eyes. He wanted to know where he stood with her. And how deeply—if at all—she was involved with Thur-dan.
But he wasn’t a telepath, and wishing wouldn’t make him one. However, maybe the meal and some wine would get him some information.
He extended his arm to her. She took it, laughing gaily, and suddenly all the long weary years of beachcombing on Mulciber dropped away from him. He was through scrabbling for meals and cadging drinks, through fishing around in the mud at low tide to find shells to peddle to over-bloated tourists. All those things were behind him now. He was on Starhaven, and there was a pretty girl clinging to his arm.
He could hold up his head again. After seven years, he was Somebody again.
Chapter V
A gleaming slidewalk took them up twenty feet to a handsome mezzanine where a bank of liftshafts stood waiting. Mantell let the girl enter a shaft first, and followed her in. She dialed for Level Nine.
“The ninth-level dining hall is the best one,” she explained. “Also the most expensive. Wait till you see it.”
They zipped upward, passing the seven intermediate floors in one long dizzying swoop, and the lift tube came to a halt. A sheet of blank metal faced them— shining, highly polished, mirror-reflective. Myra reached out a hand and touched her ornate signet ring to the surface of the barrier. The door crumpled inward instantly. They went in.
A bland robot waited just inside, a sleek little machine with a single staring wide-perspective eye set in the middle of its otherwise blank face. It came rolling up as if greeting an old friend and said to the girl, “Good evening, Miss Butler. Your usual table?”
“Of course. This is John Mantell, by the way. My escort for the evening.”
The robot’s photonic register focused on Mantell for a moment. He heard an instant humming sound and knew that he had been photographed and permanently pigeonholed for future reference.
“Come this way, please,” the robot invited.
The place was sheer luxury. Heavy red synthetic velvet draperies helped to muffle the sound. There were faint traces of aromatic scent in the air, and soft music from an invisible orchestra could be heard, all tingling violins and shimmering cellos. After his seven years on Mulciber, Mantell felt utterly out of place. But the robot glided along in front of them, leading them to their table, and Myra at his side moved with a gliding grace that seemed almost too perfect to be natural, yet had a life and a smoothness that no robot known could match.
They stopped at a freeform table set close against the curving silver wall. A little oval window, crystal-clear, looked out on the city below. It was a city of parks and greenish-blue lakes and soaring buildings. Ben Thur-dan had built an incredible fairy garden of a world here on Starhaven, Mantell thought.
And dedicated it to crime. Mantell scowled at that, until he reminded himself that he himself was nothing but a criminal, a—a killer, no matter what he remembered of the incident. He had no right to pass judgment on Ben Thurdan. He was here and safe, and he had to be grateful for that fact.
The robot drew out Myra’s chair, then his. He lowered himself to its plastic-covered seat. It clung to his body; sitting in the ingenious suspension-foam chair was like drifting in zero grav.
The violins in the background seemed to underscore the moment. Mantell sat quietly, looking at her. Those marvelous strange blue eyes held him—but that was far from all of her there was to see. It was impossible to fault Thurdan on his taste here. Myra was wide-shouldered, with flawless hps and a delicate thin-bridged nose. Her eyes flashed like gems when she spoke. Her voice was soft and well-modulated and just a httle on the throaty side.
Mantell said, “Tell me something—does every newcomer to Starhaven get this sort of treatment? Violins and fancy meals, and all?”
“No.”
The muscles around his jaws tightened. He sensed that he was being teased, and he didn’t care for it.
“Why am I being singled out, then? I’m sure Thurdan doesn’t send his—secretary out to dinner with every stray beachcomber who comes to Starhaven.”
“He doesn’t,” she said sharply. Changing the subject clearly and emphatically she asked, “What would you like to drink?”
Mantell considered for a moment and finally ordered a double kiraj; she had vraffa, very dry. The wine steward was a robot, too, who murmured obsequiously and vanished to return with their drinks in a few seconds, bowed, and scuttled away.
Mantell sipped thoughtfully. After a moment he said. “You changed the subject on me pretty quickly. You’re being mysterious, Miss Butler.”
“My name is Myra.”
“As you wish. But you changed the subject again. You’re still being mysterious.”
She laughed, reached across the table, took his hand. “Don’t ask too many questions too soon, Johnny. It’s a dangerous thing to do on Starhaven at any time—but don’t ask questions so soon. You’ll learn everything you want to know in time. Maybe.”
“Okay,” he said, shrugging.
He wasn’t that anxious to pry, after all. Seven years of roaming the bleak shore line on Mulciber had left him detached, indifferent about many things. He had become experienced in the art of drifting along passively on the tide of events, letting things happen as they wanted to happen.
This girl had taken some special interest in him, it seemed. He decided to accept that on face value, for the moment, and let the explanations go till later.
“Starhaven’s a little different from Mulciber, isn’t it?” she asked suddenly, breaking into his reverie.
“Very different,” he said.
“You spent seven years on Mulciber.”
“You saw my psychprobe charts, didn’t you? You don’t need to get a verbal verification from me.” He felt obscurely annoyed. They were fencing, dancing around a conversation rather than engaging in one. And it was very much like dancing at arm’s length. He felt uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to rake up old wounds. Ben built this place so people like you could come here . . . and forget. Mulciber’s nothing but a bad dream now, Johnny.”
“I wish it were. But I spent seven years begging for nickels there. I killed a man there. You don’t blot out a memory like that the way you do a bad dream.” He spoke toughly, and she reacted as if he had slapped her across the face. The liquor was getting to him too fast, he thought.
“Let’s forget it, shall we?” she said with forced light-heartedness. She lifted her glass. “Here’s to Ben Thur-dan and the world he built. Here’s to Starhaven!”
“Here’s to Starhaven,” Mantell echoed.
They drank, draining their glasses, and then they ordered another from the wine steward. Mantell’s head was beginning to swim a little, but it was a pleasant sensation. He was aware that somewhere during the third drink Myra ordered dinner, and not much later a couple of robots laden with trays came shuffling up and began to unload. Truffles, baked pheasant, white and red wines, Vengilani crabs on shell as a side dish. He stared at the array, aghast.
She said, “Is something the matter, Johnny? You don’t look so well.”
“This is a fifty-credit—fifty-chip dinner. That’s a little out of my orbit.”