I only smiled.
The afternoon also was splendidly hot, especially as Senator Schnell kept coming beside me and the bulbs flashed. It was excellent, excellent
Q. (Mr, Hagsworth.) Mr. Smith, this morning you told us that a foreign power was in contact with a race of beings living on a planet of the star Aldebaran, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you describe that race for us? I mean the ones you have referred to as ‘Aldebaranians’?
A. Certainly, although their own name for themselves is - is a word in their language which you might here render as Triops’. They average about eleven inches tall. They have two legs, like you. They have three eyes and they live in crystal cities under the water, although they are air-breathers.
Q. Why is that, Mr. Smith?
A. The surface of their planet is ravaged by enormous beasts against which they are defenceless.
Q. But they have powerful weapons ?
A. Oh, very powerful, Mr. Hagsworth.
And then it was time for me to take it out and show it to them, the Aldebaranian hand-weapon. It was small and soft and I must fire it with a bent pin, but it made a hole through three floors and the cement of the basement, and they were very interested. Oh, yes!
So I talked all that afternoon about the Aldebaranians, though what did they matter? Mr. Hagsworth did not ask me about other races, on which I could have said something of greater interest. Afterwards we went to my suite at the Mayflower Hotel and Mr. Hagsworth said with admiration: ‘You handled yourself beautifully, Mr. Smith. When this is over I wonder if you would consider some sort of post here in Washington.’
‘When this is over?’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ve been around for some years, Mr. Smith. I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go. Every newspaper in the country is full of Aldebaranians tonight, but next year? They’ll be shouting about something new.’
‘They will not,’ I said surely.
He shrugged. ‘As you say,’ he said agreeably, ‘at any rate it’s a great sensation now. Senator Schnell is tasting the headlines. He’s up for re-election next year you know and just between the two of us, he was afraid he might be defeated.’
‘Impossible, Mr. Hagsworth,’ I said out of certain knowledge, but could not convey this to him. He thought I was only being polite. It did not matter.
‘He’ll be gratified to hear that,’ said Mr. Hagsworth and he stood up and winked: he was a great human for winking. ‘But think about what I said about a job, Mr. Smith.... Or would you care to tell me your real name?’
Why not? Sporting! ‘Plinglot,’ I said.
He said with a puzzled face, ‘Plinglot? Plinglot? That’s an odd name.’ I didn’t say anything, why should I? ‘But you’re an odd man,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t mind telling you that there are a lot of questions I’d like to ask. For instance, the file folder of correspondence between you and Senator Heffernan. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how come no employee of the committee remembers anything about it, although the folder turned up in our files just as you said?’
Senator Heffernan was dead, that was why the correspondence had been with him. But I know tricks for awkward questions, you give only another question instead of answer. ‘Don’t you trust me, Mr. Hagsworth?’
He looked at me queerly and left without speaking. No matter. It was time, I had very much to do. ‘No calls,’ I told the switchboard person, ‘and no visitors, I must rest.’ Also there would be a guard Hagsworth had promised. I wondered if he would have made the same arrangement if I had not requested it, but that also did not matter.
I sat quickly in what looked, for usual purposes, like a large armchair, purple embroidery on the headrest. It was my spaceship, with cosmetic upholstery. Zz-z-z-zit, quick like that, that’s all there was to it and I was there.
2
Old days I could not have timed it so well, for the old one slept all the day, and worked, drinking, all the night. But now they kept capitalist hours.
‘Good morning, gospodin,’ cried the man in the black tunic, leaping up alertly as I opened the tall double doors. ‘I trust you slept well.’
I had changed quickly into pyjamas and a bathrobe. Stretching, yawning, I grumbled in flawless Russian in a sleepy way: ‘All right, all right. What time is it?’
‘Eight in the morning, Gospodin Arakelian. I shall order your breakfast’
‘Have we time?’
‘There is time, gospodin, especially as you have already shaved.’
I looked at him with more care, but he had a broad open Russian face, there was no trickery on it or suspicion. I drank some tea and changed into street clothing again, a smaller size as I was now smaller. The Hotel Metropole doorman was holding open the door of the black Zis, and we bumped over cobblestones to the white marble building with no name. Here in Moscow it was also hot, though only early morning.
This morning their expressions were all different in the dim, cool room. Worried. There were three of them:
Blue eyes; Kvetchnikov, the tall one, with eyes so very blue; he looked at the wall and the ceiling, but not at me and, though sometimes he smiled, there was nothing behind it.
Red beard - Muzhnets. He tapped with a pencil softly, on thin sheets of paper.
And the old one. He sat like a squat, fat Buddha. His name was Tadjensevitch.
Yesterday they were reserved and suspicious, but they could not help themselves, they would have to do whatever I asked. There was no choice for them; they reported to the chief himself and how could they let such a thing as I had told them go untaken? No, they must swallow bait But today there was worry on their faces.
The worry was not about me; they knew me. Or so they thought. ‘Hello, hello, Arakelian,’ said Blue Eyes to me, though his gaze examined the rug in front of my chair. ‘Have you more to tell us today?’
I asked without alarm: ‘What more could I have?’
‘Oh,’ said Blue-Eyed Kvetchnikov, looking at the old man, ‘perhaps you can explain what happened in Washington last night.’
‘In Washington?’
‘In Washington, yes. A man appeared before one of the committees of their Senate. He spoke of the Aldebaratniki, and he spoke also of the Soviet Union. Arakelian, then, tell us how this is possible.’
The old man whispered softly: ‘Show him the dispatch.’
Red Beard jumped. He stopped tapping on the thin paper and handed it to me. ‘Read!’ he ordered in a voice of danger, though I was not afraid. I read. It was a diplomatic telegram, from their embassy in Washington, and what it said was what every newspaper said - it was no diplomatic secret, it was headlines. One Robert P. Smith, a fictitious name, real identity unknown, had appeared before the Schnell Committee. He had told them of Soviet penetration of the stars. Considering limitations, excellent, it was an admirably accurate account.
I creased the paper and handed it back to Muzhnets. ‘I have read it.’
Old One: ‘You have nothing to say?’
‘Only this.’ I leaped up on two legs and pointed at him. ‘I did not think you would bungle this! How dared you allow this information to become public?’
‘How-’
‘How did that weapon get out of your country?’
‘Weap-’
‘Is this Soviet efficiency?’ I cried loudly. ‘Is it proletarian discipline?’
Red-Beard Muzhnets intervened. ‘Softly, comrade,’ he cried. ‘Please! We must not lose tempers!’