“Help me load my gear,” Joan answered it.
Swiftly—astonishingly so—the ionocraft shot a manual extensor through the open window, grappled the recording gear, transferred the units to its storage compartment. Joan Hiashi then boarded it.
As she made her exit the door to the hotel room opened. A thick-necked, paunchy, middle-aged man, smoking a yellowish cigar, appeared. And said, “I’m Gus Swenesgard; I’m the owner of this plantation and I own this hotel and this room says you’re trying to escape without paying.” His tone was neutral, as if it neither angered nor surprised him.
“You will notice,” Joan said wearily, “that I am leaving behind all my clothes except for what I have on. I’m here on a business trip; I’ll be back in a day or so.” It astonished her that a Burger, the feudal baron of the whole plantation area which included this town of Swenesgard, would take a personal interest in such a small matter.
As if reading her mind—and perhaps he was; perhaps Gus Swenesgard was a telepath trained by the Bureau of Psychedelic Research—the sweat-stained, big-footed Burger said, “I keep tabs on everything, Miss Hiashi. Like, I mean, you’re the only important, famous-type guest the Olympus Arms has had in months, and you’re not creeping out like a—” He gestured with the cigar. “A worm. On your belly, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Pretty small plantation you’ve got here,” Joan observed, “if you can afford to do that.” She got out a handful of UN bills. “If it distresses your neurotic mind I’ll pay in advance. For six days. I’m surprised they didn’t ask for it at the desk when I registered.”
“Aw,” Gus Swenesgard said, accepting the bills and counting them, “we trust you.”
“I can see that.” She wanted to get on her way; what did this old idiot have in mind, really?
“Come on, miss. We know you’re a Neeg-lover.” The man reached out and gave her an overly familiar pat on the head. “We’ve watched your shows, my family and me. Always a lot of Neegs on it, aren’t there? Even my six-year-old, Eddie; he said it. That lady’s a ‘Neeg-lover.’ I’ll just bet you’re on your way up to the hills to visit Percy X. Isn’t that right, miss?”
After a pause Joan said, “Yes.”
“Now I’ll tell you what.” Gus Swenesgard pocketed the bills; they bulged, wadded-up, in his uncreased trousers’ pocket. The pants had to be at least ten years old; nobody made clothes with pockets in them anymore. “You may be aNeeg-lover but that don’t mean they feel the same about you. Those ’parts, they’re insane. Like African savages. They’ll mutilate you.” He nodded his red, near-bald head emphatically, with great earnestness. “Up in the North you don’t realize that; all your Neegs have missed.”
“ ‘Missed’?” She did not know the term; it was obviously one of local use, and pejorative.
“Miscegenated. You know; mixed their blood in with you whites so you’re all contaminated. But down here it’s different; we know how to treat our Toms; we know where they belong.”
“For their own good?” Joan said caustically.
“They’re happy. They got security. They don’t have to worry about being commandeered for Gany work camps.”
Uneasily, Joan said, “I didn’t know that the conquerors had work camps.”
“They didn’t take over this planet for nothing, miss. They haven’t begun to requisition labor crews yet. But they will. They’ll take ’em back to Ganymede and make them into what they call ‘creeches.’ I got inside dope on it. But we mean to protect our Toms; they’ve worked for us good and we owe that to them.” Gus Swenesgard’s voice was unwavering, tough with harshness.
“It’s pointless, Mister Swenesgard,” came a soft but professionally commanding voice form behind the two of them. Gus turned rapidly, startled, to face the newcomer. So did Joan.
“What . ?” began Gus.
“She has her mind made up,” the stranger continued quietly. “If you are really so interested in Miss Hiashi’s welfare, it seems to me that the only thing you can do is offer to go along with her. To protect her.”
“I don’t know who you are or think you are,” Gus said emphatically, “but you, mister, are out of your mind.”
“My name is Paul Rivers.” He extended his hand and Gus, with reluctance, shook it. “I sense you’re afraid, sir.”
“Any man with an ounce of intelligence would be,” Gus snapped. “Those Neegs—”
“The Greeks believed, in their more philosophical [moments,” Paul Rivers said, “that there was only lone blessing greater than a short life, and that was never to have been born at all. In times like these, one can see a great deal of wisdom in this.”
“If you’re so damn philosophical,” Gus said angrily, “you go with her.”
Turning to Joan, Paul Rivers said, “If you’ll allow me.”
Joan looked at him and felt suspicion. Lean, probably in his late thirties, with touches of gray in his close-cropped, well-groomed black hair, he seemed so calm, so self-confident; he seemed, in fact, perfectly sincere, and yet it struck her as incredible that someone would put his life in jeopardy for nothing, no matter how philosophical he might be. Still—
“All right,” Joan decided. “If you’re nutty enough to come I’m nutty enough to let you.” No use questioning him, she thought. He could probably lie himself blue and I’d never know it.
“If you’ll wait a moment,” Paul Rivers said, moving toward the door, “I’ll go to my room and get a needle gun.” He departed.
And the moment he left the room she changed her mind—violently. The air of confidence which Rivers possessed could come from only one thing. Obviously, he never expected to arrive at the point, the place, where danger would threaten him. She thought, Rivers must be someone hired to stop me from reaching Percy. Perhaps to kill me.
“Can I leave now?” she asked Gus. “My taxi says its meter is on.” Without waiting for an answer she crossed lightly through the open window and into the ionocraft.
4 That Percy X,” Gus Swenesgard called after her, “is a psychopath, descended from psychopaths, back to the first Black Muslims. You think to him you’re going to be cute little Joan Hiashi, the TV darling? You’ll be” —he followed to the window, gesturing with his cigar agitatedly <as the taxi door shut— “one of those whites who lynched civil rights demonstrators back in 1966. You weren’t even born then, but what’s that matter to a fanatic like Percy X? I ask you; what’s that mean to him—and how many yards of video tape you think you’re going to groove before he—”
As the taxi door shut Joan shouted, “Percy X and I went to college together. Comparative Religion One and Two at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. We intended to be preachers, Mister Swenesgard. Isn’t that crazy?” She gave the pedal signal to the cab and it uncoupled from the window.
Joan could not hear what Gus shouted after her in answer to that. The whoosh of the ionocraft climbing swiftly toward the sun drowned it out. Strange, she thought, that Percy and I are going to meet again under such changed conditions. I’ve been studying Buddhism and he the religion of Mohammedy but somehow, during all the excitement, we have both gotten a long way from where we had intended to go.
“He doesn’t want you to go,” the cab said sourly. “But I don’t care. If he revokes my license I’ll just switch over to another plantation. Like Chuck Pepitone’s. It’s big there; I’ll bet I’d do six times the business.”
“Business is business,” Joan said, and settled back against the sagging imitation sea otter pelt seat.
“I’ll say one thing for him,” the cab said. “He does take an interest in what’s going on around him. Most of the Burgers are too loftly to do anything but sip bourbon sours and ride horses. Gus, though; he takes the trouble to get me vital parts, hard to get parts. I’m sort of out of date, you know, and parts for me aren’t easy to come by. And I always felt he sort of liked me.”