He broke off with, “I might as well make it brief. When I called the garrison, the commander just laughed and said that Jor would turn up. And I had barely disconnected when there was a money call from Jor. He’s on Mars.”
He waited for the shouts of amazement to die down. “It’ll take three weeks for him to come back by ship, and we’ve got to pay for it, and Fara Clark is responsible. He—”
The shock was over. Fara stood cold, his mind hard. He said finally, scathingly, “So you’re giving up and trying to blame me all in one breath. I say you’re all fools.”
As he turned away, he heard Mayor Dale saying something about the situation not being completely lost, as he had learned that the weapons shop had been set up in Glay because the village was equidistant from four cities, and that it was the city business the shop was after. This would mean tourists, and accessary trade for the village stores and—
Fara heard no more. Head high, he walked back toward his shop. There were one or two catcalls from the mob, but he ignored them.
He had no sense of approaching disaster, simply a gathering fury against the weapons shop, which had brought him to this miserable status among his neighbors.
The worst of it, as the days passed, was the realization that the people of the weapon shop had no personal interest in him. They were remote, superior, undefeatable. That unconquerableness was a dim, suppressed awareness inside Fara.
When he thought of it, he felt a vague fear at the way they had transferred Jor to Mars in a period of less than three hours, when all the world knew that the trip by fastest spaceship required nearly three weeks.
Fara did not go to the express station to see Jor arrive home. He had heard that the council had decided to charge Jor with half of the expense of the trip, on the threat of losing his job if he made a fuss.
On the second night after Jor’s return, Fara slipped down to the constable’s house, and handed the officer one hundred seventy-five credits. It wasn’t that he was responsible, he told Jor, but—
The man was only too eager to grant the disclaimer, provided the money went with it. Fara returned home with a clearer conscience.
It was on the third day after that the door of his shop banged open and a man came in. Fara frowned as he saw who it was: Castler, a village hanger-on. The man was grinning.
“Thought you might be interested, Fara. Somebody came out of the weapon shop today.”
Fara strained deliberately at the connecting bolt of a hard plate of the atomic motor he was fixing. He waited with a gathering annoyance that the man did not volunteer further information. Asking questions would be a form of recognition of the worthless fellow. A developing curiosity made him say finally, grudgingly, “I suppose the constable promptly picked him up.”
He supposed nothing of the kind, but it was an opening.
“It wasn’t a man. It was a girl.”
Fara knitted his brows. He didn’t like the idea of making trouble for women. But — the cunning devils! Using a girl, just as they had used an old man as a clerk. It was a trick that deserved to fail, the girl probably a tough one who needed rough treatment. Fara said harshly, “Well, what’s happened?”
“She’s still out, bold as you please. Pretty thing, too.”
The bolt off, Fara took the hard plate over to the polisher, and began patiently the long, careful task of smoothing away the crystals that heat had seared on the once shining metal. The soft throb of the polisher made the background to his next words:
“Has anything been done?”
“Nope. The constable’s been told, but he says he doesn’t fancy being away from his family for another three weeks, and paying the cost into the bargain.”
Fara contemplated that darkly for a minute, as the polisher throbbed on. His voice shook with suppressed fury, when he said finally, “So they’re letting them get away with it. It’s all been as clever as hell. Can’t they see that they mustn’t give an inch before these… these transgressors. It’s like giving countenance to sin.”
From the corner of his eye, he noticed that there was a curious grin on the face of the other. It struck Fara suddenly that the man was enjoying his anger. And there was something else in that grin; something — a secret knowledge.
Fara pulled the engine plate away from the polisher. He faced the ne’er-do-well, scathed at him, “Naturally, that sin part wouldn’t worry you much.”
“Oh,” said the man nonchalantly, “the hard knocks of life make people tolerant. For instance, after you know the girl better, you yourself will probably come to realize that there’s good in all of us.”
It was not so much the words, as the curious I’ve-got-secret-information tone that made Fara snap: “What do you mean — if I get to know the girl better! I won’t even speak to the brazen creature.”
“One can’t always choose,” the other said with enormous casualness. “Suppose he brings her home.”
“Suppose who brings who home?” Fara spoke irritably. “Castler, you—”
He stopped; a dead weight of dismay plumped into his stomach; his whole being sagged. “You mean—” he said.
“I mean,” replied Castler with a triumphant leer, “that the boys aren’t letting a beauty like her be lonesome. And, naturally, your son was the first to speak to her.”
He finished: “They’re walkin’ together now on Second Avenue, comin’ this way, so—”
“Get out of here!” Fara roared. “And stay away from me with your gloating. Get out!”
The man hadn’t expected such an ignominious ending. He flushed scarlet, then went out, slamming the door.
Fara stood for a moment, every muscle stiff; then, with an abrupt, jerky movement, he shut off his power, and went out into the street.
The time to put a stop to that kind of thing was — now!
He had no clear plan, just that violent determination to put an immediate end to an impossible situation. And it was all mixed up with his anger against Cayle. How could he have had such a worthless son, he who paid his debts and worked hard, and tried to be decent and to live up to the highest standards of the empress?
A brief, dark thought came to Fara that maybe there was some bad blood on Creel’s side. Not from her mother, of course — Fara added the mental thought hastily. There was a fine, hard-working woman, who hung on to her money, and who would leave Creel a tidy sum one of these days.
But Creel’s father had disappeared when Creel was only a child, and there had been some vague scandal about his having taken up with a telestat actress.
And now Cayle with this weapon shop girl. A girl who had let herself be picked up—
He saw them, as he turned the corner onto Second Avenue. They were walking a hundred feet distant, and heading away from Fara. The girl was tall and slender, almost as big as Cayle, and, as Fara came up, she was saying, “You have the wrong idea about us. A person like you can’t get a job in our organization. You belong in the Imperial Service, where they can use young men of good education, good appearance and no scruples. I—”
Fara grasped only dimly that Cayle must have been trying to get a job with these people. It was not clear; and his own mind was too intent on his purpose for it to mean anything at the moment. He said harshly, “Cayle!”