An air lock shut behind him, and a young man sat at a desk checking off names on a register. Hasselborg handed over his passport, saying:
"Tenha a bondade, senhor, to let me speak to the head passenger fiscal."
Then, while the inspector went through his bag, Hasselborg identified himself to the head passenger agent, a Brazzy like most of the Viagens people. Hasselborg reflected that, public and internationally-owned corporation though the Viagens was supposed to be, with all jobs strictly civil service, somehow the citizens of the world's leading power always got a disproportionate share of them.
The agent politely insisted on speaking English to Hasselborg, who, not to be outdone, insisted on speaking the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways to the agent. Hasselborg, giving up the contest first, asked:
"I believe two passengers named Fallon and Bat-runi came in on the Jurud, didn't they?"
"Let me think—I can check the register. Was not the Batruni that beautiful girl with the dark hair?"
Hasselborg showed a photograph to the agent, who said: "Ah, yes, that is her. O Gloria-Pdtri, such a woman! What did you wish with her?"
Hasselborg grinned. "Not what you're thinking, Senhor Jorge. Is she still here?"
"No."
"Thought not. Where'd she go?"
The agent looked wary. "Perhaps if yqu could tell me of the circumstances—"
Hasselborg cleared his throat. "Well, Miss Batruni has a father who's anxious to get her back, and Mr. Fallon has a wife who's perhaps less anxious but who is still interested in knowing where he went. And obviously they didn't come all the way out here just to admire the view of the Solar System. Follow me?"
"But—but Miss Batruni is of age; she can go where she likes."
"That's not the point. If she can go where she likes, I can also follow her. Where'd she go?"
"I prefer not to tell you."
"You'll have to, chum. It's public information, and I can raise a stink—"
The agent sighed. "I suppose you can. But it goes against all the traditions of romance. Will you promise me that when you find them you will not spoil this so-beautiful intrigue?"
"I won't promise anything of the sort. I won't put gyves on the girl's wrists and drag her back to Earth at gun point, if that's what you mean. Now, where—"
"They went to Krishna," said the agent.
Hasselborg whistled. As he remembered it, of all the hundreds of known inhabited planets, Krishna had natives the most like human bekigs. That was to Hasselborg's disadvantage, since the elopers could take off from the landing station without oxygen masks or other special equipment and lose themselves among the natives.
Aloud he said: "Obrigado. When does the next ship leave for Krishna?"
The agent glanced at the compound clock on the bulkhead. "In two hours fourteen minutes."
"And when's the next after that?"
Senhor Jorge glanced at the blackboard. "Forty-six days."
"And when does it arrive at Krishna?"
"You mean the ship-time or the Solar-System time?"
Hasselborg shook his head. "I always get confused on that one. Both, let's say."
"Ship-time—that is, subjective time—you arrive in twenty-nine days. Solar-System or objective time, one thousand four hundred ninety-seven days."
"Then Fallon and Miss Batruni will have arrived—how many days ahead of me?"
"Krishna time, about a hundred days."
"Yipe! You mean they take off sixteen days ahead of me; I take twenty-nine days following them; and I arrive a hundred days after they do? But you can't do that!"
"I am sorry, but with the Fitzgerald effect you can. You see they went in the Maranhao, one of the new mail-ships with tub acceleration."
Hasselborg shuddered. "Some day somebody's going to make a round trip on one of your ships and arrive back home before he left."
Meanwhile he thought: to invade an unfamiliar planet required more preparation than he could manage in a couple of hours. On the other hand, he could imagine Batruni's reaction if he arrived back on Earth to spend a month boning up. The magnate would resemble not merely an elephant but a bull elephant in must. Still, for such a fee a chance was worth taking. He asked:
"Is there a bunk available on the one that's leaving now?"
"I will see." The agent buzzed the clerk in the next compartment and held a brief nasal conversation with him. "Yes," he said, "there are two."
"If you'll visa me, I'll take one of them. Have you got a library with information on Krishna?"
Senhor Jorge shrugged. "Not a very good one. We have the Astronaut's Guide and an encyclopedia on microfilm. Some of the men have their own books, but it would take time to round them up. You wish to see what we have?"
"Lead on. I'd also like a look at the register of the Maranhdo, to compare signatures." The real reason was that he wouldn't put it past this superannuated Cupid to give him a bum steer in order to protect the so-beautiful intrigue.
However, the register checked with the agent's statements. Moreover, the library was not very informative. Hasselborg learned that the surface gravity on Krishna was 0.92 G, the atmospheric pressure 1.34 A. the partial pressure of O2 1.10 times that of Earth—with a high partial pressure of helium. The people were endoskeletal, bisexual, oviparous, bipedal organisms enough like human beings so that one could pass himself off as the other with a little skillful disguise. In fact there had even been marriages between persons of the two species, although without issue. They had a pre-mechanical culture characterized by such archaisms as war, national sovereignty, epidemics, hereditary status, and private ownership of natural resources. The planet itself was a little larger than Earth but with a lower density and a higher proportion of land to water, so that the total Krishnan land area was nearly three times that of the Earth.
Senhor Jorge opened the door. "You had better come, Mr. Hasselborg; you have only twenty minutes. Here is your passport."
"Just a minute," said Hasselborg, looking up from the viewer and reaching for his pen. He dashed off three short letters to be photographed down and go back to Earth by the next ship: one to Montejo and Durruti calling them off their job, and one each to
Yussuf Batruni and Alexandra Fallon stating briefly whither he was going and why.
When he boarded the ship, he found that space was even more limited than on the first lap of the trip. He had as roommates not only Chuen Liao-dz but also a middle-aged lady from Boston who found the idea most repugnant. He thought, if I were Fallon, now, she'd really have something to worry about.
They arrived.
In contrast to Pluto, the ramp was open to the mild, moist air of Krishna. Great masses of clouds swept in stately procession across the greenish sky, often cutting off the big yellow sun. Even the vegetation was mostly green, with flecks of other hues. Walking down the ramp, Hasselborg could see, stretching like a gray string across the rolling plain, the high wall that marked the boundary of Novorecife.
The next contrast to Pluto was less pleasant. An official person in a fancy uniform said:
"Faqa o favor, passengers going on to Ganesha and Vishnu, into this room. Those stopping off at Krishna in here, please. Now, line up, please. Place your baggage on the floor, open, please."
Hasselborg noticed what looked like a full-length X-ray fluoroscope at one side of the room. More uniforms appeared and began going through the baggage and clothes with microscopic care, while others herded the passengers one by one into the space between the X-ray machine and the fluoroscope to look at their insides. Some of the passengers made heavy weather, especially the lady from Boston, who was plainly unused to Viagens ways.