"There is a row of communication booths on the west wall, sir," said the robot. "Allow the booth of your choice time to scan your retina and verify your credit rating, and then follow the instructions."
"I know," said Dante. "I've done it before."
"In that case, have a most pleasant day, sir," said the robot as Dante walked to an empty booth.
"Wait here," he said to the Duchess. "There's only room for one in a booth."
He went in and emerged less than a minute later.
"Okay, that takes care of Step One," he announced.
"What did you do?"
"I reserved two seats on the spaceliner to Far London. It leaves in about two hours."
She frowned, trying to comprehend. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought we were trying to escape from Bailiwick. Why did you announce our presence?"
"So that every spaceport official, every security guard and policeman, will be alerted that we're going to show up in the next hour or so and board the liner." He smiled. "I didn't stay connected long enough to them to trace my location."
"Okay, so now the spaceport is swarming with men and women whose sole desire is to capture us. Now what?"
"Now, while they're all trying to hide themselves near Passport Control or the boarding gate and appear unobtrusive, we choose a private ship to steal." He looked out the window. "You'll notice that they're all at this end of the spaceport."
Suddenly she smiled. "Maybe you should stay a thief. I don't know how good a poet you'll be, but you were born to be a thief."
"Well, it's still not that simple. We won't move until dark."
"Why not? By then they'll know we're not showing up for the Far London flight."
"We've got them all tense. The next step is to make them relax so they don't react as quickly."
"I'm not following you at all."
"In about an hour and a half, I'm going to cancel Far London and book us on a flight to Deluros VIII. Then I'll cancel that and book it to Sirius V. By the time I've changed flights six or seven times, they'll be convinced we're just having fun with them, and most of them will go home. The ones who are left behind will assume we're not showing up, and if anything alerts them, they'll be reasonably sure it's not us."
"So we're staying here for what, another eight or nine hours?" she asked.
"Yeah, about that. I don't know what the robot's programmed to think of as unusual behavior, so I think we'd better rent a room for three or four days."
"Three or four?"
"Right. We're not going to pay for it regardless, but I'm sure the police are monitoring every hotel desk. If someone takes a day room, or even a room for one night, anywhere near the spaceport, alarms are going to go off in every police station within 50 miles."
"All right, that makes sense," she agreed. "Now, how do we know which ship to take?"
He handed her his pocket computer. "I've put all the proper codes in for you to get past any security walls. Find out which ships have been fueled in the past six hours. Then check the registry; we're not interested in any ships that are owned by citizens of Bailiwick."
"Why not?"
"Because they have to file new flight plans, so if we take one we'll run a pretty fair chance of getting shot out of the sky. But a ship that's just stopped for fuel, or business, will already have a flight plan filed. They might think it's been stolen, but unless the owner reports it within two minutes of our taking off, they won't know it before we're at light speeds and out of the system, and they really aren't about to blow away a ship on a suspicion."
Dante approached the desk and rented a room, then went up to the fourth floor with the Duchess. A moment later they were inside the room, and she was starting to assemble her list of possible ships on Dante's computer while he stood by the window, looking out at the rows of private ships across the street. There was a sparkling force field surrounding the area, but he spotted the entrance, recognized the locking mechanism, knew he could break its code, and nodded in satisfaction.
Then he walked over to the large bed and lay down on it, cupping his hands behind his head. He wanted to read more of the poem, but he knew it would only annoy the Duchess, so he simply stared at her as she worked. Finally she put the computer down and turned to him. "I've got the perfect ship," she announced.
"Perfect in what way?" asked Dante.
"It's a six-man ship, so there will be plenty of room. Three sleeping cabins and a fully-equipped galley. Owned by a mining baron from Goldstrike, which is 'way into the Inner Frontier. Refreshed its atomic pile this morning, but it's not due to leave until tomorrow afternoon." She paused. "And best of all, it's close! You can see it from the window!"
He walked over.
"See that row?" she continued. "It's the fourth one back from the fence. We won't have to walk 100 yards once we're inside the fence."
"Okay," said Dante. "Let's go for a walk."
"Now? I thought you wanted to steal it after dark."
"I do. But if I can disable that lock on the fence right now, it'll be even easier tonight."
"You can't just kneel down and work on a computer lock in broad daylight!" protested the Duchess.
"I don't plan to," he said. He walked to the door and ordered it to open. "Come on."
They emerged in the lobby a moment later. He stopped by the desk to speak to the robot clerk, then rejoined her.
"What was all that about?" she asked.
"I told it we're going shopping."
"Why does a robot care?"
"It doesn't—but if the police start searching all the hotels near the spaceport, and it won't be too long before the thought occurs to them, I don't want it to respond that it doesn't know where we are. It should take them a day to figure out that I used a phony ID to register—but if they have a reason to want to learn more about us, they'll break that identity in five minutes." He looked out into the street, then slung the bag containing Orpheus' poem over his shoulder. "Okay, let's go."
"Are you planning on stealing the ship now?" she asked, indicating the manuscript.
"No, I'm just not willing to leave it in a spaceport hotel."
They walked out, arm in arm, and began window-shopping up and down the street. Dante kept looking for an excuse to cross to the spaceport's side of the thoroughfare if anyone was watching them. He needed a stray animal, a child who might step into traffic while his parents were concentrating on each other, anything like that—but nothing turned up.
"Okay, we'll do it the bothersome way," he said after about ten minutes.
"What way is that?"
"We walk about a mile down the road, far enough that no one from the spaceport is still watching us, and then cross the street and walk back. We're no longer window-shopping; now we're taking our afternoon constitutional."
They walked away from the spaceport for ten more minutes. Then, as they reached the outskirts of the small city, they crossed the street and began walking back.
As they neared the spaceport, Dante, looking straight ahead, said, "When we get opposite the entrance through the force field, twist an ankle."
"What?"
"Twist an ankle. Fall to one knee. Make a bit of a fuss about it. I'll kneel down and examine it."