The Kimonian flicked them—that was it, flicked them—then he said. “Mr. Selden Bishop. Very glad to know you. Your I.Q. rating, 160, is very satisfactory. Your examination showing, if I may say so, is extraordinary. Recommendations good. Clearance from Earth in order. And I see you made good time. Very glad to have you.”
“But—” said Bishop. Then he clamped his mouth tight shut. He couldn’t tell this being he’d merely flicked the pages and could not possibly have read them. For, obviously, he had.
“You had a pleasant flight, Mr. Bishop?”
“A most pleasant one,” said Bishop and was filled with sudden pride that he could answer so easily and urbanely.
“Your luggage,” said the native, “is in splendid taste.”
“Why, thank you—” then Bishop was filled with rage. What right had this person to patronize his luggage!
But the native did not appear to notice.
“You wish to go to the hotel?”
“If you please,” said Bishop, speaking very tightly, holding himself in check.
“Please allow me,” said the native.
Bishop blurred for just a second—a definite sense of blurring—as if the universe had gone swiftly out of focus, then he was standing, not in the parklike glade, but in a one-man-sized alcove off a hotel lobby, with his bags stacked neatly beside him.
He had missed the triumph before, sitting in the glade, waiting for the native, after the gig had left him, but now it struck him, a heady, drunken triumph that surged through his body and rose in his throat to choke him.
This was Kimon! He finally was on Kimon! After all the years of study, he was here—the fabulous place he’d worked for many years to reach.
A high I.Q., they’d said behind their half-raised hands—a high I.Q. and many years of study, and a stiff examination that not more than one in every thousand passed.
He stood in the alcove, with the sense of hiding there, to give himself a moment in which to regain his breath at the splendor of what had finally come to pass, to gain the moment it would take for the unreasoning triumph to have its way with him and go.
For the triumph was something that must not be allowed to last. It was something that he must not show. It was a personal thing and as something personal it must be hidden deep.
He might be one of a thousand back on Earth, but here he stood on no more than equal footing with the ones who had come before him. Perhaps not quite on equal footing, for they would know the ropes and he had yet to learn them.
He watched them in the lobby—the lucky and the fabulous ones who had preceded him, the glittering company he had dreamed about during all the weary years—the company that he presently would join, the ones of Earth who were adjudged fit to go to Kimon.
For only the best must go—the best and smartest and the quickest. Earth must put her best foot forward, for how otherwise would Earth ever persuade Kimon that she was a sister planet?
At first the people in the lobby had been no more than a crowd, a crowd that shone and twinkled, but with that curious lack of personality which goes with a crowd. But now, as he watched, the crowd dissolved into individuals and he saw them, not as a group, but as the men and women he presently would know.
He did not see the bell captain until the native stood in front of him, and the bell captain, if anything, was taller and more handsome than the man who’d met him in the glade.
“Good evening, sir,” the captain said. “Welcome to the Ritz.”
Bishop started. “The Ritz? Oh, yes, I had forgotten. This place is the Ritz.”
“We’re glad to have you with us,” said the captain. “We hope your stay will prove to be a long one.”
“Certainly,” said Bishop. “That is, I hope so, too.”
“We had been notified,” the captain said, “that you were arriving, Mr. Bishop. We took the liberty of reserving rooms for you. I trust they will be satisfactory.”
“I am sure they will be,” Bishop said.
As if anything on Kimon could be unsatisfactory!
“Perhaps you will want to dress,” the captain said. “There still is time for dinner.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Bishop. “Most assuredly I will.”
And wished he had not said it.
“We’ll send up the bags,” the captain said. “No need to register. That is taken care of. If you will permit me, sir.”
The rooms were satisfactory. There were three of them.
Sitting in a chair, Bishop wondered how he’d ever pay for them.
Remembering the lonely twenty credits, he was seized with a momentary panic.
He’d have to get a job sooner than he planned, for the twenty credits wouldn’t go too far with a layout like this one. Although he supposed if he asked for credit it would be given him.
But he recoiled from the idea of asking for credit, of being forced to admit that he was short of cash. So far he’d done everything correctly. He’d arrived aboard a liner and not a battered trader; his luggage—what had the native said?—was in splendid taste; his wardrobe was all that could be expected; and he hoped that he’d not communicated to anyone the panic and dismay he’d felt at the luxury of the suite.
He got up from the chair and prowled about the room. There was no carpeting, for the floor itself was soft and yielding, and you left momentary tracks as you walked, but they puffed back and smoothed out almost immediately.
He walked over to a window and stood looking out of it. Evening had fallen and the landscape was covered with a dusty blue—and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but rolling countryside. There were no roads that he could see and no lights that would have told of other habitations.
Perhaps, he thought, I’m on the wrong side of the building. On the other side there may be streets and roads and homes and shops.
He turned back to the room and looked at it—the Earthlike furniture so quietly elegant that it almost shouted, the beautiful, veined marble fireplace, the shelves of books, the shine of old wood, the matchless paintings hanging on the wall, and the great cabinet that almost filled one end of the room.
He wondered what the cabinet might be. It was a beautiful thing, with an antique look about it and it had a polish—not a wax, but a polish of human hands and time.
He walked toward it.
The cabinet said, “Drink, sir?”
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Bishop, then stopped stock-still, realizing that the cabinet had spoken and he had answered it.
A panel opened in the cabinet and the drink was there.
“Music?” asked the cabinet.
“If you please,” said Bishop.
“Type?”
“Type? Oh, I see. Something gay, but maybe just a little sadness too. Like the blue hour of twilight spreading over Paris. Who was it used that phrase? One of the old writers. Fitzgerald. I’m sure it was Fitzgerald.”
The music told about the blue hour stealing over that city far away on Earth, and there was soft April rain and distant girlish laughter and the shine of the pavement in the slanting rain.
“Is there anything else you wish, sir?” asked the cabinet.
“Nothing at the moment.”
“Very well, sir. You will have an hour to get dressed for dinner.”
He left the room, sipping his drink as he went—and the drink had a certain touch to it.
He went into the bedroom and tested the bed, and it was satisfactorily soft. He examined the dresser and the full-length glass and peeked into the bathroom and saw that it was equipped with an automatic shaver and massager, that it had a shower and tub, an exercising machine and a number of other gadgets that he couldn’t place.