“Not exactly,” Sam DeRudder said wryly. “The other chap would have to have one too. Then you could talk to him simply by dialing his number. You see, here is the number of this communicator. If anyone dials it, then a summons rings and I answer. If I am not here, the message is taped and I play it back when I return.”
“But anywhere on all Caledonia? Any distance? With no trouble whatsoever?”
DeRudder chuckled again. He said, “Well, there is one small necessity. If your call is made anywhere outside New Sidon, you’d better have a valid ID credit card.”
“What is a valid ID credit card?”
DeRudder brought a wallet from his tunic and flicked it open. “Here’s my new one. Your friends back at the Dail confiscated my original… precious lot of good it will do them. At any rate, in ordering anything that involves credit exchange, it is necessary to put your credit card in this slot. The cost of the product or service is then deducted from your credit account.”
John shook his head. “Perhaps I will understand later. Will it be necessary for me to have such a card?”
DeRudder put his wallet away. “Yes, of course. As soon as you have been found employment, you will be issued a restricted card. It is impossible to survive without one, under ordinary circumstances. So long as you live here with me, of course, I will handle all matters pertaining to your expenditures.”
“What is a restricted credit card?”
DeRudder took a breath and looked up at the chronometer on the wall. “The kind issued to Caledonians.”
John looked at him. “Caledonians are in New Sidon what clannless ones are in one of our towns. Is it not so?”
DeRudder was uncomfortable. He came to his feet. “Not exactly, John. However, there is such a thing as security. I am a cornet in the Sidon armed forces. As such, I have access to information and resources available not even to lesser ranking Sidonians. And now, I’m going to have to leave you temporarily. Make yourself at home. Eat and drink what you will. I suggest you spend your time at the library banks, familiarizing yourself with the layout of the town and with a few of the”—he made a wry face—“banns that exist under the Canons of the League of Planets.”
John was slightly taken aback. “Then you, too, have banns?”
The other said dryly, “Believe me, John, every society I have ever heard of has had banns of one type or another. Some of them can get on the far-out side.”
He made his way to the door, saying over his shoulder, “For the time, I wouldn’t suggest you leave this apartment. You’re so unacquainted with the workings of a semi-modem city that you might get lost, or even hurt in the traffic.”
“Very well, Sam of the DeRudders.”
When the other was gone, John sat himself down cautiously at the communicator and threw the switch connecting him with the library. Carefully following his host’s instructions, he dialed city maps and spent the next hour poring over them, his eyes strained, his forehead wrinkled in concentration.
In time, the communicator’s controls became easier for him, and fascinated, he skipped from one tape to another, sampling the endless multitude of works available in the library banks.
He was stymied once or twice. When he ordered a particular subject listed in the library banks, a voice said me-tallically, “Security limitations. Priority of M-3. If you wish this tape, please present your ID credit card.”
In each case, John looked blankly at the screen and switched to a new subject.
At long last he came to his feet, went back into the dining-kitchenette and spent some time fiddling with the autochef. Disastrously, as it turned out. In his fascination with the library banks during the past two hours, he had forgotten part of DeRudder’s instructions pertaining to the ordering of food. All he could bring forth was a series of desserts. However, as with many ultraactive men not particularly prone to alcohol, John had a sweet tooth worthy of a ten year old. He polished off several pieces of chocolate cake and a slice of lemon meringue pie and returned to the communicator, deciding inwardly that if nothing else, the invaders from Beyond were far in advance of Caledonian pastry cooks.
He spent another half hour scrutinizing tapes before hearing an unfamiliar musical note. He looked up, scowling.
It sounded again.
He came to his feet and looked about the moderately large room. But the sound had come from the direction of the apartment door. He walked in that direction, frowning still, and bent down to the point where he could look into the door’s screen.
John was puzzled. There was a face there—a feminine face.
He cleared his throat and said, “I am John, Sachem of the—” But then he shook his head and said, “I am John Hawk. This is the longhouse of Samuel of the… Samuel DeRudder. May the bards sing the praises of your man-children. What do you will?”
The face laughed. “That’s quite a reception. I’m Nadine Pond. Cornet DeRudder sent me over. If you’ll activate that button to the right of the door, I’ll come in.”
“Activate?”
“Push it.”
“Oh.” John pushed the button, and the door opened.
By Caledonian standards she was a tiny thing, not more than five and a half feet tall. John’s first reaction was to wonder if she was an adult, but then, obviously she was. She was attired in a neat, trim uniform, the skirts of which were shockingly short by Aberdeen standards, and John kept his eyes studiously from her knees.
She entered briskly and touched another button, and the door closed behind her.
She looked up at him and shook her head. “I’ll never pet used to the size of you people. What in the world do you eat?”
He looked at her blankly.
The question was evidently rhetorical. She led the way into the living room and, without ado, unslung the handbaglike burden she had been carrying over her shoulder and lowered it to the couch before sitting herself down.
Nadine Pond said briskly, “Comet DeRudder is being held up longer than he had expected, being interrogated on his, uh, adventures with the Loch Confederation bandits.”
“Bandits!” John blurted in indignation.
She cocked her head to one side. “What else would you call them? I had gathered the opinion that you defected and came in on your own.”
John lowered himself into the one large chair that was actually suited for his build. His face was strained, as though rejecting his own thoughts. He said slowly, “It is true that my fellow phyletics stripped me of my kilts of clannhood, but… but they are not bandits.”
“Why not?” she said briskly. “They refuse to come in and abide by the treaties made with the friendlies.”
“The friendlies… ?”
She shrugged impatiently. “A term we use for the natives who have cooperated with us, either through taking soma or desiring to take advantage of the new cities and their occupational and educational facilities.”
John frowned at her. He said, “Not all of what you say is understandable. This is my first day in… in New Sidon. Who are you?”
Her voice became brisk again. “I am Assignment Clerk Nadine Pond. I’ve been given the job of doing the preliminary processing of you, John.”
He took her in at greater length now. She was pretty by his tastes. Alert, clean of features, a bit overearnest of expression perhaps, and dark of complexion as Caledonian lapses went—but pretty. She was obviously on the efficient and businesslike side as well, a little too much so in dealing with menfolk than was seemly.
John was irritated by her. He said grudgingly, “To how many worlds do you of Sidon and United Interplanetary Mining come and confound and kill the clannsmen and then, in contempt, call them natives and bandits and friendlies?”