Corrie turned on the inhibitors, leaving them in a silent, white-walled room. The discreet human servitors seemed to step in through solid walls as they offered their quiet suggestions and recommendations to the two diners. The whole restaurant held about four hundred patrons, and at least twice that number of attendants providing food, wine and stimulants to the diners.
As they settled into their seats Corrie bent her head to the long, hand-scrolled menu. As with everything at Way Down, manual service was the rule — robochefs were not used, even in the kitchens. Rob could not see Corrie’s eyes, but her tone sounded artificially casual as she spoke.
“It’s not coincidence, Rob. Senta suggested that she knows Regulo well, and that’s a fact. Knows him very well. For a long time, many years ago, they were lovers until it became obvious that he couldn’t live on Earth much longer. I don’t know why she didn’t follow him, but he says that she couldn’t stand the idea of leaving everybody here on Earth. She needs all her friends, to bolster her confidence. But she knew Joseph Morel, back in the days when she lived with Regulo — and if he knew your father, then it isn’t surprising that Senta knew him, too.”
“You don’t like her, do you?” Rob said it deliberately. He wanted to startle Corrie out of her remote and wooden mood. He was surprisingly successful. She lifted her head and looked at him for a long time with those intense, troubled eyes, as unexpected as ever in the dark complexion.
“You have it backwards, Rob.” Her voice was husky. “I would have gone with her just now, but I knew she wouldn’t want me to. I don’t go where she is for her sake. I used to think that she didn’t want me around because it would reveal to her fancy friends how old she is. Now I think perhaps she doesn’t want me to see what taliza is doing to her, and doesn’t want me saddened. I never introduced her by her full name, you know. It is Senta Plessey. She is my mother.”
Corrie looked down again at the menu in front of her. “We haven’t seen much of each other in the last ten years,” she went on in a low voice. “That’s my fault more than hers, I suppose — I chose to live off-Earth. I don’t really know why I haven’t tried to see her more, even though our life-styles are completely different.” She looked up again, pleadingly. “If you don’t mind, Rob, I want to change the subject. And I don’t want to talk about work, either. Unless you have to talk about Darius Regulo tonight, I’d rather let it wait for another day. No beanstalks, no Atlantis, and no taliza — I want some relaxation.”
Back in his room, at the hotel on the surface that served those of Way Down’s guests who preferred to spend the night above ground, Rob found it hard to sleep. As soon as Corrie had said it, he could at once see the strong resemblance between the two women. There was an obvious similarity of features, and Corrie’s figure was a slimmer and younger version of Senta’s. It was clear where Corrie had inherited that flawless complexion and the easy grace of movement. It was the eyes that had led him astray. Where had Corrie found those, that startling blue instead of Senta’s dark brown?
His thoughts were interrupted by the soft buzz of the door-call. He looked at his watch. It was past three A.M., local time, but that meant nothing. Guests for Way Down flew in from all over the System. It was probably Corrie. They had been together until almost one-thirty, with dinner itself lasting nearly four hours. It had taken her a while to recover from the disturbing meeting with Senta Plessey, but a relaxing atmosphere and incredible cuisine had helped. Rob had worked hard to avoid turning the conversation to Darius Regulo’s background and empire, and he had mostly succeeded.
His main problem had been Way Down itself. Something about it made him uneasy. He fancied that he could hear tiny creaks and groans from the roof and walls of the great cavern, as though the depths of Earth resented the unnatural cavity within it. He had insisted on returning to the surface after they finished their meal.
As the door-call repeated its summons he got up, wrapped a loose robe around himself, and went to answer it. He was hoping, if not really expecting, that it would be Corrie. She had refused his offer of company when they had arrived back at the surface, but she had refused with a smile and an interested look.
It was Senta’s companion, Howard Anson. Rob looked at him in surprise. Anson was still dressed in his formal attire of the earlier evening. Rob noted again how naturally the clothes fitted Anson’s lean form, a perfection of tailoring that quietly told of great expense.
“I know it’s late.” Anson’s manner was brisk and business-like. “Normally, I would have waited until morning. But I didn’t know where you would be, and tomorrow I have to head to Warsaw for a business meeting.”
“Come in. I wasn’t asleep anyway.” Rob closed the door and motioned the other man to a chair. “I’m a little surprised to hear that you’re in business.” He smiled. “You certainly pass yourself off well as a convincing social parasite.”
Anson laughed. Like his speaking voice, it was a pleasant tenor. “That’s part of the reason for my success, being a worker and imitating a drone. But I’m like you, a busy bee. I run an Information Service. Half my clientele and most of my business is drawn from the wealthiest one-half percent of the System.”
“You run Anson’s Information Service?”
The other man nodded.
“Then I’m impressed,” went on Rob. “You’re the best there is. I’ve used you myself, many times. How did you ever decide to do that for a living? I would have no idea what a person ought to study before they can sell information.”
“I fell into it.” Anson shrugged. “When I was twenty years old I found myself in a strange situation. I wasn’t particularly interested in any one subject, but I had a trick memory that would let me recall almost anything I wanted to. A hundred years ago I’d probably have been in the entertainment business, as a `memory man’ reeling off five hundred digits after I’d heard them once — I can do that, but don’t ask me how it works — or telling the audience who ran third in the five thousand meters at the 1928 Olympic Games. It took me a couple of years to realize that I was a dinosaur. People were impressed by what I knew, but they could check it all in two seconds through a terminal to the central data banks. I was born too late. So then I decided that there was still one place where I could do something unique. All the information is in the files, but the indexing is still in chaos — it lags twenty or thirty years behind the information. So I learned the index system. I can add new indices to my mental list, instantly, so I know how you get to information that’s there, even when it’s poorly indexed.”
“That’s just why I went to your service,” said Rob. “I was convinced that the knowledge I wanted was in a file somewhere, but I couldn’t drag it out through the key-words that the terminals would accept.”
“You’re the exception — most people don’t even try.” Anson leaned back in the chair. “If you were rich enough and lazy enough, you wouldn’t bother with the terminal. You’d tell me what you want, and leave it at that. It’s not cheap, though. I charge a lot — even by your standards.”
Rob raised his eyebrows. “And what are my standards?”
“You’re pretty well loaded with money, from your contracts in bridge construction.” Anson smiled disarmingly. “Don’t be annoyed. I would be a fool if I had an Information Service and didn’t use it for my own benefit. After I left Senta and the Perions, I ran a quick check on you. It was easy, because you were already listed as one of our clients.”