I didn’t see. But I was too stubborn—too young!—to admit it I said uncomfortably, “I—I’d better talk to Mr. Faulkner, sir. Not that I doubt anything you say, of course. But—”
“But—but,” he mimicked again. He was still grinning that cold, somehow worrisome grin.
Abruptly his mood changed. He set down his coffee cup with a sharp slapping sound. “Enough,” he growled. “Time for bed. Go to your room, boy; get some sleep.”
He rang for the steward, who appeared in his white coat, rubbing his eyes, to open the door for me. Hallam Sperry didn’t get up. As I was going out he said:
“Sleep on it, boy. Just make up your mind. Do you want to pay your uncle’s debts—or pay as much as you can; take my offer for your shares and I’ll forget the rest—or not? Can’t make you do it; it’s a gentlemen’s agreement. Make up your mind.”
I turned uncomfortably at the door, but Sperry had dismissed me. Without haste he stood and walked lumberingly through the far door into one of his other rooms. The steward, politely but firmly, closed the outer door in my face.
12
In Thetis Dome
At last we docked at Thetis.
The Isle of Spain dropped out of the darkness that had surrounded her to a flat, slightly luminous plain of blue clay. We anchored at the usual flat metal platform.
To our west was Thetis itself. Its shimmering dome bulged high into the black water. Eastward and northward were rugged black hills. South lay a Deep, and on the lip of it, a phosphorescent valley, covered with weird, tangled streamers that looked like vines, and thick growths that stood tall and erect like trees on land. They looked like vines and trees—but, I was to find, they were not. No vegetation grows so far beneath the sea’s surface; all the dainty blossoms and ropy growths were animal, not plants.
I disembarked from Isle of Spain, checked my baggage and went directly to Faulkner’s office.
W-17, S-469, Level 9—the address was well fixed in my mind. It had been on the long blue envelopes in which the checks from my uncle had come.
From the elevator I stepped into the big waiting room beneath the docks, carved out of the living rock beneath the ocean floor. It was brilliant with the cold, violet Troyon light, crowded with the passengers of the Isle of Spain, customs officials and hundreds of others. It seemed incredible, in that giant chamber, that four miles of sea towered over our heads.
But it was true! I was in Marinia!
I found a passenger belt headed in the right direction, and on it I was swept swiftly down a long tunnel; I found the elevator bank I was seeking and in a matter of short minutes’I was at Level 9.
I stepped out onto a rather wide street.
It was flooded with the violet Troyon light, crowded with hurrying Marinians. It was my first glimpse of the life of a city of Marinia, and, truthfully, I was less than delighted. The people seemed dingy, roughly clad; I saw a number of scarlet-clothed sea-police moving purposefully through the crowd; the voices seemed coarse and loud. And the buildings which rose a few dozen feet to support the next level above were shabbier than I had imagined.
Of course, it was not Marinia itself which was at fault. Even then, before I had seen any of the broad, beautiful residential levels, or the sweeping concourses of the administration section, I realized that this could not be typical. Level 9 was at the no-man’s-land between the factory and shipping levels beneath, and the office and residential levels above; it had all the worst features of its neighbors above and below.
It seemed to me that Faulkner’s office was located in an unsavory neighborhood.
Still—Faulkner was my uncle’s lawyer. I stopped a red-tunic policeman and got directions to W-17, S-149.
It turned out to be a door in a dingy office building, with a long flight of steps leading up.
At the head of the steps, I emerged into a dark, low- ceilinged room, smelling of dust and stale air. Beneath the single Troyon tube, two grimy chairs and a battered desk were all the room held.
A huge man leaned back in a chair behind the desk.
His feet were propped on the desk, his gnarled hands clasped behind his shaggy head. His mouth hung open, showing yellowed teeth; the dark face was scarred and pocked.
He was snoring loudly.
I coughed. “Good afternoon,” I said.
The man in the chair snorted, dropped his feet to the floor and blinked at me. “Eh?” he said thickly. Then his eyes cleared; he looked at me with more comprehension.
“What do you want?” he said sullenly.
“I’d like to see Mr. Wallace Faulkner,” I told him.
The big man shook his head. “Ain’t in.”
“When do you expect him?”
“Dunno. Won’t be back today.”
I hesitated. I could do nothing until I saw this Faulkner, that was certain; and I most urgently wanted to ask him about what Hallam Sperry had told me on the Isle of Spain. I said:
“It’s very important that I see him. Where can I find him now?”
The big man glowered at me. “Come back tomorrow,” he said. “Who are you?”
“James Eden,” I said.
I thought the big man’s eyes widened. But all he said was, “I’ll tell him.”
I started to leave. I was beginning to dislike all of this: the man, the filthy, miserable office, my impression of Faulkner formed from his letters and radios.
But I had to face the affair sooner or later. I tried once more: “Sir, I must see Mr. Faulkner. Isn’t there any possible way I can reach him today?”
The big man snarled, “I told you no. Come back tomorrow. First thing in the morning—you hear me?”
There was nothing to do but leave—especially since he slammed his feet down on the desk again, tilted back and seemed ready to get back to his interrupted sleep.
I let myself out the office door and started down the stairs.
Halfway down I stopped. I thought I heard the big man calling my name.
I stood there for a moment, listening. It came again, clearly, not so much as though I were being called as though the man were saying it emphatically to someone else; my name, clearly enough to recognize unmistakably, then a pause and a mumble of other words.
I went back up the stairs.
At the door I heard a final mumble: “—Eden. See you in the morning.” And then the sound of a telephone handpiece being slammed down on its cradle. I waited, but there was no other sound, until a moment later I began to hear the big man’s regular breathing.
He had gone to sleep—but he had phoned someone first. About me.
No, I didn’t like this at all…
Still, I told myself, things could be worse.
If I couldn’t see Faulkner until the next morning, that meant I had almost a whole day to spend at whatever I wished. I could, for instance, look around Thetis, see all the wonders of the capital of Marinia at first hand.
My mood of depression began to lift. I stopped a scarlet-clad sea-policeman and asked him to recommend a hotel. He mentioned several, told me how to reach them, where to find a phone to make reservations.
The phone was in a drinking place, it turned out; the customers seemed mostly to be the same rough characters that were shouldering their way along the street. I didn’t have to drink with them, though, after alclass="underline" I found the pay telephone, located a coin and called the first hotel the policeman had suggested.
The clerk was brisk and polite. They had a room; they would hold it for me; they would expect me in an hour, as soon as I had picked up my bags.