The newspaper came first.
ARCS ATTACK MARS; DESTROY KAPI
That was the news, the big news. He read it carefully. Kapi, it seemed, was an Earth colony on Mars established in 1939, the fourth of the seven colonies established there. It was smaller than most of the others. There had been eight hundred and forty Terrestrial colonists. All had been killed as well as an estimated hundred and fifty Martian laborers.
Then, Keith realized, there must be Martians as distinguished from Terrestrial emigrants. What were they like? There wasn’t any clue in the news article. Were they Bems—bug-eyed monsters like the purple beings from the Moon?
He read on. A single ship of Arcturians had somehow got through the cordon of spaceguards, and had launched a single torpedo before the Dopelle fighters had detected it. They had attacked at once and, although the Arcturian vessel had switched to interstellar flight, they had pursued and destroyed it.
Preparations were being made for a counter-raid. The details were, of course, a military secret.
There were a lot of names and things that meant nothing to him. Somehow it struck him strangely when he came across a familiar one—General Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, in charge of Venus Sector.
Then there were words and references that puzzled him—the phrase «all-city mist-out» and frequent references to «the renegades» and «the Nighters.»
He went through the paper from first page to last, hunting clues to the differences between this world and the one he knew. There seemed to be so amazingly little difference on the domestic scene—so amazingly great a difference on the cosmic scale.
The society news was there, the sport news—St. Louis was leading one major league and New York the other—and the ads were the same except that prices were given in credits instead of dollars. But basically the same merchandise was offered—no slightly-used space ships, no Little Wonder Atomic Kits for the kiddies.
He studied the want-ads particularly. The housing situation seemed a bit better than he remembered it—occasionally a flat or house was offered for sale with the comment «Emigrating to Mars,» and one Pets for Sale ad offered a Venus coline and another a moon-pup.
It was one o’clock when his train pulled into Grand Central. There were the usual lights in the station, Keith noticed as he got off the train but there was something different otherwise in the atmosphere of the station—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He realized, too, as he walked along with others down the long walk between the tracks to the main hall of the station, that the train had not been crowded. His car had been only a third filled.
There weren’t any other trains unloading and all the redcaps seemed to have gone. Just ahead of Keith, a little man was struggling to carry three suitcases, one in each hand and one under his arm. He was having heavy going.
«Give you a hand with one of those?» Keith asked.
The little man said, «Sure—thanks,» with real gratitude in his voice as he relinquished one of the suitcases. A twinge in Keith’s left shoulder reminded him in time not to take the suitcase with his left hand.
He moved around to the right side of the little fellow and said casually, «Not much traffic tonight, is there?»
«That was the last train in, I guess. Shouldn’t really run ’em that late. What’s the use of getting in if you can’t go home? Oh, sure, you got a better start in the morning, but—»
Keith said, «Sure,» and wondered what they were talking about.
«Eighty-seven killed last night!» the little man said. «sixty-some the night before. Just in New York and that’s just the ones killed outright. Heaven knows how many got dragged down alleys and beat up but not killed.» He sighed. «I remember when it was safe even on Broadway.»
He stopped suddenly and put down the suitcases. «Got to rest a minute,» he said. «If you want to go on just leave that other one.» He flexed his hands, cramped from the handles of the suitcases.
«No hurry,» Keith said. He was casting about in his mind for ways in which he could ask questions without arousing suspicion. «Uh—I haven’t heard a newscast for a while. Have you? Anything new?»
«Arcturian spy in the country. That was on early in the evening. That’s worse news than Kapi.» He shuddered slightly.
Keith nodded. «Haven’t heard a newscast but I heard someone mention that. What’s it about? I mean, how do they know there’s one loose, if they didn’t catch him?»
«Catch him? Lord, mister, you don’t catch Arcturians; you kill ’em. But this one got away. Upstate in Greeneville. Tried to sell somebody some banned coinage and one of the coins was one of the Arc counterfeits, one of the wrong-dated ones.»
«Oh,» Keith said. It had been the coin, then. He’d felt pretty sure of it. He’d have to watch the rest of those coins he had. Maybe it would be smarter to get rid of them as soon as he could, down the nearest sewer. It would be so easy to forget and hand one to someone when he bought something small, instead of one of the credit bills.
Right now the coins, wrapped tightly in his dollar currency so they wouldn’t rattle, made a hard and suddenly uncomfortable lump in his right trouser pocket. Maybe, he thought, he should have left them on the windowsill of his hotel room in Greeneville instead of recovering them, as he had, by pretending to lean out the window for a look around before he closed it and left the room with the Greeneville policemen.
No, that might have been dangerous, too. If he’d left them and they’d been found—well, they’d seen his name in his wallet; there’d be a tie-in between Keith Winton and the Arcturian spy they were looking for. And then the New York police would be looking for Keith Winton. Yes, it was well that he’d recovered them temporarily.
The little man flexed his hands again and picked up the two suitcases. «Guess I can make it the rest of the way,» he said. «If you’re ready—»
Keith picked up the other suitcase and they started along the tracks again toward the station lobby.
«Hope there are cots left,» the little man said.
Keith opened his mouth and shut it again. Any question he asked might give him away—if it were a question to which he should know the answer without asking. He said, «Probably won’t be,» in a humorously pessimistic voice that could be taken as a joke if it was the wrong thing to say.
They were nearing the lobby now and a redcap came toward them. The little man sighed with relief and put down the suitcases and Keith handed over the one he’d been carrying.
«Cots?» the redcap asked them. «A few left.»
«Yes,» Keith’s companion said. «For me, anyway.» He turned to Keith. «You’re not—uh—»
«Thanks, no,» Keith said. «Think I’d better get home.»
The little man shook his head slowly and sadly. «Too much of a chance for me to take. I’d rather be sure of seeing tomorrow. Well—good luck and thanks for the lift with that suitcase.»
«Don’t mention it,» Keith said.
They were walking through now into the main lobby of the station. Keith almost stumbled.
There were army-type cots as far as he could see, in neat orderly rows in the dimly lighted lobby. On most of the cots people lay asleep.
Could the housing situation be this desperate? he wondered. No, it couldn’t be that, not for the number of for-rent ads in the newspaper in his pocket. But what then? Why else were thousands of people sleeping uncomfortably and unprivately in Grand Central station?
If only there were some way he could ask questions without drawing attention and suspicion.
He threaded his way through the dimness, walking as quietly as he could so as not to awake the sleepers he passed, heading for the 42nd Street entrance. As he neared it he saw there were two policemen posted at each of the doors.