"I see." Norton tapped keys on his calculator. "You don't mind me doing this? Working out the odds?"
"No, go ahead."
The deal passed to Jaekel. While he was shuffling, Frank Chesterton came in with his uniform jacket open. "Hey," he said, "if I'm not interrupting, you guys ought to see this. Come over to the left side of the airplane and take a look while I turn off the lights a minute."
They got up and went to the windows. When the cabin lights went out, they saw a pale violet light shivering in streamers against the moonlit sky.
"What the hell is that?"
"The aurora borealis. Northern lights."
"Holy Jesus. What causes it?"
"Ionization of the upper atmosphere."
"Oh, yeah? Hey, that's pretty amazing. Where are we now?"
"We're over the North Atlantic," Chesterton said.
"Jesus. What happens if we have to ditch?"
"Well, it's a long way back to NewYork, especially if you have to swim. You want the lights on again now?"
"Yeah."
Chesterton left, and they sat down again. Stone looked at his cards, then at the chips on the table. "Who didn't ante?"
Norton's play steadily improved, and he won two small pots, but after three hours he was a heavy loser. "I don't understand," he said. "I'm quite sure I've been playing the odds correctly."
"There's more to it than the odds," said Stone. "You want to cash in, guys? I'm tired."
"All right by me." Jaekel, the banker, began collecting chips and paying off. Stone was shuffling the deck meditatively while the others stood up, stretched, and left the room. "Good night," they called. "Sleep tight." "I wish I was." Somebody blew a raspberry; somebody else farted.
"You've been to Europe before, right?" Stone said to Norton.
"Oh, yes."
"What's it like over there? I mean, beside speaking different languages."
"Well, different customs, too. It varies from one country to another. By the way, I've brought some briefing papers on England, Germany, the Vatican, India and Japan, and I also have some training holos if you'd prefer those. Now, as to your question. I'd say that the principal difference is that Europeans of the upper classes tend to be more formal than Americans. They take politeness quite seriously. You may find them bowing a bit more. They won't call you by your Christian name straight away, and they'll expect you to call them Herr This and Monsieur That. If you speak any European language-you don't, do you?"
"No. Parly-voo fransay."
"Well, it would be a great help to you if you could learn. Anyhow, when you do speak their languages, you want to be careful to use the formal 'you,' not the intimate one."
"There's two different words for 'you'?"
"Oh, yes. In German, it's 'Sie' and 'du.' In French, 'vous' and 'tu. ' and in Spanish, 'usted ' and tu. ' "
"That's crazy. Why can't they have one word like we do?"
"Well, the intimate word is rather nice, in fact, between lovers."
"Oh, uh-huh."
"Now in Japanese, there are three or four different ways of addressing someone, depending on their status and relation to you. But the Japanese don't are ally expect Americans to speak Japanese; they think it's an affectation, in fact."
"They do? How come?"
"Well, it shows that you're trying to become Japanese, and they know you can't. One thing you should always bear in mind is that these people all believe their own language and culture are the best, and that anybody who comes from another culture is second-rate."
"Hey. That's funny, isn't it."
"Ah ...yes, it is."
"I guess it's natural, though."
"I'd say so."
Stone shifted in his chair. "So what you're telling me is I should be polite, and use the right fork, and not dunk my doughnuts in the coffee, right?"
"Yes, that sort of thing. But don't worry. You'll find they are gracious hosts, and they'll do their best to make you feel at home. As far as the language is concerned, most of the people you'll be meeting speak fluent English, and if there's any problem, you'll have good translators."
"You speak German?"
"Yes, fairly well."
"How do you say: 'Where's the bathroom?' "
"Wo ist das Kabinett?"
Stone repeated it thoughtfully. Then he asked, "How about Italian?"
''Dove e il gabinetto?''
"Hey, it's almost the same, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. You'll find there are a great many correspondences of that kind among European languages, even when they belong to different families. Once you learn one language, it's very much easier to learn another one."
"It is, huh? When did you start?"
"At school, with German and French and a little Spanish. And Latin, of course. I picked up other things later."
"Uh-huh. You probably think I'm some kind of a hick."
"Oh, no."
"Well, I am. But I'll learn. I've got to."
''I'm sure you will. Good night."
CHAPTER 20
At four o'clock, unable to sleep, Jaekel put on a robe and went down the long corridor, through the dining room into the lounge. It was cool there, and dark except for the amber safety bulbs. The plane was droning forward with a barely perceptible motion. He switched on the lamps and ceiling lights, turned up the thermostat, and poured himself a stiff Scotch.
On the way over to his chair he picked up a copy of Time. The holoprint on the cover was a picture of Heinz Rottenstern; how long, he wondered, before it would be Ed Stone?
In some ways Stone was an easier assignment than any political candidate, because he had no track record and no enemies. On the other hand, that was just the problem. Jaekel turned over in his mind all the things that could go wrong, knowing as he did so that it was pointless, because he had done it all before.
Something out of Stone's past might tum up to discredit him. The fact that he had no past was profoundly disturbing. Jaekel rummaged in a drawer until he found a pencil, and wrote on a page of Time, "Relatives?"
Then there was always the chance of a sexual scandal, although most people didn't expect public figures to be anchorites. Stone had exchanged a couple of interested glances with Cindy early in the evening. That was all right, and it was all right that he had a lover in New York, but what if it turned out that he also liked ten-year-old boys, or goats and sheep? He wrote, "Sex?"
Stone was not an educated man, and he had a lot of the attitudes you would expect, but that didn't seem to make any difference; the common people liked him, and so did the intellectuals. So far. It was still possible that he would make some gigantic unforgivable blunder. He wrote, "Foot in mouth?"
On the whole, it was a good thing that Stone was going to a lot of places where he would need translators; they were trained to tum insults into compliments whenever they could. Jaekel tore off the page, folded it and put it in his pocket. He always threw these notes away, but he had to write them.
He felt himself nodding. He finished the Scotch, left the glass on the table, and walked down the long quiet corridor. Commercial airliners were as long as this one, but they were divided into sections, and there was always somebody in the aisles, except at night, when the plane was dark; here you saw the whole length of the passenger compartment, from the lounge at one end to Stone's stateroom at the other.
As he slid open the door of his own stateroom, he turned his head toward a motion glimpsed out of the comer of his eye. At first there was nothing; then, far down the corridor, something dark was rushing soundlessly toward him, smothering the lights as it came. It swallowed him before he could move; he was in darkness for an eyeblink, and then it was gone.