He felt no stiffness or soreness of his muscles whatever. But, as Adok had said, possibly the maximum effect would not be appreciated until about three hours from now. Conscientiously, therefore, he waited those three hours without moving from the bed.
But at the end of that time, he found no difference in himself. He was not sore, and he was not stiff. He filed that piece of information with the gradually accumulating store of knowledge about the Throne World and its inhabitants in the back of his mind.
It did not immediately fit with the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was forming in his mind. But one of the things that had helped him, from that day when as a boy he had at last faced the fact that he had no choice but to bear the loneliness of his life in silence, was the capacity in him for an almost infinite patience. The picture forming in his mind was not yet readable. But it would be. Until then… Adok had assumed that at the end of three hours the stiffness and soreness of Jim’s body would have effectively immobilized him. Since he had never been able to discover if he might be under surveillance—and to this he had added lately the possibility of surveillance not only by High-born, for their own reasons, but also by servants, for their own reasons—he resigned himself to staying as he was.
Stretched out on his hassocklike bed, he willed himself to sleep.
When he woke up, it was because Ro was shaking him gently. She stood in the dimness of the room beside his bed.
“There’s someone Galyan wants you to meet,” she said. “He sent word through Afuan. It’s the Governor of the Colony Worlds of Alpha Centauri.”
He blinked at her for a moment sleepily. Then wakefulness sprang upon him, as the implications of what she had said woke inside him.
“Why would I want to meet the Governor of the worlds of Alpha Centauri?” he asked, sitting abruptly upon the hassock-bed.
“But he’s your Governor!” Ro said. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you, Jim? Any new Colony World is first assigned to the nearest Governor.”
“No,” said Jim, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and getting to his feet. “No one ever did tell me. Does this mean I have some sort of obligation to this Governor?”
“Well…” Ro hesitated. “In theory, he can take you away from the Throne World right now, since you’re under his authority. But, on the other hand, the sponsorship for your adoption has been entered. In practice, he would find this out and would know better than to try to do anything that might interfere with any possible future High-born. Remember, his worlds will gain a lot of prestige if anyone under their authority becomes at least a probationary High-born. In other words, he can’t really do you any harm; but you can hardly, politely, turn down the chance to visit with him, now that he’s here.”
“I see,” said Jim grimly. “They sent you to bring me?”
Ro nodded. He reached out his hand, and she took it in one of hers. It was an easy, shorthand way of taking somebody else where they had never been before. It required a certain mental effort, Jim had been told, to transport someone to a place unknown to him but known to his guide, without this physical contact. Adok, of course, as with Ro earlier, had done it the polite way. But now Ro customarily reached out and took hold of him when she wished to take him anyplace.
Immediately they were in a relatively small room—a room, however, which in the number of writing surfaces standing flatly suspended in midair, and the relative scarcity of sitting hassocks, bespoke the utilitarian kind of office-type room that Galyan had brought Jim to aboard the ship.
Present in the room were the usual workers and the single Starkien bodyguard. Present also was Galyan, and with him a man with the American Indian-like coloring of the Alpha Centaurans. But this man was almost five-ten, a good three or four inches taller than most of the Alpha Centaurans Jim had met when he had been on Alpha Centauri III.
“There you are, Jim—and you too, Ro,” said Galyan, turning softly to face them as they appeared. “Jim, I thought you might like to meet your regional overlord—Wyk Ben of Alpha Centauri III. Wyk Ben, this is Jim Keil, sponsorship of whom has been offered here on the Throne World.”
“Yeth,” agreed Wyk Ben, turning quickly to face Jim and smiling. In contrast to the hissing accent of the High-born, which had come to sound almost natural to Jim by this time, the Governor of Alpha Centauri lisped slightly in his speech.
“I just wanted to see you for a moment, Jim, to wish you luck. Here, your world’s just come under our Governorship… and, well, I’m very proud!”
Wky Ben smiled happily at Jim, apparently unaware that of the three other people concerned in the conversation, there was a slight frown of foreboding on the face of Ro, a touch of sardonic humor in the lemon-yellow eyes of Galyan, and a detachment and reserve about Jim.
“Well… I just wanted to tell you. I won’t take up any more of your time,” said Wyk Ben eagerly.
Jim stared down at him. He was absurdly like a puppy wagging its tail in eagerness and pride, coupled with a sort of innocence about the Throne World in general. Jim could not understand why Galyan should have wanted him to meet this man. But he filed the fact that Galyan had wanted him to meet the Alpha Centauran Governor, for future reference.
“Thank you again,” Jim said. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I’m due for an exercise session with the Starkien who’s my substitute.” He looked over at Ro. “Ro?”
“Good to have seen you again, Jim,” said Galyan slowly in a tone of voice almost matching the amused drawl of Slothiel. Clearly, whatever he had hoped to gain from bringing Jim and Wyk Ben face to face, he had gained. But there was no point in trying to pursue the matter, here and now, any further. Jim turned to Ro and held out his hand. She took it, and immediately they were back in his room.
“What was all that about?” asked Jim.
Ro shook her head puzzledly.
“I don’t know,” she said not happily. “And when anything happens on the Throne World that you don’t understand, it’s a danger signal. I’ll try to find out, Jim—I’ll see you later.”
Hastily she disappeared.
Left by himself, Jim ran over the meeting with Wyk Ben in his mind. It struck him that things were in danger of happening so fast that they might get ahead of him. He spoke out loud to the empty room.
“Adok!”
It took possibly three seconds—no more—and then the figure of the Starkien appeared before him.
“How are you feeling?” asked Adok. “Do you need—”
“Nothing,” said Jim brusquely. “Adok, are there any library facilities down in the servant’s area, underground?”
“Library?…” For a moment Adok’s face squeezed faintly, in what Jim was beginning to understand was an expression of extreme puzzlement. Then it cleared. “Oh, of course, you mean a learning center. Yes, I’ll take you to one, Jim. I’ve never been there myself, but I know about where it is.”
Adok ventured to touch Jim on the arm, and they were in the underground park Jim had passed through with Adok before. Adok hesitated, then turned left and began to walk off toward a side Street.
“This way, I think,” he said. Jim followed him, and they left the park, going down the Street until they came to a flight of what looked like wide stone steps leading up to a tall open portal in a wall of polished brown stone.
There were a few people coming and going through the portal, up and down the steps—all of them servants rather than Starkiens. Jim watched these, as he had watched all the servants they had passed on the way here, with a close attention. Now, going up the steps, his concentration was rewarded. Coming out of the portal as he and Adok started up the steps was a yellowish-skinned, black-eyed man like Melness. As he started down the steps, his eyes went to one of the servants entering—one of the short brown men with long, straight hair. The brown man ran the heel of his hand, in apparently an idle gesture, across his waist just at belt level. In response, without breaking stride, the yellow-skinned man who looked like Melness reached casually across with his right hand to lay two fingers momentarily against the biceps of his left arm, before dropping the arm once more to his side.