you'd called adoctor, you wouldn't tell him to leave his little black bag behind; ifyou'd called a lawyer, you wouldn't make him check his brief case. Or,if you did, he'd tell you to drop dead.
"I was asked to come here as fast as possible, and when I do, I'm toldto wait till tomorrow. Now you want me to check my gun. The hell withyou."
"Merely a safety precaution," said the blond young man worriedly.
"You think I'm going to shoot Ravenhurst, maybe? Don't be an idiot." Istarted climbing into my vac suit.
"Just a minute, please, Mr. Oak," said a voice from a hidden speaker.It was Ravenhurst, and he actually sounded apologetic. "You mustn'tblame Mr. Feller; those are my standing orders, and I failed to tellMr. Feller to make an exception in your case. The error was mine."
"I know," I said. "I wasn't blaming Mr. Feller. I wasn't even talkingto him. I was addressing you."
"I believe you. Mr. Feller, our guest has gone to all the trouble ofhaving a suit made with a space under the arm for that gun; I see noreason to make him remove it." A pause. "Again, Mr. Oak, I apologize.I really want you to take this job."
I was already taking off the vac suit again.
"But," Ravenhurst continued smoothly, "if I fail to live up to yourideas of courtesy again, I hope you'll forgive me in advance. I'msometimes very forgetful, and I don't like it when a man threatens toleave my employ twice in the space of fifteen minutes."
"I'm not in your employ yet, Ravenhurst," I said. "If I accept thejob, I won't threaten to quit again unless I mean to carry it through,and it would take a lot more than common discourtesy to make me dothat. On the other hand, your brand of discourtesy is a shade abovethe common."
"I thank you for that, at least," said Ravenhurst. "Show him to myoffice, Mr. Feller."
The blond young man nodded wordlessly and led me from the room.
* * * * *
Walking under low-gee conditions is like nothing else in thisuniverse. I don't mean trotting around on Luna; one-sixth gee ispractically homelike in comparison. And zero gee is so devoid oforientation that it gives the sensation of falling endlessly until youget used to it. But a planetoid is in a different class altogether.
Remember that dream--almost everybody's had it--where you're suddenlyable to fly? It isn't flying exactly; it's a sort of swimming in theair. Like being underwater, except that the medium around you isn't sodense and viscous, and you can breathe. Remember? Well, that's thefeeling you get on a low-gee planetoid.
Your arms don't tend to hang at your sides, as they do on Earth orLuna, because the muscular tension tends to hold them out, just as itdoes in zero-gee, but there is still a definite sensation ofup-and-down. If you push yourself off the floor, you tend to float ina long, slow, graceful arc, provided you don't push too hard. Magneticsoles are practically a must.
I followed the blond Mr. Feller down a series of long corridors whichhad been painted a pale green, which gave me the feeling that I wasunderwater. There were doors spaced at intervals along the corridorwalls. Occasionally one of them would open and a busy looking manwould cross the corridor, open another door, and disappear. Frombehind the doors, I could hear the drum of distant sounds.
We finally ended up in front of what looked like the only wooden doorin the place. When you're carving an office and residence out of anickel-iron planetoid, importing wood from Earth is a purely luxurymatter.
There was no name plate on that mahogany-red door; there didn't needto be.
Feller touched a thin-lined circle in the door jamb.
"You don't knock?" I asked with mock seriousness.
"No," said Feller, with a straight face. "I have to signal. Knockingwouldn't do any good. That's just wood veneer over a three-inch-thicksteel slab."
The door opened and I stepped inside.
I have never seen a room quite like it. The furniture was all thatsame mahogany--a huge desk, nineteenth century baroque, with carvedand curlicued legs; two chairs carved the same, with padded seats ofmaroon leather; and a chair behind the desk that might have doubled asa bishop's throne, with even fancier carving. Off to one side was along couch upholstered in a lighter maroon. The wall-to-wall carpetingwas a rich Burgundy, with a pile deep enough to run a reaper through.The walls were paneled with mahogany and hung with a couple of hugetapestries done in maroon, purple, and red. A bookcase along one wallwas filled with books, every one of which had been rebound in maroonleather.
It was like walking into a cask of old claret. Or old blood.
The man sitting behind the desk looked as though he'd been built to bethe lightest spot in an analogous color scheme. His suit was mauvewith purple piping, and his wide, square, saggy face was florid. Onhis nose and cheeks, tiny lines of purple tracing made darker areas inhis skin. His hair was a medium brown, but it was clipped so shortthat the scalp showed faintly through, and amid all that overwhelmingbackground, even the hair looked vaguely violet.
"Come in, Mr. Oak," said Shalimar Ravenhurst.
I walked toward him across the Burgundy carpet while the blond youngman discreetly closed the door behind me, leaving us alone. I didn'tblame him. I was wearing a yellow union suit, and I hate to think whatI must have looked like in that room.
I sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk after giving a briefshake to a thick-fingered, well-manicured, slightly oily hand.
He opened a crystal decanter that stood on one end of the desk. "Havesome Madeira, Mr. Oak? Or would you like something else? I never drinkspirits at this time of night."
I fought down an impulse to ask for a shot of redeye. "The Madeirawill be fine, Mr. Ravenhurst."
He poured and handed me a stemmed glass nearly brimming with the wine.I joined him in an appreciative sip, then waited while he made up hismind to talk.
He leaned across the desk, looking at me with his small, dark eyes. Hehad an expression on his face that looked as if it were trying tosneer and leer at the same time but couldn't get much beyond thesmirk stage.
"Mr. Oak, I have investigated you thoroughly--as thoroughly as it canbe done, at least. My attorneys say that your reputation is A-one;that you get things done and rarely disappoint a client."
He paused as if waiting for a comment. I gave him nothing.
After a moment, he went on. "I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'mgoing to have to trust you." He leaned back in his chair again, hiseyes still on me. "Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not alikable man. I do not pretend to be. That's not my function." He saidit as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished itwasn't so.
"I do not ask that you like me," he continued. "I only ask that you beloyal to my interests for the duration of this assignment." Anotherpause. "I have been assured by others that this will be so. I wouldlike your assurance."
"If I take the assignment, Mr. Ravenhurst," I told him, "I'll beworking for _you_. I can be bought, but once I'm bought I stay bought.
"Now, what seems to be your trouble?"
He frowned. "Well, now, let's get one thing settled: Are you workingfor me, or not?"
"I won't know that until I find out what the job is."
His frown deepened. "Now, see here; this is very confidential work.What happens if I tell you and you decide not to work for me?"
I sighed. "Ravenhurst, right now, you're paying me to listen to you.Even if I don't take your job, I'm going to bill you for expenses andtime to come all the way out here. So, as far as listening isconcerned, I'm working for you now. If I don't like the job, I'llstill forget everything I'm told. All right?"
He didn't like it, but he had no choice. "All right," he said. Hepolished off his glass of Madeira and refilled it. My own glass wasstill nearly full.
"Mr. Oak," he began, "I have two problems. One is minor, the othermajor. But I have attempted to blow the minor problem up out ofproportion, so that all the people here at Raven's Rest think that itis the only problem. They think that I brought you out here for thatreason alone.
"But
all that is merely cover-up for the real problem."
"Which is?" I prompted.
He leaned forward again. Apparently, it was the only exercise he evergot. "You're aware that Viking Spacecraft is one of the corporationsunder the management of Ravenhurst Holdings?"
I nodded. Viking Spacecraft built some of the biggest and bestspacecraft in the System. It held most of Ceres--all of it, in fact,except the Government Reservation. It had moved out to the asteroids along time back, after the big mining concerns began cutting up thesmaller asteroids for metal. The raw materials are easier