Fantastic Stories Presents the Poul Anderson Super Pack. Poul Anderson

      The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more.

      Oh, well, he thought, if I succeed in this job, no one at home will quibble.

      And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to show the vertical incandescence of the towers.

      “Whoof!” Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his contours. He jumped. “What the dusty hell—Oh.” He tried to grin, but his face burned. “I see.”

      “That is a sexy type of furniture, all right,” agreed Doran. He lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a cigarette. “Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around 2100 hours earliest.”

      “What?”

      “You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you.”

      “Me?” Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. “Me? Exotic? Why, I’m just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is—” His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened uncertain lips.

      “You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an abandoned canal.”

      “What’s a bushcat? And we don’t have canals. The evaporation rate—”

      “Look, Pete,” said Doran patiently. “She don’t have to know that, does she?”

      “Well—well, no. I guess not No.”

      “Let’s order you some clothes on the pneumo,” said Doran. “I recommend you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive.”

      *

      While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer.

      “You said one thing, Pete,” Doran remarked. “About needing a slipstring. A con man, you would call it.”

      “Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn.”

      “Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And maybe I have got a few contacts.”

      “What?” Matheny gaped out of the bathroom.

      Doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him. “I am not that man,” he said frankly. “But in my line I get a lot of contacts, and not all of them go topside. See what I mean? Like if, say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, I could not do it. I would not want to know anything about it. But I could tell you a phone number.”

      He shrugged and gave the Martian a sidelong glance. “Sure, you may not be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I got tolerance. Like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have got to think positively.”

      Matheny hesitated. If only he hadn’t taken that last shot! It made him want to say yes, immediately, without reservations. And therefore maybe he became overcautious.

      They had instructed him on Mars to take chances if he must.

      “I could tell you a thing or two that might give you a better idea,” he said slowly. “But it would have to be under security.”

      “Okay by me. Room service can send us up an oath box right now.”

      “What? But—but—” Matheny hung onto himself and tried to believe that he had landed on Earth less than six hours ago.

      In the end, he did call room service and the machine was trundled in. Doran swallowed the pill and donned the conditioner helmet without an instant’s hesitation.

      “I shall never reveal to any person unauthorized by yourself whatever you may tell me under security, now or at any other time,” he recited. Then, cheerfully: “And that formula, Pete, happens to be the honest-to-zebra truth.”

      “I know.” Matheny stared, embarrassed, at the carpet. “I’m sorry to—to—I mean of course I trust you, but—”

      “Forget it. I take a hundred security oaths a year, in my line of work. Maybe I can help you. I like you, Pete, damn if I don’t. And, sure, I might stand to get an agent’s cut, if I arrange—Go ahead, boy, go ahead.” Doran crossed his legs and leaned back.

      “Oh, it’s simple enough,” said Matheny. “It’s only that we already are operating con games.”

      “On Mars, you mean?”

      “Yes. There never were any Old Martians. We erected the ruins fifty years ago for the Billingsworth Expedition to find. We’ve been manufacturing relics ever since.”

      “Huh? Well, why, but—”

      “In this case, it helps to be at the far end of an interplanetary haul,” said Matheny. “Not many Terrestrial archeologists get to Mars and they depend on our people to—Well, anyhow—”

      “I will be clopped! Good for you!”

      *

      Doran blew up in laughter. “That is one thing I would never spill, even without security. I told you about my girl friend, didn’t I?”

      “Yes, and that calls to mind the Little Girl,” said Matheny apologetically. “She was another official project.”

      “Who?”

      “Remember Junie O’Brien? The little golden-haired girl on Mars, a mathematical prodigy, but dying of an incurable disease? She collected Earth coins.”

      “Oh, that. Sure, I remember—Hey! You didn’t!”

      “Yes. We made about a billion dollars on that one.”

      “I will be double damned. You know, Pete, I sent her a hundred-buck piece myself. Say, how is Junie O’Brien?”

      “Oh, fine. Under a different name, she’s now our finance minister.” Matheny stared out the wall, his hands twisting nervously behind his back. “There were no lies involved. She really does have a fatal disease. So do you and I. Every day we grow older.”

      “Uh!” exclaimed Doran.

      “And then the Red Ankh Society. You must have seen or heard their ads. ‘What mysterious knowledge did the Old Martians possess? What was the secret wisdom of the Ancient Aliens? Now the incredibly powerful semantics of the Red Ankh (not a religious organization) is available to a select few—’ That’s our largest dollar-earning enterprise.”

      He would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but it would have been too presumptuous. He was talking to an Earthman, who had heard everything already.

      Doran whistled.

      “That’s about all, so far,” confessed Matheny. “Perhaps a con is our only hope. I’ve been wondering, maybe we could organize a Martian bucket shop, handling Martian securities, but—well, I don’t know.”

      “I think—” Doran removed the helmet and stood up.

      “Yes?” Matheny faced around, shivering with his own tension.

      “I may be able to find the man you want,” said Doran. “I just may. It will take a few days and might get a little expensive.”

      “You mean . . . . Mr. Doran—Gus—you could actually—”

      “I cannot promise anything yet except that I will try. Now you finish dressing. I will be down in the bar. And I will call up this girl I know. We deserve a celebration!”

      *

      Peri was tall. Peri was slim. Peri smoldered when she walked and exploded when she stretched.