thrill. No game too exotic, no stakes too high or low. Continuous
sophisticated entertainment. Delicious food and drink, stimulants,
narcotics, hallucinogens, emphasizers, to your order, to your taste, to
your purse. Every sex and every technique of seventeen, yes, seventeen
intelligent species ready to serve your desires, and this does not count
racial, mutational, and biosculp variations. Come one, come all–”
Flandry went in. He chanced to brush against two or three of the
creature’s arms. The blue integument felt cold in the winter air.
The entrance hall was hot and stuffy. An outsize human in a gaudy
uniform said, “Welcome, sir. What is your wish?” while keeping eyes upon
him that were like chips of obsidian.
“Are you Lem?” Flandry responded.
“Uh, yeh. and you–?”
“I am expected.”
“Urh. Take the gravshaft to the top, that’s the sixth floor, go left
down the hall to a door numbered 666, stand in front of the scan and
wait. When it opens, go up the stairs.”
“Six-six-six?” murmured Flandry, who had read more than was common in
his service. “Is Citizen Ammon a humorist, do you think?”
“No names!” Lem dropped a hand to the stunner at his hip. “On your way,
kid.”
Flandry obeyed, even to letting himself be frisked and leaving his gun
at the checkstand. He was glad when Door 666 admitted him; that was the
sado-maso level, and he had glimpsed things.
The office which he entered, and which sealed itself behind him,
recalled Terra in its size and opulence and in the animation of a rose
garden which graced a wall. Or so it seemed; then he looked closer and
saw the shabbiness of the old furnishings, the garishness of the new. No
other human save Leon Ammon was present. A Gorzunian mercenary stood
like a shaggy statue in one corner. When Flandry turned his back, the
being’s musky scent continued to remind him that if he didn’t behave he
could be plucked into small pieces.
“G’evening,” said the man behind the desk. He was grossly fat, hairless,
sweating, not especially clean, although his scarlet tunic was of the
finest. His voice was high and scratchy. “You know who I am, right? Sit
down. Cigar? Brandy?”
Flandry accepted everything offered. It was of prime quality too. He
said so.
“You’ll do better than this if you stick by me,” Ammon replied. His
smile went no deeper than his lips. “You haven’t told about the
invitation my man whispered to you the other night?”
“No, sir, of course not.”
“Wouldn’t bother me if you did. Nothing illegal about inviting a young
chap for a drink and a gab. Right? But you could be in trouble yourself.
Mighty bad trouble, and not just with your commanding officer.”
Flandry had his suspicions about the origin of many of the subjects on
the floor below. Consenting adults … after brain-channeling and
surgical disguise … He studied the tip of his cigar. “I don’t imagine
you’d’ve asked me here, sir, if you thought I needed threatening,” he
said.
“No. I like your looks, Dominic,” Ammon said. “Have ever since you
started coming to Old Town for your fun. A lot of escapades, but
organized like military maneuvers, right? You’re cool and tough and
close-mouthed. I had a check done on your background.”
Flandry expanded his suspicions. Various incidents, when he had been
leaned on one way or another, began to look like engineered testing of
his reactions. “Wasn’t much to find out, was there?’ he said. “I’m only
a j.g., routinely fresh-minted after serving here for two months. Former
flyboy, reassigned to Intelligence, sent back to Terra for training in
it and then to Irumclaw for scouting duty.”
“I can’t really compute that,” Ammon said. “If they aim to make you a
spy, why have you spend a year flitting in and out of this system?”
“I need practice in surveillance, especially of planets that are poorly
known. And the no-man’s-land yonder needs watching. Our Merseian chums
could build an advanced base there, for instance, or start some other
kettle boiling, unbeknownst to us, if we didn’t keep scoutboats sweeping
around.” Maybe they have anyway.
“Yes, I got that answer before when I asked, and it still sounds to me