“No room . . . and no time. Eat some bread. What happened today?”
Thorby told him, while munching bread. Baslim simply nodded. “Lie down. I’ve got to use hypnosis on you again. We’ve got a long night ahead.”
The material Baslim wanted him to memorize consisted of figures, dates, and endless three-syllable nonsense words. The light trance felt dreamily pleasant and the droning of Baslim’s voice coming out of the recorder was pleasant, too.
During one of the breaks, when Baslim had commanded him to wake up, he said, “Pop, who’s this message for?”
“If you ever get a chance to deliver it, you’ll know; you won’t have any doubts. If you have trouble remembering it, tell him to put you into a light trance; it’ll come back.”
“Tell whom?”
“Him. Never mind. You are going to sleep. You are asleep.” Baslim snapped his fingers.
While the recorder was droning Thorby was vaguely aware once that Baslim had just come in. He was wearing his false leg, which affected Thorby with dreamy surprise; Pop ordinarily wore it only indoors. Once Thorby smelled smoke and thought dimly that something must be burning in the kitchen and he should go check. But he was unable to move and the nonsense words kept droning into his ears.
He became aware that he was droning back to Pop the lesson he had learned. “Did I get it right?”
“Yes. Now go to sleep. Sleep the rest of the night”
Baslim was gone in the morning. Thorby was not surprised; Pop’s movements had been even less predictable than usual lately. He ate breakfast, took his bowl and set out for the Plaza. Business was poor — Pop was right; Thorby now looked too healthy and well fed for the profession. Maybe he would have to learn to dislocate his joints like Granny the Snake. Or buy contact lenses with cataracts built into them.
Midafternoon an unscheduled freighter grounded at the port. Thorby started the usual inquiries, found that it was the Free Trader Sisu, registered home port New Finlandia, Shiva III.
Ordinarily this would have been a minor datum, to be reported to Pop when he saw him. But Captain Krausa of the Sisu was one of the five persons to whom Thorby was someday to deliver a message, if and when.
It fretted Thorby. He knew that he was not to look up Captain Krausa — that was the distant future, for Pop was alive and well. But maybe Pop would be anxious to know that this ship had arrived. Tramp freighters came and went, nobody knew when, and sometimes they were in port only a few hours.
Thorby told himself that he could get home in five minutes — and Pop might thank him. At worst he would bawl him out for leaving the Plaza, but, shucks, he could pick up anything he missed, through gossip.
Thorby left.
The ruins of the old amphitheater extend around one third of the periphery of the new. A dozen holes lead down Into the labyrinth which had served the old slave barracks; an unlimited number of routes ran underground from these informal entrances to that part which Baslim had preempted as a home. Thorby and he varied their route in random fashion and avoided being seen entering or leaving.
This time, being in a hurry, Thorby went to the nearest — and on past; there was a policeman at it. He continued as if his destination had been a tiny greengrocer’s booth on the street rimming the ruins. He stopped and spoke to the proprietress. “Howdy, Inga. Got a nice ripe melon you’re going to have to throw away?”
“No melons.”
He displayed money. “How about that big one? Half price and I won’t notice the rotten spot.” He leaned closer. “What’s burning?”
Her eyes flicked toward the patrolman. “Get lost.”
“Raid?”
“Get lost, I said.”
Thorby dropped a coin on the counter, picked up a bell-fruit and walked away, sucking the juice. He did not hurry.
A cautious reconnaissance showed him that police were staked out all through the ruins. At one entrance a group of ragged troglodytes huddled sadly under the eye of a patrolman. Baslim had estimated that at least five hundred people lived in the underground ruins. Thorby had not quite believed it, as he had rarely seen anyone else enter or heard them inside. He recognized only two faces among the prisoners.