Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

I thought of showing him that gold credit cardÄI doubt that there is a streetwalker anywhere who carries a gold credit card. But the old dear really did think that he was taking care of me and I had humiliated enough people for one day. I thanked him and went up to my room.

Human people are so cocksure that they can always spot an APÄ blah! We can’t even spot each other. Trevor was the only man I had ever met whom I could have married with an utterly clear conscienceÄand I had chased him away.

But he was too sensitive!

Who is too sensitive? You are, Friday.

But, damn it, most humans do discriminate against our sort. Kick a dog often enough and he becomes awfully jumpy. Look at my sweet Ennzedd family, the finks. Anita probably felt self-righteous about cheating meÄI’m not human.

Score for the day: Humans 9ÄFriday 0.

Where is Janet?

xxi

After a short nap that I spent standing on an auction block, waiting to be sold, I woke upÄwoke up because prospective buyers were insisting on inspecting my teeth and I finally bit one and the auctioneer started giving me a taste of the whip and woke me. The Be!lingham Hilton looked awfully good.

Then I made the call I should have made first. But the other calls had to be made anyhow and this call cost too much and would have been unnecessary if my last call had paid off. Besides, I don’t like to phone the Moon; the time lag upsets me.

So I called Ceres and South Africa Acceptances, Boss’s bankerÄ or one of them. The one who took care of my credit and paid my bills.

After the usual hassle with synthetic voices that seemed more deliberately frustrating than ever through the speed-of-light lag, I finally reached a human being, a beautiful female creature who clearly (it seemed to me) had been hired to be a decorative receptionistÄone-sixth gee is far more effective than a bra. I asked her to let me speak to one of the bank’s officers.

“You are speaking to one of the vice-presidents,” she answered. “You managed to convince our computer that you needed help from a responsible officer. That’s quite a trick; that computer is stubborn. How may I help you?”

I told a portion of my unlikely story. “So it took a couple of weeks

to get inside the Imperium and when I did, all my contact codes were sour. Does the bank have another call code or address for me?”

“We’ll see. What is the name of the company for which you work?”

“It has several names. One is System Enterprises.”

“What is your employer’s name?”

“He doesn’t have a name. He is elderly, heavyset, one-eyed, rather crippled, and walks slowly with two canes. Does that win a prize?”

“We’ll see. You told me that we backed your MasterCard credit issued through the Imperial Bank of Saint Louis. Read the card’s number, slowly.”

I did so. “Want to photograph it?”

“No. Give me a date.”

“Ten sixtyÄsix.”

“Fourteen ninety-two,” she answered.

“Four thousand four B.C.,” I agreed.

“Seventeen seventy-six,” she riposted.

“Two thousand twelve,” I answered.

“You have a grisly sense of humor, Miss Baldwin. All right, you’re tentatively you. But if you’re not, I’ll make a small bet with you that you won’t live past the next checkpoint. Mr. Two-Canes is reputed to be unamused by gatecrashers. Take down this call code. Then read it back to me.”

I did so.

One hour later I was walking past the Palace of the Confederacy in San Jose, again headed for the California Commercial Credit Building and firmly resolved not to get into any fights in front of the Palace no matter what assassinations were being attempted. I thought about the fact that I was on the exact spot I had been on, uh, two weeks ago?Äand if this relay point sent me to Vicksburg I would go quietly mad.

My appointment at the CCC Building was not with MasterCard but with a law firm on another floor, one I had called from Bellingham after obtaining the firm’s terminal code from the Moon. I had just reached the corner of the building when a voice almost in my ear said, “Miss Friday.”