“Incredible !” exclaimed Roban. “How, then, is anything done?”
“I do not know. I simply do not understand it at all. They do not seem to care, as a nation, whether anything worth while gets done or not, as long as each man has what he calls his liberty. But that isn’t the worst, or the most unreasonable. Listen to this.”
Dunark told his father all about the Seaton-Crane versus DuQuesne conflict. “Then, in spite of all that, Crane gave DuQuesne both his pistols and DuQuesne stood at Seaton’s side in that doorway and the two of them killed every Mardonalian on that roof before I could fire a single shot. DuQuesne fired every bullet in both his pistols and made no attempt whatever to kill either Seaton or Crane. And he is still their captive!”
“Incredible! What an incomprehensibly distorted sense of honor! If it were anyone except you saying this, I would deem it the ravings of a maniac. Are you sure, son, that these are facts?”
“I am sure. I saw them happen; so did the others. But in many other respects they are . . . well, they are not insane . . . incomprehensible. The tenets of reason as we know reason simply are not applicable to many of their ideas, concepts, and actions. Clothing, for instance. Their values, their ethics, are in some respects absolutely incommensurate with ours. However, their sense of honor is, at bottom, as sound as ours, and as strong. And, since Nalboon tried to kill them, they are definitely on our side.”
“That, at least, I can understand, and it is well.” The older man shook his head. “My mind is full of cobwebs. An enemy who is a friend. Or vice versa. Or both. A master who arms a slave. An armed slave who does not kill his master. That, my son, is simple, plain, stark lunacy!”
During this conversation they had reached the palace, after traversing grounds even more sumptuous and splendid than those surrounding the palace of Nalboon. Inside the building, Dunark himself led the guests to their rooms, accompanied by the major-domo and an escort of guards. The rooms were intercommunicating and each had a completely equipped bathroom, with a small swimming pool, built of polished metal, in lieu of a tub.
“This’d be nice,” Seaton said, indicating the pool, “if you had some cold water.”
“There is cold water.” Dunark turned on a ten-inch stream of lukewarm water, then shut it off and smiled sheepishly. “But I keep forgetting what you mean by the word ‘cold’. We will install refrigerating machines at once.”
“Oh, don’t bother about that; we won’t be here long enough. One thing, though, I forgot to tell you. We’ll eat our own food, not yours.”
“Of course. We’ll take care of it. I’ll be back in half an hour to take you to fourth-meal.”
Scarcely had the Earthlings freshened themselves than he was back; but he was no longer the Dunark they had known. He now wore a metal-and-leather harness that was one blaze of gems. A belt hung with resplendent weapons replaced the familiar hollow one of metal. His right arm, between the wrist and the elbow, was almost covered by six bracelets of a transparent, deep cobalt-blue metal; each set with an incredibly brilliant stone of the same color. On his left wrist he wore a Kondalian chronometer. This was an instrument resembling an odometer, whose numerous revolving segments showed a large and constantly increasing number—the date and time of the Osnomian day expressed in a decimal number of the years of Kondalian history.
“Greetings, oh guests from Tellus! I feel more like myself, now that I am again in my trappings and have my weapons at my side.” He attached a timepiece to the wrist of each of the guests, with a bracelet of the blue metal. “Will you accompany me to fourth-meal or aren’t you hungry?”
“We accept with thanks,” Dorothy replied, promptly. “I, for one, am starving by inches.”
As they walked toward the dining-hall Dunark noticed that Dorothy’s eyes kept straying to his bracelets.
“They are our wedding rings. Man and wife exchange bracelets as part of the ceremony.”
“Then you can always tell whether a man is married, and how many wives he has, just by looking at his arm. Nice. Some men on Earth wear wedding rings, but not many.”
Roban met them at the door of the hall, and Dorothy counted ten of the peculiar bracelets upon his right arm as he led them to places near his own. The room was a replica of the other Osnomian dining-hall they had seen; and the women were decorated with the same barbaric splendor of scintillating gems.
After the meal, which was a happy one, taking on the nature of a celebration in honor of the return of the children, DuQuesne went directly to his room, while the others spent the time until zero hour in strolling about the grounds. Upon returning to the room occupied by the two girls, the couples separated, each girl accompanying her lover to the door of his room.
Margaret was ill at ease.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Crane asked, solicitously.
She twisted nervously at a button on his shirt.
“I didn’t know that you . . . I wasn’t . . . I mean I didn’t . . .” She broke off, then went on with a rush. “What did Dunark mean by calling you the Karfedix of Wealth?”
“Well, you see, I happen to have some money . . .” he began.
“Then you really are M. Reynolds Crane!”
Crane put his other arm around her, kissed her, and held her close.
“Is that all that was bothering you? What does money amount to between you and me?”
“Nothing—to me—but I’m awfully glad I didn’t know anything about it before.” She returned his kisses with fervor. “That is, it doesn’t mean a thing if you are perfectly sure that I’m not after—”
Crane, the imperturbable, broke a hard and fast rule and interrupted her. “Don’t say that, dear. Don’t even think of it, ever again. We both know that between you and me there never have been, are not now, and never shall be, any doubts or any questions.”
“If I could have that tank full of good cold water right now,” Seaton said, as he stood with Dorothy in the door of his room, “I’d throw you in, clothes and all, dive in with you, and we’d soak in it all night. Night? What do I mean, night? This constant daylight, constant heat, and supersaturated humidity are pulling my cork. You don’t look up to snuff, either.” He lifted her gorgeous auburn head from his shoulder and studied her face. “You look like you’d been pulled through a knot hole—you’re starting to get black circles under your eyes.”
“I know it.” She nestled even closer against him. “I’m scared blue half the time. I always thought I had good nerves, but every thing here is so perfectly horrible that I can’t sleep—and I always used to go to sleep in the air, two or three inches before I hit the sheets. When I’m with you it isn’t too bad—I really enjoy a lot of the things—but the sleeping-periods—Ugh!” She shivered in the circle of his arms. “You can say anything about them you can think of, and I’ll back you to your proverbial nineteen decimals. I just lie there, tenser and tighter, and my mind goes up like a skyrocket. Peggy and I just huddle up to each other in a ghastly purple funk. I’m ashamed of both of us, but that’s the way it is and we can’t help it.”
“I’m sorry, ace.” He tightened his arms. “Sorrier than I can say. You’ve got nerve, and you aren’t going to fall apart; I know that. It’s just that you haven’t roughed it away from home enough to be able to feel at home wherever your hat is. The reason you feel safe with me is probably that I feel perfectly at home here myself—except for the temperature and so on.”
“Uh-huh . . . probably.” Dorothy gnawed at her lower lip. “I never thought I was a clinging-vine type, but I’m getting to be. I’m simply scared to death to go to bed.”
“Chin up, sweetheart.” An interlude. “I wish I could be with you all the time—you know how much I wish it—but it won’t be long. We’ll fix the chariot and snap back to Earth in a hurry.”
She pushed him into his room, followed him inside, closed the door, and put both hands on his shoulders.
“Dick Seaton,” she said, blushing hotly, “You’re not as dumb as I thought you were—you’re dumber ! But if you won’t say it, even after such a sob-story as that, I will. No law says that a marriage has to be performed on Earth to be legal.”