“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 Schwartz-herz, everbody 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,” he 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.
Doan 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
74 The Unicorn Trade
glance. “Sure, you may not be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I got tolerance. Like the Good Book says, if you want to get ahead, you have got to think positively. And your mission is pretty important.” 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 over-cautious.
They had instructed him on Mars to take chances if he must.
“I could tell you a thing or two which 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 right now.”
“What? Butbut” 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 of course I
THE INNOCENT ARRIVAL
75
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 Billings-worth 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?”
“Oh, yes, 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 rememberHey! 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?”