The landlord came back. “She’s here and ready for you,” he grinned. A couple of nearby men guffawed coarsely. Sverdlov tossed off his drink, lit one of the cheap cigars he favored, and pushed through to the stairs.
At the end of a third floor corridor he rapped on a door. A voice invited him in. The room beyond was small and drably furnished, but its window looked down a straight street to the town’s end and a sudden feathery splendor of rainbow trees. Lightning flimmered through the bright rain of Krasna. Sverdlov wondered scornfully if Earth had jungle and infinite promise on any doorstep.
He closed the door and nodded at the two men who sat waiting. He knew fat Li-Tsung; the gaunt Arabic-looking fellow was strange to him, and neither asked for an introduction.
Li-Tsung raised an eyebrow. Sverdlov said, “It is going well. They were having some new troubles—the aerospores were playing merry hell with the electrical insulation—but I think I worked out a solution. The Wetlanders are keeping our boys amply fed, and there is no indication anyone has betrayed them. Yet.”
The thin man asked, “This is the clandestine bomb factory?”
“No,” said Li-Tsung. “It is time you learned of these matters,
especially when you are leaving the system today. This man has been helping direct something more important than small arms manufacture. They are tooling up out there to make interplanetary missiles.”
“What for?” answered the stranger. “Once the Fellowship has seized the mattercaster, it will be years before reinforcements can arrive from any other system. You’ll have time enough to build heavy armament then.” He glanced inquiringly at Sverdlov. Li-Tsung nodded. “In fact,” said the thin man, “my division is trying to so organize things that there will be no closer Protectorate forces than Earth itself. Simultaneous revolution on a dozen planets. Then it would be at least two decades before spaceships could reach Tau Ceti.”
“Ah,” grunted Sverdlov. He lowered his hairy body into a chair. His cigar jabbed at the thin man. “Have you ever thought the Earthlings are no fools? The mattercaster for the Tau Ceti System is up there on Moon Two. Sure. We seize it, or destroy it. But is it the only transceiver around?”
The thin man choked. Li-Tsung murmured, “This is not for the rank and file. There is enough awe of Earth already to hold the people back. But in point of fact, the Protector is an idiot if there is not at least one asteroid in some unlikely orbit, with a heavy-duty ‘caster mounted on it. We can expect the Navy in our skies within hours of the independence proclamation. We must be prepared to fight!”
“But—” said the thin man. “But this means it will take years more to make ready than I thought. I had hoped—”
“The Centaurians rebelled prematurely, forty years ago,” said Li-Tsung. “Let us never forget the lesson. Do you want to be lobotomized?”
There was silence for a while. Rain hammered on the roof. Down in the street, a couple of rangers just in from the Uplands were organizing an impromptu saurian fight.
“Well,” said Sverdlov at last. “I’d better not stay here.”
“Oh, but you should,” said Li-Tsung. “You are supposedly visiting a woman, do you remember?”
Sverdlov snorted impatience, but reached for the little chess set in his pouch. “Who’ll play me a quick game, then?”
“Are the bright lights that attractive?” asked Li-Tsung.
Sverdlov spoke an obscenity. “I’ve spent nearly my whole
leave chasing through the bush and up into the Czar,” he said. “I’ll be off to Thovo—or worse yet, to Krimchak or Cupra or the Belt, Thovo has a settlement at least—for weeks. Months, perhaps! Let me relax a little first.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Li-Tsung, “your next berth has already been assigned, and it is not to any of those places. It is outsystem.” In his public persona, he was a minor official in the local branch of the Astronautical Guild.
“What?” Sverdlov cursed for a steady minute. “You mean I’m to be locked up for a month on some stinking ship in the middle of interstellar space, and—”
“Calmly, please, calmly. You won’t be standing a routine single-handed just-in-case watch. This will be rather more interesting. You will be on the XA463, the Southern Cross.”