Podkayne of Mars (15 page)

“Okay?” the man said doubtfully, still holding my arm.

“Sure, sure. She’s harmless. Sis, this is Josie Mendoza, company cop, on lease to me for tonight. Hi, Girdie!” Clark’s voice was suddenly enthusiastic. But he remembered to say, “Joe, slip into my seat and watch the stuff. Girdie, this is swell! You gonna play black jack? You can have my seat.”

(It must be love, dears. Or a high fever.)

She explained that she was about to play roulette. “Want me to come help?” he said eagerly. “I’m pretty good on the wheel, too.”

She explained to him gently that she did not want help because she was working on a system, and promised to see him later in the evening. Girdie is unbelievably patient with Clark. I would have—

Come to think of it, she’s unbelievably patient with me.

If Girdie has a system for roulette, it didn’t show. We found two stools together and she tried to give me a few chips. I didn’t want to gamble and told her so, and she explained that I would have to stand up if I didn’t. Considering what 84 percent gee does to my poor feet I bought a few chips of my own and did just what she did, which was to place minimum bets on the colors, or on odd or even. This way you don’t win, you don’t lose—except that once in a long while the little ball lands on zero and you lose a chip permanently (that “house percentage” the sign warned against).

The croupier could see what we were doing but we actually were gambling and inside the rules; he didn’t object. I discovered almost at once that the trays of food circulating and the drinks were absolutely free—to anyone who was gambling. Girdie had a glass of wine. I don’t touch alcoholic drinks even on birthdays—and I certainly wasn’t going to drink Hi-Ho, after that obnoxious ad!—but I ate two or three sandwiches and asked for, and got—they had to go get it—a glass of milk. I tipped the amount I saw Girdie tip.

We had been there over an hour and I was maybe three or four chips ahead when I happened to sit up straight—and knocked a glass out of the hand of a man standing behind me, all over him, some over me.

“Oh, dear!” I said, jumping down from my stool and trying to dab off the wet spots on him with my kerchief. “I’m terribly sorry!”

He bowed. “No harm done to me. Merely soda water. But I fear my clumsiness has ruined milady’s gown.”

Out of one corner of her mouth Girdie said, “Watch it, kid!” but I answered, “This dress? Huh uh! If that was just water, there won’t be a wrinkle or a spot in ten minutes. Travel clothes.”

“You are a visitor to our city? Then permit me to introduce myself less informally than by soaking you to the skin.” He whipped out a card. Girdie was looking grim but I rather liked his looks. Actually not impossibly older than I am (I guessed at twelve Mars years, or say thirty-six of his own—and it turned out he was only thirty-two). He was dressed in the very elegant Venus evening wear, with cape and stick and formal ruff . . . and the cutest little waxed mustaches.

The card read:

I read it, then reread it, then said, “Dexter
Kurt
Cunha—Are you any relation to—”

“My father.”

“Why, I know your father!”—and put out my hand.

Ever had your hand kissed? It makes chill bumps that race up your arm, across your shoulders, and down the other arm—and of course nobody would ever do it on Mars. This is a distinct shortcoming in our planet and one I intend to correct, even if I have to bribe Clark to institute the custom.

By the time we had names straight, Dexter was urging us to share a bite of supper and some dancing with him in the roof garden. But Girdie was balky. “Mr. Cunha,” she said, “that is a very handsome calling card. But I am responsible for Podkayne to her uncle—and I would rather see your I.D.”

For a split second he looked chilly. Then he smiled warmly at her and said, “I can do better,” and held up one hand.

The most imposing old gentleman I have ever seen hurried over. From the medals on his chest I would say that he had won every spelling contest from first grade on. His bearing was kingly and his costume unbelievable. “Yes, Stockholder?”

“Dom Pedro, will you please identify me to these ladies?”

“With pleasure, sir.” So Dexter was really Dexter and I got my hand kissed again. Dom Pedro does it with great flourish, but it didn’t have quite the same effect—I don’t think he puts his heart into it the way Dexter does.

Girdie insisted on stopping to collect Clark—and Clark suffered an awful moment of spontaneous schizophrenia, for he was still winning. But love won out and Girdie went up on Clark’s arm, with Josie trailing us with the loot. I must say I admire my brother in some ways; spending cash money to protect his winnings must have caused even deeper conflict in his soul, if any, than leaving the game while he was winning.

The roof garden is the Brasilia Room and is even more magnificent than the casino proper, with a night-sky root to match its name, stars and the Milky Way and the Southern Cross such as nobody ever in history actually saw from anywhere on Venus. Tourists were lined up behind a velvet rope waiting to get in—but not us. It was, “This way, if you please, Stockholder,” to an elevated table right by the floor and across from the orchestra and a perfect view of the floor show.

We danced and we ate foods I’ve never heard of and I let a glass of champagne be poured for me but didn’t try to drink it because the bubbles go up my nose—and wished for a glass of milk or at least a glass of water because some of the food was quite spicy, but didn’t ask for it.

But Dexter leaned over me and said, “Poddy, my spies tell me that you like milk.”

“I do!”

“So do I. But I’m too shy to order it unless I have somebody to back me up.” He raised a finger and two glasses of milk appeared instantly.

But I noticed that he hardly touched his.

However, I did not realize I had been hoaxed until later. A singer, part of the floor show, a tall handsome dark girl dressed as a gypsy—if gypsies did ever dress that way, which I doubt, but she was billed as “Romany Rose”—toured the ringside tables singing topical verses to a popular song.

She stopped in front of us, looked right at me and smiled, struck a couple of chords and sang:

And everybody clapped and Clark pounded on the table and Romany Rose curtsied to me and I started to cry and covered my face with my hands and suddenly remembered that I mustn’t cry because of my makeup and dabbed at my eyes with my napkin and hoped I hadn’t ruined it, and suddenly silver buckets with champagne appeared all over that big room and everybody
did
drink a toast to me, standing up when Dexter stood up in a sudden silence brought on by a roll of drums and a crashing chord from the orchestra.

I was speechless and just barely knew enough to stay seated myself and nod and try to smile when he looked at me—

—and he broke his glass, just like story tapes, and everybody imitated him and for a while there was crash and tinkle all over the room, and I felt like Ozma just after she stops being Tip and is Ozma again, and I had to remember my makeup very hard indeed!

Later on, after I had gulped my stomach back into place and could stand up without trembling, I danced with Dexter again. He is a dreamy dancer—a firm, sure lead without ever turning it into a wrestling match. During a slow waltz I said, “Dexter?
You
spilled that glass of soda water. On purpose.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Because it
is
a sky-blue dress—or the color that is called ‘sky-blue,’ for Earth, although I’ve never seen a sky this color. And my shoes
are
silvered. So it couldn’t have been an accident. Any of it.”

He just grinned, not a bit ashamed. “Only a little of it. I went first to your hilton—and it took almost half an hour to find out who had taken you where and I was furious, because Papa would have been most vexed. But I found you.”

I chewed that over and didn’t like the taste. “Then you did it because your daddy told you to. Told you to entertain me because I’m Uncle Tom’s niece.”

“No, Poddy.”

“Huh? Better check through the circuits again. That’s how the numbers read.”

“No, Poddy. Papa would never order me to entertain a lady—other than formally, at our cottage—lady on my arm at dinner, that sort of thing. What he did do was show me a picture of you and ask me if I wanted to. And I decided I did want to. But it wasn’t a very good picture of you, didn’t do you justice—just one snapped by one of the servants of the Tannhäuser when you didn’t know it.”

(I decided I had to find some way to get rid of Maria and Maria, a girl needs privacy. Although this hadn’t turned out too dry.)

But he was still talking. “. . . and when I did find you I almost didn’t recognize you, you were so much more dazzling than the photograph. I almost shied off from introducing myself. Then I got the wonderful idea of turning it into an accident. I stood behind you with that glass of soda water almost against your elbow for so long the bubbles all went out of it—and when you did move, you bumped me so gently I had to slop it over myself to make it enough of an accident to let me be properly apologetic.” He grinned most disarmingly.

“I see,” I said. “But look, Dexter, the photograph was probably a very good one. This isn’t my own face.” I explained what Girdie had done.

He shrugged. “Then someday wash it for me and let me look at the real Poddy. I’ll bet I’ll recognize her. Look, dear, the accident was only half fake, too. We’re even.”

“What do you mean?”

“They named me ‘Dexter’ for my maternal grandfather, before they found out I was left-handed. Then it was a case of either renaming me ‘Sinister,’ which doesn’t sound too well—or changing me over to right-handed. But that didn’t work out either; it just made me the clumsiest man on three planets.” (This while twirling me through a figure eight!)

“I’m always spilling things, knocking things over. You can follow me by the sound of fractured frangibles. The problem was not to cause an accident, but to keep from spilling that water until the right instant.” He grinned that impish grin. “I feel very triumphant about it. But forcing me out of left-handedness did something else to me too. It’s made me a rebel—and I think you are one, too.”

“Uh . . . maybe.”

“I certainly am. I am expected to be Chairman of the Board someday, like my papa and my grandpapa. But I shan’t. I’m going to space!”

“Oh! So am I!” We stopped dancing and chattered about spacing. Dexter intends to be an explorer captain, just like me—only I didn’t quite admit that my plans for spacing included pilot and master; it is never well in dealing with a male to let him know that you think
you
can do whatever it is he can do best or wants to do most. But Dexter intends to go to Cam-bridge and study paramagnetics and Davis mechanics and be ready when the first true starships are ready. Goodness!

“Poddy, maybe we’ll even do it together. Lots of billets for women in starships.”

I agreed that that was so.

“But let’s talk about you. Poddy, it wasn’t that you looked so much better than your picture.”

“No?” (I felt vaguely disappointed.)

“No. Look. I know your background, I know you’ve lived all your life in Marsopolis. Me, I’ve been everywhere. Sent to Earth for school, took the Grand Tour while I was there, been to Luna, of course, and all over Venus—and to Mars. When you were a little girl and I wish I had met you then.”

“Thank you.” (I was beginning to feel like a poor relation.)

“So I know exactly what a honky-tonk town Venusberg is . . . and what a shock it is to people the first time. Especially anyone reared in a gentle and civilized place like Marsopolis. Oh, I love my hometown, but I know what it is—I’ve been other places. Poddy? Look at me, Poddy. The thing that impressed me about you was your aplomb.”

“Me?”

“Your amazing and perfect savoir-faire . . . under conditions I
knew
were strange to you. Your uncle has been everywhere—and Girdie, I take it, has been, too. But lots of strangers here, older women, become quite giddy when first exposed to the fleshpots of Venusberg and behave frightfully. But you carry yourself like a queen. Savoir-faire.”

(This man I liked! Definitely. After years and years of “Beat it, runt!” it does something to a woman to be told she has savoir-faire. I didn’t even stop to wonder if he told all the girls that—I didn’t want to!)

We didn’t stay much longer; Girdie made it plain that I had to get my “beauty sleep.” So Clark went back to his game (Josie appeared out of nowhere at the right time—and I thought of telling Clark he had better git fer home too, but I decided that wasn’t “savoir-faire” and anyhow he wouldn’t have listened) and Dexter took us to the Tannhäuser in his papa’s Rolls (or maybe his own, I don’t know) and bowed over our hands and kissed them as he left us.

I was wondering if he would try to kiss me good night and had made up my mind to be cooperative about it. But he didn’t try. Maybe it’s not a Venusberg custom, I don’t know.

Girdie went up with me because I wanted to chatter. I bounced myself on a couch and said, “Oh, Girdie, it’s been the most wonderful night of my life!”

“It hasn’t been a bad night for me,” she said quietly. “It certainly can’t hurt me to have met the son of the Chairman of the Board.” It was then that she told me that she was staying on Venus.

“But, Girdie—
why?
”

“Because I’m broke, dear. I need a job.”

“You? But you’re
rich.
Everybody knows that.”

She smiled. “I
was
rich, dear. But my last husband went through it all. He was an optimistic man and excellent company. But not nearly the businessman he thought he was. So now Girdie must gird her loins and get to work. Venusberg is better than Earth for that. Back home I could either be a parasite on my old friends until they got sick of me—the chronic house guest—or get one of them to give me a job that would really be charity, since I don’t know anything. Or disappear into the lower depths and change my name. Here, nobody cares and there is always work for anyone who wants to work. I don’t drink and I don’t gamble—Venusberg is made to order for me.”