Podkayne of Mars (20 page)

Do you suppose Mr. Chairman uses an androidal Tik-Tok as his phone monitor? I wouldn’t put it past him—and any live woman should have shown
some
reaction at some of the emplausibilities I showered on her, even if she didn’t understand most of the words (Well, I don’t understand some of them myself. But they are not compliments.)

I thought about phoning Daddy; I knew he would accept the charges, even if he had to mortgage his salary. But Mars was eleven minutes away; it said so, right on a dial of the phone. And the relays via Hermes Station and Luna City were even worse. With twenty-two minutes between each remark it would take me most of the day just to tell him what was wrong, even though they don’t charge you for the waiting time.

But I still might have called except—well, what could Daddy
do,
three hundred million kilometers away? All it would do would be to turn his last six hairs white.

It wasn’t until then that I steadied down enough to realize that there had been something else amiss about that note written into my journal—besides Clark’s childish swashbuckling. Girdie—

It was true that I had not seen Girdie for a couple of days; she was on a shift that caused her to zig while I zagged, newly hired dealers don’t get the best shifts. But I had indeed talked to her at a time when Clark was probably already gone even though at the time I had simply assumed that he had gotten up early for some inscrutable reason of his own, rather than not coming home at all that night.

But Uncle Tom had talked to her just before we had gone to the Cunha cottage the day before, asked her specifically if she had seen Clark—and she hadn’t. Not as recently as we had.

I didn’t have any trouble reaching Dom Pedro—not the Dom Pedro I met the night I met Dexter but the Dom Pedro of that shift. However, by now all the Dom Pedros know who Poddy Fries is; she’s the girl that is seen with Mr. Dexter. He told me at once that Girdie had gone off shift half an hour earlier and I should try her hilton. Unless—he stopped and made some inquiries; somebody seemed to think that Girdie had gone shopping.

As may be. I already knew that she was not at the little hilton she had moved to from the stylish (and expensive) Tannhäuser; a message I had already recorded there was guaranteed to fetch a call back in seconds, if and when.

That ended it. There was no one left for me to turn to, nothing at all left for me to do, save wait in the suite until Uncle returned, as he had ordered me to do.

So I grabbed my purse and a coat and left.

And got all of three meters outside the door of the suite. A tall, wide, muscular character got in my way. When I tried to duck around him, he said, “Now, now, Miss Fries. Your uncle left orders.”

I scurried the other way and found that he was awfully quick on his feet, for such a big man. So there I was, arrested! Shoved back into our own suite and held in durance vile. You know, I don’t think Uncle entirely trusts me.

I went back to my room and closed the door and thought about it. The room was still not made up and still cluttered with dirty dishes because, despite the language barrier, I have made clear to Maria and Maria that Miss Fries becomes quite vexed if
anybody
disturbs my room until I signal that I no longer want privacy by leaving the door open.

The clumsy, two-decker, roll-around table that had fetched my breakfast was still by my bed, looking like a plundered city.

I took everything off the lower shelf, stowed it here and there in my bath, covered the stuff on top of the table with the extra cloth used to shield the tender eyes of cash customers from the sight of dirty dishes.

Then I grabbed the house phone and told them I wanted my breakfast dishes cleared away immediately.

I’m not very big. I mean you can fit forty-nine mass kilos only one hundred fifty-seven centimeters long into a fairly small space if you scrunch a little. That lower shelf was hard but not too cramped. It had some ketchup on it I hadn’t noticed.

Uncle’s orders (or perhaps Mr. Cunha’s) were being followed meticulously, however. Ordinarily a pantry boy comes to remove the food wagon; this time the two Marias took it out the service entrance and as far as the service lift—and in the course of it I learned something interesting but not really surprising. Maria said something in Portuguese; the other Maria answered her in Ortho as glib as mine: “She’s probably soaking in the tub, the lazy brat.”

I made a note not to remember her on birthdays and at Christmas.

Somebody wheeled me off the lift many levels down and shoved me into a corner. I waited a few moments, then crawled out. A man in a well-spotted apron was looking astonished. I said, “Obrigado!” handed him a deuce note and walked out the service entrance with my nose in the air. Two minutes later I was in a taxi.

I’ve been catching up on this account while the taxi scoots to South Gate in order not to chew my nails back to the elbows. I must admit that I feel good even though nervous. Action is better than waiting. No amount of bad can stonker me, but not knowing drives me nuts.

The spool is almost finished, so I think I’ll change spools and mail this one back to Uncle at South Gate. I should have left a note, I know—but this is better than a note. I hope.

THIRTEEN

Well, I can’t complain about not having seen fairies.
They are every bit as cute as they are supposed to be—but I don’t care greatly if I never see another one.

Throwing myself bravely into the fray against fearful odds, by sheer audacity I overcame—

It wasn’t that way at all, I fubbed. Completely. So here I am, some nowhere place out in the bush, in a room with no windows, and only one door. That door isn’t much use to me as there is a fairy perched over it. She’s a cute little thing and the green part of her fur looks exactly like a ballet tutu. She doesn’t look quite like a miniature human with wings—but they do say that the longer you stay here the more human they look. Her eyes slant up, like a cat’s, and she has a very pretty built-in smile.

I call her “Titania” because I can’t pronounce her real name. She speaks a few words of Ortho, not much because those little skulls are only about twice the brain capacity of a cat’s skull—actually, she’s an idiot studying to be a moron and not studying very hard.

Most of the time she just stays perched and nurses her baby—the size of a kitten and twice as cute. I call it “Ariel” although I’m not sure of its sex. I’m not dead sure of Titania’s sex; they say that both males and females do this nursing thing, which is not quite nursing but serves the same purpose; they are not mammalians. Ariel hasn’t learned to fly yet, but Titania is teaching it—tosses it into the air and it sort of flops and glides to the floor and then stays there, mewing piteously until she comes to get it and flies back to her perch.

I’m spending most of my time a) thinking, b) bringing this journal up to date, c) trying to persuade Titania to let me hold Ariel (making some progress; she now lets me pick it up and hand it to her—the baby isn’t a bit afraid of me), and d) thinking, which seems to be a futile occupation.

Because I can go anywhere in the room and do anything as long as I stay a couple of meters away from that door. Guess why? Give up? Because fairies have very sharp teeth and claws; they’re carnivorous. I have a nasty bite and two deep scratches on my left arm to prove it—red and tender and don’t seem to want to heal. If I get close to that door, she dives on me.

Completely friendly otherwise—Nor do I have anything physically to complain about. Often enough a native comes in with a tray of really quite good food. But I never watch him come in and I never watch him take it away—because Venerians look entirely too human to start with and the more you look at them the worse it is for your stomach. No doubt you have seen pictures but pictures don’t give you the smell and that drooling loose mouth, nor the impression that this
thing
has been dead a long time and is now animated by obscene arts.

I call him “Pinhead” and to him that is a compliment. No doubt as to its being a “him” either. It’s enough to make a girl enter a nunnery.

I eat the food because I feel sure Pinhead didn’t cook it. I think I know who does. She would be a good cook.

Let me back up a little. I told the news vendor: “Better give me two—it’s quite dark where I’m going.” He hesitated and looked at me and I repeated it.

So pretty soon I am in another air car and headed out over the bush. Ever make a wide, sweeping turn in smog? That did it. I haven’t the slightest idea where I am, save that it is somewhere within two hours’ flight of Venusberg and that there is a small colony of fairies nearby. I saw them flying shortly before we landed and was so terribly interested that I didn’t really get a good look at the spot before the car stopped and the door opened. Not that it would have done any good—

I got out and the car lifted at once, mussing me up with its fans . . . and here was an open door to a house and a familiar voice was saying, “Poddy! Come in, dear, come in!”

And I was suddenly so relieved that I threw myself into her arms and hugged her and she hugged me back. It was Mrs. Grew, fat and friendly as ever.

And looked around and here was Clark, just sitting—and he looked at me and said, “Stupid,” and looked away. And then I saw Uncle—sitting in another chair and was about to throw myself at him with wild shouts of glee—when Mrs. Grew’s arms were suddenly awfully strong and she said soothingly, “No, no, dear, not quite so fast” and held me until somebody (Pinhead, it was) did something to the back of my neck.

Then I had a big comfortable chair all to myself and didn’t want it because I couldn’t move from my neck down. I felt all right, aside from some odd tingles, but I couldn’t stir.

Uncle looked like Mr. Lincoln grieving over the deaths at Waterloo. He didn’t say anything.

Mrs. Grew said cheerfully, “Well, now we’ve got the whole family together. Feel a bit more like discussing things rationally, Senator?”

Uncle shook his head half a centimer.

She said, “Oh, come now! We do want you to attend the conference. We simply want you to attend it in the right frame of mind. If we can’t agree—well, it’s hardly possible to let any of you be found again. Isn’t that obvious? And that would be such a shame . . . especially for the children.”

Uncle said, “Pass the hemlock.”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“He certainly does mean it!” Clark said shrilly. “You illegal obscenity! I delete all over your censored!” And I knew he was really worked up, because Clark is contemptuous of vulgar idioms; he says they denote an inferior mind.

Mrs. Grew looked at Clark placidly, even tenderly. Then she called in Pinhead again. “Take him out and keep him awake till he dies.” Pinhead picked Clark up and carried him out. But Clark had the last word. “And besides that,” he yelled, “
you cheat at solitaire!
I’ve watched you!”

For a split moment Mrs. Grew looked really annoyed. Then she put her face back into its usual kindly expression and said to Uncle, “Now that I have both of the kids I think I can afford to expend one of them. Especially as you are quite fond of Poddy. Too fond of her, some people would say. Psychiatrists, I mean.”

I mulled that over . . . and decided that if I ever got out of this mess, I would make a rug out of her hide and give it to Uncle.

Uncle ignored it. Presently there was a most dreadful racket, metal on resounding metal. Mrs. Grew smiled. “It’s crude but it works. It is what used to be a water heater when this was a ranch. Unfortunately it isn’t quite big enough either to sit down or stand up in—but a boy that rude really shouldn’t expect comfort. The noise comes from pounding on the outside of it with a piece of pipe.” She blinked and looked thoughtful. “I don’t see how we can talk things over with such a racket going on. I think I should have the tank moved farther away—or perhaps our talk would march even more quickly if I had it brought nearer, so that you could hear the sounds he makes inside the tank, too. What do you think, Senator?”

I cut in. “Mrs. Grew!”

“Yes, dear? Poddy, I’m sorry but I’m really quite busy. Later we’ll have a nice cup of tea together. Now, Senator—”

“Mrs. Grew, you don’t understand my Uncle Tom at all! You’ll never get anything out of him this way.”

She considered it. “I think you exaggerate, dear. Wishful thinking.”

“No, no, no! There isn’t
any
way you could possibly get my Uncle Tom to do anything against Mars. But if you hurt Clark—or me—you’ll just make him more adamant. Oh, he loves me and he loves Clark, too. But if you try to budge him by hurting either one of us, you’re just wasting your time!” I was talking rapidly and just as sincerely as I know how. I seemed to hear Clark’s screams. Not likely, I guess, not over that infernal clanging. But once when he was a baby he fell into a wastebasket . . . and screamed something dreadful before I rescued him. I guess I was hearing that in my mind.

Mrs. Grew smiled pleasantly. “Poddy dear, you are only a girl and your head has been filled with nonsense. The Senator is going to do just what I want him to do.”

“Not if you kill Clark, he won’t!”

“You keep quiet, dear. Do keep quiet and let me explain—or I shall have to slap you a few times to keep you quiet. Poddy, I am not going to kill your brother—”

“But you said—”

“
Quiet!
That native who took your brother away didn’t understand what I said; he knows only trade Ortho, a few words, never a full sentence. I said what I did for the benefit of your brother . . . so that, when I
do
have him fetched back in, he’ll be groveling, begging your uncle to do anything I want him to do.”

She smiled warmly. “One piece of nonsense you’ve apparently been taught is that patriotism, or something silly like that, will overpower a man’s own self-interest. Believe me, I have no slightest fear that an old political hack like your uncle will give any real weight to such a silly abstraction. What
does
worry him is his own political ruin if he does what I want him to do. What he is going to do. Eh, Senator?”