Kenneth Bulmer: No Man's World

The second and third youths swung wildly. Caradine stepped outside the arc of the blows, let them follow through, stepped in close and let two short blows rip out. Three down and one to go. No, the fourth had thought better of it. His parti-colored shoes clattered on the vinyl as he ran out.

The leader was writhing and screaming on the floor.

The restaurant’s single human attendant rushed up, face distorted, shouting.

Caradine said, “Shut up. These four hoodlums tried to beat me up in your restaurant. Call the police, will you.”

The man, probably the manager, regained his senses fast He made placating motions with his hands.

Other diners were standing up, craning to look. One or two more responsible looking men began to walk over.

“It was no responsibility of mine, mister.” The manager was more scared even than the circumstances warranted. “The police don’t have to be bothered. You’re not hurt?”

“No. This lady’s meal was ruined by these punks. Charge them.” Carradine didn’t want to push the affair. He’d made his point, now he wanted to have done with it.

He walked quickly to the exit. A man half-tumed to let him go by. He had a dark, secretive face with thick but firm lips, and a deep cleft in his chin. Caradine gave him a brief glance and a short “Excuse me” as he went by.

Then he was out around the revolving doors and onto the sun-splashed sidewalk. Young punks! Just because their planet was powerful, they thought—oh, the hell with it all.

Throughout the quick flurry of blows he’d kept his cigar firmly clamped in his mouth. He smiled reflectively. That was just one of the tricks.

The travel office was surprisingly inconspicuous. A small, brown metal door let him through into a stone-flagged patio where extraordinarily pale green trees spread wide and flat leaves above an open-air counter. The few robots in attendance were inconclusively puttering about, pruning and trimming and shaving lawns. Water tinkled refreshingly from the middle-distance and exotic flowers bedazzled a mellow brick wall. It was all very soothing and very relaxing.

So that made Caradine that much more wary. He had by this time accepted the fact that he would not secure a visa to visit Alpha. He was now merely going through the motions. At the same time he was making contacts, and for a businessman contacts were the life blood of his work.

He sat in the restful plastic chair indicated by the robot and waited. Presendy a serene-looking, smiling, eminendy comfortable woman walked across and sat down beside him. Her gray hair was piled artfully and she wore an emerald-green gown and discreet jewelry.

“Mr. Carter? Mr. John Carter?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Harriet Lafonde.” She pushed a button on the arm of her chair and a robot brought tall glasses, dewed, with an amber liquid tinkling with ice.

“Try a Pomcrush,” she said, lifting a glass. “It’s a Horakah speciality.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Lafonde.” Carradine sipped. “Mm. Very good.”

“Glad you like it. Oh, and call me Harriet. I’m the travel permit official for Gamma.”

He did not allow that to surprise him. He just sipped again at the drink and waited for the woman to speak again.

After a time, she said: “Why do you want to go to Alpha, Mr. Carterr?”

“Business reasons. I sell goods wherever there is a good market and I believe that an exceptionally fine market exists on Alpha-Horakah. I’d like to go there and talk to a few of the importers, get their ideas, find out what they want, what goods they’re most interested in.”

Even as he spoke he was aware of the commercial banality of it all, but the old alarm-signals were trilling in his mind. He sounded just like a textbook businessman covering up an interstellar espionage agent. Damn his own suspicious character, anyway. That set-to with the young thugs in the restaurant had started a lot of the old gray cells in his mind functioning again, bringing up thoughts and memories he had imagined dead and forgotten. He smiled at Harriet Lafonde, there in the sunny patio under the wide-spreading trees.

“I think Alpha-Horakah as well as Gamma will profit from a visit.”

“And yourself, Mr. Carter?”

“Of course.” This was very civilized and very intelligent and very man-of-the-galaxy. Underneath the sound of knives being sharpened reached Caradine very clearly.

Harriet Lafonde said lazily, “You’ll pardon me if I say so, Mr. Carter, but you don’t at all look like the sort of man a commercial traveler should be.”

“Is there any type?”

“Oh, I think so. You’re far too brutal, too tough, too edgy.”

Caradine for the moment didn’t know what to say.

“We’re not children any more,” Harriet Lafonde said in her lazy, husky voice. “So you’re a businessman. But you’ve been used to giving orders, to bossing men about.”

“Please.” He had to grimace to keep his anger from showing. “Maybe what you say is right, maybe not. I’m not flattered. At the moment, and as far as our relationship is in the balance, I’m merely a businessman. I assure you of that with every fiber of meaning in me.” He stopped. Wrong. The wrong way. She’d pierced through with her damned womanly intuition and all the denials in the universe wouldn’t alter her opinion now. Perhaps he ought to have had that facial, after all. Perhaps he should have turned himself into a faceless anonymous one among billions.

His own spark of individuality had rebelled at that. He was David Caradine, and damn the galaxy!

He stood up, bowing slightly. “Thank you for the drink, Mrs. Lafonde. It was most pleasant. And the chat here in this pleasant patio garden—very enjoyable. I think I’ll stroll back to my hotel for lunch.”

“Stop babbling and sit down.”

Caradine sat.

“You want to go to Alpha. If I thought you were a spy I would not have sat out here with you and had this conversation which was deliberately slanted so that it would not be enjoyable. But you lied handsomely. Any woman likes a man who lies well.”

“Do I take that as a compliment?” He was smiling now.

Maybe, just maybe, it might be all right.

“Take it how you like. I cannot guarantee a visa for our central world. It must be quite obvious to you that we have things going on there that we do not wish rumored about. But I think that under the circumstances—circumstances of which you do not have the slightest inkling—we might be able to help. I’d have to have your word as a gen-tleman that you’d abide by the bargain we might make.”

“Could you explain that?”

“Simply that you cany on your business there. You make no attempt to pry into government affairs. You’d just be caugbt and executed, anyway.”

Caradine laughed. He began to feel good again.

“You can have my word on that easily enough. As of now I’m what I told you, a plain businessman. I leave the spy stuff for those who like it.” He stopped smiling for an instant. “Unless, that is, you were deliberately plotting against my home world. That might alter affairs.”

It was Harriet Lafonde’s turn to laugh.

“We plan nothing against Shanstar. Rest assured on that.”

Almost, but not quite, he said: “I was not thinking of Shanstar.” He didn’t on two counts. And the first was that he had no wish to be incarcerated in a lunatic asylum, or whatever euphemistic word they called them here.

“I can’t promise anything, remember. Ill ring you at your hotel tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lafonde. I appreciate your help, anyway.”

When he left he paused at the brown metal door and glanced back. The picture was nearly perfect: the dignified woman in her green dress, sitting under the pale green leaves of the trees, backed by masses of brilliant flowers, with the gentle sounds of birds and falling water and the hum of drowsy insects. It was all so peaceful and restful. It all aroused yearnings in him that now could never be fulfilled.