Frederik Pohl - O Pioneer!

Obviously Hagbarth was deliberately withholding information that Giyt needed to do his job properly. Why? Was he just intent on making Giyt look bad? And if so, what was the reason for that?

And, thinking of information withheld, what about Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s little bombshell concerning Professor Sommermen and the portal?

He attacked the system again, but there was nothing new about the portal to be found on a quick search. He sighed and prepared to dig deeper. He created a scout program to dig through the whole huge database for conjunction of key terms, wherever they might be found. But by the time the Kalkaboo morning barrage told him it was sunrise, nothing useful had turned up.

He showered and dressed abstractedly, sat abstractedly down to the breakfast Rina had made for him. She looked at him quizzically. “Are you all right. Shammy? Not hung over from last night?”

He blinked at her, mildly indignant. “I didn’t have that much to drink, did I?”

“Of course not, hon. You just seem a little down. It isn’t still that business with the Kalkaboos?” When he shook his head she changed the subject. “Shammy? Do you mind if I leave you alone for a while today? It’s Lupe and Matya. Today’s their anniversary, and they’ve got this kind of romantic idea, they want to go off for a picnic in the woods without all the kids around. So I promised I’d babysit.”

“Sure. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re positive? Because I could bring the little kids over here after I get the others off to school—”

That got his full attention. “No, no, that’s all right. Should you be doing all that in your condition, though?”

She beamed fondly at him. “You’re sweet, Shammy, but I’ll be fine. I love my condition, and you know what? I love you, too.”

Giyt was just sitting down to his terminal again when he heard someone at. the door. It turned out to be one of Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s lesser husbands. He was carrying a package as big as himself, that was wrapped in a shimmering silk-like fabric, decorated with flowers. Giyt scrambled to find his translator button and put it in his ear, just in time to hear the little creature say, “Object is freely given gift for enjoyment of you from honored wife and also from highly esteemed principal daughter. You observe have cart vehicle waiting? Reason for waiting of cart vehicle is must return quickly to home for urgent household duties.” He expertly detached a tiny record plate from the package and held it out for Giyt. “Sign signature for gift, please?”

Giyt pressed his thumb on the glassy section of the plate and scrawled his name over it, surprised and pleased. But as the Centaurian was getting into his cart another cart was pulling up behind it, and the good feelings evaporated as Hoak Hagbarth got out.

Hagbarth scowled curiously after the departing cart, but, if he had something to say about it, Giyt didn’t give him the chance to get it out. “Hagbarth, why is everybody lying about the portal?” he demanded without preface.

The expression on Hagbarth’s face changed in a way Giyt had never seen before. The scowl didn’t go away. If anything, it deepened, but at the same time Hagbarth’s pale eyebrows went up in incredulous shock. “Oh, God,” he moaned, “what is it with you now, Giyt?”

“You know what I’m talking about. The portal. Sommermen didn’t invent it. It was given to us by the eeties. I want to know why that’s been lied about.”

The frown and shock melted away from Hagbarth’s face, leaving only polite incredulity. “It was?”

“Of course it was. Mrs. Brownbenttalon told me about it herself.”

“Oh, right. You were at her place last night, weren’t you? How’d you like it?”

“Look,” Giyt said. “We’re not talking about the party. We’re talking about why Ex-Earth tells everybody the portal was Dr. Sommermen’s invention when it wasn’t.”

“Well now, how would I know that? Be reasonable, Giyt. I just work for Ex-Earth, they don’t tell me any secrets.”

“But you must know something.”

“No I mustn’t. I don’t, and that’s all there is to it. Aren’t you going to open your present?”

It was a standoff. Clearly if Hagbarth did have any information he wasn’t going to share it with Giyt, who surrendered and began to unwrap the package. It turned out to be half a dozen of the bamboo segments Mrs. Brownbenttalon had served, and Hagbarth’s scowl was replaced with a look of revulsion. “Oh, Christ, look what they’re giving you! It’s some of that damn lizard shit.”

Whether Giyt agreed with the sentiment or not, he felt obliged to defend his hostess. “It’s not so bad. We had some last night.”

“Oh, yeah. You were going to tell me what went on there.”

Actually, Giyt hadn’t intended to tell the man anything at all, but there was always the chance that if he kept on listening to Hagbarth the man might involuntarily tell him something useful. He said, “I guess you’d call it-a kind of coming-out party for her daughter.”

Hagbarth nodded wisely. “Yeah, I know those Centaurian parties. Pretty damn boring and lousy food, right? Mrs. B, used to invite me and Olse now and then, but, you know, they’re eeties, aren’t they? They have their ways, we have our ways. I’m not saying our ways are better necessarily, but still. Anyway, we really couldn’t stand being around that kind of company. Did anything interesting happen while you were there?”

“Well, the Kalkaboos didn’t show up—because I was there, I think.” He waited to see if Hagbarth would take the opportunity to remind him what an idiot he was for injuring the new High Champion, but all the man said impatiently was, “Sure, sure, but what did you talk about?”

The trouble with asking questions of Hoak Hagbarth was that it always wound up with Hagbarth asking all the questions. Giyt was getting tired of the one-way conversation. He said vaguely, “Oh, different things. Look, I think I ought to put this stuff in the fridge.”

What he was hoping was that Hagbarth would take the hint and leave, but the man only followed him into the kitchen, laughing. “Why bother? What could happen to it to make it any worse? Anyway, you were telling me about what you talked about at the party.”

Giyt cast about for subjects he might want to let Hagbarth know about. The way the other races had seemed to despise the Kalkaboos? But he didn’t really want to mention Kalkaboos to Hagbarth. What Mrs. Whitenose had said about Hagbarth himself? That was almost tempting, but Giyt decided on a neutral subject. “They were telling me about the war they had with the Slugs, long ago. Did you know about it?”

“Well, sure. Must’ve been a real donnybrook—nuked each other’s planets, killed off millions of people on both sides. Did they say anything about the kinds of weapons they used?”

Giyt searched his memory. “Nothing specific, no.”

“Well, they started out with old-fashioned rocket ships—the Slugs and the Centaurians are in the same solar system, you know. Then they got high-tech, but they don’t talk much about that. You know,” Hagbarth said, sounding indignant, “it wouldn’t hurt them to be a little more open with us. We haven’t hidden anything. Anything they want to know about Earth, we tell them—well, mostly we do, anyway. And there are a lot of people back on Earth who think we haven’t been getting a fair shake from them, that way.”

Giyt nodded and shrugged at the same time—the nod to indicate comprehension; the shrug for well, what can you do about it? Hagbarth was silent for a moment. Then he said abruptly, “Oh, listen, I almost forgot. I came here to talk to you about something.”

Giyt gave him a suspicious look. “The portal codes?”