Chapter 17

John Willard set a brisk pace through the streets of First Haven, as befitted a conscientious public servant. Maria Ringstad kept up with him as best she could. When she lagged, the thin cord tightened around her wrist, and he grumbled over his shoulder at her. Naturally, she carried her bag.

He had explained that they would have been most inconspicuous with her walking properly a yard behind him. Anyone would then have taken them for man and wife or man and servant--had it not been for her Terran clothing.

“To walk the street with you in that rig would attract entirely too much attention,” was his explanation. “The only thing we can do is use the public symbol of restraint, so that everyone will know you are a prisoner.”

“What good will that do? Won’t they still stare.”

“It is considered improper, as well as imprudent. No law-abiding citizen would wish to risk being suspected of a sympathetic curiosity about a transgressor.”

“You make it sound dangerous,” said Maria, holding out her hand obediently.

Anything to be inconspicuous, she had thought.

Now, turning a corner about three hundred yards from the jail, she had to admit that the system seemed to be working. The Greenies whom they met were nearly all interested in other things: a shop in the vicinity, another Greenie across the street, a paving stone over which they had just tripped, or the condition of the wall above Maria’s head.

Willard led her to the far side of a broader avenue after they had negotiated the corner that put them permanently out of sight of the jail. Maria tried to recall the scanty information he had whispered to her against the outside wall of the prison.

There had been time for him to tell her he was sent by the Department of Interstellar Relations of Terra to get her out, since it had proved impossible to alter the attitude of the Greenie legal authorities. Maria was not quite sure whether he was really the prison officer he said he was, in which case he must have been bribed on a scale to make her own “crime” ridiculous, or whether he was an independent worker friendly to the Terran space line, in which case the payment might more charitably be regarded as a fee.

She knew that he planned to deliver her to a spaceship due to leave shortly. There had been no opportunity for her to ask the destination.

To tell the truth, she reflected, I don’t care where it is. Anything would be a haven from Greenhaven!

She began to amuse herself by planning the article she would write when back on Terra. “How I escaped from Paradise” might do it. Or “Prison-breaking in Paradise.” Or perhaps “Greenhaven or Green Hell.”

Whatever I call it, she promised herself, I’ll skin them alive. And I’ll find a way to send the judge and the warden copies of it, too!

Maybe, she pondered, it might even be better to stretch it out to a whole book and get someone to do a series of unflattering cartoons of Greenie characters.

The cord jerked at her wrist. She realized that she had fallen behind again, and made an apologetic face at Willard when he looked back.

“Don’t do that!” he hissed. “They’ll wonder why I tolerate disrespect.”

“Sorry!” said Maria, shrugging unrepentantly. “You take this pretty seriously, don’t you.”

“You’d better take it seriously yourself,” he growled. “It’s your neck as much as mine!”

He glared at a young Greenie who had glanced curiously from the opposite side of the avenue. The abashed citizen hastily averted his eyes. Willard gave the cord a significant twitch and strode on.

They turned another corner, to the right this time, and went along a narrow side street for about two hundred yards. Waiting for a moment when he might meet as few people as possible, Willard crossed to the other side. A little further on, he led the way into what could almost be termed an alley.

Willard stopped.

“Now, we are going into this small food shop,” he informed Maria. “You would call it a cafe or restaurant on Terra. It will seem normal enough for an officer to provide his charge with food for a journey, so that will be reasonable.”

“Is the food any better than what I’ve been getting?” asked Maria.

“It doesn’t matter. We won’t stop there, since it would be impolite to inflict the sight of you upon honest citizens at their meal. I shall request a private room, and the keeper will lead us to the rear.”

“Humph! Well if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is. So in the eyes of an honest Greenie I’m something to spoil his appetite. What can I do about that?”

“What you can do is keep that big, flexible, active mouth of yours shut!” declared Willard. “Otherwise, I shall simply drop the end of the cord and take off. You can find your own way out.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Maria, a shade too meekly. “I promise I’ll be oh-so-good. Do you want me to kneel down and lick your boots? Or will it be enough if I open a vein in the soup?”

“It will be enough if I get out of this without committing murder,” mumbled Willard. “Now, the expression is fine; just wipe that grin off your mind and well go in!”

He pulled her along the few yards to the entrance of the food shop.

He opened the door and entered. Maria followed at the respectful distance.

There were half a dozen Greenies eating plain, wholesome meals at plain, sturdy tables and exchanging a plain, honest word now and then. The sight of the cord on Maria’s wrist counterbalanced the sight of her lascivious Terran costume, and they kept their eyes on their food after one startled glance.

A Greenie woman stood at a counter at one side of the food shop, and Willard made known his desire for a private dining room. A man cooking something that might have been stew looked around from his labor at a massive but primitive stove to the rear of the counter. Maria thought that he took an unusual interest in her compared to what she had been observing recently. It rather helped her morale, and she thought she did not blame the man if the counterwoman were his wife.

The latter now came from behind her little fortress and led the way to a door at the rear of the shop. Willard followed, and Maria trailed along, restraining an impulse to wink at the cook. She was conscious of his analytical stare until the door had closed behind her.

Willard seemed to have nothing to say to the Greenie woman, and Maria relented to the point of heeding his request to be silent. All this made for a solemn little procession.

They walked along a short hall, and the Greenie woman opened another door to a flight of stairs. What surprised Maria was that the stairs led down. She shrugged--on Greenhaven, they had their own peculiar ways.

She was more puzzled when, at the bottom of the steps, they seemed to be in an ordinary cellar. The light was dim, and she did not succeed in catching the look on Willard’s face. She began to wonder if she might wind up buried under a basement floor while he spent his ill-gotten bribe.

Then the Greenie woman pulled aside a large crate and opened another door. To pass through this one, they all had to stoop. Marie realized that they were then in the cellar of another building. The blocks of stone forming the walls looked damp and dirty.

They proceeded to climb stairs again, and to traverse another hall. Maria thought they ended up going in a direction away from the street. The woman led them through a small, dark series of rooms, and finally into one with windows set too high in the walls to see out. There she halted and faced Willard.

The Greenie prison official dropped the cord and reached into an inner pocket of his drab uniform. He withdrew a thick packet of Greenhaven currency. The numbers and units were too unfamiliar for Maria to guess at the value from one quick glance; but the attitude of their hostess suggested that it was substantial. Willard handed it over. Maria decided it was time to set down her bag.

The woman went immediately to a large chest in a corner of the room and opened it. She set aside a mirror she took out of the chest, then began to pull out other objects. There was a case which she handed to Willard and a great many articles of clothing that were probably considered feminine on this world.

“The point is,” Willard said in low tones, “you are going to have to have proper clothes to look natural on the street. See if that dress will fit you.”

Maria took the thing distastefully, but it looked to be about the right length when she held it up against her. The Greenie woman nodded. She added a sort of full-length flannel slip and a petticoat to the dress.

“Now I know why the Greenie women look so grim,” said Maria. “It would be almost worth dying to stay out of such a rig.”

“Hold your tongue!” said Willard.

Maria made a face.

“Present company excepted, of course!” she added.

“Change!” ordered Willard. “We have no time to waste.”

He took the mirror and the small case to a rude table under one of the windows. He opened the box so that Maria caught a glimpse of the contents, which looked like an actor’s make-up kit.

The Greenie woman joggled Maria’s elbow and spoke for the first time.

“I must not be long, or it will be noticed,” she hinted.

“Give her your clothes to burn and get into the others,” said Willard, bending over the table with his back to her. “As soon as I get myself fixed here, I’ll change your face too.”

Maria looked about in a manner to suggest that she hoped they knew what they were doing. The Greenie woman waited. Maria reached up and began to unbutton her blouse.

She dropped it across her bag. The woman picked both of them up, and waited. She looked a trifle shocked at the sight of the thin slip when Maria unzipped her skirt and hauled it over her head. By the time the slip followed, she was standing with downcast eyes.

Maria eyed the broad back in the drab uniform as she unfastened her brassiere. This would make a good story someday, but to tell it in the wrong company might be to invite catty remarks about her attractiveness. She could think of other men who might not have kept their backs so rigidly turned as did Willard. It was almost provocative.