Chapter 5

As SSM George Hanlon continued undressing, he recalled his parting with his father on Simonides.

“How soon do I start?” he had asked, boyishly eager, at the close of their interview. “Right away?”

“Whoa, son, not so fast,” the admiral laughed. “You’ll have to have a series of inoculation-shots against the Estrellan diseases. Then you’ll have to learn a lot, and especially, you’ll have to be disguised to look like a native, which isn’t easy. Here are reels of the language, customs and geography. Get a room in the hotel here and sleep-learn them. I think you’ll find the language not too hard--it’s a simple, uncomplicated one, outside of their habit of putting the verbs ahead of the nouns, and then the adjectives or adverbs. As to their way of thought--well, that’s far different. Even with your ability to read their minds, I’ll bet you have trouble in really understanding them for some time. I’m not always sure I do, even yet.”

“Tough, eh?”

“That they are. You can’t work them like you do humans--their concepts seem not at all like ours in so many things. We can get in serious trouble through misunderstanding their apparently straight-forward words. So go slow and easy.”

“I’ll watch for that, dad, and bone up on the rest as fast as I can. Meanwhile, how’s about going out and wrapping ourselves around a couple of thick steaks--or some of that good poyka at the Golden Web? I’d like to see Hooper again.”

“The grub I’ll buy. But Curt isn’t here--he’s one of the boys working Estrella with me.”

The lessons learned in time, Hanlon visiphoned Admiral Hawarden at Base, who sent the cosmetician to him at the hotel. The shoes had been only part of the job. There was the smock-coat, which Hanlon was now removing in his room in Stearra. Estrellans had narrow, sloping shoulders, so a tailor had made special clothes--the coat almost like a knee-length, slipover sweater only of a heavy cloth like homespun, with shoulders whose cut and padding gave them the proper sloping look. There was also the divided-skirt sort of pantaloons, that gathered at the ankle.

As he undressed Hanlon looked at himself in the mirror, and grinned. Trevor had dyed his skin all over--not the dark red of Terran Indians, not yet the black of negroes nor the brown of Malayans, but a sort of deep pink. Hanlon had been warned not to take either tub or shower baths, but had been supplied with a bottle of a special chemical.

Naked at last, he scratched luxuriously and stretched hugely. He poured a bowlful of water, added seven drops of the chemical, then gave himself a sponge bath.

As he was washing his face he noticed with amusement the way his ears had been built up with plastic to almost twice their natural size, and the way his nose had been made so much broader--like a giant ape’s it spread over half the width of his face.

He was careful not to pull off any of the hair that had been so painstakingly glued to his body to simulate the general hairiness of the Estrellans. And, of course, he had neither shaved nor had a haircut since being assigned this job, and his beard was growing nicely. But it, and the body hair, was the most uncomfortable part of his imposture--the darned stuff itched, but bad. He scratched.

Anyway, he thought thankfully, Trevor had really done a job on him. No one yet met here had seemed to notice anything out of the way with him, as far as his looks went. He had easily passed everywhere as a real native.

A two-man speedster had brought him to this planet, and had landed him just outside this city they called Stearra, in the dead of night. His father, he knew, had preceded him by nearly two weeks, was here somewhere, as were Manning and Hooper, the two other S S men assigned here. A sneak boat came every two weeks, and stayed at a designated spot near the principal city on each continent from midnight until three in the morning, in case any of the men wanted to send messages or needed assistance of any kind.

Undressed--and scratched--and washed--and scratched--Hanlon lay down on his bed and gave himself up to thoughts of the coming interview at Ino Yandor’s office. He tried to analyze what he had learned and its possible connection with whatever it was that was keeping Estrella from joining the Federation of Planets; from becoming the fifty-eighth member of that far-flung union of self-governing worlds.

It seemed to him he had made a good start--although he was slightly dissatisfied with the speed at which he was not getting ahead. Yet he had felt all along--and still so thought--that with his way of working his best course lay through the criminal gangs of Stearra--that by working up through them he would eventually come to the ones who were behind all this. And he was sure this Ino Yandor was his best lead to date, even though it seemed strange that an entertainment agent would be the top man in the criminal world.

His father had not been too certain that this was a logical channel of investigation, but was quite willing to let Hanlon try it--the Corps had to have that information, and each man of the secret service should work the way that seemed best to him. Nor could the admiral argue against Hanlon’s insistence that this sudden rise of hitherto-unknown criminal activity just at this time was not purely coincidental.

But the whole thing was such a seemingly insoluble puzzle. From his own investigation since he had arrived--from the “feel” of the city and its inhabitants to his sensitive perceptions--Hanlon knew the people on the whole were such swell folks; the kind that would make wonderful Federation citizens, even if they did look so peculiar and animal-like to Terrans. Any race with a religion and a code of living based on such common decencies and high-principled honesties as theirs, was bound to be a good one.

From all he had been able to learn, Hanlon thought the Ruler, Elus Amir, a decent fellow and extremely capable. Amir certainly had shown by his actions all during his tenure of office that while their system of government was a sort of limited autocracy, that he, at least, was trying to make it a benevolent one. Unless all the information Hanlon and the S S had gathered was haywire, this Amir was certainly not behind all this sudden opposition. He had seemed--especially at first--to be very much in favor of joining.

Then who in the name of Snyder was?

Suddenly a new idea brought Hanlon upright on the bed.

Was Amir merely a tool--like the emperor of Sime had been under Bohr? Was there someone here who was comparable to that devilish Highness? Somebody with Bohr’s brains and driving lust for power and ever more power?

Hanlon sucked in his breath in sudden wonder--and worry. Was this unknown another alien from the same, or some other advanced and far-away planet as yet unknown to the Corps, working to take over Estrella and possibly--or finally--the rest of the Federated Planets and the whole galaxy?

It took Hanlon a long time to go to sleep ... nor had he found the answers to his puzzle when he finally did drop off.

When George Hanlon appeared in Ino Yandor’s office just before midday, the dapper impresario ushered his visitor into an inner room and closed the door.

“I think Ondo has left town--or died. For I have heard nothing more of him, nor have any of my men. You were right about a killing that could be traced to me being bad for my carefully-built reputation. Well now, about your working for me. You said you knew something about the entertainment business. What can you do?”

“Well, I can’t sing or posture, and I’m not much good at acrobatics. I can whistle a little, and...”

“‘Blow’? What is that?” Yandor used his definition of the word Hanlon had translated as meaning “whistle.”

Oh, oh. Hanlon knew he had blundered. In an effort to cover up he said, “This,” and puckered up his lips and whistled a few discordant notes, concealing the fact that he was an excellent whistler, and could do perfectly dozens of bird-call imitations.

“No, I’m afraid that is nothing our people would care for.”

“Then how about an animal act?”

This was the crucial point. Hanlon had given a lot of thought to this, and had worked out the idea he thought might apply here. It certainly would go big back on Terra, he knew, but he was not yet conversant enough with Estrellan theatrical acts--even though he had gone to the theatre several times to study them--to know if these strange people would like it or not. But he had to get in the good graces of Yandor.

“What sort of an animal act do you have in mind?” the impresario asked doubtfully. “Our audiences are very particular. It has to be good, very good, and unusual.”

“I think they’ll like mine,” confidently. “I have eight pet roches, and as...”

“Roches!” Yandor looked incredulous. “You mean you’ve actually trained some roches?”

“That’s right. I’ve trained them as a hobby. I drill ‘em just like our Ruler’s residence guards do--and other things as well. I’m sure the people will like the act. I’ll bring ‘em down and show you what they can do.”

“Well now,” still hesitantly, “that may be all right. It sounds most unusual, to say the least. I’ll look at them, say, the day after tomorrow--yes, I think I’ll have time then.”

“Thank you, nyer. Then, after I’ve shown you what I can do about that, we can talk about ... other things.”