“That is a stupefying proposition,” said Qual, flashing a mouthful of fearsome serrated teeth as his caddy-a little long-eared sophont in a Legion jumpsuit-handed him a sawed-off driver. “Let us pound the pellet, O great com-manderant! Anterior!” The Zenobian flailed away at the ball, which bounded erratically down the driving range.
Blitzkrieg reached for his own driver. He still wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Zenobian’s strange language, but there’d be plenty of time to figure out whether or not he was being insulted when the round was over. Until then, he was going to play some golf.
It took Do-Wop and Sushi a while to find the trans station, and when they found it, they had a moment of doubt whether it was what they were looking for.
“Soosh, this place is deserted,” said Do-Wop, peering down the ill-lit, dirty platform. Strictly speaking, “deserted” was an exaggeration; there were at least three other people visible: a nervous-looking couple with suitcases at the other end of the platform they were standing on, and a man sleeping on a bench across the way from them.
“It’s just the off-hours,” said Sushi. He set down his travel bag and stretched his arms. “It’s evening, local time-most people are probably home, watching tri-vee or something.”
“Yeah, right,” said Do-Wop, unshouldering his own bag. “Must be somethin‘ pretty good on tonight, is all I can say. Even back home, there’s usually people on the trans any time of day or night. And the spaceport oughta be one of the main stops…”
“Maybe we just missed a trans,” said Sushi, shrugging. “There could have been two hundred people here, and we’d never know it if they all got on the trans and left just before we came up the stairway.”
“And nobody got off? It don’t figure,” said Do-Wop, suspiciously.
“Off-hours, again,” said Sushi. “I bet there aren’t any more departures until morning. Most people want to start their travel during daytime hours. Relax, it’s nothing sinister.”
Do-Wop shook his head. “I dunno, Soosh. This whole planet smells like an abandoned building. Why’d Beeker want to come here, anyhow?”
Sushi shrugged. “I guess you have to know the history. Rot’n‘art used to be the capital of the Alliance, the place where all the major decisions were made. The government offices employed billions of people, and they eventually roofed over the whole planet to build housing for them.”
“Yeah, I could see that from space,” said Do-Wop. He kicked a balled-up food wrapper off the platform and into the trans groove. It hung there in midair, suspended by the antigrav field. “Like one big ball of metal, orbiting out there. Except it’s all dented and beat-up-why’d they let that happen?”
“More history,” said Sushi. “That all happened after the Alliance grew too big to administer from one single world, even with FTL space travel. Some of the offices moved to other worlds, where it was cheaper and easier to hire local people than to transfer people from Rot’n‘art. So a big chunk of the planet was suddenly unemployed.”
“Bummer,” said Do-Wop. “What’d they do?”
“Put everybody on relief,” said Sushi. “Which might’ve been OK if they’d figured out a way to bring in new jobs for them. But once somebody’s used to government work, there aren’t a lot of other jobs they’re willing to take. Especially not for less money.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Do-Wop. “Nobody wants to take less money. So everybody left, which explains why there’s nobody on the trans…”
“Some people left,” said Sushi. He stepped forward to the edge of the trans groove and looked down the tunnel, then stepped back and continued, “Most of them stayed, though. I guess they figured the good times and the good jobs would come back. And they ran through their savings, and the job market kept shrinking, and the infrastructure kept getting worse. I can’t believe you didn’t learn all this in school…”
“What school?” said Do-Wop. “Planet I come from, we were lucky to learn how to turn on a tri-vee, if we were lucky enough to have one.”
“That figures,” said Sushi. “And you must not have had one, or turned it on very often, either, or you’d know that Rot’n‘art is still one of the most popular tourist destinations in the galaxy. Most of the slack in the economy got filled with service jobs aimed at the tourist industry.”
“That’s gotta be bogo,” said Do-Wop, peering around with an unbelieving look. “I can’t believe anybody comes here for a vacation.”
“Oh, come on,” said Sushi. “The Alliance Senate is still here, which means there are plenty of bigwigs on-planet, at least when the Senate’s in session. So there’re still five-star restaurants and fancy hotels for the senators and their staffs, and the lobbyists and other people who come here for government business. And they attract lots of tourists who want to see the so-called center of the galaxy, which is probably what Beeker’s doing here.”
“Inspectin‘ the slums? Ain’t my idea of fun,” said Do-Wop.
“You still don’t get it,” said Sushi, his hands on his hips. “As long as the restaurants and museums and public buildings are still good-looking, the rest of the world can fall apart as far as the tourists are concerned. Most of them never even see where the service workers live-just like on Lorelei.”
“I guess they don’t use the trans, either,” said Do-Wop. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder if there is any trans this time of night.”
Sushi cocked an ear toward the tunnels. “How much you want to bet on that?”
“Nothin‘,” said Do-Wop. “I can hear as well as you can, sucker.” He picked up his luggage just as the trans popped out of the tunnel and glided to a halt at the platform.
“Too bad,” said Sushi, grinning. “I was hoping to make enough to pay for supper tonight. Come on, let’s not miss this one.”
“Not a chance,” said Do-Wop. Together the two legionnaires scooted through the open doors onto the waiting trans. After a moment, the doors closed and they were off into the maze of tunnels that served Rot’n‘art as a lifeline of communications.
Sushi and Do-Wop must have taken a wrong turn in the winding alleyways of Rot’n‘art City-more likely, they’d taken a few wrong turns. Actually, that wasn’t very hard; a high percentage of the street signs were missing or defaced, and a higher percentage were unlighted. Even when they could see the name of the street they were on, it was likely as not to change its name without notice at any given intersection. They’d pretty much given up on trying to follow the map they’d gotten at the spaceport. Once they’d gotten out of the trans station, they might as well have been looking at a map of some other planet. With no sky visible, they couldn’t even use the stars to get a rough idea of what direction they were going in. In short, no more than twenty minutes after getting off the trans, they were impossibly lost.
They’d finally decided just to find a major street, in hopes of spotting one of the city’s landmark buildings and orienting themselves that way. So when they came to still another badly lit intersection, Sushi felt a glimmer of hope when he spotted bright lights a few blocks away along the cross street. “That’s got to be a major intersection,” he told Do-Wop, tugging on his partner’s sleeve and pointing.
“Yeah, or maybe somethin’s on fire,” said Do-Wop. Having grown up in a blighted urban environment, he was well aware that bright lights weren’t always good news.
“Even if it is, there’ll be people there,” said Sushi. “We can ask directions. Come on!” For some reason, they’d seen almost nobody on the streets. The few they’d seen had either avoided them or, like the ragged man they’d found sleeping on a hot-air vent a few blocks back, had been completely unresponsive to their requests for directions.
As they neared the lights, they became aware of a loud rumbling noise ahead of them. It quickly became clear that there was a large crowd ahead of them. A sporting event? Onlookers at a fire, or some other emergency? In any case, it was people. Sushi quickened his steps, and Do-Wop reluctantly followed.