“What’s going on?” Phule asked the nearest person who seemed calm enough to have useful information, an elderly man with bristling white whiskers and a ghastly tweed jacket of a cut that only someone of long-established family could wear without being accused of trying out for a part in a bad period drama.
“Demmed ‘f I know,” said the bystander. “The management seem to have absconded without notice. Silly of them, what? Now we’re all looking at cold supper, to say the least. Not quite fair play, say I. Not fair at all.“
“When did this happen?” asked Phule. “Everything seemed fine just a little while ago, before I went into town.”
“It happened all of a sudden,” said another guest, a tall woman with startlingly red hair. “One moment, all was quiet-then, Madame came shrieking down the hall, saying that the Legion had come and all was lost. Her senior staff seemed to know what that meant, though I haven’t a notion, myself.”
“The Legion’s nothing to be afraid of,” said the be-whiskered man. “Stout fellows-they did my father a good turn, back on St. Elmo’s. Must have been in ‘44…”
“We haven’t time for that old story,” said the red-haired woman. “If these people can’t provide the dinner I’ve paid for in advance, I need to find someplace that will.”
“Unless things are corrected in short order, I shall have to write a letter to the Forum,” said the man, firmly, turning to Phule. “I say… I say, where’d the fellow go?”
Phule had gone to inquire elsewhere. He pushed through the kitchen doors, looking for someone with more authority-and, he hoped, better information-than the busboys and dishwashers out front with the guests. Ahead of him, a group of cooks and waiters stood arguing with a woman dressed in a rumpled business suit-some sort of manager, Phule decided. She might actually know something.
“Excuse me, do you have a moment?” said Phule, stepping into the woman’s line of sight.
Her eyes turned cold, and she all but snapped, “I’m afraid I’m pretty well occupied at the…” Then the woman’s gaze fixed itself on the hundred-dollar bill Phule was rubbing between his fingers, and her mouth fell open. “Of course, sir. I’m Aster Igget, the personnel manager. What can I help you with?”
“If she can’t help, I’ll give it one helluva try,” said a man in a white apron and chef’s hat, ogling the hundred. The woman glared at him, and he backed off, grinning.
Phule lowered his voice. “Just before I left to go into town, the concierge told me that two suspicious-looking men had been asking about me. Did anybody else see these two men?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t,” said the woman. “But I do know that Madame came into the kitchen right as Robert, the concierge, was eating-she was ranting about someone trying to ruin her business. He went with her to her office, and apparently when they came out, they went straight to the door and left. It wasn’t long before someone realized that they’d taken all the cash with them and wiped most of the office files.”
“Interesting,” said Phule. “Obviously they were trying to hide something-but what? And from whom?”
“The boss lady said the Legion had caught up with her,” volunteered the man in the chef’s hat. “That’s your outfit, right? I recognize that uniform…”
“Funny, I’ve been here nearly a week and nobody seemed worried,” said Phule, even more puzzled. “What I’d like to know… wait a minute. Did anybody see a woman in a Legion uniform?”
The employees looked at one another, then one of the waiters said, “Somebody in a black outfit ran through the kitchen and out the back door, right before the boss freaked out. I guess it could have been a woman.”
“Aha,” said Phule, putting two and two together. “Do you have any idea where the boss might have gone?”
“She didn’t give her forwarding address to the kitchen help,” said the man in the chef’s hat. “But if she’s in enough trouble to light out that fast, Hix’s World’s too small a place to hide. I’d bet she’s on the way to Old Earth.”
“Why Old Earth?” said Phule.
“There’s a regular flight there three days a week,” said Aster Igget, apparently realizing how little she’d done to earn the hundred-dollar bill Phule was still dangling. “A lot of our guests go there after Hix’s. Joyday, Floraday, Restday-that’s today, at six p.m. It’s the quickest way off-planet… and you can pick up a ship to anywhere from Old Earth. That’s where I’d go if I were on the run.”
“Something tells me that’s where I’m headed, too,” said Phule. He handed the hundred to Aster Igget and dug out two more for the other employees who’d offered information. Then he headed for his room to check what the Port-a-brain had to tell him.
Sure enough, it showed Beeker’s computer exiting Hix’s World on the way to Old Earth. He sighed and began packing for the next flight out.
14
Journal #842-
The mere fact of Old Earth’s continued existence is something of a miracle-even if one does not entirely accept its claim of being the aboriginal cradle of the human species (a point on which the evidence remains murky). In any case, there are few worlds in which the incredible variety of humanity is on such constant display. Both folly and vice are represented in multiple forms, some perhaps even new.
In the short distance between the spaceport dock and the ground transportation ramp, I was accosted by n& fewer than seven individuals offering to relieve me of my cash or credit in furtherance of some scheme or another, none remotely legal. I respectfully declined their offers, confident of finding an abundance of such opportunities should I wish at some future time to avail myself of them.
Phule sat and fiddled with his Port-a-Brain. He’d called up the data on Old Earth, the next stop in his search for Beeker and Laverna. It felt as if the search had been stretching out for months, now-although he knew it couldn’t be that long. Travel by starship was always disorienting, of course, and strange things could happen to time when you ducked through the shortcuts between distant stars. It was widely rumored that a space traveler sometimes arrived at his destination after several hyperspace jumps, placed a call to the home office back on the planet he’d started from, and found himself answering his own call…
Phule had never heard of a documented case of someone arriving back home before he left, although old space hands were always ready to tell tales to groundlings. Phule didn’t like to think about it. All he really wanted was to find his missing butler and get him to hand over the Port-a-Brain. He knew there was a chance he might lose the butler’s trail, and the security chip would throw him into hibernation.
Phule leaned back and sighed, then punched a fist softly into his cupped hand. Time to face reality. Old Earth was going to be his last stop. He’d put all the time and money and energy at his command into the job.
A confident grin came to his face. He wasn’t going to give up the game without putting on a good show. He had more resources on this world than anywhere else he’d been so far-in fact, Old Earth was one of the centers of the family munitions business. Normally, he tried not to take undue advantage of his family connections. But this wasn’t a normal situation-not after he’d searched three planets without so much as a sight of his butler. First thing off the ship, he’d call the local offices of Phule-Pruf Munitions and see what they could do to shorten his search. Unless there’d been unusual friction between the branch office and the community, a request for help from a well-established local business ought to carry some weight with the authorities. What else? He’d need to find somebody with the local knowledge to expedite his search-looking back, he had to admit that the various “native guides” he’d picked up on the other worlds he’d visited hadn’t been a whole lot of help. Here, at least, there was a family member in charge of the local branch office of Phule-Pruf Munitions. He hadn’t seen his uncle in years, but Phule knew without asking that the fellow had to be more reliable than Buck Short or Perry Sodden…