Back in his room, at the hotel on the surface that served those of Way Down’s guests who preferred to spend the night above ground, Rob found it hard to sleep. As soon as Corrie had said it, he could at once see the strong resemblance between the two women. There was an obvious similarity of features, and Corrie’s figure was a slimmer and younger version of Senta’s. It was clear where Corrie had inherited that flawless complexion and the easy grace of movement. It was the eyes that had led him astray. Where had Corrie found those, that startling blue instead of Senta’s dark brown?
His thoughts were interrupted by the soft buzz of the door-call. He looked at his watch. It was past three A.M., local time, but that meant nothing. Guests for Way Down flew in from all over the System. It was probably Corrie. They had been together until almost one-thirty, with dinner itself lasting nearly four hours. It had taken her a while to recover from the disturbing meeting with Senta Plessey, but a relaxing atmosphere and incredible cuisine had helped. Rob had worked hard to avoid turning the conversation to Darius Regulo’s background and empire, and he had mostly succeeded.
His main problem had been Way Down itself. Something about it made him uneasy. He fancied that he could hear tiny creaks and groans from the roof and walls of the great cavern, as though the depths of Earth resented the unnatural cavity within it. He had insisted on returning to the surface after they finished their meal.
As the door-call repeated its summons he got up, wrapped a loose robe around himself, and went to answer it. He was hoping, if not really expecting, that it would be Corrie. She had refused his offer of company when they had arrived back at the surface, but she had refused with a smile and an interested look.
It was Senta’s companion, Howard Anson. Rob looked at him in surprise. Anson was still dressed in his formal attire of the earlier evening. Rob noted again how naturally the clothes fitted Anson’s lean form, a perfection of tailoring that quietly told of great expense.
“I know it’s late.” Anson’s manner was brisk and business-like. “Normally, I would have waited until morning. But I didn’t know where you would be, and tomorrow I have to head to Warsaw for a business meeting.”
“Come in. I wasn’t asleep anyway.” Rob closed the door and motioned the other man to a chair. “I’m a little surprised to hear that you’re in business.” He smiled. “You certainly pass yourself off well as a convincing social parasite.”
Anson laughed. Like his speaking voice, it was a pleasant tenor. “That’s part of the reason for my success, being a worker and imitating a drone. But I’m like you, a busy bee. I run an Information Service. Half my clientele and most of my business is drawn from the wealthiest one-half percent of the System.”
“You run Anson’s Information Service?”
The other man nodded.
“Then I’m impressed,” went on Rob. “You’re the best there is. I’ve used you myself, many times. How did you ever decide to do that for a living? I would have no idea what a person ought to study before they can sell information.”
“I fell into it.” Anson shrugged. “When I was twenty years old I found myself in a strange situation. I wasn’t particularly interested in any one subject, but I had a trick memory that would let me recall almost anything I wanted to. A hundred years ago I’d probably have been in the entertainment business, as a `memory man’ reeling off five hundred digits after I’d heard them once — I can do that, but don’t ask me how it works — or telling the audience who ran third in the five thousand meters at the 1928 Olympic Games. It took me a couple of years to realize that I was a dinosaur. People were impressed by what I knew, but they could check it all in two seconds through a terminal to the central data banks. I was born too late. So then I decided that there was still one place where I could do something unique. All the information is in the files, but the indexing is still in chaos — it lags twenty or thirty years behind the information. So I learned the index system. I can add new indices to my mental list, instantly, so I know how you get to information that’s there, even when it’s poorly indexed.”
“That’s just why I went to your service,” said Rob. “I was convinced that the knowledge I wanted was in a file somewhere, but I couldn’t drag it out through the key-words that the terminals would accept.”
“You’re the exception — most people don’t even try.” Anson leaned back in the chair. “If you were rich enough and lazy enough, you wouldn’t bother with the terminal. You’d tell me what you want, and leave it at that. It’s not cheap, though. I charge a lot — even by your standards.”
Rob raised his eyebrows. “And what are my standards?”
“You’re pretty well loaded with money, from your contracts in bridge construction.” Anson smiled disarmingly. “Don’t be annoyed. I would be a fool if I had an Information Service and didn’t use it for my own benefit. After I left Senta and the Perions, I ran a quick check on you. It was easy, because you were already listed as one of our clients.”
“Well, you’re a long way ahead of me.” Rob felt mild irritation. “I don’t have an Information Service, so I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you’re here. Don’t you think that you owe me an explanation for banging on my door at three in the morning?”
“Sorry.” Anson waved a conciliatory arm at Rob, inviting him to sit in the chair opposite. “You’re quite right. I should have told you why I came here at once, instead of giving you my own life history. I don’t know why it is, but we all have an irresistible urge to talk about ourselves. Beware of the man who doesn’t — he’s always trying to hide something.”
Howard Anson smiled, revealing strong, even teeth. “I came here because I’m worried, and I think you may be able to help. When you’ve heard what I have to say, you may tell me that it’s none of your business, and I’ll have to live with that. But I think it may be your business, yours and Senta Plessey’s.”
Rob was sitting quietly, watching Anson’s expression. The other man was much more concerned and serious than his casual manner suggested. “Go on. That meeting with Senta has been on my mind too.”
“I thought it might be. You may have already noticed that I’m very fond of Senta.” Anson shrugged again. “Fond is a poor word for it. I’m more than fond. She’s afraid of becoming poor, and she’s afraid of getting old, and she’s torn apart by that damned drug. But I can’t blame her for any of that. You’ve only seen her when the taliza has hold of her. When she’s free of it, she doesn’t have that self-confidence. She’s very vulnerable and very afraid.”
“That’s a more favorable version of what I heard from Corrie. I find it hard to think highly of a woman who doesn’t want to see her own daughter.”
Anson shook his head. “It’s not that simple. There are problems on both sides. After all, it was Corrie who went off to work in Atlantis, when she was still almost a child. That wasn’t Senta’s doing — she opposed it completely. I don’t think it will get us anywhere to try and understand their relationship tonight. I’ve struggled for years and it still baffles me.”
“I’ll go along with that. But you still haven’t told me why you’re here. If you don’t want to talk about Corrie, what is it that you want to discuss?”
“You know taliza. So you know what it means when I tell you that Senta has been an addict for at least twelve years. I’ve known her for eleven of those, and we’ve lived together for nearly ten. I must have helped her through a couple of thousand flashbacks like the one we saw tonight. You never know what the trigger might be. It can be something that she sees, or says, or hears. Did you notice that she didn’t trigger tonight when you said your name, only when she repeated it for herself?”