Abercrombie Station

Jack Vance

Thrilling Wonder Stories

February, 1952

The idea behind this story is highly ingenious and novel; in fact I’ll go so far as to say “inspired.” I wish only that I had formulated it myself. In point of fact the concept was generated somewhere within the hyperdimensional recesses of Damon Knight’s intellect.

This is how I happened to write the story. During the time that Damon edited the magazine World’s Beyond, I sold him two stories: “The New Prime” and “The Secret.” One day in casual conversation he outlined the idea upon which “Abercrombie Station” is built, and in effect commissioned the story.

I produced the required verbiage, but just as I imprinted the final period, World’s Beyond folded and I sold the story elsewhere. A year or two later I saw Damon, who by this time had forgotten the entire transaction. He paid me a generous if rather wistful compliment upon the theme of the story. “Oddly enough,” said Damon, “at one time I had a very similar notion, but never got around to writing the story.”

I finally inquired, “Damon, don’t you remember when you tossed me this idea and ordered it written up for World’s Beyond?”

Damon was and is much too polite to contradict me, and I take this occasion to acknowledge his contribution to the story which follows.

An interesting footnote to my connection with World’s Beyond concerns “The Secret,” the second story I sold Damon. When World’s Beyond folded it carried with it into limbo the still unpublished story which thereupon mysteriously vanished and was seen no more. About five years later I rewrote the story, using the same title. Again “The Secret” disappeared, somewhere after leaving Scott Meredith’s office, but before finding a market. I have searched high and low for carbons to these stories without success; both versions have vanished without a trace. I can surmise only that I brushed upon an elemental verity, most truly secret indeed, and that one or another of the Upper Forces saw fit to expunge the dangerous knowledge before it gained currency. I will not attempt a third version; I value my life and sanity, and can take a hint.

I

The doorkeeper was a big hard-looking man with an unwholesome horse-face, a skin like corroded zinc. Two girls spoke to him, asking arch questions.

Jean saw him grunt noncommittally. “Just stick around; I can’t give out no dope.”

He motioned to the girl sitting beside Jean, a blond girl, very smartly turned out. She rose to her feet; the doorkeeper slid back the door. The blond girl walked swiftly through into the inner room; the door closed behind her.

She moved tentatively forward, stopped short.

A man sat quietly on an old-fashioned leather couch, watching through half-closed eyes.

Nothing frightening here, was her initial impression. He was young—twenty-four or twenty-five. Mediocre, she thought, neither tall nor short, stocky nor lean. His hair was nondescript, his features without distinction, his clothes unobtrusive and neutral.

He shifted his position, opened his eyes a flicker. The blond girl felt a quick pang. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

“How old are you?”

“I’m—twenty.”

“Take off your clothes.”

She stared, hands tight and white knuckled on her purse. Intuition came suddenly; she drew a quick shallow breath. Obey him once, give in once, he’ll be your master as long as you live.

“No…no, I won’t.”

She turned quickly, reached for the door-slide. He said unemotionally, “You’re too old anyway.”

The door jerked aside; she walked quickly through the outer room, looking neither right nor left.

A hand touched her arm. She stopped, looked down into a face that was jet, pale rose, ivory. A young face with an expression of vitality and intelligence: black eyes, short black hair, a beautiful clear skin, mouth without makeup.

Jean asked, “What goes on? What kind of job is it?”

The blond girl said in a tight voice, “I don’t know. I didn’t stay to find out. It’s nothing nice.” She turned, went through the outer door.

Jean sank back into the chair, pursed her lips speculatively. A minute passed. Another girl, nostrils flared wide, came from the inner room, crossed to the door, looking neither right nor left.

Jean smiled faintly. She had a wide mouth, expansive and flexible. Her teeth were small, white, very sharp.

The doorkeeper motioned to her. She jumped to her feet, entered the inner room.

The quiet man was smoking. A silvery plume rose past his face, melted into the air over his head. Jean thought, There’s something strange in his complete immobility. He’s too tight, too compressed.

She put her hands behind her back and waited, watching carefully.

“How old are you?”

This was a question she usually found wise to evade. She tilted her head sidewise, smiling, a mannerism which gave her a wild and reckless look. “How old do you think I am?”

“Sixteen or seventeen.”

“That’s close enough.”

He nodded. “Close enough. What’s your name?”

“Jean Parlier.”

“Whom do you live, with?”

“No one. I live alone.”

“Father? Mother?”

“Dead.”

“Grandparents? Guardian?”

“I’m alone.”

He nodded. “Any trouble with the law on that account?”

She considered him warily. “No.”

He moved his head enough to send a kink running up the feather of smoke. “Take off your clothes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a quick way to check your qualifications.”

“Well—yes. In a way I guess it is…Physical or moral?”

He made no reply, sat looking at her impassively, the gray skein of smoke rising past his face.

She shrugged, put her hands to her sides, to her neck, to her waist, to her back, to her legs, and stood without clothes.

He put the cigarette to his mouth, puffed, sat up, stubbed it out, rose to his feet, walked slowly forward.

He’s trying to scare me, she thought, and smiled quietly to herself. He could try.

He stopped two feet away, stood looking down into her eyes. “You really want a million dollars?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You took the advertisement in the literal sense of the words?”

“Is there any other way?”

“You might have construed the language as—metaphor, hyperbole.”

She grinned, showing her sharp white teeth. “I don’t know what those words mean. Anyway, I’m here. If the advertisement was only intended for you to look at me naked, I’ll leave.”

His expression did not change. Peculiar, thought Jean, how his body moved, his head turned, but his eyes always seemed fixed. He said as if he had not heard her, “Not too many girls have applied.”

“That doesn’t concern me. I want a million dollars. What is it? Blackmail? Impersonation?”

He passed over her question. “What would you do with a million if you had it?”

“I don’t know…I’ll worry about that when I get it. Have you checked my qualifications? I’m cold.”

He turned quickly, strode to the couch, seated himself. She slipped into her clothes, came over to the couch, took a tentative seat facing him.

He said dryly, “You fill the qualifications almost too well!”

“How so?”

“It’s unimportant.”

Jean tilted her head, laughed. She looked like a healthy, very pretty high-school girl who might be the better for more sunshine. “Tell me what I’m to do to earn a million dollars.”

“You’re to marry a wealthy young man, who suffers from—let us call it, an incurable disease. When he dies, his property will be yours. You will sell his property to me for a million dollars.”

“Evidently he’s worth more than a million dollars.”

He was conscious of the questions she did not ask. “There’s somewhere near a billion involved.”

“What kind of disease does he have? I might catch it myself.”

“I’ll take care of the disease end. You won’t catch it if you keep your nose clean.”

“Oh—oh, I see—tell me more about him. Is he handsome? Big? Strong? I might feel sorry if he died.”

“He’s eighteen years old. His main interest is collecting.” Sardonically: “He likes zoology too. He’s an eminent zoologist. His name is Earl Abercrombie. He owns”—he gestured up—“Abercrombie Station.”

Jean stared, then laughed feebly. “That’s a hard way to make a million dollars…Earl Abercrombie…”

“Squeamish?”

“Not when I’m awake. But I do have nightmares.”

“Make up your mind.”

She looked modestly to where she had folded her hands in her lap. “A million isn’t a very large cut out of a billion.”

He surveyed her with something like approval. “No, it isn’t.”

She rose to her feet, slim as a dancer. “All you do is sign a check. I have to marry him, get in bed with him.”

“They don’t use beds on Abercrombie Station.”

“Since he lives on Abercrombie, he might not be interested in me.”

“Earl is different,” said the quiet man. “Earl likes gravity girls.”

“You must realize that once he dies, you’d be forced to accept whatever I chose to give you. Or the property might be put in charge of a trustee.”

“Not necessarily. The Abercrombie Civil Regulation allows property to be controlled by anyone sixteen or over. Earl is eighteen. He exercises complete control over the Station, subject to a few unimportant restrictions. I’ll take care of that end.” He went to the door, slid it open. “Hammond.”

The man with the long face came wordlessly to the door.

“I’ve got her. Send the others home.”

He closed the door, turned to Jean. “I want you to have dinner with me.”

“I’m not dressed for dinner.”

“I’ll send up the couturier. Try to be ready in an hour.”

He left the room. The door closed. Jean stretched, threw back her head, opened her mouth in a soundless exultant laugh. She raised her arms over her head, took a step forward, turned a supple cartwheel across the rug, bounced to her feet beside the window.

She knelt, rested her head on her hands, looked across Metropolis. Dusk had come. The great gray-golden sky filled three-quarters of her vision. A thousand feet below was the wan gray, lavender and black crumble of surface buildings, the pallid roadways streaming with golden motes. To the right, aircraft slid silently along force-guides to the mountain suburbs—tired normal people bound to pleasant normal homes. What would they think if they knew that she, Jean Parlier, was watching? For instance, the man who drove that shiny Skyfarer with the pale green chevrets…She built a picture of him: pudgy, forehead creased with lines of worry. He’d be hurrying home to his wife, who would listen tolerantly while he boasted or grumbled. Cattle-women, cow-women, thought Jean without rancor. What man could subdue her? Where was the man who was wild and hard and bright enough?…Remembering her new job, she grimaced. Mrs. Earl Abercrombie. She looked up into the sky. The stars were not yet out and the lights of Abercrombie Station could not be seen.

A million dollars, think of it! “What will you do with a million dollars?” her new employer had asked her, and now that she returned to it, the idea was uncomfortable, like a lump in her throat.

What would she feel? How would she…Her mind moved away from the subject, recoiled with the faintest trace of anger, as if it were a subject not to be touched upon. “Rats,” said Jean. “Time to worry about it after I get it…A million dollars. Not too large a cut out of a billion, actually. Two million would be better.” Her eyes followed a slim red airboat diving along a sharp curve into the parking area: a sparkling new Marshall Moon-Chaser. Now there was something she wanted. It would be one of her first purchases.

The door slid open. Hammond the doorkeeper looked in briefly. Then the couturier entered, pushing his wheeled kit before him, a slender little blond man with rich topaz eyes. The door closed.

Jean turned away from the window. The couturier—André was the name stenciled on the enamel of the box—spoke for more light, walked around her, darting glances up and down her body.

“Yes,” he muttered, pressing his lips in and out. “Ah, yes…Now what does the lady have in mind?”

“A dinner gown, I suppose.”

He nodded. “Mr. Fotheringay mentioned formal evening wear.”

So that was his name—Fotheringay.

André snapped up a screen. “Observe, if you will, a few of my effects; perhaps there is something to please you.”

Models appeared on the screen, stepping forward, smiling, turning away.

Jean said, “Something like that.”

André made a gesture of approval, snapped his fingers. “Mademoiselle has good taste. And now we shall see…if mademoiselle will let me help her…”

He deftly unzipped her garments, laid them on the couch.

“First—we refresh ourselves.” He selected a tool from his kit, and, holding her wrist between delicate thumb and forefinger, sprayed her arms with cool mist, then warm, perfumed air. Her skin tingled, fresh, invigorated.

André tapped his chin. “Now, the foundation.”

She stood, eyes half closed, while he bustled around her, striding off, making whispered comments, quick gestures with significance only to himself.

He sprayed her with gray-green web, touched and pulled as the strands set. He adjusted knurled knobs at the ends of a flexible tube, pressed it around her waist, swept it away and it trailed shining black-green silk. He artfully twisted and wound his tube. He put the frame back in the kit, pulled, twisted, pinched, while the silk set.

He sprayed her with wan white, quickly jumped forward, olded, shaped, pinched, pulled, bunched and the stuff fell in twisted bands from her shoulders and into a full rustling skirt.

“Now—gauntlets.” He covered her arms and hands with warm black-green pulp which set into spangled velvet, adroitly cut with scissors to bare the back of her hand.

“Slippers.” Black satin, webbed with emerald-green phosphorescence.

“Now—the ornaments.” He hung a red bauble from her right ear, slipped a cabochon ruby on her right hand.

“Scent—a trace. The Levailleur, indeed.” He flicked her with an odor suggestive of a Central Asia flower patch. “And mademoiselle is dressed. And may I say”—he bowed with a flourish—“most exquisitely beautiful.”

He manipulated his cart, one side fell away. A mirror uncoiled upward.

Jean inspected herself. Vivid naiad. When she acquired that million dollars—two million would be better—she’d put André on her permanent payroll.

André was still muttering compliments. “—Elan supreme. She is magic. Most striking. Eyes will turn…”

The door slid back. Fotheringay came into the room. André bowed low, clasped his hands.

Fotheringay glanced at her. “You’re ready. Good. Come along.”

Jean thought, We might as well get this straight right now. “Where?”

He frowned slightly, stood aside while André pushed his cart out.

Jean said, “I came here of my own free will. I walked into this room under my own power. Both times I knew where I was going. Now you say ‘Come along.’ First I want to know where. Then I’ll decide whether or not I’ll come.”

“You don’t want a million dollars very badly.”

“Two million. I want it badly enough to waste an afternoon investigating…But—if I don’t get it today, I’ll get it tomorrow. Or next week. Somehow I’ll get it; a long time ago I made my mind up. So?” She performed an airy curtsy.

His pupils contracted. He said in an even voice, “Very well. Two million. I am now taking you to dinner on the roof, where I will give you your instructions.”

II

They drifted under the dome, in a greenish plastic bubble. Below them spread the commercial fantasy of an out-world landscape: gray sward; gnarled red and green trees casting dramatic black shadows; a pond of fluorescent green liquid; panels of exotic blossoms; beds of fungus.

The bubble drifted easily, apparently at random, now high under the near-invisible dome, now low under the foliage. Successive courses appeared from the center of the table, along with chilled wine and frosted punch.

It was wonderful and lavish, thought Jean. But why should Fotheringay spend his money on her? Perhaps he entertained romantic notions…She dallied with the idea, inspected him covertly…The idea lacked conviction. He seemed to be engaging in none of the usual gambits. He neither tried to fascinate her with his charm, nor swamp her with synthetic masculinity. Much as it irritated Jean to admit it, he appeared—indifferent.

Jean compressed her lips. The idea was disconcerting. She essayed a slight smile, a side glance up under lowered lashes.

“Save it,” said Fotheringay. “You’ll need it all when you get up to Abercrombie.”

Jean returned to her dinner. After a minute she said calmly, “I was—curious.”

“Now you know.”

Jean thought to tease him, draw him out. “Know what?”

“Whatever it was you were curious about.”

“Pooh. Men are mostly alike. They all have the same button. Push it, they all jump in the same direction.”

Fotheringay frowned, glanced at her under narrowed eyes. “Maybe you aren’t so precocious after all.”

Jean became tense. In a curious indefinable way, the subject was very important, as if survival were linked with confidence in her own sophistication and flexibility. “What do you mean?”

“You make the assumption most pretty girls make,” he said with a trace of scorn. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

Jean frowned. There had been little abstract thinking in her background. “Well, I’ve never had it work out differently. Although I’m willing to admit there are exceptions…It’s a kind of game. I’ve never lost. If I’m kidding myself, it hasn’t made much difference so far.”

Fotheringay relaxed. “You’ve been lucky.”

Jean stretched out her arms, arched her body, smiled as if at a secret. “Call it luck.”

“Luck won’t work with Earl Abercrombie.”

“You’re the one who used the word luck. I think it’s, well—ability.”

“You’ll have to use your brains too.” He hesitated, then said, “Actually, Earl likes—odd things.”

Jean sat looking at him, frowning.

He said coolly, “You’re making up your mind how best to ask the question, ‘What’s odd about me?’ “

Jean snapped, “I don’t need you to tell me what’s odd about me. I know what it is myself.”

Fotheringay made no comment.

“I’m completely on my own,” said Jean. “There’s not a soul in all the human universe that I care two pins for. I do just exactly as I please.” She watched him carefully. He nodded indifferently. Jean quelled her exasperation, leaned back in her chair, studied him as if he were in a glass case…A strange young man. Did he ever smile? She thought of the Capellan Fibrates who by popular superstition were able to fix themselves along a man’s spinal column and control his intelligence. Fotheringay displayed a coldness strange enough to suggest such a possession…A Capellan could manipulate but one hand at a time. Fotheringay held a knife in one hand, a fork in the other and moved both hands together. So much for that.

He said quietly, “I watched your hands too.”

Jean threw back her head and laughed—a healthy adolescent laugh. Fotheringay watched her without discernible expression.

She said, “Actually, you’d like to know about me, but you’re too stiff-necked to ask.”

“You were born at Angel City on Codiron,” said Fotheringay. “Your mother abandoned you in a tavern, a gambler named Joe Parlier took care of you until you were ten, when you killed him and three other men and stowed away on the Gray Line Packet Bucyrus. You were taken to the Waif’s Home at Paie on Bella’s Pride. You ran away and the superintendent was found dead…Shall I go on? There’s five more years of it.”

Jean sipped her wine, nowise abashed. “You’ve worked fast…But you’ve misrepresented. You said, ‘There’s five years more of it, shall I go on?’ as if you were able to go on. You don’t know anything about the next five years.”

Fotheringay’s face changed by not a flicker. He said as if she had not spoken, “Now listen carefully. This is what you’ll have to look out for.”

“Go ahead. I’m all ears.” She leaned back in her chair. A clever technique, ignoring an unwelcome situation as if it never existed. Of course, to carry it off successfully, a certain temperament was required. A cold fish like Fotheringay managed very well.

“Tonight a man named Webbard meets us here. He is chief steward at Abercrombie Station. I happen to be able to influence certain of his actions. He will take you up with him to Abercrombie and install you as a servant in the Abercrombie private chambers.”

Jean wrinkled her nose. “Servant? Why can’t I go to Abercrombie as a paying guest?”

“It wouldn’t be natural. A girl like you would go up to Capricorn or Verge. Earl Abercrombie is extremely suspicious. He’d be certain to fight shy of you. His mother, old Mrs. Clara, watches him pretty closely, and keeps drilling into his head the idea that all the Abercrombie girls are after his money. As a servant you will have opportunity to meet him in intimate circumstances. He rarely leaves his study; he’s absorbed in his collecting.”

“My word,” murmured Jean. “What does he collect?”

“Everything you can think of,” said Fotheringay, moving his lips upward in a quick grimace, almost a smile. “I understand from Webbard, however, that he is rather romantic, and has carried on a number of flirtations among the girls of the Station.”

Jean screwed up her mouth in fastidious scorn. Fotheringay watched her impassively.

“When do I—commence?”

“Webbard goes up on the supply barge tomorrow. You’ll go with him.”

A whisper of sound from the buzzer. Fotheringay touched the button. “Yes?”

“Mr. Webbard for you, sir.”

Fotheringay directed the bubble down to the landing stage.

Webbard was waiting, the fattest man Jean had ever seen.

The plaque on the door read, Richard Mycroft, Attorney-at-Law. Somewhere far back down the years, someone had said in Jean’s hearing that Richard Mycroft was a good attorney.

The receptionist was a dark woman of about thirty-five, with a direct penetrating eye. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No,” said Jean. “I’m in rather a hurry.” The receptionist hesitated a moment, then bent over the communicator. “A young lady—Miss Jean Parlier—to see you. New business.”

“Very well.”

The receptionist nodded to the door. “You can go in,” she said shortly.

She doesn’t like me, thought Jean. Because I’m what she was and what she wants to be again.

Mycroft was a square man with a pleasant face. Jean constructed a wary defense against him. If you liked someone and he knew it, he felt obligated to advise and interfere. She wanted no advice, no interference. She wanted two million dollars.

“Well, young lady,” said Mycroft. “What can I do for you?”

He’s treating me like a child, thought Jean. Maybe I look like a child to him. She said, “It’s a matter of advice. I don’t know much about fees. I can afford to pay you a hundred dollars. When you advise me a hundred dollars’ worth, let me know and I’ll go away.”

“A hundred dollars buys a lot of advice,” said Mycroft. “Advice is cheap.”

“Not from a lawyer.”

Mycroft became practical. “What are your troubles?”

“It’s understood that this is all confidential?”

“Certainly.” Mycroft’s smile froze into a polite grimace.

“It’s nothing illegal—so far as I’m concerned—but I don’t want you passing out any quiet hints to—people that might be interested.”

Mycroft straightened himself behind his desk. “A lawyer is expected to respect the confidence of his client.”

“Okay…Well, it’s like this.” She told him of Fotheringay, of Abercrombie Station and Earl Abercrombie. She said that Earl Abercrombie was sick with an incurable disease. She made no mention of Fotheringay’s convictions on that subject. It was a matter she herself kept carefully brushing out of her mind. Fotheringay had hired her. He told her what to do, told her that Earl Abercrombie was sick. That was good enough for her. If she had asked too many questions, found that things were too nasty even for her stomach, Fotheringay would have found another girl less inquisitive…She skirted the exact nature of Earl’s disease. She didn’t actually know herself. She didn’t want to know.

Mycroft listened attentively, saying nothing.

“What I want to know is,” said Jean, “is the wife sure to inherit on Abercrombie? I don’t want to go to a lot of trouble for nothing. And after all Earl is under twenty-one; I thought that in the event of his death it was best to—well, make sure of everything first.”

For a moment Mycroft made no move, but sat regarding her quietly. Then he tamped tobacco into a pipe.

“Jean,” he said, “I’ll give you some advice. It’s free. No strings on it.”

“Don’t bother,” said Jean. “I don’t want the kind of advice that’s free. I want the kind I have to pay for.”

Mycroft grimaced. “You’re a remarkably wise child.”

“I’ve had to be…Call me a child, if you wish.”

“Just what will you do with a million dollars? Or two million, I understand it to be?”

Jean stared. Surely the answer was obvious…or was it? When she tried to find an answer, nothing surfaced.

“Well,” she said vaguely, “I’d like an airboat, some nice clothes, and maybe…” In her mind’s eye she suddenly saw herself surrounded by friends. Nice people, like Mr. Mycroft.

“If I were a psychologist and not a lawyer,” said Mycroft, “I’d say you wanted your mother and father more than you wanted two million dollars.”

Jean became very heated. “No, no! I don’t want them at all. They’re dead.” As far as she was concerned they were dead. They had died for her when they left her on Joe Parlier’s pool table in the old Aztec Tavern.

Jean said indignantly, “Mr. Mycroft, I know you mean well, but tell me what I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Mycroft, “because if I didn’t, someone else would. Abercrombie property, if I’m not mistaken, is regulated by its own civil code…Let’s see—” He twisted in his chair, pushed buttons on his desk.

On the screen appeared the index to the Central Law Library. Mycroft made further selections, narrowing down selectively. A few seconds later he had the information. “Property control begins at sixteen. Widow inherits at minimum fifty percent; the entire estate unless specifically stated otherwise in the will.”

“Good,” said Jean. She jumped to her feet. “That’s what I wanted to make sure of.”

Mycroft asked, “When do you leave?”

“This afternoon.”

“I don’t need to tell you that the idea behind the scheme is—not moral.”

“Mr. Mycroft, you’re a dear. But I don’t have any morals.”

He tilted his head, shrugged, puffed on his pipe. “Are you sure?”

“Well—yes.” Jean considered a moment. “I suppose so. Do you want me to go into details?”

“No. I think what I meant to say was, are you sure you know what you want out of life?”

“Certainly. Lots of money.”

Mycroft grinned. “That’s really not a good answer. What will you buy with your money?”

Jean felt irrational anger rising in her throat. “Oh—lots of things.” She rose to her feet. “Just what do I owe you, Mr. Mycroft?”

“Oh—ten dollars. Give it to Ruth.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mycroft.” She stalked out of his office.

As she marched down the corridor she was surprised to find that she was angry with herself as well as irritated with Mr. Mycroft. He had no right making people wonder about themselves. It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t wondering a little already.

But this was all nonsense. Two million dollars was two million dollars. When she was rich, she’d call on Mr. Mycroft and ask him if honestly he didn’t think it was worth a few little lapses.

And today—up to Abercrombie Station. She suddenly became excited.

III

The pilot of the Abercrombie supply barge was emphatic. “No, sir, I think you’re making a mistake, nice little girl like you.”

He was a chunky man in his thirties, hard-bitten and positive. Sparse blond hair crusted his scalp, deep lines gave his mouth a cynical slant. Webbard, the Abercrombie chief steward, was billeted astern, in the special handling locker. The usual webbings were inadequate to protect his corpulence; he floated chin-deep in a tankful of emulsion the same specific gravity as his body.

There was no passenger cabin and Jean had slipped into the seat beside the pilot. She wore a modest white frock, a white toque, a gray-and-black-striped jacket.

The pilot had few good words for Abercrombie Station. “Now it’s what I call a shame, taking a kid like you to serve the likes of them…Why don’t they get one of their own kind? Surely both sides would be the happier.”

Jean said innocently, “I’m going up for only just a little bit.”

“So you think. It’s catching. In a year you’ll be like the rest of them. The air alone is enough to sicken a person, rich and sweet like olive oil. Me, I never set foot outside the barge unless I can’t help it.”

“Do you think I’ll be—safe?” She raised her lashes, turned him her reckless sidelong look.

He licked his lips, moved in his seat. “Oh, you’ll be safe enough,” he muttered. “At least from them that’s been there a while. You might have to duck a few just fresh from Earth…After they’ve lived on the Station a bit their ideas change, and they wouldn’t spit on the best part of an Earth girl.”

“Hmmph.” Jean compressed her lips. Earl Abercrombie had been born on the Station.

“But I wasn’t thinking so much of that,” said the pilot. It was hard, he thought, talking straight sense to a kid so young and inexperienced. “I meant in that atmosphere you’ll be apt to let yourself go. Pretty soon you’ll look like the rest of ‘em—never want to leave. Some aren’t able to leave—couldn’t stand it back on Earth if they wanted to.”

“Oh—I don’t think so. Not in my case.”

“It’s catching,” said the pilot vehemently. “Look, kid—I know. I’ve ferried out to all the stations, I’ve seen ‘em come and go. Each station has its own kind of weirdness, and you can’t keep away from it.” He chuckled self-consciously. “Maybe that’s why I’m so batty myself…Now take Madeira Station. Gay. Frou-frou.” He made a mincing motion with his fingers. “That’s Madeira. You wouldn’t know much about that…But take Balchester Aerie, take Merlin Dell, take the Starhome—”

“Surely, some are just pleasure resorts?”

The pilot grudgingly admitted that of the twenty-two resort satellites, fully half were as ordinary as Miami Beach. “But the others—oh, Moses!” He rolled his eyes back. “And Abercrombie is the worst.”

There was silence in the cabin. Earth was a monstrous green, blue, white and black ball over Jean’s shoulder. The sun made a furious hole in the sky below. Ahead were the stars—and a set of blinking blue and red lights.

“Is that Abercrombie?”

“No, that’s the Masonic Temple. Abercrombie is on out a ways…” He looked diffidently at her from the corner of his eyes. “Now—look! I don’t want you to think I’m fresh. Or maybe I do. But if you’re hard up for a job—why don’t you come back to Earth with me? I got a pretty nice shack in Long Beach—nothing fancy—but it’s on the beach, and it’ll be better than working for a bunch of sideshow freaks.”

Jean said absently, “No thanks.” The pilot pulled in his chin, pulled his elbows close against his body, glowered.

An hour passed. From behind came a rattle, and a small panel slid back. Webbard’s pursy face showed through. The barge was coasting on free momentum, gravity was negated. “How much longer to the Station?”

“It’s just ahead. Half an hour, more or less, and well be fished up tight and right.”

Webbard grunted, withdrew.

Yellow and green lights winked ahead. “That’s Abercrombie,” said the pilot. He reached out to a handle. “Brace yourself.” He pulled. Pale blue check-jets streamed out ahead.

From behind came a thump and an angry cursing. The pilot grinned. “Got him good.” The jets roared a minute, died. “Every trip it’s the same way. Now in a minute he’ll stick his head through the panel and bawl me out.”

The portal slid back. Webbard showed his furious face. “Why in thunder don’t you warn me before you check? I just now took a blow that might have hurt me! You’re not much of a pilot, risking injuries of that sort!”

The pilot said in a droll voice, “Sorry, sir, sorry indeed. Won’t happen again.”

“It had better not! If it does, I’ll make it my business to see that you’re discharged.”

The portal snapped shut. “Sometimes I get him better than others,” said the pilot. “This was a good one, I could tell by the thump.”

He shifted in his seat, put his arm around Jean’s shoulders, pulled her against him. “Let’s have a little kiss, before we fish home.”

Jean leaned forward, reached out her arm. He saw her face coming toward him—bright wonderful face, onyx, pale rose, ivory, smiling, hot with life…She reached past him, thrust the check-valve. Four jets thrashed forward. The barge jerked. The pilot fell into the instrument panel, comical surprise written on his face.

From behind came a heavy resonant thump.

The pilot pulled himself back into his seat, knocked back the check-valve. Blood oozed from his chin, forming a little red wen. Behind them the portal snapped open. Webbard’s face, black with rage, looked through.

When he had finally finished, and the portal had closed, the pilot looked at Jean, who was sitting quietly in her seat, the corners of her mouth drawn up dreamily.

He said from deep in his throat, “If I had you alone, I’d beat you half to death.”

Jean drew her knees up under her chin, clasped her arms around and looked silently ahead.

Abercrombie Station had been built to the Fitch cylinder design: a power and service core, a series of circular decks, a transparent sheath. To the original construction a number of modifications and annexes had been added. An outside deck circled the cylinder, sheet steel to hold the magnetic grapples of small boats, cargo binds, magnetic shoes, anything which was to be fixed in place for a greater or lesser time. At each end of the cylinder, tubes connected to dependent constructions. The first, a sphere, was the private residence of the Abercrombies. The second, a cylinder, rotated at sufficient speed to press the water it contained evenly over its inner surface to a depth of ten feet; this was the Station swimming pool, a feature found on only three of the resort satellites.

The supply barge inched close to the dock, bumped. Four men attached constrictor tackle to rings in the hull, heaved the barge along to the supply port. The barge settled into its socket, grapples shot home, the ports sucked open.

Chief Steward Webbard was still smoldering, but now a display of anger was beneath his dignity. Disdaining magnetic shoes, he pulled himself to the entrance, motioned to Jean. “Bring your baggage.”

Jean went to her neat little trunk, jerked it into the air, found herself floundering helpless in the middle of the cargo space. Webbard impatiently returned with magnetic clips for her shoes, and helped her float the trunk into the Station.

She was breathing different, rich air. The barge had smelled of ozone, grease, hemp sacking, but the Station…Without consciously trying to identify the odor, Jean thought of waffles with butter and syrup mixed with talcum powder.

Webbard floated in front of her, an imposing spectacle. His fat no longer hung on him in folds; it ballooned out in an even perimeter. His face was smooth as a watermelon, and it seemed as if his features were incised, carved, rather than molded. He focused his eyes at a point above her dark head. “We had better come to an understanding, young lady.”

“Certainly, Mr. Webbard.”

“As a favor to my friend, Mr. Fotheringay, I have brought you here to work. Beyond this original and singular act, I am no longer responsible. I am not your sponsor. Mr. Fotheringay recommended you highly, so see that you give satisfaction. Your immediate superior will be Mrs. Blaiskell, and you must obey her implicitly. We have very strict rules here at Abercrombie—fair treatment and good pay—but you must earn it. Your work must speak for itself, and you can expect no special favors.” He coughed. “Indeed, if I may say so, you are fortunate in finding employment here; usually we hire people more of our own sort, it makes for harmonious conditions.”

Jean waited with demurely bowed head. Webbard spoke on further, detailing specific warnings, admonitions, injunctions.

Jean nodded dutifully. There was no point antagonizing pompous old Webbard. And Webbard thought that here was a respectful young lady, thin and very young and with a peculiar frenetic gleam in her eye, but sufficiently impressed by his importance…Good coloring too. Pleasant features. If she only could manage two hundred more pounds of flesh on her bones, she might have appealed to his grosser nature.

“This way, then,” said Webbard.

He floated ahead, and by some magnificent innate power continued to radiate the impression of inexorable dignity even while plunging headfirst along the corridor.

Jean came more sedately, walking on her magnetic clips, pushing the trunk ahead as easily as if it had been a paper bag.

They reached the central core, and Webbard, after looking back over his bulging shoulders, launched himself up the shaft.

Panes in the wall of the core permitted a view of the various halls, lounges, refectories, salons. Jean stopped by a room decorated with red plush drapes and marble statuary. She stared, first in wonder, then in amusement.

Webbard called impatiently, “Come along now, miss, come along.”

Jean pulled herself away from the pane. “I was watching the guests. They looked like—” She broke into a sudden giggle.

Webbard frowned, pursed his lips. Jean thought he was about to demand the grounds for her merriment, but evidently he felt it beneath his dignity. He called, “Come along now, I can spare you only a moment.”

She turned one last glance into the hall, and now she laughed aloud.

Fat women, like bladder-fish in an aquarium tank. Fat women, round and tender as yellow peaches. Fat women, miraculously easy and agile in the absence of gravity. The occasion seemed to be an afternoon musicale. The hall was crowded and heavy with balls of pink flesh draped in blouses and pantaloons of white, pale blue and yellow.

The current Abercrombie fashion seemed designed to accent the round bodies. Flat bands like Sam Browne belts molded the breasts down and out, under the arms. The hair was parted down the middle, skinned smoothly back to a small roll at the nape of the neck. Flesh, bulbs of tender flesh, smooth shiny balloons. Tiny twitching features, dancing fingers and toes, eyes and lips roguishly painted. On Earth any one of these women would have sat immobile, a pile of sagging sweating tissue. At Abercrombie Station—the so-called “Adipose Alley”—they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs, and their faces and bodies were smooth as butterballs.

“Come, come, come!” barked Webbard. “There’s no loitering at Abercrombie!”

Jean restrained the impulse to slide her trunk up the core against Webbard’s rotund buttocks, a tempting target. He waited for her at the far end of the corridor. “Mr. Webbard,” she asked thoughtfully, “how much does Earl Abercrombie weigh?”

Webbard tilted his head back, glared reprovingly down his nose. “Such intimacies, miss, are not considered polite conversation here.”

Jean said, “I merely wondered if he were as—well, imposing as you are.”

Webbard sniffed. “I couldn’t answer you. Mr. Abercrombie is a person of great competence. His—presence is a matter you must learn not to discuss. It’s not proper, not done.”

“Thank you, Mr. Webbard,” said Jean meekly.

Webbard said, “You’ll catch on. You’ll make a good girl yet. Now, through the tube, and I’ll take you to Mrs. Blaiskell.”

Mrs. Blaiskell was short and squat as a kumquat. Her head was steel-gray, and skinned back modishly to the roll behind her neck. She wore tight black rompers, the uniform of the Abercrombie servants, so Jean was to learn.

Jean suspected that she made a poor impression on Mrs. Blaiskell. She felt the snapping gray eyes search her from head to foot, and kept her own modestly downcast.

Webbard explained that Jean was to be trained as a maid, and suggested that Mrs. Blaiskell use her in the Pleasaunce and the bedrooms.

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded. “Good idea. The young master is peculiar, as everyone knows, but he’s been pestering the girls lately and interrupting their duties; wise to have one in there such as her—no offense, miss, I just mean it’s the gravity that does it—who won’t be so apt to catch his eye.”

Webbard signed to her, and they floated off a little distance, conversing in low whispers.

Jean’s mouth quivered at the corners. Old fools!

Five minutes passed. Jean began to fidget. Why didn’t they do something? Take her somewhere. She suppressed her restlessness. Life! How good, how zestful! She wondered, Will I feel this same joy when I’m twenty? When I’m thirty, forty? She drew back the corners of her mouth. Of course I will! I’ll never let myself change…But life must be used to its best. Every flicker of ardor and excitement must be wrung free and tasted. She grinned. Here she floated, breathing the overripe air of Abercrombie Station. In a way it was adventure. It paid well—two million dollars, and only for seducing an eighteen-year-old boy. Seducing him, marrying him—what difference? Of course he was Earl Abercrombie, and if he were as imposing as Mr. Webbard…She considered Webbard’s great body in wry speculation. Oh well, two million was two million. If things got too bad, the price might go up. Ten million, perhaps. Not too large a cut out of a billion.

Webbard departed without a word, twitching himself easily back down the core.

“Come,” said Mrs. Blaiskell. “I’ll show you your room. You can rest and tomorrow I’ll take you around.”

IV

Mrs. Blaiskell stood by, frankly critical, while Jean fitted herself into black rompers. “Lord have mercy, but you mustn’t pinch in the waist so! You’re rachity and thin to starvation now, poor child; you mustn’t point it up so! Perhaps we can find a few airfloats to fill you out; not that it’s essential, Lord knows, since you’re but a dust-maid. Still, it always improves a household to have a staff of pretty women, and young Earl, I will say this for him and all his oddness, he does appreciate a handsome woman…Now then, your bosom, we must do something there; why, you’re nearly flat! You see, there’s no scope to allow a fine drape down under the arms, see?” She pointed to her own voluminous rolls of adipose. “Suppose we just roll up a bit of cushion and—”

“No,” said Jean tremulously. Was it possible that they thought her so ugly? “I won’t wear padding.”

Mrs. Blaiskell sniffed. “It’s your own self that’s to benefit, my dear. I’m sure it’s not me that’s the wizened one.”

Jean bent over her black slippers. “No, you’re very sleek.”

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded proudly. “I keep myself well shaped out, and all the better for it. It wasn’t so when I was your age, miss, I’ll tell you; I was on Earth then—”

“Oh, you weren’t born here?”

“No, miss, I was one of the poor souls pressed and ridden by gravity, and I burned up my body with the effort of mere conveyance. No, I was born in Sydney, Australia, of decent kind folk, but they were too poor to buy me a place on Abercrombie. I was lucky enough to secure just such a position as you have, and that was while Mr. Justus and old Mrs. Eva, his mother—that’s Earl’s grandmother—was still with us. I’ve never been down to Earth since. I’ll never set foot on the surface again.”

“Don’t you miss the festivals and great buildings and all the lovely countryside?”

“Pah!” Mrs. Blaiskell spat the word. “And be pressed into hideous folds and wrinkles? And ride in a cart, and be stared at and snickered at by the home people? Thin as sticks they are with their constant worry and fight against the pull of the soil! No, miss, we have our own sceneries and fetes; there’s a pavanne for tomorrow night, a Grand Masque Pantomime, a Pageant of Beautiful Women, all in the month ahead. And best, I’m among my own people, the round ones, and I’ve never a wrinkle on my face. I’m fine and full-blown, and I wouldn’t trade with any of them below.”

Jean shrugged. “If you’re happy, that’s all that matters.” She looked at herself in the mirror with satisfaction. Even if fat Mrs. Blaiskell thought otherwise, the black rompers looked well on her, now that she’d fitted them snug to her hips and waist. Her legs—slender, round and shining ivory—were good, this she knew. Even if weird Mr. Webbard and odd Mrs. Blaiskell thought otherwise. Wait till she tried them on young Earl. He preferred gravity girls; Fotheringay had told her so. And yet—Webbard and Mrs. Blaiskell had hinted otherwise. Maybe he liked both kinds…? Jean smiled, a little tremulously. If Earl liked both kinds, then he would like almost anything that was warm, moved and breathed. And that certainly included herself.

If she asked Mrs. Blaiskell outright, she’d be startled and shocked. Good proper Mrs. Blaiskell. A motherly soul, not like the matrons in the various asylums and waifs’ homes of her experience. Strapping big women those had been—practical and quick with their hands…But Mrs. Blaiskell was nice; she would never have deserted her child on a pool table. Mrs. Blaiskell would have struggled and starved herself to keep her child and raise her nicely…Jean idly speculated how it would seem with Mrs. Blaiskell for a mother. And Mr. Mycroft for a father. It gave her a queer prickly feeling, and also somehow called up from deep inside a dark dull resentment tinged with anger.

Jean moved uneasily, fretfully. Never mind the nonsense! You’re playing a lone hand. What would you want with relatives? What an ungodly nuisance! She would never have been allowed this adventure up to Abercrombie Station…On the other hand, with relatives there would be many fewer problems on how to spend two million dollars.

Jean sighed. Her own mother wasn’t kind and comfortable like Mrs. Blaiskell. She couldn’t have been, and the whole matter became an academic question. Forget it, put it clean out of your mind.

Mrs. Blaiskell brought forward service shoes, worn to some extent by everyone at the Station: slippers with magnetic coils in the soles. Wires led to a power bank at the belt. By adjusting a rheostat, any degree of magnetism could be achieved.

“When a person works, she needs a footing,” Mrs. Blaiskell explained. “Of course there’s not much to do, once you get on to it. Cleaning is easy, with our good filters; still, there’s sometimes a stir of dust and always a little film of oil that settles from the air.”

Jean straightened up. “Okay, Mrs. B., I’m ready. Where do we start?”

Mrs. Blaiskell raised her eyebrows at the familiarity, but was not seriously displeased. In the main, the girl seemed to be respectful, willing and intelligent. And—significantly—not the sort to create a disturbance with Mr. Earl.

Twitching a toe against a wall, she propelled herself down the corridor, halted by a white door, slid back the panel.

They entered the room as if from the ceiling. Jean felt an instant of vertigo, pushing herself headfirst at what appeared to be a floor.

Mrs. Blaiskell deftly seized a chair, swung her body around, put her feet to the nominal floor. Jean joined her. They stood in a large round room, apparently a section across the building. Windows opened on space, stars shone in from all sides; the entire zodiac was visible with a sweep of the eyes.

Sunlight came up from below, shining on the ceiling, and off to one quarter hung the half-moon, hard and sharp as a new coin. The room was rather too opulent for Jean’s taste. She was conscious of an overwhelming surfeit of mustard-saffron carpet, white paneling with gold arabesques, a round table clamped to the floor, surrounded by chairs footed with magnetic casters. A crystal chandelier thrust rigidly down; rotund cherubs peered at intervals from the angle between wall and ceiling.

“The Pleasaunce,” said Mrs. Blaiskell. “You’ll clean in here every morning first thing.” She described Jean’s duties in detail.

“Next we go to—” She nudged Jean. “Here’s old Mrs. Clara, Earl’s mother. Bow your head, just as I do.”

A woman dressed in rose-purple floated into the room. She wore an expression of absentminded arrogance, as if in all the universe there were no doubt, uncertainty or equivocation. She was almost perfectly globular, as wide as she was tall. Her hair was silver-white, her face a bubble of smooth flesh, daubed apparently at random with rouge. She wore stones spread six inches down over her bulging bosom and shoulders.

Mrs. Blaiskell bowed her head unctuously. “Mrs. Clara, dear, allow me to introduce the new parlor maid; she’s new up from Earth and very handy.”

Mrs. Clara Abercrombie darted Jean a quick look. “Emaciated creature.”

“Oh, she’ll healthen up,” cooed Mrs. Blaiskell. “Plenty of good food and hard work will do wonders for her; after all, she’s only a child.”

“Mmmph. Hardly. It’s blood, Blaiskell, and well you know it.”

“Well, yes of course, Mrs. Clara.”

Mrs. Clara continued in a brassy voice, darting glances around the room. “Either it’s good blood you have or vinegar. This girl here, she’ll never be really comfortable, I can see it. It’s not in her blood.”

“No, ma’am, you’re correct in what you say.”

“It’s not in Earl’s blood either. He’s the one I’m worried for. Hugo was the rich one, but his brother Lionel after him, poor dear Lionel, and—”

“What about Lionel?” said a husky voice. Jean twisted. This was Earl. “Who’s heard from Lionel?”

“No one, my dear. He’s gone, he’ll never be back. I was but commenting that neither one of you ever reached your growth, showing all bone as you do.”

Earl scowled past his mother, past Mrs. Blaiskell, and his gaze fell on Jean. “What’s this? Another servant? We don’t need her. Send her away. Always ideas for more expense.”

“She’s for your rooms, Earl, my dear,” said his mother.

“Where’s Jessy? What was wrong with Jessy?”

Mrs. Clara and Mrs. Blaiskell exchanged indulgent glances. Jean turned Earl a slow arch look. He blinked, then frowned. Jean dropped her eyes, traced a pattern on the rug with her toe, an operation which she knew sent interesting movements along her leg. Earning the two million dollars wouldn’t be as irksome as she had feared. Because Earl was not at all fat. He was stocky, solid, with bull shoulders and a bull neck. He had a close crop of tight blond curls, a florid complexion, a big waxy nose, a ponderous jaw. His mouth was good, drooping sullenly at the moment.

He was something less than attractive, thought Jean. On Earth she would have ignored him, or if he persisted, stung him to fury with a series of insults. But she had been expecting far worse: a bulbous creature like Webbard, a human balloon…Of course there was no real reason for Earl to be fat; the children of fat people were as likely as not to be of normal size.

Mrs. Clara was instructing Mrs. Blaiskell for the day, Mrs, Blaiskell nodding precisely on each sixth word and ticking off points on her stubby little fingers.

Mrs. Clara finished, Mrs. Blaiskell nodded to Jean. “Come, miss, there’s work to be done.”

Earl called after them, “Mind now, no one in my study!”

Jean asked curiously, “Why doesn’t he want anyone in his study?”

“That’s where he keeps all his collections. He won’t have a thing disturbed. Very strange sometimes, Mr. Earl. You’ll just have to make allowances, and be on your good behavior. In some ways he’s harder to serve than Mrs. Clara.”

“Earl was born here?”

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded. “He’s never been down to Earth. Says it’s a place of crazy people, and the Lord knows, he’s more than half right.”

“Who are Hugo and Lionel?”

“They’re the two oldest. Hugo is dead, Lord rest him, and Lionel is off on his travels. Then under Earl there’s Harper and Dauphin and Millicent and Clarice. That’s all Mrs. Clara’s children, all very proud and portly. Earl is the skinny lad of the lot, and very lucky too, because when Hugo died, Lionel was off gadding and so Earl inherited…Now here’s his suite, and what a mess.”

As they worked Mrs. Blaiskell commented on various aspects of the room. “That bed now! Earl wasn’t satisfied with sleeping under a saddleband like the rest of us, no! He wears pajamas of magnetized cloth, and that weights him against the cushion almost as if he lived on Earth…And this reading and studying, my word, there’s nothing the lad won’t think of! And his telescope! He’ll sit in the cupola and focus on Earth by the hour.”

“Maybe he’d like to visit Earth?”

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were close on it there. The place has a horrid fascination for him. But he can’t leave Abercrombie, you know.”

“That’s strange. Why not?”

Mrs. Blaiskell darted her wise look. “Because then he forfeits his inheritance; that’s in the original charter, that the owner must remain on the premises.” She pointed to a gray door. “That there’s his study. And now I’m going to give you a peep in, so you won’t be tormented by curiosity and perhaps make trouble for yourself when I’m not around to keep an eye open…Now don’t be excited by what you see; there’s nothing to hurt you.”

With the air of a priestess unveiling mystery, Mrs. Blaiskell fumbled a moment with the door-slide, manipulating it in a manner which Jean was not able to observe.

The door swung aside. Mrs. Blaiskell smirked as Jean jumped back in alarm.

“Now, now, now, don’t be alarmed; I told you there was nothing to harm you. That’s one of Master Earl’s zoological specimens, and rare trouble and expense he’s gone to—”

Jean sighed deeply, and gave closer inspection to the horned black creature which stood on two legs just inside the door, poised and leaning as if ready to embrace the intruder in leathery black arms.

“That’s the most scary part,” said Mrs. Blaiskell in quiet satisfaction. “He’s got his insects and bugs there”—she pointed—“his gems there, his old music disks there, his stamps there, his books along that cabinet. Nasty things, I’m ashamed of him. Don’t let me know of your peeking in them nasty books that Mr. Earl gloats over.”

“No, Mrs. Blaiskell,” said Jean meekly. “I’m not interested in that kind of thing. If it’s what I think it is.”

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded emphatically. “It’s what you think it is and worse.” She did not expand on the background of her familiarity with the library, and Jean thought it inappropriate to inquire.

Earl stood behind them. “Well?” he asked in a heavy sarcastic voice. “Getting an eyeful?” He kicked himself across the room, slammed shut the door.

Mrs. Blaiskell said in a conciliatory voice, “Now, Mr. Earl, I was just showing the new girl what to avoid, what not to look at, and I didn’t want her swounding of heart stoppage if innocent-like she happened to peek inside.”

Earl grunted. “If she peeps inside while I’m there, she’ll be ‘swounding’ from something more than heart stoppage.”

“I’m a good cook too,” said Jean. She turned away. “Come, Mrs. Blaiskell, let’s leave until Mr. Earl has recovered his temper. I won’t have him hurting your feelings.”

Mrs. Blaiskell stammered, “Now, then! Surely there’s no harm…” She stopped. Earl had gone into his study and slammed the door.

Mrs. Blaiskell’s eyes glistened with thick tears. “Ah, my dear, I do so dislike harsh words…”

They worked in silence and finished the bedroom. At the door Mrs. Blaiskell said confidentially into Jean’s ears, “Why do you think Earl is so gruff and grumpy?”

“I’ve no idea,” breathed Jean. “None whatever.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Blaiskell warily, “it all boils down to this: his appearance. He’s so self-conscious of his thinness that he’s all eaten up inside. He can’t bear to have anyone see him; he thinks they’re sneering. I’ve heard him tell Mrs. Clara so. Of course they’re not; they’re just sorry. He eats like a horse, he takes gland-pellets, but still he’s that spindly and all hard tense muscle.” She inspected Jean thoroughly. “I think we’ll put you on the same kind of regimen, and see if we can’t make a prettier woman out of you.” Then she shook her head doubtfully, clicked her tongue. “It might not be in your blood, as Mrs. Clara says. I hardly can see that it’s in your blood…”

V

There were tiny red ribbons on Jean’s slippers, a red ribbon in her hair, a coquettish black beauty spot on her cheek. She had altered her rompers so that they clung unobtrusively to her waist and hips.

Before she left the room she examined herself in the mirror. Maybe it’s me that’s out of step! How would I look with a couple hundred more pounds of grade? No. I suppose not. I’m the gamin type. I’ll look like a wolverine when I’m sixty, but for the next forty years—watch out.

She took herself along the corridor, past the Pleasaunce, the music rooms, the formal parlor, the refectory, up into the bedrooms. She stopped by Earl’s door, flung it open, entered, pushing the electrostatic duster ahead of her.

The room was dark; the transpar walls were opaque under the action of the scrambling field.

Jean found the dial, turned up the light.

Earl was awake. He lay on his side, his yellow magnetic pajamas pressing him into the mattress. A pale blue quilt was pulled up to his shoulders, his arm lay across his face. Under the shadow of his arm his eye smoldered out at Jean.

He lay motionless, too outraged to move.

Jean put her hands on her hips, said in her clear young voice, “Get up, you sluggard! You’ll get as fat as the rest of them lounging around till all hours…”

The silence was choked and ominous. Jean bent to peer under Earl’s arm. “Are you alive?”

Without moving Earl said in a harsh low voice, “Exactly what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m about my regular duties. I’ve finished the Pleasaunce. Next comes your room.”

His eyes went to a clock. “At seven o’clock in the morning?”

“Why not? The sooner I get done, the sooner I can get to my own business.”

“Your own business be damned. Get out of here, before you get hurt.”

“No, sir. I’m a self-determined individual. Once my work is done, there’s nothing more important than self-expression.”

“Get out!”

“I’m an artist, a painter. Or maybe I’ll be a poet this year. Or a dancer. I’d make a wonderful ballerina. Watch.” She essayed a pirouette, but the impulse took her up to the ceiling—not ungracefully, this she made sure.

She pushed herself back. “If I had magnetic slippers I could twirl an hour and a half. Grand jetés are easy…”

He raised himself on his elbow, blinking and glaring, as if on the verge of launching himself at her.

“You’re either crazy—or so utterly impertinent as to amount to the same thing.”

“Not at all,” said Jean. “I’m very courteous. There might be a difference of opinion, but still it doesn’t make you automatically right.”

He slumped back on the bed. “Argue with old Webbard,” he said thickly. “Now—for the last time—get out!”

“I’ll go,” said Jean, “but you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorry?” His voice had risen nearly an octave. “Why should I be sorry?”

“Suppose I took offense at your rudeness and told Mr. Webbard I wanted to quit?”

Earl said through tight lips, “I’m going to talk to Mr. Webbard today and maybe you’ll be asked to quit…Miraculous!” he told himself bitterly. “Scarecrow maids breaking in at sunup…”

Jean stared in surprise. “Scarecrow! Me? On Earth I’m considered a very pretty girl. I can get away with things like this, disturbing people, because I’m pretty.”

“This is Abercrombie Station,” said Earl in a dry voice. “Thank God!”

“You’re rather handsome yourself,” said Jean tentatively.

Earl sat up, his face tinged with angry blood. “Get out of here!” he shouted. “You’re discharged!”

“Pish,” said Jean. “You wouldn’t dare fire me.”

“I wouldn’t dare?” asked Earl in a dangerous voice. “Why wouldn’t I dare?”

“Because I’m smarter than you are.”

Earl made a husky sound in his throat. “And just what makes you think so?”

Jean laughed. “You’d be very nice, Earl, if you weren’t so touchy.”

“All right, we’ll take that up first. Why am I so touchy?”

Jean shrugged. “I said you were nice-looking and you blew a skull-fuse.” She waved away an imaginary fluff from the back of her hand. “I call that touchiness.”

Earl wore a grim smile that made Jean think of Fotheringay. Earl might be tough if pushed far enough. But not as tough as—well, say Ansel Clellan. Or Fiorenzo. Or Party MacClure. Or Fotheringay. Or herself, for that matter.

He was staring at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time. This is what she wanted. “Why do you think you’re smarter, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know…Are you smart?”

His glance darted off to the doors leading to his study; a momentary quiver of satisfaction crossed his face. “Yes, I’m smart.”

“Can you play chess?”

“Of course I play chess,” he said belligerently. “I’m one of the best chess players alive.”

“I could beat you with one hand.” Jean had played chess four times in her life.

“I wish you had something I wanted,” he said slowly. “I’d take it away from you.”

Jean gave him an arch look. “Let’s play for forfeits.”

“No!”

“Ha!” She laughed, eyes sparkling.

He flushed. “Very well.”

Jean picked up her duster. “Not now, though.” She had accomplished more than she had hoped for. She looked ostentatiously over her shoulder. “I’ve got to work. If Mrs. Blaiskell finds me here she’ll accuse you of seducing me.”

He snorted with twisted lips. He looked like an angry blond boar, thought Jean. But two million dollars was two million dollars. And it wasn’t as bad as if he’d been fat. The idea had been planted in his mind. “You be thinking of the forfeit,” said Jean. “I’ve got to work.”

She left the room, turning him a final glance over her shoulder which she hoped was cryptic.

The servants’ quarters were in the main cylinder, the Abercrombie Station proper. Jean sat quietly in a corner of the mess hall, watching and listening while the other servants had their elevenses: cocoa gobbed heavy with whipped cream, pastries, ice cream. The talk was high pitched, edgy. Jean wondered at the myth that fat people were languid and easygoing.

From the corner of her eye she saw Mr. Webbard float into the room, his face tight and gray with anger.

She lowered her head over her cocoa, watching him from under her lashes.

Webbard looked directly at her, his lips sucked in and his bulbous cheeks quivered. For a moment it seemed that he would drift at her, attracted by the force of his anger alone; somehow he restrained himself. He looked around the room until he spied Mrs. Blaiskell. A flick of his fingers sent him to where she sat at the end table, held by magnets appropriately fastened to her rompers.

He bent over her, muttered in her ear. Jean could not hear his words, but she saw Mrs. Blaiskell’s face change and her eyes go seeking around the room.

Mr. Webbard completed his dramatization and felt better. He wiped the palms of his hands along the ample area of his dark blue corduroy trousers, twisted with a quick wriggle of his shoulders and sent himself to the door with a flick of his toe.

Marvelous, thought Jean, the majesty, the orbital massiveness of Webbard’s passage through the air. The full moon-face, heavy lidded, placid; the rosy cheeks, the chins and jowls puffed round and tumescent, glazed and oily, without blemish, mar or wrinkle; the hemisphere of the chest, then the bifurcate lower half, in the rich dark blue corduroy: the whole marvel coasting along with the inexorable momentum of an ore barge…

Jean became aware that Mrs. Blaiskell was motioning to her from the doorway, making cryptic little signals with her fat fingers.

Mrs. Blaiskell was waiting in the little vestibule she called her office, her face scene to shifting emotions. “Mr. Webbard has given me some serious information,” she said in a voice intended to be stern.

Jean displayed alarm. “About me?”

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded decisively. “Mr. Earl complained of some very strange behavior this morning. At seven o’clock or earlier…”

Jean gasped. “Is it possible, that Earl has had the audacity to—”

“Mr. Earl,” Mrs. Blaiskell corrected primly.

“Why, Mrs. Blaiskell, it was as much as my life was worth to get away from him!”

Mrs. Blaiskell blinked uneasily. “That’s not precisely the way Mr. Webbard put it. He said you—”

“Does that sound reasonable? Is that likely, Mrs. B.?”

“Well—no,” Mrs. Blaiskell admitted, putting her hand to her chin, and tapping her teeth with a fingernail. “Certainly it seems odd, come to consider a little more closely.” She looked at Jean. “But how is it that—”

“He called me into his room, and then—” Jean had never been able to cry, but she hid her face in her hands.

“There, now,” said Mrs. Blaiskell. “I never believed Mr. Webbard anyway. Did he—did he—” She found herself unable to phrase the question.

Jean shook her head. “It wasn’t for want of trying.”

“Just goes to show,” muttered Mrs. Blaiskell. “And I thought he’d grown out of that nonsense.”

” ‘Nonsense’?” The word had been invested with a certain overtone that set it out of context.

Mrs. Blaiskell was embarrassed. She shifted her eyes. “Earl has passed through several stages, and I’m not sure which has been the most troublesome…A year or two ago—two years, because this was while Hugo was still alive and the family was together—he saw so many Earth films that he began to admire Earth women, and it had us all worried. Thank heaven, he’s completely thrown off that unwholesomeness, but it’s gone to make him all the more shy and self-conscious.” She sighed. “If only one of the pretty girls of the Station would love him for himself, for his brilliant mind…but no, they’re all romantic and they’re more taken by a rich round body and fine flesh, and poor gnarled Earl is sure that when one of them does smile his way she’s after his money, and very likely true, so I say!” She looked at Jean speculatively. “It just occurred to me that Earl might be veering back to his old—well, strangeness. Not that you’re not a nice well-meaning creature, because you are.”

Well, well, thought Jean dispiritedly. Evidently she had achieved not so much this morning as she had hoped. But then, every campaign had its setbacks.

“In any event, Mr. Webbard has asked that I give you different duties, to keep you from Mr. Earl’s sight, because he’s evidently taken an antipathy to you…And after this morning I’m sure you’ll not object.”

“Of course not,” said Jean absently. Earl, that bigoted, warped, wretch of a boy!

“For today, you’ll just watch the Pleasaunce and service the periodicals and water the atrium plants. Tomorrow—well, we’ll see.”

Jean nodded and turned to leave. “One more thing,” said Mrs. Blaiskell in a hesitant voice. Jean paused. Mrs. Blaiskell could not seem to find the right words.

They came in a sudden surge, all strung together. “Be a little careful of yourself, especially when you’re alone near Mr. Earl. This is Abercrombie Station, you know, and he’s Earl Abercrombie, and the High Justice, and some very strange things happen…”

Jean said in a shocked whisper, “Physical violence, Mrs. Blaiskell?”

Mrs. Blaiskell stammered and blushed. “Yes, I suppose you’d call it that…Some very disgraceful things have come to light. Not nice, though I shouldn’t be saying it to you, who’s only been with us a day. But, be careful. I wouldn’t want your soul on my conscience.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Jean in a properly hushed voice.

Mrs. Blaiskell nodded her head, an indication that the interview was at an end.

Jean returned to the refectory. It was really very nice for Mrs. Blaiskell to worry about her. It was almost as if Mrs. Blaiskell were fond of her. Jean sneered automatically. That was too much to expect. Women always disliked her because their men were never safe when Jean was near. Not that Jean consciously flirted—at least, not always—but there was something about her that interested men, even the old ones. They paid lip-service to the idea that Jean was a child, but their eyes wandered up and down, the way a young man’s eyes wandered.

But out here on Abercrombie Station it was different. Ruefully Jean admitted that no one was jealous of her, no one on the entire Station. It was the other way around; she was regarded as an object for pity. But it was still nice of Mrs. Blaiskell to take her under her wing; it gave Jean a pleasant warm feeling. Maybe if and when she got hold of that two million dollars—and her thoughts went to Earl. The warm feeling drained from her mind.

Earl, hoity-toity Earl, was ruffled because she had disturbed his rest. So bristle-necked Earl thought she was gnarled and stunted! Jean pulled herself to the chair. Seating herself with a thump, she seized up her bulb of cocoa and sucked at the spout.

Earl! She pictured him: the sullen face, the kinky blond hair, the overripe mouth, the stocky body he so desperately yearned to fatten. This was the man she must inveigle into matrimony. On Earth, on almost any other planet in the human universe, it would be child’s play—

This was Abercrombie Station!

She sipped her cocoa, considering the problem. The odds that Earl would fall in love with her and come through with a legitimate proposal seemed slim. Could he be tricked into a position where in order to save face or reputation he would be forced to marry her? Probably not. At Abercrombie Station, she told herself, marriage with her represented almost the ultimate loss of face. Still, there were avenues to be explored. Suppose she beat Earl at chess, could she make marriage the forfeit? Hardly. Earl would be too sly and dishonorable to pay up. It was necessary to make him want to marry her, and that would entail making herself desirable in his eyes, which in turn made necessary a revision of Earl’s whole outlook. To begin with, he’d have to feel that his own person was not entirely loathsome (although it was). Earl’s morale must be built up to a point where he felt himself superior to the rest of Abercrombie Station, and where he would be proud to marry one of his own kind.

A possibility at the other pole: if Earl’s self-respect were so utterly blasted and reduced, if he could be made to feel so despicable and impotent that he would be ashamed to show his face outside his room, he might marry her as the best bet in sight…And still another possibility: revenge. If Earl realized that the fat girls who flattered him were actually ridiculing him behind his back, he might marry her from sheer spite.

One last possibility. Duress. Marriage or death. She considered poisons and antidotes, diseases and cures, a straightforward gun in the ribs…

Jean angrily tossed the empty cocoa bulb into the waste hopper. Trickery, sex lure, flattery, browbeating, revenge, fear—which was the most farfetched? All were ridiculous.

She decided she needed more time, more information. Perhaps Earl had a weak spot she could work on. If they had a community of interests, she’d be much further advanced. Examination of his study might give her a few hints.

A bell chimed, a number dropped on a call-board and a voice said, “Pleasaunce.”

Mrs. Blaiskell appeared. “That’s you, miss. Now go in, nice as you please, and ask Mrs. Clara what it is that’s wanted, and then you can go off duty till three.”

VI

Mrs. Clara Abercrombie, however, was not present. The Pleasaunce was occupied by twenty or thirty young folk, talking and arguing with rather giddy enthusiasm. The girls wore pastel satins, velvets, gauzes, tight around their rotund pink bodies, with frothy little ruffles and anklets, while the young men affected elegant dark grays and blues and tawny beiges, with military trim of white and scarlet.

Ranged along a wall were a dozen stage settings in miniature. Above, a ribbon of paper bore the words: Pandora in Elis. Libretto by A. Percy Stevanic, music by Colleen O’Casey.

Jean looked around the room to see who had summoned her. Earl raised his finger peremptorily. Jean walked on her magnetic shoes to where he floated near one of the miniature stage sets. He turned to a mess of cocoa and whipped cream, clinging like a tumor to the side of the set—evidently a broken bulb.

“Clean up that spill,” Earl said in a flinty voice.

Jean thought, He half wants to rub it in, half wants to act as if he doesn’t recognize me. She nodded dutifully. “I’ll get a container and a sponge.”

When she returned, Earl was across the room talking earnestly to a girl whose globular body was encased in a gown of brilliant rose velvet. She wore rosebuds over each ear and played with a ridiculous little white dog, while she listened to Earl with a halfhearted affection of interest.

Jean worked as slowly as possible, watching from the corners of her eyes. Snatches of conversation reached her: “Lapwill’s done simply a marvelous job on the editing, but I don’t see that he’s given Myras the same scope—”

“If the pageant grosses ten thousand dollars, Mrs. Clara says she’ll put another ten thousand toward the construction fund. Think of it! a Little Theater all our own!” Excited and conspiratorial whispers ran through the Pleasaunce, “—and for the water scene why not have the chorus float across the sky as moons?”

Jean watched Earl. He hung on the fat girl’s words, and spoke with a pathetic attempt at intimate comradeship and jocularity. The girl nodded politely, twisted up her features into a smile. Jean noticed her eyes followed a hearty youth whose physique bulged out his plum-colored breeches like wind bellying a spinnaker. Earl perceived the girl’s inattention. Jean saw him falter momentarily, then work even harder at his badinage. The fat girl licked her lips, swung her ridiculous little dog on its leash, and glanced over to where the purple-trousered youth bellowed with laughter.

A sudden idea caused Jean to hasten her work. Earl no doubt would be occupied here until lunchtime—two hours away. And Mrs. Blaiskell had relieved her from duty till three.

She took herself from the hall, disposed of the cleaning equipment, dived up the corridor to Earl’s private chambers. At Mrs. Clara’s suite she paused, listening at the door. Snores!

Another fifty feet to Earl’s chambers. She looked quickly up and down the corridor, slid back the door and slipped cautiously inside.

The room was silent as Jean made a quick survey. Closet, dressing room to one side, sun-flooded bathroom to the other. Across the room was the tall gray door into the study. A sign hung upon the door, apparently freshly made:

PRIVATE.

DANGER.

DO NOT ENTER.

Jean paused to consider. What kind of danger? Earl might have set devious safeguards over his private chamber.

She examined the door-slide button. It was overhung by an apparently innocent guard—which might or might not control an alarm circuit. She pressed her belt-buckle against the shutter in such a way as to maintain an electrical circuit, then moved the guard aside, pressed the button with her fingernail—gingerly. She knew of buttons which darted out hypodermics when pressed.

There was no whisper of machinery. The door remained in place.

Jean blew fretfully between her teeth. No keyhole, no buttons to play a combination on…Mrs. Blaiskell had found no trouble. Jean tried to reconstruct her motions. She moved to the slide, set her head to where she could see the reflection of the light from the wall…There was a smudge on the gloss. She looked closely and a telltale glint indicated a photoelectric eye.

She put her finger on the eye, pressed the slide-button. The door slipped open. In spite of having been forewarned, Jean recoiled from the horrid black shape which hung forward as if to grapple her.

She waited. After a moment the door fell gently back into place.

Jean returned to the outer corridor, stationed herself where she could duck into Mrs. Clara’s apartments if a suspicious shape came looming up the corridor. Earl might not have contented himself with the protection of a secret electric lock.

Five minutes passed. Mrs. Clara’s personal maid passed by, a globular little Chinese, eyes like two shiny black beetles, but no one else.

Jean pushed herself back to Earl’s room, crossed to the study door. Once more she read the sign:

PRIVATE.

DANGER.

DO NOT ENTER.

She hesitated. “I’m sixteen years old. Going on seventeen. Too young to die. It’s just like that odd creature to furnish his study with evil tricks.” She shrugged off the notion. “What a person won’t do for money.”

She opened the door, slipped through.

The door closed behind her. Quickly she moved out from under the poised demon-shape and turned to examine Earl’s sanctum. She looked right, left, up, down.

“There’s a lot to see here,” she muttered. “I hope Earl doesn’t run out of sheep’s-eyes for his fat girl, or decide he wants a particular newspaper clipping…”

She turned power into her slipper magnets, and wondered where to begin. The room was more like a warehouse or museum than a study, and gave the impression of wild confusion arranged, sorted, and filed by an extraordinary finicky mind.

After a fashion, it was a beautiful room, imbued with an atmosphere of erudition in its dark wood-tones. The far wall glowed molten with rich color—a rose window from the old Chartres cathedral, in full effulgence under the glare of free-space sunlight.

“Too bad Earl ran out of outside wall,” said Jean. “A collection of stained glass windows runs into a lot of wall-space, and one is hardly a collection…Perhaps there’s another room…” For the study, large as it was, apparently occupied only half the space permitted by the dimensions of Earl’s suite. “But—for the moment—I’ve got enough here to look at.”

Racks, cases, files, walnut-and-leaded-glass cabinets surfaced the walls; glass-topped displays occupied the floor. To her left was a battery of tanks. In the first series swam eels, hundreds of eels: Earth eels, eels from the outer worlds. She opened a cabinet. Chinese coins hung on pegs, each documented with crabbed boyish handwriting.

She circled the room, marveling at the profusion.

There were rock crystals from forty-two separate planets, all of which appeared identical to Jean’s unpracticed eye.

There were papyrus scrolls, Mayan codices, medieval parchments illuminated with gold and Tyrian purple, Ogham runes on moldering sheepskin, clay cylinders incised with cuneiform.

Intricate wood carvings—fancy chains, cages within cages, amazing interlocking spheres, seven vested Brahmin temples.

Centimeter cubes containing samples of every known element. Thousands of postage stamps, mounted on leaves, swung out of a circular cabinet.

There were volumes of autographs of famous criminals, together with their photographs and Bertillon and Pevetsky measurements. From one corner came the rich aromas of perfumes—a thousand little flagons minutely described and coded, together with the index and code explanation, and these again had their origin on a multitude of worlds. There were specimens of fungus growths from all over the universe, and there were racks of miniature phonograph records, an inch across, microformed from the original pressings.

She found photographs of Earl’s everyday life, together with his weight, height and girth measurement in crabbed handwriting, and each picture bore a colored star, a colored square and either a red or blue disk. By this time Jean knew the flavor of Earl’s personality. Near at hand there would be an index and explanation. She found it, near the camera which took the pictures. The disks referred to bodily functions; the stars, by a complicated system she could not quite comprehend, described Earl’s morale, his frame of mind. The colored squares recorded his love life. Jean’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. She wandered aimlessly on, fingering the physiographic globes of a hundred planets and examining maps and charts.

The cruder aspects of Earl’s personality were represented in a collection of pornographic photographs, and near at hand an easel and canvas where Earl was composing a lewd study of his own. Jean pursed her mouth primly. The prospect of marrying Earl was becoming infinitely less enchanting.

She found an alcove filled with little chessboards, each set up in a game. A numbered card and record of moves was attached to each board. Jean picked up the inevitable index book and glanced through. Earl played postcard chess with opponents all over the universe. She found his record of wins and losses. He was slightly but not markedly a winner. One man, William Angelo of Toronto, beat him consistently. Jean memorized the address, reflecting that if Earl ever took up her challenge to play chess, now she knew how to beat him. She would embroil Angelo in a game, and send Earl’s moves to Angelo as her own and play Angelo’s return moves against Earl. It would be somewhat circuitous and tedious, but foolproof—almost.

She continued her tour of the study. Seashells, moths, dragonflies, fossil trilobites, opals, torture implements, shrunken human heads. If the collection represented bona fide learning, thought Jean, it would have taxed the time and ability of any four Earth geniuses. But the hoard was essentially mindless and mechanical, nothing more than a boy’s collection of college pennants or signs or match-box covers on a vaster scale.

One of the walls opened out into an ell, and here was communication via a freight hatch to outside space. Unopened boxes, crates, cases, bundles—apparently material as yet to be filed in Earl’s rookery—filled the room. At the corner another grotesque and monumental creature hung poised, as if to clutch at her, and Jean felt strangely hesitant to wander within its reach. This one stood about eight feet tall. It wore the shaggy coat of a bear and vaguely resembled a gorilla, although the face was long and pointed, peering out from under the fur, like that of a French poodle.

Jean thought of Fotheringay’s reference to Earl as an “eminent zoologist.” She looked around the room. The stuffed animals, the tanks of eels, Earth tropical fish and Maniacan polywriggles were the only zoological specimens in sight. Hardly enough to qualify Earl as a zoologist. Of course, there was an annex to the room…She heard a sound. A click at the outer door.

Jean dived behind the stuffed animal, heart thudding in her throat. With exasperation she told herself, He’s an eighteen-year-old boy…If I can’t face him down, out-argue, out-think, out-fight him, and come out on top generally, then it’s time for me to start crocheting table mats for a living. Nevertheless, she remained hidden.

Earl stood quietly in the doorway. The door swung shut behind him. His face was flushed and damp, as if he had just recovered from anger or embarrassment. His delft-blue eyes gazed unseeingly down the roof, gradually came into focus.

He frowned, glanced suspiciously right and left, sniffed. Jean made herself small behind the shaggy fur. Could he smell her?

He coiled up his legs, kicked against the wall, dived directly toward her. Under the creature’s arm she saw him approaching, bigger, bigger, bigger, arms at his sides, head turned up like a diver. He thumped against the hairy chest, put his feet to the ground, stood not six feet distant.

He was muttering under his breath. She heard him plainly. “Damnable insult…If she only knew! Hah!” He laughed a loud scornful bark. “Hah!”

Jean relaxed with a near-audible sigh. Earl had not seen her, and did not suspect her presence.

He whistled aimlessly between his teeth, indecisively. At last he walked to the wall, reached behind a bit of ornate fretwork. A panel swung aside, a flood of bright sunlight poured through the opening into the study.

Earl was whistling a tuneless cadence. He entered the room but did not shut the door. Jean darted from behind her hiding place, looked in, swept the room with her eyes. Possibly she gasped.

Earl was standing six feet away, reading from a list. He looked up suddenly, and Jean felt the brush of his eyes.

He did not move…Had he seen her?

For a moment he made no sound, no stir. Then he came to the door, stood staring up the study and held this position for ten or fifteen seconds. From behind the stuffed gorilla-thing Jean saw his lips move, as if he were silently calculating.

She licked her lips, thinking of the inner room.

He went out into the alcove, among the unopened boxes and bales. He pulled up several, floated them toward the open door, and they drifted into the flood of sunshine. He pushed other bundles aside, found what he was seeking, and sent another bundle after the rest.

He pushed himself back to the door, where he stood suddenly tense, nose dilated, eyes keen, sharp. He sniffed the air. His eyes swung to the stuffed monster. He approached it slowly, arms hanging loose from his shoulders.

He looked behind, expelled his breath in a long drawn hiss, grunted. From within the annex Jean thought, He can either smell me, or it’s telepathy! She had darted into the room while Earl was fumbling among the crates, and ducked under a wide divan. Flat on her stomach she watched Earl’s inspection of the stuffed animal, and her skin tingled. He smells me, he feels me, he senses me.

Earl stood in the doorway, looking up and down the study. Then he carefully, slowly, closed the door, threw a bolt home, turned to face into the inner room.

For five minutes he busied himself with his crates, unbundling, arranging the contents, which seemed to be bottles of white powder, on shelves.

Jean pushed herself clear of the floor, up against the underside of the divan and moved to a position where she could see without being seen. Now she understood why Fotheringay had spoken of Earl as an “eminent zoologist.”

There was another word which would fit him better, an unfamiliar word which Jean could not immediately dredge out of her memory. Her vocabulary was no more extensive than any girl of her own age, but the word had made an impression.

Teratology. That was the word. Earl was a teratologist.

Like the objects in his other collections, the monsters were only such creatures as lent themselves to ready, almost haphazard collecting. They were displayed in glass cabinets. Panels at the back screened off the sunlight, and at absolute zero, the things would remain preserved indefinitely without taxidermy or embalming.

They were a motley, though monstrous group. There were true human monsters, macro-and micro-cephalics, hermaphrodites, creatures with multiple limbs and with none, creatures sprouting tissues like buds on a yeast cell, twisted hoop-men, faceless things, things green, blue and gray.

And then there were other specimens equally hideous, but possibly normal in their own environment: the miscellany of a hundred life-bearing planets.

To Jean’s eyes, the ultimate travesty was a fat man, displayed in a place of prominence! Possibly he had gained the conspicuous position on his own merits. He was corpulent to a degree Jean had not considered possible. Beside him Webbard might show active and athletic. Take this creature to Earth, he would slump like a jellyfish. Out here on Abercrombie he floated free, bloated and puffed like the throat of a singing frog! Jean looked at his face—looked again! Tight blond curls on his head…

Earl yawned, stretched. He proceeded to remove his clothes. Stark naked he stood in the middle of the room. He looked slowly, sleepily along the ranks of his collection.

He made a decision, moved languidly to one of the cubicles. He pulled a switch.

Jean heard a faint musical hum, a hissing, smelled heady ozone. A moment passed. She heard a sigh of air. The inner door of a glass cubicle opened. The creature within, moving feebly, drifted out into the room…

Jean pressed her lips tight together; after a moment looked away.

Marry Earl! She winced. No, Mr. Fotheringay. You marry him yourself, you’re as able as I am…Two million dollars? She shuddered. Five million sounded better. For five million she might marry him. But that’s as far as it would go. She’d put on her own ring, there’d be no kissing of the bride. She was Jean Parlier, no plaster saint. But enough was enough, and this was too much.

VII

Presently Earl left the room. Jean lay still, listened. No sound came from outside. She must be careful. Earl would surely kill her if he found her here. She waited five minutes. No sound, no motion reached her. Cautiously she edged herself out from under the divan.

The sunlight burned her skin with a pleasant warmth, but she hardly felt it. Her skin seemed stained; the air seemed tainted and soiled her throat, her lungs. She wanted a bath…Five million dollars would buy lots of baths. Where was the index? Somewhere would be an index. There had to be an index…Yes. She found it, and quickly consulted the proper entry. It gave her much meat for thought.

There was also an entry describing the revitalizing mechanism. She glanced at it hurriedly, understanding little. Such things existed, she knew. Tremendous magnetic fields streamed through the protoplasm, gripping and binding tight each individual atom, and when the object was kept at absolute zero, energy expenditure dwindled to near-nothing. Switch off the clamping field, kick the particles back into motion with a penetrating vibration, and the creature returned to life.

She returned the index to its place, pushed herself to the door.

No sound came from outside. Earl might be writing or coding the events of the day on his phonogram…Well, so then? She was not helpless. She opened the door, pushed boldly through.

The study was empty!

She dived to the outer door, listened. A faint sound of running water reached her ears. Earl was in the shower. This would be a good time to leave.

She pressed the door-slide. The door snapped open. She stepped out into Earl’s bedroom, pushed herself across to the outer door.

Earl came out of the bathroom, his stocky fresh-skinned torso damp with water.

He stood stock-still, then hastily draped a towel around his middle. His face suddenly went mottled red and pink. “What are you doing in here?”

Jean said sweetly, “I came to check on your linen, to see if you needed towels.”

He made no answer, but stood watching her. He said harshly, “Where have you been this last hour?”

Jean made a flippant gesture. “Here, there. Were you looking for me?”

He took a stealthy step forward. “I’ve a good mind to—”

“To what?” Behind her she fumbled for the door-slide.

“To—”

The door opened.

“Wait,” said Earl. He pushed himself forward.

Jean slipped out into the corridor, a foot ahead of Earl’s hands.

“Come back in,” said Earl, making a clutch for her.

From behind them Mrs. Blaiskell said in a horrified voice, “Well, I never! Mr. Earl!” She had appeared from Mrs. Clara’s room.

Earl backed into his room hissing unvoiced curses. Jean looked in after him. “The next time you see me, you’ll wish you’d played chess with me.”

“Jean!” barked Mrs. Blaiskell.

Earl asked in a hard voice, “What do you mean?”

Jean had no idea what she meant. Her mind raced. Better keep her ideas to herself. “I’ll tell you tomorrow morning.” She laughed mischievously. “About six or six-thirty.”

“Miss Jean!” cried Mrs. Blaiskell angrily. “Come away from that door this instant!”

Jean calmed herself in the servants’ refectory with a pot of tea.

Webbard came in, fat, pompous and fussy as a hedgehog. He spied Jean and his voice rose to a reedy oboe tone. “Miss, miss!”

Jean had a trick she knew to be effective, thrusting out her firm young chin, squinting, charging her voice with metal. “Are you looking for me?”

Webbard said, “Yes, I certainly am. Where on earth—”

“Well, I’ve been looking for you. Do you want to hear what I’m going to tell you in private or not?”

Webbard blinked. “Your tone of voice is impudent, miss. If you please—”

“Okay,” said Jean. “Right here, then. First of all, I’m quitting. I’m going back to Earth. I’m going to see—”

Webbard held up his hand in alarm, looked around the refectory. Conversation along the tables had come to a halt. A dozen curious eyes were watching.

“I’ll interview you in my office,” said Webbard.

The door slid shut behind her. Webbard pressed his rotundity into a chair; magnetic strands in his trousers held him in place. “Now, what is all this? I’ll have you know there’ve been serious complaints.”

Jean said disgustedly, “Tie a can to it, Webbard. Talk sense.”

Webbard was thunderstruck. “You’re an impudent minx!”

“Look. Do you want me to tell Earl how I landed the job?”

Webbard’s face quivered. His mouth fell open; he blinked four or five times rapidly. “You wouldn’t dare to—”

Jean said patiently, “Forget the master-slave routine for five minutes, Webbard. This is man-to-man talk.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve a few questions I want to ask you.”

“Well?”

“Tell me about old Mr. Abercrombie, Mrs. Clara’s husband.”

“There’s nothing to tell. Mr. Justus was a very distinguished gentleman.”

“He and Mrs. Clara had how many children?”

“Seven.”

“And the oldest inherits the Station?”

“The oldest, always the oldest. Mr. Justus believed in firm organization. Of course the other children were guaranteed a home here at the Station, those who wished to stay.”

“And Hugo was the oldest. How long after Mr. Justus did he die?”

Webbard found the conversation distasteful. “This is all footling nonsense,” he growled in a deep voice.

“How long?”

“Two years.”

“And what happened to him?”

Webbard said briskly, “He had a stroke. Cardiac complaint. Now, what’s all this I hear about your quitting?”

“How long ago?”

“Ah—two years.”

“And then Earl inherited?”

Webbard pursed his lips. “Mr. Lionel unfortunately was off the Station, and Mr. Earl became legal master.”

“Rather nice timing, from Earl’s viewpoint.”

Webbard puffed out his cheeks. “Now then, young lady, we’ve had enough of that! If—”

“Mr. Webbard, let’s have an understanding once and for all. Either you answer my questions and stop this blustering or I’ll ask someone else. And when I’m done, that someone else will be asking you questions too.”

“You insolent little trash!” snarled Webbard.

Jean turned toward the door, Webbard grunted, thrashed himself forward. Jean gave her arm a shake; out of nowhere a blade of quivering glass appeared in her hand.

Webbard floundered in alarm, trying to halt his motion through the air. Jean put up her foot, pushed him in the belly, back toward his chair.

She said, “I want to see a picture of the entire family.”

“I don’t have any such pictures “

Jean shrugged. “I can go to any public library and dial the Who’s-Who.” She looked him over coolly, as she coiled her knife. Webbard shrank back in his chair. Perhaps he thought her a homicidal maniac. Well, she wasn’t a maniac and she wasn’t homicidal either, unless she was driven to it. She asked easily, “Is it a fact that Earl is worth a billion dollars?”

Webbard snorted. “A billion dollars? Ridiculous! The family owns nothing but the Station and lives off the income. A hundred million dollars would build another twice as big and luxurious.”

“Where did Fotheringay get that figure?” she asked wonderingly.

“I couldn’t say,” Webbard replied shortly.

“Where is Lionel now?”

Webbard pulled his lips in and out desperately. “He’s—resting somewhere along the Riviera.”

“Hm…You say you don’t have any photographs?”

Webbard scratched his chin. “I believe that there’s a shot of Lionel…Let me see…Yes, just a moment.” He fumbled in his desk, pawed and peered, and at last came up with a snapshot. “Mr. Lionel.”

Jean examined the photograph with interest. “Well, well.” The face in the photograph and the face of the fat man in Earl’s zoological collection were the same. “Well, well.” She looked up sharply. “And what’s his address?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Webbard responded with some return of his mincing dignity.

“Quit dragging your feet, Webbard.”

“Oh, well—the Villa Passe-temps, Juan-les-pins.”

“I’ll believe it when I see your address file. Where is it?’*

Webbard began breathing hard. “Now see here, young lady, there’s serious matters at stake!”

“Such as what?”

“Well—” Webbard lowered his voice, glanced conspiratonally at the walls of the room. “It’s common knowledge at the Station that Mr. Earl and Mr. Lionel are—well, not friendly. And there’s a rumor—a rumor, mind you—that Mr. Earl has hired a well-known criminal to kill Mr. Lionel.”

That would be Fotheringay, Jean surmised.

Webbard continued. “So you see, it’s necessary that I exercise the utmost caution…”

Jean laughed. “Let’s see that file.”

Webbard finally indicated a card file. Jean said, “You know where it is; pull it out.”

Webbard glumly sorted through the cards. “Here.”

The address was: Hotel Atlantide, Apartment 3001, French Colony, Metropolis, Earth.

Jean memorized the address, then stood irresolutely, trying to think of further questions. Webbard smiled slowly. Jean ignored him, stood nibbling her fingertips. Times like this she felt the inadequacy of her youth. When it came to action—fighting, laughing, spying, playing games, making love—she felt complete assurance. But the sorting out of possibilities and deciding which were probable and which irrational was when she felt less than sure. Such as now…Old Webbard, the fat blob, had calmed himself and was gloating. Well, let him enjoy himself…She had to get to Earth. She had to see Lionel Abercrombie. Possibly Fotheringay had been hired to kill him, possibly not. Possibly Fotheringay knew where to find him, possibly not. Webbard knew Fotheringay; probably he had served as Earl’s intermediary. Or possibly Webbard was performing some intricate evolutions of his own. It was plain that, now, her interests were joined with Lionel’s, rather than Fotheringay’s, because marrying Earl was clearly out of the question. Lionel must stay alive. If this meant double-crossing Fotheringay, too bad for Fotheringay. He could have told her more about Earl’s “zoological collection” before he sent her up to marry Earl…Of course, she told herself, Fotheringay would have no means of knowing the peculiar use Earl made of his specimens.

“Well?” asked Webbard with an unpleasant grin.

“When does the next ship leave for Earth?”

“The supply barge is heading back tonight.”

“That’s fine. If I can fight off the pilot. You can pay me now.”

“Pay you? You’ve only done a day’s work. You owe the Station for transportation, your uniform, your meals—”

“Oh, never mind.” Jean turned, pulled herself into the corridor, went to her room, packed her belongings.

Mrs. Blaiskell pushed her head through the door. “Oh, there you are…” She sniffed. “Mr. Earl has been inquiring for you. He wants to see you at once.” It was plain that she disapproved.

“Sure,” said Jean. “Right away.”

Mrs. Blaiskell departed.

Jean pushed herself along the corridor to the loading deck. The barge pilot was assisting in the loading of some empty metal drums. He saw Jean and his face changed. “You again?”

“I’m going back to Earth with you. You were right. I don’t like it here.”

The pilot nodded sourly. “This time you ride in the storage. That way neither of us gets hurt…I couldn’t promise a thing if you’re up forward.”

“Suits me,” said Jean. “I’m going aboard.”

When Jean reached the Hotel Atlantide in Metropolis she wore a black dress and black pumps which she felt made her look older and more sophisticated. Crossing the lobby she kept a wary lookout for the house detective. Sometimes they nursed unkind suspicions toward unaccompanied young girls. It was best to avoid the police, keep them at a distance. When they found that she had no father, no mother, no guardian, their minds were apt to turn to some dreary government institution. On several occasions rather extreme measures to ensure her independence had been necessary.

But the Hotel Atlantide detective took no heed of the black-haired girl quietly crossing the lobby, if he saw her at all. The lift attendant observed that she seemed restless, as with either a great deal of pent enthusiasm or nervous. A porter on the thirtieth floor noticed her searching for an apartment number and mentally labeled her a person unfamiliar with the hotel. A chambermaid watched her press the bell at Apartment 3001, saw the door open, saw the girl jerk back in surprise, then slowly enter the apartment. Strange, thought the chambermaid, and speculated mildly for a few moments. Then she went to recharge the foam dispensers in the public bathrooms, and the incident passed from her mind.

The apartment was spacious, elegant, expensive. Windows overlooked Central Gardens and the Morison Hall of Equity behind. The furnishings were the work of a professional decorator, harmonious and sterile; a few incidental objects around the room, however, hinted of a woman’s presence. But Jean saw no woman. There was only herself and Fotheringay.

Fotheringay wore subdued gray flannels and dark necktie. In a crowd of twenty people he would vanish.

After an instant of surprise he stood back. “Come in.”

Jean darted glances around the room, half expecting a fat crumpled body. But possibly Lionel had not been at home, and Fotheringay was waiting.

“Well,” he asked, “what brings you here?” He was watching her covertly. “Take a seat.”

Jean sank into a chair, chewed at her lip. Fotheringay watched her catlike. Walk carefully. She prodded her mind. What legitimate excuse did she have for visiting Lionel? Perhaps Fotheringay had expected her to double-cross him…Where was Hammond? Her neck tingled. Eyes were on her neck. She looked around quickly.

Someone in the hall tried to dodge out of sight. Not quickly enough. Inside Jean’s brain a film of ignorance broke to release a warm soothing flood of knowledge.

She smiled, her sharp white little teeth showing between her lips. It had been a fat woman whom she had seen in the hall, a very fat woman, rosy, flushed, quivering.

“What are you smiling at?” inquired Fotheringay.

She used his own technique. “Are you wondering who gave me your address?”

“Obviously Webbard.”

Jean nodded. “Is the lady your wife?”

Fotheringay’s chin raised a hairbreadth. “Get to the point.”

“Very well.” She hitched herself forward. There was still a possibility that she was making a terrible mistake, but the risk must be taken. Questions would reveal her uncertainty, diminish her bargaining position. “How much money can you raise—right now? Cash.”

“Ten or twenty thousand.”

Her face must have showed disappointment.

“Not enough?”

“No. You sent me on a bum steer.”

Fotheringay sat silently.

“Earl would no more make a pass at me than bite off his tongue. His taste in women is—like yours.”

Fotheringay displayed no irritation. “But two years ago—”

“There’s a reason for that.” She raised her eyebrows ruefully. “Not a nice reason.”

“Well, get on with it.”

“He liked Earth girls because they were freaks. In his opinion, naturally. Earl likes freaks.”

Fotheringay rubbed his chin, watching her with blank wide eyes. “I never thought of that.”

“Your scheme might have worked out if Earl were halfway right-side up. But I just don’t have what it takes.”

Fotheringay smiled frostily. “You didn’t come here to tell me that.”

“No. I know how Lionel Abercrombie can get the Station for himself…Of course your name is Fotheringay.”

“If my name is Fotheringay, why did you come here looking for me?”

Jean laughed, a gay ringing laugh. “Why do you think I’m looking for you? I’m looking for Lionel Abercrombie. Fotheringay is no use to me unless I can marry Earl. I can’t. I haven’t got enough of that stuff. Now I’m looking for Lionel Abercrombie.”

VIII

Fotheringay tapped a well-manicured finger on a well-flanneled knee, and said quietly, “I’m Lionel Abercrombie.”

“How do I know you are?”

He tossed her a passport. She glanced at it, tossed it back.

“Okay. Now—you have twenty thousand. That’s not enough. I want two million…If you haven’t got it, you haven’t got it. I’m not unreasonable. But I want to make sure I get it when you do have it…So—you’ll write me a deed, a bill of sale, something legal that gives me your interest in Abercrombie Station. I’ll agree to sell it back to you for two million dollars.”

Fotheringay shook his head. “That kind of agreement is binding on me but not on you. You’re a minor.”

Jean said, “The sooner I get clear of Abercrombie the better. I’m not greedy. You can have your billion dollars. I merely want two million…Incidentally, how do you figure a billion? Webbard says the whole setup is only worth a hundred million.”

Lionel’s mouth twisted in a wintry smile. “Webbard didn’t include the holdings of the Abercrombie guests. Some very rich people are fat. The fatter they get, the less they like life on Earth.”

“They could always move to another resort station.”

Lionel shook his head. “It’s not the same atmosphere. Abercrombie is Fatman’s World. The one small spot in all the universe where a fat man is proud of his weight.” There was a wistful overtone in his voice.

Jean said softly, “And you’re lonesome for Abercrombie yourself.”

Lionel smiled grimly. “Is that so strange?”

Jean shifted in her chair. “Now well go to a lawyer. I know a good one. Richard Mycroft. I want this deed drawn up without loopholes. Maybe I’ll have to find myself a guardian, a trustee.”

“You don’t need a guardian.”

Jean smiled complacently. “For a fact, I don’t.”

“You still haven’t told me what this project consists of.”

“I’ll tell you when I have the deed. You don’t lose a thing giving away property you don’t own. And after you give it away, it’s to my interest to help you get it.”

Lionel rose to his feet. “It had better be good.”

“It will be.”

The fat woman came into the room. She was obviously an Earth girl, bewildered and delighted by Lionel’s attentions. Looking at Jean her face became clouded with jealousy.

Out in the corridor Jean said wisely, “You get her up to Abercrombie, she’ll be throwing you over for one of those fat rascals.”

“Shut up!” said Lionel, in a voice like the whetting of a scythe.

The pilot of the supply barge said sullenly, “I don’t know about this.”

Lionel asked quietly, “You like your job?”

The pilot muttered churlishly, but made no further protest. Lionel buckled himself into the seat beside him. Jean, the horse-faced man named Hammond, two elderly men of professional aspect and uneasy manner settled themselves in the cargo hold.

The ship lifted free of the dock, pushed up above the atmosphere, lined out into Abercrombie’s orbit.

The Station floated ahead, glinting in the sunlight.

The barge landed on the cargo deck, the handlers tugged it into its socket, the port sighed open.

“Come on,” said Lionel. “Make it fast. Let’s get it over with.” He tapped Jean’s shoulder. “You’re first.”

She led the way up the main core. Fat guests floated down past them, light and round as soapbubbles, their faces masks of surprise at the sight of so many bone-people.

Up the core, along the vinculum into the Abercrombie private sphere. They passed the Pleasaunce, where Jean caught a glimpse of Mrs. Clara, fat as a blutworst, with the obsequious Webbard.

They passed Mrs. Blaiskell. “Why, Mr. Lionel!” she gasped. “Well, I never, I never!”

Lionel brushed past. Jean, looking over her shoulder into his face, felt a qualm. Something dark smoldered in his eyes. Triumph, malice, vindication, cruelty. Something not quite human. If nothing else, Jean was extremely human, and was wont to feel uneasy in the presence of out-world life…She felt uneasy now.

“Hurry,” came Lionel’s voice. “Hurry.”

Past Mrs. Clara’s chambers, to the door of Earl’s bedroom. Jean pressed the button; the door slid open.

Earl stood before a mirror, tying a red and blue silk cravat around his bull-neck. He wore a suit of pearl-gray gabardine, cut very full and padded to make his body look round and soft. He saw Jean in the mirror, behind her the hard face of his brother Lionel. He whirled, lost his footing, drifted ineffectually into the air,

Lionel laughed. “Get him, Hammond. Bring him along.”

Earl stormed and raved. He was the master here, everybody get out. He’d have them all jailed, killed. He’d kill them himself…

Hammond searched him for weapons, and the two professional-looking men stood uncomfortably in the background muttering to each other.

“Look here, Mr. Abercrombie,” one of them said at last. “We can’t be a party to violence…”

“Shut up,” said Lionel. “You’re here as witnesses, as medical men. You’re being paid to look, that’s all. If you don’t like what you see, that’s too bad.” He motioned to Jean. “Get going.”

Jean pushed herself to the study door. Earl called out sharply: “Get away from there, get away! That’s private, that’s my private study!”

Jean pressed her lips together. It was impossible to avoid feeling pity for poor gnarled Earl. But—she thought of his “zoological collection.” Firmly she covered the electric eye, pressed the button. The door swung open, revealing the glory of the stained glass glowing with the fire of heaven.

Jean pushed herself to the furry two-legged creature. Here she waited.

Earl made some difficulty about coming through the door. Hammond manipulated his elbows; Earl belched up a hoarse screech, flung himself forward, panting like a winded chicken.

Lionel said, “Don’t fool with Hammond, Earl. He likes hurting people.”

The two witnesses muttered wrathfully. Lionel quelled them with a look.

Hammond seized Earl by the seat of the pants, raised him over his head, walked with magnetic shoes gripping the deck across the cluttered floor of the study, with Earl flailing and groping helplessly.

Jean fumbled in the fretwork over the panel into the annex. Earl screamed, “Keep your hands out of there! Oh, how you’ll pay, how you’ll pay for this, how you’ll pay!” His voice hoarsened, he broke into sobs.

Hammond shook him, like a terrier shaking a rat.

Earl sobbed louder.

The sound grated on Jean’s ears. She frowned, found the button, pushed. The panel flew open.

They all moved into the bright annex, Earl completely broken, sobbing and pleading.

“There it is,” said Jean.

Lionel swung his gaze along the collection of monstrosities. The out-world things, the dragons, basilisks, griffins, the armored insects, the great-eyed serpents, the tangles of muscle, the coiled creatures of fang, brain, cartilage. And then there were the human creatures, no less grotesque. Lionel’s eyes stopped at the fat man.

He looked at Earl, who had fallen numbly silent.

“Poor old Hugo,” said Lionel. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Earl.”

Earl made a sighing sound.

Lionel said, “But Hugo is dead…He’s as dead as any of the other things. Right, Earl?” He looked at Jean. “Right?”

“I guess that’s right,” said Jean uneasily. She found no pleasure baiting Earl.

“Of course he’s dead,” panted Earl.

Jean went to the little key controlling the magnetic field.

Earl screamed, “You witch! You witch!”

Jean depressed the key. There was a musical hum, a hissing, a smell of ozone. A moment passed. There came a sigh of air. The cubicle opened with a sucking sound. Hugo drifted into the room.

He twitched his arms, gagged and retched, made a thin crying sound in his throat.

Lionel turned to his two witnesses. “Is this man alive?”

They muttered excitedly, “Yes, yes!”

Lionel turned to Hugo. “Tell them your name.”

Hugo whispered feebly, pressed his elbows to his body, pulled up his atrophied little legs, tried to assume a fetal position.

Lionel asked the two men, “Is this man sane?”

They fidgeted. “That of course is hardly a matter we can determine offhand.” There was further mumbling about tests, cephalographs, reflexes.

Lionel waited a moment. Hugo was gurgling, crying like a baby. “Well—is he sane?”

The doctors said, “He’s suffering from severe shock. The deep-freeze classically has the effect of disturbing the synapses—”

Lionel asked sardonically, “Is he in his right mind?”

“Well—no.”

Lionel nodded. “In that case—you’re looking at the new master of Abercrombie Station.”

Earl protested, “You can’t get away with that, Lionel! He’s been insane a long time, and you’ve been off the Station!”

Lionel grinned wolfishly. “Do you want to take the matter into Admiralty Court at Metropolis?”

Earl fell silent. Lionel looked at the doctors, who were whispering heatedly together.

“Talk to him,” said Lionel. “Satisfy yourself whether he’s in his right mind or not.”

The doctors dutifully addressed Hugo, who made mewing sounds. They came to an uncomfortable but definite decision. “Clearly this man is not able to conduct his own affairs.”

Earl pettishly wrenched himself from Hammond’s grasp. “Let go of me.”

“Better be careful,” said Lionel. “I don’t think Hammond likes you.”

“I don’t like Hammond,” said Earl viciously. “I don’t like anyone.” His voice dropped in pitch. “I don’t even like myself.” He stood staring into the cubicle which Hugo had vacated.

Jean sensed a tide of recklessness rising in him. She opened her mouth to speak.

But Earl had already started.

Time stood still. Earl seemed to move with bewildering slowness, but the others stood as if frozen in jelly.

Time turned on for Jean. “I’m getting out of here!” she gasped, knowing what the half-crazed Earl was about to do.

Earl ran down the line of his monsters, magnetic shoes slapping on the deck. As he ran, he flipped switches. When he finished he stood at the far end of the room. Behind him things came to life.

Hammond gathered himself, plunged after Jean. A black arm apparently groping at random caught hold of his leg. There was a dull cracking sound. Hammond bawled out in terror.

Jean started through the door. She jerked back, shrieking. Facing her was the eight-foot gorilla-thing with the French poodle face. Somewhere along the line Earl had thrown a switch relieving it from magnetic catalepsy. The black eyes shone, the mouth dripped, the hands clenched and unclenched. Jean shrank back.

There were horrible noises from behind. She heard Earl gasping in sudden fear. But she could not turn her eyes from the gorilla-thing. It drifted into the room. The black dog-eyes looked deep into Jean’s. She could not move! A great black arm, groping mindlessly, fell past Jean’s shoulder, touched the gorilla-thing.

There was screaming bedlam. Jean pressed herself against the wall. A green flapping creature, coiling and uncoiling, twisted out into the study, smashing racks, screens, displays, sending books, minerals, papers, mechanisms, cases and cabinets floating and crashing. The gorilla-thing came after, one of its arms twisted and loose. A rolling flurry of webbed feet, scales, muscular tail and a human body followed—Hammond and a griffin from a world aptly named Pest-Hole.

Jean darted through the door, thought to hide in the alcove. Outside, on the deck, was Earl’s spaceboat. She shoved herself across to the port.

Behind, frantically scrambling, came one of the doctors whom Lionel had brought along for a witness.

Jean called, “Over here, over here!”

The doctor threw himself into the spaceboat.

Jean crouched by the port, ready to slam it at any approach of danger…She sighed. All her hopes, plans, future had exploded. Death, debacle, catastrophe were hers instead.

She turned to the doctor. “Where’s your partner?”

“Dead! Oh Lord, oh Lord, what can we do?”

Jean turned her head to look at him, lips curling in disgust. Then she saw him in a new, flattering light. A disinterested witness. He looked like money. He could testify that for at least thirty seconds Lionel had been master of Abercrombie Station. Thirty seconds was enough to transfer title to her. Whether Hugo were sane or not didn’t matter because Hugo had died thirty seconds before the metal frog with the knife-edged scissor-bill had fixed on Lionel’s throat.

Best to make sure. “Listen,” said Jean. “This may be important. Suppose you were to testify in court. Who died first, Hugo or Lionel?”

The doctor sat quiet a moment. “Why, Hugo! I saw his neck broken while Lionel was still alive.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes.” He tried to pull himself together. “We must do something.”

“Okay,” said Jean. “What shall we do?”

“I don’t know.”

From the study came a gurgling sound, and an instant later, a woman’s scream. “God!” said Jean. “The things have got out into the inner bedroom…What they won’t do to Abercrombie Station…” She lost control and retched against the hull of the boat.

A brown face like a poodle dog’s, spotted red with blood, peered around the corner at them. Stealthily it pulled itself closer.

Mesmerized, Jean saw that now its arm had been twisted entirely off. It darted forward. Jean fell back, slammed the port. A heavy body thudded against the metal.

They were closed in Earl’s spaceboat. The man had fainted. Jean said, “Don’t die on me, fellow. You’re worth money…”

Faintly through the metal came crashing and thumping. Then came the muffled spatttt of proton guns.

The guns sounded with monotonous regularity. Spatttt… spattt…spattt…spattt…

Then there was utter silence.

Jean inched open the port. The alcove was empty. Across her vision drifted the broken body of the gorilla-thing.

Jean ventured into the alcove, looked out into the study. Thirty feet distant stood Webbard, planted like a pirate captain on the bridge of his ship. His face was white and wadded; pinched lines ran from his nose around his nearly invisible mouth. He carried two big proton guns; the orifices of both were white-hot.

He saw Jean; his eyes took on a glitter. “You! It’s you that’s caused all this, your sneaking and spying!”

He jerked up his proton guns.

“No!” cried Jean. “It’s not my fault!”

Lionel’s voice came weakly. “Put down those guns, Webbard.” Clutching his throat he pushed himself into the study. “That’s the new owner,” he croaked sardonically. “You wouldn’t want to murder your boss, would you?”

Webbard blinked in astonishment. “Mr. Lionel!”

“Yes,” said Lionel. “Home again…And there’s quite a mess to clean up, Webbard…”

Jean looked at the bankbook. The figures burned into the plastic, spread almost all the way across the tape.

“Two million dollars.”

Mycroft puffed on his pipe, looked out the window. “There’s a matter you should be considering,” he said. “That’s the investment of your money. You won’t be able to do it by yourself; other parties will insist on dealing with a responsible entity—that is to say, a trustee or a guardian.”

“I don’t know much about these things,” said Jean. “I—rather assumed that you’d take care of them.”

Mycroft reached over, tapped the dottle out of his pipe.

“Don’t you want to?” asked Jean.

Mycroft said with a compressed distant smile, “Yes, I want to…I’ll be glad to administer a two-million-dollar estate. In effect, I’ll become your legal guardian, until you’re of age. We’ll have to get a court order of appointment. The effect of the order will be to take control of the money out of your hands; we can include in the articles, however, a clause guaranteeing you the full income—which I assume is what you want. It should come to—oh, say fifty thousand a year after taxes.”

“That suits me,” said Jean listlessly. “I’m not too interested in anything right now…There seems to be something of a letdown.”

Mycroft nodded. “I can see how that’s possible.”

Jean said, “I have the money. I’ve always wanted it, now I have it. And now—” She held out her hands, raised her eyebrows. “It’s just a number in a bankbook…Tomorrow morning I’ll get up and say to myself, ‘What shall I do today? Shall I buy a house? Shall I order a thousand dollars worth of clothes? Shall I start out on a two-year tour of Argo Navis?’ And the answer will come out, ‘No, the hell with it all.’ “

“What you need,” said Mycroft, “are some friends, nice girls your own age.”

Jean’s mouth moved in rather a sickly smile. “I’m afraid we wouldn’t have much in common…It’s probably a good idea, but—it wouldn’t work out.” She sat passively in the chair, her wide mouth drooping.

Mycroft noticed that in repose it was a sweet generous mouth.

She said in a low voice, “I can’t get out of my head the idea that somewhere in the universe I must have a mother and a father…”

Mycroft rubbed his chin. “People who’d abandon a baby in a saloon aren’t worth thinking about, Jean.”

“I know,” she said in a dismal voice. “Oh, Mr. Mycroft, I’m so damn lonely…” Jean was crying, her head buried in her arms.

Mycroft irresolutely put his hand on her shoulder, patted awkwardly.

After a moment she said, “You’ll think I’m an awful fool.”

“No,” said Mycroft gruffly. “I think nothing of the kind. I wish that I…” He could not put it into words.

She pulled herself together, rose to her feet. “Enough of this…” She turned his head up, kissed his chin. “You’re really very nice, Mr. Mycroft…But I don’t want sympathy. I hate it. I’m used to looking out for myself.”

Mycroft returned to his seat, loaded his pipe to keep his fingers busy. Jean picked up her little handbag. “Right now I’ve got a date with a couturier named André. He’s going to dress me to an inch of my life. And then I’m going to—” She broke off. “I’d better not tell you. You’d be alarmed and shocked.”

He cleared his throat. “I expect I would.”

She nodded brightly. “So long.” Then she left his office.

Mycroft cleared his throat again, hitched up his trousers, settled his jacket, returned to his work…Somehow it appeared dull, drab, gray. His head ached.

He said, “I feel like going out and getting drunk…”

Ten minutes passed. His door opened. Jean looked in.

“Hello, Mr. Mycroft.”

“Hello, Jean.”

“I changed my mind. I thought it would be nicer if I took you out to dinner, and then maybe we could go to a show…Would you like that?”

“Very much,” said Mycroft.

v2007.02/MNQ

20,835 words

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