Stepsons of Terra

6.

It was past midnight when Ewing stepped out of the lift-shaft on the forty-first floor of the Grand Valloin Hotel. He reached his room and examined the message box. Empty. He had half expected to find another threatening note in it.

He pressed his thumb to the identity-attuned plate of the door and said in a low voice, pitched so it would not awaken any of his neighbors, “Open.”

The door rolled back. Unexpectedly, the light was on in his room.

“Hello,” said Byra Clork.

Ewing froze in the doorway and stared bewilderedly at the broad-shouldered Sirian girl. She was sitting quite calmly in the relaxochair by the window. A bottle of some kind rested on the night table, and next to it two glasses, one of them half filled with amber liquid. She had made herself quite comfortable, it seemed.

He stepped inside.

“How did you get into my room?” he asked.

“I asked the management to give me a pass key to your room. They obliged.”

“Just like that?” Ewing snapped. “I guess I don’t understand the way Terrestrial hotels operated. I was under the innocent impression that a man’s room was his own so long as he paid his rent, and that no strangers would be permitted to enter.”

“That’s the usual custom,” she said lightly. “But I found it necessary to talk to you about urgent matters. Matters of great importance to the Sirian Consulate in Valloin, whom I represent.”

Ewing became aware of the fact that he was holding the door open. He released it, and it closed automatically. “It’s a little late in the evening for conducting Consulate business, isn’t it?” he asked.

She smiled. “It’s never too late for some things. Would you like a drink?”

He ignored the glass she held out to him. He wanted her to leave his room.

“How did you get in my room?” he repeated.

She pointed behind him, to the enameled sheet of regulations behind the door. “It’s up there plainly enough on your door. I’ll quote, in case you haven’t read the regulations yet: ‘The management of this Hotel reserves the right to enter and inspect any of the rooms at any time.’ I’m carrying out an inspection.”

“You’re not the management!”

“I’m employed by the management,” she said sweetly. She dug into the reticule suspended from her left wrist and produced a glossy yellow card which she handed over to the puzzled Ewing.

He read it.

“What does this mean?”

“It means that the robots at the desk are directly responsible to Firnik. He runs this hotel. Sirian investors bought it eight years ago, and delegated him to act as their on-the-spot representative. And in turn he delegated me to visit you in your room tonight. Now that everything’s nice and legal, Ewing, sit down and let’s talk. Relax.”

Uncertainly Ewing slipped off his coat and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her.

“We’ve had one conversation already today, haven’t we? A highly inconclusive and fragmentary one, which ended when—”

“Forget about that!”

The sudden whiteness of her face told him one thing he had been anxious to know: they were being watched. He had nearly revealed something she had not wanted the watchers to find out.

“I—have different instructions now,” she said hesitantly. “Won’t you have a drink?”

He shook his head. “I’ve already had more than my share today, thanks. And I’m tired. Now that you’ve gotten in here, suppose you tell me what you want.”

“You visited Governor-General Mellis tonight, didn’t you?” she asked abruptly.

“Did I?”

“You don’t have to be mysterious about it,” she said sharply. “You were seen leaving and returning in an official car. Don’t waste your breath by denying you had an interview with the Governor-General.”

Ewing shrugged. “How would it concern you, assuming that I did?”

“To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Ewing, your presence on Earth worries us. By us I mean the interests of the Sirian government, whom I represent. We have a definite financial interest in Earth. We don’t want to see that investment jeopardized.”

Ewing frowned in curiosity. “You haven’t made things much clearer,” he said.

“Briefly, we wondered whether or not you—representing Corwin or possibly a league of the outworld colonies—have territorial designs on Earth,” she said slowly. “I’ve been utterly blunt, now. Too blunt, perhaps. We Sirians are poor at diplomacy; we have a racial characteristic of always coming directly to the point.”

“Corwinites share that characteristic,” Ewing said. “Maybe it’s a concomitant of colonial life. I’ll answer you with equal bluntness: there’s no outworld colony league, and I’m not on Earth with the remotest intention of establishing a dominion here.”

“Then why are you here?”

He scowled impatiently. “I explained all that to our friend Firnik this morning, only a few minutes after I had entered the spaceport terminal. I told him that Corwin’s in danger of an alien invasion, and that I had come to Earth seeking help.”

“Yes, you told him that. And you expected him to believe that story?”

Exasperated, Ewing howled, “Dammit, why not? It’s the truth!”

“That any intelligent person would cross fifty light-years simply to ask military aid from the weakest and most helpless planet in the universe? You can think up better lies than that one,” she said mockingly.

He stared at her. “We’re an isolated planet,” he said in a quiet but intense voice. “We didn’t know anything at all about the current state of Earth’s culture. We thought Earth could help us. I came on a fool’s errand, and I’m going home again tomorrow, a sadder and a wiser man. Right now I’m tired and I want to get some sleep. Will you please leave?”

She rose without warning and took a seat next to him on the bed. “All right,” she said in a husky but surprisingly soft voice. “I’ll tell Firnik you’re here for the reasons you say you are.”

Her words might have startled him, but he was expecting them. It was a gambit designed to keep him off guard. The Sirian methods were crude ones.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “Your faith in me is heart-warming.”

She moved closer to him. “Why don’t you have a drink with me? I’m not all Sirian Consulate, you know. I do have an after-hours personality too, much as you may find it hard to believe.”

He sensed her warmth against his body. She reached out, poured him a drink, and forced the glass into his reluctant hand. Ewing wondered whether Firnik were watching this at the other end of the spy beam.

Her hands caressed his shoulders, massaging gently. Ewing looked down at her pityingly. Her eyes were closed, her lips moist, slightly parted. Her breathing was irregular. Maybe she isn’t faking, he thought. But even so, he wasn’t interested.

He moved suddenly away from her, and she nearly lost her balance. Her eyes opened wide; for an instant naked hatred blazed in them, but she recovered quickly and assumed a pose of hurt innocence.

“Why did you do that? Don’t you like me?”

Ewing smiled coldly. “I find you amusing. But I don’t like to make love in front of a spy beam.”

Her eyes narrowed; her lips curled downward in a momentary scowl, and then she laughed—derisive, silver laughter. “You think that was an act? That I was doing all that for the greater glory of the Fatherland?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She slapped him. It was utterly predictable; he had been waiting for it from the moment the affirmative word left his lips. The blow had an astonishing amount of force behind it; Byra Clork packed quite a wallop, Ewing decided ruefully. He wondered if he had misjudged her intentions; it made no difference, really.

“Will you leave now?” he asked.

“I might as well,” she muttered bitterly. She glowered at him. “If you’re a sample of Corwinite manhood, I’m glad they don’t come here more often than once every five hundred years. Machine! Robot!”

“Are you quite through?”

She picked up a light wrap that had been on the back of the chair, and arranged it around her shoulders. Ewing made no move to help her. He waited impassively, arms folded.

“You’re incredible,” she said, half scornfully, half otherwise. She paused; then a light entered her eyes. “Will you have a drink with me, at least, before I go?”

She was being crafty, he thought, but clumsily so. She had offered him the drink so many times in the past half hour that he would be a fool not to suspect it of being drugged. He could be crafty too.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll have a drink.”

He picked up the glass she had poured for him, and handed her the half-full glass that she had held—untasted—throughout the time. He looked expectantly at her.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

“Waiting for you to take a drink first,” he told her.

“Still full of strange suspicions, eh?” She lifted her glass and plainly took a deep draft. Then she handed her glass to Ewing, took his, and sipped it also.

“There,” she said, exhaling briefly. “I’m still alive. No deadly poison lurks in either glass. Believe me?”

He smiled. “This time, if no other.”

Still smiling, he lifted the glass. The liquor was warm and potent; he felt it course down his throat. A moment later, his legs wobbled.

He struggled to stay up. The room swirled around him; he saw her triumphant, grinning face above him, circling madly as if in orbit. He dropped to his knees and clung to the carpeting for support.

“It was drugged,” he said.

“Of course. It was a drug that doesn’t happen to react on Sirian metabolisms. We weren’t sure whether it worked on Corwinites; now we know.”

He gripped the carpet. The room rocked wildly. He felt sick, and bitterly angry at himself for having let her trick him into taking the drink. He fought for consciousness. He was unable to rise.

Still conscious, he heard the door of his room open. He did not look up. He heard Byra say, “Did you watch it the whole time?”

“We did.” The voice was Firnik’s. “You still think he’s holding back?”

“I’m sure of it,” Byra said. Her tone was vindictive. “He’ll need some interrogation before he starts talking.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Firnik said. He barked an order in a language incomprehensible to Ewing. The Corwinite tried to cry for help, but all that escaped his quivering lips was a thin, whining moan.

“He’s still fighting the drug,” he heard Byra say. “It ought to knock him out any minute.”

Shimmering waves of pain beat at him. He lost his grip on the carpet and went toppling over to one side. He felt strong hands gripping him under the arms and lifting him to his feet, but his eyes would not focus any longer. He writhed feebly and was still. Darkness closed in about him.