The Search for Zei

CHAPTER II

"George," said Barnevelt, "what do I do now? Increase my insurance?"

"Oh, it's all arranged," said Tangaloa. "I have reservations on the Eratosthenes leaving Mohave day after tomorrow."

Barnevelt stared. "You mean—you mean you actually had this all cooked up in advance?"

"Certainly. We knew you'd come round."

Although Barnevelt turned red and started to sputter, Tangaloa added calmly: "When can you be packed?"

"That depends. What do I bring, ear-muffs?"

"Just ordinary clothes for a couple of months. I've got the cameras and other special gear, and the rest we buy at Novorecife. No use paying freight on more luggage than we can help."

"Where's the Eratosthenes bound for? Pluto?"

"No, Neptune's now the staging-planet for the Cetic planets. The Amazonas takes us over the long jump to Krishna."

"What do I do about my mother?"

"Why, nothing!"

"But if she finds out she'll forbid the trip, and I can't defy her. That is, I can, but it never works."

Tangaloa grinned. "Tell her you're going on a cruise with that sailing friend of yours."

"Good. I'll say we're going to visit my great-grandmother Anderson in Baltimore. Matter of fact I'd better call Prescott. There's nothing like getting your lies straightened out in advance." He dialed his wrist-phone. "Harry? Dirk. Could you do me a favor?…"

When Barnevelt let himself into his apartment he was relieved to find his mother out. No doubt she was downtown enjoying her usual hobby of overdrawing her charge-accounts. With guilty haste he packed a suitcase, bid goodbye to the cat, the goldfish, and the turtle, and in half an hour was tiptoeing out, feeling much like a tyro at burglary.

But, as the front door closed behind him, a bugle blew through the caverns of his mind. His stoop straightened; after all, man is man and master of his fate. If all went well, he wouldn't see his mother again before leaving. He would, for the first time in his thirty-one years, be really on his own.

But was it right? A spasm of doubt assailed him…

And so he made his way by subway and bus to Tangaloa's flat, the two sides of his nature contending. As he entered, the Oedipean side was uppermost.

"What are you looking so downcast about, cobber?" said Tangaloa. "Anybody'd think you were a Cosmotheist whose-guru had just died. Do you want to spend your whole life on Earth?"

"No," said Barnevelt, "but my conscience won't let me walk out this way. Our one white He sits like a little ghost here on the threshold of our enterprise. Maybe I'd best call her…" and he pulled the stylus out of its clip to dial.

"No you don't!" said Tangaloa with unwonted sharpness, and shot out a large brown hand to grip Barnevelt's wrist.

After a few seconds Barnevelt's eyes fell. "You're right. In fact I'd better disconnect my phone." He fitted the screwdriver end of the stylus into the actuating slot, and turned it with a faint click.

"That's better," said Tangaloa, turning back to his packing. "Have you ever been psyched?"

"Ayuh. Turned out I was a schizoid Oedipean. But my mother stopped it. She was afraid it might work."

"You should have grown up in a Polynesian family. We're brought up by so many different people at once that we don't develop these terrific fixations on individuals."

Tangaloa folded shirts to fit his bag, whistling "Laau Te-tele," and began fitting special gear into appropriate compartments. First medicines and drugs, including the all-important longevity capsules without which no man could expect to attain his normal ripe age of 200 plus.

Then six Hayashi one-millimeter cameras, each mounted in a large ornate finger-ring that effectively camouflaged it. A pair of jeweler's monocles and tiny screwdrivers for opening the cameras and changing the film.

Then a couple of Konig and Das notebooks with titan-iridite sheets, a magnifier for viewing the pages, and a folding pantograph for reducing the hand-motions of the writer to almost microscopic size. By writing small and using the Ewing digraphic alphabet, a skilled note-taker like Tangaloa could crowd over 2,000 words onto one side of a six-by-ten centimeter sheet.

Barnevelt asked: "Will the Viagens people at Krishna actually let us take the Hayashis out of the reservation?"

"Yes. By a strict interpretation of Regulaton 368, they're not supposed to, but they wink at the Hayashi because the Krishnans don't notice it. Besides it contains a spring destructor, so if one of them tried to take it apart it would fly into little bits. Put this microfilm spool in your bag."

"What's that?"

"Elementary Gozashtandou. You can work at it enroute, and here's a stack of records." He handed Barnevelt a disk about two centimeters thick by six in diameter. "They have players on the ships. Up stick, laddie!"

At New York Airport four women came to see Tangaloa off: his current mistress, two ex-wives, and a miscellaneous girlfriend. Tangaloa greeted them with his usual fuzzy amiability, kissed them all soundly, and strolled out to the bus.

Barnevelt, after saying good-bye to the lovely quartet, followed Tangaloa, reflecting morosely that to him that hath shall be given. In looking out of the bus window to give one last farewell wave to the girls, he spotted a small gray-haired figure pushing its way to the front of the crowd.

"Zeus!" he said, quickly turning his face away.

"What ails you, pal?" said Tangaloa. "You're white!"

"My mother!"

"Where? Oh, that little female! She doesn't look very formidable."

"You don't know her. Why doesn't that fool driver start?"

"Don't get off your bike. The gate's closed, so she can't get in."

Barnevelt cowered in his seat until the bus lurched into motion. In a minute they were at the ship. The companion-way, like a tall stairway on wheels, stood in position. Barnevelt went up quickly, Tangaloa wheezing behind as his weight told and grumbling about elevators.

"You want syrup on your shortcake," said Dirk.

Now that he could no longer see individuals among the crowd at the gate, because of the distance and the gathering darkness, he was beginning to feel himself again.

Inside the fuselage they climbed down to their seats, swivelled to allow them to sit upright even though the ship for the Mohave Spaceport was standing on its tail.

Barnevelt remarked: "You sure take it coolly, leaving all those women."

Tangaloa shrugged. "There will always be another along in a minute."

"Next time you're discarding a set of such sightly squids, you might offer me one."

"If they are willing, I shall be glad to. I suppose you prefer the Pink—or as you Westerners prefer to call it the White-Race?"

An airline employee was climbing down, rung by rung, to punch tickets. He called out: "Is there a passenger named Dick Barnwell on the plane?"

"I suppose you mean me," said Barnevelt. "Dirk Barnevelt."

"Yeah. Your mother just called us on the tower radio, saying for you to get off. You'll have to let us know right away so we can put the companionway back."

Barnevelt took a long breath. His heart pounded, and he felt Tangaloa's amused eyes upon him.

"Tell her," he croaked, "I'm staying on."

"Good-o!" cried Tangaloa. The man climbed back up. Then the hurricane rumble of the jet drowned all other sounds, and the field dropped away. The New York area, spangled with millions of lights, came into view below; then all of Long Island. To the West the sun, which had set half an hour before, rose into sight again…