Short Fiction Poul Anderson (reading a book .TXT) 📖

breakfast? Why, we couldn’t afford three seconds of commercial time on a Lullaby Pillow ’cast. What we need, what we have to hire, is an executive who knows Earth, who’s an Earthman himself. Let him tell us what will appeal to your people, and how to dodge the tax bite and⁠—and⁠—well, you see how it goes, that sort of, uh, thing.”

Matheny felt his eloquence running down and grabbed for the second bottle of beer.

“But where do I start?” he asked plaintively, for his loneliness smote him anew. “I’m just a college professor at home. How would I even get to see⁠—”

“It might be arranged,” said Doran in a thoughtful tone. “It just might. How much could you pay this fellow?”

“A hundred megabucks a year, if he’ll sign a five-year contract. That’s Earth years, mind you.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Pete,” said Doran, “but while that is not bad money, it is not what a high-powered sales scientist gets in Newer York. Plus his retirement benefits, which he would lose if he quit where he is now at. And I am sure he would not want to settle on Mars permanently.”

“I could offer a certain amount of, uh, lagniappe,” said Matheny. “That is, well, I can draw up to a hundred megabucks myself for, uh, expenses and, well⁠ ⁠… let me buy you a drink!”

Doran’s black eyes frogged at him. “You might at that,” said the Earthman very softly. “Yes, you might at that.”

Matheny found himself warming. Gus Doran was an authentic bobber. A hell of a swell chap. He explained modestly that he was a freelance business consultant and it was barely possible that he could arrange some contacts.⁠ ⁠…

“No, no, no commission, all done in the interest of interplanetary friendship⁠ ⁠… well, anyhow, let’s not talk business now. If you have got to stick to beer, Pete, make it a chaser to akvavit. What is akvavit? Well, I will just take and show you.”

A hell of a good bloke. He knew some very funny stories, too, and he laughed at Matheny’s, though they were probably too rustic for a big-city taste like his.

“What I really want,” said Matheny, “what I really want⁠—I mean what Mars really needs, get me?⁠—is a confidence man.”

“A what?”

“The best and slickest one on Earth, to operate a world-size con game for us and make us some real money.”

“Con man? Oh. A slipstring.”

“A con by any other name,” said Matheny, pouring down an akvavit.

Doran squinted through cigarette smoke. “You are interesting me strangely, my friend. Say on.”

“No.” Matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. The walls of the booth seemed odd, somehow. They were just leatheroid walls, but they had an odd quality.

“No, sorry, Gus,” he said. “I spoke too much.”

“Okay. Forget it. I do not like a man that pries. But look, let’s bomb out of here, how about it? Go have a little fun.”

“By all means.” Matheny disposed of his last beer. “I could use some gaiety.”

“You have come to the right town then. But let us get you a hotel room first and some more up-to-date clothes.”

“Allez,” said Matheny. “If I don’t mean allons, or maybe alors.”

The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more.

Oh, well, he thought, if I succeed in this job, no one at home will quibble.

And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to show the vertical incandescence of the towers.

“Whoof!” Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his contours. He jumped. “What the dusty hell⁠—Oh.” He tried to grin, but his face burned. “I see.”

“That is a sexy type of furniture, all right,” agreed Doran. He lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a cigarette. “Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around 2100 hours earliest.”

“What?”

“You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you.”

“Me?” Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. “Me? Exotic? Why, I’m just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is⁠—” His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened uncertain lips.

“You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an abandoned canal.”

“What’s a bushcat? And we don’t have canals. The evaporation rate⁠—”

“Look, Pete,” said Doran patiently. “She don’t have to know that, does she?”

“Well⁠—well, no. I guess not No.”

“Let’s order you some clothes on the pneumo,” said Doran. “I recommend you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive.”

While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer.

“You said one thing, Pete,” Doran remarked. “About needing a slipstring. A con man, you would call it.”

“Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn.”

“Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And maybe I have got a few contacts.”

“What?” Matheny gaped out of the bathroom.

Doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him. “I am not that man,” he said frankly. “But in my line I get a lot of contacts, and not all of them go topside. See what I mean? Like if, say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, I could not do it. I would not want to know anything about it. But I could tell you a phone number.”

He shrugged and gave the Martian a sidelong glance. “Sure, you may not be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I got tolerance. Like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have got to think positively.”

Matheny hesitated. If only he hadn’t taken that last shot! It made him want to