PLATINUM POHL Read Free

quarter-nod and turned back to Subhash Vastra. “Since I’m here,” he said, “I might as well go along with whatever action there is. What’s to do here?”

    Sub grinned widely, like a tall, skinny frog. “Ah, whatever you wish, sah! Entertainment? In our private rooms we have the finest artists of three planets, nautch dancers, music, fine comedians—”
    “We’ve got plenty of that in Cincinnati. I didn’t come to Venus for a nightclub act.” He wouldn’t have known it, of course, but that was a good move; Sub’s private rooms were way down the list of night spots on Venus, and the top of the list wasn’t much.
    “Of course, sah! Then perhaps you would like to consider a tour?”
    “Aw.” Cochenour shook his head. “What’s the point? Does any of it look any different than the space pad we came in on, right over our heads?”
    Vastra hesitated; I could see him calculating second-order consequences in his head, measuring the chance of the Terry going for a surface tour against what he might get from me as commission. He didn’t look my way. Honesty won out—that is, honesty reinforced by a quick appraisal of Cochenour’s gullibility. “Not much different, no, sah,” he admitted. “All pretty hot and dry on the surface, at least for the next thousand kilometers. But I wasn’t thinking of the surface.”
    “What then?”
    “Ah, the Heechee warrens, sah! There are many miles just below this settlement. A guide could be found—”
    “Not interested,” Cochenour growled. “Not in anything that close.”
    “Sah?”
    “If a guide can lead us through them,” Cochenour explained, “that means they’ve all been explored. Which means they’ve been looted. What’s the fun of that?”
    “Of course,” said Vastra immediately. “I see what you’re driving at, sah.” He looked noticeably happier, and I could feel his radar reaching out to make sure I was listening, though he didn’t look in my direction at all. “To be sure,” he said, “there is always the chance of finding new digs, sah, provided one knows where to look. Am I correct in assuming that this would interest you?”
    The third of Vastra’s house brought me my drink and a thin powder-faxed slip of paper. “Thirty percent,” I whispered to her. “Tell Sub. Only no bargaining, no getting anybody else to bid—” She nodded and winked; she’d been listening too, and she was as sure as I that this Terry was firmly on the hook. It had been my intention to nurse the drink as long as I could, but prosperity loomed before me; I was ready to celebrate; I took a long happy swallow.
    But the hook didn’t have a barb. Unaccountably the Terry shrugged. “Waste of time, I bet,” he grumbled. “I mean, really. If you knew where to look, why wouldn’t you have looked there already, right?”
    “Ah, mister,” cried Subhash Vastra, “but there are hundreds of tunnels not explored! Thousands! And in them, who knows, treasures beyond price!”
    Cochenour shook his head. “Skip it,” he said. “Bring us another drink. And see if you can’t get the ice cold this time.”
     
    Somewhat shaken, I put down my drink, half-turned away to hide my hand from the Terries, and looked at the facsimile copy of Sub’s report on them to see if it could tell me why Cochenour had lost interest.
    It couldn’t. It did tell me a lot, though. The girl with Cochenour was named Dorotha Keefer. She had been traveling with him for a couple of years now, this being their first time off Earth; there was no indication of any marriage, or any intention of it, at least
on his part. She was in her early twenties—real age, not simulated by drugs and transplants. Cochenour himself was well over ninety.
    He did not, of course, look anywhere near that. I’d watched him come over to the table, and he moved lightly and easily, for a big man. His money came from land and petro-foods; according to the synoptic on him, he had been one of the first oil millionaires to