“I am ready for some enhanced existence. Can we leave these documents in the open? Or will I be scolded by the monitor?”
Lefaun Zadoury glanced toward the red light, but it could no longer be seen. “The system has gone awry. You could have stolen the moon and no one would have noticed. Come along, all the same; the documents will be safe.”
Lefaun Zadoury escorted Wayness to a small noisy lunch room where Museum personnel sat at spindly little tables drinking tea. Everyone wore black gowns and Wayness saw that she would have been conspicuous indeed in her ordinary clothes.
The dismal garments affected neither the volume nor the pace of conversation; everyone talked at once, pausing only long enough to swallow gulps of tea from earthenware mugs.
Lefaun Zadoury found a vacant table and they were served tea and cakes. Lefaun looked to right and left apologetically. “The splendor and the luxury as well as the best cakes, are reserved for the big-wigs, who use Prince Konevitsky's grand dining room. I have seen them at it. Each uses three knives and four forks to eat his herring, and wipes the grease from his face with a napkin two feet square. The riffraff like ourselves must be content with less, though still we pay fifteen pence for our snack.”
Wayness said gravely: “I am an off-worlder and perhaps naive, but it seems not all so bad. For a fact, in one of my cakes I found no less than four almonds!”
Lefaun Zadoury gave a dour grunt. “The subject is complex and yields only to careful analysis.'
Wayness had no comment to make and the two sat in silence. A young man of frail physique, so that he seemed almost lost inside his black gown, came up to mutter into Lefaun Zadoury’s ear. Untidy wisps of blond hair fell over his forehead; his eyes were watery blue and his complexion was bad; Wayness wondered if he might not be in poor health. He spoke with nervous intensity, tapping the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other.
Wayness’ thoughts wandered, into regions of gloom and discouragement. The morning’s work had produced no new information and the trail which had led by fits and starts from the Society to the Funusti Museum had come to a dead end. Where next? In theory she could try to trace each of the names on the Gohoon listings, on the chance that one had possibly bought from the third parcel, but the work was so immoderately large and the chances of success so small that she put the project out of her mind. She became aware that Lefaun Zadoury and his friend were discussing her, each in turn murmuring into the other’s ear, After delivering his opinion, each would turn a surreptitious glance toward her as if to verify his remark. Smiling to herself, Wayness pretended to ignore them. She reflected upon the scheme to erect a magnificent new headquarters for the Naturalist Society. A pity that the project had come to naught! Almost certainly Frons Nisfit would never have found such easy scope for plunder. She mused further and a new idea began to tick in her mind.
Lefaun Zadoury’s friend went his way; Wayness watched him stride off across the lunchroom, arms and elbows jerking erratically to the side.
Lefaun Zadoury turned back to Wayness. “A good fellow, that! His name is Tadiew Skander. Have you ever heard of him?'
'Not that I know of.'
Lefaun Zadoury gave his fingers a condescending fillip. “There are — “
Wayness interrupted him. “Excuse me a moment, please. I must check a reference.'
'Of course!' Leaning back in his chair Lefaun Zadoury folded his hands on his chest, and watched Wayness with dispassionate curiosity.
''Wayness looked into a pocket of her shoulder-bag and extracted the pages she had copied at Gohoon Galleries, listing the items in parcels One and Two. She glanced under her eyelashes toward Lefaun Zadoury, his gaze was again impassive as ever. Wayness twisted her mouth into a crooked wince and shifted her position in the chair; the scrutiny was causing her skin to crawl. She frowned, twitched her nose and thereafter ignored Lefaun Zadoury as best she could.
Wayness carefully studied the lists, one after the other and was gratified to find that her memory had been accurate: none of the three cases she had studied in museum workroom were represented on the Gohoon list: no works of genealogy, nor biographical studies, nor yet documents pertaining to a new headquarters for the Naturist Society.
Odd, thought Wayness. Why was there no correspondence?
The implications of the discovery suddenly struck Wayness. She felt a tingle of excitement. Since the material had not come from Gohoon, it had come from somewhere else.
Where, then?
And of equal importance: when? Since if the Funusti’s acquisition had been made before Nisfit's tenure, then whole question became moot.
Wayness tucked the lists back into her shoulder-bag and considered Lefaun Zadoury, who met her gaze with same imperturbable expression as before.
'I must get back to my work,' said Wayness.
“As you like.' Lefaun Zadoury rose to his feet. “There were no extras. You need pay thirty pence only.”
Wayness darted him a quick glance but made no comment and placed three coins on the table. The two returned to the workroom. Lefaun Zadoury made a grand gesture toward the table. “Notice, if you please! It is as I said! Nothing has been disturbed!'
'I am relieved,' said Wayness. ''If anything were amiss I might be held responsible and severely punished.'
Lefaun Zadoury pursed his lips. 'Such incidents are rare.'
'I am lucky to have the benefit of such expert advice,” said Wayness. “Your knowledge would seem to be comprehensive.”
Lefaun Zadoury said judiciously, “At the very least I try to function with professional competence.”
“Would you know how and when the Museum acquired this material?”
Lefaun Zadoury blew out his cheeks. “No. But I can find out in short order, if you are interested.'
'I am interested.”
“Just a moment, then.” Lefaun Zadoury stalked into the adjoining room and seated himself in one of the alcoves before an information screen. He worked the controls, studied the screen, gave his head a jerk, signalizing the flux of information from the screen into his brain. Wayness watched from the doorway.
Lefaun Zadoury rose to his feet and returned to the workroom. Carefully he closed the door, and stood as if mulling over a set of complicated ideas. Wayness waited patiently. At last she asked: “What did you learn?”
'Nothing.”
Wayness tried to keep her voice from becoming a squeak. “Nothing?”
“I learned that the information is not available, if that that suits you better. We are dealing with the gift of an anonymous donor.”
“Ridiculous!' Wayness muttered. “I can't understand such secrecy!”
“Neither the Funusti Museum nor the universe at large is an inherently logical place,' said Lefaun Zadoury. “Are you finished with this material?'
'Not yet. I must think.'
Lefaun Zadoury remained in the room, standing half expectantly, or so it seemed to Wayness. What could he be waiting for? She put a tentative question: “Is the information known to anyone at the museum?”
Lefaun Zadoury raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “I should think that one of the poobahs in the GEP — that's the Office of Gifts, Endowments and Procurements — keeps a compendium of such information. It would be highly inaccessible, of course.”
Wayness said thoughtfully: “I myself might offer a small endowment to the museum if I were supplied this trilling bit of information.”
“Even impossible things are thinkable,” said Lefaun Zadoury. “But now we are dealing with persons in high places, and they hardly turn their heads to spit for less than a thousand sols.”
“Ha! That is totally out of the question. I can endow a sum of ten sols, with another ten to you for your expert counsel: twenty sols in all.”
Lefaun threw up his hands in shock. “How could I mention a sum so paltry to the exalted personage whom I would need to consult?'
'It seems very simple to me. Point out that a few words and ten sols is better than dead silence and no
