One thousand and eighty-four dollars. That was plenty. He could safely spend as much as half of it, if the spree got as lively as he hoped it would. His monthly dividends were due in another week or so, and he wouldn’t have to worry about current expenses. Yes, indeedy, Si Pond was as solvent as he had ever been in his thirty years.
He opened the small, closet-like door which housed his vacuum-tube two-seater, and wedged himself into the small vehicle. He brought down the canopy, dropped the pressurizer and considered the dial. Only one place really made sense. The big city.
He considered for a moment, decided against the boroughs of Baltimore and Boston, and selected Manhattan instead. He had the resources. He might as well do it up brown.
He dialed Manhattan and felt the sinking sensation that presaged his car’s dropping to tube level. While it was being taken up by the robot controls, being shuttled here and there preparatory to the shot to his destination, he dialed the vehicle’s teevee-phone for information on the hotels of the island of the Hudson. He selected a swank hostelry he’d read about and seen on the teevee casts of society and celebrity gossip reporters, and dialed it on the car’s destination dial.
“Nothing too good for ex-Space Pilot Si Pond,” he said aloud.
The car hesitated for a moment, that brief hesitation before the shot, and Si took the involuntary breath from which only heroes could refrain. He sank back slowly into the seat. Moments passed, and the direction of the pressure was reversed.
Manhattan. The shuttling began again, and one or two more traversing sub-shots. Finally, the dash threw a green light and Si opened the canopy and stepped into his hotel room.
A voice said gently, “If the quarters are satisfactory, please present your credit card within ten minutes.”
Si took his time. Not that he really needed it. It was by far the most swank suite he had ever seen. One wall was a window of whatever size the guest might desire and Si touched the control that dilated it to the full. His view opened in such wise that he could see both the Empire State Building Museum and the Hudson. Beyond the river stretched the all but endless city which was Greater Metropolis.
He didn’t take the time to flick on the menu, next to the auto-dining table, nor to check the endless potables on the auto-bar list. All that, he well knew, would be superlative. Besides, he didn’t plan to dine or do much drinking in his suite. He made a mock leer. Not unless he managed to acquire some feminine companionship, that was.
He looked briefly into the swimming pool and bath, then flopped himself happily onto the bed. It wasn’t up to the degree of softness he presently desired, and he dialed the thing to the ultimate in that direction so that with a laugh he sank almost out of sight into the mattress.
He came back to his feet, gave his suit a quick patting so that it fell into press and, taking his credit card from his pocket, put it against the teevee-phone screen and pressed the hotel button so that registration could be completed.
For a moment he stood in the center of the floor, in thought. Take it easy, Si Pond, take it all easy, this time. No throwing his dollars around in second-class groggeries, no eating in automated luncheterias. This time, be it the only time in his life, he was going to frolic in the grand manner. No cloddy was Si Pond.
He decided a drink was in order to help him plan his strategy. A drink at the hotel’s famous Kudos Room where celebrities were reputed to be a dime a dozen.
He left the suite and stepped into one of the elevators. He said, “Kudos Room.”
The auto-elevator murmured politely, “Yes, sir, the Kudos Room.”
At the door to the famous rendezvous of the swankiest set, Si paused a moment and looked about. He’d never been in a place like this, either. However, he stifled his first instinct to wonder about what this was going to do to his current credit balance with an inner grin and made his way to the bar.
There was actually a bartender.
Si Pond suppressed his astonishment and said, offhand, attempting an air of easy sophistication, “Slivovitz Sour.”
“Yes, sir.”
The drinks in the Kudos Room might be concocted by hand, but Si noticed they had the routine teevee screens built into the bar for payment. He put his credit card on the screen immediately before him when the drink came, and had to quell his desire to dial for a balance check, so as to be able to figure out what the Sour had cost him.
Well, this was something like it. This was the sort of thing he’d dreamed about, out there in the great alone, seated in the confining conning tower of his space craft. He sipped at the drink, finding it up to his highest expectations, and then swiveled slightly on his stool to take a look at the others present.
To his disappointment, there were no recognizable celebrities. None that he placed, at least—top teevee stars, top politicians of the Ultrawelfare State or Sports personalities.
He turned back to his drink and noticed, for the first time, the girl who occupied the stool two down from him. Si Pond blinked. He blinked and then swallowed.
“Zo-ro-as-ter,” he breathed.
She was done in the latest style from Shanghai, even to the point of having cosmetically duplicated the Mongolian fold at the corners of her eyes. Every pore, but every pore, was in place. She sat with the easy grace of the Orient, so seldom found in the West.
His stare couldn’t be ignored.
She looked at him coldly, turned to the bartender and murmured, “A Far Out Cooler, please, Fredric.” Then deliberately added, “I thought the Kudos Room was supposed to be exclusive.”
There was nothing the bartender could say to that, and he went about
