It was a pleasant evening, too. He felt almost relaxed. He stood there, wondering just what might be about to happen next—with curiosity more than fear—and then he felt a light touch at his mind.
It was nothing, really. Or nothing that he could quite identify. It was though he had been nudged. It seemed that someone was about to usurp his body again, but that did not develop.
As he had about decided to forget it and get back in the car he saw headlights approaching.
A low, lean sports car slowed as it came near, stopping beside him, and a girl leaned out, almost invisible in the darkness. “There you are, love,” she said cheerfully. “Thought I spotted someone. Lost?”
She had a coronet, and Chandler recognized her. It was the girl who had interrogated him. “I guess I am,” he admitted.
The girl leaned forward. “Come in, dear. Oh, that thing? Leave it here, the silly little bug.” She giggled as they drove away from the Renault. “Koitska wouldn’t like you wandering around. I guess he decided to give you a job?”
“How did you know?”
She said softly, “Well, love, you’re here, you know. Otherwise—never mind. What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Going to Tripler, whatever that is. In Honolulu, I guess. Then I have to build some radio equipment.”
“Tripler’s actually on the other side of the city. I’ll take you to the gate; then you tell them where you want to go. They’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t have any money for fare.”
She laughed. After a moment she said, “Koitska’s not the worst. But I’d mind my step if I were you, love. Do what he says, the best you can. You never know. You might find yourself very fortunate. …”
“I already think that. I’m alive.”
“Why, love, that point of view will take you far.” The sports car slid smoothly to a stop at the barricade and, in the floodlights above the machine-gun nests, she looked more closely at Chandler. “What’s that on your forehead, dear?”
Somehow the woolen cap had been lost. “A brand,” he said shortly. “ ‘H’ for ‘hoaxer.’ I did something when one of you people had me, and they thought I’d done it on my own.”
“Why—why, this is wonderful!” the girl said excitedly. “No wonder I thought I’d seen you before. Don’t you remember? I was in the forewoman at your trial!”
VII
A pink and silver bus let Chandler off at Fort Street in downtown Honolulu and he walked a few blocks to the address he had been given. The name of the place was Parts ’n Plenty. He found it easily enough. It was a radio parts store; by the size of it, it had once been a big, well-stocked one; but now the counters were almost bare.
A thin-faced man with khaki-colored skin looked up and nodded. Chandler nodded back. He fingered a bin of tuning knobs, hefted a coil of two-strand antenna wire and said, “A fellow at Tripler told me to come here to pick up equipment, but I’m damned if I know what I’m supposed to do when I locate it. I don’t have any money.”
The dark-skinned man got up and came over to him. “Figured you for a mainlander. No sweat. Have you got a list?”
“I can make one.”
“All right. Catalogues on the table behind you, if you want them.” He offered Chandler a cigarette and sat against the edge of the counter, reading over Chandler’s shoulder. “Ho,” he said suddenly. “Koitska’s square-wave generator again, right?” Chandler admitted it, and the man grinned. “Every couple months he sends somebody along. He doesn’t really need the generator, you know. He just wants to see how much you know about building it, Mr.—?”
“Chandler.”
“Glad to know you. I’m John Hsi. But don’t go easy on the job just because it’s a waste of time, Chandler; it could be pretty important to you.”
Chandler absorbed the information silently and handed over his list. The man did not look at it. “Come back in about an hour,” he said.
“I won’t have any money in an hour, either.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll put it on Koitska’s bill.”
Chandler said frankly, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on. Suppose I came in and picked up a thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, would you put that on the bill, too?”
“Certainly,” said Hsi optimistically. “You thinking about stealing them? What would you do with them?”
“Well. …” Chandler puffed on his cigarette. “Well, I could—”
“No, you couldn’t. Also, it wouldn’t pay, believe me,” Hsi said seriously. “If there is one thing that doesn’t pay, it is cheating on the Exec.”
“Now, that’s another good question,” said Chandler. “Who is the Exec?”
Hsi shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t know you, Chandler.”
“You mean you’re afraid even to answer a question?”
“You’re damned well told I am. Probably nobody would mind what I might tell you … but ‘probably’ isn’t good enough.”
Exasperated, Chandler said, “How the devil am I supposed to know what to do next? So I take all this junk back to my room at Tripler and solder up the generator—then what?”
“Then Koitska will get in touch with you,” Hsi said, not unkindly. “Play it as it comes to you, Chandler, that’s the best advice I can offer.” He hesitated. “Koitska’s not the worst of them,” he said; and then, daringly, “and maybe he’s not the best, either. Just do whatever he told you. Keep on doing it until he tells you to do something else. That’s all. I mean, that’s all the advice I can give you. Whether it’s going to be enough to satisfy Koitska is something else again.”
There is not much to do in a strange town when you have no money. Chandler’s room at what once had been Tripler General Hospital was free; the bus was free; evidently all the radio parts he could want were also free. But
