'Ah, no!' cried Paddy.
'Sorry-it's the rules of the establishment.'
Paddy found himself in a long hall, lined with tubs full of sleep-foam and small closets opposite. The steward assigned him a section and said, 'You will be fed from a chow cart in half an hour. When it's time for your act, about the fourteenth phase, you will be summoned.
'Until then, you can rest or rehearse as you wish. The practise room is through that door. There is to be no loud talking, no quarrelling, no alcohol or narcotics. Under no circumstances are Earthers permitted to wander on the grounds.'
'Faith,' muttered Paddy, 'I hope you'll let me use the bathroom.'
'What's that? What's that?'
'I was inquiring about my wife,' said Paddy smoothly. 'When do I see her?'
'The recreation hall is open tomorrow. Until then she'll be well enough.' He departed, a little ball of hard brown flesh in an embroidered surcoat.
Paddy looked up and down the barracks. A few of the sleeping tubs held the bodies of low-caste Shauls, Asmasians, Canopes, the long-limbed Hepetanthroids of New Hellas, a few other Earthers.
In the tub next to him lay a Labirite from Deneb Ten, a small mottled anthropoid with arms like lengths of cable and flabby hands. He was watching Paddy with blind-looking eyes.
'What's your act, Earther?' he asked in the Badaic language.
'I'm a magician,' replied Paddy morosely. 'A good one, it is to be presumed?'
'The best. Flames-lore of the little folk…' Paddy's voice died to a mutter.
'You'd better be good,' said the Labirite. 'A night or so ago they saw through a magician's tricks and they threw food at him.'
Paddy raised his eyebrows. 'Are they then so finicky, these Hunks?'
The Labirite said, 'Indeed they are. Never forget, here is the cream of Badau, only the Langtry clan and maybe one or two of the highest lords otherwise. There's a convention on now and they're more than usually excitable, vehement, abrupt. And if they chose to stick you with one of their poniards no one would think twice about it.'
'Whisht, whisht!' muttered Paddy. 'And me with my cat's cradle tricks.' Aloud he said, 'And where might Suite Ten be?'
The Labirite swivelled his prunelike eyes away. 'I don't know. One of the porters will tell you. If it's stealing you plan don't get caught.'
'Indeed, no stealing,' said Paddy. 'In Suite Ten is an old friend I'm looking for.'
The Labirite stared. 'One of the Badau Langtrys friend to an Earther? Well, I suppose stranger things have happened. Did you save his life?'
Paddy made an absent-minded answer, lay back thinking. Any entrance to Suite 10 must be made very soon, because after one performance there would be no further opportunity. He pictured himself dodging food scraps, ejected from the hotel with curses and insults.
He rose to his feet, set off down the hall. He turned into a corridor with stone walls like a dungeon, lit by a light tube along the top. He came to an open archway, looked through, saw a counter, a wicket, stores of material and behind them a Canope clerk.
Paddy advanced with a swagger and said, 'I'm the new porter. The Chief Steward told me to get my outfit here.'
The Canope clerk wheezed, rose to his feet, reached into a bin, tossed a white bumper on the counter, opened a drawer, pulled out white gloves and a masklike inhaler. 'They don't like the air we breath, Earther. Wear the mask over your mouth and nose at all times. Here's your cap, your sandals, your cleaning kit. Good luck and step lively.'
'Indeed I will and I'm forever grateful to you. Where may Suite Ten be found?'
'Suite Ten? The steward assigns you to Suite Ten on your first day? Strange. That's the Son's private library and very hoity-toity too. Go out the door there, turn to the right along the corridor with the rose quartz floor and so on till you come to a statue of the Badau Langtry.
'If there's anyone within do not enter, because they're mighty secret and irascible at this time and they don't like Earthers. For some reason they're merciless to the Earthers.'
I could tell you why, thought Paddy. He hastily donned the porter's garments, set off down the corridor.
A narrow door took him from dingy stone into a world of exquisite delicacy and sparkle. The Badaus were clever craftsmen with a love of intricate design and the great hall was walled with a mosaic of rare minerals-jade, lapis, sparkling yellow wulfenite, red chert, jasper, carnelian. The floor was slabbed with bands of rose quartz and an oily black obsidian.
He passed a line of arches opening into a high lobby swimming in a greenish-yellow light. Sitting among clumps of vegetation were groups of the Badaus, conversing, sipping wine or inhaling stimulating confections from tubes.
Paddy moved along with as little ostentation as possible and the gravity helped provide him with a servile crouch. Ahead he saw a statue, a Badau in an heroic posture.
'Ha,' said Paddy angrily, 'they don't even admit any more that Sam Langtry was an Earther. Now look at Sam Lang-try's own son, as true an Earther as Paddy Blackthorne himself, and look how they show him, a scrounched- up wart of a Badau.'
Beside the statue was a high door of carved rosewood. Paddy glanced quickly up and down the hall-no one was close. He put his ear to the door-no sound. He stretched out his hand to the latch-button. Behind came a scrape and the door snapped back. Paddy bowed, sidled to one side, stooped, pretended to be picking up a spot of dust.
The Badau stepped out, paused, turned a long glance down at Paddy. Another followed him out of the room.
'Spies, spies everywhere,' said the first in a bitter voice. 'A man can hardly go for a sail on the lake without some Earther pushing his head up from the water.' He turned away. Paddy sighed, watched the broad muscular back with a limp feeling in his knees.
The Badau's voice came back to him. 'They're like rodents. Everywhere. Indefatigable. To think that one of them… If there were only means to apprehend-' His voice became an indistinct mutter.
Paddy grimaced, eased the muscles at the corner of his mouth, pushed open the door. The first chamber of Suite 10 was empty. It was a large library, with shelves of books running up the walls. A great oval table occupied the center of the room and at the end stood a small screen and file for microfilm. An arch opened into chambers beyond but here was his destination.
He glanced around the walls. Books, books, books-thousands of them, with a subtle air of disuse. He could not inspect each one separately. Where was the catalogue? There, a small case beside the microfilm viewer. He pulled it open, fumbled through his mind for the Badaic alphabet.
Paddy looked along the shelves, found Block Five in a far corner. Shelf Twelve was at the top.
How to get up? He spied a ladder running on a bronze track across the room, and pushed it around to Block Five. He climbed up to Shelf Twelve, ran his eye down the titles.
Paddy drew it from its place, tucked it in the pouch which held his cleaning equipment. A voice from below said, 'Porter. Come down here.'
The words were like chisels. Paddy nearly fell from the ladder, bumped his head on the shelf as he looked down. The same two Badaus that had surprised him at the door stood looking up. He noticed on the chest of the foremost the medallion of a Councillor to the Son.
'Porter. Come down here.'
Paddy descended the ladder. 'Yes indeed, your lordship.' The small yellow eyes bored into his. 'What were you doing up there?'
'Dusting the books, your lordship.'
