McIntosh, J. T. - Poor PlanetPOOR PLANET J. T. McIntosh I never was the tough he-man lady-killer type of spy, even when I was a lot younger. On the very rare occasions when beautiful girls enticed me into their bedrooms on exotic worlds, the whole operation was only too obviously designed to find out what I’d found out, and the lovely ladies in question not only knew that I knew it, but knew that I knew that they knew it—which tended to remove much of the glamor from the situation, and all the sex. And by the time I landed at Arneville, capital of the planet Solitaire, to try to solve the enigma of a world that ought to be rich but wasn’t, I was still less tough, still less of a he-man, than I had been when I was a mere stripling of thirty-five or forty. By the time I reached Arneville I was forty-eight, married, with three adolescent children. Terran Intelligence had only managed to talk me into going, and Phyllis into letting me go, because I was a historian and the job needed a genuine historian, and because intelligence agents hardly ever failed to return from Solitaire (so named because it was the only planet of its sun). Solitaire let them come, let them sniff around for a while, and let them go, none the wiser. Occasionally, it was true, agents did not come back. Presumably they’d found out something. But the mortality rate was not high —and Phyllis is a soldier’s daughter, complete with stiff upper lip. The first thing I noticed when I emerged from Arneville spaceport was that it was a cold city. (The fact that I knew this already, having done my homework, did not prevent me from noticing it.) Although the city wasn’t bitingly, grindingly cold, it was never far above freezing-point. The previous night’s snow was melting as I arrived and crashing in powdery avalanches from the roofs. The overhangs were constructed so that all this soft snow cascaded into the streets, missing the sidewalks. The people hurrying about didn’t even look up. The next thing I noticed about Arneville was that it was old-fashioned. It was like a twentieth or even nineteenth century Earth city transported many light-years and four centuries to Solitaire. The buildings, vehicles and clothes I saw were all heavy and solid and stolid, with not a hint of frivolity about any of them. Things on Solitaire were made to last, and last, and last. I had got this far in my observations as I emerged from the spaceport and looked about me when a man came up to me. “Mr. Edwin Horsefeld, from Earth?” the stranger asked diffidently. ‘Yes,“ I said, looking at him. He was the oldest teenager I had ever seen, with the bland innocent fresh-faced look of a kid of fourteen although he must have been thirty-five at least. He was enthusiastic, shy, intense, determined to do his job well. Naturally he must be a counter-espionage agent. ‘I’m Tom Harrison,“ he said eagerly. ”I’ve been asked to contact you and give you any help I can—“ ‘By whom?“ I asked pleasantly. ‘Some government department… F.R.S., I think it was.“ My opinion of Solitaire’s counter-espionage division, quaintly named Foreign Relations Security, went up several points. You had to admire a department that told you it knew you were a spy and offered to help you. But then, Solitaire’s counter-espionage division must be good. Every other planet in the galaxy, convinced Solitaire had a secret of some kind, had been trying for a long time to find out what it was—and Terran Intelligence would have known if any of them had succeeded, even if it didn’t know exactly what they had found out. We could all guess about Solitaire. None of us knew. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Harrison,“ I said, shaking hands. ”Are you a historian?“ ‘No, why?“ ‘It doesn’t matter. Just an idea.“ ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Horsefeld. I guess I can’t help you in your work… but I can tell you about libraries, hotels, stores—“ ‘That will be very useful. Hotels first. Where do you suggest I should go?“ Harrison hesitated. “They told me you’d probably want peace and quiet, a room in a decent, modest hotel where nobody would bother you. Is that right?” ‘Exactly right.“ ‘Then maybe you’d like to go to Parkview. It’s cheap, clean—“ ‘Fine. Let’s go to the Parkview.“ I was perfectly happy to let Solitaire’s counter-espionage division put me where it liked. It would do that anyway. Harrison took me to the Parkview, a small inn just off Arne Way, the main street in the city. Then, to my surprise, Harrison seemed not only ready but apologetically anxious to leave me. I’d expected the devil’s own job getting out of his sight. ‘You can phone me either at Government House or at home,“ he said, giving me both numbers. ‘Just one thing before you go, Tom—may I call you Tom? Where’s the nearest music store?“ ‘Music?“ he said vaguely, as if he had never heard the word. ”Oh, I guess… you could try Prosser’s, just round the corner in Arne Way. I think they sell music as well as books.“ ‘Excellent,“ I said. ”That saves me the trouble of asking you where the nearest bookstore is. Thanks, Tom.“ ‘That’s all I can do for you just now?“ ‘I think so. You’ve been a great help.“ He colored. “It’s nothing,” he said self-consciously. “I’ll look in this evening and see how you’re making out.” Then he left. F.R.S. had informed me politely that it knew who I was, that it had its eye on me, and then left me to wander about Arneville as I pleased. It might as well have told me in so many words that I wasn’t going to find out anything. Lunch at the Parkview was excellent. But why the Parkview, I wondered. I’d heard of Arne Park, which was about the only thing in Solitaire most people had heard about. The Park must, however, be at least a mile along Arne Way and was not visible even from my top-floor bedroom. Nothing in that direction was visible except the blank wall of a massive office block. If Solitaire had nothing to hide, I reflected, which was unlikely but not completely impossible, a known Terran spy might well be treated exactly as I was being treated. An intelligent counter-espionage division in a world which had no secrets—if there was any such world— would realize that the only way to convince other nations of this was to let them find it out for themselves. After lunch I strolled round to Prosser’s. By this time most of the snow was brown slush. It was just as well, I reflected, looking at the people in the streets, that I was forty-eight and no longer interested in girls. For there seemed no prospect of ever seeing a pretty girl in Arneville, at any rate a girl looking pretty. In boots, heavy coats and fur hoods, with faces pinched by the cold, women of sixteen, thirty-six and fifty-six looked much the same. None of them seemed to wear makeup, and since heating in most buildings was only moderately efficient, heavy, unattractive clothes were worn inside as well as out. The young lady in Prosser’s, who might have been attractive if she tried, didn’t seem to be trying. On top of a dress which was all right in itself she wore an assortment of woolen jackets in various colors and shapes. None of the latter coincided with hers. ‘Opera?“ she said. ”You must mean The Arne Story. That’s the only opera I know.“ ‘That’s it,“ I said. ‘A score? That’s the words and music, isn’t it? You want to buy a copy?“ ‘An original copy, if possible.“ She went away and returned, after an interminable delay, with a paper-covered score. I looked at the date. It was a new edition published only the year before. When I tried patiently to explain that what I really wanted was a copy of this opera printed a long time ago, she stared blankly and then brought a small, bald knowledgeable man to talk to me. ‘Yes, this is & revised edition, sir,“ he agreed’. ”Quite extensively revised. You’re a foreigner, I take it? Yes, I thought so. You see, since there’s only one native opera, and such a great masterpiece at that, it’s constantly being revised and improved. I believe the original version of The Arne Story was quite different from the version that’s performed now—“ ‘So I understand. That’s why I’d like to see the original.“ ‘You could try a library. Or—maybe there would be an old copy at Jerome’s. It’s a little place that keeps a lot of old . … musical instruments and things like that.“ The little knowledgeable man gave me detailed directions, and I trudged through the snow again along streets, which became narrower and shorter and dimmer. I might almost have been in Dickens’s London. At last I found Jerome’s, which proved to be a tiny shop with a minute window offering a keyhole view of a startling variety of cornets, trumpets, trombones and mutes. I pushed the door open, stooping to enter, and blinked at the girl in charge. She was the last, positively the last thing I expected in a place like Jerome’s, in a city like Arneville, on a planet like Solitaire. She was very young, a nymphet, very pretty, and she was quite smartly dressed. ‘Good afternoon,“ she said,smiling pleasantly. ‘Five minutes ago,“ I said, ”I didn’t think so. But now I see it is.“ She laughed, being young enough to take naive delight in a frank, sincere compliment. It could only have been a matter of months since men started to pay her compliments; it might be years yet before experience taught her to look gift horses in the mouth. She was a small brunette with the kind of slim, flawless twinkling legs which only nymphets possess. Above the legs was a short black skirt, and above the skirt a tight white blouse. Above the blouse was a pert, pretty little face which could have passed for se face of a beautiful child if her fully, t...
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