been a gang of you dressed identically the same, I"d have known at once it was a uniform. That"s what uniform means-all alike. Doesn"t it?"
"I suppose so," agreed Harrison, who had never given it a thought.
"So you"re off that ship, I ought to have guessed it in the first place. I must be slow on the uptake today.
But I didn"t expect to see one, just one, messing around on a pedal contraption. It goes to show, doesn"t it?"
"Yes," said Harrison, glancing around to make sure that no confederate had swiped his bicycle while he was detained in conversation. The machine was still there. "It goes to show.""All right, let"s have it-what have you come here for?""I"ve been trying to tell you all along. I"ve been sent to-""Been sent?" Jeff"s eyes widened a little. "Mean to say you actually let yourself be sent?"
Harrison gaped at him. "Of course. Why not?"
"Oh, I get it now," said Jeff Baines, his puzzled features suddenly clearing. "You confuse me with the queer way you talk. You mean you planted an ob on someone?"
Desperately, Harrison said, "What"s an ob?"
"He doesn"t know," commented Jeff Baines, looking prayerfully at the ceiling. "He doesn"t even know that!" He gave out a resigned sigh. "You hungry by any chance?"
"Going on that way."
"O.K. I could tell you what an ob is, but I"ll do something better-I"ll show you." Heaving himself off
the stool, he waddled to a door at back. "Don"t know why I should bother to try educate a uniform. It"s
just that I"m bored. C"mon, follow me."
Obediently, Harrison went behind the counter, paused to give his bicycle a rea.s.suring nod, trailed the other through a pa.s.sage and into a yard.
* * * Jeff Baines pointed to a stack of cases. "Canned goods." He indicated an adjacent store. "Bust "em open and pile the stuff in there. Stack the empties outside. Please yourself whether you do it or not. That"s freedom, isn"t it?" he lumbered back into the shop.
Left by himself, Harrison scratched his ears and thought it over. Somewhere, he felt, there was an obscure sort of gag. A candidate named Harrison was being tempted to qualify for his sucker certificate.
But if the play was beneficial to its organizer it might be worth learning because the trick could then be pa.s.sed on. One must speculate in order to acc.u.mulate.
So he dealt with the cases as required. It took him twenty minutes of brisk work, after which he returned
to the shop.
"Now," explained Baines, "you"ve done something for me. That means you"ve planted an ob on me. I don"t thank you for what you"ve done. There"s no need to. All I have to do is get rid of the ob."
"Ob?"
"Obligation. Why use a long word when a short one is good enough? An obligation is an ob. I shift it this way: Seth Warburton, next door but one, has got half a dozen of my obs saddled on him. So I get rid
of mine to you and relieve him of one of his to me by sending you around for a meal." He scribbled briefly on a slip of paper. "Give him this."
Harrison stared at it. In casual scrawl, it read, "Feed this b.u.m. Jeff Baines."
Slightly dazed, he wandered out, stood by the bicycle and again eyed the paper. b.u.m, it said. He could think of several on the ship who would have exploded with wrath over that. His attention drifted to the second shop farther along. It had a window crammed with comestibles and two big words on the sign-strip above: Seth"s Gulper.
Coming to a decision which was encouraged by his innards, he went into Seth"s still holding the paper as if it were a death warrant. Inside there was a long counter, some steam and a clatter of crockery. He chose a seat at a marble-topped table occupied by a gray-eyed brunette.
"Do you mind?" he inquired politely, as he lowered himself into a chair.
"Mind what?" she examined his ears as if they were curious phenomena. "Babies, dogs, aged relations or going out in the rain?"
"Do you mind me being here?"
"I can please myself whether or not I endure it. That"s freedom, isn"t it?"
"Yeah," said Harrison. "Sure it is." He fidgeted in his seat, feeling somehow that he"d made a move and
promptly lost a p.a.w.n. He sought around for something else to say and at that point a thin-featured man in a white coat dumped before him a plate loaded with fried chicken and three kinds of unfamiliar vegetables.
The sight unnerved him. He couldn"t remember how many years it was since he last saw fried chicken, nor how many months since he"d had vegetables in other than powder form.
"Well," said the waiter, mistaking his fascinated gaze upon the food. "Doesn"t it suit you?"
"Yes." Harrison handed over the slip of paper. "You bet it does."
Glancing at the note, the other called to someone semivisible in the steam at one end of the counter, "You"ve killed another of Jeff"s." He went away, tearing the slip into small pieces.
"That was a fast pa.s.s," commented the brunette, nodding at the loaded plate. "He dumps a feed-ob on you and you bounce it straight back, leaving all quits. I"ll have to wash dishes to get rid of mine, or kill one Seth has got on somebody else."
"I stacked a load of canned stuff." Harrison picked up knife and fork, his mouth watering. There were no knives and forks on the ship. They weren"t needed for powders and pills. "Don"t give you any choice here, do they? You take what you get."
"Not if you"ve got an ob on Seth," she informed. "In that case, he"s got to work it off best way he can.
You should have put that to him instead of waiting for fate and complaining afterward."
"I"m not complaining.""It"s your right. That"s freedom, isn"t it?" She mused a bit, went on, "Isn"t often I"m a plant ahead of Seth, but when I am I scream for iced pineapple and he comes running. When he"s a plant ahead, I do the running." her gray eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion, and she added, "You"re listening like it"s all new to you. Are you a stranger here?"
He nodded, his mouth full of chicken. A little later he managed, "I"m off that s.p.a.ceship."
"Good grief!" She froze considerably. "An Antigand! I wouldn"t have thought it. Why, you look almost human."
"I"ve long taken pride in that similarity," his wit rising along with his belly. He chewed, swallowed,
looked around. The white-coated man came up. "What"s to drink?" Harrison asked.
"Dith, double-dith, shemak or coffee."
"Coffee. Big and black."
"Shemak is better," advised the brunette as the waiter went away. "But why should I tell you?"
The coffee came in a pint-sized mug. Dumping it, the waiter said, "It"s your choice seeing Seth"s
working one off. What"ll you have for after-apple pie, yimpik delice, grated tarfelsoufers or canimelon in syrup?"
"Iced pineapple."
"Ugh!" The other blinked at Harrison, gave the brunette an accusing stare, went away and got it.
Harrison pushed it across. "Take the plunge and enjoy yourself."
"It"s yours."
"Couldn"t eat it if I tried." He dug up another load of chicken, stirred his coffee, began to feel at peace with the world. "Got as much as I can manage right here." He made an inviting motion with his fork.
"G"wan, be greedy and forget about the waistline."
"No." Firmly she pushed the pineapple back at him. "If I got through that, I"d be loaded with an ob."
"So what?"
"I don"t let strangers plant obs on me."
"Quite right, too. Very proper of you," approved Harrison. "Strangers often have strange notions."
"You"ve been around," she agreed. "Only I don"t know what"s strange about the notions."
"Dish washer!"
"Eh?"
"Cynic," he translated. "One washes dishes in a cynic." The pineapple got another pa.s.s in her direction.
"If you feel I"ll be dumping an ob which you"ll have to pay off, you can do it in seemly manner right here. All I want is some information. Just tell me where I can put my finger on the ripest cheese in the locality."
"That"s an easy one. Go round to Alec Peters" place, middle of Tenth Street." With that, she dug into the dish.
"Thanks. I was beginning to think everyone was dumb or afflicted with the funnies."
He carried on with his own meal, finished it, lay back expansively: Unaccustomed nourishment got his brain working a bit more dexterously, for after a minute an expression of deep suspicion clouded his face and he inquired, "Does this Peters run a cheese warehouse?"
"Of course." Emitting a sigh of pleasure, she put aside her empty dish.