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  Morley had switched it off as quickly as he had begun it, had poured another round of drinks, had sat down again and talked of their school days and of the girls they'd known and of weekends in the country.

  It had been, all in all, a very pleasant evening.

  But that had been weeks ago, and since then he'd scarcely remembered it and now here he was on Kimon, sitting on one of his bags in the middle of a park, waiting for a welcoming Kimonian to show up.

  All the time that he'd been waiting, he had been prepared for the Kimonian's arrival. He knew what a Kimonian looked like and he should not have been surprised.

  But when the native came, he was.

  For the native was six-foot ten, and almost a godlike being, a sculptured humanoid who was, astonishingly, much more human than he had thought to find.

  One moment he had sat alone in the little parklike glade and the next the native was standing at his side.

  Bishop came to his feet and the Kimonian said, "We are glad you are here. Welcome to Kimon, sir."

  The native's inflection was as precise and beautiful as his sculptured body.

  "Thank you," Bishop said, and knew immediately that the two words were inadequate and that his voice was slurred and halting compared with the native's voice. And, looking at the Kimonian, he had the feeling that by comparison, he cut a rumpled, seedy figure.

  He reached into his pocket for his papers and his fingers were all thumbs, so that he fumbled for them and finally dug them out - dug is the word exactly - and handed them to the waiting being.

  The Kimonian flicked them - that was it, flicked them - then he said "Mr. Selden Bishop. Very glad to know you. Your IQ rating, 160, is very satisfactory. Your examination showing, if I may say so, is extraordinary. Recommendations good. Clearance from Earth in order. And I see you made good time. Very glad to have you."

  "But - " said Bishop. Then he clamped his mouth shut tight. He couldn't tell this being he'd merely flicked the pages and could not possibly have read them. For, obviously, he had.

  "You had a pleasant flight, Mr. Bishop?"

  "A most pleasant one," said Bishop and was filled with sudden pride that he could answer so easily and urbanely.

  "Your luggage," said the native, "is in splendid taste."

  "Why, thank you - " then was filled with rage. What right had this person to patronize his luggage!

  But the native did not appear to notice.

  "You wish to go to the hotel?"

  "If you please," said Bishop, speaking very tightly, holding himself in check.

  "Please allow me," said the native.

  Bishop blurred for just a second - a definite sense of blurring - as if the universe had gone swiftly out of focus, then he was standing, not in the parklike glade, but in a one-man-sized alcove off a hotel lobby, with his bags stacked neatly beside him.

  4

  He had missed the triumph before, sitting in the glade, waiting for the native, after the gig had left him, but now it struck him, a heady, drunken triumph that surged through his body and rose in his throat to choke him.

  This was Kimon! He finally was on Kimon! After all the years of study, he finally was here - the fabulous place he'd worked for many years to reach.

  A high IQ, they'd said behind their half-raised hands - a high IQ and many years of study, and a stiff examination that not more than one in every thousand passed.

  He stood in the alcove, with the sense of hiding there, to give himself a moment in which to regain his breath at the splendor of what had finally come to pass, to gain the moment in would take for the unreasoning triumph to have its way with him and go.

  For the triumph was something that must not be allowed to pass. It was something that he must not show. It was a personal thing and as something personal it must be hidden deep.

  He might be one of a thousand back on Earth, but here he stood on no more than equal footing with the ones who had come before him. Perhaps not quite on equal footing, for they would know the ropes and he had yet to learn them.

  He watched them in the lobby - the lucky and the fabulous ones who had preceded him, the glittering company he had dreamed about during all the weary years - the company that he presently would join, the ones of Earth who were adjudged fit to go to Kimon.

  For only the best must go - the best and smartest and the quickest. Earth must put her best foot forward for how otherwise would Earth ever persuade Kimon that she was a sister planet?

  At first the people in the lobby had been no more than a crowd, a crowd that shone and twinkled, but with that curious lack of personality which goes with a crowd. But now, as he watched, the crowd dissolved into individuals and he saw them, not as a group, but as the men and women he presently would know.

  He did not see the bell captain until the native stood in front of him, and the bell captain, if anything, was taller and more handsome than the man who'd met him in the glade.

  "Good evening, sir," the captain said. "Welcome to the Ritz."

  Bishop stared. "The Ritz? Oh, yes, I had forgotten. This place is the Ritz."

  "We're glad to have you with us," said the captain. "We hope your stay will prove to be a long one."

  "Certainly," said Bishop. "That is, I hope so, too."

  "We had been notified," the captain said, "that you were arriving, Mr. Bishop. We took the liberty of reserving rooms for you. I trust they will be satisfactory."

  "I am sure they will be," Bishop said.

  As if anything on Kimon could be unsatisfactory!

  "Perhaps you will want to dress," the captain said. "There still is time for dinner."

  "Oh, certainly," said Bishop. "Most assuredly I will."

  And wished he had not said it.

  "We'll send up the bags," the captain said. "No need to register. That is taken care of. If you'll permit me, sir."

  5

  The rooms were satisfactory.

  There were three of them.

  Sitting in a chair, Bishop wondered how he'd ever pay for them.

  Remembering the lonely twenty credits, he was seized with a momentary panic.

  He'd have to get a job sooner than he planned, for the twenty credits wouldn't go too far with a layout like this one. Although he supposed if he asked for credit it would be given him.

  But he recoiled from the idea of asking for credit, of being forced to admit that he was short of cash. So far he'd done everything correctly. He'd arrived aboard a liner and not a battered trader; his luggage - what had the native said? - it was in splendid taste; his wardrobe was all that could be expected; and he hoped that he'd not communicated to anyone the panic and dismay he'd felt at the luxury of the suite.

  He got up from the chair and prowled about the room. There was no carpeting, for the floor itself was soft and yielding and you left momentary tracks as you walked, but they puffed back and smoothed out almost immediately.

  He walked over to a window and stood looking out of it. Evening had fallen and the landscape was covered with a dusty blue - and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but rolling countryside. There were no roads that he could see and no lights that would have told of other habitations.

  Perhaps, he thought, I'm on the wrong side of the building. On the other side there might be streets and roads and homes and shops.

  He turned back to the room and looked at it - the Earthlike furniture so quietly elegant that it almost shouted, the beautiful, veined marble fireplace, the shelves of books, the shine of old wood, the matchless paintings hanging on the wall, and the great cabinet that filled almost one end of the room.

  He wondered what the cabinet might be. It was a beautiful thing, with an antique look about it and it had a polish - not of wax, but of human hands and time.

  He walked toward it.

  The cabinet said: "Drink, sir?"

  "I don't mind if I do," said Bishop, then stopped stock-still, realizing that the cabinet had spoken and he had answered it.

  A panel opened in t
he cabinet and the drink was there.

  "Music?" asked the cabinet.

  "If you please," said Bishop.

  "Type?"

  "Type? Oh, I see. Something gay, but maybe just a little sadness, too. Like the blue hour of twilight spreading over Paris. Who was it used that phrase? One of the old writers. Fitzgerald. I'm sure it was Fitzgerald."

  The music told about the blue hour stealing over that city far away on Earth and there was soft April and distant girlish laughter and the shine of the pavement in slanting rain.

  "Is there anything else you wish, sir?" asked the cabinet.

  "Nothing at the moment."

  "Very well, sir. You will have an hour to get dressed for dinner."

  He left the room, sipping his drink as he went - and the drink had a certain touch to it.

  He went into the bedroom and tested the bed and it was satisfactorily soft. He examined the dresser and the full-length glass and peeked into the bathroom and saw that it was equipped with an automatic shaver and massager, that it had a shower and tub, an exercising machine and a number of other gadgets that he couldn't place.

  And the third room.

  It was almost bare by the standards of the other two. In the center of it stood a chair with great flat arms and on each of the arms many rows of buttons.

  He approached the chair cautiously, wondering what it was - what kind of trap it was. Although that was foolish, for there were no traps on Kimon. This was Kimon, the land of opportunity, where a man might make a fortune and live in luxury and rub shoulders with an intelligence and a culture that was the best yet found in the galaxy.

  He bent down over the wide arms of the chair and found that each of the buttons was labeled. They were labeledHistory,Poetry,Drama,Sculpture,Literature,Painting,Astronomy,Philosophy,Physics,Religions and many other things. And there were several that were labeled with words he'd never seen and had no meaning to him.

  He stood in the room and looked around at its starkness and saw for the first time that it had no windows, but was just a sort of box - a theater, he decided, or a lecture room. You sat in the chair and pressed a certain button and -

  But there was no time for that. An hour to dress for dinner, the cabinet had said, and some of that hour was already gone.

  The luggage was in the bedroom and he opened the bag that held his dinner clothes. The jacket was badly wrinkled.

  He stood with it in his hands, staring at it. Maybe the wrinkles would hang out. Maybe -

  But he knew they wouldn't.

  The music stopped and the cabinet asked: "Is there something that you wish, sir?"

  "Can you press a dinner jacket?"

  "Surely, sir, I can."

  "How soon?"

  "Five minutes," said the cabinet. "Give me the trousers, too."

  6

  The bell rang and he went to the door.

  A man stood just outside.

  "Good evening," said the man. "My name is Montague, but they call me Monty."

  "Won't you come in, Monty?"

  Monty came in and surveyed the room.

  "Nice place," he said.

  Bishop nodded. "I didn't ask for anything at all. They just gave it to me."

  "Clever, these Kimonians," said Monty. "Very clever, yes."

  "My name is Selden Bishop."

  "Just come in?" asked Monty.

  "An hour or so ago."

  "All dewed up with what a great place Kimon is."

  "I know nothing about it," Bishop told him. "I studied it, of course."

  "I know," said Monty, looking at him slantwise. "Just being neighborly. New victim and all that, you know."

  Bishop smiled because he didn't quite know what else to do.

  "What's your line?" asked Monty.

  "Business," said Bishop. "Administration's what I'm aiming at."

  "Well, then," Monty said, "I guess that lets you out. You wouldn't be interested."

  "In what?"

  "In football. Or baseball. Or cricket. Not the athletic type."

  "Never had the time."

  "Too bad," Monty said. "You have the build for it."

  The cabinet asked: "Would the gentleman like a drink?"

  "If you please," said Monty.

  "And another one for you, sir?"

  "If you please," said Bishop.

  "Go in and get dressed," said Monty. "I'll sit down and wait."

  "Your jacket and trousers, sir," said the cabinet.

  A door swung open and there they were, cleaned and pressed.

  "I didn't know," said Bishop, "that you went in for sports out here."

  "Oh, we don't," said Monty. "This is a business venture."

  "Business venture?"

  "Certainly. Give the Kimonians something to bet on. They might go for it. For a while at least. You see, they can't bet - "

  "I don't see why not - "

  "Well, consider for a moment. They have no sports at all, you know. Wouldn't be possible. Telepathy. They'd know three moves ahead what their opponents were about to do. Telekinesis. They could move a piece or a ball or what-have-you without touching a finger to it. They - "

  "I think I see," said Bishop.

  "So we plan to get up some teams and put on exhibition matches. Drum up as much enthusiasm as we can. They'll come out in droves to see it. Pay admission. Place bets. We, of course, will play the bookies and rake off our commissions. It will be a good thing while it lasts."

  "It won't last, of course."

  Monty gave Bishop a long look.

  "You catch on fast," he said. "You'll get along."

  "Drinks, gentlemen," the cabinet said.

  Bishop got the drinks, gave one of them to his visitor.

  "You better let me put you down," said Monty. "Might as well rake in what you can. You don't need to know too much about it."

  "All right," Bishop told him, agreeably. "Go ahead and put me down."

  "You haven't got much money," Monty said.

  "How did you know that?"

  "You're scared about this room," said Monty.

  "Telepathy?" asked Bishop.

  "You pick it up," said Monty. "Just the fringes of it. You'll never be as good as they are. Never. But you pick things up from time to time - a sort of sense that seeps into you. After you've been here long enough."

  "I had hoped that no one noticed."

  "A lot of them will notice, Bishop. Can't help but notice, the way you're broadcasting. But don't let it worry you. We all are friends. Banded against the common enemy, you might say. If you need a loan - "

  "Not yet," said Bishop. "I'll let you know."

  "Me," said Monty. "Me or anyone. We all are friends. We got to be."

  "Thanks."

  "Not at all. Now you go ahead and dress. I'll sit and wait for you. I'll bear you down with me. Everyone's waiting to meet you."

  "That's good to know," said Bishop. "I felt quite a stranger."

  "Oh, my, no," said Monty. "No need to. Not many come, you know. They'll all want to know of Earth."

  He rolled the glass between his fingers.

  "How about Earth?" he asked.

  "How about - "

  "Yes, it still is there, of course. How is it getting on? What's the news?"

  7

  He had not seen the hotel before. He had caught a confused glimpse of it from the alcove off the lobby with his luggage stacked beside him, before the bell captain had showed up and whisked him to his rooms.

  But now he saw that it was a strangely substantial fairyland, with fountains and hidden fountain music, with the spidery tracery of rainbows serving as groins and arches, with shimmery columns of glass that caught and reflected and duplicated many times the entire construction of the lobby so that one was at once caught up in the illusion that here was a place that went on and on forever and at the same time you could cordon off a section of it in one's mind as an intimate corner for a group of friends.

  It was illusion and substantiality, beauty
and a sense of home - it was, Bishop suspected, all things to all men and what you wished to make it. A place of utter magic that divorced one from the world and the crudities of the world, with a gaiety that was not brittle and a sentimentality that stopped short of being cheap, and that transmitted a sense of well-being and of self-importance from the very fact of being a part of such a place.

  There was no such place on Earth, there could be no such place on Earth, for Bishop suspected that something more than human planning, more than human architectural skill had gone into its building. You walked in an enchantment and you talked with magic and you felt the sparkle and the shine of the place live within your brain.

  "It gets you," Monty said. "I always watch the faces of the newcomers when they first walk in it."

  "It wears off after a time," said Bishop, not believing it.

  Monty shook his head. "My friend, it does not wear off. It doesn't surprise you quite so much, but it stays with you all the time. A human does not live long enough for a place like this to wear thin and commonplace."

  He had eaten dinner in the dining room which was old and solemn, with an ancient other-worldness and a hushed, tiptoe atmosphere, with Kimonian waiters at your elbow, ready to recommend a certain dish or a vintage as one that you should try.

  Monty had coffee while he ate and there had been others who had come drifting past to stop a moment and welcome him and ask him of Earth, always using a studied casualness, always with a hunger in their eyes that belied the casualness.

  "They make you feel at home," said Monty, "and they mean it. They are glad when a new one comes."

  He did feel at home - more at home than he had ever felt in his life before, as if already he was beginning to fit in. He had not expected to fit in so quickly and he was slightly astonished at it - for here were all the people he had dreamed of being with, and he finally was with them. You could feel the magnetic force of them, the personal magnetism that had made them great, great enough to be Kimon-worthy, and looking at them, he wondered which of them he would get to know, which would be his friends.

  He was relieved when he found that he was not expected to pay for his dinner or his drinks, but simply sign a chit, and once he'd caught onto that, everything seemed brighter, for the dinner of itself would hake taken quite a hole out of the twenty nestling in his pocket.