Combat Part 7

Hank shook his head and muttered, "They call me Dobbin, I've been ridden so much."

Paco laughed and rubbed his hands together happily. "It's still early.

We have nothing to do until lunch time. I suggest we sally forth and take a look at Russian womanhood. One never knows."

Loo said, "As an alternative, I suggest we rest until lunch."

Paco snorted. "A rightest-Trotskyite wrecker, and an imperialist war-monger to boot."

Loo said, dead panned, "Smile when you say that stranger."

Hank said, "Hey, wait a minute."

He went down the room to the far window and bug-eyed. One block away, at the end of Gorky Street, was Red Square. St. Basil's Cathedral at the far end, and unbelievable candy-cane construction of fanciful spirals, and every-colored turrets; the red marble mausoleum, Mecca of world Communism, housing the prophet Lenin and his two disciples; the long drab length of the GUM department store opposite. But it wasn't these.

There on the square, nestled in the corner between St. Basil's and the mausoleum, squatted what Henry Kuran had never really expected to see, in spite of his a.s.signment, in spite of news broadcasts, in spite of everything to the contrary. Boomerang shaped, resting on short stilts, six of them in all, a baby blue in color--an impossibly beautiful baby blue.

The s.p.a.ceship.

Paco stood at one shoulder, Loo at the other.

For once there was no humor in Paco's words. "There it is," he said.

"Our visitors from the stars."

"Possibly our teachers from the stars," Hank said huskily.

"Or our judges." Loo's voice was flat.

They stood there for another five minutes in silence. Loo said finally, "Undoubtedly our Intourist guides will take us nearer, if that's allowed, later during our stay. Meanwhile, my friends, I shall rest up for the occasion."

"Let's take our quick look at the city," Paco said to Hank. "Once the Intourist people take over they'll run our feet off. Frankly, I have little interest in where the first shot of the revolution was fired, the latest tractor factory, or where Rasputin got it in the neck.

There are more important things."

"We know," Loo said from the bed. "Women."

"Right!"

Hank was wondering whether or not to leave the room. The _Stilyagi_ were to contact him. Where? When? Obviously, he'd need their help. He had no idea whatsoever on how to penetrate to the Interplanetary emissaries.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

He spoke Russian. Fine. So what? Could he simply march up to the s.p.a.cecraft and knock on the door? Or would he make himself dangerously conspicuous by just getting any closer than he now was to the craft?

As he stood now, he felt he was comparatively safe. He was sure the Russkies had marked him down as a rather ordinary American. Heavens knows, he'd worked hard enough at the role. A simple, average tourist, a little on the square side, and not even particularly articulate.

However, he wasn't going to accomplish much by remaining here in this room. He doubted that the _Stilyagi_ would get in touch with him either by phone or simply knocking at the door.

"O.K., Paco," he said. "Let's go. In search of the pin-up girl--Moscow style."

They walked down to the lobby and started for the door.

One of the Intourist guides who had brought them from the railroad station stood to one side of the stairs. "Going for a walk, gentlemen?

I suggest you stroll up Gorky Street, it's the main shopping center."

Paco said, "How about going over into Red Square to see the s.p.a.ceship?"

The guide shrugged. "I don't believe the guards will allow you to get too near. It would be undesirable to bother the Galactic delegates to the Soviet Union."

That was one way of wording it, Hank thought glumly. _The Galactic delegates to the Soviet Union._ Not to the Earth, but to the Soviet Union. He wondered what the neutrals in such countries as India were thinking.

But at least there were no restrictions on Paco and him.

They strolled up Gorky Street, jam packed with fellow pedestrians.

Shoppers, window-shoppers, men on the prowl for girls, girls on the prowl for men, Ivan and his wife taking the baby for a stroll, street cleaners at the endless job of keeping Moscow's streets the neatest in the world.

Paco pointed out this to Hank, Hank pointed out that to Paco. Somehow it seemed more than a visit to a western European nation. This was Moscow. This was the head of the Soviet snake.

And then Hank had to laugh inwardly at himself as two youngsters, running along playing tag in a grown-up world of long legs and stolid pace, all but tripped him up. Head of a snake it might be, but Moscow's people looked astonishingly like those of Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon.

"How do you like those two, coming now?" Paco said.

Those two coming now consisted of two better than averagely dressed girls who would run somewhere in their early twenties. A little too much make-up by western standards, and clumsily applied.

"Blondes," Paco said soulfully.

"They're all blondes here," Hank said.

"Wonderful, isn't it?"

The girls smiled at them in pa.s.sing and Paco turned to look after, but they didn't stop. Hank and Paco went on.

It didn't take Hank long to get onto Paco's system. It was beautifully simple. He merely smiled widely at every girl that went by. If she smiled back, he stopped and tried to start a conversation with her.

He got quite a few rebuffs but--Hank remembered an old joke--on the other hand he got quite a bit of response.

Before they had completed a block and a half of strolling, they were standing on a corner, trying to talk with two of Moscow's younger set--female variety. Here again, Paco was a wonder. His languages were evidently Spanish, English and French but he was in there pitching with a language the full vocabulary of which consisted of _Da_ and _Neit_ so far as he was concerned.

Hank stood back a little, smiling, trying to stay in character, but in amused dismay at the other's aggressive abilities.

Paco said, "Listen, I think I can get these two to come up to the room. Which one do you like?"

Hank said, "If they'll come up to the room, then they're professionals."

Paco grinned at him. "I'm a professional, too. A lawyer by trade. It's just a matter of different professions."

A middle-aged pedestrian, pa.s.sing by, said to the girls in Russian, "Have you no shame before the foreign tourists?"

They didn't bother to answer. Paco went back to his attempt to make a deal with the taller of the two.