Part 18

"And then," Malone said, very carefully, "suppose you found out, after you'd been out with her ... well, when you took her out, say, you met your grandmother."

"My grandmother," Boyd said virtuously, "doesn't go to joints like that."

"Use your imagination," Malone snapped. "And suppose your grandmother recognized the girl as an old schoolmate of hers."

Boyd swallowed hard. "As a what?"

"An old schoolmate," Malone said. "Suppose this girl were so charming and everything just because she'd had ... oh, ninety years or so to practice in."

"Malone," Boyd said in a depressed tone, "you can spoil more ideas--"

"Well," Malone said, "would you go out with her again?"

"You kidding?" Boyd said. "Of course not."

"But she's the same girl," Malone said. "You've just found out something new about her, that's all."

Boyd nodded. "So," he said, "you found out something new about Luba. Like, maybe, she's ninety years old?"

"No," Malone said. "Nothing like that. Just--something." He remembered Queen Elizabeth's theory of politeness toward superiors: people, she'd said, act as if they believed their bosses were superior to them, but they didn't believe it.

On the other hand, he thought, when a man knows and believes that someone actually _is_ superior--then, he doesn't mind at all. He can depend on that superiority to help him. And love, ordinary man-and-woman love, just can't exist.

Nor, Malone told himself, would anyone want it to. It would, after all, be damned uncomfortable.

"So who's the girl?" Boyd said. "And where? The clubs are all closed, and the streets probably aren't very safe just now."

"Barbara Wilson," Malone said, "and Yucca Flats. I ought to be able to get a fast plane." He shrugged. "Or maybe teleport," he added.

"Sure," Boyd said. "But on a night with so many troubles--"

"Oh, King Henry," Malone said, "hearken. A man who looks as historical as you do ought to know a little history."

"Such as?" Boyd said, bristling slightly.

"There have always been troubles," Malone said. "In the Eighth Century, it was Saracens; in the Fourteenth, the Black Death. Then there was the Reformation, and the Prussians in 1870, and the Spanish in 1898, and--"

"And?" Boyd said.

Malone took a deep breath. He could almost feel the court dress flowing over him, as the court manners did. Lady Barbara, after all, attendant to Her Majesty, would expect a certain character from him.

After a second, he had it.

"In 1914, it was enemy aliens," said Sir Kenneth Malone.

THE END

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