XII.
Patricia Kennebec peered out of the window at the screech of brakes on the pavement. Then, to avert open hostility, she ran to the door and out upon the sidewalk.
She faced them, and was slightly baffled to hear them speak:
"Well?" asked Lane.
"You didn't beat me."
"It was a dead heat," smiled Lane.
"We're two minds with but a single thought, these days," Stellor told Patricia. "Every time I find myself thinking of something, I discover that he has been considering the same thing, too."
"You'd better split your personality—and/or your body," suggested Lane. "Or become twins. I can foresee difficulties with the theological and civil authorities if this goes on."
Patricia smiled. "I can't possibly marry you both. Not at the same time, anyway."
"Toss coin?" offered Lane. "We'll take turns—"
"You will not!" stated Patricia. "I'm old-fashioned enough to go into it wanting permanency. I don't really expect it, but I can and will hope. I will not enter marriage with any split in mind. That's ... that's—"
"Sorry," said Cliff. "I was joking."
"Love may be somewhat amusing," she said seriously. "But marriage is no joke. So let's forget it. Oh—look! Here comes Billy!"
Lane and Downing looked, and then whistled.
Patricia squinted at the pair of them, and then took another look at Thompson. "Did you two swap minds—or was he in on it?" she asked with a laugh.
"He wasn't—but why?" asked Lane.
"Billy is pulling your favorite trick," she told Lane. "He's got a glamor-puss on each elbow."
"And he can pick 'em, too!" said Downing approvingly.
Patricia looked at him in puzzlement.
Lane caught the look. "That's my line," he told Stellor.
"So it is. 'And your line shall be my line, and your ideas shall be mine. For whitherso thou goest, there—' and so on, Cliff."
"This is getting bad," smiled Patricia to Billy. "I've often thought that it would be perfect if I could take these two and boil 'em down into one man. Instead, I've got the boiling process done but the outcome is two men both with all of the things I've liked about each—or am I getting involved in my own words?"
"I knew they'd not think of furnishing enough femininity to make a full party," he laughed. "Patricia, smile and be nice to all of us. Kids, Patricia Kennebec. Virginia Thompson, my sister, and Tania Lake, her erstwhile college chum. Gals, the redheaded wildman is Stellor Downing and the dark, sunkissed Adonis is Clifford Lane. Take it from there."
Lane blinked at Virginia. "You're his sister? By adoption, no doubt. No blood relation of Billy could be—" Lane stopped at precisely the right point, and looked just the right amount of confusion. His act went over, and Virginia smiled back. "He talks, too," he said seriously.
Patricia Kennebec looked at Billy. "This has the earmarks of conspiracy," she told him. "What gives?"
"Nothing in particular," he said with a slight smile. "Ginger and Tanny were sitting around the house as usual when I got home this evening, and both of them looked hungry. Seems to me they're always that way—at least as far back as I can remember."
"You mean you've been concealing assets like these?" demanded Downing.
"I'll inspect this conspiracy a little better after I find out how it's working," Patricia whispered to Billy. "You treat them both like sisters."
"Tania has lived next door to us for most of her life," said Billy honestly.
"Hm-m-m—girlhood sweet-heart?"
"Nope. We didn't even scrap over the back fence."
"There's one thing about Billy," said Downing, diverting his attention briefly. "He doesn't ever scrap for anything."
"He never seems to lose anything he wants," offered Tania.
"He doesn't," affirmed Lane. "Trouble is with that kind of guy, he'll never win the Solar Citation. Billy, why in the name of sin don't you make something look hard, just for once.”
"I claimed that any man who could spend a couple of months as referee between you two would have a job big enough to win the Solar Citation," said Patricia.
"He made a breeze of it," said Lane, and Downing nodded and added: "Every time we got to the shooting-point, Billy was there with a crisis to solve, a mission to perform, or a detail to handle. And when the rivet-cutting really got going, he thought of the one short statement that stopped us both—cold."
"I still say getting in between you two is bravery above the consideration of personal safety, or even the safety of any individual, for the benefit of mankind. If that doesn't rate a Solar Cit, I don't know what does."
Billy grinned brazenly. "It all comes of one idea," he told them. "And that's the little proposition of making the best of what you know. I—know people. So I can make 'em tick. I'll admit it, I'm brilliant. Now let's forget my obvious touch of genius and go somewhere and try out our own individual superiority against a steak. We'll weigh the remains and the largest leavings is a loser."
From the front steps, Co-ordinator Kennebec called: "A good idea, fellows. I was about to call out the Guard. I was beginning to think that a mass meeting was going on right on the Presidential Grounds."
They waved good-by, and drove off in Billy Thompson's car.
And it was about four o'clock in the morning that Hotang Lu retired after hours of discussion with Kennebec. The co-ordinator of the Solar Combine nodded the Little One to his door, and then decided to raid the presidential icebox. He stopped at the door.
Co-ordinator Kennebec had a large and healthy respect for Patricia's judgment, though she was but a youngster according to his standards and those of his contemporaries. Perhaps the combination of Irish impulsiveness with the Canadian-Scotch horse sense had resulted in something with a better grasp on human nature—or perhaps it was that still-unknown intuition that women all claimed. Anyway, Kennebec had been talking to Hotang Lu with four tenths of an ear cocked to the doorway. He'd wanted to get Pat's side of the details.
He'd missed her, apparently.
For if any icebox were raided, especially the austere icebox of the co-ordinator's presidential home, it would be done en trio.
Kennebec grinned. He hoped they'd leave some for the nominal ruler of the Solar Combine.
The idea of ordering out an aide didn't occur to him; an aide could produce anything at any time, but Kennebec wasn't the type to impose. He'd do his own icebox raiding!
But he was not beyond a bit of diplomatic eavesdropping. He'd thought of Pat's problem, too. Twin minds between the men she preferred impartially. That—and he didn't like to consider it—reduced her selection to the sheer animal. He was not euphemistic, nor blind, and he recognized that men and women will be men and women and that physical attraction was a major factor. But he was of an intelligent race, and he knew also that sheer physical attraction without a simultaneous mating of mind usually resulted in trouble.
He wondered—which of the pair of worthies had the greater physical attraction for his daughter.
So, with no feeling of shame about it, Co-ordinator Kennebec, nominal ruling head of three planets; elected by popular vote; empowered to act by the Solar Combine Congress; commander in chief of all armed forces of three worlds—eavesdropped on his daughter.
"Just a keyhole listener," he thought. "I wonder which—"
"That was a neat piece of business," Pat laughed.
"Was it?" answered her companion.
"It was. And you know it. A neat bit of skullduggery."
The laugh that followed was very masculine—and there was no mistaking the originator.
"May I ask what the idea was?" asked Pat.
Billy Thompson's well-modulated voice answered: "Sure, I'll tell you. Do you want it right off the shoulder or will you take it by degrees?"
"I can take it," said Patricia. Her tone was light, but under-tones of softness were there. "Can you dish it out?"
Kennebec swallowed. Billy Thompson! Whatever he had done, he'd done it well. Kennebec smiled wistfully. Any man who could cut Patricia out of the tight-pack between Lane and Downing was either overly wise or—
"I'm dishing," said Billy. "I've been wondering how it would be to have you all to myself."
"Have you found out yet?" asked Patricia lightly.
"Not yet—it might take a long time."
"It's four o'clock," she told him.
"So what?" he said hotly. "If I get a card to this game, it's going to be a hard-held one."
"You mean that now I'm confronted with the idea of deciding between three of you?"
"Patricia, this is big-league stuff. Sit around and get as egotistical as you want. I don't think you are. I think a lot of your confounded superciliousness is just an act—and I intend to find out!"
"An act, Billy?"
"Pat, I hope it is. How long has your dad been co-ordinator?"
"About seven years."
"And you're twenty-four."
"Been reading my mail?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I can—and often do—read newsprint."
"Oh, you read, too?"
"Shut up," he snapped, "and stop sounding like a character out of a bum play. You know what I'm trying to tell you. You've been the high priestess of this chateau ever since you were seventeen. D'ye know any seventeen-year-old that has any sense?"
"Ah—"
"I know," he grinned cheerfully. "Patricia Kennebec at seventeen."
"I've not been here—"
"No, you've been to college, and stuff like that where people have been kowtowing to you. Well, either you have that glazed-personality for self-protection or I wouldn't have you on a bet!"
"Huh?" asked the girl. And her father swallowed, took a deep but silent breath and wondered what next?
"Wonderful woman," he laughed. "Three of the top men in the Solar Guard chasing after you. Gives you quite a feeling of superiority, doesn't it?"
"I—"
"Don't answer, Pat, you're about as responsible for the antics of that pair of concentric idiots as anything else."
"Look, Billy, Cliff and Stellor at least were honest with me. I knew them before I ever met you. Years and years ago. They fought over me for the junior prom in high school. They ganged up and took me, en trio, to the graduation party from grammar school. And both of those were before dad was mentioned as co-ordinator-possible. That, Billy, was before I became a possible key to the co-ordinator's office. All right. I sound jaded. I'm a stinking little headstrong, egocentric brat that sits around dangling men from a nylon ribbon, playing hearts. Billy—how can YOU prove that YOU don't want something?"
"Huh?"
"How is a nonomniscent human being in my position to know a protestation of affection from a pure and perfect act—the purpose of which to gain something?"
Kennebec, standing in the silver closet, bit his lip. He'd see this thing out, for he wanted to ask Patricia a question. For once in his life, he was not certain of the rightness of his ambition. Patricia would know. Was all ambition foolish? Is this what they meant when they said: Of what use to gain the world if only to lose a soul? Had he in his ambition to give his motherless daughter the best of everything, deprived her of that one thing that no one could do without? To have friends, even lovers, whose protestations of affection were honest; whose need of her was as personal as her need of them? How had she learned, at a tender twenty-four, that there were those who would present false face for position—and take, perhaps, that which—?
Kennebec smiled shyly, in the darkness. She had learned. Apparently it had been hard, but not too hard, that learning.
"Patricia," said Billy. "Patricia, listen to me. I've not known you long, compared to the—wildmen." He laughed shortly, but it was forced and she knew it. So did the man behind the door.
"I've not known you long, Patricia. I did a bit of trickery tonight. I dropped two red herrings across the trail—"
"Make it good," whispered Patricia, "or I'll tell the girls what you called them."
"Basically, I'm honest," said Thompson in a cheerful voice. "I bribed them well. Their known and accepted jobs were to sidetrack the un-heavenly twins. Both Ginger and Tanny swore that nothing short of open seduction would prevent them from leaving the aisle clear for my frontal attack."
"Hm-m-m—so Pat Kennebec was Target for Tonight?"
"Do you dislike me for being honest?"
"Is that honesty a cover for deeper dis—"
"Pat, please. Don't say it."
"Then what shall I say?"
"Tell me—did you like it?"
Patricia looked up at Billy Thompson. "Now I'm asking. Can you take it?"
"I can take it," said Billy. "Tell me to go and jump in the lake, if you want. I did what I did because—"
"Billy, it was rather nice."
"It—?"
"I liked it."
"Ah ... er—"
"Billy?"
"Yes?"
"Best you can do?"
The silence was significant. Kennebec, eavesdropping, swallowed deeply, and left quietly.
"Billy?"
"Patricia?"
"You always call me by my full name?"
"I like to hear it."
"Billy, what do we do now?"
"We do nothing. As far as I'm concerned, Patricia, we've just met. From here on, we do all we can to know one another better."
"I—"
The beer and sandwiches were growing warm.
"—won't be able to know—"
And it was getting later.
"—if you keep my eyes closed all the time."
Billy took a deep breath. "The better to keep you from finding out all about me, my dear."
She held his face back between her hands. "Do you realize?" she asked. The head between her hands shook. "You have really known me for less than ... than six hours. And you're making protestations—"
"You forget," he reminded her carefully, "that I'd been contemplating Patricia Kennebec for a long time. There are some things that are worth waiting for; things that require planning. I didn't know what the score would be at the end of this evening, Patricia, but I wanted so to find out. I've known you for a long time, Patricia. And, remember, little lady, that one need not fight bitterly for what he wants—sometimes it comes better if one bides his time and lets the fighters run themselves out of wind. From here, Patricia, let no man get in my way, lest he get his legs clipped out from under him."
"Supposing that I like him?" said Patricia.
"I'll only be fluffed off once," warned Billy. "There's one thing that I have that few other people have, Patricia. I can't really read minds, but I've discovered, ever since that little battle out there near Sscantoo, that I feel, and deeply, the truth of any man's feelings. But enough of that. We'll have time to quarrel later. Right now, Patricia—"
That night, the old adage died. The head that wore the crown of the Solar Combine slept like a kitten. And the only thing that bothered Co-ordinator Kennebec was that usual irrelevant wonder that crops up in the most trying of circumstances, though this was not trying, as circumstances go. Yet, Kennebec thought, it was like an hysteria almost; the unfunny joke that sends chief mourners off into gales of laughter. Incongruous and irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential.
But why in the name of Sol didn't they go into the living room, and do their necking on the love seat where it belonged instead of sitting on the cook's tall stool in the kitchen?