THE BANK MANAGER WAS INCREDULOUS BUT VERY CIVIL. HE tried hard to conceal his incredulity, since what Raigmore said might possibly be true.
Raigmore didn’t blame him for not believing it. There was no public announcement when a White Star was found. White Stars naturally kept in the background as much as they could, and so far no one who would gossip about Raigmore’s new status knew it. As far as the bank manager was concerned, the only White Star about Raigmore’s age in existence was Alison Hever. After this, however, it would soon be known everywhere that there was another, Eldin Raigmore. Things like that couldn’t stay private for long.
“Check with the Tests Depot,” Raigmore suggested. The manager would naturally do that anyway, but it saved him embarrassment if the suggestion came from Raigmore.
“This is a pure formality, of course,” said the manager apologetically, perhaps beginning to believe that Raigmore’s story was true.
It took only a few minutes to establish that there was a new White Star, and that Raigmore was he. The manager’s reserve vanished completely.
“There’s no limit,” he said. “Your bond is enough, Mr. Raigmore.”
It was rare for White Stars to borrow money. They could easily make it if they happened to want it. A few minutes of a White Star’s time were worth the huge sums that were generally paid for them. When a big, disturbing problem held up a firm, an industry or a government, White Stars could always see what often stumped the giant calculating machines used in industry these days — not the answer, necessarily, but how to get it.
Sometimes, however, when a White Star wanted money quickly, he would borrow it from a bank as Raigmore was doing. The transaction was rather different from such transactions before the Tests. The banks knew that a White Star would repay the loan, automatically, whenever he could. Even if he died, the other White Stars would pay the debt to protect their privileges and from a sense of justice. There was a certain clannishness among all Test groups, even at the top.
Raigmore had a mischievous impulse to name some astronomical figure, to see what happened. But he gave the modest figure he had decided on. He could have borrowed it from Margo, and he would have done so if his purpose had been anything else.
The manager, who had been so doubtful such a short time since, begged him to take more. Raigmore remarked reasonably, however, that there was no point in paying interest on more than he needed.
He had now announced himself, he thought as he left the bank. Within a day or two everyone in the solar system would know there was a new White Star. It was easy to guess how it would happen. In a few hours all Millo would know; in a day or two every newspaper on Earth would find some excuse for mentioning his name. It was contrary to journalistic etiquette for them to announce baldly that Eldin Raigmore had passed out as a White Star at Millo; but it was quite in order for them to say, with the timeless cunning of newspapermen, that Eldin Raigmore, White Star, had been seen at the new play, or at a football game, or anywhere else. The smarter newsmen would find some anecdote or item of news concerning him that was worth printing in itself, and was therefore a flawless excuse for giving his name and Test rank.
He went straight to the offices of a steamship company and bought two tickets for a private cruise. Travel by sea now was almost all for pleasure. Air services, both passenger and freight, were so numerous, competitive and fast that trade by sea had dropped to a trickle. The fight for supremacy was now between planed aircraft and rockets. The rockets were winning as far as freight was concerned, but people still persisted in regarding winged aircraft as safer for personal travel.
The girl at the glass and chromium desk noticed he wore no badge, and unconsciously straightened, patted her hair into place and became brisker and more deferent. “Do you wish to travel incognito, sir?” she asked.
“If possible. Is it?”
“We must know who you are, sir, but it’s in order for anyone who need not wear a badge to give a pseudonym. It’s a private cruise, you see.”
“Logical enough,” Raigmore commented. A private cruise was merely one on which no badges need be worn — a pleasure cruise, in fact, where a certain amount of informality was permissible, like a private party. People could meet and mingle without the self-consciousness of rank, as they could on other informal occasions. It was therefore logical, as Raigmore said, that the top groups, whose names might be known, should be permitted to masquerade like everyone else.
When Raigmore gave his own name the girl, naturally, didn’t turn a hair. But when he mentioned Alison Hever, equally naturally she jumped and stared at him.
She recovered herself after a second or two. “Shall we send Miss Hever the ticket, sir?” she asked.
“Please do. I can take it no one will know we’re aboard?”
“Unless someone recognizes you embarking, sir. We guarantee that there will be no leakage through us.” She was still staring at him. Alison Hever, probably, was her ideal, her model. And if Raigmore was on such terms with Alison that he could invite her along on a pleasure cruise, he became automatically the most interesting male alive.
Raigmore visited Margo on his way back to his hotel. She tried to act casually, but she couldn’t help lighting up when she opened the door of her flat and ushered him in.
Some people would get a great kick out of this attention, Raigmore thought. Only, perhaps unfortunately, none of them would be White Stars. If you enjoyed the feeling of power that this deference gave you, you weren’t properly integrated and couldn’t be a White Star.
“I’m going away on a cruise, Margo,” he said.
She looked surprised. “On a cruise? Why?”
“I want to see the world.”
Margo frowned. “You couldn’t be running away, could you?”
“From what? I’m taking a rest, yes. This is an interlude, a relaxation — it’s just filling in time. But why not? I’ve done everything I can do. Except marry Alison.”
A shadow crossed Margo’s face. “She’s going with you, then?”
“I hope so. I didn’t actually ask her.”
“She’ll go. Unless — it’s hardly a week since her father was killed….”
“That won’t make any difference. Not to Alison.”
At one time a girl who didn’t go into mourning in such circumstances would have been regarded as callous. But fashions had changed; any kind of mourning now was considered unnecessary show. Wearing black and staying away from entertainments of any kind made no difference to the dead person. Grief was private — no one else felt it. It would be in bad taste now to declare by one’s clothes and conduct that one was still suffering after someone’s death.
Margo turned and looked out at the window so that he couldn’t see her face. “Why are you marrying Alison?” she asked quietly. “Because you want to or because you think you ought to?”
“Both,” said Raigmore. “At first it was all because I thought it was part of my job to do it if I could. Now, if I discovered I was wrong and that I was forbidden to marry Alison …”
He paused, uncertain. “I’d still want to anyway,” he said. “I think I still would unless it meant some sort of danger to Alison. Is that frank enough for you?”
“Yes,” said Margo slowly, as if the word was dragged out of her. “How much does your job matter to you now?”
“I feel I must still do it, whatever it is.”
She turned quickly. “Though Hever was murdered?”
“You know what I think of the murder of Hever. But it may have been necessary, all the same.”
“Necessary!” Margo exclaimed vehemently. “Didn’t you ask what kind of beings could kill a man like that, destroy a mind like that, of any race, for any reason? Have you had second thoughts, and decided it wasn’t really so important after all?”
“I’ve had second thoughts,” said Raigmore. “I haven’t decided it really wasn’t so important after all, but I’ve seen some of the reasons there could have been for it. Suppose Hever had been just about to do something, and the only way to stop him doing it was to kill him? Suppose he had learned about us? Suppose he was just going to learn about us? If either you or Hever had to die, who would it have been?”
Margo was silent for a long time. At last she said with quiet intensity: “Why weren’t you and I born just ordinary people, knowing where we stood, without this shadow always behind us? We could have been happy — couldn’t we?”
Perhaps the difference between Red and White Star was that, while Margo wanted the circumstances to change themselves, Raigmore wanted to change them, and was quite confident of being able to do it if only he knew what they were. He shook his head.
“We’d have been quite different,” he said. “Listen, Margo, I’m not saying this to hurt you. You only want me because like clings to like. Your problems are mine too. Because we both have to solve them you think we should solve them together. If this other thing was cleared away, I’d be nothing to you.”
She turned away and began to prowl about the room restlessly, picking up things and laying them down again.
“Perhaps something will happen when I marry Alison,” said Raigmore. “That may be the signal. But if nothing ever does happen, so much the better.”
He turned to go. Margo darted across the room and caught his arm. “What am I to do?” she asked desperately.
“I can’t tell you. Whatever you think you ought to do.”
“Do you think you ought to go away and enjoy yourself?”
“No. I don’t think I ought to do anything, just at the moment. So I’m free to do as I like.”
When he was outside he stared for several minutes at the closed door, wondering if there was anything else he should have done or said. He wanted to help Margo. But at the same time he knew that she had to work out her own salvation. One of his reasons for going away was to give her a chance to do it.
There was another difference between him and Margo. He would always do what he regarded as his duty — naturally, without conflict. But Margo, more emotional, would always be torn between duty and desire. More emotional? No, she wasn’t really. There were so many stages. A man who strangled his emotion was only half a man. A man who let emotion rule him absolutely was a beast. One had to achieve a balance.
He didn’t give himself any credit for it, but he had at last achieved that balance. Everyone who was a White had. That was why Alison would probably come on this cruise, though it was such a short time since her father had been murdered.
When he had met Margo first, he had been torn by emotion, she comparatively stable. He had climbed past her; now she was doubtful and fearful and indecisive by contrast.
Alison rang him almost as soon as he reached his hotel.
“I’ve just been sent a ticket for a sea cruise,” she said.
“That’s funny,” said Raigmore, “I’ve got one too.”
“If I come, does that mean …?”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“Borrowed it.”
“From Margo?”
“Now, Alison,” said Raigmore gently, “would I borrow it from Margo?”
A pause. “I suppose not. I’ll come.”