“Perhaps you have heard that there is some big brass from Earth visiting Phobos this week.”
“I have heard nothing,” I said. It is often helpful to appear ignorant when questioned by the Builders, for they believe us to be incapable of misrepresenting the truth. The fact is, though it is an acquired trait, and not built into us, we General Purposes can lie as well as anyone.
“Well, there is. A Federation Senator, no less. Simon F. Langley. It’s my job to keep them entertained; that’s where you come in.”
I was mystified. I had never heard of this Langley, but I know what entertainment is. I had a mental image of myself singing or dancing before the Senator’s party. But I can not sing very well, for three of my voice reeds are broken and have never been replaced, and lateral motion, for me, is almost impossible these days. “I do not know what you mean,” I said. “There is J-66. He was once an Entertainment—”
“No, no!” he interrupted, “you don’t get it. What the Senator wants is a guide. They’re making a survey of the Dumps, though I’ll be damned if I can find out why. And you know the Dumps better than any metal person—or human—on Phobos.”
So that was it. I felt a vague dread, a premonition of disaster. I had such feelings before, and usually with reason. This too, was an acquired sensibility, I am sure. For many years I have studied the Builders, and there is much to be learned of their mobile faces and their eyes. In Jon’s eyes, however, I read no trickery—nothing.
Yet, I say, I had the sensation of evil. It was just for a moment; no longer.
I said I would think it over.
Senator Langley was distinguished. Jon said so. And yet he was cumbersomely round, and he rattled incessantly of things into which I could interpret no meaning. The she who was his wife was much younger, and sullen, and unpleasantly I sensed great rapport between her and Jon Rogeson from the very first.