He'd have to get a job sooner than he planned, for the twenty credits wouldn't go too far with a layout like this one. Although he supposed if he asked for credit it would be given him.
But he recoiled from the idea of asking for credit, of being forced to admit that he was short of cash. So far he'd done everything correctly. He'd arrived aboard a liner and not a battered trader; his luggage - what had the native said? - it was in splendid taste; his wardrobe was all that could be expected; and he hoped that he'd not communicated to anyone the panic and dismay he'd felt at the luxury of the suite.
He got up from the chair and prowled about the room. There was no carpeting, for the floor itself was soft and yielding and you left momentary tracks as you walked, but they puffed back and smoothed out almost immediately.
He walked over to a window and stood looking out of it. Evening had fallen and the landscape was covered with a dusty blue - and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but rolling countryside. There were no roads that he could see and no lights that would have told of other habitations.
Perhaps, he thought, I'm on the wrong side of the building. On the other side there might be streets and roads and homes and shops.
He turned back to the room and looked at it - the Earthlike furniture so quietly elegant that it almost shouted, the beautiful, veined marble fireplace, the shelves of books, the shine of old wood, the matchless paintings hanging on the wall, and the great cabinet that filled almost one end of the room.
He wondered what the cabinet might be. It was a beautiful thing, with an antique look about it and it had a polish - not of wax, but of human hands and time.
He walked toward it.
The cabinet said: "Drink, sir?"
"I don't mind if I do," said Bishop, then stopped stock-still, realizing that the cabinet had spoken and he had answered it.