"I'm a bit of a collector," said the clerk.
"Well, in that case, you can have it for the favor. I just keep it around for a curiosity."
The clerk pocketed the bill easily and Farradyne went over to the mail-listing window. "Anything for Charles Farradyne?"
"Expecting something?"
"At least one, a payment voucher from Eastern Atomic. Come yet?"
The mail clerk disappeared; came back with one envelope. "Nothing from Eastern Atomic," he said. "But here's a letter for Charles Farradyne, Pilot of ship's registry Six-Eight-Three, a Lancaster Eighty-One. That must be yours."
"It's mine. But keep an eye peeled for a landwire payment voucher, will you? I had to leave Newark before it was ready and the guy at the shipping office said he'd notify the company that the stuff was received at port, and that I'd be in Los Angeles. Okay?"
"Aye-firm."
The letter was from Carolyn. A brief note telling him that she would be ready for the trip on the morning of the fifth. This suited Farradyne; he had been afraid that Carolyn might be waiting at the spaceport for him, and that they'd be taking off before Clevis had a chance to find out about the washed drum-ends.
She also suggested as a postscript that she might possibly be at her hotel and free about nine any evening, and there was some reference to her being a bit squeamish about the dark. Farradyne was half-inclined to believe her. Carolyn Niles lived on Mercury—a planet that knew no night.