"Please do. For a moment, I lost my wits."
She's making a play for me, like all females, he thought. Discouragedly, Unterzuyder went in. He sat down on a sponge-plastic chair, resting his gloved hands on his cane and looking upon the girl sternly.
"Daddy!" she sang out. "Mr. Straley is here!"
A man with a half-bald head and a deep tan lunged into the room carrying a heavy rocket-gun. His grin was wide, his voice reedy and enthusiastic. He was happy to know Mr. Straley. He laid the gun tenderly on the floor. Unterzuyder looked at it distrustfully.
Beecher's reedy laugh sounded. "It's not cocked," he explained. "You caught me right in the middle of a clean-and-polish job. That ol' gun o' mine's been everywhere, mister. Most of the Moons of Jupiter, out on the deserts—even Africa. Yessir, our exploring expeditions have taken us into every corner of the Solar System that's available."
The girl whipped open a drawer in the bottom of a boxy chair made of crystal glassteel. "And here's my pet!" She reached in to pull out a long-snouted neutron gun with a triple trigger. Unterzuyder's heart banged for the third time in an hour. In the drawer was one other object: Tertium Organum, A Key To The Enigmas Of The World.
An old book. A musty book. The book from his beloved dead father's library. The book that held the Unterzuyder map.
His breath hissed. Beecher leaned solicitously forward. "Anything wrong, Mr. Straley?"
"Oh, no, nothing," said Unterzuyder, pain wrenching his face. "But I'm not a healthy man. My heart—"
"Oh, what a shame." Fayette leaned over him, dizzying him with her perfume. She put her warm little hand on his forehead. She held his wrist to feel his pulse. She shook her blonde curls vigorously. "Nope. No fever. The pulse did seem to race a little when I held your hand. Outside of that—" She surveyed him judicially. "I'll bet you're as healthy as a Venusian peat-dog!"