One of these troupes of crusaders marched upon Davidge’s shipyard. And with it came Nicky Easton at last.
Easton had deferred his advent so long that Mamise and Davidge had come almost to yearn for him with heartsick eagerness. The first inkling of the prodigal’s approach was a visit that Jake Nuddle paid to Mamise late one evening. She had never broached to him the matter of her talk with Easton, waiting always for him to speak of it to her. She was amazed to see him now, and he brought amazement with him.
“I just got a call on long distance,” he said, “and a certain party tells me you was one of us all this time. Why didn’t you put a feller wise?”
Mamise was inspired to answer his reproach with a better: “Because I don’t trust you, Jake. You talk too much.”
This robbed Jake of his bluster and convinced him that the elusive Mamise was some tremendous super-spy. He became servile at once, and took pride in being the lackey of her unexplained and unexplaining majesty. Mamise liked him even less in this rôle than the other.
She took his information with a languid indifference, as if the terrifying news were simply a tiresome confirmation of what she had long expected. Jake was tremulous with excitement and approval.
“Well, well, who’d ’a’ thought our little Mamise was one of them slouch-hounds you read about? I see now why you’ve been stringin’ that Davidge boob along. You got him eatin’ out your hand. And I see now why you put them jumpers on and went out into the yards. You just got to know everything, ain’t you?”
Mamise nodded and smiled felinely, as she imagined a queen of mystery would do. But as soon as she could get rid of Jake she was like a child alone in a graveyard.
Jake had told her that Nicky would be down in a few days, and not to be surprised when he appeared. She wanted to get the news to Davidge, but she dared not go to his rooms so late. And in the morning she was due at her job of passing rivets. She crept into bed to rest her dog-tired bones against the morrow’s problems. Her dreams were all of death and 307 destruction, and of steel ships crumpled like balls of paper thrown into a waste-basket.
If she had but known it, Davidge was making the rounds of his sentry-line. The guard at one gate was sound asleep. He found two others playing cards, and a fourth man dead drunk.