"Do you mean, why the Heechee built it? No. The Heechee weren't any taller than we are, so it wasn't this big because they needed headroom. And it was entirely empty when it was found."
He looked around, without excitement, at the busy scene. The Spindle is always busy. It had balconies cut into the sloping sides of
the cavern, with eating and drinking places like Vastra's along there, and rows of souvenir booths. Most of them were of course empty, in this slow season. But there were still a couple hundred maze-rats living in and near the Spindle, and the number of them hovering around us had been quietly growing all the time Cochenour and the girl had been sitting there.
He said, "There's nothing much to see here, is there?" I didn't argue. "There's nothing but a hole in the ground, full of people trying to take my spare change away from me." I shrugged; he grinned at me-less meanly than before, I thought. "So why did I come to Venus, if that's how I feel? Well, that's a good question, but since you didn't ask it I don't have to answer."
He looked at me to see if I might be going to press the matter. I didn't.
"So let's just talk business," he went on. "You want a million dollars. Let's see what that pays for. It'd be around a hundred K to charter an airbody. A hundred and eighty K or so to rent equipment for a week, times three weeks. Food, supplies, permits, another fifty K. So we're up close to seven hundred thousand, not counting your own salary or what you have to give our host here as his cut for not throwing you off the premises. Is that about the way it adds up, Walthers?"
I had not expected him to be a cost-accountant. I had a little difficulty swallowing the drink I had been holding in my mouth, but I managed to say, "Close enough, Mr. Cochenour." I didn't see any point in telling him that I already owned the airbody, as well as most of the other needed equipment-that was the only way there was going to be anything left for me after paying off all the other charges. But I wouldn't have been surprised to find out that he knew that, too.
Then he surprised me. "Sounds like the right price," he said casually. "You've got a deal. I want to leave as soon as possible, which I want to be, urn, just about this time tomorrow."
"Fair enough," I said, getting up. "I'll see you then."
I avoided Sub Vastra's thunderstricken expression as I left. I had some work to do, and a little thinking. Cochenour had caught me off base, and that's a bad place to be when you can't afford to make a mistake. I knew he hadn't missed the fact that I'd called him by name. That was all right. He would easily guess that I had checked him out immediately, and his name was the least of the things he would assume I had found out about him.
But it was a little surprising that he had known mine.
HI
I had three major errands. The first thing I had to do was double-check my equipment to make sure it would still stand up against all the nastiness Venus can visit on a machine-or a person. The second was to go to the local union office and register a contract with Boyce Cochenour for validation, with a commission clause for Vastra.
The third was to see my doctor. The liver hadn't been giving me much trouble for a while, but then I hadn't been drinking much grain alcohol for a while.
The equipment turned out to be all right. It took me about an hour to complete the checks, but by the end of the time I was reasonably sure that I had all the gear and enough spare parts to keep us going. The Quackery was on the way to the union office, so I stopped in to see Dr. Morius first. It didn't take long. The news was no worse than I had been ready for. The doctor put all his instruments on me and studied the results carefully-about a hundred and fifty dollars worth of carefully-and then expressed the guarded hope that I would survive three weeks away from his office, provided I took all the stuff he gave me and wandered no more than usual from the diet he insisted on. "And when I get back?" I asked.
"Same as I've been telling you, Audee," he said cheerily. "You can expect total hepatic collapse in, oh, maybe ninety days." He patted his fingertips, looking at me optimistically. "I hear you've
got a live one, though. Want me to make a reservation for your transplant?"
"How live did you hear my prospect was?" I asked.
He shrugged. "The price is the same in any case," he told me good-naturedly. "Two hundred K for the new liver, plus the hospital, anesthesiologist, pre-op psychiatrist, pharmaceuticals, my own fee-you've already got the figures."
I did. And I had already calculated that with what I might make from Cochenour, plus what I had put away, plus a loan on the airbody I could just about meet it. Leaving me broke when it was over, of course. But alive.
"Happens I've got one in stock now that's just your size," Dr. Morius said, half-kidding.
