Northwest of Earth Read Online Free Page A

lock the door again after I’ve gone.”
    Her wide, unwavering stare was his only answer, and he was not sure she had understood, but at any rate the lock clicked after him as before, and he went down the steps with a faint grin on his lips.
    The memory of last night’s extraordinary dream was slipping from him, as such memories do, and by the time he had reached the street the girl and the dream and all of yesterday’s happenings were blotted out by the sharp necessities of the present.
    Again the intricate business that had brought him here claimed his attention. He went about it to the exclusion of all else, and there was a good reason behind everything he did from the moment he stepped out into the street until the time when he turned back again at evening; though had one chosen to follow him during the day his apparently aimless rambling through Lakkdarol would have seemed very pointless.
    He must have spent two hours at the least idling by the spaceport, watching with sleepy, colorless eyes the ships that came and went, the passengers, the vessels lying at wait, the cargoes—particularly the cargoes. He made the rounds of the town’s saloons once more, consuming many glasses of varied liquors in the course of the day and engaging in idle conversation with men of all races and worlds, usually in their own languages, for Smith was a linguist of repute among his contemporaries. He heard the gossip of the spaceways, news from a dozen planets of a thousand different events. He heard the latest joke about the Venusian Emperor and the latest report on the Chino-Aryan war and the latest song hot from the lips of Rose Robertson, whom every man on the civilized planets adored as “the Georgia Rose.” He passed the day quite profitably, for his own purposes, which do not concern us now, and it was not until late evening, when he turned homeward again, that the thought of the brown girl in his room took definite shape in his mind, though it had been lurking there, formless and submerged, all day.
    He had no idea what comprised her usual diet, but he bought a can of New York roast beef and one of Venusian frog-broth and a dozen fresh canal-apples and two pounds of that Earth lettuce that grows so vigorously in the fertile canal-soil of Mars. He felt that she must surely find something to her liking in this broad variety of edibles, and—for his day had been very satisfactory—he hummed “The Green Hills of Earth” to himself in a surprisingly good baritone as he climbed the stairs.
    The door was locked, as before, and he was reduced to kicking the lower panels gently with his boot, for his arms were full. She opened the door with that softness that was characteristic of her and stood regarding him in the semidarkness as he stumbled to the table with his load. The room was unlit again.
    “Why don’t you turn on the lights?” he demanded irritably after he had barked his shin on the chair by the table in an effort to deposit his burden there.
    “Light and—dark—they are alike—to me,” she murmured.
    “Cat eyes, eh? Well, you look the part. Here, I’ve brought you some dinner. Take your choice. Fond of roast beef? Or how about a little frog-broth?”
    She shook her head and backed away a step.
    “No,” she said. “I can not—eat your food.”
    Smith’s brows wrinkled. “Didn’t you have any of the food tablets?”
    Again the red turban shook negatively.
    “Then you haven’t had anything for—why, more than twenty-four hours! You must be starved.”
    “Not hungry,” she denied.
    “What can I find for you to eat, then? There’s time yet if I hurry. You’ve got to eat, child.”
    “I shall—eat,” she said softly. “Before long—I shall—feed. Have no—worry.”
    She turned away then and stood at the window, looking out over the moonlit landscape as if to end the conversation. Smith cast her a puzzled glance as he opened the can of roast beef. There had been an odd undernote in that assurance