He went for a walk.
There were no roads or paths.
There was nothing.
The hotel stood on the plain and there was nothing else.
No buildings around it. No village. No roads. Nothing.
It stood there, huge and ornate and lonely, like a misplaced wedding cake.
It stood stark against the skyline, for there were no other buildings to blend into it and soften it and it looked like something that someone in a hurry had dumped down and left.
He struck out across the plain toward some trees that he thought must mark a watercourse and he wondered why there were no paths or roads, but suddenly he knew why there were no paths or roads.
He thought about the years he had spent cramming business administration into his brain and remembered the huge book of excerpts from the letters written home from Kimon hinting at big business deals, at responsible positions.
And the thought struck him that there was one thing in common in all of the excerpts in the book - that the deals and positions were always hinted at, that no one had ever told exactly what he did.
Why did they do it? he asked himself. Why did they fool us all?
Although, of course, there might be more to it than he knew. He had been on Kimon for somewhat less than a full day's time. I'll look around, the Grecian blonde had said - I'll look around, we'll find somewhere that you fit.
He went on across the plain and reached the line of trees and found the stream. It was a prairie stream, a broad, sluggish flow of crystal water between two grassy banks. Lying on his stomach to peer into the depths, he saw the flash of fishes far below him.
He took off his shoes and dangled his feet in the water and kicked a little to make the water splash, and he thought:
They know all about us. They know about our life and culture. They know about the leopard banners and how Senlac must have looked on Saturday, October 14, 1066, with the hosts of England massed upon the hilltop and the hosts of William on the plain below.
They know what makes us tick and they let us come; because they let us come, there must be some value in us.
What had the girl said, the girl who had floated to the stool and then had left with her drink still untouched? Faint amusement, she had said. You get used to it, she had said. If you don't think too much about it, you get used to it.
See me in a week, she had said. In a week you and I can talk. And she had called him Buster.
Well, maybe she had a right to call him that. He had been starry-eyed and a sort of eager beaver. And probably ignorant-smug.
They know about us, and how do they know about us?
Senlac might have been staged, but he didn't think so - there was a strange, grim reality about it that got under your skin, a crawling sort of feeling that told you it was true, that that was how it had happened and had been. That there had been no Taillefer and that a man had died with his guts dragging in the grass and that the Englishmen had cried "Ut! UT!" which might have meant almost anything at all or nothing just as well, but probably had meant "Out."
He sat there, cold and lonely, wondering how they did it. How they had made it possible for a man to punch a button and to live a scene long dead, to see the death of men who had long been dust mingled with the earth.
There was no way to know, of course.
There was no use to guess.
Technical information, Morley Reed had said, that would revolutionize our entire economic pattern.
He remembered Morley pacing up and down the room and saying: "We must find out about them. We must find out."
And there was a way to find out.
There was a splendid way.
He took his feet out of the water and dried them with handfuls of grass. He put his shoes back on and walked back to the hotel.
The blond goddess was still at her desk in the Employment Bureau.
"About that babysitting job," he said.
She looked startled for a moment - terribly, almost childishly startled, but her face slid swiftly back to its goddess-mask.
"Yes, Mr. Bishop."
"I've thought it over," he said. "If you have that kind of job, I'll take it."