life. “If this really embarrasses you, I could send one of my colleagues. She’s got the screen in her backside, since research indicates that 276 of humanoid males prefer—”
“This’ll be fine.” He eased the bathroom door open and began searching the off-white room for spy gadgets.
“…Hollywood II is virtually a city in itself,” a deep-voiced narrator was saying through the speaker in the lovely android’s navel. “It houses thousands of well-adjusted people who are dedicated to traveling the length and breadth of this old universe of ours and making the best vidmovies for you and your family that’s humanly, and otherwisely, possible to…”
“Bing,” said the bugsniffer when Summer passed it over the sunken whirlbath unit.
He knelt, squinting. The latest bug was more complex than the others. “Huh…made out in the Hellquad planets looks like. Don’t see that many hereabouts.” He tossed it in the air a few times before dumping it down the floor dispozhole.
“…a dozen vast sound stages with state-of-the-art movie-making equipment. And here we see the palatial Executive Level with its stately offices, acre upon acre of rolling sudograss, leafy…”
“Are you getting all this?” called the attractive andy.
“As much as I want, yes.” He finished up the bath, moved on to the kitchen cubicle.
“…the Writers’ Hold, which is usually off limits to our average passenger…”
Summer found two real cockroaches in his zapstove, but no more spying gadgets in the kitchen or in the rest of his cabin.
“…six regulation tennis courts, a freefall wrestling arena…”
Placing his bugsniffer on the edge of the floating glaz coffee table, Summer seated himself in a plaz slingchair. “An old associate of mine named Palma would enjoy your presentation,” he told the android.
“Palma? Oh, yes, the horny photographer.”
“Heard of him?”
“We have very extensive records on just about every media person in the universe.”
“…a most cordial and heartfelt welcome aboard!”
concluded the handsome-voiced narrator.
The auburn android’s stomach went blank. “Thank you for your attention, Mr. Summer.” She pulled down her tunic.
“Usually PR people call me Jack,” he said. “I’m wondering why you—”
“Oh, that’s in deference to your age. Anyone over thirty-five gets a Mister.” Smiling prettily, she backed toward the doorway. “That applies to humanoids such as yourself. With other groups, of course, the cutoff age varies. Lizardmen, for example, live to be much—”
“Thanks for the indoctrination.”
“Don’t forget you’re scheduled to sit in on a Galaxy Jane story conference at 3:15 PM/Ship Time,” she reminded. “And I’ll see you at the welcoming cocktail party. That’s up on the Beverly Hills Deck at 5 PM/ST.”
“Looking forward to both events.”
“Well, I have three more passengers to welcome before we take off.” She smiled again and let herself out. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Summer.”
“Thirty-nine isn’t especially old,” he said aloud after she’d gone.
Chapter 5
“Come in.” Vicky yanked the door of her stateroom on the Bel Air Deck angrily open wide. “Boy, I’m really in a tizzy.”
Summer entered the cabin, which was twice the size of his and smelled of wild flowers. “Don’t say anything until—”
“Oh, if you mean the darn bug that somebody planted in here, we already found that thing.” The blond young woman reached around him to give the neowood door a shove that caused it to shut with a shivering slam. “I complained to that dim-witted young android from PR who came around to show me a dippy movie about the Hollywood II. Gosh, he had the vidscreen built into the oddest—”
“One bug?”
“Relax, old timer.” Scoop was sitting sideways in a tufted styrochair, metal legs dangling over the arm. “I checked the whole joint out. Got a detector built into my pinky.”
“Even so.” Taking his own bugsniffer from his pocket, Summer began a circuit of the parlor.
Vicky was wearing a two-piece white jeansuit and matching boots. “The thing that really annoys me is that this constitutes interference with the freedom of the press.” She folded her arms under her breasts. “And that’s something that’s guaranteed in the constitutions of all the planets in the Barnum System except maybe—”
“Bing,” said the gadget in Summer’s hand.
Nodding, he reached up behind the tri-op painting of a field of grazing grouts. “Here’s another,” he said, flicking the spy device to the young woman.
Vicky caught it, brought it up close to her lips and shouted, “I hope this blows your darn eardrums out, you spying so and—”
“Relax, angelcake,” said the camera robot. “I bet gramps here palmed that to impress you. I never miss a—”
“The Barnum Drug Bureau planted it,” corrected Summer. “Apparently they stick ’em hither and yon aboard this spacecraft.”
“They do? Then that means our tip about—”
“Stay mum,” advised Summer as he headed for the next room.
“You don’t expect to find more listening dornicks?” Vicky asked, following him. “What I mean is, Scoop is customized. Did I mention that already? The surveillance detecting gear he has built in to him sells at wholesale—wholesale, mind you—for a six-figure—”
“Let’s get rid of that BDB one first.” Retrieving it, he deposited the thing in the gold-rimmed dispozhole.
“Very impressive, the way you can still bend over like that, Summer,” observed Scoop from his perch in the parlor. “Could be your body isn’t yet as infirm as your brain.”
“Want me to show you how to switch him off when he’s not in use?” Summer offered, while circling the large oval bathpool on hands and knees.
“Oh, that’s only his idea of good-natured kidding,” said Vicky, watching Summer. “They built that into him. Journalistic badinage is the term for it.”
“That’s your term for…Ah, yeah.” With the aid of the bugsniffer he located a third spying device. One that was very similar to the unidentifiable one he’d found in his own cabin. When Summer stood, his left knee made a faint crackling sound.
“I make no comment on that telltale noise,” said Scoop. “I refrain from pointing out that old coots are noted for their creaking joints and bones. Which is only to be expected when you build with a calcium-based material rather than a dependable alloy like—”
“That’s enough teasing,” suggested Vicky.
After studying the device for a moment, Summer consigned it to the ship’s disposal system. “Found one in my quarters, too.”
“How the heck many people are interested in our digging into this Zombium smugg—”
“Wait.”
She pressed her fingers to her lips. “More?”
Summer continued his search. Finally, after five more minutes of poking around, he said, “That seems to be all.”
Vicky went back into the parlor to sit on the edge of the lucite sofa. “Okay, the first bug is probably courtesy of the Hollywood II security people. Right?”
“Yep.”