CHAPTER TEN
The green-sun Meristem lay far behind them. Karol's burns had healed;only a faint pattern on Ringg's forehead showed where six stitches hadclosed the ugly wound in his skull. Bart's wrist, after a few days ofnightmarish pain when he tried to pick up anything heavy, had healed.Two more warp-drive shifts through space had taken the _Swiftwing_ far,far out to the rim of the known galaxy, and now the great crimson coalof Antares burned in their viewports.
Antares had twelve planets, the outermost of which--far away now, at thefurthest point in its orbit from the point of the _Swiftwing_'s entryinto the system--was a small captive sun. No larger than the planetEarth, it revolved every ninety years around its huge primary.
Small as it was, it was blazingly blue-white brilliant, and had a tinyplanet of its own. After their stop on Antares Seven--the largest of theinhabited planets in this system, where the Lhari spaceport waslocated--they would make a careful orbit around the great red primary,and land on the tiny worldlet of the blue-white secondary before leavingthe Antares system.
As Bart watched Antares growing in the viewports, he felt a variety ofemotions. On the one hand, he was relieved that as his voyage in secrecyneared its official destination, he had as yet not incurred unmasking.
But he felt uncertain about his father's co-conspirators. Would theyreturn him to human form and send him back to Vega, his part ended? Orwould they, unthinkably, demand that he go on into the Lhari Galaxy?What would he do, if they did?
At one moment he entertained fantasies of going on into the Lhariworlds, returning victorious with the secret of their fueling location,or of the star-drive itself. At another, he could not wait to be free ofit all. He longed for the society of his own people, yet ached to thinkthat this voyage between the stars must end so soon.
They made planetfall at the largest Lhari spaceport Bart had seen; asalways, the Second Officer was the first to go through Decontam andashore, returning with exchanged mail and messages for the _Swiftwing_'screw. He laughed when he gave Bartol a sealed packet. "So you're notquite the orphan we've always thought!"
Bart took it, his heart suddenly pounding, and walked away through thegroups of officers and crew eagerly debating how they would spend theirport leave. He knew what it would be.
It was on the letterhead of Eight Colors, and it contained no message.Only an address--and a time.
He slipped away unobserved to the Mentorian part of the ship to borrow acloak from Meta. She did not ask why he wanted it, and stopped him whenhe would have told her. "I'd--rather not know."
She looked very small and very scared, and Bart wished he could comforther, but he knew she would shrink from him, repelled and horrified byhis Lhari skin, hair, claws.
Yet she reached for his hand, gripping it hard in her own dainty one."Bartol, be careful," she whispered, then stopped. "Bartol--that's aLhari name. What's your real one?"
"Bart. Bart Steele."
"Good luck, Bart." There were tears in her gray eyes.
With the blue cloak folded around his face, hands tucked in the slits atthe side, he felt almost like himself. And as the strange crimsontwilight folded down across the streets, laden with spicy smells andlittle, fragrant gusts of wind, he almost savored the sense of being aconspirator, of playing for high stakes in a network of intrigue betweenthe stars. He was off on an adventure, and meant to enjoy it.
The address he had been given was a lavish estate, not far from thespaceport, across a little gleaming lake that shimmered red, indigo,violet in the crimson sunset, surrounded by a low wall of what lookedlike purple glass. Bart, moving slowly through the gate, felt that eyeswere watching him, and forced himself to walk with slow dignity.
Up the path. Up a low flight of black-marble stairs. A door swung openand shut again, closing out the red sunset, letting him into a room thatseemed dim after the months of Lhari lights. There were three men in theroom, but his eyes were drawn instantly to one, standing against anold-fashioned fireplace.
He was very tall and quite thin, and his hair was snow-white, though hedid not look old. Bart's first incongruous thought was, _He'd make abetter Lhari than I would._ His firm, commanding voice told Bart at oncethat this was the man in charge. "You are Bartol?" He extended his hand.
Bart took it--and found himself gripped in a judo hold. The other twomen, leaping to place behind him, felt all over his body, not gently.
"No weapons, Montano."
"Look here--"
"Save it," Montano said. "If you're the right person, you'll understand.If not, you won't have much time to resent it. A very simple test. Whatcolor is that divan?"
"Green."
"And those curtains?"
"Darker green, with gold and red figures."
The men released him, and the white-haired man smiled.
"So you actually did it, Steele! I thought for sure the code message wasa fake." He stepped back and looked Bart over from head to foot,whistling. "Raynor Three is a genius! Claws and everything! What a deuceof a risk to take though!"
"You know my name," Bart said, "but who are you?"
Suspicion came back into the dark eyes. "Does that Mentorian cloakmean--you've lost your memories, too?"
"No," said Bart, "it's simpler than that. I'm not Rupert Steele.I'm--" his voice caught--"I'm his son."
The man looked startled and shocked. "I suppose that means Rupert isdead. Dead! It came a little before he expected it, then. So you'reBart." He sighed. "My name's Montano. This is Hedrick, and I suppose yourecognize Raynor Two."
Bart blinked. It was the same face, but it was not grim like RaynorOne's, nor expressive and kindly like that of Raynor Three. This onejust looked dangerous.
"But sit down," Montano said with a wave of his hand, "make yourselfcomfortable."
Hedrick relieved Bart of his cloak; Raynor Two put a cup of somesteaming drink in his hand, passed him a tray of small hot fried thingsthat tasted crisp and delicious. Bart relaxed, answering questions. _Howold? Only seventeen? And you came all alone on a Lhari ship, workingyour way as Astrogator? I must say you've got guts, kid!_ It wasdangerously like the fantasy he had invented. But Montano interrupted atlast.
"All right, this isn't a party and we haven't all night. I don't supposeBart has either. Enough time wasted. Since you walked into this, youngSteele, I take it you know what our plans are, after this?"
Bart shook his head. "No. Raynor Three sent me to call off your plans,because of my father--"
"That sounds like Three," interrupted Raynor Two. "Entirely toosqueamish!"
Montano said irritably, "We couldn't have done anything without a man onthe _Swiftwing_, and you know it. We still can't. Bart, I suppose youknow about Lharillis."
"Not by that name."
"Your next stop. The planetoid of the captive sun. That little hunk ofbare rock out there is the first spot the Lhari visited in thisgalaxy--even before Mentor. It's an inferno of light from that littleblue-white sun, so of course they love it--it's just like home to them.When they found that the inner planets of Antares were inhabited, theybuilt their spaceport here, so they'd have a better chance at trade."Montano scowled fiercely.
"But they wanted that little worldlet. So we went all over it to be surethere were no rare minerals there, and finally leased it to them, acentury at a time. They mine the place for some kind of powderedlubricant that's better than graphite--it's all done by robot machinery,no one's stationed there. Every time a Lhari ship comes through thissystem they stop there, even though there's nothing on Lharillis excepta landing field and some concrete bunkers filled with robot miningmachinery. They'll stop there on the way out of this system--and that'swhere you come in. We need you on board, to put the radiation counterout of commission."
He took a chart from a drawer, spread it out on a table top. "Thesimplest way would be to cut these two wires. When the Lhari land, we'llbe there, waiting for them. On board the Lhari ship, there must be fullrecords--coordinates of their home world, of where they go for
theircatalyst fuel--all that."
Bart whistled. "But won't the crew defend the ship? You can't fightenergon-ray guns!"
Montano's face was perfectly calm. "No. We won't even try." He handedBart a small strip of pale-yellow plastic.
"Keep this out of sight of the Mentorians," he said. "The Lhari won't beable to see the color, of course. But when it turns orange, take cover."
"What is it?"
"Radiation-exposure film. It's exactly as sensitive to radiation as youare. When it starts to turn orange, it's picking up radiation. If you'reaboard the ship, get into the drive chambers--they're lead-lined--andyou'll be safe. If you're out on the surface, you'll be all right insideone of the concrete bunkers. But get under cover before it turns red,because by that time every Lhari of them will be stone-cold dead."
Bart let the strip of plastic drop, staring in disbelief at Montano'scold, cruel face. "Kill them? Kill a whole _shipload_ of them? That's_murder_!"
"Not murder. War."
"We're not at war with the Lhari! We have a treaty with them!"
"The Federation has, because they don't dare do anything else," Montanosaid, his face taking on the fanatic's light, "but some of us dare dosomething, some of us aren't going to sit forever and let them strangleall humanity, hold us down, let us _die_! It's war, Bart, war foreconomic survival. Do you suppose the Lhari would hesitate to killanyone if we did anything to hurt their monopoly of the stars? Or didn'tthey tell you about David Briscoe, how they hunted him down like ananimal--"
"But how do we know that was Lhari policy, and not just--some fanatic?"Bart asked suddenly. He thought of the death of the elder Briscoe, andas always he shivered with the horror of it, but for the first time itcame to him: _Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physicallyattacked the Lhari--threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down inself-defense!_ "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're notwanton murderers."
Raynor Two made a derisive sound. "Sounds like it might be Threetalking!"
Hedrick growled, "Why waste time talking? Listen, young Steele, you'lldo as you're told, or else! Who gave you the right to argue?"
"Quiet, both of you." Montano came and laid his arm around Bart'sshoulders, persuasively. "Bart, I know how you feel. But can't you trustme? You're Rupert Steele's son, and you're here to carry on what yourfather left undone, aren't you? If you fail now, there may not beanother chance for years--maybe not in our lifetimes."
Bart dropped his head in his hands. _Kill a whole shipload ofLhari--innocent traders? Bald, funny old Rugel, stern Vorongil, Ringg--_
"I don't know what to do!" It was a cry of despair. Bart lookedhelplessly around at the men.
Montano said, almost tenderly, "You couldn't side with the Lhari againstmen, could you? Could a son of Rupert Steele do that?"
Bart shut his eyes, and something seemed to snap within him. His fatherhad died for this. He might not understand Montano's reasons, but he hadto believe that Montano had them.
"All right," he said, thickly, "you can count on me."
When he left Montano's house, he had the details of the plan, hadmemorized the location of the device he was to sabotage, and accepted,from Montano, a pair of dark contact lenses. "The light's hellish outthere," Montano warned. "I know you're half Mentorian, but they don'teven take their Mentorians out there. They're proud of saying no humanfoot has ever touched Lharillis."
When he got back to the Lhari spaceport, Ringg hailed him. "Where haveyou been? I hunted the whole port for you! I wouldn't join the partytill you came. What's a pal for?"
Bart brushed by him without speaking, disregarding Ringg's surprisedstare, and went up the ramp. He reached his own cabin and threw himselfdown in his bunk, torn in two.
Ringg was his friend! Ringg liked him! And if he did what Montanowanted, Ringg would die.
Ringg had followed him, and was standing in the cabin door, watching himin surprise. "Bartol, is something the matter? Is there anything I cando? Have you had more bad news?"
Bart's torn nerves snapped. He raised his head and yelled at Ringg,"Yes, there is something! You can quit following me around and just letme alone for a change!"
Ringg took a step backward. Then he said, very softly, "Suit yourself,Bartol. Sorry." And noiselessly, his white crest held high, he glidedaway.
Bart's resolve hardened. Loneliness had done odd things to him--thinkingof Ringg, a Lhari, one of the freaks who had killed his father, as afriend! If they knew who he was, they would turn on him, hunt him downas they'd hunted Briscoe, as they'd hunted his father, as they'd houndedhim from Earth to Procyon. He put his scruples aside. He'd made up hismind.
They could all die. What did he care? He was human and he was going tobe loyal to his own kind.
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