The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction: Keith Laumer

by Keith Laumer

  Six sets of hard eyes turned my way. It was too late to duck back out of sight. I trotted up to the first of the row of guards. “Say, fella,” I stage-whispered, “where’s the ah—you know.”

  “Every bed chamber is equipped,” he said gruffly, raising his sword and fingering its tip lovingly.

  “Yeah? I never noticed.” I moved off, looking chastened. If they thought I was a kewpie, so much the better. I was a mouse in cat country here and I wasn’t ready to fake a meow—not yet.

  On the ground floor I found Torbu and his cohort quartered in a barrack-room off the main entry hall.

  “We’re still in enemy territory,” I reminded Torbu. “I want every man ready.”

  “No fear, boss,” said Torbu. “All my bullies got an eye on the door and a hand on a knife-hilt.”

  “Have you seen or heard anything useful?”

  “Naw. These local dullards fall dumb at the first query.”

  “Keep your ears cocked. I want at least two men awake and on the alert all night.”

  “You bet, noble Drgon.”

  I judged distances carefully as I went back up the two flights to my own room. Inside I dropped into a brocaded easy chair and tried to add up what I’d seen.

  First: Ommodurad’s apartment, as nearly as I could judge, was directly over my own, two floors up. That was a break—or maybe I was where I was for easier surveillance. I’d skip that angle, I decided. It tended to discourage me and I needed all the enthusiasm I could generate.

  Second: I wasn’t going to learn anything useful trotting around corridors. Ommodurad wasn’t the kind to leave traces of skullduggery lying around where the guests would see them.

  And third: I should have known better than to hit this fortress with two squads and a .38 in the first place. Foster was here; Qohey had said so and the Great Owner’s reaction to my mention of him confirmed it. What was it about Foster, anyway, that made him so interesting to these Top People? I’d have to ask him that one when I found him. But to do that I’d have to leave the beaten track.

  I went to the wide double window and looked up. A cloud swept from the great three-quarters face of Cinte, blue in the southern sky, and I could see an elaborately carved façade ranging up past a row of windows above my own to a railed balcony bathed in a pale light from the apartment within. If my calculations were correct that would be Ommodurad’s digs. The front door was guarded like an octogenarian’s harem but the back way looked like a breeze.

  I pulled my head back in and thought about it. It was risky…but it had that element of the unexpected that just might let me get away with it. Tomorrow the Owner of Owners might have thought it through and switched me to another room…or to a cell in the basement. Then too, wall-scaling didn’t occur to these Vallonians as readily as it did to a short-timer from earth. They had too much to lose to risk it on a chancey climb.

  Too much thinking is never a good idea when your pulse is telling you it’s time for action. I rolled a heavy armoire fairly soundlessly over the deep-pile carpet and lodged it against the door. That might slow down a casual caller. I slipped the magazine out of the automatic, fitted nine greasy brass cartridges into it, slammed it home, dropped the pistol back in the holster. It had a comforting weight. I buttoned the strap over it and went back to the window.

  The clouds were back across Cinte’s floodlight; that would help. I stepped out. The deep carving gave me easy handholds and I made it to the next windowsill without even working up a light sweat. Compared with my last climb, back in Lima, this was a cinch.

  I rested a moment, then clambered around the dark window—just in case there was an insomniac on the other side of the glass—and went on up. I reached the balcony, had a hairy moment as I groped outward for a hold on the smooth floor-tiling above…and then I was pulling up and over the ornamental iron work.

  The balcony was narrow, about twenty feet long, giving on half a dozen tall glass doors. Three showed light behind heavy draperies, three were dark. I moved close, tried to see something past the edge of the draperies. No go. I put an ear to the glass, thought maybe I heard a sound, like a distant volcano. That would be Ommodurad’s bass rumble. The bear was in his cave.

  I went along to the dark doors and on impulse tried a handle. It turned and the door swung in soundlessly. I felt my pulse pick up a double-time beat. I stood peering past the edge of the door into the ink-black interior. It didn’t look inviting. In fact it looked repellent. Even a country boy like me could see that to step into the dragon’s den without even a Zippo to spot the footstools with would be the act of a nitwit.

  I swallowed hard, got a firm grip on my pistol, and went in.

  A soft fold of drapery brushed my face and I had the pistol out and my back to the wall with a speed that would have made Earp faint with envy. My adrenals gave a couple of wild jumps and my nervous system followed with a variety of sensations, none pleasant.

  It took me a minute to get my Adam’s apple swallowed again and remind myself that I was a rough tough son-of-a-gun from the planet earth who had parlayed one short life into more trouble than most Vallonians managed in half of eternity, and I was on my way to get my pal Foster out of a tight spot, hand him back his memory, and set the Two Worlds back on the rails they had fallen off of about six hundred years before Alexander started looking around for his first rumble.

  I stopped before I got so confident I charged into the next room and challenged Ommodurad to wrestle, two falls out of three. I could hear his voice better now, muttering beyond the partition. If I could make out what he was saying.…

  I edged along the wall, found a heavy door, closed and locked. No help there. I felt my way further, found another door. Delicately I tried the handle, eased it open a crack.

  A closet, half filled with racked garments. But I could hear more clearly now. Maybe it was a double closet with communicating doors both to the room I was in and to the next one where the Great Owner was still rambling on. Apparently something had overcome his aversion to talking. There were pauses that must have been filled in by the replies of somebody else who didn’t have the vocal timbre Ommodurad did.

  I felt my way through the hanging clothing, felt over the closet walls. I was out of luck: there was no other door. I put an ear to the wall. I could catch an occasional word:

  “…ring…Okk-Hamiloth…vaults.…”

  It sounded like something I’d like to hear more about. How could I get closer? On impulse I reached up, touched a low ceiling…and felt a ridge like the trim around an access panel to a crawl space.

  I crossed my fingers, stood on tiptoe to push at the panel. Nothing moved. I felt around in the dark, encountered a low shelf covered with shoes. I investigated; it was movable. I eased it aside a foot or two, piled the shoes on the floor, and stepped up.

  The panel was two feet long on a side, with no discernible hinges or catch. I pushed some more, then gritted my teeth and heaved. There was a startlingly loud crack! and the panel lifted. I blinked away the dust that settled in my eyes, reached to feel around within the opening, touched nothing but rough floor boards.

  This would be an excellent time, I reflected, to back out of here, get a few hours’ sleep, and tomorrow bid Ommodurad a hearty farewell. Then in a few months, after I had had time to organize my new Estate and align a few supporting Owners I could come back in force.

  I cocked my head, listening. Ommodurad had stopped talking and another voice said something. Then there was a heavy thump, the clump of feet, and a metallic sound. After a moment the Great Owner’s voice came again…and the other voice answered.

  I stretched, grabbed the edge of the opening, and pulled myself up. I leaned forward, got a leg up, and rolled silently onto the rough floor. Feeling my way, I crawled, felt a wall rising, followed it, turned a corner.… The voices were louder, quite suddenly. I saw why: there was a ventilating register ahead, gri
dded light gleaming through it. I crept along to the opening, lay flat, peered through it and saw three men.

  Ommodurad was standing with his back to me, a giant figure swathed to the eyes in purple robes. Beside him a lean redhead with a leg that had been broken and badly set stood round-shouldered, teeth bared in an eager grimace, clutching a rod of office. The third man was Foster.

  * * * *

  Foster stood, legs braced apart as though to withstand an earthquake, hands manacled before him. He looked steadily at the redhead, like a man marking a tree for cutting.

  “I know nothing of these crimes,” he said.

  Ommodurad turned, swept out of sight. The redhead motioned. Foster turned away, moving stiffly, passed from my view. I heard a door open and close. I lay where I was and tried to sort out half a dozen conflicting impulses that clamored for attention. A few were easy: it wouldn’t help matters to yell “Stop, thief!” or to fall through the register and chase after Foster with loud cries of joy. It wouldn’t be much better to scramble out, dash downstairs, and turn out my bodyguards to raid Ommodurad’s apartment.

  What might do some good was to gather more information. It had been bad luck that I had arrived at my peephole a few minutes too late to hear what the interview had been all about. But I might still make use of my advantage.

  I felt over the register, found fasteners at the corners. They lifted easily and the metal grating tilted back into my hands. I laid it aside, poked my head out. The room was empty, as far as I could see. It was time to take a few chances. I reversed my position, let my legs through the opening, and dropped softly to the floor. I reached back up and managed to prop the grating in position—just in case.

  It was a fancy chamber, hung in purple and furnished for a king. I poked through the pigeonholes of a secretary, opened a few cupboards, peered under the bed. It looked like I wasn’t going to find any useful clues lying around loose.

  I went to the glass doors to the balcony, unlocked one and left it ajar—in case I wanted to leave in a hurry. There was another door across the room. I went over and tried it: locked.

  That gave me something definite to look for: a key. I rummaged some more in the secretary, then tried the drawer in a small table beside a broad couch and came up with a nice little steel key that looked like maybe.…

  I tried it. It was. Luck was still coming my way. I pushed open the door, saw a dark room beyond. I felt for a light switch, flicked it on, pushed the door shut behind me.

  The room looked like the popular idea of a necromancer’s study. The windowless walls were lined with shelves packed closely with books. The high black-draped ceiling hung like a hovering bat above the ramparted floor of bare, dark-polished wood. Narrow tables choked with books and instruments stood along a side of the chamber and at the far end I saw a deep-cushioned couch with a heavy dome-shaped apparatus like a beauty shop hair-dryer mounted at one end. I recognized it: it was a memory reinforcing machine, the first I had seen on Vallon.

  I crossed the room and examined it. The last one I had seen—on the Far-Voyager in the room near the library—had been a stark utility model. This was a deluxe job, with soft upholstery and bright metal fittings and more dials and idiot lights than a late model Detroit status symbol. This solved one of the problems that had been hovering around the edge of my mind. I had fetched Foster’s memory back to him, but without a machine to use it in it was just a tantalizing souvenir. Now all I had to do was sneak him away from Ommodurad, make it back here.…

  All of a sudden I felt tired, vulnerable, helpless, and all alone. I had been taking wild chances, setting my head more and more brazenly into the kind of iron noose the Big Owner would arrange for his enemies…and without the ghost of a plan, without even an idea of what was going on. What was Ommodurad’s interest in Foster? Why did he hide away here, keeping the rest of Vallon away with rumors of magic and spells? What connection did he have with the disaster that had befallen the Two Worlds—now reduced to One, and a poor one at that.

  And why was I, a plain Joe named Legion, mixed up in it right to the eyebrows, when I could be sitting safe at home in a clean federal pen?

  The answer to that last one wasn’t too hard to recite: I had had a pal once, a smooth character named Foster, who had pulled me back from the ragged edge just when I was about to make a bigger mistake than usual. He had been a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and he had treated me like one. Together we had shared a strange adventure that had made me rich and had showed me that it was never too late to straighten your back and take on whatever the Fates handed out.

  I had come running his way when trouble got too thick back home. And I’d found him in a worse spot that I was in. He had come back, after the most agonizing exile a man had ever suffered, to find his world fallen back into savagery, and his memory still eluding him. Now he was in chains, without friends and without hope…but still not broken, still standing on his own two feet.…

  But he was wrong on one point: he had one little hope. Not much: just a hard-luck guy with a penchant for bad decisions, but I was here and I was free. I had my pistol on my hip and a neat back way into the Owner’s bedroom, and if I played it right and watched my timing and had maybe just a little luck, say about the amount it took to hit the Irish Sweepstakes, I might bring it off yet.

  Right now it was time to return to my crawlspace. Ommodurad might come back and talk some more, tip me off to a vulnerable spot in the armor of his fortress. I went to the door, flicked off the light, turned the handle…and went rigid.

  Ommodurad was back. He pulled off the purple cloak, tossed it aside, strode to a wall bar. I clung to the crack of the door, not daring to move even to close it.

  “But my lord,” the voice of the redhead said, “I know he remembers—”

  “Not so,” Ommodurad’s voice rumbled. “On the morrow I strip his mind to the bare clean jelly.…”

  “Let me, dread lord. With my steel I’ll have the truth from him.”

  “Such a one as he your steel has never known!” the bass voice snarled.

  “Great Owner, I crave but one hour…tomorrow, in the Ceremonial Chamber. I shall environ him with the emblems of the past—”

  “Enough!” Ommodurad’s fist slammed against the bar, made glasses jump. “On such starveling lackwits as you a mighty empire hangs. It is a crime before the Gods and on his head I lay it.” The Owner tossed off a glass, jerked his head at the cowering man. “Still, I grant thy boon. Now begone, babbler of folly.”

  The redhead ducked, grinning, disappeared. Ommodurad muttered to himself, strode up and down the room, stood staring out into the night. He noticed the open balcony door, pulled it shut with a curse. I held my breath but no general check of doors followed.

  The big man threw off his clothes then. He clambered up on the wide couch, touched a switch somewhere, and the room was dark. Within five minutes I heard the heavy breathing of deep sleep.

  I had found out one thing anyway: tomorrow was Foster’s last day. One way or another Ommodurad and the redhead between them would destroy him. That didn’t leave much time. But since the project was already hopeless it didn’t make much difference.

  I had a choice of moves now: I could tip-toe across to the register and try to wiggle through it without waking up the brontosaurus on the bed…or I could try for the balcony door a foot from where he slept…or I could stay put and wait him out. The last idea had the virtue of requiring no immediate daring adventures. I could just curl up on the floor, or, better still, on the padded couch.…

  A weird idea was taking shape in my mind like a genie rising from a bottle. I felt in my pocket, pulled out the two small cylinders that represented two men’s memories of hundreds of years of living. One belonged to Foster, the one with the black and golden bands; but the other was the property of a stranger who had died three thousand years ago, out in space.…

 
This cylinder, barely three inches long, held all the memories of a man who had been Foster’s confidant when he was Qulqlan, a man who knew what had happened aboard the ship, what the purpose of the expedition had been, and what conditions they had left behind on Vallon.

  I needed that knowledge. I needed any knowledge I could get, to add a feather-weight to my side of the balance when the showdown came. The cylinder would tell me plenty, including, possibly, the reason for Ommodurad’s interest in Foster.

  It was simple to use. I merely placed the cylinder in the receptacle in the side of the machine, took my place, lowered the helmet into position…and in an hour or so I would awaken with another man’s memories stored in my brain, to use as I saw fit.

  It would be a crime to waste the opportunity. The machine I had found here was probably the only one still in existence on Vallon. I had blundered my way into the one room in the palace that could help me in what I had to do; I had been lucky; I couldn’t waste that luck.

  I went across to the soft-cushioned chair, spotted the recess in its side, and thrust the plain cylinder into it; it seated with a click.

  I sat on the couch, lay back, reached up to pull the head-piece down into position against my skull.…

  There was an instant of pain—like a pre-frontal lobotomy performed without anesthetic.

  Then blackness.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  I stood beside the royal couch where Qulqlan the Rthr lay and I saw that this was the hour for which I had waited long, for the Change was on him.…

  The time-scale stood at the third hour of the Death watch; all aboard slept save myself alone. I must move swiftly and at the Dawn watch show them the deed well done.

  I shook the sleeping man; him who had once been the Rthr—king no more, by the law of the Change. He wakened slowly, looked about him, with the clear eyes of the newborn.