“Yeah,” said Langley. “And it’s going to get, a lot bigger before long.”
X
Three might be eyes as well as ears in the walls. Langley went to bed shortly after sunset. Spy-beams went right through the communicator, Valti had said, but he wore his pajamas anyway. He lay for an hour, threshing about as if unable to get to sleep. Then he commanded loud music. The recorded caterwauling should drown out a low-pitched conversation.
He hoped the stomach-knotting tension in him didn’t show on his face.
Scratching, as if after an itch, he pressed the stud. Then he struck a cigarette and lay waiting.
The tiny voice was a vibration inside him. He thought about sonic beams heterodyned and focused on his skull-hones. It was distorted, but he’d know Valti’s phrasing anywhere:
“Ah, Captain Langley. You do me an unprecedented honor. It is a pleasure even to be routed out of a snug bed to hear you. May I advise that you speak with your lips closed? The transmission will be clear enough.”
“All right.” There was one hopeless question which had to be asked. “I’m prepared to bargain with you—but do you have Blaustein and Matsumoto?”
“I do not, Captain. Will you take my word for that?”
“I … reckon so. Okay. I’ll tell you where I think Saris is—mind you, it’s only an informed guess—and I’ll help you find him if possible. In return, I want your best efforts to rescue my friends, together with the money, protection, and transportation you offered, both for’ myself and one other person, a slave girl who’s in this apartment with me.”
It was hard to make out whether the exultation which must be leaping through that gross form had entered the voice: “Very good, Captain. I assure you, you will not regret this. Now as to practical considerations, you must be removed without trace.”
“I’m not sure just how that little thing’s going to be done, Valti. I think I’m more or less under house arrest.”
“Nevertheless, you shall get out tonight. Let me think … In two hours, you and the girl will stroll out onto the balcony. For Father’s sake, make it look natural! Remain there, in plain sight from above, no matter what happens.”
“Okay. Two hours—2347 by my clock, right? See you!”
Now he had to wait. Langley got out another cigarette and lay as if listening to the music. Two hours! I’ll be one gray-haired wreck before then.
Time crawled, it took forever to get by a minute. Langley swore, went into the living room, and dialed for a book. Basic modern physics. At the rate time was going, two hours would be enough to get a Ph.D. He grew suddenly aware that he had been staring at the same scanned page for fifteen minutes. Hastily he dialed the next. Even if it wasn’t registering, he ought to look as if it were.
He looked at the clock and felt his belly muscles tighten. Twenty minutes to go.
He had to get Marin outside. He couldn’t leave her in this hellhole, and he had to do it in a way that the observers would consider unremarkable. For a while he sat thinking. The only way was one he didn’t like. A far New England ancestor compressed angry lips and tried to stop him. But—
He walked over to the door of her room. It opened for him, and he stood looking down on her. She was asleep. The coppery hair spilled softly around a face which held peace. He tried not to remember Peggy, and touched her arm.
She sat up. “Oh … Edwy.” Blinking her eyes open: “What is it?”
“Sorry to wake you,” he said awkwardly. “I couldn’t sleep. I feel like hell. Come talk to me, will you?”
She regarded him with something like compassion. “Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, of course.” Throwing a cloak over her thin nightgown, she followed him onto the balcony.
There were stars overhead. Against the remote blaze of city lights swam the black shark-form of a patrol ship. A small wind ruffled his hair. He wondered just where Lora stood—not far from the ancient site of Winnipeg, wasn’t it?
Marin leaned against his side, and he put an arm about her waist. The vague light showed a wistful, uncertain curve to her mouth.
“It’s nice out,” he said banally.
“Yes …” She was waiting for something. He knew what it was, and so did Chanthavar’s observers sitting at their screens. God, how he wanted to get away from their eyes!
He stopped and made himself kiss her. She responded gently, a little clumsily as yet. Then he looked at her for a long while and couldn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled at last.
How long to go? Five minutes? Ten?
“What for?” she asked.
“I’ve no right—”
“You have every right. I’m yours, you know. This is what I’m for.”
“Shut up,” he croaked. “I mean a moral right.” There was a hammering in his temples.
“Come,” she said, taking his hand. “Come on back inside.”
“No—not yet,” he stammered.
She waited. And because there seemed nothing else to do, he found himself kissing her again.
Five minutes? Three? Two? One?
“Come,” she breathed. “Come with me now.”
He hung back. “Wait … wait …”
“You aren’t afraid of me. What is it? There’s something strange—”
“Shut up!” he gasped.
Fire blossomed in the air. A moment later Langley felt a fist of concussion. He lurched back and saw a spaceship streak by, blazing at the patrol craft. Wind roared behind it.
“Get out of the way, Edwy!” Marin darted for the shelter of the living room. He grabbed her by the hair, snatched her back and stood in the open. The attacking ship fled, gone in a blur.
And something took hold of Langley and whirled him upward.
Tractor beam, he thought crazily, a controlled gravity beam. Then something black yawned before him, a portal gaped. He went through and it clanged shut behind him.
There was a pulsing of great engines as he picked himself up. Marin huddled at his feet. He raised her and she shuddered in his arms. “It’s all right,” he mumbled shakily. “It’s all right. We got away. Maybe.”
A man in gray coveralls entered the little steel lock chamber. “Well done, sir!” he said. “I think we’re pulling clear. Will you follow me?”
“What is it?” asked Marin wildly. “Where are we going?”
“I made a deal with the Society,” said Langley. “They’ll get us out of the Solar System. We’re going to be free, both of us.”
Inwardly, he wondered.
They went down a narrow hall. The ship thrummed around them. At the end of the passage, they came into a small room studded and glittering with instruments. One screen held a view of the hard stars of space.
Goltam Valti surged from his chair to pound Langley’s back and pump his hand and roar a greeting. “Marvelous, Captain! Excellent! A lovely job, if you pardon my immodesty.”
Langley felt weak. He sat down, pulling Marin to his lap without thinking about it. “Just exactly what did happen?” he asked.
“I and a few others slipped out of the Society tower,” said Valti. “We took an air speedster to the estate of a … sympathetic … Minister, where we maintain a little bastion. Two spaceships were required: one to create a brief diversion, and this one to pull you up and escape in the confusion.”
“How about the other boat? Won’t they catch that?”
“It has been arranged for. There will be a lucky shot which brings it down—bomb planted aboard, you know. It’s robot manned, carefully cleaned of all traces of ownership except one or two small indications which may suggest Centaurian origin to Chanthavar.” Valti winced. “A pity to lose so fine a vessel. It cost a good half-million solars. Profits are hard to come by these days, believe me, sir.”
“As soon as Chanthavar checks on you, finds you missing—”
“My good captain!” Valti looked hurt. “I’m am not quite an amateur. My double is already peacefully and lawfully asleep in my own qua
rters.
“Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “if we can find Saris, it may well be necessary for me to leave Sol altogether. If so, I do hope my successor can handle the Venusian trade. It’s a difficult one; it can so easily go into the red.”
“All right,” said Langley. “It’s done. I’m committed. What’s your plan of action?”
“That depends on where he is and what methods will be required to establish contact. But this flitter is fast, silent, screened against radiation; it has weapons, and there are thirty armed men aboard. Do you think it will suffice?”
“I … believe so. Bring me some maps of the Mesko area.”
Valti nodded at the little green-furred creature Thakt, which had been sitting in a corner. It tittered and scuttled out.
“Charming young lady,” bowed Valti. “May I ask her name?”
“Marin,” she said in a thin voice. She got off Langley’s lap and stood backed against the wall.
“It’s all right,” said the spaceman. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, trying to smile. “But bewildered.”
Thakt returned with a sheaf of papers. Langley frowned over them, attempting to find his way through an altered geography. “It was one time on Holat,” he said. “Saris and I had taken the day off to go fishing, and he showed me some caves. I told him about Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and he was very interested. Later, shortly before we left for Earth, he mentioned them again, and I promised to take him there. As we were going over some maps of Earth, for the benefit of several Holatan philosophers, I showed him their location. So if he could get maps of the modern world, Carlsbad wouldn’t be far away, and he’d know it was an unexplored warren. Of course, it may be colonized or something by now, or have gone out of existence, for all I know.”
Valti followed his pointing finger. “Yes … I believe I’ve heard of the spot,” he said with a touch of excitement. “Corrad Caverns—yes, here. Is that the location?”
Langley used a large-scale map to orient himself. “I think so.”
“Ah, then I do know. It’s part of the estate of Minister Ranull, who keeps a good deal of his property in a wild desert condition as a park. Sometimes his guests are shown Corrad Caverns, but I’m sure that nobody ever goes very far into them. They must be quite deserted for most of the time. A brilliant suggestion, Captain! My compliments.”
“If it doesn’t pan out,” said Langley, “then I’m just as much in the dark as you.”
“We’ll try. You shall have your reward regardless.” Valti spoke into a communicator. “Well go there at once. No time to lose. Would you like a stimulant drug …? Here. It will give you alertness and energy for the next several hours, and you may need them. Excuse me, I have some details to arrange.” He left, and Langley was alone with Marin. She watched him for a while without speaking.
“All right,” he said. “All right, I made my choice. I figured the Society would make better use of this power than anybody else. But of course, you’re a citizen of Sol. If you don’t approve, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know. It is a very great burden to take on yourself.” She shook her head, “I can see what led you to it. Maybe you are right, maybe not, I can’t say. But I’m with you, Edwy.”
“Thank you,” he said, shakenly, and wondered if, in spite of himself, he might not be falling in love with her. He had a sudden image of the two of them, starting again somewhere beyond the sky. Of course that depended on whether they got away from Sol.
XI
It had felt good to shed his over-colorful pajamas for a spaceman’s coverall, boots, helmet, a gun. Langley had never quite realized how much clothes make the man. But walking through a hollow immensity of darkness, feeling the underground chill and hearing a mockery of echoes, he knew again the helplessness and self-doubt which had been strangling him.
There were light-tubes strung throughout miles of the caverns, but a sneak expedition could not turn them on; they served only to indicate regions where Saris would surely not be. Half a dozen men walked beside Langley, the reflected glow of flashbeams limning their faces ghostly against shadow. They were all crewmen, strangers to him. Valti had declared himself too old and cowardly to enter the tunnels; Marin had wanted to come but been refused permission.
A tumbled fantasy of limestone, great rough pillars and snags leaped from the gloom as beams flashed around. This place couldn’t have changed much, thought Langley. In five thousand years, the slow drip and evaporation of cold water would have added a bit here and there, but Earth was old and patient. He felt that time itself lay buried somewhere in these reaching leagues.
The man who carried the neural tracker looked up. “Not a flicker yet,” he said. Unconsciously, his voice was hushed, as if the stillness lay heavy on it. “How far down have we come? A long ways—and there are so many branches. Even if he is here, we may never find him.”
Langley went on. There was nothing else he could do. He didn’t think Saris would have gone further underground than necessary. The Holatans weren’t exactly claustrophobic, but they were creatures of open land and sky. It went against their instincts to remain long enclosed.
Logic helped somewhat. Saris hadn’t had a map of the caves. He’d have slipped in through the main entrance, like his present followers, because he wouldn’t have known where any other approach was. Then he would look for a room to live in, with exits and a water supply. Langley turned to the man with the dowsing unit. “Isn’t there a pool or river somewhere near?”
“Yes. Water over in that direction. Shall we try?”
“Uh-huh.” Langley groped toward the nearest tunnel. A ridge of stone clubbed his ankles. Beyond, the passage narrowed rapidly until he had to crawl.
“This may be it,” he said. Echoes shivered around his words. “Saris could easily slip through. He can go four-footed anytime he wants, but it’s a hard approach for a man.”
“Wait! Here, you take the tracker, Captain,” said someone behind him. “I think it kicked over, but all these people ahead of me make too much interference.”
Langley squirmed around to grasp the box. Focusing it, he squinted at the green-glowing dial. It was responsive to the short-range impulses emitted by a nervous system and—yes, by God, the needle was quivering more than it should!
Excited, he crawled further, the harsh damp wall scraping his back. His flashbeam was a single white lance thrust into blindness. His breathing was a loud rasp in his throat.
He came suddenly to the end and almost went over. The tunnel must open several feet or yards above the floor. “Saris!” he called. The echoes flew about; this was a good-sized room. Somewhere he heard running water. “Saris Hronna! Are you there?”
A blaster bolt smashed after him. He saw the dazzle of it. There were spots dancing before his eyes for minutes afterward, and the radiation stung his face. He snapped off the light and jumped, hoping wildly that it wasn’t too far to the ground. Something raked his leg, the jolting rattled his teeth, and he fell to an invisible floor.
Another beam flamed toward the tunnel mouth. Langley felt blood hot and sticky on his calf. The Holatan knew just where the opening was, he could ricochet his bolts and fry the men within. “Saris! It’s me—Edward Langley—I’m your friend!”
The echoes laughed at him, dancing through an enormous night. Friend … friend … friend … friend … The underground stream talked with a cold frantic voice. If the outlaw had gone mad with fear and loneliness, or if he had decided in bleak sanity to kill any human who ventured here, Langley was done. The incandescent sword of an energy beam, or the sudden closing of jaws in his throat, would be the last thing he ever felt. It had to be tried. Langley dug himself flat against the rock. “Saris! I’ve come to get you out of here! I’ve come to take you home!”
The answer rumbled out of blackness, impossible to locate through the echoes: “Iss you? What do you want?”
“I’ve made arrangements … You can get back to Holat
!” Langley was shouting in English, their only common language; the Holatan dialects were too unlike man’s for him to have learned more than a few phrases. “We’re your friends, the only friends you’ve got.”
“Sso.” He could not read any expression into the tone. He thought he could feel the vibrations of a heavy body, flitting through the dark on padded feet. “I can not be sure. Please to the pressent situation wit’ honesty describe.”
Langley put it into a few words. The stone under his belly was wet and chill. He sneezed and snuffled. “It’s the only chance for all of us,” he finished. “If you don’t agree, you’ll stay here till you die or are dragged out.”
There was a silence, then: “You I trust, I know you. But iss it not that thesse otherss you hawe deceiwed possible?”
“I—what? Oh. You mean maybe the Society is playing me for a sucker too? Yes. It could be. But I don’t think so.”
“I hawe no dessire for dissection,” said the one who waited.
“You won’t be. They want to study you, see how you do what you do. You told me your thinkers back home have a pretty good idea of how it works.”
“Yes. Not’ing could from the gross anatomy of my brain be learned. I t’ink such a machine ass your … friendss … wish could eassily be built.” Saris hesitated, then: “Wery well. I musst take chancess, no matter what happenss. Let it be sso. You may all enter.”
When the lights picked him out, he stood tall and proud, waiting with the dignity of his race among the boxes of supplies which had been his only reliance. He took Langley’s hands between his and nuzzled the man’s cheek. “Iss good to see you again,” he said.
“I’m … sorry for what happened,” said Langley. “I didn’t know—”
“No. The uniwerse full of surprisses iss. No matter, if I can go home again.”
The spacemen accepted him almost casually; they were used to non-human intelligence. After binding Langley’s injury, they formed a cordon and returned. Valti raised ship as soon as all were aboard and then conferred with them. “Is there anything you require, Saris Hronna?” he asked through the American.
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