07-Beowulf Shaeffer

by Larry Niven

  Leaving all our Earthly wealth behind us was a pain. Feather could help: she contrived to divert a stream of ARM funds to Fafnir, replacing it from Carlos's wealth.

  Riiight. But Sharrol and I would be sponging off Carlos ... and maybe it wouldn't be Carlos. Feather controlled that wealth for now, and Feather liked control. She had not said that she expected to keep some for herself. That bothered me. It must have bothered Carlos too, though we never found privacy to talk about it.

  I wondered how Carlos would work it. Had he known Feather Filip before he reached Jinx? I could picture him designing something that would be useless on Earth: say, an upgraded version of the mass driver system that runs through the vacuum across Jinx's East Pole, replacing a more normal world's Pinwheel launcher. Design something, copyright it on Jinx under a pseudonym, form a company. Just in case he ever found the means to flee Sol system.

  Me, I went to my oldest friend on Earth. General Products owed Elephant a considerable sum, and Elephant -- Gregory Pelton -- owed me. He got General Products to arrange for credit on Home and Fafnir. Feather wouldn't have approved the breach in secrecy, but the aliens who run General Products don't reveal secrets. We'd never even located their homeworld.

  And Feather must have expected to control Carlos's funding and Carlos with it.

  And Sharrol ... was with me.

  She'd trusted me. Now she was a flat phobe broke and stranded on an alien world, if she still lived, if she wasn't the prisoner of a homicidal maniac. Four months, going on five. Long enough to drive her crazy, I thought.

  How could I hurry to her rescue? The word hurry was said to be forgotten on Fafnir; but perhaps I'd thought of a way.

  They let me sleep. When I woke there was soup. I was ravenous. We talked while we ate.

  The boat was Gullfish. The owners were Wilhelmin and Toranaga, brother and sister, both recently separated from mates and enjoying a certain freedom. Clean air, exercise, celibacy, before they returned to the mating dance, its embarrassments and frustrations and rewards.

  There was a curious turn to their accents. I tagged it as Australian at first, then as Plateau softened by speech training, or by a generation or two in other company. This was said to be typical of Fafnir. There was no Fafnir accent. The planet had been settled too recently and from too many directions.

  Wil finished her soup, went to a locker, and came back with a jacket. It was not quite like mine, and new, untouched. They helped me into it and let me fish through the pockets of my own ragged garment before they tossed it in the locker.

  They had given me my life. By Fafnir custom my response would be a gift expressing my value as perceived by myself ... but Wil and Tor hadn't told me their full names. I hinted at this; they failed to understand. Hmm.

  My dime disk hadn't spoken of this. It might be a new custom: the rescuer conceals data, so that an impoverished rescuee need not be embarrassed. He sends no life gift instead of a cheap one. But I was guessing. I couldn't follow the vibes yet.

  As for my own history --

  "I just gave up," I blurted. "It was so stupid. I hadn't -- hadn't tried everything at all."

  Toranaga said, "What kind of everything were you after?"

  "I lost my wife four months ago. A rogue wave -- you know how waves crossing can build into a mountain of water? It rolled our boat under. A trawler picked me up, the Triton." A civil being must be able to name his rescuer. Surely there must be a boat named Triton? "There's no record of anyone finding Milcenta. I bought another boat and searched. It's been four months. I was doing more drinking than looking lately, and three nights ago something rammed the boat. A torpedo ray, I think. I didn't sink, but my power was out, even my lights. I got tired of it all and just started swimming."

  They looked at each other, then at their soup. Sympathy was there, with a trace of contempt beneath.

  "Middle of the night, I was cold as the sea bottom, and it crossed my mind that maybe Mil was rescued under another name. We aren't registered as a partnership. If Mil was in a coma, they'd check her retina prints --"

  "Use our caller," Wilhelmin said.

  I thanked them. "With your permission, I'll establish some credit too. I've run myself broke, but there's credit at Shasht."

  They left me alone in the cabin.

  The caller was set into a wall in the cabin table. It was a portable -- just a projector plate and a few keys that would get me a display of virtual keys and a screen -- but a sailor's portable, with a watertight case and several small cleats. I found the master program unfamiliar but user-friendly.

  I set up a search program for Milcenta Adelaide Graynor, in any combination. Milcenta was Sharrol and Adelaide was Feather, as determined by their iceliner tickets and retina prints. Milcenta's name popped up at once.

  I bellowed out of the hatch. "They saved her!" Wil and Tor bolted into the cabin to read over my shoulder.

  Hand of Allah, a fishing boat. Milcenta but not Adelaide! Sharrol had been picked up alone. I'd been at least half right: she'd escaped from Feather. I realized I was crying.

  And -- "No life gift." That was the other side of it: if she sent a proper gift, the embarrassment of needing to be rescued at sea need never become public record. We'd drilled each other on such matters. "She must have been in bad shape."

  "Yes, if she didn't call you," Wilhelmin said. "And she didn't go home either?"

  I told Martin Graynor's story: "We sold our home. We were on one last cruise before boarding an iceliner. She could be anywhere by now, if she thought the wave killed me. I'll have to check."

  I did something about money first. There was nothing aboard Gullfish that could read Persial January Hebert's retina prints, but I could at least establish that money was there.

  I tried to summon passenger records from the iceliner Zombie Queen. This was disallowed. I showed disappointment and some impatience; but of course they wouldn't be shown to Hebert. They'd be opened to Martin Wallace Graynor.

  They taught me to sail.

  Gullfish was built for sails, not for people. The floors weren't flat. Ropes lay all over every surface. The mast stood upright through the middle of the cabin. You didn't walk in, you climbed. There were no lift plates; you slept in an odd-shaped box small enough to let you brace yourself in storms.

  I had to learn a peculiar slang, as if I were learning to fly a spacecraft, and for the same reason. If a sailor hears a yell, he has to know what is meant, instantly.

  I was working hard and my body was adjusting to the shorter day. Sure I had insomnia; but nobody sleeps well on a small boat. The idea is to snap awake instantly, where any stimulus could mean trouble. The boat was giving my body time to adjust to Fafnir.

  Once I passed a mirror, and froze. I barely knew myself.

  That was all to the good. My skin was darkening and, despite sun block, would darken further. But when we landed, my hair had been cut to Fafnir styles. It had grown during four months in the 'doc. The 'doc had "cured" my depilation treatment: I had a beard too. When we reached civilization I would be far too conspicuous: a pink-eyed, pale-skinned man with long, wild white hair.

  My hosts hadn't said anything about my appearance. It was easy to guess what they'd thought. They'd found a neurotic who sailed in search of his dead wife until his love of life left him entirely.

  I went to Tor in some embarrassment and asked if they had anything like a styler aboard.

  They had scissors. Riiight. Wil tried to shape my hair, laughed at the result, and suggested I finish the job at Booty Island .

  So I tried to forget the rest of the world and just sail. It was what Willhelmin and Toranaga were doing. One day at a time. Islands and boats grew more common as we neared the Central Isles. Another day for Feather to forget me, or lose me. Another day of safety for Sharrol, if Feather followed me to her. I'd have to watch for that.

  And peace would have been mine, but that my ragged vest was in a locker that wouldn't open to my fingerprints.

  Wil and To
r talked about themselves, a little, but I still didn't know their identities. They slept in a locked cabin. I noticed also an absence. Wil was a lovely woman, not unlike Sharrol herself, but her demeanor and body language showed no sign that she considered herself female, or me male, let alone that she might welcome a pass.

  It might mean anything, in an alien culture: that my hair style or shape of nose or skin color was distasteful, or I didn't know the local body language, or I lacked documentation for my gene pattern. But I wondered if they wanted no life gift, in any sense, from a man they might have to give to the police.

  What would a police detective think of those holes? Why, he'd think some kinetic weapon had torn a hole through the occupant, killing him instantly, after which someone (the killer?) had stolen the vest for himself. And if Wil and Tor were thinking that way ... What I did at the caller -- might it be saved automatically?

  Now there was a notion.

  I borrowed the caller again. I summoned the encyclopedia and set a search for a creature with boneless arms. There were several on Fafnir, all small. I sought data on the biggest, particularly those local to the North Coral Quadrant. There were stories ... no hard evidence.

  And another day passed, and I learned that I could cook while a kitchen was rolling randomly.

  At dinner that night Wil got to talking about Fafnir sea life. She'd worked at Pacifica , which I gathered was a kind of underwater zoo; and had I ever heard of a Kdatlyno lifeform like a blind squid?

  "No," I said. "Would the kzinti bring one here?"

  "I wouldn't think so. The kzinti aren't surfers," Tor said, and we laughed.

  Wil didn't. She said, "They meant it for the hunting jungle. On Kdat the damn things can come ashore and drag big animals back into the ocean. But they've pretty well died out around Shasht, and we never managed to get one for Pacifica ."

  "Well," I said, and hesitated, and, "I think I was attacked by something like that. But huge. And it wasn't around Shasht, it was where you picked me up."

  "Jan, you should report it."

  "Wil, I can't. I was fast asleep and half dead of cold, lost at sea at midnight. I woke up under water. Something was squeezing my chest and back. I got my knife out and slashed. Slashed something rubbery. It pulled apart. It pulled my jacket apart. If it had ripped the shoulder floats I'd still be down there. But I never saw a thing."

  Thus are legends born.

  Booty Island is several islands merged. I counted eight peaks coming in; there must have been more. We had been sailing for twelve days.

  Buildings sat on each of the lamplighter nests. They looked like government buildings or museums. No two were alike. Houses were scattered across the flatlands between. A mile or so of shopping center ran like a suspension bridge between two peaks. On Earth this would have been a park. Here, a center of civilization.

  A line of transfer booths in the mall bore the familiar flickering Pelton logo. They were all big cargo booths, and old. I didn't instantly see the significance.

  We stopped in a hotel and used a coin caller. The system read my retina prints: Persial January Hebert, sure enough. Wil and Tor waited while I moved some money, collected some cash and a transfer booth card, and registered for a room. I tried again for records of Milcenta Adelaide Graynor. Sharrol's rescue was still there. Nothing for Feather.

  Wil said, "Jan, she may have been recovering from a head injury. See if she's tried to find you."

  I couldn't be Mart Graynor while Wil and Tor were watching. The net registered no messages for Jan Hebert. Feather didn't know that name. Sharrol did; but Sharrol thought I was dead.

  Or maybe she was crazy, incapacitated. With Tor and Wil watching I tried two worst-cases.

  First: executions. A public 'doc can cure most varieties of madness. Madness is curable, therefore voluntary. A capital crime committed during a period of madness has carried the death penalty for seven hundred years, on Earth and on every world I knew.

  It was true on Fafnir too. But Sharrol had not been executed for any random homicide, and neither, worse luck, had Feather.

  Next: There are still centers for the study of madness. The best known is on Jinx. On Earth there are several, plus one secret branch of the ARM. There was only one mental institution to serve all of Fafnir, and that seemed to be half empty. Neither Feather's nor Sharrol's retina prints showed on the records.

  The third possibility would have to wait.

  We all needed the hotel's styler, though I was the worst off. The device left my hair long at the neck, and theirs too, a local style to protect against sunburn. I let it tame my beard without baring my face. The sun had had its way with me: I looked like an older man.

  I took Wil and Tor to lunch. I found "gullfish" on the menu, and tried it. Like much of Fafnir sea life, it tasted like something that had almost managed to become red meat.

  I worked some points casually into conversation, just checking. It was their last chance to probe me too, and I had to improvise details of a childhood in the North Sea. Tor found me plausible; Wil was harder to read. Nothing was said of a vest or a great sea monster. In their minds I was already gone.

  I was Schrodinger's cat: I had murdered and not murdered the owner of a shredded vest.

  At the caller in my room I established myself as Martin Wallace Graynor. That gave me access to my wives' autodoc records. A public 'doc will correct any of the chemical imbalances we lump under the term "crazy," but it also records such service.

  Milcenta Graynor -- Sharrol -- had used a 'doc eight times in four-plus months, starting a week after our disastrous landing. The record showed much improvement over that period, beginning at a startling adrenaline level, acid indigestion and some dangerous lesser symptoms. Eight times within the Central Islands ... none on Shasht.

  If she'd never reached the mainland, then she'd never tried to reach Outbound Enterprises. Never tried to find Carlos, or Louis and Tanya.

  Adelaide Graynor -- Feather -- had no 'doc record on this world. The most obvious conclusion was that wherever she was, she must be mad as a March hare.

  Boats named Gullfish were everywhere on Fafnir. Fifty-one registries. Twenty-nine had sail. Ten of those would sleep four. I scanned for first names: no Wilhelmin, no Toranaga. Maybe Gullfish belonged to a parent, or to one of the departed spouses.

  I'd learned a term for Gullfish's sail and mast configuration: "sloop rig."

  Every one of the ten candidates was a sloop rig!

  Wait, now. Wil had worked at Pacifica ?

  I did some research. Pacifica wasn't just a zoo. It looked more like an underwater village, with listings for caterers, costume shops, subs, repair work, travel, hotels ... but Wil had worked with sea life. Might that give me a handle?

  I couldn't see how.

  It wasn't that I didn't have an answer; I just didn't like it. Wil and Tor had to hand my vest to the cops. When Persial January Hebert was reported rescued, I would send them a gift.

  Feather didn't know my alternate name. But if she had access to the Fafnir police, she'd tanj sure recognize that vest!

  With the rest of the afternoon I bought survival gear: a backpurse, luggage, clothing.

  On Earth I could have vanished behind a thousand shades of dyes. Here ... I settled for a double dose of tannin secretion, an underdose of sun block, a darkened pair of mag specs, my height, and a local beard and hairstyle.

  Arming myself was a problem.

  The disk hadn't spoken of weapons on Fafnir. My safest guess was that Fafnir was like Earth: they didn't put weapons in the hands of civilians. Handguns, rifles, martial arts training belong to the police.

  The good news: everyone on the islands carried knives. Those flying sharks that attacked me during the sunbunny run were one predator out of thousands.

  Feather would arm herself somehow. She'd look through a sporting goods store, steal a hunting rifle ... nope, no hunting rifles. No large prey on Fafnir, unless in the kzinti jungle, or underwater.

 
There were listings for scuba stores. I found a stun gun with a big parabolic reflector, big enough to knock out a one-gulp, too big for a pocket. I took it home, with more diving gear for versimilitude and a little tool kit for repairing diving equipment. With that I removed the reflector.

  Now I couldn't use it underwater; it would knock me out, because water conducts sound very well. But it would fit my pocket.

  I took my time over a sushi dinner, quite strange. Some time after sunset I stepped into a transfer booth, and stepped out into a brilliant dawn on Shasht.

  Outbound Enterprises was open. I let a Ms. Machti take Martin Wallace Graynor's retina prints. "Your ticket is still good, Mr. Graynor," Ms. Machti said. "The service charge will be eight hundred stars. You're four months late!"

  "I was shipwrecked," I told her. "Did my companions make it?"

  Iceliner passengers are in no hurry. The ships keep prices down by launching when they're full. I learned that the Zombie Queen had departed a week after our landing, about as expected. I gave Ms. Machti the names. She set the phone system searching, and presently said, "Your husband and the children boarded and departed. Your wives' tickets are still outstanding."

  "Both?"

  "Yes." She did a double take. "Oh, good heavens, they must think you're dead!"

  "That's what I'm afraid of. At least, John and Tweena and Nathan would. They were revived in good shape?"

  "Yes, of course. But the women -- could they have waited for you?"

  Stet: Carlos, Tanya, and Louis were all safe on Home and had left the spaceport under their own power. Feather and Sharrol -- "Waited? But they'd have left a message."

  She was still looking at her screen. "Not for you, Mr. Graynor, but Mr. John Graynor has recorded a message for Mrs. Graynor ... for Mrs. Adelaide Graynor."

  For Feather. "But nothing for Milcenta? But they both stayed? How strange." Ms. Machti seemed the type of person who might wonder about other people's sexual arrangements. I wanted her curious, because this next question -- "Can you show me what John had to say to Adelaide ?"