XXXV
Roan looked along the table and caught Askor’s yellow eye. The men were still in their places, waiting for the word. The garrison men were getting to their feet, gathering in clumps, watching. Some of them had guns out now.
Roan moved toward Quex and his gun, staggering a little more than was necessary.
“What do you want with me?” he said thickly. “You’ve got the cargo I brought.”
“Yes, there is that,” Quex said. “Curious, your bringing it here. You could have set yourself up in luxury for life with that haul. However, that’s neither here nor there. Now, before we go any further, if you’ll take off your jacket, please . . .” Askor stirred. Roan flickered an eyelid at him, and the halfbreed settled back. Roan stripped off his braid-heavy jacket and tossed it on the floor. The Imperial Terran Symbol over the pocket made a loud clink when it hit.
“To the skin, please,” Quex insisted. Roan pulled off the silky white shirt, and the crowd staring at him drew in quick breaths. Quex got up and came around the end of the table, not bothering even to kick the crouching slave. His eyes were round, taking in Roan’s smooth, unscarred hide, and the reddish hair across his chest.
“Your feet,” he ordered. Roan pulled out a chair and sat down and pulled off his boots. The spurs clanked as he tossed them aside. Quex leaned close and stared.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “You’re a Terran. A real Terran. A textbook case.” He looked into Roan’s eyes with an expression almost of awe. “You might even be a Pure Strain.”
“Hurry up and shoot, if you’re going to,” Roan said. He picked up a glass and drained it. It would have been easy to toss it into Quex’s face, but he wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Where did you come from Who were your parents?”
“My parents bought me as an embryo.” Roan was watching Quex’s face.
“Where?” Quex snapped.
“At the Thieves’ Market on Tambool.”
Quex raised a hand and brought it down in a meaningless gesture. “Of course. There is a certain fantastic inevitability to it! A Pure Terran, cast among Geeks. Naturally he would seek out his own.”
“What do you know about me?” Roan interrupted Quex’s soliloquy.
Quex stepped back, signed for a chair, sank down, watching Roan over the gun. He laughed shortly, a silly laugh. “I suppose I shall have to abandon the idea of shooting you. I’ll make it up by planning something rather special for these animals of yours who’ve had the effrontery to plump themselves down at table with gentlefolk.” And Quex tittered again, enjoying himself now. “In a way, I’m almost a sort of parent to you myself.” He crossed his legs, swinging his foot.
“I was rather active in my younger days. The admiral honored me by dispatching me as his personal agent among the renegade pigs of the Gallian World. It was they who initiated the experiment. I took a chance. Don’t imagine I wasn’t aware of the risks! I lifted the entire lot—the wealth of the Nine Gods, and you could hold it in your hand! The fools were careless, they practically invited me. And then I made my error. Trusting Geeks! I was an idiot!”
Roan saw Quex’s finger tighten on the firing stud. He tensed, ready to jump, but the commodore drew a shuddery breath and calmed himself.
“I was fool enough to divulge the nature of the consignment to the stinking animal who called himself captain of the Gallian vessel on which I had arranged passage. It was necessary, actually. I demanded refrigeration facilities, and one explanation led to another—
“He tricked me. At the end of the tedious five-year run, I discovered he had changed course for his own world. We landed and he turned me and my so-carefully guarded prize over to his Shah. This heathen considered that it would be a tremendously impressive thing to parade a palace guard of Terrans—Pure Terrans, and all identical. Can you imagine it?” Quex held out his hand and a glass appeared in it, and was filled. He looked at Roan. “Am I boring you?”
Roan let out a breath. “Go on,” he said.
“Alas,” Quex continued. “At this crucial moment, a spontaneous popular uprising broke out. The Shah, his two hundred and thirty-four frightful little whelps—and anyone else who happened to be standing about—were killed.”
“Spontaneous?” Roan asked. He looked at the nearest slave who crouched away, quivering.
“It was as spontaneous,” Quex answered, smiling with his bright, cruel slits of eyes, “as the ITN could make it. My messages to Rim HQ had gone through before landing, of course; the forces arrived within a week to restore order. Of course, the natives were not so well domesticated then. They had a certain animal spirit which had to be curbed before they were made useful possessions. I was only fifty-two at the time—some twenty-five years ago now, Terry reckoning—but I had a natural bent for such things.” He waved a hand. “The rest is history.”
“And how did I get to Tambool?” Roan cut in.
Quex frowned. “The discussion begins to tire me,” he said. “You’re a valuable though insolent property, and Admiral Starbird will be delighted when I report that I’ve recovered the breeding stock that slipped through our fingers all those years ago.”
“No, he won’t,” Roan said. “One of his spies has already slipped out by the side door to report on you.”
Quex jerked around to look where Roan had pointed and Roan’s foot caught the gun, knocked it high in the air.
Then Askar and Sidis were on their feet, reaching for the nearest ITN man. One aimed a gun at Askor; the giant Minid knocked him spinning under the table, whirled on a pair of back-pedaling dandies, cracked their heads together, tossed them aside, caught two more.
Roan was holding Quex by the neck now, and drinking wine from the bottle with the other hand. The ITN men in the rear milled in loud confusion, unable to get a clear shot.
“You Geeks stand back, or we’ll shoot!” A frightened looking navy man had climbed on a chair and was pointing a fancy power pistol wildly around the room. Sidis took aim, shot him in the head. He flopped back in a spatter of blood and fell among his fellows.
There were more shots now as the astonished hosts realized that their outnumbered victims intended to fight back. That was a mistake. Four pirate guns went into action, blasting wholesale into the screaming, panicked diners, who jammed into the corners and against the doors, making effective resistance by the few determined men among them impossible.
“Belay that!” Roan yelled over the din as a glass smashed beside him. He hauled Quex into a chair, shouted again. There were moans and howls from the wounded, bellowing from the enraged crew, the buzz and crackle of guns. Smoke poured up from smoldering hangings ignited by wild shots. There was a stink of blood and spilled wine in the air. Roan jumped on the table and shouted for order. By degrees the tumult abated.
“All right,” Roan said. “We’re getting out of here, but before we go, I’ve got a few more questions to ask old rabbit-ears here.” He stepped down from the table as the men began rifling the bodies and pulling fancy ornaments off the living. Quex started at him with wide, shocked eyes.
“You can’t! We outnumber you fifty to one—a hundred to one!” The commodore’s voice rose. He started to his feet. “Attack them!” he screeched. Roan put a foot against his chest and slammed him back, then pulled a chair up and sat in it. There were two slaves mewling under the table; as they realized they were in view, they scuttled farther back.
A splinter of flying glass had cut Roan’s forehead. There was blood trickling down into his right eye and around his face and onto his neck. It annoyed him.
“Pardon this little interruption, Commodore,” he said. “You had just come to the part where the ITN arrived to restore order. What did they do with the embryo—or should I say me?”
Quex babbled. Roan tossed a wine bottle to him, and it fell in his lap, bubbled down over his knees. He groped it up, drank, lowered the bottle with a sob.
“They . . . we . . . it wasn’t here. It was gone. Stolen.”
&nbs
p; “It seems to have been remarkably hard property to hang on to. What made it so valuable?”
“A specimen of Pure Terran stock? Do you jest?”
“Sure, but there are some fairly pure Terries around, like Henry Dread. What made me different?”
“You’re Pure Strain; unbelievably pure strain!”
“All right. Who stole me?”
“One of my spies, the rotter! A creature I trusted!” Quex warmed to the memory. “He’d finished his work for me, and when I sent a couple of men with knives to advise him I had no more need of his services, he was nowhere to be found! He’d skipped out—and the special bejeweled incubator unit was gone with him! I searched. Oh, how I searched! I tore the tongues from a hundred man and five hundred Geeks, and then at last I got a hint—a word babbled by a former officer of the Shah’s guard in his dying delirium. Tambool. I dispatched a crew at once, led by a sturdy Yill scoundrel—the best I could find among the rabble that follow the uniform of the Empire—but none of them ever returned. I heard tales, later, of how they were set upon by a horde of madmen. But the embryo was lost.”
“That horde of madmen was my dad, Raff Cornay,” Roan said. “We’ll drink to him.” He raised his bottle and took a long swig.
“You’re not drinking, Commodore,” he said. “Drink!”
Quex took a half-hearted sip. “Drink, damn you! Or do I have to pour it down your neck?”
Quex drank.
“Hey, this stuff is all junk, Cap’n!” Askor called, tramping over to where Roan sat with one boot on Quex’s chair. He tossed a handful of brass jewelry on the table. “Let’s load up on Terry wine and shove off. And, uh, a couple of the boys was asking, okay if we take along a few broads too?”
The wounded were making a dismal sound from the heaps where they lay. Sidis went over and started shooting the noisest ones. The rest became quieter.
“You know better than that,” Roan said. “You louts, would be cutting each other’s throats in a week.”
“Yeah.” Askor scratched an armpit with a blunt finger. “I figured.”
“Round up the boys now. I’ll be through in a minute.” Askor turned away with a roar of commands. Quex trembled so violently his seat bounced in the chair.
“What are y-you g-going to do with m-me?”
“Have another drink,” Roan commanded. He watched while his victim complied.
“I’ll—I’ll be sick,” Quex slobbered.
Roan got to his feet. He pulled his shirt and jacket back on, jammed his feet into his boots.
There was a dead officer lying behind his chair. Roan paused long enough to take a handsome sheath-knife with the Imperial Eagle from his body, clip it to his own belt.
“Askor. Poion. Lock all the doors,” he ordered.
Quex came to his feet. He pulled at the edge of his tunic, swaying. His eyes were like blood-red clams.
“You can’t leave me here with them!” He looked past Roan at the bright, staring eyes in the pale faces of his men. “They’ll tear me to pieces!”
Askor and the others were by the main door now. They looked to Roan.
“Go ahead, open her up!” Roan called. He looked back at Quex. “Thanks for the dinner, Commodore. It was a nice party, and I enjoyed it.”
“Lieutenant!” Quex’s voice had found a hint of a ring suddenly. He straightened himself, holding onto a chair back. “I’m not . . . Pure Strain . . . like yourself. But I have Terran blood.” He wavered, thrust himself upright again. “As a fellow officer . . . of the Imperial Navy . . . I ask you . . . for an honorable death . . .”
Roan looked at him. He shifted his pistol to his left hand, squared off and saluted Quex with his right, and shot him through the heart.
TO BE CONCLUDED
EARTHBLOOD
CONCLUSION
Roan baffled his way back to the Earth across a galaxy that swarmed with aliens—for what?
What Has Gone Before . . .
Roan Cornay, a human born in mysterious circumstances on the outworld Tambool, grows up among aliens and is kidnapped by a traveling Extravaganzoo. The “zoo’s ship is destroyed by the pirate Henry Dread, whose band Roan joins. Henry’s own ship is destroyed in an encounter with a Niss vessel and Roan shoots Henry in an argument. Roan then assumes command of a lifeboat, boards the Niss ship, finds it long deserted; but it contains a captured Imperial Terran Navy ship which Roan and his crew take over. Roan, seeking his true origin and fabled Terra, heads for Tambool and finds the old family slave, T’hoy hoy, who can tell him of his origins only that he is pure blood human and that he was bought as an embryo at the Thieves’ Market.
Roan finds the sleazy agency dealing in embryos and forces the ancient being who sold him to show him his record, which reveals that Roan originally came from an experimental station on Alpha Centauri and was the only survivor of a shipment of embryos. Roan heads for Alpha Centauri, Rim Headquarters for the Imperial Terran Navy, turns his ship over to one of the crew and goes with only his three toughest, most loyal men toward the Imperial Terran Navy headquarters on second from Centaurus. As Roan, Askor, Sidis and Poion approach ITN headquarters, their lifeboat is boarded by Imperial Terran Navy men. Roan tricks the ITN Commander into turning over his vessel to him, and takes the ship into Rim Headquarters.
Roan is then entertained at a luxurious dinner party by Commodore Quex, a cruel, decadent humanoid who tells Roan, at knife point, that it was he who stole the batch of human embryos from Starbird’s keeping, and that in turn the embryos were pirated by the Shah of the Gallian planet, who was at that moment deposed and the embryos stolen again and at that point were brought to the Thieve’s Market on Tambool. Roan and his three men overcome a murderous attack by Quex and his crew, and Roan kills Quex, who requests an honorable death.
XXXII
Roan and his three men walked, guns in their hands, along the echoing corridor. No one challenged them.
“Why don’t we pull out now, chief?” Sidis demanded. “We can take our pick of the tubs on the ramp.”
“That isn’t what I came for,” Roan said. “I have unfinished business to take care of.”
“Why bother knocking off any more of these Terries?” Askor queried. “Not much sport in it, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t!” Roan snapped. “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open! We’re not in the clear yet. Trishinist wasn’t at the party—or any of his men.”
A thunderclap racketed along the corridor. Roan spun, went flat.
“Hold your fire!” he roared. Trishinist tittered and stepped out of the half-open door that had concealed him. There was at least a dozen more men, emerging from the shelter of tattered drapes and chipped marble columns, peering down from a wrought-metal gallery, guns ready.
“I heard the, er, sounds of celebration,” the Terran confided. “It seemed wise to have a chat with you before you, ah, continue with what you’re about.”
“We’ve already talked,” Roan snapped. “Tell your Terries to put their guns away before my men get nervous and shoot them out of their hands.”
“Umm. You Geeks do look efficient. Still, I daresay one of two of my chaps would live long enough to dispatch the four of you. So perhaps we’d best call a truce.”
Roan got to this feet. His men stood, facing outward in a tight circle.
“I have an appointment with Admiral Starbird,” Roan said. “Or have you forgotten?”
“I remember,” Trishinist said quickly. “You haven’t, um, changed your plans?”
“Why should I?”
“I thought perhaps—after all the excitement of the banquet—”
“You knew about Quex’s plans for the evening?”
“I suspected something of the sort might take place. After all, strangers . . .”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“Well, if you couldn’t handle that group—what good are you to me, ummm?”
“We’re going on now,” Roan said.
“Just so,” T
rishinist agreed. “But leave the guns.”
Roan looked at Trishinist. There were small bubbles at the corners of his mouth.
“All right,” he said. “Put ’em down, men.”
“What for, Boss?” Askor inquired.
“Sidis still has his knife. That’s all he needs.”
Trishinist shuddered. Roan tossed his gun aside. The others followed suit.
“Now what, Chief?” Sidis asked. “Now we get on with the job,” Roan turned on his heel and started toward the apartment of Admiral Starbird.
It was silent on the corridor. The guards on the admiral’s door were gone. Roan stopped, faced Trishinist.
“Send your Men away,” He said. “You can stay. Keep your gun, if you feel like it.”
Trishinist lifted his lip to show his pearly teeth. “You’re giving me orders?” he said in a wondering tone.
“You want them to see it?” Trishinist started. “I see,” he murmured. He turned, gave crisp orders. All but four of the Men turned, formed up in a squad, marched away.
“They’ll be waiting,” Trishinist cooed. “Now—”
The door behind Roan clicked and swung in. Admiral Starbird stood in the opening, a gun in his hand. “Ten—shun!” he commanded.
Trishinist’s Men instinctively straightened and in the instant’s pause, Askor, standing nearest them, swung and brought his hand down like an axe across the neck of one, caught his gun as it fell, swiveled on the next as he brought his gun around and the two weapons fired as one. The guard spun, falling, his gun still firing. A vivid scar raked the wall and door jamb and caught Admiral Starbird full in the chest.
The old man slammed back against the wall. He fell slowly, sprawling full length in a growing stain of brilliant crimson.
Trishinist made a noise like repressed retching and stumbled back. Askor brought his gun around as the remaining two guards backed, white with shock but with guns leveled on Roan and his crew.
“You’ve killed him,” Trishinist gasped. “The Admiral is dead!”
Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 53