The Five Gold Bands

by Jack Vance

  Paddy turned to the door. "Now I'm going, doc, and never forget-I'll know if you spill and you'll sore regret it."

  The doctor seemed to take no offense, having heard the same threat from each of his patients. He nodded matter-of-factly and Paddy took his leave. The door latched behind him.

  Paddy looked up and down the empty corridor. It smelled of sour varnish, of corners full of dust. Next door to the doctor was the office of Ramadh Singh, Funeral Consultant. Paddy laid his ear to the glass panel in the door. It was late in the afternoon. The office seemed to be empty. Paddy tried the door-locked.

  Again he looked up and down the corridor. On Earth there would be no hesitation. On Spade-Ace a card cheat was hung head downward, his ankles nailed to a high beam. A burglar was shot on apprehension.

  Paddy muttered, "The lure of gold is leading me to the edge of crime." Setting his shoulder to the glass he heaved. The glass bent out of the molding. Paddy reached in, snapped the latch, slid open the door, entered.

  The office was a mere cubicle, equipped with a desk, a table displaying miniature coffins and urns at various prices, a small mnemiphot, a battered screen. On the wall hung a calendar and a group photograph of a family standing in front of a small frame cottage, evidently on Earth.

  Paddy crossed the room, put his ear to the partition. On the other side he could hear a scrape of motion-the doctor setting his office to rights.

  To Paddy's right was a little closet. He looked in, saw a tank of mist-cleaner, a medicine closet built into the partition. Opening the door of the medicine closet and pulling out Ramadh Singh's various unguents, incenses, lotions, Paddy had only a thin layer of spraywood between himself and the doctor's office.

  Now, thought Paddy, we'll see, we'll see. If I've been followed, presently they'll be curious and come on up to see where I am. If they come up and question the doctor I'll know the worst, and be prepared.

  He heard voices, bent his ear to the cabinet. The doctor had a patient-a rough voice like an Asmasian. He was suffering from heat-rash and the doctor gave him a package of sal-negative. Another patient, suffering from ionic burns, was treated.

  There was a wait of twenty minutes, then another patient, then another twenty minutes-and now a fresh new voice with a different timbre. Paddy cocked his ear. The voice was feminine, full of soft round overtones. The woman asked, "Are you Dr. Tallogg?"

  There was a pause. Paddy pictured the doctor's slow sour scrutiny. "That's right."

  "Dr. Tallogg," said the woman's voice, "you know that your brother, Dr. Clement Tallogg, is looking for you?"

  There was a long silence. Finally, in a dim muffled voice, "I have no brother. What do you want?"

  "I want to pay you five hundred thousand marks. That's half a million marks." She paused to let the figure sink in. "I want to take you back to Paris. We can leave in fifteen minutes. When we arrive you'll find that your brother is no longer interested in your whereabouts, that a certain set of books has been found. I can arrange all this. All I want in return is some information."

  Another long pause and Paddy's eyes narrowed. Sweat poured down his ribs. What temptation to put before a man! Home, wealth, the sweet milk of friendship-how could he resist? He would not resist.

  "What kind of information?" came the low dim voice.

  "A tall red-haired man about thirty years old entered the building, came to your office. He has not been seen to leave. Very probably you have altered his appearance, possibly provided him with an unobtrusive route to the streets. What I want is an exact description of this man, his new appearance, his new coordinates and what you know of his future plans."

  The silence was of a full minute's duration and Paddy held his breath.

  "Show me the money."

  There was a soft thud, a click, a slap. "Right there."

  "And-the other matters?"

  "You'll have to accept my word."

  The doctor made a soft sound of scornful rejection.

  Silence.

  "Here," said the doctor. "Swallow this."

  Hesitation.

  "What is it?"

  "It's one of the Asmasian ordeal drugs. If an antidote is taken inside of half an hour no harm of any sort will result. If not you will die in some pain. When you put me aboard this boat I'll give you the antidote."

  The woman laughed. "By a curious coincidence I likewise carry with me a quantity of the ordeal poison. If you will take my dose I'll take yours-and we're both protected."

  "Fair enough."

  There were sounds, a click, another. Then the doctor's voice came, deliberate, slow, detached.

  "The red-headed man now is very dark-a Mediterranean type. Here-this is what the prototype looks like. He resembles this very closely. You may keep it. He wears a blue jumper, soft boots. He speaks with a slight accent of some sort-I can't quite place it.

  "I know nothing of his past, or his future plans. His fingerprints"-a pause, a rustle of papers-"this is the set I gave him. He left my office about an hour or an hour and a half ago. Where he went I have no idea."

  The woman's voice said, "Did you let him out some secret way?"

  "No," said the doctor. "There is a door into the cellar and out into the street that no one very much knows about but I did not take him to it. He simply walked out the door and closed it."

  The woman said thoughtfully, "He has not been seen to leave."

  "Then-" the doctor started. Paddy pulled himself out of the closet, slid open Ramadh Singh's door, slipped out into the hall, stepped to Dr. Tallogg's door, slid it ajar an inch. The drab waiting room was empty. Voices came from the inner room.

  The door slid quietly open. Paddy slipped in like a dark dream.

  He had no weapon-he must go carefully. He stepped across the room, saw a shoulder in gray-green fabric, a hip in dark green. On the hip hung a pouch. If she carried a weapon it would lie in this pouch.

  Paddy stepped through the door, threw an arm around the woman's throat, dipped into her pouch with his right hand. He pulled out an ion gun, pointed it at the doctor.

  The doctor had his own weapon in his hand. He held it as if it were very hot, as if he were not sure where to aim it.

  Paddy said, "Put down that gun!" in a voice like an iron bell. "Put it down, I say!"

  The doctor peered at him with almost comical indecision. Paddy heaved the struggling woman forward, reached, took the gun from Tallogg's numb fingers. He shoved it inside his jumper. The woman sprang clear, turned, faced Paddy, her mouth parted, eyes wide with black wide pupils staring.

  "Quiet!" warned Paddy. "I'm a desperate man. I'll shoot if you drive me to it."

  "What do you want?" asked Tallogg quietly. He now bore himself with the indifference of a man condemned.

  Paddy grinned, a wide toothy grin. "First, doctor, you will conduct me and this lady to the street through your secret way."

  The woman stiffened, began to speak, then halted, watching Paddy in frowning calculation.

  The doctor said, "Perhaps I will, perhaps I won't." He nodded wearily at the ion gun. "You intend to shoot me anyway."

  Paddy shrugged. "I won't shoot. We'll sit here and talk. Faith, I'm a great talker. I'll tell you of the Grand Rally at Skibbereen, I'll talk by the hour of Fionn and Diarmuid. Then there's Miletus and the old heroes." He looked brightly at the doctor. "Now what do you say to that?"

  The doctor's mouth had drooped. He said forlornly, "I suppose I lose nothing by taking you out."

  Paddy turned to the woman. "And I'll ask you to take me to your boat."

  She said, "Now listen to me, Paddy Blackthorn."

  He took stock of her. She was younger than he had expected and a great deal smaller. There were few inches more than five feet of her and she was slim to boot. She had a small face, short dark hair clinging close to her head. Except for lustrous dark eyes Paddy thought her rather plain, hardly feminine. His taste was for the long-limbed brown-haired girls of Maeve, laughing light-headed girls.

 
"I hate killing," muttered Paddy. "Lucky for you it is that I harm never so much as a fly unless first it stings me. Now as for you, walk quiet and calm and there'll be no great harm done to you. But mind-no tricks!"

  He motioned to the doctor. "Lead."

  The doctor said sourly, "Did I understand you to say that you don't intend to shoot me?"

  Paddy snorted. "You understand nothing. Get moving."

  The doctor spread out his hands helplessly. "I merely wanted to state that if we are to leave I wish to take along the antidote to the ordeal poison I gave the young woman. If I don't have hers she won't give me mine."

  Paddy said, "Give it to me."

  The doctor hesitated, eyeing the girl doubtfully.

  "If I don't get it I'll sit here till you fall sideways from the poison."

  The doctor shuffled to the drawer, tossed Paddy an envelope.

  Paddy looked at the girl. "Now yours."

  Without a word she tossed him a vial. The doctor's eyes hungrily followed the arc of the flight, riveted on Paddy's arm as he pocketed the drugs.

  "Now move," said Paddy blithely. "You're both under death sentences, like me in the brick jail at Akhabats. Except I was an honest thief. You two are traitors to your old Mother Earth."

  The doctor led them along the sour-smelling hall, slowly, hoping for interruption. Paddy said pleasantly, "And if there's trouble, Doc, I'll smash these bottles down on the floor." The doctor's gait lengthened. He opened a narrow door, led them down a flight of damp stones heavy with a musty reek of some nameless Spade-Ace mold.

  Two flights down and the stairs opened into the basement below the clothing store, a long low room dug into the ground, lit by antique glow-tubes. Old cases, dusty furniture cast tall black shadows-junk brought across the mindless miles of space to rot and moulder in a basement.

  Quietly, sedately, they moved through the basement, forming strange silhouettes against the higgledy-piggledy background. Paddy grinned. They didn't dare attack, they didn't dare run. He had them in a double grip with the gun and the poison.

  The doctor glanced at his watch. "Fifteen minutes," he said thickly. "Then the antidote does us no more good." He looked at Paddy with hot eyes, waiting for Paddy to answer.

  Paddy motioned silently. The doctor turned, stepped up on a bench, heaved at a slanting door. It swung up and out, letting a slender shaft of white light into the basement. The doctor looked right, left, motioned with a plump arm.

  "Come on up, all's clear."

  He stepped on up, the woman followed nimbly and then came Paddy, cautiously. They stood at the bottom of a light well, between two buildings, with a slit two feet wide running out to the street.

  Paddy said to the girl, "Where is the space-boat?"

  "North of town on the dust-flat."

  "Let's go."

  They sidled from between the buildings out into a dark street. The doctor turned to the right, led them among the dismal mud huts of the Asmasian quarter. At a square of light he paused, looked at his watch.

  "Ten minutes." He turned to Paddy. "Did you hear me? Ten minutes!"

  Paddy waved him on. The doctor turned and they continued out into the open country in back of the town-a region of open sewers, fields packed with unwanted refuse from a thousand stolen ships. Here and there stood the shack of some creature with habits too disgusting to be tolerated even by the tolerant men of Eleanor.

  They came out on a plain of white volcanic dust, dark-gray in the planet-spangled night of Spade-Ace, and the town of Eleanor was at their backs-a low unsightly blotch spotted with white and yellow lights.

  Paddy searched across the field for the dark shape of the boat. He turned a stormy glance at the woman. The doctor peered at his watch. "About a minute…"

  The woman's voice glistened with triumph. "I have a spaceboat. It's not here. It's at the main field. You're bluffing, Paddy Blackthorn. You want my space-boat more than I want my life. Now I'm making the terms. You've got to go along with me or else kill me."

  "And kill you I will," growled Paddy, pulling out his gun.

  "And kill yourself at the same time. Langtry agents are pouring into Eleanor by the boatload. They know you're here. They'll get you inside of four hours. You can't hide and you can't get away. I'm your only chance. Cooperate with me, and we both win-and Earth wins. Refuse and we both die-and Earth loses because before they kill you they'll get what they want from you."

  Paddy stood limp, angry. "Ah, you scheming, hag-woman, you've got me like Cuchulin's goat. You still have the audacity to claim you serve Earth?"

  She smiled in the darkness. "You don't believe me? You've never heard of the Earth Agency?"

  The doctor whined, "The antidotes! Hurry, man, or we'll be dead!"

  "Come here," growled Paddy. He grabbed the woman, felt for scars that might be left by an amputated skin-flap. "No, you're no Shaul. And sure you're no Eagle, no Badau. You're not white enough for a Koton-not to mention the eyes-and you're not yellow enough for a Loristanese. Of course," he grumbled, "there's a little profit in wondering about your race-you might be selling out to any of them."

  The woman said, "I work for Earth Agency. It's your last chance. Give me the antidote-or I'll die and you'll die and the Langtry worlds will lord it over the universe for the rest of time. There'll never come another chance like this, Paddy Blackthorn."

  "Quick!" cried the doctor. "Quick! I can feel the-"

  Paddy contemptuously tossed them the antidotes. "Go on then. Save your miserable lives, and let me be." He turned on his heel, strode off across the powdery dust.

  The woman's voice came to his back. "Wait a minute, Paddy Blackthorn. Don't you want to leave Spade-Ace?"

  Paddy said no word, paced on, blind with rage.

  Her voice came to him, "I have a space-boat!" She came running up beside him, panted, "We'll take the secret of the drive to Earth."

  Paddy slowed his stride, halted, looked down into her wide dark eyes. He turned, went back to where the doctor stood forlornly. Paddy grasped the doctor by the shoulders.

  "Look now, Tallogg. You have your half million that you got selling me out. Buy yourself a boat this very night-this very hour. Leave the planet. If you make it to Earth you can sell the boat and be a rich man. Do you hear?"

  "Yes," said Tallogg dully. His shoulders hung as if under a yoke.

  "Then go," said Paddy. "And if you love old Earth don't return to your office. Don't go there at all."

  The doctor muttered something indistinguishable, became a blot in the gray murk. He was gone.

  Paddy looked after him. "Better should I have burnt a hole in him and so saved us much concern for the future."

  The woman said, "Never mind that. Let's go and we'll head for Earth."

  "Very well." Paddy sighed. "It's not as I had planned it."

  "Be glad you're alive," she said. "Now let's go."

  By a back route they walked to the space-field, quietly crossed to her boat at the far end. Paddy looked at the boat doubtfully from end to end.

  "Those are crowded quarters for the pair of us, I'm thinking. Now maybe a decent respectable girl wouldn't care to-"

  She snapped, "Never mind that, Paddy Blackthorn. You keep your distance, I'll keep mine-and my reputation can look after itself."

  "Yerra," muttered Paddy, "and who'd want to touch such a spit-cat and plain to boot? Well then-into the boat with you and may the best man of us win."

  As she opened the port the beam of light fell on them. A man's voice said hoarsely, "Just a minute, just a minute."

  Paddy put his hand on the girl's back, shoved her in, started after her. "Come back here," said the dark shape and the voice was louder. "I'll shoot!"

  Paddy turned, aimed at the light with Dr. Tallogg's gun. His beam struck square. In the spatter of orange and purple flames from the shorted powerpack, Paddy glimpsed the man's face-the narrow-faced narrow-eyed man who had been leaning against the hangar when Paddy dropped down to the spacefield. His face was
convulsed by pain, surprise, hate, by the shock of the beam. The lamp guttered into a red flicker, died-and the dark shape seemed to slump.

  "Quick!" hissed the girl. "There'll be more."

  Paddy jumped in. She sealed the port, ran to the pilot's seat, pulled back the power-arm-and the boat rose into the ash-gray sky of Spade-Ace.

  V

  They rose from the field into the glare of the eight suns strewn around the sky at various distances.

  "Watch the field," said the girl, "through the telescope."

  Paddy watched. "There's a couple boats taking off."

  "Spies." She crouched in the bucket seat, aimed the boat's nose at one of the spots of black space showing between the jostle of the suns, planets, planetoids. "Here we go."

  Paddy jerked forward. "Hey-that's dangerous, woman! There's lots of stuff out there!"

  He quieted because already the Thieves' Cluster was far behind. For a second, two seconds, they flew-then she cut off the power. A relay clicked, the space-drive bar snapped back. Thieves' Cluster was a lambent blot astern.

  She turned the nose another direction, repeated the maneuver. Thieves' Cluster was a bright spot. Once again, off at an odd angle-off with the drive and they were coasting out in inter-star isolation.

  The girl left the controls, went to the communicator. Paddy watched her suspiciously. "And now what might you be doing?"

  "I'm calling the Agency-on coded space-wave." She snapped a switch, tuned down a piercing whistle that rang through the room. She set five dials, and now a voice said: "EA…EA…EA…

  The girl spoke into the mesh. "Fay Bursill, 59206… Fay Bursill, 59206."

  A minute passed, the voice changed. "Go ahead, Fay."

  "I've got Paddy Blackthorn here in the boat."

  "Good work, Fay!" There was exultation in the voice. "Where are you?"

  "Oh-roughly Aries 3500 or 4000. Shall I come home?"

  "Lord no, keep away. There's a net of ships around the system almost nose to nose and they're searching every hull that comes near. You'd never make it. But here's what you can do. Have Paddy-"