Starwolf (Omnibus)

by Edmond Hamilton

  "When I hiss, press the button and stand still," Chane ordered, and then sped back to stand beside the door.

  He hissed. A bell rang sharply on the other side of the door. The door swung open a moment later, opening into the corridor with Chane behind it.

  There was a moment's pause and then two pairs of feet pounded through the door. The two Kharalis both held stunguns and they were hurrying but not too much. They had glanced in and seen the inner guard standing with his back to them, and no prisoners out of their cells.

  Chane leaped with all his speed behind them and his flat hands struck and flashed and struck again, and the two slumped down. He took the stun-gun from one of them and gave each of them a blast from it to keep them quiet for a while.

  He went down the hallway and chuckled as he saw the Vhollan, trying now to get out from under the senseless body, giving the impression of wrestling with his tall Kharali burden. Chane gave that one a blast of the stun-gun, too.

  He said sharply to the Vhollan, "Out now. Take the other weapon."

  As he passed the cell where the humanoid had been sleeping, he saw that the creature had aroused and was looking out through the bars with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, obviously too foggy from drink to make any sense of what was going on, even if he had had the intelligence.

  "Sleep, my hairy brother," Chane said to him. "We are neither of us fit for cities."

  They went into the room from which the two guards had come. There was no one in it and it had only one other door. That opened out onto one of the broad galleries, and no one was there, either.

  The city seemed quieter, almost sleeping. Chane could hear echoes of faint fluting from somewhere beneath, and the bawl of a distant, angry voice.

  "This way," urged the Vhollan. "The main moto-walk is this way."

  "We'd never make it," said Chane. "There are still too many about, and they could spot us as far as they could see us by our shorter stature."

  He went across the gallery and leaned out over its low protective wall, looking out into the night.

  The nebula had slid quite a way across the sky as Kharal turned toward the coming day. The silver radiance now came down slantingly, and the grotesque stone gargoyles that jutted out from the steeply-sloping face of the city-mountain threw long, distorted black shadows.

  There was a gargoyle at each level, and he estimated that they were about ten levels above the ground. He decided at once.

  "We'll go down the outside wall," he said. "It's rough and weathered, and there's the gargoyles to help us."

  The Vhollan man looked out and down. He could not get any paler than he was but he could look a little sick, and he did.

  "Come along or stay, as you like," said Chane. "It makes no difference to me."

  And he thought, Only the difference between life and death, that's all, if I go back without this man.

  The Vhollan gulped and nodded. They went over the low wall and started down.

  It was not as easy as Chane had thought it would be. The rock was not as weathered as the slanting shadows had made it look. He clung on, his fingernails cracking, and lowered himself to the first gargoyle below him.

  The Vhollan man followed, flattened with his face against the stone. He was breathing in quick gasps when he reached Chane.

  They went down that way, from gargoyle to gargoyle, and each one of the stone monstrosities seemed more blasphemously obscene than the last. At the fifth one, they paused for rest. Chane, observing this one in the silvery nebula-glow, thought how ridiculous he must look, stuck up on the side of the city-mountain, sitting on the stone back of a blobby creature whose face and backside were all together.

  He chuckled a little, and the Vhollan turned his white face and looked at him as if in fear.

  It became much trickier near the ground, for one of the great gates was not too far away and there were a few robed figures bunched there. The two hugged the shadow like a friend, and went away, avoiding the road that led to the spaceport but going in that direction. Nobody stopped them, and the ship took them in and went away from there.

  VI

  The man named Yorolin kept talking and talking, filling Dilullo's little cabin with his protestations.

  "There's no reason why you can't take me back to Vhol," he said.

  "Look," said Dilullo. "I've had trouble enough in this system already. We heard there was a war here and we came to sell weapons. But I land on Kharal and get run right off because one of my men is in a fight. It figures that Vhol could be just as hostile. I'm going to the third planet, Jarnath."

  "That's a semi-barbarous world," said Yorolin. "The humanoids there are a poor lot."

  "Well, they might be glad enough to get some modern weapons, and might have something valuable to trade for them," said Dilullo.

  Chane, sitting in a corner and listening, admired the bluff Dilullo was putting up. It was good ... good enough that Yorolin was now looking desperate.

  "I belong to one of the great families of Vhol and I have influence," he said. "Nothing will happen to you. I guarantee it."

  Dilullo pretended doubt. "I don't know. I'd like to do some business at Vhol, if I could. I'll think about it." He added, "In the meantime, you'd better get some sleep. You look as though you'd about had it."

  Yorolin nodded shakily. "I have."

  Dilullo took him out into the narrow corridor. "Use Doud's cabin, over there. He's standing his turn on the bridge."

  When Dilullo came back into the cabin and sat down, Chane waited for the blast. But Dilullo reached into a locker and brought out a bottle.

  "Do you want a drink?"

  Surprised, but not showing it, Chane nodded and accepted the drink. He didn't like it.

  "Earth whisky," said Dilullo. "It takes getting used to."

  He sat back and looked at Chane with a bleak, steady gaze.

  "What's it like on Varna?" he asked, unexpectedly.

  Chane considered. "It's a big world. But it's not a very rich world ... at least, until we got space travel."

  Dilullo nodded. "Until the Earthmen came and taught you how to build starships, and turned you loose on the galaxy."

  Chane smiled. "That was a long time ago but I've heard about it. The Varnans tricked the Earthmen as though they were children. They said all they wanted to do was to engage in peaceful trade with other worlds, like the Earthmen did."

  "And we've had the Starwolves ever since," said Dilullo. "If the independent starworlds could quit quarreling with each other just once, they could join together and go in and clean Varna out."

  Chane shook his head. "It wouldn't be that easy. In space, no one is an even match for Varnans for no one can endure the acceleration-pressures they can."

  "But if a big enough coalition fleet moved in ..."

  "It would find it tough going. There are many mighty starworlds in that arm of the galaxy. We Varnans have never raided them, instead we trade with them, our loot for their products. They benefit by us, and they'd resist any attempt by outsiders to enter their space."

  "A damned immoral arrangement, but that wouldn't bother Varnans," grumbled Dilullo. "I've heard they have no religion at all."

  "Religion?" Chane shook his head. "Not a bit. That's why my parents came to Varna, but they got nowhere in their mission."

  "No religion, no ethics," said Dilullo. "But you've got some laws and rules. Especially when you go out on raids."

  Chane began to understand now, but he only nodded and said, "Yes, we do."

  Dilullo refilled his own glass. "I'll tell you something, Chane. Earth is a poor world too. So a lot of us have to go out in space to make a living. We don't raid, but we do the tough, dirty jobs of the galaxy that people don't want to do themselves.

  "We're hired men. But we're independent ... we don't run in packs. Someone wants Mercs to do a job, he comes to a Merc leader with a reputation ... like me. The leader signs on the Mercs best fitted for the job, and gets a Merc ship to come in on shares. When the job'
s over and price of it split up, the Mercs disband. It may be a completely different bunch next time I take on an operation.

  "What I'm getting at," he continued, and now his eyes bored into Chane's face, "is that while we're together on a job, our lives may depend on all orders being obeyed."

  Chane shrugged. "If you'll remember, I didn't ask for any part of the job."

  "You didn't ask for it but you've got it," Dilullo said harshly. "You think a hell of a lot of yourself because you've been a Starwolf. I'll tell you right now that as long as you're with me you're going to be a pretty tame wolf. You'll wait when I tell you to wait, and you'll bite only when I say 'Bite!' Do you understand?"

  "I understand what you're saying," answered Chane carefully. After a moment he asked. "Do you think you can tell me what we're after on Vhol?"

  "I think I can," said Dilullo, "for if you open your mouth about it there, you're likely to be dead. Vhol is only a waystop, Chane. What we're after is somewhere in the nebula. The Vhollans have got something in there, some kind of weapon or power that the Kharalis fear and want destroyed. That's the job we're hired for."

  He paused, then added, "We could go straight to the nebula, and then fly around in it for years searching, without finding anything. It's better to go to Vhol and let the Vhollans lead us to what they've got out there. But it's going to be tricky, and if they guess what we're up to, it'll be our necks."

  Chane felt a kindling interest. He saw the face of danger and it was a face he had known all his life, since first he had been old enough to go raiding from Varna. Danger was the antagonist with whom you struggled, and if you bested him you came away with plunder and if you lost you died. But without the struggle you were simply bored, as he had been bored on this ship until now.

  "How did the Kharalis find out about this Vhollan weapon?" he asked. "Yorolin?"

  Dilullo nodded. "Yorolin told them the Vhollans had something big out there, but he didn't know what it was. But Yorolin doesn't know he told them anything ... he was drugged, unconscious, when they pumped him."

  Chane nodded. "And presently you'll let Yorolin persuade you to go to Vhol?"

  "Yes," said Dilullo. "He won't find it too hard to get me to go there. I hope it'll be as easy for us to leave there!"

  When Chane went back into the crew-room there were only four men in it, for the Mercs stood duty as crewmen in flight. They were sitting in the bunks and they had been talking, but they stopped talking when he came in.

  Bollard turned his moon-fat face toward him and said, in his lisping voice, "Well now, Chane ... you have a good time in the city?"

  Chane nodded. "I had a good time."

  "That's nice," said Bollard. "Don't you think that's nice, boys?"

  Rutledge gave Chane a hot-eyed stare and said nothing, but Bixel, without looking up from the small instrument he was dissembling, drawled that that was real nice.

  Sekkinen, a tall rawhide man with a look of gloom about him, had no time for subtleties. He said loudly to Chane, "You were supposed to stay with the ship. You heard the order."

  "Ah, but Chane's not like us, he's something special," said Bollard. "He'd have to be something special, or John wouldn't take a rock-hopper prospector and make him a full-fledged Merc."

  Chane had known from the first that they resented having to accept him, but there would be more than mere resentment if they knew the truth about him.

  "The only thing is," Bollard said to him, "that your busting in like that might just have made the Kharalis so mad that they'd have killed us. What if that had happened?"

  "I'd have been sorry," said Chane, with a sweet smile.

  Bollard beamed at him. "Sure you would. And I'll tell you what, Chane. If it ever happens again like that, to keep you from being broken-hearted about it I'll just kill you so you don't suffer all that sorrow."

  Chane said nothing. He was remembering what Dilullo had said about Mercs' lives depending on each other, and he knew that the lisped warning was in earnest.

  He was thinking that these Earthmen might not be Varnans but that they could be just as dangerous in a different way, and that Mercs had not got their tough reputation for nothing. It seemed like a good time to keep his mouth shut, and get some sleep.

  When he awoke the ship was in its landing-pattern around Vhol, and he joined a few of the Mercs at the forward port to look at the planet. Through drifting clouds they saw dark blue, almost tideless, oceans and the coasts of green continents.

  "It looks a lot like Earth," said Rutledge.

  Chane almost asked, "Does it?" but he managed not to ask that betraying question.

  As the landing-pattern took them lower, Bixel said, "That city's not like any on Earth. Except maybe old Venice, blown up fifty times."

  The ship was approaching a flat coast fringed by a multitude of small islands. The sea rolled between the islands in hundreds of natural waterways and on the islands were crowded the white buildings, none very lofty, of a far-stretching city. Further inland, where the land rose a little, was a medium sized spaceport and beyond it rows of tall white blocks that looked like warehouses or factories.

  "A more advanced world than Kharal," said Rut-ledge. "Look, they've got at least a half-dozen starships of their own on that port, and lots of planetary types."

  When they landed and cracked the lock, Yorolin spoke first to the two white-haired young Vhollan port officials in his own language.

  The Vhollan officials looked suspicious. One of them spoke in galacto to Dilullo, after Yorolin indicated him as the leader.

  "You carry weapons?"

  "Samples of weapons," Dilullo corrected.

  "Why do you bring them to Vhol?"

  Dilullo put on a look of indignation. "I was only doing your friend Yorolin a favor to come here at all! But maybe we can do some business here."

  The official remaining courteously unconvinced, Dilullo patiently explained. "Look, we're Mercs and all we want to do is make a living. We heard there was some sort of war in this system so we came with some samples of late-type weapons. I wish now we'd never come! We land on Kharal and before we can even talk business to them, they run us off because one of my men got into trouble. If you people don't want to see what we've got to offer, all right, but no need to make a big thing out of it."

  Again Yorolin spoke rapidly to the official in their own tongue, and finally the official nodded.

  "Very well; we allow the landing. But a guard will be placed outside your ship. None of these weapons are to be removed from it."

  Dilullo nodded. "All right, I understand." He turned to Yorolin. "Now I want to get in touch with somebody in your officialdom who would be interested in buying late-type weapons. Who?"

  Yorolin thought. "Thrandirin would be the man ... I'll let him know at once."

  Dilullo said, "I'll be right here, if he wants to get in touch with me." He looked over the Mercs. "While we're here, you can take turns in town liberty. Except you, Chane ... you get no liberty."

  Chane had expected that, and he saw the Mercs grinning their satisfaction. But when Yorolin understood, he made lengthy objection.

  "Chane is the man who saved me," said Yorolin. "I want my family and friends to meet him. I insist upon it!"

  Chane saw frustration and irritation appear on Dilullo's face, and he felt like grinning back but he did not.

  "All right," said Dilullo sourly. "If you make such a point of it."

  While they waited for Vhollan guards to come, before which the port officials would not let them off the ship, Dilullo found a chance to speak privately to Chane.

  "You know what we're here for. To find out what's going on in the nebula, and where. Keep your ears open but don't seem inquisitive. And, Chane ..."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm not convinced that Yorolin is all that grateful. It could be they'll be trying to find out some things about us from you. Watch it."

  VII

  They had all been drinking and were gay, and a couple of the me
n were more than that. There were three girls and four men, besides Chane, and they were a merry, crowded cargo for the skimmer as it wended slowly along the crowded waterways under the glowing nebula sky.

  Yorolin was singing a lilting song which the girl beside Chane, whose name was Laneeah or something that sounded like it, translated for him. It was about love and flowers and things of that sort and Chane didn't think much of it; on Varna the songs had been of raiding and fighting, of running galactic dangers and coming home with treasure. However, he liked the Vhollans, and their world being the outermost of their red-giant sun's planets, it was pleasantly tropical and not burned dry like Kharal.

  The waterways were calm and the wind was only a heavy breeze laden with drifting perfume from the flowering trees that grew on either side. These islands were the pleasure part of the Vhollan city, and in fact were the only part Chane had seen except the surprisingly pretentious villa where he had met Yorolin's parents and friends, and where his party had got started.

  He had remembered Dilullo's admonition to keep his ears open, but he didn't think he was going to hear anything from this crowd that would help them any.

  "We don't see many Earthmen here," said Laneeah. She spoke galacto well. "Only a few traders now and then."

  "How do you like us?" asked Chane, feeling a wry amusement at being classed as an Earthman.

  "Ugly," she said. "Colored hair, even black hair like yours. Faces that are red or tan, not white." She made a small sound of disgust, but she was smiling as though she did not find him ugly at all.

  It made him think suddenly of Varna and of Graal, most beautiful of the girls he had known there, and how she had contrasted her splendid fine-furred golden body with his hairlessness, and mocked him.

  Then the skimmer drew in to a landing and there were many lights and jovial music and they went ashore. There was a sort of bazaar of amusements here, small peaked buildings with colored lights under the tall flowering trees, and a swarming, aimless crowd of people. The Vhollans made a handsome sight, they were proud of their white bodies and white hair and wore their knee-length tunics in brilliant colors.