In an arbor of immense flame-colored flowers they sat and had more of the fruity Vhollan wine, and Yorolin pounded his fist on the table and spoke with passion to Chane.
"Out in deep space, that's where I should be, like you. Not paddling around in a miserable planet-cruiser."
His face was flushed with the wine and Chane felt the drink himself, and reminded himself to be careful.
"Well, why aren't you?" he asked Yorolin. "Vhol has starships; I saw them on the spaceport."
"Not so many," said Yorolin. "And it takes seniority to get a berth in one of them, but someday I'll be on one; someday ..."
"Oh, stop talking about stars and come on and have some fun," said Laneeah. "Or Chane and I will leave you here."
They went on, passing some places, entering others. A kaleidoscope of impressions: jugglers tossing silver bells, flowers grown from seeds in seconds and drifting down on their heads, more wine, and dancers, and still more wine.
It was in this last drinking-place, a long low room with fire-bowls in braziers for illumination and walls of flaming red, that Yorolin suddenly looked across the room and exclaimed, "A Pyam! I haven't seen one for years! Come on, Chane; this will be something for you to tell about."
He led Chane across the room, the others being too engaged in chatter to follow.
At a table sat a stocky Vhollan man, and on the table was a creature that was secured to the man's wrist by a thin chain. It looked like a little yellow mannikin shaped like a turnip, with two small legs, its body going up to a neckless, pointed head, with two small blinking eyes and a small baby mouth.
"Can it speak galactd?" asked Yorolin, and the man with the chain nodded.
"It can. It brings me many a coin from the offworld people."
"What the devil is it?" asked Chane.
Yorolin grinned. "It's not related to the human, though it vaguely looks that way. It's a rare inhabitant of our forests ... it's got some intelligence and one remarkable power." He told the Vhollan, "Have your Pyam give my friend a demonstration."
The Vhollan spoke to the creature in his own language. The creature turned and looked at Chane, and somehow the impact of the blinking gaze was disturbing.
"Oh, yes," it said in flat parrot-like words. "Oh, yes, I can see memories. I can see men with golden hair and they run toward little ships on a strange world and they are laughing. Oh, yes, I can see...."
With sudden alarm, Chane realized what the strange power of the Pyam was. It could read minds and memories and babble them forth in its squeaky tones, and in a moment it would babble a secret that would be his death.
"What kind of nonsense is this?" Chane interrupted loudly. He spoke to the Vhollan man. "Is the thing a telepath? If it is, I challenge it to read what I am thinking at this moment."
And he turned and looked at the Pyam and as he did so he thought with fierce, raging intensity, If you read more from my mind I will kill you, right now, right this minute. He put all the will power he had into concentrating on that thought, into packing it with passionate conviction.
The Pyam's eyes blinked. "Oh yes, I can see," it squeaked. "Oh, yes...."
"Yes?" said Yorolin.
The blinking eyes looked into Chane's face. "Oh yes, I can see ... nothing. Nothing. Oh, yes. ..."
The Pyam's owner looked astounded. "That's the first time it ever failed."
"Maybe its powers don't work on Earthmen," said Yorolin, laughing. He gave the man a coin and they turned away. "Sorry, Chane, I thought it would be interesting for you. ..."
Did you? thought Chane. Or did you arrange for the beast to be here and lead me right to it, so it could probe my mind?
He was taut with suspicion now. He remembered Dilullo's warning, which he had almost forgotten.
He let none of it show in his face but went back to the table with Yorolin and drank and laughed with the others. He thought, and then, after looking carelessly around the room, he came to a decision. He began to drink more heavily, and he made a show of doing so.
"Not so much," said Laneeah, "or you will not last the evening."
Chane smiled at her. "The space between the stars has no wine in it and a man can get awfully dry."
He kept on drinking and he began to act as though he was pretty drunk. His head rang a little but he was not drunk at all, and he kept an eye on the Vhollan with the Pyam, across the room. A few people had gathered around them, and the Pyam squeaked at them, and finally they gave coins and went away.
The stocky man then picked up the Pyam, carrying it under his arm like an overgrown baby, and went out. He went out the back door, as Chane had hoped he would.
Chane gave it a few seconds and then staggered to his feet. "I'll be back in a moment," he said thickly, and walked a little unsteadily toward the back of the place as though heading for a place of necessity.
He heard Yorolin laugh and say, "Our friend seems to have underestimated the wines of Vhol."
Chane, at the back of the room, shot a glance and saw that they were not looking after him. He slipped quickly out the back door and found himself in a dark alleyway.
He saw the shadowy figure of the stocky Vhollan, going away down the alley. Chane went after him fast, going on the tips of his toes in leaping strides that made no sound. But apparently the Pyam sensed him, for it squeaked, and the man turned around sharply.
Chane's bunched fists hit him on the point of the jaw. He did not use all his strength, which he thought was foolish, but all the same he did not feel like going back to Dilullo and saying he'd killed someone.
The man fell, dragging the Pyam down with him by the chain, and the creature squeaked in horrified alarm.
Be quiet! Be very quiet, and I will not hurt you, thought Chane.
The creature became silent and cringed, as much as its absurd little legs would allow it to cringe.
Chane took the end of the chain away from the unconscious man. He dragged the Vhollan into a light-less space between two outbuildings.
The Pyam made a small whimpering sound. Chane patted its
pointed head and thought, You will not be hurt. Tell me, was your owner hired to bring you to this tavern?
"Oh, yes," said the Pyam. "Gold pieces. Yes."
Chane considered for a moment, and then asked mentally, Can you read the thoughts of someone who is a little way off? Like across a room?
The Pyam's squeak, despite its dogmatic affirmative opening, was doubtful. "Oh yes. Not unless I see his face."
Speak whispers now, thought Chane. Whispers. No loud sound, no hurting.
Carrying the Pyam, he slipped back to the door of the drinking-place and opened it a few inches.
The man at the table across the room, he thought, the man I am looking at. And he looked at Yorolin.
The Pyam began to squeak in a subdued, conspiratorial chirping.
"Oh yes ... did Chane suspect the trick? How could he ... but he looked a bit as if he did ... it didn't work anyway and I'll have to report to Thrandirin that I couldn't confirm our suspicions ... we can't take chances ... what's Chane doing back there ... is he being sick? Maybe I'd better go and see...."
Chane silently slipped back into the darkness of the alley. The Pyam's little blinking eyes looked at him fearfully.
They tell me you're from the forest, thought Chane. Would you like to return there?
"Oh, yes. Yes!"
I turned you loose, could you get there?
"Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes...."
That's enough, thought Chane. He removed the thin chain and set the Pyam down on the ground. All right. Go, little one.
The Pyam waddled rapidly into the shadows and went away. Chane thought that, with its telepathic sense to warn it of obstacles, it would make it.
He turned around and went back to the door. Yoro-lin was worried about him, and he must not keep his dear and grateful friend waiting.
VIII
The big starship came down majestically toward the spaceport, shining and
magnificent in the nebula-glow, seeming to hang for a moment in the sky.
Then it settled down slowly into the area of the port that was reserved for the military ships of Vhol.
In the navigation room of the little Merc ship, Dilullo and Bixel, the radarman, stared at each other in amazement.
"That's not a warship. Perfectly ordinary cargo carrier. What's it doing in the military reservation?"
"Docking," said Dilullo, and leaned over Bixel's shoulder to study the scanner and the radargraph.
"It came in on a fifty degree course," said Bixel.
Dilullo nodded, his worn face harsh in the hooded glow. "So it didn't come from the nebula. ..."
"Not unless it came the long way round."
"That's exactly what I mean. They might be going and coming by different ways, setting roundabout courses deliberately to make it difficult to get a fix on them."
"They could be," Bixel said, "and that would put us in kind of a fix ... not to be funny. Couldn't we just go back to the idea that they're playing it straight? I was much happier that way."
"So was I. Only there must be some special reason why an ordinary cargo ship plunks down in a maximum-security military area. Of course it may be something else entirely ... but if they had brought something important back from the nebula, that's what they'd do with it." He straightened up. "Keep tracking all arrivals and departures. Maybe some pattern will come clear."
He got out of the cramped little room and went below to Records, an even more cramped little room, where he dug out the stock list, price list, and spec sheets for all the sample weapons he had aboard. Nobody seemed passionately interested in even talking to him about his weapons, and if they really had something tremendous out in the nebula they would hardly need them. Nevertheless, he felt that he should be ready if called upon.
A little later Rutledge summoned him, and Dilullo put the microspools in his pocket and went to the lock. Rutledge pointed. A big skimmer—the things had wheels and were ground-cars as well as watercraft—was coming fast toward them across the spaceport.
A Vhollan officer and a civilian and a bunch of armed soldiers got out of the craft and approached the Merc ship. The civilian was middle-aged, a stocky man with authority in his massive head and face. He came to Dilullo and surveyed him coldly.
"My name is Thrandirin, and I am of the Government," he said. "The spaceport tower reported that you have been using your radar."
Dilullo swore inwardly, but kept his face and voice untroubled. "Of course we have. We always test radar while in dock."
"I'm afraid," said Thrandirin, "that we shall have to ask you and your men to live off-ship while you're here, and visit your ship only under escort."
"Now wait a minute," said Dilullo angrily. "You can't do that... just because we tested our radar."
"You could have been tracking our warships," retorted Thrandirin. "We are in a state of war with Kharal, and the movements of our ships are secret."
"Oh, damn your war with Kharal," said Dilullo. "The only thing about it that interests me is money." And that was true enough. He pulled the microspools out of his pocket and shook them in his hand. "I'm here to sell weapons. I don't care who uses them against what, or how. The Kharalis frankly said no and kicked us out. I'd appreciate it if you Vhollans would be as honest. Do you want to buy or don't you?"
"The subject is still under discussion," said Thrandirin.
"Which is Universal Bureaucratic for we'll get around to it sometime. How long are we expected to wait?"
The Vhollan shrugged. "Until the decision is made. In the meantime, you will evacuate your ship within the hour. There are inns over in the port quarter."
"Oh, no," blazed Dilullo. "No, I won't. I'll call my men in and take off, and the view of Vhol going away from it will be the best view we've had yet."
A wintry quality came into Thrandirin's voice. "I regret that we can't give you takeoff clearance at this time ... perhaps not for a few days."
Dilullo felt the first whispering touch of a net gathering around him. "You've no legal right to detain us if we want to leave your system, war or not."
"It's only for your own protection," said Thrandirin. "We've had word that a squadron of raiding Starwolves is in the Cluster and may be near this area."
Dilullo was genuinely startled. He had forgotten Chane's assertion that his former comrades would not easily give up the hunt for him.
On the other hand, Thrandirin was obviously using this alarm about Starwolves as an official excuse to keep him here. He doubted, looking at the Vhollan's bleak face, that the man would care if all the Mercs in creation were in danger.
He thought rapidly. There was no possibility of their defying the order, and the worst thing he could do now was to make too big a fuss. That would only confirm their suspicions.
"Oh, all right," he said sourly. "It's a ridiculous thing, and our ship will be left unguarded. ..."
"I assure you," said Thrandirin smoothly, "that your ship will be closely guarded at all times."
It was a veiled warning, Dilullo thought, but he let it go. He went into the ship and called together what Mercs were there, and told them.
"Better pack a few things," he added. "We may be living quite a few days on Star Street."
Star Street was not so much a place as a name. It was the name that starmen invariably gave to whatever street near a spaceport afforded fun and comfort. The Star Street of Vhol was not too much different from many others that Dilullo had walked.
It had lights and music and drink and food and women. It was a gusty, crowded place but it was not sinful, for most of these people had never heard of the Judeo-Christian ethic and did not know they were sinning at all. Dilullo did not have an easy time keeping his men with him as he looked for an inn.
A buxom woman with pale green skin and flashing eyes hailed him from the open front of her establishment, where girls of different hues and at least three different shapes preened themselves.
"The ninety-nine joys dwell here, oh Earthmen! Enter!"
Dilullo shook his head. "Not I, mother. I crave the hundredth joy."
"And what is the hundredth joy?"
Dilullo answered sourly. "The joy of sitting down quietly and reading a good book."
Rutledge broke up laughing, beside him, and the woman started to screech curses in galacto.
"Old!" she cried. "Old withered husk of an Earthman! Totter on your way, ancient one!"
Dilullo shrugged as her maledictions followed them down the noisy street. "I don't know but what she's right. I'm feeling fairly old, and not very bright."
He found an inn that looked clean enough and bargained for rooms. The big common room was shadowy and empty, the inn's patrons having apparently gone forth to sample the happiness Dilullo had rejected. He sat down with the others and called for a Vhollan brandy, and then turned to Rutledge.
"You go back to the ship. The guards may not let you inside, but wait around near it and as our chaps come in from liberty, tell them where we're staying."
Rutledge nodded and went away, Dilullo and the others drank their brandy for a little while in silence.
Then Bixel asked, "What about it, John? Is this job blown?"
"It isn't yet," said Dilullo.
"Maybe we shouldn't have come to Vhol."
Dilullo felt no anger at the criticism. The Mercs were a pretty democratic lot, they would obey a leader's orders but they didn't mind telling him when they thought he was wrong. And a leader who was wrong too many times, and ended up too many missions with empty hands, would soon have a hard job getting men to follow him.
"It seemed like our best chance," he said. "We wouldn't get far dashing into the nebula and looking for a needle in that size of a haystack. Do you know how many parsecs across the nebula is?"
"It's a problem," Bixel said, making the understatement of the decade, and dropped the subject.
After a while the other Mercs began to come in, most of them fairly s
ober. Sekkinen brought a message from Rutledge, at the spaceport.
"Rutledge said to tell you they unloaded some stuff from that cargo ship in the military port. He could see them through the fence. There were some crates, and they hustled them into the warehouse."
"They did, did they?" Dilullo said. And added, "That makes it even more interesting."
He was glad when Bollard came. Despite his fat and sloppy look, Bollard was by far the ablest of his men and had been a leader himself more than once.
When Bollard had heard, he thought for a little time and then said, "I think we've had it. I'd say, get off Vhol as soon as we can, take our three lightstones and better luck next time."
That was a good sound point of view. With the Vhollans suspicious of them, it was going to be awfully hard to pull this one off. It made sense to do just as Bollard said.
The trouble was that Dilullo did not like getting licked. The trouble also was that Dilullo could not afford to get licked. If he fell on his face with this job it could mean the beginning of the end for him as a Merc leader. He was getting old for it. Nobody had thought much about that because of his record, but he had thought about it. Plenty. Perhaps too much. And he thought that all it would take was one big walloping failure like this to make them say he was just a bit past his work. They'd say it regretfully. They'd talk about how big he'd been in the old days. But they'd say it.
"Look," he told Bollard. "All is not lost. Not yet, anyway. All right, we can't use our radar to get a line on our destination. But there's another possibility. A ship came in and landed in the military port. A cargo ship, not a warship. It wouldn't land there unless it was particularly important."
Bollard frowned. "A supply ship for whatever they're working on in the nebula. Sure. But what does that do for us?"
"It wouldn't do anything if the ship was just loading up with supplies and going out ... that is, not unless we could follow it. But it brought something with it. Rutledge saw them unload some crates and rush them into the military port warehouse."
"Go on," said Bollard, eyeing him with a cold and fishy eye.
"If we could get a look at what's in those crates ... not just a look but an analyzer scan ... something we could compare with the record-spools for point of origin ... it might give us an idea of what they're doing out there, and where."
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