"It's so damned funny," he said in galacto. "You just don't realize yet how funny it is."
Dilullo drank a little, not much, of the fiery Rith liquor they had been served. He said mildly, "Let us in on the joke. What makes it so funny?"
Eron shook his head and laughed and kept striding back and forth. He was small, but he threw a big shadow across the stone floor of the great barny banqueting hall.
Men stood around it here and there at a respectful distance, well out of hearing. Red-skinned men of Rith, powerful runts with lasers and stunners. Their eyes never left the three men at the table.
The room was cold and utterly unwelcoming. On its walls in a sort of palimpsest over blurred old paintings of gracious blue people in gardens were daubed crude, violent figures of small red men carrying weapons in war. Once there had been a gentler civilization here, Dilullo knew, and then the fierce outlanders or outworlders had come. It was an old story; one met it all over the galaxy.
Eight girls danced, almost naked, at the far end of the long shadowy hall. None of them were of the red Rith people; they were of various colors, tall, and they danced with a lazy, sinuous grace to the twanging of hidden musicians. Nobody watched them. They were a decoration, not a performance.
Dilullo waited, saying nothing more. Eron was so full of himself and his triumph that he would sooner or later start talking. In the meantime, the Mercs were all under guard in an upper wing of this sprawling old palace, and only he and Chane and Gwaath had been brought here.
Gwaath was pretty happy himself. Lots of the fiery Rith liquor had been set before them and the Paragaran had quaffed it in truly heroic quantities. He sat in a bit of a daze, his furry face leering foolishly at Eron, like a schoolgirl admiring a hero. There was something so ridiculous about his expression that Dilullo felt like laughing.
There was nothing about Chane that made him feel like laughing. Chane had got pretty drunk, and this was a surprise. Dilullo had seen him drink a good bit at times, but it had always seemed only to deepen the mocking irony in his dark face. But Chane looked black as a thundercloud now, and the exquisitely measured deliberation of his movements told Dilullo how drunk he was.
Homesick, thought Dilullo. He's got back out here to the Spur, and Varna is not too far away as galactic distances go; but he can never go back there and it's eating on him.
"Didn't you ever dream," said Eron, "that Klloya-Klloy might send messages to all of us who bought the Singing Suns, to warn us that Mercs were out to get them?"
Dilullo shrugged. "We thought of the possibility. We supposed that Klloya-Klloy would not want to advertise the fact that we'd come right into his headquarters and twisted his nose. It wouldn't be good publicity for a famous receiver of stolen goods."
"You were wrong," said Eron. "Klloya-Klloy doesn't care whether it's good or bad publicity. He was so angry he just wanted you caught and punished."
Dilullo nodded. "It figures. But I'm leader of the mission. Why bring Gwaath and Chane up here for your gloating?"
Eron said, "As to the Paragaran, I'm just curious as to what he's doing with you. You might say he's just for laughs."
Gwaath responded to this by a tipsy smile that split his formidable face open and showed his gleaming teeth. It was a sort of I-love-you-too smile. Then he put his head down on the table and snored.
"As for the man Chane," Eron continued after a moment, "Klloya-Klloy mentioned him. Morgan Chane, the Starwolf. How can an Earthman be a Starwolf?" -
Chane drained his goblet and set it down. He said, "But I'm not a Starwolf."
He got up and stepped around the table toward Eron. The little red men around the hall raised their weapons a trifle. The naked girls continued to dance to the twanging strings. On the walls the dim, gentle-faced blue people smiled from behind the striding little crimson warriors painted over them.
Chane's face assumed a sweet smile, and Dilullo thought, For God's sake, not that. I've seen that smile before and it means trouble.
"You see," said Chane to Eron, "I'm only half Starwolf. I was born on Varna and I grew up with the Varnans and raided with them, but I was never anything more than half a Varnan, I realize now."
And then of a sudden Chane's voice rasped like a sword coming out of its scabbard. "But half a Starwolf is enough to merit respect from the little lesser breeds like the men of Rith!"
Rage flared up in Eron's small eyes. He half raised his hand to summon the men with weapons who were ranged around the walls of the big stone room.
He did not complete the motion. He looked at Chane with something like admiration in his face.
"You're a Starwolf, all right," he said. "Only one of those devils would say a thing like that, here where I could crook my finger and have you killed."
Chane shrugged. "I'll tell you how the Varnans see it, and how they taught me. A man can get killed any time, and in any case he can't live forever, so there's no use worrying about it."
"Why aren't you with the Varnans?" demanded Eron. "What are you doing with these Mercs?"
"A disagreement," Chane said carelessly. "I killed a comrade who tried to kill me, and I had no clan to back me up. So I got out."
"In other words," said Eron, "you ran."
"Of course I ran. Starwolves are realists. They don't want to be killed any more than anyone else does. The point is that they just don't worry so damned much about it."
Eron laughed suddenly and clapped him on the back. "Have another drink," he said. "I've got a funny story to tell you men. It's so funny you'll just about die laughing."
And here it comes, thought Dilullo, the little surprise that has kept him so happy.
"You came here," said Eron, "to snatch away the six Singing Suns that I bought from Klloya-Klloy."
"There doesn't seem to be any point in denying it," Dilullo said sourly.
"That's where the joke comes in," said Eron. "I do not have the Singing Suns."
Dilullo stared at him. "But you just admitted that you bought them from Klloya-Klloy."
"I did," said Eron. He had to stop and laugh again before he went on. "But I don't have them. You see, the joke is not only on you, but on Klloya-Klloy too. And to think he took the trouble to send me a warning ..."
He was off into mirth again. Dilullo had a fair bit of patience but it was beginning to wear thin.
"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd like to hear the point of this wonderful joke and then I can laugh along with you."
"The point," said Eron, "is that all the Singing Suns were bought by one purchaser. The Qajars. They used the rest of us as purchasing agents. If they'd bid for all the Suns, Klloya-Klloy's price would have been like the ransom for a star. So they only bid for some of them and had the rest of us—all that list of buyers the old merchant gave you—buy the other Suns in piece lots. We delivered them and now the Qajars have all the Singing Suns."
Chane, despite his dark and bitter mood, laughed aloud. "A neat trick. They foxed the old spider of Mruun very nicely."
"Neat is the word for it," Eron agreed cheerfully. "So you can understand why, when Klloya-Klloy rushed me a warning and you Mercs came cleverly sneaking to Rith with all sorts of plans to take my six Suns, I thought it was really funny."
"It's so funny I'm speechless," Dilullo said. "So the Qajars have all the Suns? Who the hell are the Qajars, anyway?"
"People," said Eron. "Very odd people. They're aesthetes, probably the greatest lovers of beautiful things in the galaxy. They are also extremely clever with weapons. And they have no bowels of mercy in them. You think we Rith are tough and ruthless—"
"I don't," said Chane.
Eron shot him an irritated look, but then went on. "Besides the Qajars, we're tender as maidens. I just can't figure them out. They have the most beautiful and valuable objects ever heard of and they love them the way a man loves his newest slave-girl. I could understand their wanting to defend them. But their weapons are not built just for efficiency. They're deliberately designed to tort
ure as well as kill, and the Qajars delight in using them."
"They sound like charming people. And they have all the Singing Suns?"
"They have all the Singing Suns."
"Where is their world?"
Eron smiled. "I've been there often. Last time I took the six Singing Suns. And you know what ...?" He had to stop to laugh again. "I landed on their world and I took tridim pictures of all their treasures and they never even knew it. They'd have killed me if they had, they're so secretive."
Chane looked at him. "The man asked you a question. Where is their world?"
"Ah," said Eron, "of course you want to know that. I thought you would. And maybe I'll tell you. Maybe. You see, the Qajars have kept themselves and their treasures utterly hidden. I'm one of the very few people who could tell you about them."
"I seem to smell some kind of deal coming up," Dilullo said sourly. "All right, get to it."
"We have heard," said Eron, "that the government of Achernar is offering a two million credit reward for the return of the Singing Suns. That reward is what you Mercs are after, isn't it?"
"I don't see any point in denying that, either," said Dilullo.
"You haven't got a prayer of getting to the Qajars and the Suns on your own," said Eron. "You don't know where their world is, and even if you knew, your ship would never reach it. They've got defenses like you never heard of."
Dilullo eyed him and said, "Go on."
"But," said Eron, his small eyes very bright, "I could direct you straight to them. I could lend you a small Rith scout that would fool them into letting you land. My tridims would show you just where the Suns are. All this I would do ... for half of those two million credits."
He added, "Of course, a Rith scout is small. Only three or four of you could go in it. The rest would be my guests here ... and a guarantee that you'd return."
"In other words," said Dilullo, "having foxed Klloya-Klloy as an agent for the Qajars, you are now willing to betray your employers to us."
Eron grinned. "That's it."
"At least," Dilullo said, "you do put a high price on your loyalty." Then he asked, "Will you tell me ... is there a single honest man in Argo Spur?"
Eron stared. He turned to Chane and said, "Did you hear that, Starwolf? He's looking for an honest man in the Spur!"
And both Chane and Eron roared with laughter at the idea.
VII
A small cluster of dead, dark stars, with only a few nearly extinct suns showing a dull red light. ... It was a lonely and desolate spectacle as the tridim projector showed it in the shadowy hall.
"I know that cluster," said Chane. "It's clear outside the Spur, in a nadir-westward direction."
"Right," said Eron.
"But there's no inhabited world in there."
"Wrong, this time. The Qajars live there, on the planet of one of those dying suns, deep in the cluster. They call it Chlann."
Chane looked incredulous. "Nobody, not even the Varnans, has ever heard of it."
Eron smiled. "That's because the Qajars want it that way. They're one of the richest peoples in the galaxy and because of that they remain carefully hidden."
"Rich? What is there in that mess of dead suns and frozen worlds that would make them rich?" demanded Dilullo.
"There's radite," said Eron. "The rarest transuranic element of all. There are tremendous deposits of radite on their world, which is why they came there originally. You know the price that stuff brings."
Dilullo still looked skeptical. "How the devil could they sell it and still keep their existence secret?"
"Simple," said Eron. "They use a few selected people in the Spur as their agents. I have been one of them. We go into the cluster and pick up the radite, which is our pay for bringing them back the things they want. And the things they want are always costly, and beautiful, and difficult to steal."
"I'll be damned," said Dilullo. "They sound worse than that thieves' race on Mruun."
"The Qajars are a lot worse," said Eron. "I'm convinced they're more than a little mad ... that the emanations of radite have had a genetic effect on their minds. They never leave that hidden world. They stay there and fondle their treasures and invent ever more ingenious and unpleasant weapons with which to guard them, and all the time they acquire more and more of the rarest art-treasures in the galaxy so they'll have more to guard. And if that isn't madness, what is?"
Chane mentally pricked up his ears. "It sounds like a fine place to loot."
Eron nodded. "Exactly why they've kept themselves a secret. But nobody would get their treasures easily. The Qajars are infinitely cruel and very cunning, and they have many defenses. Like the Lethal Worlds."
"The Lethal Worlds?"
Eron pointed to the pictured dark cluster. "The Qajars say they have mined many of the dead planets in that cluster with sufficient charges of radite to explode them like huge bombs. They could destroy any fleet that came against them."
Chane said contemptuously, "It sounds like a bluff to scare people away."
"I wouldn't count on it," said Eron. "I know myself they're absolutely without scruple or mercy. In fact—" He hesitated. "In fact, I had a feeling that after they got all the Singing Suns together the Qajars would start doing away with the agents who procured them, so no one would ever know. I wouldn't go into that cluster again!"
"But you're suggesting we go in," said Dilullo.
Eron grinned. "That's different. If you get hurt I won't feel it."
He made a signal and the tridim picture changed. They seemed now to be hanging above the surface of a nearly-dead planet. Black, arid plains swept away to low, dark mountains, all the landscape illumined dimly by the feeble red rays of the dying sun.
At one point on the plain rose a small city. Its buildings were of glittering metal. They were of no great size, most of them, but the center of the city was a round open area, and around this plaza there rose a ring of soaring metal towers. Over the whole place brooded a glow of blue radiance that seemed quite sourceless.
"That halo gives them light and warmth," said Eron. "They have radite enough to maintain a thousand like it."
Dilullo noted the ships parked on a big starport. "I thought you said these Qajars never left their world."
"They don't," said Eron. "Those are all warships, for defense."
"Are those tall towers their treasure houses?" asked Chane.
"You've got a Starwolf s eye for loot, all right," said Eron. "Yes, they are. I've never been allowed inside them, but my concealed tridim camera, using sensor rays, got pictures of the interiors."
The picture changed to the interior of a big room whose walls were softly-burnished metal. And there were people in this room.
The Qajars. Tall men and women in white robes. They had pure white faces, almost beautiful, and slender hands. Their eyes were dark and wide and calm. But there was a chilling inhumanity about the unnatural placidity of those cold faces.
"I see what you mean about them," muttered Dilullo. "They do look as though progressive genetic change and isolation have twisted them."
Chane was not looking at the Qajars. He was looking at the objects that crowded the room, glittering treasures that drew his gaze like a magnet.
Diamond, pearl, chrysoprase, fire-rubies from the worlds of Betelgeuse, shimmering lightstones from Kharal, the sea green gems that are brought up from under the oceans of Algol Three, gold, silver, electrum, all put together into incredible vases, chairs, panels, and other things he could not even define. They all had overwhelming grace and beauty, but it was not that which made Chane draw in his breath sharply.
"Makes you drool, doesn't it?" said Dilullo. "All that loot."
"And we of Varna never even dreamed of it," muttered Chane.
"I told you the Qajars are masters of cunning," said Eron. "Wait till you see into the other treasure houses."
Mobiles, statuary, tapestries woven of tiny gems, monstrous planetary idols in gleaming precious metals, str
ange symbols from far stars whose stones flashed like fires, great books of gold whose leaves were silver illuminated with designs in tiny jewels.
And through these rooms, between these stunning objects, walked the men and women of the Qajars, looking with calm gaze to the right and then to the left, inspecting their hoard, drinking in its beauty, savoring it in some strange deep way that other men could not even guess at.
"And that's all they do?" said Chane incredulously. "Gather together all that stuff and then just sit and admire it?"
"I told you they're a little mad," said Eron. He added, "Now look at this."
The final tridim pictures showed first a certain tower, and then the interior of a room in it. It was a big, circular room whose whole interior was black—ceiling, floor, the silken hangings on the walls—black as outer space. And in it, as in a shrine, were the Singing Suns.
Incomplete. There were only twenty-eight of them, not forty. Yet they paled everything seen before. They were varicolored, like stars. Pale green, cold blue, warm gold, dull red ... gleaming glories that slowly revolved as a group, and also around each other. The whole group of them were only four feet across, and they were contained inside a force-shield above a thick four foot base which contained the power unit for the shield. And the beauty of their shining brought a sigh from Dilullo.
"You can't hear them," said Eron. "Not in this picture. But they say if you can hear them as well as see them, you never want to leave them. Anyway, they've got all forty of them now."
Chane looked and looked at them, and there rose strongly in him the Starwolf lust for loot. "We've got to have them," he muttered. "But how?"
"How about my deal, before I go any further?" demanded Eron.
Chane gestured toward Dilullo. "Talk to him. He's the leader."
Dilullo thought for a while. Then he said to Eron, "The deal is on ... but only conditionally. There are three steps to this operation: getting there, getting the Singing Suns, and getting out again. What can you provide that's worth a million credits?"
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