by Andre Norton
At length he appeared to make up his mind and returned along the wall installation, pausing only a second now and then to flip up a switch. When he reached the opposite end, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder at them.
“This is the test,” he said. “I will switch on to an alternate power source. That may or may not work. I hope I have turned off the guard robots—perhaps I haven’t. It’s stars across the board, risking all comets.” He reduced their chances to that of the galaxy-wide gambling game.
Tsiwon put out one trembling hand as if in protest, but if that was what he had in mind, he thought better of it and said nothing. Grasty backed to one side, into a position from which he could better see both the board and the robots. The Salariki did not move. Andas felt Elys’s light touch on his arm, as if she thus sought some reassurance.
Turpyn pulled a last switch. Lights went on. They blinked against the brightness. Andas thought that those lights were a concrete argument that this room must sometime be used by humans—robots did not need them.
He was watching those robots with the same apprehension that held the others tense. Only one moved, and as it trundled doorward, he saw that it was a servo. It passed them at a steady pace and came to the wall at the end of the room, where it flashed a beam code against what seemed solid surface. A panel opened.
“So far, so good.” Even Turpyn appeared to relax visibly. “But if we are going to eat, I would suggest that we get back to our rooms. That thing is programed to deliver the food there.” And he started for the ramp leading to the cell corridor.
A little hesitantly the others followed. Tsiwon and Grasty first, the other three behind. As they started up, Yolyos made a small signal for caution.
“He knows more than he admits.” There was no need for the Salariki to indicate who “he” was. Suddenly Andas had an idea. What if their jailer now posed as one of them? What better way to conceal himself than to claim to be another prisoner?
“He might be one of them you think?”
Yolyos again displayed his fangs. “An idea clever enough to be born from the mind of Yared himself! But not to be overlooked. I will not say that he is our enemy, but I would not hail him as cup-brother with any speed. We must discover the purpose for our being here, because only then can we bring our true enemies into the open. Think about that while you eat—”
“Need we eat apart?” Elys cut in quickly. “I confess freely to you, my lords, I have little liking for entering that room again, less for sitting there on my own. Can we not take the food when it comes and bring it to some common place?”
“Of course!” Though he would not have mentioned it, Andas knew the same uneasiness. To enter that cell and wait gave him the feeling that once more the doors might lock.
“Your room is between mine and the prince’s.” Yolyos fell in with her suggestion at once. “Let us collect our food and come to you.”
Andas did not even go in his cell, but waited outside until the robot came rumbling down the corridor, pushed into the empty room, slid two covered containers and a lidded mug on the table, and went out. Then he collected all quickly and went to Elys’s cell, from the doorway of which the robot was just emerging.
When he entered, she stood away from the wall. Andas pulled the upper covering from her bed and rolled it into a tight ball, which he pushed down to keep the door from closing automatically.
“Well thought on.” As the prince got to his feet, the Salariki arrived with his own dishes.
It was when they opened all the containers that they had a new surprise.
“This,” announced Yolyos, “cannot be prison food. Smalk legs stewed in sauce, roast guan—” He now flipped up the lid of the mug to sniff its contents. “Vormilk well aged, if I can believe my nose.”
Since the Salariki sense of smell was famous, Andas thought he could. But he was bemused at his own supplies. This was food such as might reasonably have come from the first table at the Triple Towers, except it was not ceremoniously served on gold platters and he was not wearing a dining robe of state.
“They put us in cells, dress us so”—disdainfully Elys flicked the stuff of her coverall—“and then feed us richly. Why?”
“Food of our own worlds, too.” Andas looked at the girl’s main platter. He did not recognize the round white balls resting on a mat of green resembling boiled leaves.
“Yes.” The Salariki raised a spoon to suck noisily at its contents. And the prince remembered that the aliens made a practice of eating with sound effects, so that the host might be sure of the enjoyment of his guests.
Just another question to have answered, he thought. Then he fell to eating with full appetite.
2
Whether their fellow prisoners had been moved to dine together, Andas did not know or care. But once his hunger was satisfied, he realized that their party seemed to have divided in two. He, Yolyos, and Elys—the other three (unless Turpyn walked alone) in the other group. He commented on this.
The Salariki replaced the lid on his mug, having drained the last drop of its contents with relish.
“Of Naul I know something,” he said. “It is close to the Nebula, a collection of three systems, ten planets. We have trading stations on three. One exports the Tear Drops of Lur—”
He must have noticed Elys’s baffled expression, for he explained.
“Perfume, my lady, and a very rare one. It is distilled from an exudation that gathers on certain stones set like pillars among native vegetation—but it is not traders’ information you seek now. It remains that I have heard of Naul, and if this Tsiwon is who he says he is, then in him you see one of equal power perhaps with your emperor, Prince. Incidentally, where lies this empire?”
“From here—who knows? We of Inyanga hold the five planets of the system of Dingange—Terran rooted. Our First Ships came with the Afro outspread,” he said proudly, and then knew that this history meant nothing to these aliens and hurriedly added, “That was a very first outspread.”
But since that appeared to mean nothing either, he elaborated no further. Instead, he waited for Elys to add her bit to their pooled information.
“I am Demizonda of Islewaith. We have spread to no other planet, since our sun has but three, and two are near waterless. But I have heard of Thrisk where this Grasty must rule. They control the Metallic Weed Combine.”
“Naul, Inyanga, Thrisk, Posedonia, Sargol—” Andas began when the Salariki corrected him.
“Not Sargol—if you mean from where I was snatched. As I have said, I was on Framware then. I wonder how the trade treaty advanced after my disappearance.” He flexed his claws, eying that display absently.
“Time!” Andas got swiftly to his feet, for the first time sharply aware of what might have been for him a disastrous passage of planet days—even weeks. “What day—month can it be now? How long have we been here?”
Elys gave a little cry. Her hands, with the delicate webbing halfway up the fingers, flew to her mouth. “Time!” she repeated. “The full tide of Qinguam! If that is past—”
“So.” That word in Basic became the hiss of a feline in Yolyos’s mouth. “May I guess that each of you also were faced with a situation in which time had importance?”
Andas caught the significance of that at once. “You think that is why we are here?” And he followed that question quickly with an answer to Yolyos. “Yes, time has importance for me. I am not in direct line to the throne. Among my people it is not as on some worlds; the crown does not pass from father to son. Rather, since my ancestors had a number of wives—officially one from each of certain noble families—the Emperor designates his choice from among those of the royal clan houses who are of suitable age. Though such multiple marriages are no longer common, yet the choice still lies among all the males of the royal line.
“It is my grandfather who rules the Triple Towers now, and he had three possible heirs of my generation—four if one counts Anakue. But when he summoned me to his presence, it was
thought he had chosen. Only to make it final, I must appear on the day of Chaka and be crowned by his own hands in the presence of all the houses of a Hundred Names. If I am not there—”
“You lose the throne?” Yolyos prompted as Andas’s voice trailed away. For the first time he realized just how deeply disaster might have struck.
“Yes.” He sat down on the edge of Elys’s bed.
“Now I have a treaty instead of a throne to protect. But if I am not at Framware to argue it through, then it is not only that I shall have my name and clan blackened, but also Sargol loses.” Once more the Salariki flexed his claws, and his voice dropped to a low throated growl.
“I must sing the full tide in, I must!” Elys clenched her hands into fists. “If I do not, the charm passes from the blood of Elden to Ewauna. And that must not be so!”
“Three of us, and perhaps them also.” Andas nodded to the door to signify the others. “But why? Those who might wish us elsewhere are widely scattered and have nothing in common. Who would collect us here?”
“Well asked, young man.” The voice might have had the tremor of age, but the words came forcibly. They looked up to see Tsiwon within the door. “I, too, can add to your list of people who have reason to want to know the present date. If I have not been present to speak against the proposed alliance with the Upshars—” He shook his head. “I fear for Naul. Now”—he rounded on Andas—“on what day do you remember being last in your proper place?”
“It was the fifth day past the feast of Itubi. Oh, you mean in galactic reckoning—wait.” Andas did a sum in his head—planet time was for planet life only, and from world to world the length of days and years varied. “As far as I can make it—but it would be the year only—2230 A.F.”
“You are wrong!” Elys shook her head emphatically. She had been tapping fingers on the table top as if counting off some numbers. “It was 2195. I know that’s true,” she continued triumphantly, “because I had reason to consult the overdating just the day before—the day—”
“You say 2230, this young lady 2195,” Tsiwon repeated. “Now I have good reason, very good reason, to know the proper date, since I had contact with the Central Control commissioner and thumb-signed two documents. And the date on those was 2246.”
“I shall add the final confusion.” Yolyos broke across the assurance of that statement. “My last date was 2200.”
Andas glanced from one to another. There was indignation plain to read on Tsiwon’s age-seamed face and Elys’s youthful countenance. Only the Salariki appeared unruffled by what must certainly be the most inaccurate working out of galactic dating he had ever heard.
In his head the prince did some adding and subtracting. Between his date and Elys’s lay thirty-five galactic years, between Yolyos’s and his thirty years, while he differed sixteen years from Tsiwon.
“Do you now begin to wonder”—Yolyos broke the silence of their dissent—“just how long we have severally been here and whether it is possible we did not all come at the same time?”
But Andas did not want to consider that. If Tsiwon’s reckoning was correct—why, then, long since had his chance slipped from him! Who ruled now—Jassar, Yuor, even Anakue? How long had he been here? He looked at his smooth brown arms and what he could see of his body. He did not seem any older. He could not be so—he would not!
“First, how do we get away?” Elys demanded. “What matters speaking of time until we do? We have been under a mind lock here—we must have been, or we would remember how we came to these holes!” She glanced about with disdain. “So perhaps we do not remember clearly even now. But get away—I must!”
Andas had gone to the window slit. The scene outside was almost exactly what he saw from his own cell, save that the water which had been there earlier was drying, leaving pools and threads of streams where there had been small lakes and rivers. But the bleakness promised nothing in the way of escape.
“I think we should ask Turpyn,” Yolyos said.
Andas looked back. “Do you think then that he might be a guard, pretending to be one of us?” He repeated his earlier thought.
“Ingenious and possible. Though I believe on our first meeting I detected in him some of the same reactions to awaking here in the unknown. But he either knows this place better than we do, or else he is aware of its purpose and that of our being here, for his first reaction was outrage.”
“As if some trap of his own had sprung on him?” Tsiwon interrupted. “You are right, Lord Yolyos. I had a similar impression when we first gathered. So, let us ask questions of Turpyn and this time receive straight answers.” The old man’s face had not looked benign before, and now his straight-lipped mouth and the expression in his eyes made Andas shift from one foot to the other.
The history of Inyanga was bloody enough. There had been rebellion, the rise and fall of dynasties accompanied by blood spilling, much his people had to feel shame for. But that they did today feel shame for such acts was hailed as a definite step toward another civilization. In Tsiwon’s face he read recourse to older and darker ways.
But there was nothing to say until they found their man and he either refused to talk or otherwise opposed them. He followed the Arch Chief of Naul and the Salariki out the room, Elys behind him.
Neither Turpyn nor Grasty was in his cell, and once more the others descended the ramp. The standing robots made it difficult to see the whole of this room. It was a perfect place for an ambush. Andas motioned the girl behind him. He wished he had even a knife of ceremony. One man with a stunner or blaster could master them all.
“Over there—” The prince started at that hiss from his left. The Salariki was pointing to the far right where a door stood half open.
They took the long way around, not weaving among the stalled robots, but keeping to open spaces along the walls, a precaution Andas heartily endorsed. He had not trusted Turpyn from the first, and whether there might be others here they had not located in their search was a question that continued to plague him. Somehow the idea of a prison run only by robots did not seem possible.
“—no better than the rest. So don’t try it! My offer is the only one worth taking.”
Grasty’s voice, thick and throaty, reached them. There was a muttered answer they were too far away to hear. Once more Grasty spoke, his tone one of exasperation and rising anger.
“You will do it because you are no better situated than we are, Veep!”
Veep! That title was one which almost every civilized planet in the galaxy knew to its sorrow. Thieves’ Guild boss! It fitted this situation exactly! Kidnaping on the scale their presence here represented could only have been carried out by the Guild. In that case, they were being held for ransom, and Turpyn was the one left in charge—
Andas caught the Salariki’s eye. The alien made a quick gesture of assent. Tsiwon and the girl—Andas motioned them to stay where they were. Shoulder to shoulder with Yolyos, he moved toward the door, aiming a kick that sent it flying fully open. The alien entered with an effortless leap, and Andas followed. Grasty was standing over Turpyn, the Veep, who was sitting before a small control board.
Both swung around at the entrance of the other two. Grasty fell back a step or so, which in that narrow space brought him against a cabinet for tapes. Andas crowded him, hands coming up to deliver the blows that would render this man helpless before he could move his flabby bulk. The Salariki had gone for Turpyn, hooking his claws in the other’s coverall at the shoulders, dragging him up and out of his seat.
“What—” began Grasty.
“Close your mouth!” Andas scowled at him. “Or I’ll close it for you. What deal were you making with this Veep?”
“Ask at the source,” Yolyos said. He gave his captive a deceptively gentle shake, and the man’s pallid face twisted, though whether in pain or apprehension of what might happen to him, Andas could not guess.
“Now, little man,” Yolyos continued, “tell us what you know that we should be aware of.�
� With apparently little or no effort, he held his captive so that Turpyn’s feet no longer touched the floor. Though the man writhed and fought, he could not break free. His face smoothed, then, as if he had come to some decision, and he stopped his useless struggles.
“I will tell you what I know,” he agreed in a flat tone. “It is little enough, though there may be that here which will inform us.” He pointed with his chin to the wall facing him.
Andas saw then that the cabinet against which Grasty leaned was not the only record depository. Three of the four walls were so furnished, and behind the control desk where Turpyn had been seated, there was a visa-screen, now blank.
“Speak.” Yolyos lowered him into the chair, but he did not release his hold. He stood behind Turpyn, those claw points visibly piercing the fabric, at some places marked with small red stains.
“I don’t know much.” Turpyn’s face was now expressionless. “And a lot is guessing—from things I once heard—”
“Spare us time waste,” ordered Yolyos. “Begin with what you do know and let us judge whether it be small or large.”
“Mind you—I have only bits and pieces,” he still insisted. “But what I have heard is this—that there is a place where, for a price, one could exchange a man for his android double. And that double could be programed to do what the buyer desired, while the real man was kept in storage, to be disposed of later if wished.”
“A likely story!” Andas burst out.
“Be not so quick, young man.” That was Tsiwon now inside the door. “Never say anything is impossible. And this service”—he advanced to the other side of the desk and leaned across to better meet Turpyn eye to eye—“was run by whom? The Guild?”
Turpyn shook his head. “None of ours. Would I be here if it was?”
Grasty snickered. “You might, if there was a power struggle on. Promotion in the Guild changes often by force.”
Turpyn’s mouth drew tight, but he neither looked at the councilor nor answered that taunt. “The Mengians were responsible—according to what I heard.”