by Keith Laumer
“Master, let poor Srat think!” it gurgled, and I realized I’d been kicking it with every question mark.
“Don’t think-just give me the answers.” I drew a deep breath and felt the rage draining away and my hands started to shake from the reaction.
“Master, poor Srat doesn’t understand about the lady-” It oof’ed in anticipation when I took a step toward it.
“The ship, yes,” it babbled. “Long ago poor Srat remembers such a ship, all in the beauty of its mighty form, like a great mother. But that was long, long ago!”
“Three years,” I said. “On a world out in the Arm.”
“No, Master! Forty years have passed away since last poor Srat glimpsed the great mother-shape! And that was deep in Fringe Space-” It stopped suddenly, as if it had said too much, and I kicked it again.
“Poor Srat is in exile,” it whined. “So far, so far from the heaving, oil-black bosom of the deeps of H’eeaq.”
“Is that where they took her? To H’eeaq?”
It groaned. “Weep for great H’eeaq, Master. Weep for poor Srat’s memories of that which was once, and can never be again. . . .”
I listened to the blubbering and groaning, and piece by piece, got the story from it: H’eeaq, a lone world, a hundred lights out toward Galactic Zenith, where Center spread over the sky like a blazing roof; the discovery that the sun was on the verge of a nova explosion; the flight into space, the years-centuries-of gypsy wandering. And a landing on a Rish-controlled world, a small brush with the Rish law-and forty years of slavery. By the time it was finished, I was sitting on the bench by the wall, feeling cold, washed out of all emotion, for the first time in three years. Kicking this poor waif wouldn’t bring the Lady Raire back home. That left me with nothing at all.
“And Master?” poor Srat whimpered. “Has Master, too, aroused the cruel ire of these Others?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. They’re using me for a test case-” I cut myself off. I wasn’t ready to start gossiping with the thing.
“Master-poor Srat can tell Master many things about these Rishes. Things that will help him.”
“It’s a little late for that,” I said. “I’ve already had my say. Humekoy wasn’t impressed.”
The H’eeaq crept closer to me. “No, Master, listen to poor Srat: Of mercy, the Rish-things know nothing. But in matters of business ethic . . .”
I was asleep when they came for me. Four guards with symbols painted on their backs herded me along to a circular room where a lone Rish who might have been Humekoy sat behind a desk under a spotlight. Other Rish came in, took seats along the walls behind me. My buddy, the Ahacian consul, was nowhere in sight.
“What will you offer for your freedom?” the presiding Rish asked bluntly. I stood there remembering what poor Srat had told me about the Rish and wondering whether to believe him.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You offer nothing for your life?”
“It’s already mine. If you kill me you’ll be stealing.”
“And if we imprison you?”
“Stealing is stealing. My life is mine, not yours.”
I felt the silent buzzing that meant they were talking it over. Then Humekoy picked up two rods, a white one and a red one, from the desk. He held the white one out to me.
“You will depart the Rish world at once,” he said. “Take this symbol of Rish magnanimity and go.”
I shook my head, and felt the sweat start up. “I’ll take my life and freedom because it’s mine, not as a gift. I don’t want any gifts from you; no gifts at all.”
“You refuse the mercy of the Hierarch?” Humekoy’s canned voice went up off the scale.
“All I want is what’s mine.”
More silent conversation. Humekoy put the rods back on the desk.
“Then go, Captain Danger. You have your freedom.”
“What about my crew?”
“They are guilty. They will pay their debt.”
“They’re no good to you. I suppose you’ve already pumped them dry. Why not let them go?”
“Ah, you crave a gift after all?”
“No. I’ll pay for them.”
“So? What payment do you offer?”
Poor Srat had briefed me on this, too. I knew what I had to do, but my mouth felt dry and my stomach was quivering. We bargained for ten minutes before we agreed on a price.
My right eye.
They were skillful surgeons. They took the eye out without anesthetic, other than a stiff drink of what tasted like refrigerant fluid. Humekoy stood by and watched with every indication of deep interest. As for me, I had already learned about pain: the body is capable of registering only a certain amount of it; about what you’d get from laying your palm on a hot plate. After that, it’s all the same. I yelled and screamed a little, and kicked around a bit, but it was over very quickly. They packed the empty socket with something cold and wet that numbed it in a few seconds. In half an hour I was back on my feet, feeling dizzy and with a sort of gauzy veil between my remaining eye and the world.
They took me to the port and my crew were there ahead of me, handcuffed and looking pale green around the ears. And the consul was there, too, with his hands clamped up as tight as the rest.
“It has been a fair exchange, Captain Danger,” Humekoy told me after the others were aboard. “These paid cheats have garnered their petty harvest of data on industrial and port facilities, volume of shipping and sophistication of equipment, on which to base estimates of Rish assault capability. And in return, the Hierarch has gained valuable information for proper assessment of you humans. Had we acted on the basis of impressions gained by study of the persons so-cleverly trained to delude us heretofore, we might have made a serious blunder.”
We parted on that note, not as pals, exactly, but with what might be described as a mutual wary respect. At the last minute a rampcar pulled up and a pair of Rish guards dumped poor Srat out.
“The creature aided, indirectly, in our rapprochement,” Humekoy said. “His payment is his freedom. Perhaps you, too, may have an account to settle.”
“Put him aboard,” I said. “He and I will have a lot of things to talk over before I get back to Ahax.”
By the time the fifty-seven-day voyage was over, I knew as much about H’eeaq as poor Srat could tell me.
“Why these mistaken kin of mine may have stolen a lady of Master’s kind, I can’t say,” he insisted. But as to where-he had a few ideas on that.
“There are worlds, Master, where long ago H’eeaq established markets for the complex molecules so abun-dantly available to her in those days. Our vessels call there still, and out of regard for past ties perhaps, the in-dwellers supply our needs for stores. And in return, we give them what we can.”
He gave me the details of a few of these old market-places-worlds far out in Fringe Space, where few questions were asked, and a human was a rare freak.
“We’ll go take a look,” I said. “As soon as I collect my pay.”
At Ahax, Traffic Control allotted me a slot at the remotest corner of the port. We docked and my four cheery crewmen were gone in a rampcar before I finished securing the command deck. I told Srat to follow me, and started off to walk the two miles to the nearest power way. A rampcar went past in a hurry in the next lane over, headed out toward where my tub was parked. I thought about hailing it, but even with the chill wind blowing, walking felt good after the weeks in space.
Inside the long terminal building, a P.A. voice was droning something. Srat made a gobbling noise and said, “Master, they speak of you!” I looked where he pointed with one flipper and saw my face looking down from a public screen.
“ . . . distinguishing scar on the right side of the neck and jaw,” the voice was saying. “It is the duty of any person seeing this man to detain him and notify Central Authority at once!”
Nobody seemed to be looking my way. I was wearing a plain gray shipsuit and a light windbreaker with the collar tur
ned up far enough to cover the scar; I didn’t look much different than a lot of other space-burned crew types. Poor Srat was crouching and quivering; they hadn’t put him on the air, but he would attract attention with his whimpering. We had to get to cover, fast. I turned and headed for the nearest ramp exit and as I reached the vestibule a woman’s voice called my name. I spun and saw a familiar face: Nacy, the little tech operator I’d left Eureka with.
“I was in Ops Three when your clearance request came, four hours ago,”
she said in a fast whisper. She saw the patch over my eye and her voice faltered and went on: “I thought . . . after all, no one expected you to come back . . . it would be nice to come down and meet you.
“Then . . . I heard the announcement. . . .”
“What’s it all about, Nacy?”
She shook her head. She was a pert little girl with a turned-up nose and very white, even teeth. “I don’t know, Billy. Someone said you’d gone against your orders, turned back early-”
“Yeah. There’s something in that. But you don’t want to be seen talking to me-”
“Billy-maybe if you went to them voluntarily . . .”
“I have a funny feeling near the back of my neck that says that would be a wrong play.”
Her face looked tight; she nodded. “I think I under-stand.” She took a bite of her lip. “Come with me.” She turned and started across the lobby. Srat plucked at my sleeve.
“You’ll do better on your own,” I said, and followed her. She led me through a door marked for private use, along a plain corridor with lots of doors, out through a small personnel entry onto a parking lot full of ramp vehicles.
“Good thinking, girl,” I said. “You’d better fade out fast now-”
“Just a minute.” She ducked back inside. I went to a small mail-carrier, found the controls unlocked. I started it up and backed it around by the door as it swung open and a sleek pepper and salt and tan animal stalked through, looking relaxed, as always.
“Eureka!” I called, and the old boy stopped and looked my way, then reached the car in one bound and was in beside me. I looked up and Nacy was watching from the door.
“Thanks for everything,” I said. “I don’t know why you took the chance, but thanks.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re what’s known as a romantic figure,” she said and whirled and was gone before I could ask her what that meant. I pulled the car out and into a lane across the ramp, keeping it at an easy speed. There was a small click from over my head and a voice said,
“Seven-eight-nine-o, where do you think you’re going?”
“Fuel check,” I mumbled.
“Little late, aren’t you? You heard the clear ramp order.”
“Yeah, what’s it all about?”
“Pickup order out on some smuggler that gave Control the slip a few minutes ago. Now get off the ramp!” He clicked off. I angled right as if I were headed for the maintenance bay at the end of the line, but at the last second I veered left and headed out toward where I’d parked Jongo. I could see rampcars buzzing back and forth, off to my left; I passed two uniformed men, on foot. One of them stared at me and I kept my chin down in my collar and waved to him. A hundred yards from the tub, I saw the cordon of cars around it. So much for my chances of a slick takeoff under their noses. I pulled the car offside between a massive freighter that looked as if it hadn’t been moved for a couple of hundred years, and a racy yacht that reminded me of Lord Desroy’s, and tried to make my brain think. It didn’t seem to want to. My eyes kept wandering back to the fancy enamel-inlaid trim around the entry lock of the yacht. The port was open and I could see the gleam of hand-rubbed finishes inside. . . .
I was out of the car and across to the yacht before I realized I’d made a decision. Eureka went in ahead of me, as if he owned the boat. Just as I got a foot on the carpeted four-step ladder, one of the pedestrian cops came into sight around the side of the old freighter. He saw me and broke into a run, fumbling with a holster at his side in a way that said he had orders to shoot. I unfroze and started up, knowing I wouldn’t make it, and heard a scuffling sound and a heavy thud and a crash of fire that cracked and scorched the inlay by the door. I looked back and he was spread out on the pavement, out cold, and poor Srat was untangling himself from his legs. He scrambled in behind me and I tripped the port-secure lever and ran for the flight deck. I slammed the main drive lever to full emergency lift-off position and felt my back teeth shake as the yacht screamed off the ramp, splitting the atmosphere of Ahax like a meteorite outward-bound.
The ship handled like a yachtsman’s dream; for the first few hours I ducked and bobbed in an evasion pattern that took us out through the planetary patrols. I kept the comm channels open and listened to a lot of excited talk that told me I’d picked the personal transportation of an Ahacian official whose title translated roughly as Assistant Dictator. After a while Assembly-man Ognath came on, looking very red around the ears, and showed me a big smile as phony as a UN peace proposal.
“Captain Danger, there’s been a misunderstanding,” he warbled. “The police officers you may have seen at the port were merely a guard of honor-”
“Somebody forgot to tell the gun-handlers about that,” I said in a breezy tone that I thought would have the maximum irritant value. “I had an idea maybe you fellows decided forty years’ pay was too much to spend, after all. But that’s OK; I’ll accept this bucket as payment in full.”
“Look here, Danger,” Ognath let the paper smile drop. “Bring the vessel back, and I’ll employ my influence to see that you’re dealt with leniently.”
“Thanks; I’ve had a sample of your influence. I don’t think I’d live through another.”
“You’re a fool! Every civilized world within ten parsecs will be alerted; you’ll be hunted down and blasted without mercy-unless you turn back now!”
“I guess the previous owner is after somebody’s scalp, eh, Ognath? Too bad.”
I gave him, and a couple of naval types who followed him, some more funny answers and in the process managed to get a fair idea of the interference I could expect to run into. I had to dodge three patrols in the first twenty hours; by the thirtieth hour I was running directly toward Galactic Zenith with nothing ahead but the Big Black.
“Give me the coordinates of the nearest of the worlds where you H’eeaq used to trade,” I ordered Srat.
“It is distant, Master. So far away, so lonely. The world called Drope.”
“We’ll try it anyway,” I said. “Maybe somewhere out there we’ll run into a little luck.”
The yacht was fueled and supplied in a way that suggest-ed that someone had been prepared for any sudden changes in the political climate back home. It carried food, wines, a library that was all the most self-indulgent dictator could want to while away those long, dull days in space. I showed Srat how to handle the controls so that he could relieve me whenever I felt like taking a long nap or sampling the library. I asked him why he had stuck with me, but he just looked at me with those goggle-eyes, and for the first time in many weeks it struck me what a strange-looking thing he was. You can get used to anything, even a H’eeaq.
Eureka was better company than the alien, in spite of not being able to talk. He settled in in a cabin full of frills that conjured up pictures of a dance-hall floozie with the brains of a Pekinese and a voice to match. Fortunately, the dictator’s taste in music and books was closer to mine than his choice of mistresses. There were tapes aboard on everything from ancient human history to the latest techniques in cell-surgery, thoroughly indexed. I sampled them all.
The Fringe worlds, I learned, were the Museum of the Galaxy. These lonely planets had once, long eons ago, been members of the tightly packed community of Center; their races had been the first in the young Galaxy to explore out through the Bar and Eastern Arm, where their remote descendants still thrived. Now the ancient Mother-worlds lingered on, living out the twilight of their long careers, circling dying suns,
far out in the cool emptiness of the space between Galaxies. One of those old races, Srat assured me, was the ancestral form of Man-not that I’d recognize the relationship if I encountered a representative of the tribe. One day I ran through a gazeteer of the Western Arm, found a listing of an obscure sun I was pretty sure was Sol and coded its reference into the index. The documentary that came onto the view-screen showed me a dull-steel ball bearing with a brilliant highlight that the voice track said was the system’s tenth planet. Number nine looked about the same, only bigger. Eight and seven were big fuzz-balls flattened at the poles. I had just about decided I had the wrong star when Saturn swam into view. The sight of that old familiar ring made me feel homesick, as if I’d spent the long happy hours of childhood there. I recognized Big Jupe, too. The camera came in close on this one, and then there were surface scenes on the moons. They looked just like Luna.
Mars was a little different than the pictures I remembered seeing; the ice caps were bigger, and in the close scan the camera moved in on what looked like the ruins of a camp; not a city, just a lash-up collection of metal huts and fallen antennas, such as a South Pole expedition might have left behind. And then I was looking at Earth, swimming there on the screen, cool and misty green and upside down, with Europe at the bottom and Africa at the top. I stared at it for half a minute before I noticed that the ice caps were wrong. The northern one covered most of Germany and the British Isles, and as the camera swung past, I could see that it spread down across North America as far as Kansas. And there wasn’t any south polar cap. Antarctica was a crescent-shaped island, all by itself in the ocean, ice-free; and Australia was connected to Indochina. I knew then the pictures had been made a long time ago.
The camera moved in close, and I saw oceans and jungles, deserts and ice-fields, but nowhere any sign of Man. The apparent altitude at the closest approach was at least ten thousand feet, but even from that height I could make out herds of game. But whether they were mammoths and megatheria or something even older, I couldn’t tell. Then the scene shifted to Venus, which looked like Neptune, only smaller and brighter, and I switched the viewer off and made myself a long, strong drink and settled down for the long run ahead.