Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  “You only see the half of it,” murmured Ramsay. “They breathe through their skins.”

  “Oxygen, of course? Warm-blooded?”

  “Oh, yes. But cold-hearted.”

  “Well, tell them that I am honored to welcome them to the Terran Bureau of Special Trading.”

  Ramsay put the welcome into as flowery and formal a Kosorian as he could remember. He introduced Fuller as a person of considerable importance—which he suspected might be true and which the Kosorians, with what they considered good manners, were the first to admit. One of them thrust out two eyes and scrutinized Ramsay carefully.

  “All Terrans look alike,” it hissed from its nearest speaking orifice, “but I sense you are familiar.”

  “You do?” said Ramsay.

  “Sssssh!” It was an exclamation of wonder, not a request for silence. “I feel the truth. You were on Kosor IV. During Maoog’s rebellion.”

  The other two waved eyes toward the speaker.

  “This is the Terran which sneaked off with the reward.”

  Every tentacle in the room twitched like the tail of an irritated cat, slapping against the cylindrical bodies in a Kosorian paroxysm of amusement.

  “I am Evash,’’ the speaker informed Ramsay. “My companions are Ozul Nath and Viska Piljoog. We are deeply honored to meet one of your sagacity.”

  “What is it saying?” demanded Fuller.

  “They admire me for my past,” said Ramsay. “What do you want me to tell them?”

  Fuller instantly became the perfect host. Ramsay interpreted the Bureau’s arrangements for the ferrying of freight from the orbit about Lunar, into which the Kosorian ship had been ordered. He expressed in several different ways the Bureau’s desire to make their visit pleasant, and the hope that it would lead to mutually profitable trade relations. He explained about the Bureau’s hotel for interstellar travelers, and mentioned that all rooms in the oxygen wing could be regulated for temperature, pressure, and oxygen content.

  Evash protested that the Terrans’ hospitality was exceeded only by their wisdom, and asked when he and his friends might see this hotel.

  Fuller beamed when this was translated

  “Why, take them down now, in a Bureau aircar. Here—I’ll give you a B.S.T. identocard. I’ll countersign it—and you stamp your thumbprint in the corner. Now, anybody will accept your signature and send us the bill.”

  “How high can I go?” inquired Ramsay prudently.

  “Why, I don’t know.” Fuller stared in surprise. “I doubt that one man could dent the Bureau’s budget. Want a few kilocredits for petty cash?”

  “Better not,” said the spaceman. “I’d have my pocket picked by these accessories in half an hour.”

  “Here! Take one ‘kill’ anyhow. If it makes them happy to steal, that serves our purpose also.”

  ~ * ~

  Ramsay shrugged, pocketed the roll of bills, and took his leave. He escorted the Kosorians to the hotel in an aircar placed at his disposal by Fuller. Since they were oxygen breathers, he was able to help them to check in and to see them to their suite on the second floor. He promised to return next morning when the B.S.T. had made landing arrangements for them.

  Leaving, he was stopped in the lobby by a sad clerk. The man was accompanied by a mechanical monstrosity housing a chlorine-breathing citizen of Vozaal VII.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said the harassed clerk, “but are you the gentleman with the Kosorians—I believe that is the name?”

  “That’s right,” said Ramsay, pulling out his identocard.

  “Oh, I see, sir. Honored, indeed. But this . . . ah . . . gentleman in the rather crude vacuum suit wished to inquire about them.”

  He turned to the metallic bulk, which exchanged a series of whistles with him. The alien turned and lumbered away.

  The clerk managed a rueful gesture with one eyebrow.

  “He says he wants a special locking device on his air lock, and all his valuables in the hotel safe. He also served notice that he intends to keep a weapon in his room.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Ramsay cheerfully. “Met them before, did he?”

  He went out, leaving the gloomy man to his worry.

  Having returned to the Bureau in the aircar, he discovered that Fuller had plans for him that did not include a free evening. The chief slicker had a pair of assistants and some weird apparatus gathered in a room adjoining his office.

  “You are going to give me lessons in Kosorian,” he told Ramsay.

  “Now?” yelped the latter.

  “It will only take an evening, with hypnosis and sleep recordings made while you talk to me about the language.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I know I am being inconsiderate after your long time in space, but your fee will be generous. You do want to co-operate, do you not?”

  “Oh, sure, I don’t mind,” said Ramsay, thinking of the Fegashite dysenine. “What shall I start with?”

  ~ * ~

  The next morning, Tom Ramsay went directly to the B.S.T. hotel. Fuller had promised to have an aircar with a permanently assigned chauffeur meet him there. During their brief morning television talk, Fuller had explained the arrangements.

  The Kosorians had been assigned a warehouse in the hundred mile long coastal landing area south of the city. The Bureau had announced the event to certain buyers, among whom it had planted its own eyes and ears. Ramsay was to escort the Kosorians there to meet the others of their crew accompanying the cargo, and was to watch for anything suspicious.

  That was about the way Ramsay understood it. He was a trifle hazy on details, since Fuller had insisted upon practicing the sort of pidgin-Kosorian he had acquired by the partnership of Ramsay and science. The spaceman felt that the slicker’s accent was not beyond reproach.

  He was surprised to find his charges waiting for him in the empty lobby.

  “We have been exploring the resources of this building,” Evash hissed in reply to his question. “There were some methods of estimating the results of chance.”

  “Methods of— Oh! The gambling room. Yes, it’s designed to duplicate the favorite games of our visitors.”

  “It occurred to us,” whooshed Ozul, “that they were arranged very courteously to be generous toward the guests.”

  “Oh?” said Ramsay, thinking that the Bureau had better be slicker with its tricks for making visitors happy.

  “Please do not think us displeased,” Evash begged him. “It is merely that after we had obtained a large sum of your money . . . was it over a hundred kilocredits, Viska?”

  Ramsay gulped.

  “At any rate,” Evash continued, “you can understand how the attraction faded. Especially since we found we knew certain methods of influencing some of the games.”

  The skin prickled all over Ramsay’s body. The wad of Fuller’s money felt like a planetoid of negative matter in his pocket.

  “You mean,” he whispered, “that you can win—anytime?”

  The Kosorian tentacles twitched in amusement.

  “I can feel your thoughts like the rays of Kosor on the airless first planet,” said Evash. “Unfortunately, they will not allow us to return.”

  “What!”

  “We permitted some of the non-Terran guests to instruct us in their own games,” explained Ozul. “Ssssh!”

  ‘They thought they were cheating us,” added Viska, his tentacles curling at the tips almost into knots.

  “And now,” Evash hissed regretfully, “only the Terrans will communicate with us at all. It must be their duty.”

  ~ * ~

  Cursing himself for rising to the bait, Ramsay went to inquire for the aircar Fuller had promised. He was informed that it would drop down from the parking roof in a moment. Ramsay led the Kosorians outside and looked around for it.

  A husky, uniformed man, whose features suggested experience in one of the rougher sports, left an aircar with idling props and trotted over.

  “Mr. Ramsay?” he
asked.

  “And party,” added the spaceman.

  “Yes sir . . . ulp! All tails, no heads, ain’t they?”

  “What?”

  “I’m Jack Harley. Mr. Fuller says I’m to stick with you for this job.”

  “Glad to have you, Jack,” said Ramsay, noting mentally that this was a good pair of shoulders to have handy. “Count your money, and let’s go. Know where it is?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Fuller gimme a map.”

  They all crawled into the aircar. About a quarter of an hour later, they hovered over a long, low building beside which rested a small, local-cargo rocket. This had been brought into position for unloading on a series of undercarriages running along specially constructed tracks. As soon as Jack had landed, they alighted, Ramsay being especially relieved to do so. The machine was designed for comfort—if your companions were human.

  They were admitted to the building when Ramsay flashed his B.S.T. card to the guards. The spaceman glanced down the length of the cargo shed. All the workers were Terrans, but he could see several Kosorians supervising the unloading. At the far end, one of these seemed to be comparing his own records on tape with the paper pages of a Terran clerk.

  Even at a distance, it was obvious that the barrier of language prevented the least progress. Standing by was a rotund little Terran, waving his arms hysterically; but the Kosorian was by nature better equipped for such debate.

  “I see that some of your friends have come,” said Ramsay to his three charges as they moved toward the scene.

  “From that I sense an idea,” hissed Evash. “Do I understand that the circulation of them is inhibited?”

  “Inhibited— Oh. Yes, more or less. It’s a formality, until or unless they have passports approved. I guess you’d call the law here a little clumsy.”

  “We are relieved to hear your opinion,” Evash told him. “It suggests that informal alleviation may be possible.”

  Ramsay thought: Here it comes! Watch out for strings, kid. Aloud, he said:

  “I’d be flattered to hear your solution.”

  The three Kosorians slowed their pace with such unanimity that the spaceman wondered if they possessed any unseen means of communication. He stopped to face them.

  “It happens,” said Ozul politely, “that we can well spare a sum of Terran currency, having more than is convenient—”

  He displayed a neatly folded wad of credit bills at the tip of one tentacle.

  “Oh, some of your winnings?” inquired Ramsay.

  “It seemed to us,” suggested Viska, “that they would be more useful to you.”

  “Besides,” said Evash, “hardly any Terran except you could detect another Kosorian replacing one of us.”

  “I suppose not,” said Ramsay, carelessly thrusting the currency into the pocket of his slacks. “And it seems a shame for them to miss seeing the sights.”

  The trio agreed enthusiastically.

  “It is a flattering pleasure to have met you again,” Evash concluded. “You are the one Terran who understands us.”

  ~ * ~

  Ramsay expressed gratitude and suggested that they investigate the dispute ahead of them. The Kosorians slithered gracefully between hustling workers and truckloads of goods to follow Ramsay. The Terran clerk withdrew pointedly, leaving the strange Kosorian and the little man thrashing air.

  “Can I be of service?” asked Ramsay in Kosorian.

  “Can you talk to it?” demanded the Terran, amazed.

  “I am overjoyed to sense you,” said the Kosorian, making a gesture of greeting to Ramsay’s companions. “I stand in dire need of wisdom.”

  “Say it can’t do that to me!” panted the chubby man.

  Evash had turned to his crewmate and was speaking in careful Kosorian, slow enough for Ramsay to understand easily. He overheard several references to his kindness, intelligence, and importance. The Kosorian supervisor brought all possible eyes to bear upon him.

  “This thing seems disturbed by some matter,” it explained apologetically, “but I am too stupid to understand it.”

  “What’s your damage?” Ramsay asked the little man.

  “Name’s Carter. Contracted for this entire cargo. Got priority from the B.S.T. for a special bid.”

  “You mean you’re buying it sight unseen? Brother, the orbits shift when these boys are around!”

  “Oh, I’ll make a profit, all right. Ship the whole lot to one of my sector agents and let him worry. Anything has a market somewhere. Besides”—he winked—”I got a guarantee against loss.”

  “Well, it’s your gamble.”

  “Not the point. It won’t deliver everything. See that pile of cans there?”

  Ramsay followed the gesture to a shoulder-high stack of sealed metal containers. The cans were cubes measuring about fifty centimeters to the edge. There were nearly a hundred.

  “You refuse him part of the cargo?” he asked in Kosorian.

  “Now I feel the truth,” said the supervisor. “Tell it this belongs to the crew members, for private speculation, according to our custom.”

  “It is so,” confirmed Evash. “Such would not come under the agreement. They should be presented for public bidding.”

  “That seems only fair,” admitted Ramsay. “The public may be interested. What do the crew members usually choose?”

  He idly hefted one of the cans. It was very light, not empty, but like something fluffy and bulky packed in thin metal.

  “I do not know,” said Evash. “Each one chooses differently. Would your Bureau care to inspect the contents?”

  “Oh . . . no,” said Ramsay quickly, feeling that he had shown entirely too much curiosity.

  There would be nothing wrong with the first shipment; the later ones would bear watching. Or would the Kosorians have estimated his reasoning in exactly that way?

  He explained as best he could to Carter.

  His three Kosorians spent about an hour inspecting the facilities at their disposal and conversing with various of their companions. At length, they returned to the hotel, where Ramsay arranged for an aircar to take them on an aerial tour.

  This attended to, the spaceman had Jack make a beeline for the Bureau. He was reasonably certain that a different “Viska” had returned from the warehouse.

  ~ * ~

  “And you think they were not the same?” mused Fuller, when Ramsay had reported. “How much did they give you?”

  Ramsay pulled the roll of credits from his pocket and began to count them. As he passed eight hundred, he hesitated. Two more hektocredit bills made one thousand.

  “One kill, to be exact,” he murmured.

  Fuller looked at him thoughtfully.

  “I handed you a kilocredit for expenses yesterday,” he began, but Ramsay was already fumbling out his credit case.

  He carried one of iridescent Cagsan lizard skin, supple but incredibly tough. His fingers plucked at the tiny combination lock to the large-bill compartment, but he felt that it would be empty. It was.

  “Believe me,” he said to Fuller, “I never noticed it out of my pocket! I don’t even know how long it took them to open the lock.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Fuller. “I am beginning to believe your account of them.”

  He rose.

  “If you will step into the next room, I have something to show you.”

  Ramsay silently followed him through the door.

  In the next room, they found two of Fuller’s assistants with a sort of outsize centipede, which Ramsay recognized as a Fegashite. This individual seemed very nervous, constantly making fluttering motions with his six pairs of limbs to smooth down the white fur of his slim, two-meter body. Like the Terrans, he had a two-eye visual system, but each wandered at will about the office, without daring to meet a human glance.

  “I would like you to meet Number 840176,” said Fuller.

  “I thought they used names,” said Ramsay.

  “They do,” replied Fuller genially, “until we
catch them selling dysenine or other drugs around Sol.”