by Matt
There was no one watching; once aboard the elevator he would be able to go from this floor down to street level or below without being seen. There would be other doors to the outside than the one by which he had come in; and on other levels, beneath the main floor, he could possibly find them. There would be portals used only by the Aalaag themselves and their most trusted servants, where they would be free to come and go without being noticed.
He punched for the elevator. After a moment it came. The two doors swung wide. As they opened he turned away and readied himself to pretend—in case there was an Aalaag aboard—that he was merely passing by. But the elevator compartment was empty.
He stepped inside and punched the button for the first basement level. The only danger remaining for him now was that some other Aalaag on a floor below might have also just punched for this elevator. If it stopped for one of the aliens and the door opened to reveal him inside, he would be trapped—doubly guilty, for being where he should not be and also for being absent from his duty, which at the present was to lie down or otherwise relax. Only Aalaag were permitted to use elevators.
For a moment he thought the one in which he was descending was going to hesitate on the first floor. In the back of his mind, plans flickered like heat lightning on a summer evening. If it did stop, if the door did open and an Aalaag walked in, he planned to throw himself at the alien's throat. Hopefully, the other would kill him out of reflex, and he would escape being held for questioning as to why he was where he was.
But the elevator did not stop. It continued moving downward, and the telltale light illuminating the floor numbers as they passed showed it was approaching the floor just below street level. Shane punched for the cage to stop. It did, the door opened and he stepped into a small, square corridor leading directly to a glass door and a flight of steps beyond, leading upward. As he had expected, he had hit on one of the alien ways out of the building.
He left the elevator and went quickly along the corridor to the door. It was locked, of course; but in his pocket he carried the Key of Lyt Ahn, or at least the key that all the special human servants of Lyt Ahn were allowed to bear. It would open any ordinary door in a building belonging to the aliens.
He tried the key now, and it worked. The door swung noiselessly open. A second later he was out of it, up the stairs and into the street above.
He went down the street, walking at a pace just short of a run, and turned right at the first crossing, searching for a market area. Four blocks on, he found a large square with many shops. A single Aalaag sat on his riding animal, towering and indifferent to the crowd about him, before a set of pillars upholding a sidewalk arcade at one end of the square. Whether the alien was on duty or simply waiting for something or someone, it was impossible to tell. But for Shane now, to use a shop on this square would not be wise.
He hurried on. A few streets farther on, he found a smaller collection of shops lining both sides of a blind alley, and one of these was a store for such simple clothing as the Aalaag allowed humans to use nowadays. He stepped inside and a small bell over the door chimed softly.
"Signore?" said a voice.
Shane's eyes adjusted to the interior dimness and saw a counter piled high with folded clothing, and behind the counter a short, dark-faced man with a knife-blade nose. Remarkably, in these days of alien occupation, this man had a small potbelly under his loose yellow smock.
"I want a full-length robe," Shane said. "Reversible."
"Of course." The proprietor began to come around the counter. "What type?"
"How much is your most expensive garment?"
"Seventy-five new lire or equivalent in trade, signore."
Shane dug into the purse hanging from the rope around his waist, and threw on the counter before him metal coins issued by the Aalaag for use as an international currency—the gold and silver rectangles with which his work as an employee of Lyt Ahn was rewarded.
The store owner checked his movement. His eyes moved to the coins, then back to Shane's face with a difference. Only humans of great power under the alien authority, or those engaged in the illegal black market, would ordinarily have such coins with which to pay their bills; and it would be seldom that such would come into a small shop like this.
He moved toward the coins. Shane covered them with his hand.
"I'll pick the robe out myself," he said. "Show me your stock."
"But of course, of course, signore."
The proprietor went past the coins and out from behind the counter. He opened a door to a back room and invited Shane in. Within were tables stacked with clothing and cloth. In one corner, under a kerosene lamp, was a tailor's worktable with scraps of cloth, tools, thread, and some pieces of blue or white chalk.
"Here are the robes, on these two tables," he said.
"Good," said Shane harshly. "Go over to the corner there and turn around. I'll pick out what I want."
The man moved swiftly, his shoulders hunched a little. If his visitor was black market, it would be unwise to argue with or irritate him.
Shane located the reversible robes among the others and pawed through them, selecting the largest one he could find that was blue on one side. The other side of it was brown. He pulled it on over his own robe, the blue side out, and drew the drawstring tight at the waist. Stepping across to the worktable, he picked up a fragment of the white chalk.
"I'll leave a hundred lire on the counter," he said to the back of the proprietor. "Don't turn around, don't come out until I've been gone for five minutes. You understand?"
"I understand."
Shane turned and went. He glanced at the counter as he passed. He had snatched coins from his purse at random and there was the equivalent of over a hundred and fifty lire in gold and silver on the counter. It would not do to make the incident look any more important to the storeman than was necessary. Shane scooped up fifty lire-equivalent and went out the door, heading back toward the square where he had seen the mounted Aalaag.
He was very conscious of the quick sliding by of time. He could not afford to be missing from the Headquarters more than the hour the officer on duty had allowed him. If the Aalaag had left the square...
But he had not. When Shane, sweating, once more emerged into the square, the massive figure still sat unmoved, as indifferent as ever.
Shane, because of his duties, was allowed to carry one of the Aalaag's perpetual timepieces. It lay in his purse now, but he dared not consult it to see how much time remained. A glimpse of it by the ordinary humans around would identify him as a servant of the aliens, and win him the bitter enmity of these others; and that enmity, here and now, could be fatal.
He went quickly through the crowd swarming the square. As he got close to the Aalaag on the riding animal, the adrenaline-born courage inside him almost failed. But a memory of the prisoner back at the Headquarters rose in him, and he pushed himself on.
Deliberately, he made himself blunder directly beneath the heavy head of the riding animal, so that it jerked its nose up. Its movement was slight—only an inch or two—but it was enough to draw the attention of the Aalaag. His eyes dropped to see Shane.
Still moving, Shane kept his head down. He had pulled the cowl of his cloak down over his forehead as far as possible to hide his face from the alien's view—but it was not really that that he was counting on to preserve his anonymity. Few Aalaag could tell one human from another—even after two years of close contact, Lyt Ahn recognized Shane from the other courier-interpreters more by the times on which Shane reported than by any physical individualities.
Shane scuttled past; and the alien, indifferent to something as mere as a single one of the cattle about him, raised his eyes to infinity again, returning to his thought. Shane went on for only a few more steps, to the nearest pillar, and stopped. There, hiding his actions with his body from the alien behind him, he pulled the tailor's white chalk from his pouch and with a hand that trembled sketched on the stone of the pillar the cloaked f
igure with its staff.
He stepped back—and the sudden, almost inaudible moan of recognition and arrested movement in the crowd behind him drew—as he had known it would—the attention of the Aalaag. Instantly, the alien wheeled his animal about, reaching for the same sort of stunning weapon with which the woman prisoner had been captured.
But Shane was already moving. He ran into the crowd, threw himself down so that the bodies about would shield him from the view of the Aalaag, and rolled, frantically pulling off the outer, reversible robe as he moved.
Instinctively, defensively, the other humans closed about him, hiding him from the alien, who was now—weapon in one massive hand—searching their numbers to locate him. The reversible robe stuck and bound itself under his armpits, but at last Shane got it off. Leaving it on the ground behind him, still with its blue side out, he scuttled on hands and knees farther off until, at last near the edge of the square, he risked getting to his feet and leaving as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself.
Panting, soaked with sweat, leaving behind humans who studiously avoided looking at him, and beginning to move now among others who looked at him with entirely normal interest, Shane half ran toward the Aalaag Headquarters. Subjectively, it seemed as if at least an hour had passed since he had first stepped under the nose of the Aalaag riding animal; but reason told him that the whole business could not have taken more than a few minutes. He stopped at a fountain— bless Italy, he thought, for having fountains—to bathe his face, neck, and underarms. Officially, the Aalaag were indifferent to how their cattle stank; but in practice, they preferred those humans who were physically as much without odor as possible—though it never seemed to occur to them that they were as noisome in human noses as humans were in their own. But for Shane to return smelling strong from what had theoretically been a rest period might attract interest to the period of time he had spent out of the office.
He let himself in with his key through the same door which had given him egress; and this time took stairs, rather than the elevator, to the entrance level of the Headquarters. No one saw him emerge on the entrance level. He paused to check his timepiece and saw that he still had some twelve minutes left of his allotted hour.
3
He made use of the twelve minutes by asking an Interior Guard where the rest facilities for transient cattle were, went there and retraced his steps from that point to the office he had waited in before. Outside the office door, he discovered he had still four minutes left, and stood where he was until he could enter at the exact moment when he had been told to return.
The alien officer at the desk looked up as he came in, glanced at the clockface over the door and returned to his papers silently. Nonetheless, Shane felt the triumph of a minor point scored. Precise obedience was a mark in any human's favor, in Aalaag eyes. He went back to the spot on which he had been standing before—and stood again.
It was nearly three-quarters of an hour later when the door opened and Laa Ehon, with Otah On, entered. With a subjected being's acuteness of observation, reinforced by the experience gained in his two and a half years of close contact with aliens, Shane recognized both of the officers at once. They went directly to the wall screen to stare at the human prisoner beyond, and Shane's heart sank in panic.
It was inconceivable that his actions in the square of an hour before should not have been reported by this time. But it looked as if the two senior officers were about to proceed with the young woman as if nothing had happened. Then Laa Ehon spoke.
"The garment is indeed the same color," the Headquarters Commander said. "There must be many of the cattle so dressed."
"Very true, immaculate sir," answered Otah On.
Laa Ehon studied the young woman for a moment longer.
"Was it at any time made aware of the specific reason it was brought here?" he asked.
"Nothing has been told it, immaculate sir."
"Yes," said Laa Ehon thoughtfully. "Well, then. It is a healthy young beast. There is no need to waste it. Let it go."
"It will be done."
Laa Ehon turned from the screen and his eyes swept over the rest of the room, stopping on Shane. He walked forward to Shane.
"You were the beast with dispatches from Lyt Ahn?"
"Yes, immaculate sir," said Shane. "I have them here for you."
He produced them from his pouch and handed them into the large grasp of the Commander. Laa Ehon took them, unfolded and read them. He passed them to Otah On.
"Execute these."
"Yes, immaculate sir."
Otah On carried the dispatches over to the desk of the duty officer and spoke to him, handing him the papers. The eyes of Laa Ehon fastened on Shane, with a glimmer of interest.
"You speak with great purity," said the Commander. "You are one of the First Captain's special group of beasts for speaking and carrying, are you not?"
"I am, immaculate sir."
"How long have you spoken the true language?"
"Two and a half years of this world, immaculate sir."
Laa Ehon stood looking at him, and a trickle of perspiration crept coldly down Shane's spine under his robe.
"You are a beast worth having," said the Commander slowly. "I did not think one such as you could be brought to speak so clearly. How are you valued?"
Shane's breath caught silently in his throat. Existence was barely endurable as one of the favored human group that was the personal property of Earth's ruling alien. The madness he feared would come quickly, if instead he should be trapped here, in this building, among the brutes that made up the Interior Guard.
'To the best of my knowledge, immaculate sir"—he dared not hesitate in his answer—"I am valued at half a possession of land—"
Otah On, who had just regained the side of his Commander, raised his black eyebrows at the voicing of this price, but Laa Ehon's face remained thoughtful.
"—and the favor of my master Lyt Ann," said Shane.
The thoughtfulness vanished from Laa Ehon's features. Shane's heart was pounding. It was true he had prefaced his answer with the words "to the best of my knowledge," but in fact he had never officially been acquainted with the fact that part of his price involved the favor of his owner. What he knew himself to be valued at, half a possession of land— about forty miles square of what the Aalaag called "good country"—was an enormously high price in itself for any single human beast. It was roughly equivalent to what, in pre-Aalaag days, would have been the cost of a top-price, custom-made sports car, gold plated and set with jewels. But Laa Ehon had looked ready to consider even that.
It was not the first time Shane had been aware that he possessed the status of a sort of luxury toy. Only, this time, Shane had mentioned that his price included the favor of Lyt Ann. "Favor" was a term that went beyond all price. It was a designation meaning that his master was personally interested in keeping him, and that the price of any sale could include anything at all—but probably something Lyt Ann would favor at least as much as what he was giving up. Such "favor," involved in a sale, could in effect constitute a blank check signed by the buyer, cashable at any time in the future for goods or actions by the seller, guaranteed under the unyielding obligation code of the Aalaag.
Shane had never been told he had Lyt Ahn's favor. He had only overheard Lyt Ann once say to his Chief of Staff that he must get around to extending his favor over all the beasts of that special group to which Shane belonged. If Laa Ehon should check with Lyt Ahn, and this had never been done, then Shane was doomed as an untrustworthy and lying beast. Even if the favor had been extended, Lyt Ahn might question how Shane had come to know of it.
And then again, the First Captain, busy as he was with much more weighty affairs of Aalaag government, might simply conclude that he had mentioned it at some time to Shane and since forgotten the fact. Claiming it now was one of the gambles necessary to human daily existence in the midst of the aliens.
"Give him his receipt," said Laa Ehon
.
Otah On passed Shane a receipt for the dispatches, made out a moment before by the duty officer. Shane put it in his pouch.
"You return directly to Lyt Ahn?" Laa Ehon said.
"Yes, immaculate sir."
"My courtesies to the First Captain."
"I will deliver them."
"Then you may go."
Shane turned and left. As the door closed behind him, he drew a deep breath and went quickly to the stairs, then down to the entrance floor and the entrance itself.
"I'm returning to the residence of the First Captain," he told the officer of the Interior Guards who was in charge at the entrance. It was the same man with the Arabic influence noticeable in his spoken Italian. "Will you get me space on the necessary aircraft? I've priority, of course."
"It's already taken care of," said the officer. "You're to travel with one of the Masters on courier duty; in a military small craft, leaving in two hours. Shall I order transportation to the airfield?"
"No," said Shane briefly. He did not have to give the reasons for his actions to this uniformed lackey. "I'll get myself there."