by Anthology
Taranto turned again to the eighteen inch square window, set like the other three in the center of its wall at the level of his shoulders.
"They're posting their sentries on the city wall for the night," he told Meyers. "The thing should be flying in here any time now."
"If it comes," said Meyers grumpily. "Something will go wrong with that too."
The other spat out the window that faced the main part of the Syssokan city, then padded to the one opposite. Strange patterns of stars gleamed already in the sky over the desert. The air that blew against his damp face was a trifle cooler.
Should I tell the slob about that? he wondered. Naw-he'd try to breathe it all! Let him sweat, as long as he listens for the Syssokans!
Meyers had left his bench to crouch over the trap door. There was no reason to expect their jailers, but the Syssokans had a habit of popping up at odd times. The evening meal was usually brought well after dark, however.
"Do you think it will really get here again?" asked Meyers. "What if they spot it?"
Taranto grunted. He was watching something he thought was one of the flying insects that thickened the Syssokan twilight. Seconds later, he ducked away from the window as a pencil-sized thing with two pairs of flailing wings darted through the opening.
It whirled about the dim cell. Meyers flapped his hands about his head. The third time around, the insect passed within Taranto's reach; and he batted it out of the air with a feline sweep of his left hand. It fell against the base of the wall and twitched for a few minutes.
Meyers squinted at him, examining the slightly flattened nose and the meaty cheeks that gave Taranto a deceptively plump look.
"You're quick, all right," he admitted. "They used to say in the ship that you were a boxer. What made you a spacer?"
"Too short," said Taranto laconically. "Five-eight, an' I grew into a light-heavy."
"What did that have to do with it?"
"I did all right for a while. When I could get in on them, they'd go down an' stay down. Then they learned to stick an' run on me. It was either grow a longer arm or quit."
"Maybe you should have quit sooner," said Meyers, for no good reason except that he resented Taranto and blamed him for their predicament.
"Why should I?" asked Taranto, with a cold stare. "It was good money. Even after having my eyebrows fixed, I got a nice nest-egg back on Terra. Nothing really shows on me except the habit of a short haircut."
Meyers ran his fingers through his own unkempt hair. "What was that for?" he asked.
"Oh... it don't wave in the air so much when you stop a jab. Looks better, to the judges."
Meyers grunted. He'd like to believe it doesn't show on him! he thought.
Suddenly, he bent down to place an ear against the trap door. A petulant grimace twisted his features.
"They're on the ladder," he whispered. "Wouldn't you know?"
He straightened up and walked softly back to his bench. Taranto remained at the window. It was a perfectly natural place for him to be, he decided.
A few moments later, the trap door creaked up, letting yellow light burst into the cell. It came from a clumsy electric lantern in the grip of the first Syssokan who climbed into the chamber. Two others followed, suggestively fingering pistols that would have been considered crude on Terra two centuries earlier.
The individual with the light was typical of his race, a tall, cadaverous humanoid with pale, greenish-gray skin made up of tiny scales. His nose was flatter than that of a Terran ape, and his chin consisted mostly of a hanging fold of scaly skin. His ears were set very low on a narrow, pointed skull. Occasionally, they made small motions as if to fold in upon themselves.
The Syssokans were clad in garments not unlike loose, sleeveless pajamas, over which they wore leather harness for their weapons. The leader's suit was red, but the other two wore a dull brown.
"Iss all ssatissfactory?" asked the one in charge, staring about the cell with large, black eyes.
"All right," said Taranto stonily.
He thought that a Syssokan would never have answered that way. They were vain of their extraordinary linguistic ability, and commonly spoke three or four alien tongues. Only an unfortunate inability to control excessive sibilance marred their Terran. Taranto felt like wiping his face, but realized that it was only sweat.
The Syssokan prowled around the room, examining each of the simple furnishings with a flickering glance. He took note of the food left in the copper pot. He checked the level of water in the big jar. He found the dead insect, which he sniffed and slipped into a pouch at his belt. When he passed Taranto, the latter eyed him in measuring fashion.
The Syssokan halted out of reach.
"You have been warned to obey all orderss here," he said, staring between the two Terrans.
"What's the trouble now?" demanded Meyers when it became apparent that the poker-faced Taranto intended to say nothing.
"There wass a quesstion by the Terran we allow on the world. How can he know of your complaints? He was told only of your ssentence."
"We told you there would be protests from our government," said Meyers. "All we did was land on your planet in an emergency: We're only too willing to leave. You have no right to keep us locked up in these conditions."
"It iss a violation of our law," said the Syssokan imperturbably. "You go automatically to jail. We permit only one of every sky people to live here. Who could tell yours that you complain of thiss place?"
"Listen, you better be careful of us Terrans!" blustered Meyers. "We have ways-"
"Shut up!" said Taranto without raising his voice.
He had inched forward, but stopped now as the two guards at the trap door gave him their attention.
The Syssokan with the lantern also turned to him. Taranto looked over the latter's shoulder. The window was black; the twilight of Syssoka was brief.
Meyers had flushed and was scowling at him with out-thrust lower lip, but Taranto's icy order had spilled the wind from his sails.
"Perhapss you have had too much water," suggested the Syssokan, regarding Taranto with interest. "If you have done ssomething, it iss besst to tell me."
Taranto returned the stare. He wondered why all the Syssokans he had seen, though rather fragile in build, were relatively thick-waisted. They looked to him as if a couple of solid hooks to the body would find a soft target.
It was unlikely that the Syssokan could read the facial expression of an alien Terran. It was probably some tenseness in Taranto's stance that caused the native to step back.
The Terran strained his ears to pick up any unusual noise outside the window during the pause. He heard nothing except the whir of night insects.
Their jailer paced once more around the cell, and Taranto cursed himself for arousing suspicion. Perhaps, he hoped, it was only annoyance.
But what could I do? he asked himself. Let Meyers spill it?
In the end, with Taranto answering in monosyllables and Meyers intimidated into an unnatural reserve, the Syssokans retired. The darkness closed in upon the Terrans as they listened to the creaking of the ladder below the trap door.
"Give them time," advised Taranto, hearing Meyers move toward the exit.
They waited in the silent dark until Meyers could stand it no longer.
"They won't come back," he whispered.
"Well, make sure," said Taranto shortly. "Get your ear to the wood!"
He felt his way to the window that faced away from the city. After the heat of the day, the air blowing in was almost cold; and he considered putting on his shirt. The realization that he would have to scrabble around the pile of straw for it gave him pause. His next thought was that he might come up with the wrong shirt, and that discouraged him completely.
His eyes had adjusted enough to the night to pick out the low hills of the desert where they broke the line of the horizon. Starlight glinted softly where there were stretches of sand. He settled down to wait, his arms folded upon the ledge of the window.
<
br /> It was nearly half an hour later, when he suspected Meyers of dozing on the trap door, that Taranto heard something more than an insect zip past the window. He backed away and hissed to attract Meyers' attention.
"Did it come?" whispered the other.
"I think so," answered Taranto.
A tiny hum drifted through the window. Into the opening, timidly, edged a small, hovering shape.
"Okay," said Taranto in a low voice, even though he knew the room was being scanned by an infra-red detector.
The shape blossomed out with a midget light. Enough of the glow was reflected from the adobe walls to reveal that a miniature flying mechanism the size of a man's hand had landed on the window ledge. After a moment, its rotors ceased their whirring. Taranto jabbed backward with an elbow as he heard Meyers creep up behind him.
"Listen at the door, dammit!" he snarled. "All we need is to get caught at this, an' we'll be here till they turn out the sun!"
"Taranto!" piped a tiny voice from the machine. "Are you ready, Taranto?"
"Go ahead!"
"Two pills coming out of the hold." The voice was clear enough in the stillness of the Syssokan night.
A hatch in the belly of the little flyer slid back. Two capsules spilled out on the window ledge. Taranto scooped them up.
"You each take one, with water," instructed the voice. "Better wait till just before dawn. You told me they bring your food an hour later."
"That's right," whispered Taranto.
"That will give the stuff time to act. For all they can tell, you will both be deader than a burned-out meteorite."
"Then what?"
"So they will follow their normal custom with the dead-take you out to the desert to mummify. This thing will hover overhead to spot the location."
"Do they just... leave us?"
"Yes, as far as anybody has ever been able to find out. I talked to the Capellan next door in the foreign quarter here, and he says they might not leave you in one of their own burial grounds. Otherwise, I would hate to take the chance of having this gadget seen in the daylight."
"All right, so we're out in the desert," said Taranto. "How does this ship you arranged for pick us up? We'll still be out for the count."
"I plan to tell them where to touch down. I can talk louder by radio, you know, that I can to you now. They will grab your 'bodies' and scramble for space. Against the sunset, they may not even be seen from the city. If they are, I never heard of them."
"Who are they?" asked Taranto.
"Some bunch hired for the job by the D.I.R.'s Department 99. Just as well not to ask where they come from or what their usual line is."
"I ain't got any questions at all, if they get us out of here," said Taranto.
He watched as the hatch closed itself and the tiny light blinked out. The rotors began to spin, and two minutes later they were alone.
"Come and get yours," said the spacer.
He reached out with his empty hand to guide Meyers to him, then very carefully delivered one of the capsules to the other.
"We're supposed to swallow that big lump?" whispered Meyers.
"Just don't lose it," admonished Taranto.
He relayed the instructions as precisely as he could.
"One thing more," he concluded. "You stay awake to make sure I stay awake until it's time to take the stuff."
"We could take watches," suggested Meyers.
"I could," said Taranto bluntly, "but I'm not sure about you. In the second place, I ain't going to have you sleep while I don't. We're going to play this as safe as possible."
Meyers grumbled something inaudibly. In the darkness, a sardonic smile twisted Taranto's lips.
"If you know how," he advised, "pray! We're goin' to our funeral in the morning."
CHAPTER FOUR
Westervelt sat at his little desk in the corner, doodling out possible ways and means of breaking out of a cell thirty fathoms or so under water. From time to time Beryl or Simonetta offered a suggestion. He knew that everyone in the office was probably engaged in the same puzzle. Smith believed in general brain-storming in getting a project started, since no one could tell where a good idea might not originate.
"If I ever get into space," Willie muttered, "it will never be to a planet as wet as Trident. What ever made this Harris think he was a pearl diver?"
"Is that what he was after?" asked Beryl.
"No, I just made that up."
He glanced over at Simonetta, who winked and continued with the letter she was transcribing. An earphone reproduced Smith's dictation from his tape. As she listened, she edited mentally and spoke into the microphone of her typing machine, which transcribed her words as type. Westervelt realized that it was more difficult than it seemed to do the job so smoothly. He had noticed Beryl rewriting letters two or three times, and Parrish was more likely than the boss to set down his thoughts in a logical order.
"I've heard so many wild ideas in this office," said Beryl, "that I simply don't know where to start. How do they decide on a good way?"
"They guess, just the way we've been doing. They're better guessers than we are, from experience."
"It's just a matter of judgment, I suppose," Beryl admitted.
"They make their share of mistakes," Simonetta put in.
"Yeah, I read an old report on a great one," said Westervelt. "Ever hear of the time they were shipping oxygen tanks to three spacers jailed out around Mizar?"
Simonetta stopped talking her letter, and the girls gave Willie their attention.
"It seems," he continued, "that an exploring ship landed on a planet of that star and found a kind of civilization they hadn't bargained for. The natives breathed air with a high chlorine content; so when they grabbed three of the crew for hostages, the ship had to keep supplying fresh tanks of oxygen."
"How long could they keep that up?" asked Beryl.
"Not indefinitely, anyway. They weren't recovering any carbon dioxide for processing, the way they would in the ship. The captain figured he'd better lift and orbit while he tried to negotiate. Meanwhile, he sent to the Department for help, and they came up with a poor guess."
"What?"
"They got the captain to disguise some spacesuit rockets as oxygen tanks and send them down by the auxiliary rocket they were using to make deliveries and keep contact. The idea was that the prisoners would fly themselves over the walls like angels, the rocket would snatch them up, and they'd all filter the green-white light of Mizar from their lenses forever."
"And why didn't it work?"
"Oh, it worked," said Westervelt. "It worked beautifully. The only trouble was that when they got these three guys aboard and were picking up stellar speed, they found that the Mizarians had pulled a little sleight of hand. They'd stuck three of their own into the Terran spacesuits-pretty cramped, but able to move-and sent them to spy out the ship. Well, the captain took one look and realized it was all over. He couldn't supply the Mizarians with enough chlorine to keep them alive until they could be sent back. He just kept going."
"But the men they left behind!" exclaimed Beryl. "What happened to them?"
Westervelt shrugged.
"They never exactly found out."
Beryl, horrified, turned to Simonetta, who stared reflectively at the wall.
"For all we know," said the dark girl, "they were dead already."
"It was about even," said Westervelt. "The Mizarians never heard exactly what happened to theirs either."
There was a period of silence while they considered that angle. Simonetta finally said, "Why don't you tell her about the time they gave that spacer the hormone treatment for a disguise?"
"Oh... you tell it," said Westervelt, trapped. "You know it better than I do."
"That one," began Simonetta, "happened on a world where there's a colony from Terra that isn't much talked about. It's a sort of Amazon culture, and they don't allow men. They were set to execute this fellow who smuggled himself in for a lark, when th
e Department started shipping him drugs that changed his appearance."
Westervelt admired Beryl's wide-eyed intentness.
"Finally," Simonetta continued, "his appearance changed so much that he could dress up and pass for a woman anywhere. He just walked out when the next scheduled spaceship landed, and was halfway back to Terra before they finished searching the woods for him. It made trouble, though."
"What happened?" breathed Beryl.
"They never quite succeeded in changing him back. His wife wound up divorcing him for infidelity when he gave birth to twins."
Beryl straightened up abruptly.
"Oh... ! You-come on, now!"
Westervelt reminded himself that the blush must have resulted less from the joke than from having been taken in. They were still laughing when a buzzer sounded at Beryl's desk phone. She flipped the switch, listened for a moment, then rose with a toss of her blonde head at Westervelt.
"Mr. Parrish wants me to help him research in the dead files," she said. "I bet he won't try that kind of gag on me!"
"No," muttered Westervelt as she strode out, "he has some all his own."
He looked up to find Simonetta watching him with a grin. She shook her head ruefully as Westervelt grew a flush to match Beryl's.
"Willie, Willie!" she said sadly. "You aren't letting that bottle blonde bother you? I didn't think you were that kind of boy!"
Westervelt grinned back, at some cost.
"Is there another kind?" he asked. "After all, Si, she's only been around a few weeks. It's the novelty. I'll get used to her."
"Sure you will," said Simonetta.
She returned to her letters, and Westervelt hunched over his desk to brood. He wondered what Parrish and Beryl were up to in the file room. He could think of no innocent reason to wander in on business of his own. Perhaps, he reflected, he did not really want to; he might overhear something he would regret.
He passed some time without directing a single thought to the problems of the Department. Then the door beyond Simonetta opened and Smith strolled out. He carried a pad as if he, too, had been doodling.
"Well, Willie," he said cheerfully, "what are we going to do about this Harris fellow?"
"All I can think of, Mr. Smith, is to offer to trade them a few people we could do without," said Westervelt.