“You’d sell anyone out. How can I trust you?”
“Trust me on faith. I want revenge on Doveril. Nothing else matters to me.” She smiled craftily. “I’ll make a deal with you, Catton. Take me to wherever Doveril is—and when we find him, I’ll tell you where the hypnojewels come from!”
“You know?”
“Doveril once let it slip. I’ve been saving the information until I could put it to good use. And now I can. Take me to Doveril, let me help capture him—and I’ll give you the name of the world where the hypnojewels are made. Is it a deal?”
Catton was silent a long while. The girl was of shifty loyalties; no doubt about that. But how sincere was she now? She had sold out friends, attempted to murder him, lied and betrayed. By accepting the offer of her help, he might be clutching a viper to his bosom. But, on the other hand, catching the wily Doveril on Vyorn might not be easy. Using Nuuri as bait, it would be much simpler for him. And there was the additional handy factor of her offer to give him the hypnojewel information—unless, of course, she was bluffing there.
He decided to risk it. Her hatred for Doveril seemed unfeigned. She was an uncertain ally, but he would take his chances with her.
“All right,” he said. “I’m going to Vyorn in three days. Can you leave then?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll travel together. I’ll include you on my papers as a secretary. There shouldn’t be any trouble.”
Catton had his doubts about joining forces with a woman who had spied on him and attempted to murder him. But at this stage of the conflict he needed any ally he could get, even a risky one. He did not have much more time, now that Pouin Beryaal knew that he lived.
He phoned down to the travel agency and arranged for a second set of reservations, in Nuuri’s name, along with accommodations—separate ones—for her during the stopovers.
That night he visited the restaurant where Estil Seeman played, and told the girl he was leaving soon for Vyorn, to apprehend Doveril, and that if he met with success he would stop off and pick her up on his return trip, to take her back to Morilar. He did not mention his meeting with Nuuri to Estil; it might only fan her jealousy.
During the next three days Catton remained in the hotel. He realized that Beryaal might easily have sent more than one agent to dispose of him. Since he had accomplished all he needed to on Skorg, there was no point needlessly exposing himself now. On the third day he and Nuuri journeyed to the spaceport outside Skorgaar, had their papers validated for emigration, and boarded a small 180-passenger ship of the Skorg Line, bound out non-stop to Tharrimar, fifth world of the Tharrim system.
The ten-day voyage dragged hopelessly. The small ship lacked the awesome splendor of the Silver Spear , and Catton spent his time reading, gaming in the lounge, or sleeping. Nuuri was poor company. Her only topic of conversation was the fierce hatred she bore for Doveril, and Catton soon tired of that.
Tharrimar was a medium-sized world populated by loose-skinned red humanoids governed by a Skorg administrator. The meager city near the spaceport held few attractions, and Catton was bothered by the heavy gravitational pull, nearly twice that of Earth. He was not sad when the two-day stopover ended and the ship for Dirlak blasted off.
This ship was even less imposing than the last—half passenger, half freight. But, blessedly, it was only a five-day journey to Dirlak, a bleak place two billion miles from its sun. The temperature never rose above zero on Dirlak. Frozen winds howled all the time, for the twenty Galactic hours Catton and Nuuri were compelled to wait before their ship to Hennim left. Dirlak was a trading outpost of the Skorg Confederation, thinly populated, rarely visited except by transient travelers.
Three days aboard a slow-moving transport ship got them to Hennim, sister world of Vyorn. Hennim was an oxygen world, not much larger than Earth but cursed by a fiercely capricious climate. Torrential rain was falling as Catton landed at the spaceport; within an hour, a searing blast of solar radiation was baking the mud that the fields had become.
The natives of Hennim were humanoids, squat and sturdy, who peered quizzically at Catton from oval eyes the color of little silver buttons. It developed that most of them had never seen a Terran before. A Skorg interpreter informed Catton that less than a hundred Earthmen had ever visited this system; it was too remote to attract Terran industry, and the tourist trade was put off by the difficulties in getting there from any major world of the galactic lens. Of course, there were no diplomatic relations between Earth and any world of this system. When Catton replied that he was going to Vyorn, exclamations of surprises were audible on all sides. No more than a handful of Terran travelers had ever gone to Vyorn.
The shuttle left Hennim the next day. Catton and Nuuri were in the oxygen-breathers’ section of the vessel, along with several dozen Hennimese and a few Skorgs. Behind a partition, Catton learned, eight Vyorni were traveling, breathing their peculiarly poisonous chlorine atmosphere.
The trip took six hours. Near its conclusion, a Hennimese in crew uniform appeared in the passenger cabin to announce—first in his own language, then in Skorg—that landing would shortly take place. “All oxygen-breathing entities are required to wear breathing-suits for their own protection. Those who are without suits may rent them from the purser.”
Catton and Nuuri rented suits, standard medium-size humanoid type, for small sums payable in Skorg currency. Catton adjusted his to the familiar chemical makeup of Earth’s atmosphere; it was the first time he had breathed it since the assignment began.
Not long after, the planet they sought came into view. It was vaguely circular, swathed in a thick green shroud of chlorine. The shuttle-ship landed with minor difficulties. After the last jolt, the Hennimese purser reappeared to convey the oxygen-breathing passengers through the airlock to the waiting spaceport coach.
Outside, Catton got his first look at Vyorn. Flat, barren land stretched outward to the horizon. The greenish murk hung low overhead. The scenery was utterly alien, totally strange. Within his protective suit, he was comfortable enough—but the temperature outside, he knew, was no more than 250 degrees above Absolute. It was a cold, ugly, forbidding world, alien in every respect.
And here, Catton thought, are produced the matter duplicators designed for the destruction of Terran civilization.
Chapter Fifteen
Three of Catton’s allotted five days on Vyorn slipped by before he got his first inkling of Doveril’s whereabouts.
The Vyorni were of no help. They refused to give any information. They were remote, unpleasant creatures: the size of a Terran, but unhumanoid in form, with six jointed arms and three legs; their bodies were dead white, waxy in appearance, and their eyes glowered beadily out of protruding triangular sockets. Better than 90 percent of the life-bearing worlds of the universe produced oxygen-breathing creatures; Vyorn was different. Its inhabitants breathed an atmosphere of chlorine and gave off carbon tetrachloride as respiratory waste. The Vyorni plant life broke the carbon tet down into chlorine and complex hydrocarbons, and so the cycle of respiration went on. In every way these beings were different from all others in the galaxy.
The difference was psychological as well as physiological. The Vyorni seemed cosmically indifferent to the ways of the oxygen-breathers who came to their world. There was no organized government on Vyorn, nor any legal system. All Vyorni were free to do as they pleased, so long as they brought no harm to a fellow Vyorni.
Catton, via a Skorg interpreter, spoke with the Vyorni who was in charge of the residence compound for oxygen-breathing beings. “Tell him I’m here to find a Morilaru named Doveril Halligon. That it’s important for the security and peace of the galaxy that I find him.”
The interpreter reeled off a string of harsh, clicking, consonant-heavy words. After a moment the Vyorni replied: three clucking syllables.
The Skorg translated. “He says he doesn’t care.”
“Tell him it’s vital—that I’ll pay him for information.”
Once again the Skorg spoke, and once again the Vyorni replied—this time with one snapped grunt.
“Well?” Catton said.
“He doesn’t want to be paid. He just isn’t interested in helping you.”
“Tell him I’m a crime-prevention officer! I’m a member of the Interworld Commission.”
Shrugging, the Skorg translated. The answer was curt. “This is Vyorn,” he says. “Oxygen-breathers’ law is no good here.”
Catton sighed. “Okay. I see I’m not going to get anywhere with him. Maybe you can help me, then. Is there some central registry of immigrants here? Or a Morilaru consulate where I could ask about my man?”
“There’s no central registry of any kind here. Nor any consulates. Vyorn doesn’t enter into diplomatic relations with oxygen-breathing worlds.”
Further investigation later got him more of the same. The Vyorni were not interested in cooperating. If oxygen-breathers wanted to come here to do business, they were welcome, but they would not necessarily be treated with warmth. Catton began to understand how this race could so casually manufacture things like matter duplicators. The Vyorni were not motivated by profit or any other typical oxygen-breather motivation. But they derived some sort of satisfaction from seeing their products go forth and harass and confuse the oxygen-breathers who occupied most of the universe’s worlds.
Catton began asking questions. He went about it with care, for he did not want word to reach Doveril—if Doveril were still on Vyorn—that an Earthman was here, asking questions about him. Catton let Nuuri do most of the actual questioning. There were about twenty Morilaru in the compound, engaged in trade with the Vyorni. She approached them one by one, subtly leading the discussion around to Doveril.
On the third day they got some concrete information at last. Nuuri was talking to an abnormally plump Morilaru named Gudwan Quinak, who ostensibly was on Vyorn to deal in furs, but who, Catton privately suspected, was involved with some sort of drug trade. Catton had Nuuri approach him slyly, wheedlingly, and within ten minutes she had him talking.
“He’s a drug man, all right,” she reported later to Catton. “And he knows Doveril pretty well. He’s at another Vyorni city, about two hundred miles from here. According to Quinak, Doveril landed here about a month ago, and let drop a couple of hints that he was involved in something big . Doveril could never resist boasting.”
“How do we get to him?”
“We’ll have to rent a jetsled. There’s no public transport between here and there. Vyorni don’t travel much, it seems.”
They rented the jetsled at an extravagant cost from a knowledgeable, covertly smiling Skorg who had a local concession. The Skorg’s beady eyes glinted as Catton paid over the stiff deposit, as if the Skorg itched to make some remark about the relationship between a Terran and a Morilaru woman who were renting a sled together. But the Skorg kept his own counsel, probably afraid of losing the sale.
The sled was well built, a compact bullet-shaped vehicle totally enclosed in duriplast, with keen snow-runners and a triple array of rocket tubes. Catton checked out the mechanical parts of the sled with great care before they left. He knew enough about the Vyorni by now to realize that if their sled broke down somewhere in the frozen wastes, they would be left to rot before anyone came out to rescue them.
They left the residence compound about mid-day, with Vyorn’s small yellow sun directly overhead, dimly visible behind the thick atmospheric swath of chlorine. Catton kept the speed at fifty miles an hour; more might be dangerous. There was no road, just a well-worn track through the bleak tundra. Scattered Vyorni settlements lined the route: odd needle-shaped homes, thirty feet high and no more than twelve feet wide at the base, and farmland ploughed by weird swaybacked creatures whose bodies were segmented like crustaceans and whose eyes had a haunting wisdom about them, as if they were the eyes of intelligent beings who had been subjugated by the Vyorni.
The sun had nearly set—Vyorn’s day lasted only some sixteen Galactic hours—when the sled reached the outskirts of the village that was Catton’s destination. They pulled up outside a domed building much like the other residence compound.
“You so inside,” Catton ordered. “Find out if Doveril’s around. If he is, see if you can get him to come out here.”
Nuuri slipped through the exit hatch of the jetsled and trotted toward the compound’s airlock. Catton waited in the sled, cradling a small blaster in his hand. Five minutes passed; then Nuuri returned. She was alone.
“Well?”
“He’s across town at the spaceport. Supervising a cargo loading.”
“Looks like we got here just in time.” Catton slapped down the starter switch on the sled, and it shot off down the road.
The spaceport was a small one, a few miles from the compound. Catton saw only three ships—two small shuttles bearing Hennimese insignia, and one larger, unmarked ship that stood by itself at the edge of the field, glinting dull gray in the gathering darkness. A dozen Vyorni were going back and forth between the ship and a nearby cargo shed. They were bearing wooden crates two feet square into the ship. A figure in a spacesuit stood near the open hatch, counting the crates as they entered the ship.
“Should I go over to him?” Nuuri asked anxiously.
“Wait. They’ve almost finished loading the ship.”
The Vyorni made one last trip to the shed, then paused as if waiting for further orders. The figure in the spacesuit seemed to be dismissing them.
The hatch on the gray spaceship closed abruptly. The space-suited figure started to walk off the field, toward the administration building at the edge of the blast area.
“Okay,” Catton said. “Go over and talk to him. I’m tuned in on the wavelength of your suit radio.”
Nuuri ran across the field. Crouching in the jetsled, Catton heard her cry out: “Doveril! Doveril!”
The spacesuited figure halted. “Nuuri? What are you doing here?”
“I—came to see you, Doveril.”
“Followed me all the way to Vyorn? How did you know where I was?” Doveril demanded suspiciously. “Who sent you here?”
“Beryaal sent me,” she said evenly. “I have a message for you.”
“What dealings have you had with Beryaal?”
“He employs me,” Nuuri said. “Come with me to that jet-sled. I have a message-disk from Beryaal for you, in it.”
“I’ll wait here,” Doveril said cautiously. “Go get it.”
“No—come with me.”
“Go get it, I said!”
Catton, waiting hidden beneath the jetsled seat, caught his breath. Doveril suspected a trap. The former music teacher was a wary one.
Nuuri came to the jetsled alone. Bending over Catton, she cut her radio and touched her helmet to his to say, “Give me a weapon. He won’t come.”
Catton handed her his auxiliary blaster. “Here. But don’t use it. I want him alive.”
She took the weapon without replying, and returned to Doveril. Catton picked up the words over his suit radio.
“Here’s the message, Doveril.” She extended her space-gloved hand. The gun’s nozzle protruded. “Your schemes are finished. I know about the Earthgirl, Estil. I know how you treated her, and how you treated me. This is the time for vengeance, Doveril.”
“Nuuri? Are you crazy? You—”
A sudden purple spear of light flashed from the blaster in Nuuri’s hand. But Doveril had already launched himself forward as if to tackle her. The energy bolt went wild, passing over the Morilaru’s shoulder and dissipating itself harmlessly in the atmosphere. Before Nuuri had a chance to fire again, Doveril was upon her, hurling her to the ground, his hand grasping for the blaster she still clutched.
Catton scowled. The girl had disobeyed him! He flipped up the jetsled’s exit hatch and ran toward the struggling pair as they grappled on the frozen field.
Nuuri was screaming hysterically, blanketing the audio channel with her outpouring of hatred. But Doveril’s
hand grasped the wrist that controlled the blaster, and she could not fire. Catton was still twenty yards away from them when Doveril pounced on the blaster, ripping it from the girl’s hand, and leaped back, dragging Nuuri in front of him as a shield.
“Put down your gun, Earthman, or I’ll kill the girl,” Doveril said evenly.
They faced each other over a twenty yard gap, with Nuuri between them. Catton felt naked and unprotected. If Doveril chose to fire, he could kill the Earthman easily.
But Doveril was backing away, toward the ship. Catton saw the Morilaru’s lips moving, but Doveril was talking on another audio channel. Nuuri shouted, “I can hear him, Catton! He’s ordering the crew to ready the ship for blastoff! Kill him, Catton! Kill him!”
Catton tensed. Doveril said, “You’ll kill her too, Earthman.”
“I don’t want to kill anybody. I want to stop that ship from blasting off.”
Doveril laughed mockingly. “Of course you do. But I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
Catton weighed the chances. Doveril was no more than forty feet from the ship’s open airlock. The Vyorni who had loaded the cargo were standing in a row at the edge of the field, showing no interest in what was taking place.
Doveril was close to the airlock now. Suddenly Nuuri squirmed in his grasp, twisted round, pummelled with both gloved hands on his helmet as if trying to break it. Momentarily confused, Doveril shoved her away from him.
Catton fired, but the shot went wild. A microsecond later Doveril’s blaster spouted energy too. But Nuuri, launching herself at Doveril in a frenzied attack, caught Doveril’s beam and was hurled to one side by the energy bolt. Catton fired again quickly. The second bolt caught Doveril at the waist and ripped open his breathing-suit, cutting a flaming hole through the middle of his body. The Morilaru screamed.
The Planet Killers: Three Novels of the Spaceways (Planet Stories (Paizo Publishing) Book 32) Page 12