The Planet Killers: Three Novels of the Spaceways (Planet Stories (Paizo Publishing) Book 32)

by Silverberg, Robert

  There was a bistro opposite the hotel; he spent the hours after dinner there, as he might be expected to do, sipping judicious quantities of khall and eyeing the passing crowd. Later at night, when the streets began to empty out and the neighborhood became more dangerous, Gardner would stroll back to the hotel. For a twenty-segment piece he could buy admission to the orthicon room, where a gay kaleidoscope whirled endlessly to the stupefied delight of an eager audience. It was a harmless enough diversion, especially if you kept your eyes off the screen and watched with interest the efficient tactics of the numerous pickpockets moving through the room. Around eleven each night, Gardner would retire to his own room, read for a while, and go to sleep.

  It was a lonely life.

  On the third day, when Gardner was beginning to get bored with the routine, there was a call, late one night, from Smee.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for Continent East tomorrow,” Smee said.

  “Fine. Drop me a postcard or something when you get there.”

  “How has it been, so far?”

  “No complaints,” Gardner said.

  “You like Lurion?”

  “It has its points of interest.”

  “Drinking much?” Smee asked next.

  “A nip or two of khall before bedtime. It helps to relax me.”

  “I’m sure it does,” Smee said thoughtfully. “Well, be seeing you in a few weeks.”

  “Yes. A few weeks.”

  Gardner hung up the phone and emerged from the curtained alcove. One of the ubiquitous Lurioni houseboys was staring at him quizzically. There was no privacy to be had at the telephone, of course. But Gardner was certain he had said nothing to Smee that might arouse the anxiety of a spy.

  He was pleased that Smee was leaving, at any rate. He had been worried that so long as he stayed here, the little man might grow increasingly reckless. Just because he had survived six months in this city, he wouldn’t necessarily be immune to a policeman’s truncheon or the knife of a Lurioni delinquent.

  The trouble with the project, Gardner thought, was that every man was indispensable. Five generators was the minimum, and one member of the team put out of commission would snarl the entire enterprise. Perhaps three or four or a dozen five-man teams would have to be sent out before the entire necessary complement could be assembled on Lurion at the same time.

  The first four days had gone along smoothly enough for Gardner: up early, out to the exchange, mingle with the jewel traders, buy and sell; then back to the hotel, kill the evening in loneliness, get to sleep. It was not an exciting routine, or even a pleasant one, but it was one that he could endure. He resisted any attempt of the Earther jewel traders to form after-hours friendships with him. They were all men condemned to die at his hand, and he knew he could not allow himself to become intimate with any of them. The job was hard enough to shoulder as it was.

  As he saw it, he would go along, living this way for a while. In a few days Weegan would arrive, and then Leopold, and finally Damon Archer. Then, if all were still going well, they would perform their dreadful task and leave.

  But on the morning of the fourth day he saw the girl, and from then on he knew that there would be complications, much as he wanted to avoid them.

  She was going out, just as Gardner arrived in the lobby. She was an Earthgirl, and she walked with a cheerful, determined stride. Gardner froze, watching her skip down the steps of the hotel and lose herself in the rapidly-moving crowd.

  He thought about her all day. And, when he returned to the hotel at nightfall, after his day at the jewel exchange, he was pleasantly surprised to find her standing at the desk in the hotel lobby, tearing open an envelope she had just picked up at the mail rack.

  He walked to the mail rack and made a conspicuous thing out of searching his own box for a letter. Inwardly he told himself not to be a damned fool; he had nothing to gain by this escapade but trouble. Still, he rummaged in the box, and shrugged his shoulders when he found the expected emptiness.

  “Nothing for me, I guess,” he said softly, and turned as though to leave. But the girl had noticed him, and she looked up, smiling.

  “Hello, Earthman,” she said lightly. “Do you live here? Oh, of course, you must, if you’re looking for your mail!”

  “I live here,” Gardner said.

  He studied her with care. She was tall, five-seven at least, with hair dyed green and an open, wide-eyed face with cheekbones just a shade too broad. She looked very attractive. She was well dressed, in an informal way, and a note book was slung in a little harness over her left shoulder. Gardner guessed that she was in her middle, or perhaps late twenties. There were no rings on her slim, tapering fingers.

  He realized the dangers inherent in any such encounter as this, and tried to wrench himself free. But his eyes had met hers, and he stood where he was, unable to move away from her.

  “I live here too,” she said, laughing prettily. “A few days ago they told me at the desk that another Terran had moved in, but I didn’t know if you were the one.”

  “I’ve been here four days.”

  “Then you’re the one they told me about. It’s good to see a friendly face again.”

  “Yes,” Gardner said vaguely. He knew that this was a crisis point. He had to succeed in breaking this relationship before it began, or all might be jeopardized foolishly. He said, “It was good to meet you, but I really ought to run along now. I—”

  She was pouting. “You don’t have to run away from me so fast, you know. I’m not going to bite you. Honest, that’s a promise.”

  Gardner forced a good imitation of a chuckle. He told himself that he was getting into trouble, very serious trouble. But perhaps he might still work his way out of it without having to seem impolite.

  “Okay, then. I appreciate your subtlety. Would you care to be bought a drink?”

  “I would indeed. You’re most kind to make the offer,” she said impishly.

  “There’s a little cafe across the street.”

  She wrinkled her nose. She was lightly sprinkled with freckles, Gardner noticed. “That place is so terribly vulgar,” she said. “Why don’t we just go into the hotel casino?”

  Gardner shrugged. Drinks in the casino were twice as expensive as across the street, for one thing. But he was bound by the rules of chivalry, now. “The casino it is, then.”

  They went to the rear of the lobby and through the automatically-operated doors into the dimly-lit room. A Lurioni clad in the local equivalent of a tuxedo-and-tails came gliding unctuously up to them to ask if they were interested in gambling.

  “Not at the moment,” Gardner said. “We’d just like a table in the back, and something to drink.”

  “Of course, ser Earthman. Come with me.”

  They were led to a nook at the rear, behind the gaming tables. It might have been romantic, secluded as it was, but the lighting in the ceiling was defective, and buzzed annoyingly; besides, the place had the sour reek of the foul Lurioni beer. They settled into the alcove facing each other.

  “Do you drink khall? ” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’ve sampled a little. But you have to understand that I haven’t had the opportunity to do much social drinking on Lurion. That’s why I practically shanghaied you just now.”

  Gardner grinned and ordered two khalls . While they waited for the liquor to arrive, he said, “Now tell me what such a handsome piece of womanflesh is doing all by herself on a nasty world like this.”

  “I’m a graduate anthropology student, working on my doctoral thesis,” she said.

  “I never would have guessed it! What’s your field of special interest?”

  She said, as the waiter deposited the drinks on the table, “My thesis is called Abnormal Cruelty on Civilized Worlds. ”

  “You’ve certainly come to the right place for that. How long have you been here?”

  “Four months.” She chuckled. “Here we are getting into a complicated discussion,
and we don’t even know each other’s names. I’m Lori Marks.”

  “Roy Gardner.”

  “North American?”

  “Yes. So are you.”

  “ Very north,” she said. “I’m Canadian. Born in Ottawa. And you’re from the northeastern part of the United States, or else you’re trying to fool me with a phony accent.”

  “I’m not. I’m a Massachusetts boy.”

  She giggled. “Massachusetts seems so insignificant when you’re umpteen light-years away. So does Ottawa, for that matter. Or the whole hemisphere. They all seem to blur into one.” Sipping her drink, she said, “And what do you do, Roy? Don’t tell me you’re an anthropologist working on the same thing I am, or I’ll absolutely have a fit.”

  Gardner smiled gently. “No chance. I’m a dealer in precious gems.”

  “ Really? ” Her eyes went wide with disbelief.

  “Really,” he said. “Is it so improbable?”

  “It’s just … well, funny, that’s all.”

  “How so, funny?”

  “Funny because I always pictured a jewel merchant as a little shrunken sort of man with a squint in his eyes from peering through his loupe. You just don’t look the part, dammit! You look more like … well, an adventurer, or a spy, or something romantic. Anything but a trader in precious gems.”

  Gardner tried to keep from wincing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Remind me to shrink next time I see you. And some day remind me to tell you what I think anthropologists ought to look like.”

  She giggled delightedly. “ Touche. ”

  The conversation, which had become almost giddy, slackened for a moment. Gardner looked at the girl thoughtfully. She was young, pretty, intelligent, lively, unmarried.

  And she was condemned to death.

  Gardner felt his throat grow dry. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long, deep pull of the fiery khall . He looked away, suddenly, so she would not see the pain on his face.

  Chapter Seven

  An hour later, and two additional rounds of khall , and Gardner had his hand across the table, holding hers. He was forcing himself to take the khall one sip at a time, letting his body metabolize it before he allowed any more into his system. Otherwise he ran the risk of becoming maudlin, sentimental, and, perhaps, overly talkative. The combination might be fatal.

  He eyed the girl closely, thinking of her and her thesis. It was a promising enough topic for research, and there was no doubt that she had come to the perfect world for studying cruelty. And then the thought returned that in three weeks—no, now only two weeks and a couple of days, now—he was going to kill this girl and the three billion Lurioni she was so assiduously studying.

  “How long are you planning to stay on Lurion?” he asked, trying to sound merely formally curious, with no deeper motive.

  “Oh, another month or so, I guess.”

  Gardner winced. A whole month!

  She went on, “My visa’s up in two months, you see, but I’ve observed about all the cruelty I want to observe on any one planet. These people have perfected it astonishingly well. You’d be surprised how many happy marriages there are on Lurion with one partner a sadist and the other a masochist.”

  “That sounds like a pretty sensible arrangement,” Gardner said. Then, returning to the earlier subject, “So you’re leaving in a month, eh? Guess I’ll be on Terra afore ye, in that case. I’ll be going back in two, two and a half weeks.”

  Her eyes brightened. “You can’t imagine how much I envy you. Frankly, I’m sick of this place. If I could get passage back, I’d leave with you, or even earlier. But all the ships out are booked solid for a month. I’ve been checking.”

  “And no luck, huh?”

  She shook her head. “There isn’t a berth to be had on any ship.”

  Gardner felt the dull thudding of his heart beneath his breastbone. She could leave with me , he thought, but the hopeful thought died at once. There was no room for more than five on his little ship, and members of his team had to have priority. Besides, it would be a flat violation of security to take her with him. Terran civilians were not to be evacuated.

  She’s expendable , Gardner told himself savagely. Earth Central would never have approved her passport if she had any value to anybody. The fact that she’s young and full of life and wants to live doesn’t matter to the computer. She’s here, and so she’ll have to die with the rest of them .

  He gripped the glass he was holding tightly, then released it for fear he would smash it. Getting involved with her was a monstrous mistake; he had known that at the start, and yet he had allowed himself to glide into this tete-a-tete . And now he would have to contend with sticky emotions all the way from here to the end. It made a difficult job practically impossible.

  She noticed his mood. “You look pale, Roy. Is something the matter?”

  “No, nothing,” he said quickly. “There just isn’t enough alcohol in me yet, that’s all.”

  He took a hefty slug of khall and stared broodingly at the swirling greenish liquor that remained in the glass. Khall was cheap. Gordon wondered if his predecessor, Davis, who was probably still wandering some foul back alley of Lurion in a drunkard’s rags, had also met a girl on Lurion. The khall helped to numb the guilt, all right. Not much, but enough.

  “You really can’t be feeling all right,” Lori insisted. “You keep staring into your glass that way, or else off into space. Why don’t you tell old Aunt Lori the trouble? Maybe I can help.”

  Her hand touched his and, irritably, he snatched it away.

  “There isn’t any trouble!” he snapped. “Don’t start meddling with—”

  He stopped, seeing the shocked, hurt expression on her face, and realized the depth of his boorishness. “I’m sorry, Lori,” he said softly. “That was a miserable thing to say. You were just trying to help me, and I almost yelled your head off.”

  “It’s all right, Roy. We all lose our tempers sometimes. Especially when strangers try to butt into our personal problems. Forgive me?”

  “I’m the one who needs to be forgiven,” he said.

  They patched it up, but Gardner knew he had stung her deeply. He forced himself to look cheerful, to prevent any further inquiries. But, within, he told himself, She’s just a lonely kid on an ugly world, and I had to go and be nasty to her .

  “You are a strange one,” she said.

  He grinned. “I’m still sober, that’s the real trouble. And so are you. Let’s see if we can’t do something about the situation.”

  He called the waiter over and ordered yet another round of khall , and another one when they had finished that. He realized that neither of them had as much as mentioned the thought of dinner, and now it was past the dinner hour. Another insidious effect of khall , he thought with curious clarity. It’s a high-calorie drink, the kind that bamboozles you out of your appetite, but doesn’t nourish you in place of the food you’re skipping.

  He got very carefully and meticulously crocked during the next hour, maintaining an iron control over himself all the while. His face felt fuzzy, his hearing was not as acute as it was when he was sober, and he knew that if he stood up he would have some difficulty co-ordinating his movements. But yet he was still his own master. He had had just enough khall to numb the burgeoning guilt growing within him, but not enough to cause him to say or do anything indiscreet.

  Lori was considerably less careful. By the time the hour had passed, she was volubly prattling about her oedipus complex; her very real fear of becoming a spinster school-teacher in some small college’s anthropology department; her feeling of loathing and repugnance for Lurion and all that happened there. In short, she tossed at Gardner her entire self.

  “So you see, I figured it was better to come here first and get a good stiff dose of ugliness, and then I could use Lurion as a sort of yardstick when I moved on to other planets on my list.”

  Gardner nodded gravely. Had he been a little more sober, he would have cut the conversati
on short before it was too late, before she had given so much of herself that it would be impossible for him ever to make the cold decision that would kill her.

  He sat quietly, listening, until she talked herself out. Perhaps the khall was losing its hold on her, for she smiled suddenly, reddened, and said, “I’ve been talking an awful lot of drivel, haven’t I?”

  “On the contrary. It’s all been most fascinating, Lori.”

  “But I’ve been hogging the conversation. I’ve hardly let you say a thing. And now you know every little thing I’ve done since I was seven, and I really don’t know anything more about you than your name, your trade, and where you’re from!”

  Gardner smiled lightly. “Perhaps that’s just as well. I’ve had a horribly dull life. It would only bore you if I went into all the dreary details.”

  She seemed to accept that as being reasonably sincere. They finished their drinks. Lori looked at the time and said, with a little gasp, “Oh, dear, its getting terribly late!”

  “For both of us. In this place you just can’t sleep past daybreak.”

  Gardner took her back upstairs; her room was two floors below his own. They stood for a moment outside her door.

  “Goodnight, Roy. And thanks for spending the evening with me. It did me good to see a Terran face again.”

  “The pleasure was mine, Lori. Goodnight.”

  He was standing so close to her that a kiss seemed to be in order. But it was a light one, a delicate grazing of lips and no more, a gentle thank-you-for-an-evening’s-company. She opened the door, staggered inside, nearly toppled on the bed, waved to him somewhat giddily, and closed the door. She hadn’t invited him in, and Gardner hadn’t been looking for an invitation. He smiled at her through the closed door, and went up the winding stairs to his own room.

  As usual, the seal had been tinkered with. No surprise, that; the management and all the hotel employees knew that he was a jewel merchant, and they were dead set on robbing him before he left the hotel. But, unfortunately for them, there just wasn’t any way for them to penetrate that seal.