The Ring of Ritornel

by Charles L. Harness

  He glanced at Vang. The monk’s face was taut, bloodless. Clearly, Vang was equally concerned. Was it only about the money? Andrek could not be sure.

  Vang tensed, closed his eyes, and rolled a “ten.” Andrek followed with “eleven.” He marked the lines and handed the die to Vang hypnotically.

  Lacking one line, the dodecagon was complete.

  Vang stared in growing horror at the figure. “The Ring of Ritornel…” he whispered. “We … I … have desecrated Alea!” He glared at the advocate. “Daimon, you shall pay for this!”

  Pay? There was still a way! “Would ten thousand gammas satisfy the goddess?” said Andrek humbly. “After all, we did no real harm. We stopped before the Ring was finished. And no one knows what the next die would have been. It might not have been a ‘twelve’ at all.”

  Vang hesitated, but finally took the check. “Perhaps. In my prayers, I shall beseech Alea to forgive you.” But something still troubled him. He examined the advocate’s face at length. “So now you’ve lost both the experiment and the money. You’ve proved nothing. Yet, somehow, you seem rather pleased. What were you really after, James Andrek? What did you hope to gain by this sacrilegious demonstration?”

  “Time,” said Andrek.

  “Time? For what?”

  “For—certain events to take place.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Because you are not asking the right questions. The first question is, ‘Where is Huntyr?’”

  “All right, where is Huntyr?”

  “Huntyr’s back in his room by now,” said Andrek.

  This seemed to relieve Vang. But Andrek did not intend to permit the monk to enjoy his relief. “The next question, of course, is Hasard.”

  “Hasard?” said the monk blankly.

  “Yes. Where’s Hasard?”

  “With Huntyr.”

  Andrek smiled. “I’m afraid, my holy friend, that you have not given your close attention to the events of the last few minutes. Hasard is not with Huntyr.”

  The Alean shrugged. “Not that it makes any difference, but where do you think he is?”

  “He’s in my room.”

  Vang started. Andrek noted this with satisfaction.

  “You’re guessing,” said the monk uncertainly.

  “Of course. But I’m sure I’m right. Huntyr took it upon himself just now to delegate my assassination to Hasard. So it’s Hasard, not Huntyr, who’ll be waiting for me when I return.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” asked the Alean bleakly.

  The first phase was over. Andrek relaxed a little. “Basically, to gain time. I’d rather deal with Hasard than with Huntyr. And if you suspected I’d be successful in goading him into the substitution, you’d try to get to him and stop him. But by now, he’s either made the switch—or he hasn’t. So you’re free to go, if you like.”

  The monk stood up. A delicate pink was suffusing along his throat and cheeks. Andrek almost laughed as Vang hurried from the room. But not yet. Mirth was still a bit premature. He pushed himself away from the table and looked around the mess hall. It was empty. He shrugged. What difference did it make? He was not going to demand protection from the ship’s officers or from anyone else on the ship. This ship was a government courier. The captain undoubtedly had orders from the Great House not to interfere—and perhaps even to help Huntyr, if the need arose.

  Everything was up to him. He was on his own, and he accepted it.

  He stood erect and strode from the room.

  As he clacked down the halls, he reintegrated the variables. Planting the check on Brother Vang was going to help, but not immediately. The immediate drama would begin in Andrek’s cabin, and there, he hoped—and feared—two of the actors were at this moment probably impatiently awaiting his return. In Andrek’s mind they were weirdly similar in their potentials for sudden violence: a courier case with a very hungry spider … and Hasard with a biem-gun. It was time to raise the curtain and start the festivities.

  10. THE RIGHT KEY, AND BEYOND

  He stopped in front of his cabin door and knocked. As he expected, there was no answer. “Hasard?” he called loudly, “Andrek here. Hold your fire. I’m coming in.”

  He lifted the latch and opened the door.

  Hasard was sitting in the chair by the table. His right hand held a biem-gun, resting casually on his knee. With his left hand he reached over and turned up the lights. “Come in,” he said. “And close the door.”

  Andrek closed the door behind him carefully. And, concealing the motion with his body, he locked it with the inside latch. He wanted no interruptions from the corridor.

  He studied the man quietly. The question now was—how much did this shark-faced brute know about him, and why he, Andrek, was on Xerol? Probably very little. Probably Huntyr had simply told the man to wait for him in this room and to kill him here.

  “Keep your hands up,” said the intruder.

  Andrek raised his hands, and continued to examine the hard features. Hasard’s pleasures were written on his face. They were simple but expensive: women and night life, probably in Huntyr’s borrowed coupé. Money would make a strong appeal. Andrek had very little money, but it was unlikely the other knew this. So he would start by talking money. It would at least delay matters, give him time to develop the details of his defense. No one, honest or otherwise, had ever been killed while in the act of offering a bribe!

  And during the forthcoming dialogue, there was a very important point that he had to work into the conversation. He was certain that Hasard carried a transmitter on his person, and that Huntyr and Vang were back in their cabin listening to every word. On this assumption, Huntyr was about to hear something that would keep him very seriously occupied with Vang for the next few minutes.

  Andrek faced Hasard and said, rather loudly: “Brother Vang agreed at dinner tonight to call off the assassination. For ten thousand gammas. It’s Huntyr’s own refund check to me. You remember it, I’m sure. Oberon made him give it to me. I endorsed it and gave it to the good brother. He put it in the inner pocket of his robe, and promised to divide it among the three of you.”

  Hasard laughed. “A smart man like you, Don Andrek, an advocate and all, ought to do better than that.”

  “Really? You mean you don’t believe me? This is indeed embarrassing.” Andrek breathed deeply. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he saw Hasard’s trigger finger relax. Clearly, the man was interested. The fish was circling the bait, and sniffing hungrily. Andrek hoped that by now Huntyr was fully occupied with Vang and couldn’t pay attention. He tried to visualize affairs in Huntyr’s cabin … Huntyr’s voice rising … Vang’s vehement and indignant denial … Huntyr insisting on searching the other … violent hands … the discovery of the check. But the actual details didn’t really matter. Just so those two kept each other busy for five minutes.

  “I can see,” said Andrek, “that it will take more than just talk to persuade you not to kill me. You’re a good man. You impress me. It’s a pity you’re on the wrong side. Our organization could certainly use a man like you.” He lowered his hands slightly. “Have you ever considered coming over to us, at, say, twice your present salary?”

  The other considered this, then scowled. “You’re crazy. I don’t even want to listen to you. I’m going to kill you and get out of here.”

  “Efficient, loyal, that’s what I like,” said Andrek. His hands dropped slowly to his sides. “But don’t worry about Huntyr. We’ll guarantee personal protection and we’ll give you a handsome starting bonus: one hundred thousand gammas.” He spoke the words slowly, impressively.

  Andrek could see that the amount of money hit Hasard like a hard blow to the body. He could sense the physical impact on the man. It was ten years’ income, enough for him to leave Huntyr. Enough for a villa, servants, respectability, acceptance in high places. The coarse features oscillated between greed and disbelief. The man rose halfway out of the chair. “You’re lying! Yo
u don’t have that kind of money here!”

  “Oh, I have it, all right, and it’s here. Unhappily, it’s the payroll for the staff at the Node Station, and I can’t touch it. You’ll have to wait until we get to the bank at the station.”

  He watched Hasard’s reaction with a profound and growing amazement, which, however, he was careful to conceal. He had hoped the plan would work, of course, and actually had seen no real risk of failure. And yet, to watch it unfold with such perfection, such precision, seemed almost too good to be true. But it wasn’t over yet. Hasard had to be persuaded to open the attaché case and to open it with avarice, and without suspecting what was waiting inside. He glanced at the case on the table, as though by inadvertence, then hastily returned his eyes to the killer.

  The other turned his head slowly, saw the case, and smiled. “How much you got there?”

  “Credits for over two hundred thousand. But don’t get any ideas … the case is locked, and I alone know the combination. If you try to blast the lock, it will auto-destruct.”

  “What’s the combination?”

  Oh Amatar, my strange darling, thought Andrek. How did you know? He said sharply, “You don’t understand. I can’t give you that money. You’ll have to wait until we get to the bank at the station.”

  Almost casually, Hasard raised his biem and fired. Andrek put his hand to his ear. His fingers felt something warm and wet. His ear stung horribly. The lobe-tip was gone. Blood was dripping on his shoulder.

  But it was all right. He had won. The hard part was over. Hasard was, for practical purposes, dead.

  The other waited patiently.

  Andrek knew his voice was going to shake. But that, too, was all right. It would add a further note of sincerity to the proceedings. “The combination consists of the fair numbers of Alea: twelve right, six left, five right, three left.”

  “That’s fine. Now you come over here and stand in front of me while I open it.”

  “I’d be happy to open it for you…”

  “And pull out a biem? Just do like I said, Don Andrek. And hands high.”

  “Of course, my dear fellow.” Andrek sidled around in front of the thug, with the table between them. Hasard bent down and began turning the dial with slow, studied care.

  Andrek’s every nerve was on edge, poised to strike. It was working, the whole thing, just as he had known it must. The only thing about the cascading sequence that astonished him was his own calmness. It was hard for him to realize that, he, a peaceful, rather sedentary advocate, was about to fight a man to the death.

  And it must come in seconds, for in seconds the killer must make contact with Raq, and in the resulting brief flurry of shock and indecision, Andrek planned to hurl himself over the table and take the biem.

  So thinking, he was quite unprepared for what actually happened.

  Raq’s stomach was small. It needed frequent replenishment. She had not eaten in nearly twenty hours, and she was ravenous. Also, she was cramped, and it was impossible for her to stretch her legs. Her temper, ordinarily placid and retiring, now suffered from the combined effects of hunger and confinement. She was coiled like a spring, and she was furious.

  Amatar’s conditioning made it impossible for Raq to harbor resentment toward Andrek. His footsteps and voice came to her clearly through the walls of the case and the code box. This left, as a focal point for her rage, the other two-leggar, whose footsteps and voice told her that he stood just above and outside her prison. There was something about his voice that put an edge of fear on Raq’s growing dislike of him. The spring within her coiled tighter. Her mandibles chattered and began to drip toxin.

  Hasard grasped the lid by the front left corner and raised it.

  A horrid blur hit him in the mouth. He screamed, dropped his gun, clapped his hands to his face, and began to collapse. Raq, disconcerted by the approaching hands, disengaged her mandibles, now dripping with blood, and leaped away in good time. She struck the drapes on the opposite cabin wall and froze there, to await developments.

  Andrek broke partway out of his shock, retrieved the biem-gun during one of its wild ricochets from the cabin walls, and stuck it in his belt. He was probably safe for a moment. Firstly, Huntyr, if he were listening in, would probably assume that the scream came from him, Andrek, and secondly, it was even more likely that Huntyr was, at this moment, engaged in a bitter argument with Vang regarding the check. That check would probably be impossible for the Alean to explain. Wager, indeed! Andrek felt a very faint tinge of sympathy for the monk.

  Breathing heavily, he turned back to his visitor. He had never seen a man lose consciousness under weightless conditions, and he watched the process with a kind of vague wonder. First, there was a general relaxation and contraction of all the gross motor muscles. Being fixed to the floor by his magnetic shoes, Hasard had to contract in that direction. Visibly, he seemed to shrink. His knees buckled, his arms and shoulders took on an apelike crouch, and his knuckles curled “downward” toward the floor. His mouth was slack, and his lower lip, where Raq had struck, was rapidly swelling. His eyes squinted in deadened amazement at the floor.

  Andrek shook his head rapidly, as though to recover his scattered senses.

  A decision had to be made, and quickly. Should he simply push the unconscious man out into the corridor? But that made no sense. Huntyr would surely find him and resuscitate him, and then the odds would be nearly as bad as before. And, having educated his enemies, their next try might be altogether different. No, Hasard could not be turned back to Huntyr. Then how about the brig? No good, either. Xerol’s officers probably had orders to cooperate with Huntyr and Vang. Any complaints to the captain might well have fatal consequences.

  By elimination, then, there was only one alternative left.

  Murder.

  Andrek shivered. He had never killed a man before, and the thought of killing an unconscious man struck him as a new low in sportsmanship. He realized now the nature of desperation, and how the primal urge to continue living can force a man to do anything. “Absolutely anything,” he muttered.

  He looked down at Hasard’s crumpled body in anger and frustration. The man’s chest was moving quietly, rhythmically. The breathing was barely audible. Andrek sighed and studied the controls on the biem, Hasard would have to be vaporized. A great deal of heat would be released in the cabin. He stepped over to the room service panel and turned the thermostat to “colder.” The response was almost immediate. As his breath began to frost, he turned up the ventilation duct. The drapes began to flutter, and some papers floated out into the room. Then he kneeled down beside the unconscious man and turned off the magnetic switch in his shoes. Hasard floated free. Andrek stepped back, drew the biem, adjusted the energy cone, and was about to pull the trigger, when he had a sudden thought.

  He really ought to search the body.

  He grimaced as he ran his hands through Hasard’s clothing. In the jacket he found what he wanted: a key ring—with three keys. One was stamped “13”—his room. The others were 12 and 14. Number 12, he knew, was actually a three-room suite, immediately down the corridor on the left, fairly luxurious, considering that the Xerol was only a government courier. Number 14 was a single, and it adjoined his own cabin on the right. Vang would certainly have selected the suite as a base of operations, but he might also have held Number 14 in reserve. On the other hand—there was the question of the Ritornellian pilgrim.

  The only sure way to resolve the mystery of Room 14 was to unlock the door and take a look inside. But first—

  He put the keys in his pocket, then stepped back again and fired at the killer’s head—which instantly glowed red-hot, then disappeared in a flash of smoke. In minutes, the corpse was neatly vaporized into its component molecules and had been drawn into the ship’s air-conditioning system. Andrek rather suspected that one of the junior engineers was going to be mightily puzzled by the strange surge of carbon dioxide and inorganic colloids in the filter tanks.

&nbs
p; After it was all over, he checked the thermostat. The heat released in disposing of his visitor just about balanced the pre-induced chill in his room. He readjusted the thermostat, then walked over to the cabin door and listened. He could hear nothing. He opened the door and stepped rapidly down the hall to Number 14. The photo-key slipped readily into the insert. There was no noise. Andrek drew the biem-gun, kicked the door open, and leaped inside.

  There was no countermovement anywhere. But even before his eyes adjusted completely to the dim radiance of the cruise lights, he heard something—the sound of regular breathing—from the far corner.

  Andrek crouched and swung his biem around toward the sound.

  And then he saw it—the robed body floating in a full-length straitjacket, fixed “horizontally” in space by guy ropes clewed to snap buckles in ceiling and floor. The face radiated a pale blue glow.

  It had to be—it was—the ancient pilgrim of Ritornel, bound and gagged, but alive.

  Andrek closed the door softly behind him, propped a chair top under the doorknob, and walked over to the suspended shape. As he bent over the face, he was startled to see the eyes jerk open to look into his.

  The impact of those eyes boring into his own hit him with raw physical force. The eyes, like the rest of the face, radiated a pale blue light. And they brought with them returning knowledge. He had seen these eyes before, long ago. In another dim-lit place. When? Where? It would not come back. He could remember nothing. Except that he had been afraid.

  But he was not afraid anymore.

  And now he had to get busy.

  He put his biem back into his belt. “We’ll have you out of there in a jiffy,” he whispered. He slipped the edge of his excisor blade under the cloth gag and clipped it cleanly away from the other’s mouth.

  “Are you all right?” asked Andrek.

  The other was silent—he merely blinked his eyes—then continued to stare at Andrek.