“Ah yes. But Sol is the most peculiar of all, is it not?” said Pok.
“How do you mean?” Roki carefully controlled his voice and tried to look bored.
“Why, the Vamir, of course.”
Because of the fact that Pok’s eyes failed to move toward any particular part of the room, Roki concluded that there were no Solarians in the place. “Shall we visit the Court of Kings now, E Pok?” he suggested.
The small man was obviously not anxious to go. He murmured about ugly brutes, lingered over his drink, and gazed wistfully at a big dusky Sanbe woman. “Do you suppose she would notice me if I spoke to her?” the small interpreter asked.
“Probably. So would her five husbands. Let’s go.” Pok sighed mournfully and came with him.
The Court of Kings catered to a peculiar clientele indeed; but not a one, so far as Roki could see, was completely inhuman. There seemed to be at least one common denominator to all intelligent life: it was bipedal and bimanual. Four legs was the most practical number for any animal on any planet, and it seemed that nature had nothing else to work with. When she decided to give intelligence to a species, she taught him to stand on his hind legs, freeing his forefeet to become tools of his intellect. And she usually taught him by making him use his hands to climb. As a Cophian biologist had said, “Life first tries to climb a tree to get to the stars. When it fails, it comes down and invents the high-C drive.”
Again, Roki looked around for something that might he a Solarian. He saw several familiar species, some horned, some tailed, scaled, or heavily furred. Some stumbled and drooped as if Tragorian gravity weighted them down. Others bounced about as if floating free in space. One small creature, the native of a planet with an eight-hour rotational period, curled up on the table and fell asleep. Roki guessed that ninety per cent of the customers were of human ancestry, for at one time during the history of the galaxy, Man had sprung forth like a sudden blossom to inherit most of space. Some said they came from Sol III, but there was no positive evidence.
As if echoing his thoughts, Pok suddenly grunted, “I will never believe we are descended from those surly creatures.”
Roki looked up quickly, wondering if the small interpreter was telepathic. But Pok was sneering toward the doorway. The Cophian followed his tipsy gaze and saw a man enter. The man was distinguished only by his height and by the fact that he appeared more human, in the classical sense, than most of the other customers. He wore a uniform—maroon jacket and gray trousers—and it matched the ones Roki had seen from a distance at the spaceport.
So this was a Solarian. He stared hard, trying to take in much at once. The man wore a short beard, but there seemed to be something peculiar about the jaw. It was—predatory, perhaps. The skull was massive, but plump and rounded like a baby’s, and covered with sparse yellow fur. The eyes were quick and sharp, and seemed almost to leap about the room. He was at least seven feet tall, and there was a look of savagery about him that caused the Cophian to tense, as if sensing an adversary.
“What is it you don’t like about them?” he asked, without taking his eyes from the Solarian.
“Their sharp ears for one thing,” whispered Pok as the Solarian whirled to stare toward their table. “Their nasty tempers for another.”
“Ah? Rage reactions show biologic weakness,” said the Cophian in a mild tone, but as loud as the first time.
The Solarian, who had been waiting for a seat at tip bar, turned and stalked straight toward them. Pok whimpered. Roki stared at him cooly. The Solarian loomed over them and glared from one to the other. He seemed to decide that Pok was properly cowed, and he turned his fierce eyes on the ex-patrolman.
“Would you like to discuss biology, manthing?” he growled like distant thunder. His speaking exposed his teeth—huge white chisels of heavy ivory. They were not regressed toward the fanged stage, but they suggested, together with the massive jaw, that nature might be working toward an efficient bone-crusher.
Roki swirled his drink thoughtfully. “I don’t know you, Bristleface,” he murmured. “But if your biology bothers you, I’d be glad to discuss it with you.”
He watched carefully for the reaction. The Solarian went gray-purple. His eyes danced with fire, and his slit mouth quivered as if to bare the strong teeth. Just as he seemed about to explode, the anger faded—or rather, settled in upon itself to brood. “This is beneath me,” the eyes seemed to be saying. Then he laughed cordially.
“My apologies. I thought to share a table with you.”
“Help yourself.”
The Solarian paused. “Where are you from, manthing?”
Roki also paused. They might have heard that a Cophian commander blasted one of their ships. Still he didn’t care to be caught in a lie. “Sixty-Star Cluster,” he grunted.
“Which sun?” The Solarian’s voice suggested that he was accustomed to being answered instantly.
Roki glowered at him. “Information for information, fellow. And I don’t talk to people who stand over me.” He pointedly turned to Pok. “As we were saying—”
“I am of Sol,” growled the big one.
“Fair enough. I am of Coph.”
The giant’s brows lifted slightly. “Ah, yes.” He inspected Roki curiously and sat down. The chair creaked a warning. “Perhaps that explains it.”
“Explains what?” Roki frowned ominously. He disliked overbearing men, and his hackles were rising. There was something about this fellow—
“I understand that Cophians are given to a certain ruthlessness.”
Roki pretended to ponder the statement while he eyed the big man coldly. “True, perhaps. It would he dangerous for you to go to Coph, I think. You would probably be killed rather quickly.”
The angry color reappeared, but the man smiled politely. “A nation of duelists, I believe, military in character, highly disciplined. Yes? They sometimes serve in the Sixty-Star Forces, eh?”
The words left no doubt in Roki’s mind that the Solarian knew who had blasted their ship and why. But he doubted that the man had guessed his identity.
“I know less of your world, Solarian.”
“Such ignorance is common. We are regarded as the galactic rurals, so to speak. We are too far from your dense star cluster.” He paused. “You knew us once. We planted you here. And I feel sure you will know us again.” He smiled to himself, finished his drink, and arose. “May we meet again, Cophian?”
Roki nodded and watched the giant stride away. Pok was breathing asthmatically and picking nervously at his nails. He let out a sigh of relief with the Solarian’s departure.
Roki offered the frightened interpreter a stiff drink, and then another. After two more, Pok swayed dizzily, then fell asleep across the table. Roki left him there. If Pok were an informer, it would be better to keep him out of the meeting with the patrol officer, Captain WeJan.
He hailed a cab and gave the driver the scrap of paper. A few minutes later, he arrived before a small building in the suburbs. WeJan’s name was on the door—written in the space-tongue—but the officer was not at home. Frowning, he tried the door; locked. Then, glancing back toward the street, he caught a glimpse of a man standing in the shadows. It was a Solarian.
Slowly, Roki walked across the street. “Got a match, Bristleface?” he grunted.
In the light of triple-moons, he saw the giant figure swell with rage. The man looked quickly up and down the street. No one was watching. He emitted a low animal-growl, exposing the brutal teeth. His arms shot out to grasp the Cophian’s shoulders, dragging him close.
Roki gripped the Multin automatic in his pocket and struggled to slip free. The Solarian jerked him up toward the bared teeth.
His throat about to be crushed, Roki pulled the trigger. There was a dull chug. The Solarian looked surprised. He released Roki and felt of his chest. There was no visible wound. Then, within his chest, the incendiary needle flared to incandescent heat. The Solarian sat down in the street. He breathed a frying sound. He
crumpled. Roki left hastily before the needle burned its way out of the body.
He hadn’t meant to kill the man, and it had been in self-defense, but he might have a hard time proving it. He hurried along back alleys toward the spaceport. If only they could leave Tragor immediately!
What had happened to WeJan? Bribed, beaten, or frightened away. Then the Solarians did know who he was and where he was going. There were half a dozen men around the spaceport who knew—and the information would he easy to buy. Pok had known that he was to meet with WeJan, and the Solarian had evidently been sent to watch the captain’s quarters. It wasn’t going to be easy now—getting to Sol III and landing.
What manner of creatures were these, he wondered. Men who supplied mercy cargoes to the galactic nations—as if charity were the theme and purpose of their culture—yet who seemed as arrogant as the warriors of some primitive culture whose central value was brutal power? What did they really want here? The Solarian had called him “manthing” as if he regarded the Cophian as a member of some lesser species.
The Solarians were definitely different. Roki could see it. Their heads were plump and soft like a baby’s, hinting of some new evolutionary trend—a brain that could continue growing, perhaps. But the jaws, the teeth, the quick tempers, and the hypersensitive ears—what sort of animal developed such traits? There was only one answer: a nocturnal predator with the instincts of a lion. “You shall get to know us again,” the man had said.
It spelled politico-galactic ambitions. And it hinted at something else—something that made the Cophian shiver, and shy away from dark shadows as he hurried shipward.
Daleth Incorporated was either asleep or out. He checked at the ship, then went to the Administration Building to inquire about her. The clerk seemed embarrassed.
“Uh… E Roki, she departed from the port about five.”
“You’ve heard nothing of her since?”
“Well… there was a call from the police agency, I understand.” He looked apologetic. “I assure you I had nothing to do with the matter.”
“Police! What… what’s wrong, man?”
“I hear she went unescorted and unveiled. The police are holding her.”
“How long will they keep her?”
“Until some gentleman signs for her custody.”
“You mean I have to sign for her?”
“Yes, sir.”
Roki smiled thoughtfully. “Tell me, young man—are Tragorian jails particularly uncomfortable?”
“I wouldn’t know, personally,” the clerk said stiffly. “I understand they conform to the intergalactic ‘Code of Humanity’ however.”
“Good enough,” Roki grunted. “I’ll leave her there till we’re ready to go.”
“Not a bad idea,” murmured the clerk, who had evidently encountered the cigar-chewing lady from Daleth.
Roki was not amused by the reversal of positions, but it seemed as good a place as any to leave her for safekeeping. If the Solarians became interested in him, they might also notice his pilot.
He spent the following day watching the Sol ship, and waiting fatalistically for the police to come and question him about the Solarian’s death. But the police failed to come. A check with the news agencies revealed that the man’s body had not even been found. Roki was puzzled. He had left the giant lying in plain sight where he had fallen. At noon, the Solarian crew came bearing several lead cases slung from the centers of carrying poles. They wore metal gauntlets and handled the cases cautiously. Roki knew they contained radioactive materials. So that was what they purchased with their surgibank supplies—nuclear fuels.
Toward nightfall, they loaded two large crates aboard. He noted the shape of the crates, and decided that one of them contained the body of the man he had killed. Why didn’t they want the police to know? Was it possible that they wanted him free to follow them?
The Sol-ship blasted-off during the night. He was surprised to find it gone, and himself still unmolested by morning. Wandering around the spaceport, be saw WeJan, but the man had developed a sudden lapse of memory. He failed to recognize the Cophian visitor. With the Solarians gone, Roki grew bolder in his questioning.
“How often do the Solarians visit you?” he inquired of a desk clerk at Administration.
“Whenever a hospital places an order, sir. Not often. Every six months perhaps.”
“That’s all the traffic they have with Tragor?”
“Yes, sir. This is our only interstellar port.”
“Do the supplies pass through your government channels?”
The clerk looked around nervously. “Uh, no sir. They refuse to deal through our government. They contact their customers directly. The government lets them because the supplies are badly needed.”
Roki stabbed out bluntly. “What do you think of the Solarians?”
The clerk looked blank for a moment, then chuckled. “I don’t know, myself. But if you want a low opinion, ask at the spaceport cafe.”
“Why? Do they cause trouble there?”
“No, sir. They bring their own lunches, so to speak. They eat and sleep aboard ship, and won’t spend a thin galak around town.”
Roki turned away and went back to the Idiot. Somewhere in his mind, an idea was refusing to let itself be believed. A mercy ship visited Tragor every six months. Roki had seen the scattered, ruined cargo of such a ship, and he had estimated it at about four thousand pints of blood, six thousand pounds of frozen bone, and seven thousand pounds of various replaceable organs and tissues. That tonnage in itself was not so startling, but if Sol III supplied an equal amount twice annually to even a third of the twenty-eight thousand civilized worlds in the galaxy, a numbing question arose: where did they get their raw material? Surgibank supplies were normally obtained by contributions from accident victims who lived long enough to voluntarily contribute their undamaged organs to a good cause.
Charitable organizations tried to secure pledges from men in dangerous jobs, donating their bodies to the planet’s surgibank in the event of death. But no man felt easy about signing over his kidneys or his liver to the bank, and such recruiters were less popular than hangmen or life insurance agents. Mercy supplies were quite understandably scarce.
The grim question lingered in Roki’s mind: where did the Sol III traders find between three and five million healthy accident victims annually? Perhaps they made the accidents themselves, accidents very similar to those occurring at the end of the chute in the slaughterhouse. He shook his head, refusing to believe it. No planet’s population, however terrorized by its rulers, could endure such a thing without generating a sociological explosion that would make the world quiver in its orbit. There was a limit to the endurance of tyranny.
He spent the rest of the week asking innocent questions here and there about the city. He learned nearly nothing. The Solarians came bearing their peculiar cargo, sold it quickly at a good price, purchased fissionable materials, and blasted-off without a civil word to anyone. Most men seemed nervous in their presence, perhaps because of their bulk and their native arrogance.
When the base personnel finished installing the synchronizers, he decided the time had come to secure Daleth Incorporated from the local jail. Sometimes he had chided himself for leaving her there after the Solarians had blasted-off, but it seemed to be the best place to keep the willful wench out of trouble. Belatedly, as he rode toward the police station, he wondered what sort of mayhem she would attempt to commit on his person for leaving her to fume in a cell. His smile was rueful as he marched in to pay her fine. The man behind the desk frowned sharply.
“Who did you say?” he grunted.
“The foreign woman from the Dalethian Ship.”
The officer studied his records. “Ah, yes—Talewa Walkeka the name?”
Roki realized he didn’t know her name. She was still Daleth Incorporated. “From the Daleth Ship,” he insisted.
“Yes. Talewa Walkeka—she was released into the custody of Eli Roki on twoday
of last spaceweek.”
“That’s imposs—” Roki choked and whitened. “I am Eli Roki. Was the man a Solarian?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Why don’t you? Didn’t you ask him for identification?”
“Stop bellowing, please,” said the official coldly. “And get your fists off my desk.”
The Cophian closed his eyes and tried to control himself. “Who is responsible for this?”
The officer failed to answer.
“You are responsible!”
“I cannot look out for all the problems of all the foreigners who—”
“Stop! You have let her die.”
“She is only a female.”
Roki straightened. “Meet me at any secluded place of your choice and I will kill you with any weapon of your choice.”
The official eyed him coldly, then turned to call over his shoulder. “Sergeant, escort this barbarian to his ship and see that he remains aboard for the rest of his visit.”
The Cophian went peacefully, realizing that violence would gain him nothing but the iron hospitality of a cell. Besides, he had only himself to blame for leaving her there. It was obvious to him now—the contents of the second crate the Solarians had carried aboard consisted of Talewa Walkeka, lately of Daleth and high-C. Undoubtedly they had taken her alive. Undoubtedly she was additional bait to bring him on to Sol. Why did they want him to come? I’ll oblige them and find out for myself, he thought.
The ship was ready. The bill would be sent back to Beth. He signed the papers, and blasted off as soon as possible. The lonely old freighter crept upward into the fifth component like a struggling old vulture, too ancient to leave its sunny lair. But the snychros were working perfectly, and the screen held its shape when the ascent ceased just below red-line level. He chose an evasive course toward Sol and began gathering velocity.
Then he fed a message into the coder, to be broadcast back toward the Sixty-Star Cluster: Pilot abducted by Solarians; evidence secured to indicate that Solarian mercy-merchandise is obtained through genocide. He recorded the coded message on tape and let it feed continuously into the transmitters, knowing that the carrier made him a perfect target for homing devices, if anyone chose to silence him.
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