by E. C. Tubb
"No."
"Too bad, but we can't all win." He spoke with the casual indifference of a man who couldn't care less. "Well, thank you for your patience. If you're looking for work you could do worse than try the High Endeavour. It's on Secunda Avenue close to Breine."
"I know where it is, but isn't Delthraph in business now?"
"He was shot in an argument last month. Creditors sold his business and the new owner isn't established yet. Try the High Endeavour. It's your best choice."
Like the hotel the place was dingy, a little decayed, a building which had known better times. Luck could have brought them. Money could buy paint and workers to refurbish the exterior. New furnishings would brighten up inside. Rich employers would come to sound out what was offered and winners would make the place their headquarters. Fame followed success and success bred riches. But that had yet to come.
Kars Gartok stepped from the street into the vestibule. A girl smiled at him and a man looked up from where he sat behind a counter. A guard-receptionist, the hand he kept hidden would be holding a weapon. His eyes checked the mercenary, noting the thin cloak, the hat with the feather, the pistol belted at his waist. All were of local manufacture bought less than a couple of hours ago.
"Your first time here?"
Gartok nodded. "I've been away. Delthraph would have known me."
"He's dead."
"That's why I'm here. Upstairs?"
"The front room. You won't be alone. The girl will provide anything you want. Food? Wine?"
"Wine. A flagon."
He mounted the stairs as the girl bustled to fill the order. The room was easy to find and, as the man downstairs had promised, he wouldn't be alone. A dozen men lounged in chairs around a table, light from the fire augmenting the dim glow from lanterns and throwing a dancing ruby light over hard faces, glinting metal, belts, polished leather, the winking gleam of gems.
Halting within the chamber Gartok introduced himself adding, "Have I fought with any here? Against them? No?"
"Once I think," said a man at the far end of the table. "Were you on Lisyen about five years ago? With Donlenck's Destroyers?"
"And if I was?"
"I served with Voronech."
"And lost as I remember." Gartok looked at the man. "Any grudges?"
"Hell, no. I doubt if we ever even met. It was all long-range stuff, right?"
Gartok nodded and, as the girl arrived with his order, slammed the flagon on the table.
"Right. Now have a drink and fill me in on what's happening. Glasses, girl, and hurry!"
The flagon vanished, was replaced with another, more. Wine and conversation flowed and old battles were refought and old engagements remembered. Here, in this room, paid enemies faced each other and future foes sat and toasted each other in wine.
Gartok mentioned Craig.
"A bad world," said Chue Tung, his yellow skin gleaming like oiled leather in the dancing firelight. "Years ago now, six, seven, eight, maybe?"
"Does it matter?" A man a little more drunk than the rest, snapped his impatience. "Get on with it, man."
"Please," said another, quickly. "Eight years, you think?"
"Eight." Chue Tung looked at the one who had interrupted. One day they would meet and then revenge would be sweet. For now he would act the congenial spinner of reminiscences. "It was a small engagement, like yours, Kars, or so it started out to be. A simple police-job. I landed with a couple of hundred men and within a month we had the area pacified. All nice and neat-then the women took a hand. We lost fifteen men in three days and I'm not going to tell you how they died. We had a pretty tough commander at the time, Elque Imballa, anyone know him?" Pausing he looked at his listeners. "No? Well, he'd dead now but you could have served under worse. At least he took care of his own. Fifteen men had died so he took thirty locals and shot them. After that he took steps to end the danger."
Gartok was interested. "How?"
"The women were the trouble-you know how soldiers are when there's no prospect of action. Looting, raping, they do it all the time. There was nothing to loot so only one thing was left. Imballa had the entire area swept and all females assembled. Then he got the armorers to make some special undergarments for them to wear. Pants of wire mesh fitted with a friction bomb. They were safe until someone tried to jerk them off then-bang!" He made an expressive gesture.
"And?"
"A couple of fools tried it and ended up as mincemeat. After they had been buried the others learned the lesson. The women too. Try to get near them and they'd scream and go for your eyes. It wasn't much fun for anyone but it solved the problem. In his own way Elque Imballa was a pretty shrewd man."
For a long moment there was silence then a man said, dryly, "I'm not calling you a liar, Chue, but if anyone else had told me a story like that I'd be tempted to doubt his word."
"I'm glad that you're not calling me a liar, Amil," said Chue Tung softly. "I'd hate to kill you without getting paid for it."
Gartok, recognizing the undercurrent of hostility, said, "Talking of paying who is due to order the next flagon of wine?"
The talk moved on, took direction, revealed why each was present. Work was scarce and expenses high. The mines were waiting to swallow any who couldn't meet his debts. Times were hard for free-lance mercenaries.
"We need a good war," said one. "Something on a rich world with little fighting and guaranteed pay. That or a takeover. A bloodless victory with a long-term contract."
"I almost had it." The man was small, thin, his face gaunt, his eyes darting like restless birds. "The best prospect a man could ever hope to get. A friend passed me the word. He'd got a job training some retainers in the use of arms and from what he told me it was gravy all the way. Not much in the way of pay but the opportunity was there and the prospects were superb. I'd have been set for life."
"Talk," said a dour-faced man who sat in a corner. "We've heard it all before, Relldo."
"Maybe, but this time it's the truth. I told you the man was a friend. Well, to cut it short, I got to where he was working and found I'd arrived too late. Gnais was dead and so was the man who'd employed him. He was Lord Gydapen Prabang. His retainers were to start a war and conquer the entire damned planet. There would be no opposition. We'd all get rich. Then something happened and he got himself killed."
"How?" Gartok helped himself to more wine. "Accident?"
"Idiocy." Relldo scowled at his wine. "There was trouble between Gydapen and a woman, the Lady Lavinia Del Belamosk. She'd won the aide of a stranger-a man called Dumarest. He was a traveler, I think, a tall man who wore grey and carried a knife in his boot. He could be dead now but I doubt it. His sort are hard to kill."
"And?"
"He became involved and took a hand. He hit Gydapen with the woman and a few others in an attempt to steal the guns. At least I think that's the way it was. I wasn't there at the time, remember, but I learned what happened from a retainer who saw it all. Anyway, Gydapen gained the upper hand and then threw away his advantage. That's why I called him an idiot. He was tricked into allowing Dumarest to get a knife in his hands." Pausing Relldo added, slowly, "Could you believe that one man could kill another with a thrown knife when the victim had a laser in his hand aimed and ready to fire?"
"Is that what happened?"
"My informant saw it done."
"Fast," said Chue Tung before Gartok could comment. "A man who could do that would have to be fast."
"Damned fast," agreed Relldo. "And from what I was told Dumarest is all of that. When he moved it was like a blur, a flash of steel, a thud and Gydapen was falling with a knife in his throat. The next thing bullets were flying and that was the end of the war. My usual kind of luck- all of it bad. I was near stranded and had to travel Low."
He looked it; the loss of body-fat was a characteristic sign, tissue lost while he had lain doped, frozen and ninety per cent dead in a casket designed for the transportation of animals. Risking the fifteen percent death ra
te for the sake of cheap travel.
Chue Tung said, thoughtfully, "Maybe you left too soon. Something could have been arranged, perhaps. Where is this place?"
"A world on the edge of the Rift." Relldo scowled as he finished his wine. "But I would not have stayed even if Gnais had been alive. Not for long, anyway. Not once I'd seen the planet."
"Why not?"
"Because when I kill a man I like to know that he's dead. On Zakym that doesn't happen. The damned place is rotten with ghosts."
Chapter Two
The woman standing against the parapet couldn't be real for Dumarest had seen her lying dead on a world far distant in time and space and yet, as he watched, she smiled at him and extended her hands and took a step closer while the soft tones of her voice caressed his ears.
"Earl, it has been so long. Why must I continue to wait? We should be together always. Have you forgotten how close we were? How much in love? I was your wife, my darling. Your wife!"
A ship-liaison, good only for as long as both wanted it, a common practice among free traders especially those risking the dangers of clouded space. For such men pleasures were things to be taken and cherished and used while the opportunity existed.
Yet it had been more than that. There had been love and care and a tender regard.
"Earl!" Lallia lifted her hands and stepped toward him. Against the sky her hair was a mass of shimmering ebon, her skin smooth and firm over muscle and bone, her body a remembered delight. "Earl?"
And then she was gone and, again, he was alone.
Leaning back in his chair Dumarest looked at the sky. The twin suns filled the heavens of Zakym with violet and magenta, the light merged now, the orbs close and low in the azure bowl. Soon it would be night and darkness would seal the land, but now the air held an oddly metallic taint and was still as though at the approach of a storm.
There would be no storm. There would be nothing but the darkness and another day would have passed as so many had passed before it. And, in the meantime, the dead reigned.
Delusia-the time when the dead walked and talked and communed with the living.
A planetary insanity of which he was a part.
If it was an insanity.
It was hard now to be sure. At first the explanation had been so obvious; wild radiation from the twin suns, merging as they closed, blasting space with energies which distorted the microcurrents of the brain and giving rise to hallucinations. Figments of memory made apparently real, words spoken but heard only by the one concerned, figures seen, advice taken, counsel asked. And yet he was a stranger, born and reared outside this culture and how could he be certain that of them all he alone was right?
"Earl!" Another figure standing where the other had been but this time one with hair of a somber red. Kalin? Always she seemed to be close but, as he rose he recognized the woman. Not Kalin but Dephine. Another who had claimed to have loved him and had played him false. Helping him even while she worked to destroy him by unconsciously leading him to the world on which he had found the spectrum of a forgotten sun. His sun. The one which wanned Earth. His world which, at last, he was certain he could find given time and money. "Do you still hate me, Earl?"
"Should I?"
"I intended to sell you to the Cyclan. You know that my words, my acts, all were to hold you and waste time."
"Yes."
"And still you do not hate?"
She blurred as he made no answer, dissolving to change into another figure, thin, tall, haggard, the eyes accusing, the hands lifted as if to ward off a blow.
Chagney whom he had forced to breathe space.
"You killed me," he said. "You sent me into the void. I had done you no harm. Why did you kill me? Why didn't you listen?"
To the sound of crying, thin, remote-unforgettable!
Dumarest turned and looked over the inner wall of the parapet into the courtyard below. Retainers stood in the open space, some moving, talking as they walked, their faces animated as they watched and listen to people he could not see. Others, equally engrossed, spoke to relations long dead or to lovers and friends, companions and, even the children of their flesh who had succumbed.
Glancing at the sky he judged the position of the suns. This period of delusia had been strong but already the orbs were moving apart and soon it would be over.
"Earl!" Another woman but this time real. The Lady Lavinia Del Belamosk, tall, her hair a rippling waterfall of liquid midnight barred with silver, breasts prominent beneath the taut fabric of her blouse came toward him along the promenade. "Darling, I was worried. You have been sitting up here for so long."
"I was thinking."
"Of Earth?" Her smile was that of a mother to a child. "Your world. The planet of legend. Yes, I know," she said quickly as he frowned, "It is real. You are sure of that because you were born on it and all the rest of us have forgotten where it is to be found. As you have forgotten."
"No," he said. "I didn't forget. I never knew."
"Of course-what could a runaway boy know of spacial coordinates. And for years now you've been trying to find the way back. But, my darling, why should you bother now? You have me. You have what I own. And you have land of your own."
"No."
"Yes," she insisted. "The Council voted it. You can't refuse."
Land which was almost worthless in the sense that it couldn't be sold. And it took time to breed animals for fur and hides, to plant and harvest crops, to sift the upper layers for decorative stones and diluted minerals. The upper surface-below that the Sungari ruled. As they ruled at night. Sharing the world with men who owned the surface and the day.
Turning he again saw Dephine, tall, her eyes mocking, metallic glints reflected from the metal tipping her fingers. The attribute of a harlot and yet she had been a member of a family cursed with pride. Perhaps he had offered her an escape from the iron bonds of ancient tradition. Or it could have been simply that he had been prey for her predator-like instinct.
It didn't matter now. Dephine was dead. Only on Zakym did she return to haunt him with her enigmatic smile and memories of what might have been. But the threat of the Cyclan remained. The reason why he had run from Harald. The reason why he was here, in this castle, with this woman, on this peculiar world.
"Earl?" Lavinia was concerned. "Earl, are you well?"
He stared at her, wondering for a moment if she were real or merely another delusion. Wondering too why she appeared to be unaffected by the delusia and why he seemed to be more susceptible of late. Was instinct urging him to escape while he had the chance? Primitive caution overriding logical consideration and striving for attention by this peculiar distortion of his senses?
"Earl?"
"It's nothing."
Stepping forward she lifted her hand and gently ran her fingers through his hair. Beneath their tips she could feel the line of freshly healed tissue running over the scalp. Gydapen's last, wild shot had found a target, the beam of the laser searing almost to the bone. Could such a wound have unexpected aftereffects?
Guessing her thoughts he said, impatiently, "I'm all right, Lavinia. There's nothing wrong with me."
Then why did he turn and thrash in his sleep? Even when lying in her arms she was conscious of his tension, his inner turmoil. A product of the jungle, she thought, looking at him. Not the place of trees and underbrush, or the hunted and hunters to be found in tropic places but the harsher, bleaker jungle to be found among the stars where it was a matter of each man for himself and mercy was, like charity, a meaningless word.
How often had he killed? Did he now, at times of delusia, see again those faces he had known betraying the shock of death finally realized. Did enemies come to taunt and foes to plead? In his lonely vigils on the promenade did he talk again to those he had loved and who had loved him?
Only the dead returned at such times and it was foolish to be jealous of the dead but, at times, Lavinia wished she could see them, talk with them, warn them to stay clear of her ma
n.
As Charles stayed clear. As Bertram. As Hulong and others she had loved and who had known her body. Now, for her, for always, there could be only one man in her life. One potential father of her children.
"Earl!"
He was looking over the parapet to where a dark fleck showed as a deeper mote against the sky. A raft which came closer, taking shape and form, revealing the figures riding in the open body of the vehicle. They were too far to distinguish but Lavinia had no doubt as to their identity.
"Our friends, Earl. Coming from town. I told you I had invited them to dinner."
They had left it late. As the raft came in to settle in the courtyard the sky was deepening to a rich purple, the horizon barely tinged with the fading glow of sunset.
"We'd best go down, darling." Lavania slipped her hand through the curve of Dumarest's arm. "Soon it will be curfew."
* * *
It sounded as he lay soaking in a bath of steaming water the deep, sonorous throbbing giving rise to sympathetic tintinnabulations so that the vases with their contents of scented crystals, the carved ornaments of stone, the suspended cascades of engraved glass all became chiming bells. Dumarest ducked, feeling water close his ears, waiting until his chest ached with the need of air, rising to blow and to hear the final throb of curfew as it sent echoes resonating from the walls, the very structure of the castle.
Already the building would have been sealed. Covers closed the air-shafts, the doors leading into the open were locked and guarded, the courtyard would be deserted. Only within the building itself would there be signs of life and all movement would be through connecting chambers or tunnels gouged from the upper regions of the soil. In town it would be the same. In every building now in darkness the curfew would have sounded and the Pact obeyed.
From sunset to sunrise the Sungari ruled without question.
Water splashed as Dumarest rose from the bath, running in little rivulets over his shoulders, the hard planes of torso and stomach, the columns of his thighs. The flesh of his upper body was traced with the thin lines of old scars; wounds delivered with a naked blade which he had taken when young and when to fight in the ring was the only way in which to earn a living. Standing, remembering, he heard again the roar of the watching crowd, the animal-like baying as men and women leaned forward avid for the sight of blood and pain and wounds and death.