Seven Conquests

by Poul Anderson

  And then the remembrance came to him, and he sat up with a strangled yell.

  Pre-dawn light seeped through a window at the end of the tenth-floor corridor. Sevigny stepped from the elevator and walked down its lushly carpeted length. On the way he noticed a mail slot. Good. I wont have to wait till night to mail my letter. Any time that no ones around, I …we …can slip out. Door No. 14 came into view. The directory in the lobby had given him that information.

  Now for the tricky part. His walk had been long but uneventful. The police search was concentrated in the Manoa Road area, where there were roofs for a forester to hide on while men went beneath, gardens and byways for him to slip through. Afterward a city map taken from the auto had guided him on a route avoiding important streets. Doubtless an alarm would be broadcast with the morning news, his description and perhaps a drawing based on what those who knew him could tell. Or a photograph, if Gupta had thought to take one while he lay unconscious. But to passersby in the last couple of hours he had only been a lone walker, belated or early as the case might be, nothing to take heed of. If afterward someone remembered him, little harm in a metropolis like this.

  The next few minutes were what counted.

  The automatic doorbell had been turned off for the night. He shoved the manual button. The chime sounded remote, not quite real. He hunched his shoulders and dropped his chin. With the help of the car mirror he had rubbed grime into his hair, brows, and sprouting beard. That, a change of clothes and posture, a lowered face, a disguised voice, might get him past the viewer.

  If not, he was done.

  “Wha’ you wan’?” The voice from the speaker was blurred with sleepiness. Fine.

  Aloud, with the best Russian accent he could muster: “I am from Oleg Volhontseff. Please to let me in. I have a very fast message from him.”

  “Ah-yaw…um…why di’n’e call?”

  “He could not. I shall explain. It has to do with the Martian you know of, him from K’nea.”

  “Oh! One minute, please.”

  He gathered his muscles. So his guess was right. Volhontseff must have gotten in touch with Baccioco and Gupta by now, but lesser agents like Rashid…

  The door opened. He hurtled through. Maura’s lips parted to scream. He got a hand over them, held her locked in a wrestler’s grip, and hissed, “Keep still or I’ll snap your spine. I haven’t much to lose, you know.”

  The door closed. He guided her to a chair in the luxurious room, released her, but kept one hand on her neck, letting her feel its weight and hardness.

  “Don,” she shuddered, “please, please—”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said with entire honesty. “Cooperate and you’ll be okay. I need a hiding place. Where better than with a member of the opposition?”

  “You can’t, it’s not possible, you’ve got to go away!”

  “Quiet down, I said. You must be able to see I can’t leave. Your friends sicked the Federal police onto me the moment I’d gone. But as I hoped, they didn’t wake you later to tell you I’d had a run-in with Volhontseff. No reason for them to do so. I used his name to establish my bona fides here.“ Sevigny let go of her, crossed to the door, and shoved a heavy couch across. “There. You won’t run loose as he did.”

  He turned around, wondering how wild his appearance was. “I repeat, I’ve no intention of hurting you,” he said. “The most I’ll do is tie and gag you while I sleep or am otherwise busy. I’m efficient at knots, by the way. I suppose you’ve got food in the kitchen to last the several days I’ll need until this mess is straightened out. We’ll stay inside, and I hope the TriV programs aren’t too dull.”

  “No…” She saw her robe had come open, and gathered it with a calculated^ provocative movement. He was not unaffected, but had no urge to be fooled twice. “Don,” she pleaded, “I can’t stay here that long, I’ve got appointments.”

  “Call and cancel them. Say you’re sick, or have to go out of town, or something. I’ll stand by out of view, but in easy reach.”

  “You wouldn’t harm me. if I got them to come here, would you? Not really.”

  He grinned. “Okay, my lady. A deterrent has to be credible, and clansmen don’t attack women. But I plan to cobble together some weapons from whatever I can find around this place. If the enemy locates me, they’ll have to force their way in, and I’ll put up one Satan of a fight. You’ll have an excellent chance of getting caught in the fire. Is that believable?”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “I don’t need too long,” he said. “We are going to venture out once, very briefly, in half an hour or so, to post a letter I’ll write, addressed to my boss at his private apartment in Port Kepler. It should get on the returning packet tomorrow sunrise. If I know him, he won’t need much time to swing into action.“ He paused. “And then, Maura, you may be damn glad I was here, to put in a word for you…or look the other way while you catch a jet to Djakarta.”

  She considered him. A certain coolness descended on her. “Djakarta might be a good idea at that,” she said, “Because I was bom Mary Stafford in Chicago.“ He choked. Cat-adaptable, she laughed. “Or maybe Venus, a gem?”

  “God help Venus,” he muttered in awe.

  She rose and said practically, “You must be starved. I’ll fix breakfast. Afterward…” Her gaze dwelt on him. “Frankly,” she said, “the TriV programs are dull.”

  “So I lay doggo till you appeared personally on the newscast to vouch that the charges against me had been dropped,” Sevigny concluded.

  “What was this person’s name you were with?” the Buffalo asked.

  “Never mind,” Sevigny said.

  The Buffalo gave him a look, shrugged, and remarked nothing but: “You seem to’ve had a tough time. I haven’t often seen a man so pooped.”

  “It could’ve been worse,” Sevigny answered dreamily.

  The Buffalo blew out his cheeks in an enormous snort and wallowed deep into the lounger. “Whoof, but I’ll be glad to get back!” he said. “I’m far too old and fat for Earth weight. Fuel me, will you?”

  “You must’ve been working pretty hard, too,” Sevigny sympathized. He opened the liquor cabinet and poured two drinks of Glenlivet. The Goldwater had seemed swank when he first got here, but that was before he was introduced to the Andromeda Suite.

  “I’ve seen damned little on the news, though, about this whole business.” he complained. “Isn’t the investigation getting anywhere?”

  “All kinds of places,” the Buffalo replied. “But don’t expect ultrasensational revelations. Enough little fish will get netted to put a crimp in the gang. The big ones will mostly go free, as usual.”

  “Huh? But-”

  “Calm down and give me my booze. What did you think would happen? High-explosive international and interplanetary implications. A first-class scandal would raise too much partisanship, too many hard feelings. They’d fight back almighty mean if they got desperate: same as you did, if you recall. So…ah, thanks.” The Buffalo drank, belched, and wiped his mouth with the back of one hairy paw. “The Chinese had a proverb in their war lord era, that you should always leave your enemy a line of retreat. We’ll do best not to pry too deep. Let some of those jims retire gracefully from public life. Let the rest know we’re watching ‘em close and they’d better reel in their horns. Make one or two stiff examples of secondary figures, to show we mean business. Who’re your candidates for that? Eenie, meanie, minie, moe.”

  “But the others’ll try again!” Sevigny protested.

  “Some of ‘em might. I sort of doubt it—they’re likelier to jump on our bandwagon—but they might. We’re forewarned now, though, thanks largely to you. We didn’t know, before, how strong and piratish the anti-Lunar coalition was. Hah! Wait till they see ours!”

  “What?” Sevigny nearly dropped his tumbler.

  “Of course. Remember, we still have to keep down the honest anti-Lunars, who had nothing to do with the gang. But there’s a bucketful o
f organizations with a vested interest in Moon development. Like the various national political parties who voted to establish the Corporation while they were in office. Like different bureaucrats—space commissioners, for instance. Like the companies which stand to make a profit when Lunar exploitation really gets going. Like the Great Confederation of Y. Like, maybe, a few million plain, ordinary people that daydream about some uncluttered place to go. We had an active lobby in the beginning, to start the project. But then we let it fall apart. Now we’ll build a new one, stronger than ever, since the work is in fact well under way. We’ll propagandize, and get our personal boys elected, and pressure their colleagues, and logroll, and drop a tiny bribe here and there where that’ll do some good, and”—the Buffalo laughed, earthquake style—“all in all, the other coalition ain’t gonna have a marshmallow’s chance on Mercury.”

  Sevigny went to the window and stared downward. The street below crawled with dwarfed traffic. “I suppose you know best,” he said in weariness. “Me, I only want to get back to work.”

  “That’s what I was talking about, son,” the Buffalo boomed. “Fitting you and me into our proper slots. Hey, don’t look so bitter. If your chin dropped a centimeter more we could use it for a ‘dozer blade. As soon as the Corps gets through with you and you’ve had a rest—I know a place in Canada, sho’nuff forest preserve, set aside for billionaires and you—back you go to the air mines. Now drink up and let’s go eat.”

  Sevigny found himself grinning. The tumblers clinked together.