The man then cut through narrow alleys, obviously knowing he was being followed. The crowds thinned. The man ran faster. Skallon’s breath rasped as he struggled along under the Doubluth robes.
Abruptly the man dodged into a massive, tiered building of gray stone and wood. Fain came pounding by Skallon at the same moment and yelled to Danon—“Around the back!”—before reaching the front entranceway, where the man had entered a moment before.
Fain motioned for Skallon to check the side. There the pursuit ended, because the man did not reappear and Fain did not want to leave an exit unguarded so one of the three could follow inside. Skallon waited in shelter a few paces from the small side entrance, muscles jumping with a will of their own.
In a few moments Fain appeared, leading an Alvean with a cart. Skallon frowned.
“Push it in front of the doorway,” Fain ordered the Alvean in a terrible, almost unintelligible accent. The man did so. The cart completely blocked the exit. “Now we’ve got him.”
“You want to go in?”
“In time.” Fain seemed self-assured now. “We’ve got him boxed. Danon says there’s no other way out of this place.”
“Why wait?” Skallon stepped forward to talk to Fain, who was leaning behind an ornamented pillar.
“Get back” Fain cried. “He could blow you to pieces from that-angle.”
“Oh,” Skallon skipped back to cover, feeling foolish. “But…why are we waiting?”
“The kid and I are waiting. He’ll let me know if the Changeling comes out his way and I’ll cover the street. I’ve decided we’re going to do it your way, Skallon, no cold-blooded murder. You go back to the hotel, get Scorpio, and bring him here.”
‘That’s what we should have done before,” Skallon said.
But Fain was grinning. “No. Before it didn’t make sense—now it does. I’m not a beast, Skallon, and I do like to use my head.”
The hotel was no more than a kilometer from where they’d caught the Changeling. Skallon started to run, but then spotted a messenger and hired his bicycle away from him. Bursting into the hotel, Skallon hurried upstairs, where he found Scorpio well and apparently fully recovered from his bout of illness. He packed the dog inside a thin box, struggled to carry him downstairs, and then loaded his burden upon the carry platform of the bicycle. Within moments, he was pedaling through the streets again. The crowds had thinned considerably now. Darkness was rapidly falling. It had been a long day. With any luck, it might also be their last one on this planet. Skallon frowned at the thought. He would miss the zest and color of Alvea.
* * *
Despite himself, Fain grinned when Skallon wheeled up, eyes bright and robes askew, pedaling energetically out of a side alley without exposing himself to fire from the front entrance of the looming gray building. It took Fain a moment to remember that they were in this escapade because Skallon had screwed up the kill back at the Great Hall. Yet he had difficulty staying angry. Something inside him signaled a warning. He should keep his slow, burning rage; it would drive him forward, sharpen his wits. But, even as he thought the problem through, Fain saw that he no longer had control over his emotions that way. Something in him was slipping away.
“Check your charge,” Fain muttered. He took Scorpio out of the box. The dog whimpered softly as he sank down into the shadows. The ride must not have been an easy one. “Okay, boy?”
“Think. I. Am.”
Fain explained slowly, repeating himself often, that they were going to slip in through both front and rear entrances. And suddenly, in the middle of it, Fain remembered the looming warm presence of his father leaning over him, pointing to some numbers and a statistical graph, lips moving, calm still voice…the reassurance…explaining some fact…something…the place where the inner certainty came from…so much. So much, now all lost, the years dried up, the milky riddle inside Fain now a crutch instead of the blazing reality it had been when his father told him. Now the son was kneeling here on a distant dustbowl of a world. All the son had was a dog and some thin memories.
Fain shook his head irritably to clear it, and continued.
* * *
It seemed like a decent plan, Skallon thought. Danon would remain outside to check if the Changeling escaped in some unforeseen way. Skallon would take the rear, Scorpio and Fain would slip in the front.
Skallon maneuvered around to the back. Danon was a shrunken dot of shadow near a garbage bulwark. “Anything?” The boy shook his head. He was nervous, jittery, afraid and intrigued all at once. “Just stay here. Use the wrist communicator if you see anyone leave. Anyone at all. Remember, the Changeling can be completely different the next time you see him.”
In a moment Skallon had melted from one shadow to the next and was inside the rear entrance, a heavy door of brass encrustings. He heard a slight scuffling noise from the front. Fain and Scorpio, perhaps. The door gave onto a narrow corridor lit by weak oil lamps. Every ten meters a door of greasy wood signified a room; it looked like a sleazy lodging house.
Skallon moved silently down the hallway. Another dim hall sliced diagonally across this one. At the far end of it a pool of light enclosed a desk and some chairs.
Probably, judging from the building, Fain would come down that way. Skallon moved gingerly toward the light. He was acutely conscious of how exposed he was here. If a door flew open and a gun came out, he was a dead man, by all the odds. That, plus the chance that he and Fain would shoot at each other in this dusky light.
The pool of light drew closer. He heard a soft wheezing noise. Breathing. A man whooshing out air as though slightly winded. Skallon eased forward.
Two things happened at once.
Somebody sat up in one of the chairs, robes flopping out onto the floor. At the corner of his eye he saw a shadow flit across the entry to another hallway, branching to the left. He swerved to cover it.
“Skallon!” The shadow had Fain’s voice.
He swept his gun hand back around to cover the man who was now getting up from the chair. It was the same one they’d been chasing.
“Don’t move,” he said calmly.
The man, looking unconcerned, turned to regard him. He was young, with the face of a fuzz-cheeked boy. Maybe it was his thinness that made the difference. The assassin—the Changeling—looked more human than Alvean.
Fain came out of the shadows. Scorpio came with him. Skallon watched them, then turned back to regard his prisoner. His hand tightened upon the trigger of the heatgun. He suddenly knew just how easy it was to kill. Just squeeze the trigger. Easy.
“Not. Him.” It was Scorpio’s voice.
“You’re sure?” said Fain. “You’re damn sure about that?”
“Does. Not. Check.” Scorpio sounded weary. “Not. Him.”
Fain came over to the Alvean in short, choppy steps and slapped the man. The sharp crack was soaked up by the stillness of the building. “Why did you run?” His voice was calm.
T enjoy running.” A boy’s voice. Shrill.
“No, talk,” said Fain, and he slapped the man again.
“I…love the wind … it is so cool…I…”
Skallon lowered his gun. “I was right,” he said. “You almost killed an innocent man—a boy.”
“Vertil,” said Fain. “We’ve been chasing a damned Vertil ringer. A plant. When the hell is it going to get down to business and quit playing games with us?” When Fain looked at Skallon, his face was dark with rage.
12
Dusk was long in ending here. Skallon moved through the cooling air amid late knots of celebrants, all on their way from the Kalic center after the day’s assemblies. He walked easily, almost carelessly, trying to give the impression of not caring whether he was followed. At ease, yes. Oblivious.
Behind him, he knew, Fain kept in the shadows a block or two away. Scorpio was with him, glad to be free to prowl at last, safe in the insulating dark. If Kalic had been an Earth city the illuminants would have burst into life as any living thing mo
ved by them, making tracers of light down the streets-expending only the necessary power, but providing full data on who lurked in the streets, easy information for the computer surveillance. In Kalic there were welcome pools of shadow, entire blocks without a lamp. Poor planets had their advantages.
Skallon stopped, idled, bought a roll of hot qantimakas seeds with lacings of dollegen spices. He chewed it, welcoming the blossoming crisp taste. Was that someone stalling on a street corner half a block back? He couldn’t quite tell. Fain wouldn’t be that close.
So: maybe it was working after all. Fain proposed this old double-tailing snare before they left the lodging house. They sent Danon a message to stay put, hide in the shadows for at least an hour. Then Skallon left boldly, hoping the Changeling had stayed in the vicinity to watch his ruse come to completion. Fain would follow by a slightly different route, shadowing Skallon to see if anyone followed him.
It wasn’t until Skallon hit the street that he realized what a risk he was taking. What was to stop the Changeling from punching a neat heathole through his chest when he stepped out the front? On the nearly deserted street he was a simple, stupid target.
As he crunched into the qantimakas, irritation rose in him. He’d walked seven long blocks now. Either Fain had picked up somebody tailing him, or he hadn’t. Or maybe Fain was paying too much attention to his precious dog to keep an eye on the drifting, robed figures. That would be typical.
Ahead, light showered down over the sculpted mahogany face of an official building. The Planetary Museum, tended by a saffron-robed Spatemper caste guard of two at the arched doorway. Skallon stroked the rubbed wood; not mahogany, of course—that ancient wood had vanished—but something like it, with light eddies and whorls in it. He hesitated. Fain and Scorpio certainly couldn’t follow him inside here. The Changeling could. But he doubted the Changeling would attack him in a public place; it had ample opportunities to do so earlier in the day.
And it would be an unexpected move. Maybe that was the reason he liked it. Fain would be frustrated—but so what? Fain’s silly fits of anger at that chase fiasco were contemptible. Why couldn’t the man think coolly about these things? The Changeling was sending them off on dead ends, admittedly. So what? Perhaps the Changeling thought he could do the job without a lot of bloodletting. Or maybe Earth misunderstood completely what the Changeling was here for.
Skallon finished the tangy qantimakas and turned in, through the. archway and into a vault with a high, groined ceiling of fretted stone. Fain could stand outside and see if anyone followed. If not, Skallon got a few minutes to enjoy himself.
Inside the grill-worked doorway was an ancient burnished hull. Skallon studied it, hoping to catch reflected in it the image of someone loitering at the entrance, waiting for him to come out. A young woman left the building, swaying, but no one came in.
Skallon read the descriptive plaque. It was a fragment of the first orbiter-lander, unmanned, that surveyed Alvea. Above it, shiny, were photos made even earlier by the flyby probe, boosting at high ramscoop accelerations. (Where was it now? Skallon thought. Probably beyond the rim of the galaxy.) This prehuman Alvea was a mottled ocean world, its continents brown smudges. The first colonists had taken the trouble to hunt down the lander and some ancient craftsman then laser-etched faceted scenes on it, depicting the first years of the colony, the rich decades and first century, up to the time of the first plagues, Breathstealer and Clenching Rot. Probably one of those two took away the artist.
Skallon ambled away, eyeing the empty archway. He found himself in an historical gallery. Social documentary work, mostly, of intriguing quality. Many pastels, some oils. In each, the poor were slim and their faces bleak, pale, drawn. All the obviously good people—the ones contented in their ordained place-were corpulent, thick necked, bulging with rich and certain virtues. They beamed out at him. Happy folk, sure that they were bound for each appointed slot in the pyramid of Alvean society, knowing that Gommerset had shown the only true way, they were frozen here forever, the only traces of them now left.
Unless, Skallon thought, Gommerset was right. Joane’s quiet sly objections had slid under the ribs of his own ceramic certainty and pricked him where he least needed it. It was true that Gommerset was discredited after his death, when he couldn’t defend himself, and his followers were scattered. Earth’s administration was hostile to Gommersetism, and always had been. Had they rigged the new data? Sweeping such a major fact under the rug wouldn’t be beyond the administration.
Something stirred in Skallon. If Gommerset were correct, even partially…
He shook himself. To believe that implied an immensely larger universe than Skallon had ever conceived. He would take awhile to come to grips with it. But how could he decide, really? Research into Gommersetism had ceased centuries ago on Earth, outlawed by the Essential Activities Rules. No, the only place Gommersetism could be freely tested was Alvea. Maybe while he was here he could set something in motion. It was a funny problem: low probability that Gommerset was right, but a virtually infinite payoff in understanding if he was. Suddenly Skallon wanted to know, wanted to see if the rest of humanity could possibly be wrong about so vast a question. If only he could do something …
A Spatemper caste guard strode through the echoing galleries, summoning viewers to leave. The museum was closing, though it was only early evening. Alveans wished to be off, to gather again in their Communals and celebrate the Festing time.
Skallon made his way out cautiously, studying each person who emptied out of the connecting vaults. The ruddy stone slabwork reflected back the bubbling chatter of these people and Skallon relaxed, more comfortable here than he had been for hours.
When he reached the street he turned right, walked a block at a quick pace, and stopped in a shrouded ceremonial archway. In a moment he heard a panting in the darkness nearby and Fain appeared, followed by Scorpio.
‘What in hell was that for?”
To expose anybody tagging me.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Well, you didn’t see anybody earlier either, did you?”
Grudgingly: “No.”
“Then that dodge of mine was worth a try. Right? Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. Maybe Danon’s seen something We’ve got to do some thinking.”
13
Joane waited with Skallon, sitting on a ruined wall that framed part of the courtyard of the hotel. Fain had gone inside to feed Scorpio—who still wasn’t feeling well—and think. Skallon cheerfully turned over that function to Fain; he was tired of this shadow boxing against a Changeling they never saw, whose purposes he was beginning to doubt.
Danon came trudging up the slope of Maraban Lane in the last glimmerings of early evening. Skallon felt slightly guilty at placing such demands on Danon, who was, after all, still a boy. “See anything?”
“No.” Danon slouched against the mortared wall. “Nothing came or went in that back alley. How about you?” His voice rose with hope.
“We tried a trap. Nothing.”
“The dog and Commander…”
“Fain? They’re inside. I think we’ve run flat out of ideas.”
“Mom? I’m hungry.” Danon, so eager at the beginning, was clearly losing interest in this new game.
“Yes, little one.” She stroked the back of Danon’s head, watching him. Skallon, who had been studying her through a lover’s eyes, found tins gesture, denoting motherhood and family and other roles, slightly jarring.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “The Changeling can wait until tomorrow.” Joane took them to the main hotel kitchen, where cooks sweated and waiters clattered dishes. In the midst of a plague, Skallon was surprised to find great piles of food—yellow animals like pigs, glassy-eyed in death; great pale blocks of butter; strings of odd green sausages; cheese like grindstones. Joane sliced out Danon a meal and the boy took it away, nodding to Skallon like a fellow warrior as he left for his room. The boy was sunken-eyed with fatigue.
He
and Joane talked, tentatively and with a certain ease now. Around them the kitchen reeked of food and sweat. She paused to give orders in a mild, clear voice that instantly caught attention from the cooks and assistants. Waiters, barking orders with half-moons of sweat at their armpits, were breaking tough roots into a salad, jamming thumbs into cream pots to flavor the mix. One washed his face in a sink where clean crockery was rinsing; Joane caught him, upbraided him, and set him to a menial task.
Skallon enjoyed watching this facet of her unfold. She inspected the waiters and sent them out to open the Communal. It was instructive to watch them enter. A sudden change came over them. Their shoulders stiffened, their scruffy robes were gathered in and tucked securely, the hurry and irritation of the kitchen fell away and they glided out with a solemn air.
Joane beckoned and they went round to the Communal, entering through the public portal.
The brick-floored room was packed already with people talking, eating, some singing in small clusters. Kish dwarfed a small side bar. Skallon saw Fain spooning some green liquid out of a bowl, perched on a stool at a table next to the bar. Fain ate stolidly, head down, ignoring everything around him. Kish was plainly bothered by the Earthman sitting silently nearby; his eyes shifted over at Fain every few moments. When Kish spotted Skallon and Joane he brightened and beckoned them over to the bar.
“Your friend is not pleased with your work?” Kish kept his voice low, though there was no need in the babble of the Communal.
Find the Changeling Page 14