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Legacy

by J.F. Bone

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER I

^ »

I sat in a dark corner of the Officer’s Club at the Base Hospital on Gakan, eyed Peter Krasna enviously, and tried to drown my troubles in something that the club steward called a “pain expeller.” It didn’t work.

Pete was a round faced blonde with limpid blue eyes that shone with innocence he did not possess. A man doesn’t get the diamond cluster in a two bit police action like Gakan without doing something brave and unusual. He was an ex-flyboy, a jet jockey who had been a one man gang before he ran into an orbital mine. After that he became the pride and joy of the surgical staff at the base hospital. I headed the team that gave him his new legs and right arm. Pete had been a basket case when he arrived, but tissuebank, cell regeneration, and grafts provided him with limbs and organs that functioned almost as well as those he had lost. He’d never fly in combat again, though his responses were fast enough for normal living, but not fast enough to slam a jet through the substratosphere at Mach 4 speed.

He was miserable as only a grounded flyer can be, and I envied him so much that the feeling shimmered in the air between us. I knew what he had been through, but I also knew what lay ahead of me. Even in this year of grace 4205 in the 728th year of the Confederacy, radiation injuries took time to heal. We had good techniques, but they were reserved for Zone of the Interior hospital, not hard-scrabble outposts like Gakan.

I hated my world of surgeons, pathologists, dermatologists, nurses and orderlies. I was a living exemplar of the old cliché about doctors being impossible patients. The new staff treated me with the deferential indifference reserved for rankers who are no longer part of the team. I was something to be feared but not respected. I was the one with half a face, the gargoyle. I was the one who hid behind a syntheskin mask with a furnace burning inside my skull.

It was Krasna who kept me even partly sane. He had been far worse off than I, but he never lost his gallows humor. He never once treated me with that sickening deference-revulsion attitude that made me want to strangle the one who showed it. When I felt low, he laughed at me. When I felt good he laughed with me. There wasn’t a sympathetic nerve in his body. He treated me as a friend, nothing more, nothing less, and I loved him for it.

He gave me the courage to face myself. I had always been a bit vain about my chiseled features and masculine beauty. But that was gone now. My right profile was all right, but my left was horror. I could still see through the cauliflower masses that were my eyelids. The lumpy skinless pinkness that was my cheek still enclosed my teeth and tongue, my warped jaw could still move, and the fissured blob that was my left ear still received sound. Functionally I was operative, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

What was worse was the knowledge that all of this was my own fault. I didn’t have to go on that Hill 256 caper. I’d been in the service long enough to know that the way to get along was to keep your mouth shut, your bowels open, and never volunteer for anything, yet I’d volunteered! Then I had to compound the stupidity by acting like a six month wonder fresh from basic training. I could have used a periscope to look at the action instead of sticking my head up in front of God and everybody, begging to get it shot off. I should have known someone would oblige.

During the past year while we had been engaged in bringing a decent respect for the laws of the Confederation to a planetful of clever, treacherous, stinking saurians, my entire combat experience had been a divisional reserve action against an entrapped pocket of lizards that the assault echelons had bypassed. Rumor had it that the fighting was nearly over and that the whole police action would be settled in a few more days. Naturally, my combat conditioning was kicking holes in my morale. So when the word went out that a medical team would be needed for the Hill 256 mop-up, I volunteered to go.

I headed the Air Group of a demi-battalion beefed up with eight Mark IX heavies just in case the Geeks were dug in too deep to be unearthed by more conventional means. Nine teams out of ten it would have been as safe as sitting in chapel. It was just my filthy luck that we ran into a bunch of diehards.

Our troops deployed quickly and smoothly. The Mark IX’s floated into position and dug themselves in. My people set up the Aid Station and broke out the platforms and the litters, and two men from the propaganda section moved in with us and began gabbling and hissing in Gakanian over a dozen remote speakers that they had planted with launchers. The Geeks were having a time of it trying to neutralize the speakers with fire. As far as I could gather, the propaganda team was spouting the standard “surrender and you’ll be well treated” stuff that had about as much appeal as a soap commercial. The Geeks were well dug in and weren’t about to surrender without a fight. Quite probably it would be token combat, since the backbone of their resistance was broken and they were surrendering in droves after exchanging a few face-saving volleys. But with Geeks, face is important, and they had their own code of honor.

No one should have gotten hurt, but somebody didn’t pass the word to the sniper post on their left flank. I stuck my head up to get a better look at what was going on, and that lizard damn near took it off. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet he would have. As it was, most of the energy bounced off my left cheek plate, but some got through. From the heat and pain, I thought it was a first degree jolt, which made me coffin bait, and I remember some foggy idea that since I was dead anyway, I might as well go out in style. But more than that I was filled with a blind rage at the Geeks for clobbering me. After that things were pretty confused.

They tell me that I grabbed a Mark VII from one of the troopers and blew that sniper right out of the ground. Then I went over the hill and down the draw with murder in my good eye and a sack of thermogrenades slung over my shoulder.

Probably the Geeks were ready to surrender. Maybe they thought I was saving face just like they were. At any rate some of their fire came close but none of it hit. I went all the way, clear up to their bunker. I dropped a grenade down the airshaft, and when the trap in back opened and geeks started to slither out, I started throwing grenades through the opening. After that I went to the next bunker, and the next, and when the smoke cleared away, there were a lot of charred lizards and I owned Hill 256.

The assault wave came up just after I threw the last grenade. The lieutenant took one look at me and started yelling for a medic. At the time, the irony was lost on them as on me. I was the only medic within a dozen kilometers.

My men rushed me back to Base Hospital, but the staff could do nothing except block off the burned area, inject mutagens and pray. I don’t think they believed much in the efficacy of prayer because the next morning a four comet General with GHQ tabs on his collar visited my bed in the critical ward, made a little speech about heroism and presented me with the Reward for Merit. It seemed that I had performed one of the outstanding bits of heroism of the entire police action. The Reward for Merit is the top decoration the Armed Forces can give. Practically no one gets it while they are still alive. In fact, the RM is called Rigor Mortis by almost everyone in the service. My guess is that the powers-that-be thought I was too badly cooked to survive, and figured that the RM would be a nice gesture to keep my last hours happy.

Instead, it made me mad. Right then I decided to stay alive and use some of the perquisites an RM gives the lucky man who lives after getting it. I was being perverse, because I had no illusions that I had earned the decoration. I hadn’t. I was blind with rage, not with courage.

The courage came after I passed the crisis and rejoined the living. The slow presurgical clearing of rayburned flesh isn’t pretty. Until normal tissue grafts manage to breed out the damaged cells, there is no sense in doing anything except implanting pinch grafts. Plastic surgery is out of the question. The whole process is painful and frustrating, and the periodic trimming of exuberant tissue is agony even under anesthetic.

And to make it worse, two days after I was burned, the geeks rolled their pink bellies upward, waved their scaly limbs in the air and surrendered.

So here we were, Pete and I, two pieces of flotsam in the effluent of war. Sooner or later one of us would leave and the other would be alone.

Logistics was probably behind that brutally brief order I had received this morning that told me I was being invalided out of the service, but would be retained as a patient until my wounds had healed sufficiently to permit my return to civilian status. No thanks for services rendered, no regrets, no farewells,—nothing.

Both Pete and I were comfortably oiled before he asked the question that had been bothering him since the start of this impromptu binge. “What’s eating you, Doc?” he asked.

I blinked. It always surprised me that Pete could tell what was going on behind my mask. “I’ve had it,” I said. “I have my termination orders.”

“Well, what did you expect?” was his unfeeling answer. “Did you think that the Confederation would make an exception in your case and support you forever?”

“I suppose not, but it’s damned unfair of them to take the best years of my life, condition me to battle and violence, and then toss me out on my can just because I get shot up doing the thing I was programmed to do.”

“That’s the way the system works,” Pete said. “Besides, you went psycho the first time you looked in a mirror after you got burned. The service can’t have you breaking mirrors from here to Earth just because you don’t like yourself.

He changed the subject. “When are you shipping out?” I thought I detected an odd softness of tone in his voice that was out of character. It smacked of pity, and I hated pity like poison. But Pete was incapable of pity. He took things as they were. That’s why I liked him.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The orders say the first appropriate transportation. I suppose I’ll go on a transport to Earth or one of the Inner Worlds where there is a ZI hospital. They won’t turn me loose on society until I’m passable.” I drew my finger across my throat. “It could take years.”

“Maybe we’ll ship in together,” Pete said. “They might want me along to keep you calmed down.”

“No way. You’ll be gone for weeks before they let me out of here. There’s still plenty of primary work to do, and it probably will be done here. My orders have an open end date based on a civil life fitness classification. That’s going to take time.”

Pete nodded. “Yeah, guess you’re right. But it’d be nice if we went starhopping back together. I’ve gotten used to you.”

The conversation died. There wasn’t much reason to continue it any further; so I let it fall on its face and change into one of those long black silences that marked our friendship. We sat at the table, drinking steadily, satisfied with each other’s company. Time passed.

A pair of Military Government officers walked past our table. One turned and looked at me for a moment before he went away. A mask always makes one wonder what’s behind it.

“You know,” Pete said as he scowled at their departing backs, “I didn’t mind the fighting. I didn’t even mind too much getting busted by that mine, but these emgee lice make me sick to my stomach. I can’t take them. I’ll bet the sons of bitching cockroaches have been waiting in the cracks for the past year, waiting for us to clean out this mess so they could come out of their holes and lap up the gravy.”

He had something there. Military Government personnel did look like roaches in their spotless shiny brown uniforms. Like Pete, I regarded them with contempt. They are teachers rather than conquerors. They are the personification of Confederation government; honest, dilatory, stupid and bureaucratic. They are about as far from combat troops as it is possible to get, and for good reason. No occupied population should be made to endure occupation and governance by invasion forces. Incident would pile on incident and would reinforce the hatred and humiliation which a conquered people always feel toward their conquerors. With emgees, the population usually feels superior to the occupiers. It creates a better social climate; one that will accept reform rather than revolt.

Pete was elaborating on the roach theme, and as he warmed to his work his voice got louder and more profane. Presently it got too loud. A broad beamed emgee light colonel at the bar turned in steatopygous dignity to locate the origin of the scatology and slander, and when he saw Pete’s captain’s insigne, he became wrathful.

Chubby slipped off his bar stool, waddled briskly over to where we sat and commenced chewing on Pete. It was laughable, principally because the glob was serious and didn’t realize that he was a natural comic. We sat there enjoying ourselves. It was all very friendly, and might have come off quite well if the poor fool had left well enough alone. But Chubby didn’t have the sense to quit while he was ahead. After awhile he stopped being funny and became annoying.

“Knock it off,” Pete said. “You bore me.”

I admired Pete’s restraint, but the expression on the emgee’s face was so pratfall comic that I added a chuckle from the shadows. It wasn’t a nice sound, but that could be blamed on the keloids that occluded my chuckle mechanisms.

Chubby’s mouth opened and stayed that way for an appreciable time. His complexion turned from pink to purple, and I had the detached clinical feeling that I was observing the beginning of apoplexy.

“You and your Hallowe’en masked friend—” he began.

My detached feeling vanished. Suddenly I had a deep personal interest in Chubby’s future. “That does it,” I said. I rose to my feet, knocked over the table and reached for him with unfriendly hands…

CHAPTER II

« ^ »

After an attempt to courtmartial me fizzled, Headquarters shipped me off Gakan so fast that I was certain it was a dream. I was glad to get out of there. Krasna had been shipped out some time ago while the emgees tried to find some charges against me that would stick, and when they finally discovered that I was the provoked party, a patient undergoing therapy and an RM besides, they gave up and packed me out in a plush ship on the circle route. They probably thought the the delay getting home would be good for my soul.

I spent almost a month of objective time on the liner. We stopped at strange ports of call, some of which I had never heard of. It gave me a new perspective on the Confederation. Most of the worlds we stopped at were human dominant, which was the result of our discovery of a practical and inexpensive star drive and our explosion into space two millennia ago. However, some were not human dominant in any sense of the word.

Interesting as the trip sometimes was, I was thoroughly bored with spaceflight by the time the annunciator gargled “Earth” and an orderly came into my cubicle to help me with my gear. The ports in the common room were unsealed and I watched us slowly approach a huge way station anchored to the crust of an enormous mass of rock that filled the vision ports.

I’d heard rumors that the Engineers were going to put Ceres into a low orbit around Earth to serve as a more efficient way station than Luna, which was too big, and too far from the planet’s surface; but I hadn’t realized that they had already done the job. I looked, fascinated by the skills of modern engineering, until the scene blanked out and was replaced by the massive girders of the landing dock.

There was a lump in my throat as I passed through the airlock and into the station. In my mind’s eye I could see the great blue atmosphere shell of earth curving overhead stippled with puffball clouds. I could feel the familiar pull of one gravity on my bones and muscles. I could breathe the good clean air and smell that indescribable odor which is Earth and which is part of every man who leaves her.

I’m no spaceman. I like my feet firmly planted on the soil of a planet, and my eyes focussed on something other than painted steel walls. My spirits rose with every step I took down the exit ramp toward the station. Soon I would see my homeworld.

And then, of course, the dream was spoiled. Sure—I’d be able to walk on Earth again, breathe the air, feel the weight, look upon the ancient works of men and on men themselves. But what good was it to me? I was still hideous, and there were months, perhaps years of repair ahead of me. There would be horrified eyes, pitying eyes, repelled eyes, and fascinated eyes looking at me. Earth was an administrative center, not a raw frontier world that was accustomed to supply the soldiers of the Confederacy, and receive back the wounded and the war weary.

All of a sudden, I didn’t want to go down to Earth. I didn’t want to become a spectacle. I would be better off parsecs from here. I entered the great common room illuminated with filtered sunlight and hesitantly, almost fearfully, looked up through the glassite observation dome at Earth.

Earth?

This wasn’t Earth, this rust-brown drab reticulated monster hanging above the dome, with its faintly greenish atmosphere shell gleaming against the inky violet of space. This ugly, virtually cloudless ball couldn’t be Earth.

I dropped my kit bag and grabbed a passing spaceport flunky. “Where am I?” I asked. “What planet is this?”

“Arthe,” he said.

“The hell it is! I was born on Earth. I’m an Earthman.”

“Arthe,” he said patiently. “A-R-T-H-E. It’s a contraction of Arthur and Theodore; ARthur and THEodore Blunt, see? The planet was rediscovered about two centuries ago, but by then it had a native population, all descendents of the colonists brought here by the Blunt brothers back in 2200. This isn’t Earth, it’s Arthe, get it?”

“I get it,” I said, “but I don’t like it. I’ve gotten off at the wrong station. I want to go to Earth.”

“You’ve got a long way to go,” the attendant said. “It’s clear on the other side of the circle.”

I groaned and turned back to the ship. I might as well get this straightened out now, because from the look of the planet, we’d probably be here only long enough to say hello and goodbye.

The robogate stopped me. “I.D. please,” it said in its flat metallic voice. “State serial number, name, ship, and final destination. Please put your ticket in the scanner slot.”

I flashed my I.D. card in front of its scanner, and slipped my travel orders in the scanner slot. “My serial number is 0-7B-1630-52G. My name is Samuel Long-branch Williams. I am a Colonel retired, formerly CAF Medical Division, now a passenger on ship Star Raker, destination Earth.”

The machine clicked, beeped, whirred and blinked a red light. “Passage denied,” it said. “You have reached your destination.”

“But I’m not on Earth—” I said before I realized that there is no sense arguing with a robot. Mildly outraged, I checked my baggage and went in search of the spaceline offices.

The spaceline agent was sympathetic, but not encouraging. “It’s a mixup that occurred on Gakan,” she said. “They happen now and then. Arthe is not only an anagram of Earth, it also has a similar pronunciation. If the transportation officer was using a voicewriter to put your orders such a mistake could easily happen.”

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but does that get me to Earth?”

“Not right away,” she said. “You’ll have to stay here until the confusion is straightened out, unless you wish to pay the regular fare to Earth. You can, of course, remain at this station and the company will charge you minimum board and room, but it would be better for you to go planetside and get a job.”

“Just how long is this going to take?” I asked.

“There’s no Dirac connections to Gakan. The message will have to be sent to the nearest inhabited planet and mailed from there. I’d imagine you should hear in a year or so. Of course, you can pay the fare to Earth and leave on the Star Raker tomorrow.”

“I can, but I won’t. Hell would freeze over before I ever got it back from the Fiscal Division.”

“Then you will have to wait until your originating headquarters sends new orders. You will have to request that your transportation request be amended. We’ll do what we can to expedite the processing.”

“It might help if you mention that I’m an RM, and if you route the message through Sector Headquarters on Kilroy Three. Sometimes it makes things move faster to go through the top brass.” My voice was faintly acid and I felt like stringing a certain lieutenant colonel up by the thumbs. As I remembered the fracas at the club, Chubby was wearing transportation insignia on his collar. He was probably the sneaky slithian who did this to me; since he couldn’t make me suffer one way, he could do it another.

“You might check with the Galactic Patrol,” the agent said. She looked and sounded concerned. “Maybe they’ve got a cruiser that’s going to the Inner Worlds, and you can hitch a ride. If you try to go through channels from here, it’s going to take an awfully long time.”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll sweat it out here. I have a fairly good idea who did this, and I’d like to see him stew. If I get out of this fix too easily, the powers-that-be might forget it, but if I keep screaming, someone is going to take notice, and somebody else is going to get chewed until the blood flows.”

“I don’t think I’d want to have you angry with me,” she said with a faint smile.

“I’m an unforgiving soul,” I said as I gave her a soft salute and left the office.

I wandered back to the common room and watched the activity. At the moment there was a troop movement in progress. Files of green-clad troopers were debarking from a starliner and embarking on shorthaul ships and assault craft. Somewhere in this sector of the galaxy was trouble. It wasn’t unusual. In something as big and diverse as the Confederation, it would be odd if all was sweetness and light.

Right then I made a decision. Rather than go to Earth and face a pariah-like existence until I was healed, I’d take my chances with Arthe. A frontier world should be easier and if it turned out to be too bad, I could always go somewhere else. So I took the shuttle down to Thermopolis.

To my delight, I discovered that Arthe had a congenial personality. The dome cities were like base fortresses and the people who walked their streets kept their eyes and their thoughts to themselves. Of course, there were a few of the less desirable types, but the nosy, the sympathetic, and the sensation seekers were scarce. Arthe was a nice place.

I knocked around for a couple of months, getting the feel of the place, visiting the Free domes and the Company domes. There wasn’t much difference between them. I went a short distance into the Outlands, wearing a rented respirator, and together with a guide and a gaggle of tourists I visited one of the ancient slag heaps that mark the canal intersections. Our guide said the place was once a city, but it would have taken a better man than I to recognize it. It had been destroyed (according to the guide) by the Cataclysm that had wiped out the Old Race shortly after the Blunts and their colonists came to this world. The Old Race, I learned was not to be confused with the Shambra. The Shambra were here first. The Old Race were their pets or protégés, and when the Shambra left Arthe they had left the Old Race behind. I shrugged the explanation off as nonsense and spent my time wondering what sort of a weapon had melted the city. We had nothing like it in our arsenals, at least as far as effect was concerned. The Patrol’s supers could do a comparable job of obliterating a target, but they left a radioactive slag heap behind that interdicted the entire area. There is no profit to civilization in slag heaps that radiate for centuries.

But here, there wasn’t a trace of radioactivity. The area had simply been fused into an inextricable mélange of metal and glass. If any radioactivity had been produced, it was short lived and had disappeared years ago. I questioned our guide about it, but he knew little except the legends and archaeology. He did say that the approximate date of the Cataclysm was 1900 years ago, and that the Cataclysm was triggered by the death of the Old Race who had inhabited these cities.

There are, of course, pre-human artifacts. Not as many as students would like to have, but enough to show that the Old Race had a highly developed technology. And in addition to the hardware, there are the Shambra Legends. This is a vast body of poetic mythology that many of the natives and halfcastes known by heart. The Chanters are a kind of priesthood among the natives and the ‘breeds (as the halfcastes are called by the dome dwellers). Both native and ‘breed Chanters know the Legends in the human and the Old Tongue. The non-human version was supposed to have been given to the first settlers by the Old Race, a gentle, somewhat unworldly lot of humanoids who lived in the canal cities. They probably had died from contact with some human-borne virus or bacterium that no one had the least idea would be pathogenic. The sterilized areas could have been made to stop the spread of the disease.

At any rate, whatever the cause may have been, the first settlers were soon left with an empty world to develop as they saw fit. But they never saw. They were content to live a nomadic existence in the great canals that form a gridwork over Arthe’s surface, and by the time they were rediscovered they had regressed to semi-savagery.

Why had they regressed? There are a lot of hints, but there is nothing definite. And that is the problem with Arthe. There are too many questions. Were the Old Race the Shambra? The natives say no, that they were the Shambra’s pets, and that the Shambra vanished millennia before men came to Arthe. But there is no proof, and all the digging that has been done among the accessible ruins has revealed no trace of the remains of an individual of the Old Race let alone a Shambra. The Old Race cremated their dead according to the Legends, and the Shambra never died; so, if the legends are true, there is no evidence that either race existed—if there were two races.

What had levelled the canal cities? The natives say The Power did it; the same power that cut the waterways across the planet’s surface; the same power that cut the tangential tunnels for hundreds of kilometers through the living rock of Arthe’s crust; the same power that plays the title role in the Song of The Power in the Shambra Legends. Judging from the Song, The Power was just about anything the mind of man could imagine.

After a few weeks, speculation began to bore me, and I got tired of being a tourist. Archaeology is all right, and so are bars, bistros and bordellos, but too much of them can be a drag. I took a good look at myself and came to the conclusion that I had better go to work. I didn’t have to. My pension had caught up with me and my back pay was now in my bank account in Thermopolis. I could live my life without turning a hand at any occupation, but I was sick and tired of loafing.

It wasn’t too hard to make up my mind about what to do. Actually I didn’t have too much choice. With my nightmare face I couldn’t practice medicine, and I felt uncomfortable in civilian clothes, and undressed without a weapon. A lot of my military conditioning was still with me. I didn’t have the right technical training for Patrol work; so I really had two choices, the planetary police or a security guard in one of the domes. I thought I might like being a cop.

I didn’t worry too much about the cops not wanting me. As a combat veteran I’d get every break in the book and I didn’t think my record would be too bad except for that hospital brawl on Gakan. Arthe’s police force liked ex-servicemen and medal winners. For an RM they might roll out the red carpet.

However, I thought it might be a good idea to plan ahead; so I found out who the big wheels in the Police were, and laid out a small campaign to make the acquaintance and possibly the friendship of one or two of them. I discovered that the two men who would more or less complete control of my destiny if I applied were Chief Inspector John Lantham and Commissioner Warren Crowninshield. The commissioner was a political type, and the inspector a professional. The power theoretically lay in Crowninshield’s hands, but Lantham actually ran the outfit.

I took the easiest task first. I went after Crowninshield. It wasn’t too hard. In a week I was introduced to him. In two weeks I took him to lunch on the pretext of asking his advice about secure investments and career opportunities. I let it drop that I was an RM. In three weeks he knew more about me than was needful.

Lantham was harder. I couldn’t find a way to get at him. He stayed to himself when he was off duty, and he seldom went out. I did learn that his nickname was “Old RandR”. Somehow I didn’t think that those letters stood for rest and recreation. They didn’t. They stood for rules and regulations. That killed the sort of contact I had made with Crowninshield. The only thing that could work with Lantham was a direct approach. So I went to Planetary Police Headquarters and asked for an appointment with him.

For an organization that was responsible for the law enforcement of an entire world, Headquarters was remarkable for its absence of red tape. I suppose that the informality devolved from the fact that Arthe was a primitive and uncivilized sort of a place. It was less than twenty minutes after I had stated my business to a clerk in the outer office when I was looking across the desk of Chief Inspector John Lantham at the man himself.

Lantham eyed me and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He paid no attention to my face. I felt it was the bulk of my body that interested him. He had an eye like a slave dealer. I’d bet he knew that I was in my early thirties, stood a hundred ninety three centimeters in my socks, and weighed a hundred and five kilograms Earth scale. Some years ago on Earth the girls used to call me rugged and handsome. Gakan had scratched the handsome off the label but her gravity had added to the rugged.

Lantham nodded. “Sit down,” he said. He opened an ornate bronze pot standing on his desk, extracted a plastic tube, slid a fat brown cigar from it, puffed the self light end to a glow and blew a fragrant cloud of Havana smoke in my direction. He noticed my appreciative sniff and smiled. “Have one,” he said, gesturing at the pot.

“No thanks,” I said. “I don’t smoke, but the smell brings back memories.”

“It’s just as well that you don’t. These weeds are expensive. I really can’t afford them but I save by scrimping on food and drink.” He drew a long pull of smoke into his lungs and let it dribble out of his nostrils. “It costs a small fortune to have them shipped from Earth.”

“Are you from there?” I said.

“Once, long ago,” he said.

“Pardon the curiosity,” I said, “but what brought you here?”

He laughed. “You know, I can’t really tell you. It was a whole series of accidents starting with the Patrol academy and ending with the punitive expedition.”

“But that was a century ago,” I said.

“Gerontology is a wonderful science,” he said. “But that’s not the reason why I stayed here. You see, I picked up second degree laser burns during the punitive expedition. I was a Patrol lieutenant then, and I had no desire to stop being a law officer because I had an arm burned off. So when I was offered the job as police chief of Thermopolis, I took it.”

I looked at him, at the lean hard lines of his body. There was no sign of a prosthesis on either arm.

“I had to wait nearly twenty years before the techniques and a proper donor came along,” he said.

I nodded. Transplants of limbs are common enough, but he had confused me with his age. He didn’t look a day over fifty, and he had to be at least a hundred and twenty five, and transplants don’t take on people loaded with antigerontics and agathics. My trouble was that I was too young to remember that transplant surgery was even more ancient that spaceflight. Lantham could have gotten a whole limb transplant eighty years ago.

He kept smiling at me with his mouth and watching me with his eyes. He was evaluating my reactions, wondering if the Geek radiation that had fried my face had fried my brain as well. He knew why I was here, and he was trying to make up his mind if he should take a chance with someone who might be psychotic.

The silence between us grew and thickened as I got my nervous system under control and relaxed. He had an amazing ability to put me at ease. It was much like the ability Pete Krasna had, a kind of sublime indifference that took the pressure off and let me handle myself. I relaxed. There was no sense in making more problems than already existed.

If he turned me down, I couldn’t really blame him, and even though I could make a fuss about it, I wouldn’t. He would only be doing what he thought was best for the police force. I waited for his verdict, hoping that he wouldn’t turn me down, and, as I waited, I examined him as he was examining me.

I liked what I saw. This lean, gray, middle-sized man with the faint lines of plastic surgery on his neck was a natural leader, a man I’d enjoy working for. He was a brother in suffering, too. His scars and his history proved it.

Lantham’s voice cut across my musings. “Let’s have it,” he said.

“What?”

“Everything. Who you are. What you were. Where you came from. Why you want to join the force. And anything else you want to tell me about yourself.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have me fill out an application?”

“No. I’d rather listen to you. I learn a lot more about a man by listening to him. You can hide behind written words, but not behind talk.”

I shrugged. If this was what he wanted, I’d let him have it. I told him the whole story. I didn’t leave anything out, not even Chubby and the aborted courtmartial. He looked at me for a long time after I had finished, and then said that I’d be a good candidate for the Medical Examiner’s Section. I said that I didn’t want that, and that I was through with medicine and was looking for action. He nodded approvingly—and then he blew my cool.

“There’s only one thing,” he said. “You’ll have to get some plastic surgery done. You can’t run around with that mask. Not that I mind, and in a tough dome like Consol 27 your face might be an asset, but you’re promotion material, not a beat pounder. We’ve never had an MD or an RM before. But you simply can’t be promoted with that face. It’s lousy advertising.”

He should have known what would happen. I stared at him for about ten seconds, and then I blew my stack. “You stupid son of a bitch,” I snarled. “Do you think I enjoy looking like this? I can’t get surgery. It hasn’t been long enough since I was burned. Grafts won’t heal. I’m still full of residuals and mutagens. I know what I look like better than you do. Maybe you’d like to see.” I pulled the mask off and let him have a good look. His face turned white, and I felt as sick as he looked. Couldn’t the damn fool see that I’d give my soul to look like a human being? I heaved my body out of the chair and started for the door, knowing as I moved that I had blown everything. What he had done was deliberate. He had to know what I really felt and how I would react to shock. Well, he knew now, and I wished him joy in the knowledge.

I was reaching for the door when his voice stopped me. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

I turned and looked at him. “I thought you’d have figured it out,” I said. “I’m going quietly. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t. Just where the devil have you been?”

“I told you that. I was on Gakan. There was a police action there.”

“I know that,” he said impatiently, “but didn’t you people ever hear of template cytoplasty as a treatment for rayburns?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s been in use here for a year, which means that it’s been in the civilized part of the galaxy at least two or three times as long. It’s a refinement of the cell regeneration technique that builds normal cells in weeks. In six months at the most, a rayburn case can be made to look normal.”

“The Medical Association hasn’t sent me my journals recently,” I said. “We move around a lot in the combat forces.”

“I should have known,” he said. “Things get to the military about five years after civilians are using them routinely. It was the same way in the Patrol.” He grinned at me, and for the first time since I saw what was under the bandages on my face I felt a surge of hope. “You don’t have to worry about those burns,” he went on. “They can be treated here. We have the equipment to handle rayburns. We need it.” He grimaced wryly. “There’s a lot of violence in the domes. Almost as many casualties as in a—hey!—Williams! Where are you going now?”

I kept my hand on the doorlatch. “Straight to the nearest hospital, Inspector. I’ll try you again when I’m well.”

“Slow down,” Lantham said. “Come back here and sign these papers.” He lifted a few flimsies from the desk top and held them out to me. “They’re your acceptance forms.”

I felt a little sick to my stomach. I had thought he was bigger than a publicity hound. Hell—I’d just proved I was unstable. By rights he should be helping me out the door. I wondered whether it was the MD or the RM which had gotten to him.

“The commissioner wants you, and I want you. You could be an asset to the force. What’s more there are no waiting lines for cops. They get first priority in Arthean hospitals.”

Right then I didn’t care whether the commissioner or Lantham was the media lover. I nearly sprained my wrist signing the papers while Lantham sat there behind his desk and grinned like a duralloy idol.

I had a queer feeling as I handed him the flimsies. I felt like crying. I didn’t know how I’d be able to repay his faith in me. I was war-weary; a psycho discharged for the good of the service. Yet Crowninshield and Lantham had enough faith in me to give me a chance to become an officer of the law. I swore right then, that I’d be a good cop if it took everything I had. I wouldn’t let them down.

CHAPTER III

« ^ »

Four months and much minor torture later, I was on the road to recovery. There were scars where the grafts didn’t take, but I could move my face, and I looked presentable enough to get rid of the mask.

While I was undergoing treatment, I also went to the Police Academy. There was a lot of technical material given by neurosynthesizer tapes, and a lot more drill in armed and unarmed combat techniques. The training was a lot harder than the learning, but I had little trouble with either.

My ratings were usually good or excellent. I suppose they were relative, and that I looked good because my fellow trainees weren’t. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have suspected someone in the front office was greasing me along. But that simply didn’t happen. A CAF discharge can maybe get you into a Civil Service job, but it takes your own work to keep you there.

We graduated in three months, and the Commissioner swore us in. The assembled classes back of us stood around the borders of the drill field and gave the traditional cheer as the last gold badge—the ancient emblem of the policeman—was pinned on the anchor man of our class. Next week, the surgeons would start the final series of tissue grafts that would make me an ornament to society.

I was back in barracks packing my gear before I went looking for my assignment when a runner from Lantham’s office found me. “The Inspector wants to see you, Officer Williams,” he said. I looked at the clerk suspiciously, wondering why Lantham didn’t use the intercom.

“You know what for?” I asked.

“He didn’t say,” the clerk replied with a smirk that said that he knew damn well why I was being called, but he’d rather let me sweat it out. I shrugged with apparent unconcern and followed the runner through the maze of corridors that separated the barracks from the office part of Headquarters.

Lantham looked at me behind a blue puff of cigar smoke. “Sit down, Williams,” he said.

I did as I was told. “Couldn’t this have waited until I was whole again?” I complained.

“No”—he bit the word off. He sounded as though he meant it; so I didn’t push. Then he shrugged and opened his mouth. “Sam,” he began in that fatherly manner I had already gotten to know, “you’re too good a man to be sitting around here on your fat duff while crime runs rampant on Arthe.”

I didn’t feel like grinning. “Well, lets have it,” I said. “You’ve got something nasty on your mind, and I guess I’m being volunteered.”

“I’d hate to disillusion you,” he said. “I have—and you are. With your medical background, you’re the ideal man for the job. At least Crowninshield thinks you are, and who am I to say he’s wrong.”

“The Commissioner could have waited a couple of months,” I said. “I thought I was going to have time to get my face cleaned up.”

“I told him you needed R and R and final surgery and he said that you had signed a two-year contract and that he needed you now.” Lantham grinned sourly at me. “That’s what comes of doing too well on your training program.” He laid his hands flat on the desk top and dropped the fatherly attitude. “Ever hear of tonocaine?” he asked.

I nodded. It was a familiar word that brought back unpleasant memories. It’s a narcotic extracted from a fungus native to Gakan. It is only effective in mammals, and its potency is directly proportional to the intelligence of the addict. In a way, it’s similar to heroin in that one dose doesn’t make an addict, but half a dozen do. It can be absorbed through all normal routes, and in moderate aerosol concentrations will even pass through intact skin. It has a number of actions—anesthetic, euphoriac, intestinal depressant, but its main feature is its effect upon the brain. It transports the user into an ecstatic dream world where anything—literally anything—can happen—and where the sensations from these happenings are heightened until they are almost unbearable. It allows the user to fantasize anything he likes, and removes all moral and inhibitory control. Tonocaine can bring all the little blind alleys of a person’s character into the open, and drop them on an ego freed from restraint. An overdose kills, by paralyzing the victim. Deprivation symptoms are like those of heroin, only worse. They can kill a mainliner and can make a six doser wish he had never been born. During the Gakan action, the Geeks used it as a weapon. They put it in aerosol and got it into the air replenishers of our fortress domes. The results were devastating!

Lantham smiled without humor. Even though I hadn’t said a word, my expression was as readable as a book. “You would know,” he said quietly. “Now, do you know anything about Dunkelburg?”

I shook my head. “Only that it’s one of consol’s domes.”

“You’ll know a lot more than that,” he promised.

He wasn’t fooling. I spent the next three days in Briefing under hypno, and when it was over I knew more about that Class II dome than the men who built it. Dunkelburg was notorious. Even among the tough towns like Consol 27 and mining domes like Bluestone, it held a place of honor. It was one of the two places on Arthe where there was any marked amount of tonocaine addiction. Six happies had been picked up there during the past year and this, of course, was impossible. What with the source of the drug destroyed on Gakan, there shouldn’t be a single tonocaine addict left in the galaxy. They should either be dead from deprivation reaction, or recovered, or safely confined in mental institutions. It argued loud and clear that someone somehow had gotten hold of live spores and was raising the fungus.

Everything else was mystery. The trouble was that no one really knew tonocaine, and by the time they recognized an addict, it was too late. Of the four halfbreeds and two Confeds who had been picked up in Dunkelburg, five had been brought in feet first and the sixth had died of deprivation syndrome before he could be questioned. Those were plainly long-term, high dose level addicts. The fact that the live one had died so quickly was almost certain proof of that. But that was the entire story—six dead men and no clues.

“Have you checked Gakan?” I asked Lantham during the discussion we had about the source of the drug after the briefing session was over.

“Naturally. The Patrol’s been alerted and they’ve gone over it with a fine tooth comb. They didn’t find anything worth mentioning. Anyway, it wouldn’t make any difference if they did. The stuff’s being grown here!”

“It can’t be,” I said. “The fungus requires a swampland environment with high atmospheric pressure and temperature. On a rainworld, maybe, but not here.”

“Here,” Lantham said firmly. “The conditions could be maintained artificially. Besides, we seized half a kilogram of sporedust right here in Thermopolis and that much wouldn’t have gotten through Customs in ten years.”

“Okay, so it’s being produced here,” I said. That quantity almost proved he was right unless space ships were dropping it in. However, Arthe was an important way station and had total IFF coverage from Lura Base on the moon. That made spacedrop doubtful.

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.

“I thought you knew. You go to Dunkelburg.”

“Okay, so I go to Dunkelburg—then what?”

“Then you find out where the dope is coming from. Then you tell me so I can know, too. Then I collect a lot of cops and smash things like fungus gardens, and growers, and peddlers and the Mr. Big behind the operation. See? Simple, isn’t it!”

“Yeah, simple,” I agreed. I had a mental picture of me, Sam Williams, acting like Donald Dare the demon detective. Somehow it didn’t jell.

That night I took the jet which would ultimately land me in Dunkelburg. I couldn’t get over the changes that had occurred in civilian transport in the four years I had been in the service. The jets were whisper quiet and acceleration dampers took all the elevator sensation out of takeoff. These new dagger-finned ships were a far cry from the rhomboid-winged monsters that had hurtled through the stratosphere a few years ago.

The safety devices were virtually out of this world. It would be practically impossible for a person to become an aircraft casualty now. Even if something happened to one of these ships while it was in flight, or while landing, there would be no casualties. Each seat was a complete, self-contained, air cushioned, escape cell that operated automatically in case of serious damage to the ship, or could be operated by the pilot with manual controls in case something happened to the autos. It would furnish complete protection from crash speeds up to two hundred kph and would protect a passenger from the vacuum of outer space. On Arthe, it would maintain an occupant in relative comfort for several days, shielded from the damaging effects of raw air while the built-in homing devices broadcast a continuous signal to guide a rescue party.

For the first time in my life I felt safe in an aircraft. I leaned back in, the deep foam padding and looked forward to my mission with a thrill of anticipation. The promise of action excited me.

CHAPTER IV

« ^ »

I was riding prowler beat with John Dawson, a pink-skinned, smooth faced cop, with the short legs and long barrel-chested body of an oversized infant. I didn’t let the baby look fool me. He was hard. His eyes were small, wide set, and black as free space. There was no humanity in them. I disliked Dawson, but I had to admit he was efficient. He was pure professional, too good for a tank town like this. He would be more properly cast riding night patrol in a big city like Thermopolis. Class II domes can get by with less efficiency and more humanity. Dawson was wasting his life here. I wondered why.

Being the senior, Dawson drove the three-wheeler. He handled the turbine driven job like he did everything else—smoothly and competently. If it hadn’t been for him sitting beside me, I’d have enjoyed the ride.

We had clashed the moment we met. I had reported in to Chief Marlin at Dunkelburg Police Headquarters and the Chief assigned me to work with Dawson until I learned the ropes. I thought it was a good deal until I met Dawson. He came swaggering into Marlin’s office, looked me over with his empty eyes, and sniffed. “Pretty boy. Ha!” he snorted. “You proud of looking like that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m proud.”

It was a nice beginning. We eyed each other like two mongrel dogs over a stray bone. Our eyes locked and held. Finally I let mine drop—not because I had to, but because I didn’t want to waste any more time, and this sort of contest could have gone on for hours. He grunted with satisfaction as though he had won some sort of victory, and I grinned inside at how wrong he was. That was how it had begun, and now, twenty-four hours later, it was no better.

I was seeing Dunkelburg in the flesh. It was a tank town—literally. Some down/and out prospector named Hector Dunkel discovered the hydrocarbon pool over which the town stood. He sold out to Consol Oil for a million, and drank himself to death in six months. Consol built a Class II Bucky dome over the discovery site and called it Dunkelburg in honor of the prospector’s memory. And just in case you don’t know what a Bucky is, it’s engineer argot for a Buckminster Geodesic Dome—a structural form invented several millennia ago by a man who has won eternal fame for his useful self-supportive structures.

It was a typical workday night, a couple of drunks rolled, a mugging out on the rimwalk, a non-fatal knifing in one of the back rooms of the periphery dive, a hair-pulling match between a pair of halfcaste floozies, a loud party of drunk and stoned in the Hub that we broke up politely, another loud party of drunk and stoned out on the Rim that we broke up with moderate violence. Nothing unusual, no killings, no rape, no mutilation, just routine. Right now it was quiet.

Dawson pulled the prowler to the curb along one of the radius roads and turned off the engine. He took a cigar out of his tunic, licked it, lighted it, and blew a cloud of smoke out of the open window. I fished out a battered pack of mints, slipped one between my teeth and sucked on it.

Like all Class II domes, Dunkelburg is a dome-covered circle three kilometers in diameter. It sits on a planed-off anticline commanding a good view of the level brown desert that forms about eighty per cent of Arthe’s surface. On top of the massive wall encircling the town are the anchor blocks of the geodesic dome that stretches its girders and transparent panes across the top of the town. The dome holds in filtered and regenerated air and makes the internal environment fit for unmutated human life. The town itself is divided into sections by annular and radial streets. The central part, called the Hub, is about half a kilometer across and is crowded with tall apartments, business offices and shops serving the Confeds and Company administrators who run the place. In the exact center of the dome is a squat mass of the power station surrounded by a circular park. The central column of the air shaft rises from the center of the power station, a hollow cylinder of featureless, steel-strong plastic that opens at the very top of the dome into the clean rarefied upper air that is virtually chlorine-free. The station runs all the time, furnishing energy to heat and light the place, run the machinery and air replenishes, and to power the walkways that take care of the majority of public transportation problems. Its deep bass hum is part of life.

Twelve radius roads fan out from the central park, cutting the dome into sections like a piece of pie. Ten concentric rings of streets spaced equidistantly between the park and the Rim complete the road net. The radius roads are numbered, and the annular streets are lettered. After one day in a dome there is no reason for a man to get lost, because physically one Class II dome is exactly like another.

Shops and industry fill the space between the Hub and the Rim except for the area between “I” and “J” streets. Here is the domain of the Dunkelburg Housing Authority, a polite phrase for the slums. It is filled with barrack-like medium rise buildings which are in turn filled with a motley assortment of retired contract workers, down-and-outers, halfbreeds, and swarms of children.

Beyond “J” street is a thirty meter wide strip that ends abruptly at the vertical barrier of the five meter high outer wall on which the dome is built. This is the Rim—the nine kilometers of distilled iniquity. Here are the bars, brothels, massage parlors, amusement palaces, casinos, pawnshops, slinkifeelies, and all the other little unmentionables which are found scattered over the average Confederacy city. Here, they’re concentrated on the rim because space is at a premium, and while the Hub deplores the Rim and wants it as far away as possible, it does nothing to stop the area from operating.

After all—why should the Hub protest? The Rim is necessary, not only for the ‘breeds to work off their frustrations, but also to keep up the morale of the operating personnel. It is as necessary as the central park. Civilized folk it seems, aren’t happy without their dives and joints—a sort of homelike touch that keeps them from remembering that all that separates them from a singularly messy death is a half centimeter thick eggshell of plastic stretching overhead in a hemisphere of a million glittering facets.

Four huge airlocks pierce the outer walls at the ends of 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th streets. And that’s Dunkelburg—or any other Class II dome in Arthe.

It’s easy to police, but even so there’s better than two hundred cops on duty. We live in barracks in the Hub, and are a semi-military outfit, organized into four companies which can be built up from their normal cadre of fifty officers to a full-fledged military group of two hundred and fifty if the need arises. That’s a lot of law, but it’s necessary sometimes.

In the early days before the uprising and the punitive expedition, explorers and traders were grudgingly and sometimes enthusiastically welcomed by the natives and mingled freely with the unattached women who were numerous and willing since intertribal feuds and excessive male infant deaths left a shortage of men. In time the natives got worried about the increasing numbers of off-worlders and halfbreeds in the tribes, but they didn’t do anything about it except talk.

Artheans didn’t want civilization. Their nomadic life carried them all over the planet and a high level of heritable disease combined with propensities for feuding and fighting kept the population stable at eight million people. In this ideal male chauvinist environment it is no wonder that the native men did their best to put obstacles in the way of immigration. But the tools and trade goods were too much to resist.

Traders put the first domes and halfcastes on Arthe, but the big change came when the rare earth metals were discovered. The Companies descended on Arthe like vultures on a succulent piece of carrion, and the fragile relationship between prospectors, explorers and natives blew apart. The domes rose all over the planet and finally the natives rose, too. In the great uprising of 4002, the natives managed to slaughter most of their own miscegenates and a goodly number of the johnny-come-lately colonists. They were broadminded about who they massacred. They just killed everyone who had Confed blood in them. Most of the traders and a fair percentage of the ‘breeds reached the domes, and easily repulsed the native attacks. It was a standoff until some native sympathizer figured out how to turn the colony ship’s drives into breeder reactors and make nuclear explosives. The natives destroyed four domes and the Companies screamed to high heaven. The Confederation listened and the service answered. Since what little technology the natives had was pre-Interregnum and we had sub-atomics, the issue was never in doubt once the service moved into action. A division was sent to restore order. The punitive expedition was a short, bloody episode. There weren’t too many casualties considering the weaponry the CAF brought with them; nothing at all like the blasted wreckage on Gakan. That was because the natives quit while they were still alive. The result was that the peace treaty gave them the arable land and the canal bottoms. The Companies got mineral rights, but agreed not to encroach on the canals. In return, the natives agreed never again to use nuclear explosives. And they never have.

After awhile, things went back almost to the way they were. The native population rose to the prewar level. Trade was resumed, and the natives lived where and as they had lived before. But the power moved from the Outlands into the domes. The natives were no longer of any importance. The natives are a human variant, descended from a minimal gene pool which has never been augmented by new infusions. As a result they are surprisingly uniform in size and appearance. Taller than the human average, bigger chested, darker skinned, with long dark eyes and straight black hair, the men are handsome and most of the women are beautiful if you care for the type. Fortunately, their basic stock had been good and when the bad genes and lethal recessives began to appear in about the F7 generation the colony numbers were large enough to select the survival types and allow the non-survivors to die out.

The halfbreeds are descendents of natives and the latecomers. They are a major headache. They are no different than the rest of mankind and are probably more closely related to the general run of human than are the natives, but in thoughts and customs they’re more native than Confed. Hated by the natives and despised by Confeds, the ‘breeds form the labor pool in every dome on Arthe.

The men can’t get jobs as easily as the women, as there is little use for them except as unskilled labor. The result is that many men have become drones and live on the earnings of one or more women. Many deny family responsibility and if their woman becomes pregnant, they disappear. In a high proportion of the families there is no man, and in many, the three children allowed under local population statutes all have different surnames. Since the woman has to work, the children are left to fend for themselves and the word “family” is a joke.

The principal feature of life in the Authority can be summed up in one word—insecurity. It shows its ugly face everywhere, in the anxious eyes of girls hurrying to work, in the shifty sullen faces of a group of boys lounging on a street corner. It screams at you from the obscene graffiti on the walls, the littered pavements, the battered plastic of the sills and doorframes, the poorly dressed children, the heavy gut-wrenching odor of too many bodies too long unwashed.

The domes were neither beautiful nor pleasant, but then neither are the older worlds near the hub of Civilization. There simply were too many people, too many machines, and too much leisure. Most people don’t know how to use free time. Man needs work—in fact, he has to have it if he wants to remain sane. And when all fields of rewarding labor are preempted by a dominant class, the recessives get what is left.

It isn’t enough.

So how does a recessive spend his time? Let me list the ways. I’ll do it alphabetically for better remembrance: Alcohol, Arson, Bigamy, Boredom, Brawling, Burglary, Cynicism, Cults, Demonstrations, Envy, Gangs, Graffiti, Hatred, Ideologies, Masochism, Mugging, Murder, Narcotics, Paranoia, Pot, Psychosis, Rape, Riot, Rumbles, Sabotage, Sex, Unrest, Vandalism, Voyeurism, Withdrawal—it takes most of the alphabet, doesn’t it?

The wonder is that it’s not worse.

In their periodic riots, the ‘breeds work off their accumulated bitterness and frustration. Oddly enough, not very many get killed. The day to day problems usually revolve around women. The men resent them because a woman finds it much easier to get a job and because there are a much greater variety of jobs available. The top ones usually wind up in “Administrative” houses, or as mistresses of Company officials. It’s a better life than raising unwanted kids in an overcrowded barrack, but it doesn’t produce much happiness.

As for the domes, they’re necessary if people like me are to live on Arthe. Outside air isn’t good for type A’s. It’s too thin—about the equivalent of 12 or 13 thousand feet elevation on Earth with a trace of chlorine to give it flavor. With laboring lungs the chlorine tends to cause irritation, hemorrhage and pneumonia. If you’re not a native, or a Type C adaptive, you have no business being outside a dome. Mid-level people like me should never stick our noses outside unless we wear respirators. It’s an invitation to suicide.

I sat in the prowler immersed in my thoughts, looking up through the transparent canopy. Dawson was sunk in some reverie of his own, cigar glowing and fading with his machinelike puffs. The black outside night pressed down upon the faintly gleaming dome far overhead with almost palpable weight.

I relaxed, letting the peace and quiet of the night soak into me. An occasional pedestrian strolled by, silent and unhurried on the still walkways. Halfway down the block a repair crew was working under portable glows, doing something to an exposed section of walkway, working quietly and rapidly to beat the morning deadline when the walks would start rolling again. A couple of civilian cars purred past with a muted hum of turbines, heading out towards the Rim. An echo of drunken laughter hung in the heavy air after they had passed.

Dawson came out of his trance. “Damfool Hubbers,” he snorted, then grunted viciously. “Sure as you’re born we’ll have to risk our necks bailing the tramps out of trouble.”

“You know that crowd better than I do,” I said, without lowering my gaze from the dome overhead.

Silence fell again and the night was peaceful. The warm air carrying the faint odors of oil and ozone moved sluggishly along the street as concealed blowers kept it circulating. The deep musical hum of the Station filled the air with its all-pervading vibration. It was a comforting sound.

A red light blossomed on the dashboard, and the peace was broken. The dispatcher’s metallic voice crackled in the cab. “Car two, Car two… Section J6 Sandy’s Place, Code forty—Acknowledge.”

I acknowledged.

“Forty,” Dawson murmured, as he fed gas to the turbine and the little three-wheeler leaped into speed. “Violence—violent assault—murder maybe.” He licked his lips and looked happy as the uncompensated acceleration crushed me back into the seat. I snapped the siren on, and the wailing moan cut knifelike across the turbine’s snarl of power. Dawson turned the wheel sharply. Tires screamed as we swung left onto 6th and headed out towards the Rim.

We braked to a fast smooth stop. Dawson picked up the mike. “Car two, at the scene and going in.”

We came out of the prowler fast. My hands were clammy with sweat and I felt just like I did when the firing started. I guess my anticipation must have shown because Dawson looked at me with a queer glitter in his eyes.

“Ain’t going yella, are ya?”

“Just get going,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.” There were a few ‘breeds standing outside. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t do anything. Just looked at us and hated. You could feel the hate spreading out of them like a wave, it was that strong.

Dawson strode straight for the door, his bulky body cleaving through the ‘breeds. They shrank back to let him pass. I followed at his heels feeling like a poodle on a leash. Someone gasped. Even with repair work I still wasn’t lovely to look upon. My eyes raked the group, and a couple of them made horns at me to ward off the evil eye. I laughed as I followed Dawson inside. My face was good for something.

CHAPTER V

« ^ »

Sandy’s place was a little better than the average run of periphery dive. It had a touch of decayed elegance in its battered double doors and the pillar lights on each side of the door frame. The interior, however, was no better than the rest of the Rim joints. It smelled of cheap Kala beer, stale tobacco, deodorant spray, and sweat. There was another smell, too—fear!

We pushed our way through and came into a sleazy combination of bar and dance floor that might have been elegant a quarter of a century ago, but which was now merely dirty. A thin sprinkling of tables stood near the drab walls, surrounding a metal-tone floor painted to look like wood. Across the room, a long, scarred Calpawood bar stretched its red length from wall to wall, jutting out from its mirrored background fronted by rows of glasses and bottles.

But it wasn’t the bar nor the ‘breed who stood before it who first caught my eye. It was the pair on the dance floor. The woman might have been beautiful once, maybe not too long ago. She wasn’t now. Half her head was burned away by a blaster bolt. The man was an Outlander from the looks of him, a big-chested thin-bodied Type C adaptive. He lay in a crumpled heap on the floor beside the dead woman and made wheezing bubbling noises from a ripped throat. Probably he’d already inhaled enough of his own blood to kill him, but he was still alive. A widening pool of blood spread from beneath his head and sent out a thin red pseudopod that crawled slowly across the floor, pointing like an accusing finger at the ‘breed leaning against the bar. As far as I could see, it was the usual story—‘breed girl, jealous boyfriend or husband, and the well-heeled competitor for the girl’s favors.

I looked at the ‘breed. He didn’t look like a husband. He was a big man dressed in the short jacket, tight breeches, and colorful stockings they affected. A thick rope of paste jewelry encircled his neck and the ruffled flowered shirt cascaded out of the short sleeves of his jacket and over his hands. The heavy muscles of his neck and shoulders stiffened as he caught sight of us. He half raised the Kelly dangling from his right hand, while his left fumbled with the neck of a broken bottle lying on the bar.

I stared at the man, and a chill ran down my spine. Something about his face was frighteningly familiar—especially his eyes. They stared from twitching features, bulbous, injected, with inky pinpoint pupils. Faint muscular tremors rippled the cheap synthetic fabric of his shirt. I could see his calf muscles twitch beneath the skin-tight stockings that encased them. Memory made my muscles tighten—tonocaine!

“Dawson,” I said quietly, “watch it! He’s high!” Dawson gave no sign that he had heard. His eyes never left the ‘breed’s face as he walked slowly toward the man, his long riot stick swinging in his right hand, his hard heels making tiny clicking sounds on the plastic floor. Watching him, I felt a cold chill creep up the back of my legs and spread icy ringers across my stomach. I was glad that I wasn’t in the ‘breed’s place, for at that moment Dawson was the most frightening thing I had ever seen in my life.

He came to a stop about three feet from the ‘breed.

“Drop that gun,” he said flatly. “You’re under arrest.”

The man answered with an insane snarl of hate and a blur of drug speeded motion. The Kelly in his hand jerked up and levelled.

And as he moved, so did Dawson. Fast! I never saw anything so fast in my life! The riot stick blurred in the air, terminating in a meaty crack and a thin, sharp snap of brittle bone. The blaster, driven from the ‘breed’s grasp, clattered to the floor! For a split second the man stood, staring at his broken wrist, a stupefied expression on his muddy face. Then, pivoting like a dancer, graceful, swift, he grasped the neck of the broken bottle and lunged left-handed straight at Dawson’s face. Dawson stepped back, bending at the waist, the stick coming around in a whistling backhand. His heel struck the slow-moving rivulet of blood. He staggered, slipped, and the bottle plowed a shallow furrow across his cheek as he fell to the floor. The ‘breed came down, bottle outthrust, aimed at Dawson’s neck!

From somewhere came the cough of a blaster. A searing bolt of blue-white energy struck the bottle, melting it instantly. A burst of oily smoke puffed from the man’s extended hand. He fell, stunned by the shock, gasping, staring with horrified eyes at the charred stumps of his fingers. I watched the ‘breed with fascinated surprise as I felt the weight of my Kelly nestling comfortably in my palm.

The ‘breed lay where he fell. Finally he screamed and kept on screaming as Dawson got to his feet. The raw inhuman note grated on the eardrums like the screeching rasp of a file drawn edgewise across thin metal.

“Emergency—Sandy’s J6,” I said rapidly into my throat mike. “Ambulance and medics on the double.”

“Acknowledged,” came a tinny voice in my ear.

I turned my attention back to the ‘breed. Dawson was standing over him, swinging his riot stick easily, savoring the agony, enjoying himself! Suddenly I knew the reason Dawson hung around this Class II dome! He was a sadist! He’d be kicked off the force in a decent town.

“Shut up,” said Dawson. He turned the man over on his back with a booted foot, spat in the bloody face, and drove his toe into the heaving chest. Air left the lungs in a thin whistling gasp that choked the forming scream off in mid-cry. Dawson poked him viciously in the solar plexus with the end of his stick. The man vomited. Dawson smiled and swung his stick. The red wood blurred as it came down. The sound of the blow was thick and meaty in the heavy air. “Cut-me-will-ya,—ya-punk!” Dawson panted. “Resist-arrest-will-ya—I’ll show-ya-ya-dirty—” The stick lifted for another blow.

Somewhere a woman screamed. “Stop him! Stop him! He’ll kill the guy!”

I found myself hanging onto Dawson’s arm. The power of the man nearly lifted me from my feet. He wrenched free, snarling. A thin drool of saliva hung from the corner of his twisted mouth. Red flickerings danced in his jet eyes, and as he swung the club back I had the queasy sensation that the next blow would be aimed at my head. “Don’t try it, John,” I said. His arm dropped as the muzzle of my Kelly dug into the swell of flesh above his belt. His eyes filmed, then turned chill and remote as he growled something under his breath, shrugged and walked away. He vanished through the crowd in the doorway that opened swiftly and silently to let him pass. And the tension left with him.

I wasted no time on the ‘breed. If Dawson hadn’t shocked him over the hump, he’d soon be dead from tonocaine deprivation. And right now he was out cold, which was all the good I could have done him. The Outlander still breathed shallowly. I tore my aid kit out and knelt beside him. The ‘breeds crowded around watching curiously as, in the next few minutes, I remembered and applied a lot of battlefield surgery, and by the time the ambulance came I had the man fairly comfortable, breathing easily through an improvised tracheal tube made from a flare casing. He was still unconscious from shock and blood loss, but with proper medical treatment he would survive.

“Good work, officer,” the police surgeon said approvingly as he inspected my handiwork. “That’s a neat job. You must have had medical training.”

“I graduated from John Hopkins Earth in ‘97,” I said.

“An Inner Worlds medico out here!” the surgeon murmured in disbelief. “Why aren’t you practicing? We need doctors badly.”

“Take a good look,” I said turning my face up to his. I have to admit he took it well enough.

“I see,” he said. “But—”

“Skip it.” I said. I got off the floor and watched the orderlies load the two living men onto litters and carry them out of the room. I didn’t wait for them to remove the woman. I went out to find Dawson. He was sitting in the prowler, a flesh-colored cellutape bandage stuck over the shallow gash in his cheek. His eyes were murderous.

“Let’s go,” he growled. “I’ll see that you’ll get yours tomorrow. You’ll pound a beat till your arches crack.”

The rest of the night was relatively peaceful. It was a good thing, as I was in no mood to sit in on another brawl like the last one. Toward morning I was doing the driving, with Dawson asleep in the back. I tooled the prowler along the regular beat at about fifteen per when I saw a flurry of motion down the street. I eased up behind it, slowed gently to a stop and got out.

The guy didn’t notice me. He was a well dressed Hubber from the look of him. He had a girl by the wrist and was roughing her up. It would have been no contest if the guy had been sober, because he was fully as big as I am, but since he was about two-thirds stoned, the girl was giving a good account of herself. They struggled silently, so absorbed in each other that they never noticed my arrival. The girl was getting the worst of the exchange which was reasonable enough since she was outweighed and out-muscled. Her thin blouse was half torn off, and the guy was trying to work her over with his free fist. The girl was writhing and tugging at the hand that held her wrist and was throwing his timing off. Three lines of blood across one cheek showed where she had gotten him with her nails.

She saw me coming before he did. She stiffened, her eyes widened in dismay, her guard dropped, and one of the drunk’s punches hit its mark. She folded. The man stepped in to maybe do other things to her when I caught his shoulder. One sadist a night was enough. He spun around and aimed a wild swing at my face. I stepped inside it. The stiffly extended fingers of my left hand caught him under the breastbone. His eyes popped as the air left his lungs with a startled whoosh. I chopped the edge of my right hand below his left ear, and he folded.

“Thank you, officer,” the girl said. She had the delicately slurred accent that identified her as a ‘breed.

“Just in the line of duty,” I said. “The man had no business beating you up on a public street.”

The girl rose to her feet, drawing the tattered shred of blouse together. It didn’t do much good. I got quite an eyeful. “I am very grateful,” she said. “He thought I was one of the yashniks.” She emphasized the native word that never came from earthly language and included a number of crude meanings not worth repeating.

I grinned. The effect must have been mildly horrible. “Really I’m not,” she insisted.

“Frankly, I couldn’t care less,” I said curtly. “He was attacking you. That’s enough. You want to prefer charges?”

The girl laughed metallically. “Where’d I get preferring charges against a Sendal?” she asked bitterly.

“I dunno,” I said. “Where would you get, and what’s a Sendal?”

“I’ll tell you, I’d get thirty days in the workhouse.”

“You would?” My voice was unbelieving. “And I suppose he’d get a pat on the back for doing a good job.”

“I thought you were a rookie,” she said, “now I know it. No oldtimer would be so ignorant of police methods in a Company dome. He wouldn’t get patted on the back, but he’d get off with a warning. You don’t know much about this dome, do you?”

“Guess not,” I replied. “Well, get going, miss. I’ll take this fellow to the lockup. Maybe I can find some charges that’ll stick.”

“I doubt it,” she replied as she clutched her torn blouse. “But thanks anyway. Despite your terrible face, you’re a good man.” The last words salved the sting, and the smile on her face was anesthetic to my sensitive feelings. I watched her turn and walk down the street. There was quite a lot of her to watch, and every inch of it was in the right places. I watched her till she rounded the next corner and disappeared. Then, with a sigh, I bent down and picked the drunk up by the slack of his jacket and pitched him unceremoniously into the back of the prowler.

Dawson woke with a start. “Whatinhell’s going on?” he growled.

“Oh nothing—this character was trying to learn boxing lessons from a girl. I helped her teach him. He didn’t learn so well.”

” ‘Breed?” Dawson asked.

“I don’t think so. He looks like he’s from the Hub.”

“Not him, stupid. I meant the girl.”

I nodded.

“Well—whyncha keep your nose outa his business.” Dawson demanded. He looked critically at my unconscious prisoner. “He’s a Company man, I’ll bet.”

“So that gives him a right to beat up a girl?”

“Why sure!” Dawson sounded astonished—as if the right of any Confed to do anything to a ‘breed should be challenged.

“He tried to take a poke at me,” I added. “I clobbered him.”

“Serves the fool right,” Dawson agreed. “Resisting an officer. He oughta have his teeth kicked in!”

Dawson looked blank when I laughed. Talk about double standards in Dunkelburg! I stopped laughing as Dawson got out of the back seat, stepping heavily on the drunk’s hand as he did so.

We took the fellow back to Headquarters, threw him in the tank reserved for Company men and knocked off about ten minutes early. It was too near morning for anything more to happen. At 9:00 a.m. I made a beeline for the Chief’s office, but Dawson was there first, and was getting in his licks. I could hear him through the door—not what he was saying, but the way he was saying it. After awhile it stopped and he came out the door grinning like he’d really done a job, When he saw me, his grin got broader. “OK pretty boy—it’s your turn now,” he said nastily.

I didn’t answer. I brushed past him and entered Chief Marlin’s office. The Chief, bulky, white-haired, and fatherly, waved me to a chair.

“Sam,” he said, “you really loused things up last night. Don’t you realize Dawson’s your senior?”

“Dawson—” I began.

“And not only Dawson,” he went on in the same flat voice, “you knocked Mayor Sendal’s nephew cold and tossed him in the tank. His Honor’s been raising hell with the Department for the past half hour. The nephew’s screaming about police brutality and interfering with the privacy of a citizen. His lawyer was down with a writ and the threat of a lawsuit for false arrest. I let the punk go with a ten munit fine.” He looked like he had been eating a moldy apple. “You should have known enough to run him through every test in the book. You should have gotten a confirm on that drunk rap. You should have used your camera while he was performing the assault. You should have kept your mike open to Headquarters so we could get any dialogue down on sealed tape. You simply don’t take any chances with Company men if you want a tap to stick. You goofed not once but three times. They should have taught you better in Thermopolis.”

My ears were a bright red. I knew I was wrong. I should have covered. But Dawson should have briefed me on dome SOP. Still it was my own fault not to take every precaution. I deserved to get skinned, and Marlin was doing a good job.

“But you really pulled the plug when you pulled a gun on Dawson in front of a group of half breeds.”

This time I felt Marlin was wrong, and happy for an excuse to defend myself I cut in on him.

“Sure,” I said. “I should have let him beat the guy to death. You’ve got a report on that ‘breed. Those contusions, bruises and fractures were all Dawson’s doing. I burned the guy’s hand, but even that was Dawson’s doing. He didn’t need to go in like that. And then the damn sadist was going to club me because I stopped him from killing the guy. Should I stand quietly and let him knock my head off?”

“Nooo—I guess not,” he said, “but I’m going to have to discipline you, if not for Dawson, then for your stupid actions in jailing the Mayor’s nephew. We have to keep on friendly terms with the civilians, and you’re elected as the horrible example.”

“That’s all right with me,” I said, “but let me cue you in about last evening. You’ve got a sadist on your force, and someday he’s going to kill someone important—like the Mayor’s nephew,” I said. Rapidly I sketched the evening fracas at Sandy’s. Marlin’s eyes narrowed a little.

“You sure that ‘breed was on tonocaine?” he asked.

“Positive!” I said. “I was on Gakan for a year as a medic in the CAF. I’m able to recognize an addict as far as I can see one. That’s why I’m here. But, of course, you know that.”

Marlin nodded. “The Commissioner told me he was sending a specialist, but I didn’t know it was you. Your records haven’t gotten here yet.”

I nodded sympathetically. Snafu can happen anywhere, even in the police force. Some clerk obviously figured that my dossier wasn’t vitally important. It’d be along in a day or so.

“That’s the seventh drug case!” Marline muttered. “This is getting serious. The ‘breed died, you know,” he said almost as an afterthought. “Never regained consciousness.”

“Sure—I expected that. He was in shock, badly beaten, and in his weakened state the deficiency syndrome finished him off in a hurry. If we had brought him in intact, we might have gotten some information out of him. Did your medics try to rouse him?”

“Of course. They did their best, but he died anyway. When they tried to revive him he went into convulsions.”

“You know what drugs they used?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know one blessed thing about medicine.”

I shrugged. Virtually nobody except the Patrol and the army medics knew anything about tonocaine. Probably the Dunkelburg medics didn’t even know that analeptol—one of the common reviving stimulants—is a deadly poison to a tonocaine addict.

“I should have stopped Dawson sooner,” I said. “But he caught me by surprise. I never thought he’d do what he did.”

“Dawson is a bit hard on ‘breeds who resist arrest,” Marlin said.

“A bit?” My voice was incredulous.

“Stopping him didn’t change things,” Marlin said.

“It probably wouldn’t have made much difference,” I agreed. “By the time Dawson started working him over there was enough trauma to kill him at the first stage of the deprivation syndrome.”

Marlin’s face hardened in decision. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to give you a two month’s suspension.”

“What!”

“That’s for the Mayor,” Marlin said. “Actually, you’ll still be on the payroll, working on tonocaine.”

I grinned inside. There was plenty of worry about this drug. A medical education had its compensations.

“Why make an undercover agent out of me?” I asked. “I’ve had no training along that line.”

“You don’t need any. You’re a medic. Just go out on the Rim and hang up a shingle. You’re probably on the ‘breeds list as a good guy after what you did to Dawson and the Mayor’s nephew. You won’t have to worry about going out looking for information. It’ll come walking in to visit you. And there’s another reason I’d like to have you on the Rim—you’re one of the few men here that I can trust. You haven’t been around long enough to get mixed up in the dirt.” His face developed some new lines. “I’ve lost three good men on this dope business.”

“Tough,” I said, “but if you don’t want to lose a fourth man, you’d better fire me, at least for the public record. I wouldn’t get anywhere with a suspension. Everyone would know I was still a cop, and I wouldn’t learn a thing—but if you fired me I’d have a chance.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Need any money?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got plenty. I’ll keep accounts and bill you later.”

“Now,” Marlin said, “if you’re going to be an agent there are a few things you should know.” He reached into his safe and brought out the Black Book. “Manual for Undercover Procedure” is its real title, but nobody on the force calls it that. It is a thin volume of code and recognition signals for undercover agents.

It took an hour with Marlin’s neurosynthesizer before I had the procedures and code down well enough to satisfy him. I couldn’t let on that I knew it already. That would have been a dead giveaway that I was already on special assignment, and right now I trusted no one, not even Marlin.

Finally he nodded dismissal and put the Black Book back in his safe. I waited until he turned around.

“Let’s make this good,” I said. My voice rose. “—if that’s the way you want to run your Department,” I roared, “you can take the whole thing and stuff it up your fat left nostril!”

He played up to my lead. “Williams!” he bellowed. “You’re fired! Get out of here and don’t come back! You’re through!—done!—finished!” he grinned at me and continued shouting. “Now get your ass out of my office and turn in your badge. And if I catch sight of you around here again I’ll run you in for vagrancy! Get out, damn you!” His voice rose to a maniacal scream.

“It’ll be a pleasure,” I snarled as I jerked the door open, nearly pulling the nosy patrolman in the outer office into my lap. I rabbit punched him as he stumbled by, and he slid forward across the polished floor on his face. I slammed the door behind me, breaking the glass. It looked convincing enough to fool an expert.

CHAPTER VI

« ^ »

I hardheeled down the long corridor to my quarters, collected my slim assortment of civilian gear, and left. I didn’t bother to turn in my badge. I left it lying on my bed on top of a heap of police blues and issue equipment. Officially I was no longer a cop, at least not in Dunkelburg. I was still on the job for Lantham and Crowninshield and a Headquarters assignment carried through until I was relieved. But from now on I couldn’t work openly.

I hailed a cab and was driven out to the Rim. Cruising along slowly, I found a so-called “Hotel” that looked a trifle less dingy than its fellows. I got out with my gear, paid the cabbie, and walked into the tiny lobby. The proprietor cast a look of doubt at my face, smiled at my money, and rented me a set of three rooms at the rear of the second floor. The rooms were clean, with good locks on the doors. I had a view of the top of the rimwall and the base of the dome from the bathroom window in the rear. The heavy, four meter thick wall was a bare two meters from my bathroom window, with a narrow walkway running between the massive footings that supported the dome. An athletic type could easily jump from the bathroom window to the top of the rimwall. It was a good emergency exit in case trouble came in the front way, and the proprietor obviously figured that anyone who looked like me had a standing invitation for trouble.

It didn’t take too long to unpack my few belongings and presently I was outside, rolling around the Rim on the walkways. I killed an hour and a half making the circuit. The rim was even more squalid in the daylight than it was at night. With a sigh of disgust, I turned back to my rooms.

Judging from what I had seen on the circuit, there was an absolute vacuum of medical and dental service. I’d have no trouble establishing a practice. The only problem would be to keep it within bounds. So I spent the next few days doing nothing while I made up my mind how to go. The news of my presence had filtered all around the Rim before I finally hung up a shingle above the entranceway. It read “Samuel Williams, M.D., Room 227”—nothing more.

I sat back and waited for my first patient. I didn’t have long to wait. It was a kid and his mama—a dirty-faced sobbing ‘breed kid with a broken arm. From their clothing and manner, I figured that they were charity cases, but I wasn’t really, worrying about a fee. What I wanted was a reputation; so, I did the best I could with the equipment I had. I calmed mama and kidded the youngster while I gave him a shot of somnol. When he was out I set the bone, pinned it and bonded the broken edges. He woke up about ten minutes later, sniffled once, and then whooped with joy when he found he could move the arm and use his fingers. I told his mother to take care of him and not to let him use the arm much for the next few weeks or it would probably break again, fixed the kid a sling which he could show off to his fellows, told the women the fee would be ten munits, when and if she could pay it, and ushered her toward the door. Right then I got one of the minor surprises of my life. The woman removed a notecase from her blouse, paid me in cash and flashed me an amused smile.

“I look better, doctor,” she said, “when I’m dressed to go out. But when Jimmy came home with his arm dangling I couldn’t think of anything except to get him to a medic.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“I saw your sign, and I know how long it takes at the hospital. Jimmy could wait there for hours before someone would take care of him. So I thought I’d try you. It’s nice to have a doctor on the Rim. We’ve never had one here before. I hope you’ll stay. And thank you for helping my boy.”

I made a few reassuring noises about staying and building a needed practice and smiled goodbye. I don’t think it was the smile that started it, but by the end of the week I had more patients than I could handle. They came and they went. They didn’t seem to notice my face. What they did notice was my manner, my hands and my skill. Two weeks after I started I found that I needed more room and a few assistants. The proprietor was cooperative. I don’t know how he did it, but he cleared the entire side all the way to the front, knocked interconnecting doorways through the walls, and let me have the layout at a rental less than he could have gotten for the separate rooms.

I braced him about it and he looked embarrassed. “Hell, Doc—we needed someone like you out here on the Rim. We ain’t got any medical care to speak of, and the outpatient service at the hospital treats us like dirt. My wife’s a ‘breed and I like these people. I want to see them get some of the services they need, and the little I’m going to lose in rent, I’ll make up in bar bills from the weak sisters who’ll need fortifying before facing you.”

So I had a clinic. All I needed now was a couple of nurses and wardboys and maybe another doctor. I couldn’t handle the business alone. So I passed the word that I needed help. The response I got! There must have been a thousand of them, all sizes, all ages, and both sexes! I worked out a deal with Hank Eliot, the owner of the hotel, and his wife Sara. They weeded out the obvious misfits, and I interviewed the rest.

She was the tenth girl I interviewed. I had taken down four names before she came, and I tore them up. She was the girl I had rescued from the fists of the Mayor’s nephew. She recognized me at once, but I wasn’t so quick. Her face hadn’t been too pretty after absorbing a few slaps from the drunken bum, and I had been looking at other things than her face at the time. This time her torso was covered.

“We meet again, Officer Williams,” she said, in her delightful accent. I recognized the voice. I looked her over, tall, clean, golden skinned, with a proud, high-cheekboned, oval-eyed face that reminded me of that famous head of Nefertiti. I stared like a country clod.

“I came about the job,” she said.

I nodded. I licked dry lips, tasted a faint flavor of sulphur in my throat, coughed, looked hopefully for a nonexistent glass of water, and then, sounding like my old anatomy professor, I said in a dry, pedantic tone, “Have you any qualifications for the position, Miss—er—Mrs.—”

“Kendrick,” she smiled. “Sofra Kendrick—and I’m unmarried. Yes, I think I have. I’ve been a receptionist for Disability Compensation for the past three years—and I have some acquaintance with medicine and medical terms.”

“The salary’s two hundred a month,” I said. She really must have affected me because I’d planned on offering one-fifty to start.

Her face lighted. “That’s three times what I’m getting now,” she exclaimed. “I could—” she paused—“I haven’t even got the job,” she said ruefully.

“You would have to act as a nurse,” I continued. “I need help with surgery.”

“I can do that,” she said with decision. “No ‘breed lives who has escaped the sight of blood.”

“You’ll have to study. I want you to become registered as soon as possible—and the only way you’ll be able to do that is to pass the proficiency examinations. It won’t be easy. The education is painless enough, but I’ll work you unmercifully until you learn the techniques. The hours will be brutal, and some of the sights appalling. There will always be danger of infection and disease. Now, do you still want the job?”

She looked at me with shining eyes. “More than ever,” she said.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll try you. You can have it.” She looked like she wanted to cry.

While I was at it I hired a couple of big young fellows as wardboys and another girl, a little black-haired thing who looked too hungry and too bright to let go. Zelda was her name, and she was delighted to get the hundred a month as a scrub. She started right away, and from the first day on kept the place so clean you could eat off the floors. She was pure jade, but Sofra was diamond. She learned quickly and I never had to tell her more than once. She spent her spare time learning the duties and technical background of a nurse and within a month was doing routine lab work with skill and precision. She went through my texts and the education tapes at the hospital with speed and comprehension, so I bought more and she digested those too. And, in addition to picking up background in medicine, she ran my office with an efficiency I could never have equalled. In two months she was running me—buying me clothes and smocks and forcing me to get a three-wheeler to make my outcalls.

I liked the clean look of her body, and the way she moved and carried herself, but I’d be a fool and a liar if I didn’t admit it, but there was something more than physical attraction, a certain clarity of mind, insight, a basic virginity of character that was even more entrancing. Anyway I looked at it, Sofra Kendrick was something extraordinary. At the best, I was attracted to her—at the worst, I was in love. I was fairly sure it was the worst.

I didn’t dare let her know. My face was still too much of a mess to even hope that someone like Sofra would look at it twice. It was inconceivable that she would see anything in me that would arouse an emotion more intimate than mild revulsion. So I did nothing—no overt acts, no passes; I kept the relationship strictly business.

Three months after I had stormed out of Marlin’s office, I was “Doc” to practically every permanent resident of the Rim. I had become a medical Jack-of-all-trades with the accent on Jack. For despite my efforts to keep some semblance of balance between fees and patients, I was never able to do so. The inhabitants of the Rim were fairly well heeled and ‘breeds were proud. I had a gold mine whether I wanted it or not.

I started to pay more attention to police work, and to keep my eyes and ears open for information about tonocaine. Since I used narcosine routinely as an anesthetic, I learned quite a bit although most of the information was blackmail material rather than news about the killer drug. Narcosine is not only a good anesthetic, but it’s also one of the best truth serums in the business, and the patient never knows what has happened. I had to be careful, because I didn’t want my staff to know what I was doing. Not that I didn’t trust them, but they might talk and that could be dangerous. If some of my patients learned that they were talking in their sleep, life might get precarious.

But as far as tonocaine was concerned, I wasn’t doing well; in fact, I wasn’t even getting off the pad. Apparently none of my patients were drug runners. A multiple dermal abscess told me that the tonocaine came in from Outside, but that particular patient never came in again.

I had the nagging conviction, completely unsupported by any concrete evidence, that this tonocaine business was far more deadly than it appeared on the surface. To the official eye it looked like a drug ring was being set up on Arthe. The kilogram of uncut drug discovered in Thermopolis, the seven known addicts in Dunkelburg, the scattering of junkies in other domes—more now that the local police chiefs had been alerted about what to look for—all indicated that a number of domes, perhaps all of them, had stores of tonocaine hidden inside their walls. To my mind there was plenty of drug but too few addicts. Conditioned by my experiences on Gakan, that could mean only one thing; the drug was coming into the Domes to be used the way the Geeks had used it against our fortresses. If it were for sale, there would be a rash of addictions. Instead, it was being stored and only isolated cases among the handlers had appeared. This was, at least to me, a far more plausible conclusion than the one Headquarters was proposing. From what little evidence I possessed, it was highly probably that Arthe was being set up for a slaughter. I took a trip to Thermopolis and after due precautions contacted both Crowninshield and Lantham. I gave them my opinion and drew blank looks from Crowninshield and mild objection from Lantham who gave me a number of reasons why I was wrong. Lantham figured it as a straight drug peddling operation that was getting set up to hit all the key domes at the same time, thus putting an intolerable burden on the police. He ignored the fact that the domes were seething cauldrons of resentment and that there was enough hatred on Arthe to trigger a dozen blood baths. The natives hated the Companies and despised the halfbreeds. The Companies resented the police force and the planetary administration the Confederacy had forced on Arthe. The dome dwellers feared both the ‘breeds and natives. The ‘breeds hated everyone including themselves. In one breath, they all clamored for more freedom and more controls. In this seething witches’ cauldron, something was bound to erupt.

CHAPTER VII

« ^ »

Joe Riker stood in the door of my office one Wednesday afternoon with an angry Sofra clinging to his arm and trying to block his entrance. She was saying something in a frantic voice about the doctor being busy and not wanting to be disturbed. It was my afternoon off, and I wasn’t supposed to be at the clinic.

“One side, girl,” he said in a peculiar husky voice. “He don’t look busy to me.”

I spun around, with a bottle marked “Formaldehyde” in one hand while my other reached toward the Kelly in my half-open desk drawer. My mail had contained a few crank letters recently, and some of my patients were patently psychoneurotic. I couldn’t help them much since I’m a surgeon not a psychiatrist, but they made me nervous.

My visitor was vaguely familiar. I had seen him before, but I couldn’t recall where. He was one of those Type “C’s” who could get around on Arthe like the natives, middle-aged—a little past eighty, I guessed, although his skin, wrinkled and leathery from exposure to the harsh Arthean climate, was that of an older man. Then my synapses made the proper connections and I remembered. This stringy, barrel-chested man was the Outlander I had patched up months ago at Sandy’s place. The scars were faintly visible, forming a jagged “y” across his lean brown neck.

My visitor saw the Kelly. “Hey! Don’t shoot, Doc!” he rasped. “I’m friendly—this is a business visit—but this nurse of yours has been stalling me for the past half hour and I ain’t got much more time.” He nodded at Sofra who had dropped her grasp on his arm and stood glaring nastily at him. “I wanted to thank y’ for savin’ my life—an’ make y’a proposition.” He held out his hand. “I’ve been looking for you ever since I got through unloading.”

“He’s got a gun in a shoulder holster,” Sofra said.

“Here,” the Outlander replied, “if that’s what’s bothering you.” He pulled his jacket open. “Take it,” he said to Sofra.

She looked at me. I shook my head. Her eyes glowed defiantly as she removed the Kelly. “I’ll keep this in the office,” she said. Her voice radiated disapproval. The little man grinned.

“She mothers me,” I explained as I laid my Kelly back in the drawer. Sofra snorted and disappeared. “Come in,” I continued.

The little man took the invitation and closed the door behind him. “My name’s Riker—Joe Riker,” he said. “It took a long time to find you and thank you personally, but I ain’t in town very often. I owe y’ my life.”

I shook the outstretched hand and said, “Don’t mention it—Have a drink.” I gestured at the bottle.

He looked at the label “For-mal-dee-hide” he pronounced slowly. “Hey! Ain’t that embalming fluid?”

“Yes.”

“No—thanks!” he said hurriedly. “You don’t mean you drink that stuff?”

“Of course not—not formaldehyde.” I laughed. “The label’s camouflage—an old army habit.” I reached into the desk drawer and came up with a couple of beakers. “This is pretty fair whiskey,” I explained as I poured three fingers into one of the glasses.

The door opened softly behind Riker and Sofra peered in suspiciously and then withdrew. I guess she figured that Riker couldn’t do any harm without his gun, and with a glass in his hand. She hadn’t noticed the knife strapped to his forearm—but it didn’t matter—he couldn’t have touched me anyway. Reflexes tempered by a year on Gakan have a speed no normal man can match.

Riker sniffed at the beaker. “I guess one won’t hurt,” he muttered as he lifted the glassware. He still stood, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another.

I took pity on him. “Sit down,” I said, gesturing at a chair. He sat—gratefully. His clothes exuded the dry, metallic odor of the Outside.

“My strength still ain’t back,” he explained apologetically. “I thought I’d be all right once they let me outa that hospital, but I’m not what I was. The drive in from the Roost still gets me. But I ain’t forgetting what you did for me.”

“You don’t have to remember it,” I said. “It was all in line of duty—and it’s over now. And you might as well forget about the man who cut you while you’re at it. The police took care of him.”

Riker grinned ferociously. “I’ll bet they did—if they had time. But I don’t think they had time. I heard bully-boy Dawson was there and I’ve seen him operate. He damn near killed a guy once who was living it up a little too loud. And there’s lots of stories about him out in the Authority. And about you, too.” He stopped and looked sharply at me.

I was interested. I hoped that I didn’t show any more than polite interest, but I could feel my heart leap into high gear. Riker had made a slip. And although he covered well, he couldn’t hide the casual reference to time that told me he was familiar with tonocaine. Only someone who knew how the drug acted would have made that statement. And though he used Dawson as a cover, and used him smoothly and competently, there was something about the inflection of the first part of his speech that didn’t quite jibe with the last. It was as though he were talking about two different things. Most civilians don’t know that it is death for a confirmed tonocaine addict to be suddenly deprived of the drug. Riker knew too much! His inflection said loud and clear that the ‘breed had died quickly, that he was a tonocaine addict who was out of life.

I said a number of polite banalities about how nicely he had recovered, and how happy I felt about it, shook his hand warmly and ushered him back into the outer office before he was quite certain what was happening. He went out like a woolly lamb and Sofra looked relieved when he had gone. She didn’t care much for Outlanders. Prejudiced, I suppose.

I finished my day, closed the office, waved Sofra a fond goodbye which she returned rather coldly, and went out onto the Rim. I guess she didn’t like it that I didn’t back her up when Riker pushed past her into my office, and was taking out some of her resentment on me.

I drove along the Rim until I came to a little restaurant near Sandy’s place where I usually ate. I parked the car, went in, and ordered an Arthean excuse for a meal. The coffee was terrible, and the reconstituted steak and eggs had seen better days, but the vegetables were good. I pecked at the meal with an unwilling fork and was in the middle of lifting a morsel to my mouth when Riker appeared.

He came straight over to my table and sat down opposite me. “I’ve been looking for you, Doc,” he said.

I put my fork down and looked at him. “You found me once,” I said. “Why the second time?”

I could see uncertainty chase itself across his face. Apparently he didn’t expect this sort of reception. But it didn’t discourage him because he began again. “I didn’t get a chance to finish talking with you at your office,” he said. “I had a lot more to say.”

Whatever else he was, the Outlander was determined. I grinned at him. The effect must have been better than usual because he grinned back. I found myself liking him. After all, I’d saved his life and I always feel a certain gratitude to my recovered patients for simply getting well. A lush waitress came over to the table and looked at us inquiringly.

“Bourbon,” Riker said—“a bottle of it.” She nodded and brought a bottle of native distillate and two glasses.

Riker looked at the bottle critically. “This isn’t like your stuff, Doc, but it’s halfway drinkable.” He filled the glasses, pushed one over to me and held the other up to the light. “Here, friend, is the stuff of dreams. They lie here trapped in glass, little two-carbon aliphatic molecules that can drown regret, banish fear, and ease the ache of conscience. For a while they can make a man a king, kill the past, cloud the future, and make life bright instead of drab.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s why there are so many drunks.” He tilted the glass and drained it smoothly.

I looked at him curiously. I could have suspected many things about Joe Riker, but never that he was a poet. “I’ve been checking on you,” Joe announced. “So?”

“They tell me you’re pretty good.”

“That’s nice.”

“You can do better for yourself than messing around this tank town.”

“How?”

“We need a medic. You could make a killing during Convo, and that only lasts a month or so.”

I looked blank. My incomprehension must have been quite apparent because Riker grinned. He explained. “I shoulda known you didn’t know much about Outlanders. We’re traders; most of the year we’re out in the boondocks, but we get together at the Roost for a month to sell our take and get new stuff to trade. It gets kinda rough in the Outlands so when we get in on Convocation we relax pretty hard.” He grinned. “What we need is someone to patch us up after we get through relaxing.”

I chuckled. “How about the rest of the year?”

“Well, those of us who are out trading are too busy to get in trouble and the holdovers at the Roost get along pretty well. It’s only the Convo that’s rough.”

“I can imagine,” I said without enthusiasm. “It sounds active.”

“It is,” Riker said. “It’d be a nice vacation from this stodgy life and you’d earn at least five thousand, maybe more. The boys chipped in five kilomunits to buy a medic, and you’re the best I know.”

I did a lot of thinking while I listened. It was a virtual certainty that Riker knew more about tonocaine than a civilian should, and it was equally certain that the drug was getting into Dunkelburg from the Outside. Maybe this was the lead I needed. The characteristic odor of the fungus would prevent it from being grown in a civilized community, but in some dinky class III or IV dome out in the Drylands where there was no law, it might be grown with impunity. Possibly Riker’s outfit was involved in drug running as well as trading. I couldn’t take the chance of turning him down.

At any rate it would be no worse than staying around here. I was getting overdue for a change of scenery. Here there was altogether too much Sofra for my morale. One of these days I was going to make a pass at her—and I knew how that would turn out! It would be better for both of us if I got out for awhile before the pressure got too strong, and I did something foolish.

“It sounds like you people have a regular war up there when you get together,” I said.

“It’s an active life,” Riker said with a shrug. He filled his glass again and emptied it with another breathless swallow. “Well, I’ve told you the setup. How’d you like to come along?”

“I’d have to think it over,” I replied noncommittally.

“You ain’t got much time,” Riker said. “I’m pulling out of here for the Roost tomorrow afternoon. If you decide on coming, be at the Tenth Street Gate about two p.m. If you decide not to come, I’ll just have to try another dome next trip.” He stood up. “If you come, get yourself a good outland kit. Not being a Type C, you’ll need a respirator. Don’t forget it.” Then he was gone.

I sat there watching Riker disappear out the front door. I didn’t even swear when I found out that he had stuck me for the bottle. I paid the check and drove back to the office.

The windows still showed lights. I wasn’t surprised that Sofra or Zelda was still there. Maybe they both were. Those girls would kill themselves with overwork if I’d let them. I climbed the stairs slowly. I felt disgusted. Here it was eight o’clock at night and Sofra was probably nursing some case that could just as well have waited until morning.

I opened the door and stepped right into the clinching reason I was going to make that trip with Joe Riker. My guess was right. There was a patient and she could have waited until tomorrow. She could have; she had waited too long already.

She was sitting in a chair wrapped in one of the long cloaks the natives use to shield themselves against the chill of evening. All I could see was a face of wistful beauty, thin, delicately boned with enormous dark eyes that looked hopelessly at me, and a mouth that was pinched white at the corners, perhaps to keep from screaming. It was a mad face, a face that had looked upon horror and hadn’t completely survived.

“Look at this!” Sofra said. Her voice was tight with anger and horror. She raised the girl to her feet and removed the cloak.

I looked and my stomach crawled. I could feel every bite of that reconstituted steak dinner turn over and threaten to come back the way it had gone. Underneath the cloak the girl was naked. She had to be. Her body was in no condition to accept clothes. It was covered, literally covered, with half-healed cuts, burns and bruises. Both forearms were broken and crudely splinted. Her rib cage on the right side looked as though someone had jumped on it. Two or three ribs were certainly broken, and there was more damage. There’s no point listing it. It’s enough to state that the girl was thoroughly brutalized—like nothing I had ever seen. Whoever did this made Dawson look like an angel by comparison.

The lesions were several days old, and the miracle was that she was still alive. Whoever had savaged her had done the job with care, skillfully, sadistically—aiming to maim rather than kill. And he had succeeded. I laid the blame automatically upon a man. No woman could have resisted the temptation to disfigure the girl’s face.

I didn’t see the old woman until that moment. She came out of nowhere, it seemed, plucking at my sleeve, talking so harsh and fast that I lost her almost immediately. She was obviously of native stock, and her wrinkled face was contorted with a mixture of pleading and malignity that beggared description.

“What is she saying?” I asked in an aside to Sofra as the old woman kept pouring out a harsh flood of pain and supplication.

“The girl is her great-granddaughter,” Sofra said as she replaced the cloak and helped the girl sit down. “Her name is Tehane Callahan, and she was wild, beautiful, willful and discontented. She had a young man but she did not want to marry and live her life in the Authority. She wanted travel and excitement. She wanted to go somewhere where there would be no stigma of ‘breed, somewhere away from Arthe. It’s not an unusual desire. Many have it, and some even manage to emigrate.”

I nodded. This was nothing new.

“This one,” Sofra said, “thought she had found an easy way to make money quickly, and thus achieve her goal.”

The old woman broke in again, but Sofra took her by the shoulders. “Peace, mother,” she said. “I will tell the doctor that which he wishes to know. Go sit with the child and care for her, and nurse your hate for him who did this.”

“He? I thought so,” I said. “Go on—tell me the rest.”

The old woman went over to the chair where the girl sat and Sofra went on. “A month ago the girl went from here out into the Outland with a trader. She was, so she told her parents, going to work in a trading dome and make two thousand munits, which would be enough for her to leave Arthe. Her family, of course, protested, but it did no good. She went anyway. There she did what she was paid to do. It wasn’t as easy as she thought since there is considerable difference between a proposition and reality and the costs are high. But she was pretty and was doing well enough until two weeks ago when a wave of traders came in for a Convo. One of them hired her, and when he was through she was as she is now. Somehow she crawled out into the street where some kindly soul picked her out of the gutter, dressed her wounds, and brought her back here. She went to her grandmother who brought her here. I asked who the man was that brought her back but the grandmother doesn’t know and Tehane’s description sounds like the man you were talking to this afternoon. If it was, I am sorry I was so rude, for I think he kept her alive.”

“He might be,” I said. Tehane had been remarkably lucky. Normally she should have died of shock. As it was, she had an excellent chance of survival, and a fair chance for complete recovery. Her body would heal quickly enough with the treatment I could give her but I was more worried about her mind. I shook my head, crossed my fingers, and hoped that the girl had a tough mental attitude. At the moment, she looked to me like a first class candidate for a mental institution.

I swore softly and with feeling. I’d give a month’s fees to have the sadist who did this job in my office right now. He wouldn’t get out in one piece, that was sure. Sofra looked at me with a peculiar expression on her face. I guess it was shock, but there was something else in it, too. I suppose she never knew I could swear. I never did around her.

I walked over to the girl. “Who did this thing to you?” I demanded.

The girl spoke in a monotone with a chilling lack of expression, but a comforting rationality. “I do not know his name. The others called him ‘killer.’ He was big with yellow hair.”

“Where did this happen?”

“The place is called the Roost—Trader’s Roost. It is far out in the Outlands. I do not know where.” Quite suddenly she began to weep. “I did nothing to make him do this to me. Why did he do it?”

I smiled. Tehane would be all right. She was tougher than I thought.

“Can you help her?” the old woman asked. “Can you make her well and beautiful again? There is a good man, Ramah Sotris, who will still have her. He is a fool, but he loves her.”

“It won’t be easy,” I said, “but I think we’ll be able to fix her as good as new.”

Tehane smiled very faintly as I took the old woman by the shoulders. “Go home, mother, and get some sleep. Tomorrow you can see her. She will be all right and you cannot help with what must be done.”

I turned to Sofra. “Did you list the lesions and check what we’ll need?”

She nodded. “I sent Zelda out to get the orderlies. I have checked our supplies and we have almost everything we need. We can get the rest from the hospital. I’ll send an orderly for it as soon as he arrives.” She smiled at me and ushered the old woman to the door, while I helped Tehane into the surgery. She looked at the gleaming equipment fearfully.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t feel a thing, and in a few weeks no one will even know you were hurt.”

“I can’t stand being ugly,” she said. “I’ll kill myself.”

“I didn’t,” I said, as I touched my scarred face.

“But you are a man, and do not need to be beautiful,” she said. “Without beauty a woman is nothing.”

“You don’t know how wrong you are,” I said, “but you won’t find out this time. You will still be beautiful. That is a promise.” I helped her upon the table, smiled reassuringly at her, and gave her a shot of narcosine. Sofra rigged an I.V. while I hauled the regenerator over to a convenient position, checked the boneset apparatus, and sighed. From a superficial examination there’d be six bones to reset and immobilize; two radii, two ulnas, and two ribs. Probably there were more. I set the diagnosticon for a whole body scan and turned it on. While I waited for the printout and started to scrub I kept swearing in a monotone. If I never did another thing, I was going to get my hands on that yellow-haired trader called ‘killer.’

Sofra entered the room and began to lay out instruments while I finished decontamination and read the printout. There was another broken rib and a fractured wrist but internal injuries were minor. I was thankful for that.

It was ten o’clock before we got the staff assembled and got started, and five the next morning before we finished. I wiped my sweating brow and thanked heaven for a strong stomach. The girl would have to stay in bed for a few days, but she would be all right.

We turned her over to the night boy, and I looked at Sofra. “I’m going to take a vacation,” I said.

“When did you decide that?”

“When I saw that girl. I’m going with Riker to Trader’s Roost. I want to find this ‘killer’ character. A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to run loose.” I grimaced with disgust.

The man might also be a tonocaine addict, and that made him even more interesting.

“I suppose I can’t stop you,” Sofra said dully.

“Not this time.”

“Well, when are you going?”

“Today—this afternoon.”

“Oh—no!” The words sounded strained—wrenched from her rather than spoken.

“You and Zelda can hold down the office,” I went on. “But don’t try to practice—refer the serious cases to the hospital. I’ll see that they take them. They don’t want to get in bad with the Medical Association. You can do first aid work if you want to, but don’t charge a patient or take any money—you’ll be open to arrest for practicing without a license if you do—and the Association is death on quacks. Just live out of our cash reserve and keep books. There’s plenty of money for everything and we’ll get going again when I come back.”

“Yes, Sam.”

I did a quick doubletake in the darkness of the hall. She had never called me by my first name before. Nor had I ever heard that peculiar note in her voice.

“I’ll say goodnight,” I said softly. “I’m dead tired.”

Sofra made a quick movement in the darkness and for one tingling moment I felt the warm pressure of her lips, her arms around my neck and her body close against mine! I stepped back astonished. “Sofra,” I said stupidly, “How—why?”

“Because you’re good—because I love you,” she said quietly.

“My face—” I replied. “You couldn’t!”

“It means nothing. Certainly it is scarred, but your heart is whole. It is the heart that counts.” Before I stuttered a reply, she was gone.

CHAPTER VIII

« ^ »

I managed to get a few hours of restless sleep before Dunkelburg woke to a new day. I had dreams—mainly about Sofra. I understand that’s what happens when love disrupts the chemistry of the sleep center. I awoke reluctantly. It was another day and what had happened last night was just the product of an over-wrought nervous system plus an emotional reaction to the sadism that had been practised on Tehane. I had patched the girl up, therefore I was a hero. I snorted. By now Sofra had time to think things over. There was no profit in dreaming.

Then I saw Sofra. She was standing in the doorway looking at me, a half smile on her face.

“You look terrible,” she said. “You need breakfast and thiamin. Now lie still and I’ll get it for you.” She walked across the room toward my kitchenette trailing glory behind her. The whole room looked twenty lumes brighter. “I thought I’d show you my good qualities before you go up among all those girls at the Trader’s Dome,” she said. “I want you to remember to come back.”

“As if I could forget.”

She smiled at me. It looked strained, plastered on her face rather than coming from inside her. “Just don’t let anything happen to you. We need you here on the Rim,”—she paused, “and I need you, too. I need you badly, Sam.”

So it wasn’t a dream after all. I shook my head. I wasn’t about to question her judgment, even though I felt that she could do lots better. Of course, she could do worse. I wouldn’t always be ugly, and I did make a good income—and I certainly was in love with her. She did things to me no other woman had ever done. I loved her enough to be faithful to her. I was like a schoolboy in the throes of first love.

Why should I go out into the discomfort of the Outlands? I had no desire to go anywhere. I know that I could have what I wanted. And I wanted what I could have. Then I remembered Tehane and tonocaine and the whole picture was spoiled. I had to go. There was no other way. So I went out into the pale daylight of the dome and headed for the Hub.

I had no experience with Outland kits, so I was an easy mark for a clever salesman who spent his life convincing reluctant buyers that now was the time to get something they neither needed nor wanted. By the time he finished with me, I was considerably heavier in goods and lighter in money. I looked at the assortment of things I had bought, pinched myself to see if I was dreaming, and then called for delivery service. Two husky ‘breeds showed up, grinned greetings at me, and disappeared with my purchases. They didn’t have to be told where to go. Everyone on the Rim and most of the Authority dwellers knew of me.

I finally went back to my apartment and spent most of the remainder of the morning sorting equipment and packing it into two oversized gearsacks. By noon I was ready and dressed in what the salesman assured me was the latest Outland garb. I decided to give the kids a thrill, so I opened the door to the reception room and stood there framed in all my glory.

I got a reaction all right! For a second following the first startled gasp and Sofra’s “Oh, Doctor! I didn’t realize you were back,” there was a dead silence. Then Zelda giggled!

That did it. And just as the howls of unseemly mirth were reaching their height, the door to the ward opened and the wardboy stuck his head into the office to see what the riot was about. He looked at me. He didn’t smile, but his face got very red and he made muffled strangling noises as he quickly retreated.

“Doc, Doc! I’ve never seen such a getup in my whole life!” Sofra chortled. “What happened? Did the salesman sell you all the back shelves of the store? Really, you should have let me shop for you.”

“I bought these clothes all by myself,” I snapped, “and what’s more, I like them. Just because you ignoramuses have no knowledge of style and efficiency is no reason to laugh. Why, these are late models.”

“Late is right. Like the late Mr. Jones,” Zelda giggled. “They’re dead! At least you’ll be safe on your journey. No native’ll dare lay a finger on you. With that respirator on, you look more like a Shambra than Zosser himself.”

Since Zosser is the native god of the underworld, a huge black dogheaded monstrosity that looks like a caricature of the old Egyptian deity Anubis, I didn’t feel particularly complimented. I snorted in disgust and, after making a cutting remark or two about the sartorial taste of some women I knew, fled from the field before they could reply.

I strode defiantly out onto the Rimwalk still looking like a charter member of the Explorer’s Club, but by the time I reached Khanad Smith’s shop, I felt more like slinking. The covert glances and half hidden grins that had followed me for three hundred meters were hard on the nerves. Smittie’s place was open. Pawnbrokers, too, kept peculiar hours. I knew Smittie fairly well. He ran what passed for a pawnshop which was a front for a number of things that weren’t exactly legal, but somehow or other he managed to get away with it. I hadn’t been on the Force long enough to find out why he was allowed to operate, but there was probably a reason. My bet would be that he was an informer, a copper’s mark. Nevertheless, he was well known and even liked by many of the Rim’s population. For awhile I had thought he might be involved with tonocaine, but gave the idea up for lack of evidence, and lack of plausible motive. The danger was too great for Smittie. He would cheat you blind, but I’d never known him to fool with Class I crime or to hurt anyone physically.

“Don’t say it!” I warned, as Smittie did a double take at my clothes. “I’ve had all the yak I can stand.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, Doc—it’s only that you look so—er—different,” he said. A peculiar grimace creased his face as he spoke, like a smothered guffaw.

“That grin is going to get you a broken nose, my illegal friend,” I growled.

His face smoothed out. “No thanks, Doc,” Smittie said hastily. “You look swell—simply grand. Now what can I do for you?”

Smittie had exactly what I wanted, and although he protested that he didn’t have the least idea of what the thing looked like, I presently became the proud owner of a nice, long-barrelled Mark VII Kelly-Magnum that could project with accuracy for about two thousand meters. There were laws against Kellys in the domes except in the hands of the police, but who was Smittie to worry about such minor things? He brought the Kelly out of hiding, wrapped in several layers of opaque pliofilm, and padded liberally to conceal its outlines.

“For Shambra’s sake,” he said worriedly, “don’t take this job out of wraps until you are outside the gate. It’d mean my neck if anyone ever traced it to me. Once you’re outside, it’s all right.”

“You must have a regular arsenal hidden around this shop,” I teased.

“Don’t even think that!” Smittie’s voice was anguished. “I don’t know anything about guns. I ain’t never seen you before and I don’t want to see you again. Now, get out of here and don’t shoot nobody. I can’t stand thinking about what you might be doing.”

“Don’t worry, Smittie. I’ll cover for you,” I said. “I may need it where I’m going, and I don’t want the cops confiscating it any more than you do.”

He nodded in understanding. “Incidentally, where are you going?” he inquired.

“It’s a secret,” I said. “I got word of an unclaimed mineral outcropping in the Outlands, so I’m going hunting for it. I’ve got a map. Bought it from a prospector a couple of months ago.”

Smittie chuckled. “Five will get you five that you’ve been gypped. But you should have a good time hunting. That is, if the natives don’t sacrifice you to their dark gods.”

“I don’t think they’ll do that. Zelda tells me I look too much like Zosser to be hurt—especially with my respirator on.”

“Hmm, you do at that,” Smittie said. He was too agreeable. I could have cheerfully strangled him. He realized his error and hastily smoothed it over. “Have you ever been outside, Doc?”

“Not really. I was out once with a bunch of tourists looking at a Shambra city.”

That was too much. Empathy or no, Smittie couldn’t take it. He bawled, “Oh brother! What a rude awakening you’re due to get. Vacation, you say. It’s more like life in a salt mine!” Smittie was still chuckling when I left.

Back at my office I had a tearful session with Sofra who kept insisting that she loved me, that I shouldn’t go out into the dangers of the Outlands, that she was sorry she had hurt my feelings, that it wasn’t right of her after I had been so good and that I ought to beat her for acting so badly. I kept telling her that I loved her too, that she wasn’t right about hurting my feelings, that I had to go or I wouldn’t feel like a man, that I wasn’t nearly as good as she thought, and that the last thing in the world I would do was beat her. Finally I gave up and tried kissing her. It worked like a charm.

CHAPTER IX

« ^ »

There was the usual confusion at the gate. The airlock-type entrances to a dome aren’t designed to be inspection stations, and the recently imposed cargo inspection ordinance turned the normal flow of inbound traffic into confusion compounded with chaos. Big sausage-wheeled rolligons, the standard Outland vehicle, and more conventional trucks from the air terminal were stacked outside the gate while harried cops tried to act like customs inspectors.

I flagged a couple of porters and sent them to my apartment to collect my gear. I didn’t dare go back and meet Sofra again. All my good intentions might go flitting down the tube.

I watched the police search the incoming vehicles. They checked each cargo with standard Patrol inspection probes. From where I stood, it looked as though the only additional thing they could do was tear every bale and carton apart. Maybe they’d have to do just that if they were going to find the drug that was getting into the dome.

My porters and Joe Riker came along together. Joe was sitting behind the wheel of the biggest sand wagon I had ever seen. It towered above me on its eight outsized flotons. It was a rig capable of negotiating almost any terrain Arthe could offer. Its rollers gave it immense traction and flotation, and its armor was proof against anything short of a semiportable projector. I waved up at him and he waved back.

“See ya decided to come,” he shouted. “But what’s that screwball rig you’re wearing?”

I treated the remark with the contempt it deserved as the two porters came staggering up with my gear sacks Riker’s eyes opened wide as he saw the size of the load “All that stuff yours?” he asked.

“What did you think I was going to do up at that place of yours? Make my own drugs, instruments and reference books? It takes equipment to run a clinic “

“Okay, sorry I asked.” Riker turned away and did something inside the cab, and a sliding door rolled up along the side of the cargo body of the wagon. “Have your men store your gear inside,” Riker said.

I paid the men after they had stowed the sacks to my satisfaction, and climbed up the ladder to the cab. Riker drove to the gate and in a couple of minutes we were outside and on our way to the Phargan Canal. The gate inspection consisted of a wave of the hand by one of the officers. “Some inspection,” I remarked as I looked back at the receding gate.

“They seldom check you when you’re going out, but they sure give you a bad time going in. You got any idea what they’re looking for?”

“They didn’t tell me,” I said.

“They didn’t tell me either, but when I came in they really went through the freight. A big rig is a standing invitation to snoopy gate guards. I guess it makes them feel important.”

“Could be,” I said. I thought that if Riker was going to play dumb, I could play just as dumb, and in this sort of one-upmanship I had the advantage that I wasn’t supposed to know anything about gate inspections.

Riker fed fuel to the turbines and it didn’t take us long to reach the rim of the vertical sidewall of the canal, where we could look over a kilometer straight down, and over two kilometers to the opposite sidewall. The enormous artificial rift stretched straight as an arrow to the north and south, disappearing to a point in the distance. Riker turned north and followed the edge of the canal for several kilometers, then grunted with satisfaction as he swung the rig onto the corrugated surface and over the edge of the sidewall. We floated down the narrow track carved out of the living rock millennia ago. It was a hair raising road that descended along a steady six percent grade to the floor of the canal. I had an excellent view since my side of the cab faced the canal. I felt a touch of vertigo, and quickly shifted my eyes to the opposite wall of the canal. The ramparts of the watercourse rose abruptly from the level floor cut into curlicue patterns by the meandering loops of a vegetation choked stream.

The old explorers were right when they called these rifts canals, and they were equally right when they ascribed them to the work of intelligent beings. Certainly their technology was superior. Even today, no race in the Confederation has the ability to carve such gashes in a planet’s surface. At this point the canal was about two kilometers wide because it was passing through a low range of hills, but past the hills it widened to five or six kilometers. As we floated down the sidewall I could see that Riker was tense and sweating, and looked as though he expected trouble at any moment. Finally, when we reached the bottom he gave a sigh of relief and grinned weakly.

He wiped his forehead, and then switched on the autocontrol. “That grade gets me,” he confessed wryly. “I keep thinking it’s a perfect place for an ambush, but somehow the natives don’t think so. At any rate they don’t take advantage of it. Maybe it’s because the Shambra built it.”

“Are you having trouble with the natives?”

“No more than usual. They’re a treacherous and murderous lot and they hate our guts, but one can’t spend all the time worrying about them. Either they get you or they don’t. The only time I worry is when I go down that sidewall. I think I’m afraid of falling.”

I nodded and turned my attention to the landscape. The dark olive drab vegetation choking the watercourse slowly drew nearer until Riker twisted the wheel and the van turned ponderously on its rollers and headed north.

I had never seen a canal at close range, and it fascinated me, for in these gigantic rifts in Arthe’s crust lie the life forms that once may have filled this world. Near the water narrow-leaved plants interspersed with gnarled Calpa and Ko trees lift horny limbs into the thin air, and form hiding places for animal life. The viciously competing jungle along the stream banks thins rapidly as it gets farther from the water, becoming stunted scrubby growth which gives way to grasses and then to barren sand a few hundred meters from the stream. The ryks and gorrons prefer the jungle and the outlying scrub is the domain of the smaller animals and man.

At intervals a cluster of deadwood marks an old strangled oxbow loop where water had once been. Less tangled growth outlines the water trails and new stream beds carved by the summer freshets. The gradient of the canal is so slight that the stream course constantly changes during the summer months when the melting polar icecap brings the lifegiving water to Arthe’s surface.

The resource and ecological balance developed ages ago is still so good that life on Arthe will survive indefinitely. But the enormous effort to keep the world alive must have done something to the canal builders, perhaps destroyed the vitality that is needed for a race to build achievement upon achievement until it finally reaches godhead. Apparently everything after the canals was secondary. The first inhabitants of Arthe went no further. The canals have an air of finality about them, of ultimate achievement beyond which nothing more was possible.

They apparently did not have spaceflight, or if they did, they did not have the hyperdrive. Had they discovered 4th space they would have been everywhere, and their race would not have come to an end. They were confined in the temporospatial trap of threespace. It was a lucky accident that gave humanity the knowledge that made star travel cheap and practical. And it was that knowledge, perhaps, that kept us from boredom and the fate of the Shambra. With the whole universe in our pockets, how could we ever become tired? But the way to hyperspace is possibly a unique discovery, and so humans live and the ancient Artheans have died. Perhaps that is the way of it.

I shook my head. There was no end to speculation about the Shambra. They were the enigma to end enigmas. With an effort I stopped thinking about them and focussed my attention on the route we were travelling. Like a stuck solidograph reel the repetitive landscape came into view before us and slipped steadily to the rear. There was an essential grimness to the view that weighed upon the spirit.

The soothing hypnotic drone of the turbines filled the cab, but I had the strangest impression that we were floating in a sea of silence, that the noise of our passage was swallowed and dissipated in the brooding hush around us. There was danger here—and death. I could feel it. The whole landscape lay waiting expectantly for an opportunity to strike.

Riker looked at me, a sly grin twisting his face. “Gets you, doesn’t it?” he asked drily.

“It’s too quiet. It feels wrong.”

“It always feels wrong. There’s nothing right about the Outlands. That’s the trouble with Arthe. There’s too much wrong.”

Riker pulled a stubby black pipe from his jumper, stoked it with native weed and blew a cloud of acrid smoke at the regenerator. He leaned back in his seat and wriggled into a more comfortable position. I sat quietly looking out the window and feeling ever more uneasy. “Doc,” Riker said, “you’d make a pretty good Outlander if it wasn’t for your lungs. You’ve got a feeling for the land. You’re right; it is dangerous and it is deadly, but you have to wait until the danger comes out of hiding before you can do anything.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes it never comes out of hiding,” he finished.

I looked across the cab at Riker. He certainly wasn’t my idea of a boss pusher, or even a supplier, but who can tell anything about looks. He seemed busy with his thoughts, and except for the alertness of his eyes he could have been asleep. I didn’t have the least idea what his thoughts might be, but mine were focussed on Arthe. And thinking about Arthe led to thinking about the people who inhabited her, and thinking about the people led to thinking about the past, and thinking about the past led inevitably to… I sighed. I’d been over that road before.

Something clicked in the autocontrol, and things began to happen with rapidity. The brakes slammed on, the wheel spun, and suddenly we were sliding to a stop facing at right angles to the direction we had been travelling. The drive linkage clunked deep in the belly of the wagon and the turbines hummed quietly under no-load.

“That’s it,” Joe said. “Now you can worry.” He grabbed for the gun controls of the upper remote semiportable mounted on the roof of the cab. “Get your magnum out and stick it in that gunport beside you,” he said. “We may be in trouble.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

He didn’t speak. He touched the arming button of the semiportable and let the blaster speak for him. Set on continuous projection and minimum aperture, the energy tore and slashed at the line of scrubby vegetation beside us. With a crash that was thunderous in the silence a section of what appeared to be solid topsoil vanished into a deep pit spanning our line of travel. Clouds of dust rose into the air, and when they settled I looked into a hole big enough to bury two wagons the size of ours.

“The natives are restless,” Riker said. His face creased into a thin smile. “They keep trying. They probably used the whole tribe to dig this pitfall. I suppose they marked my track coming down, and they knew the truck would take the same path coming back. What they didn’t know is that autocontrol is designed to guard against this sort of thing.

“Anyway, they won’t try this trick again. They gradually learn what’s profitable and what ain’t. They got a couple of old vans last year with pitfalls and mines, but they don’t have a chance against the new rigs. Well, this bunch won’t make that mistake again.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not positive but I’ll give you odds of two to one.”

“Won’t they attack anyway?”

“Why? We outgun them, and the weapons they have won’t get through our armor. They know what they can do and what we can do, and the odds aren’t in their favor.”

I couldn’t help thinking of the labor and hate that had gone into the construction of that pit. There must have been plenty and the futility of their effort must rankle. They were probably watching and the sight of us rolling off into the distance must have been wormwood to their souls. I wondered what it would take to discourage them completely.

There was altogether too much hate in this world. No one was secure enough to be tolerant. Even the domes had memories of the nuclear explosions that had wiped out four of their number, and the possibility of a tonocaine attack was giving those in the know some very unpleasant feelings. I shivered at the thought of what could happen. Tonocaine could destroy Arthe even more effectively than triatomate, for when the panic and the shooting was over there would be nothing left. If the natives succeeded in poisoning the domes, the Patrol had a legal right to intervene. They’d probably call in the Armed Forces and when the smoke cleared Arthe would have reaped the whirlwind.

Artheans didn’t know the charred hell that could be made of a planet with modern weapons. And since they were confined to the terrain corridors of the canals they would be sitting ducks for air strikes. They hadn’t seen Kardon with nearly 90% casualties, or Gakan, where one in every twenty lizards was left alive. They hadn’t seen the scorched pockmarked wreck that a mere police action could make of a world. Here such an assault could literally destroy everything. Ignorance, I thought bitterly, might be bliss somewhere in the universe, but not on Arthe.

A nagging thought that I wasn’t thinking straight gnawed at the corner of my mind. There was something wrong with the picture I was painting. And then there was light. Ignorance? Artheans weren’t ignorant. They had already had experience with overwhelming force, and had casually been slapped down by a handful of troopers. They had previous experience, and they never made the same mistake twice. Riker wasn’t the only one to remark on this. The trait was also a ‘breed characteristic.

It wouldn’t be overt force that would be used against the domes the next time around. The attack would be far more subtle. They wouldn’t use techniques that had been tried and found wanting. They simply couldn’t be plotting massacre. It was too crude, too direct, too open, and too out of character.

But if someone else wanted to make patsies out of the natives, that was a different thing entirely. Someone, maybe, like the unknown who gave them the idea how to make nuclear bombs and brought on the punitive expedition. That person knew how the Confederation would react to the nuclear explosives. He was probably an agent provocateur for the Companies, but the Companies had all they wanted now, and there was no need to destroy the natives. Although tonocaine could be made to look like another verse in the same old song, the music was subtly wrong. Whoever was setting the natives up this time had something entirely different in mind.

It fitted. I was as certain of it as I was that I was sitting in the cab of Riker’s sand wagon. I could have kicked myself for being so stupid. I wondered why I had never considered the affair to be anything other than a native plot to clean out the domes. Certainly I should have at least given a passing thought to the idea that someone might want to clean out the natives. I had been running on the wrong track for months. I wondered how many other agents were running on the wrong track, and what happened to those who ran on the right one.

If the natives were not behind this, all the parameters were different and all the picture was changed. A complete kill of the domes would be neither desirable nor necessary. There only need be enough to arouse the Confederation. And the motive could be almost anything from revenge to commercial war, to political plot. There were all sorts of motives.

My thoughts left me confused and uncertain. They didn’t point out any well-marked path to follow. They merely replaced fear with uncertainty, and in the end failed to abate the fear. I didn’t know the answers, and I had the grisly feeling that I might not have enough time to get them. I grinned mirthlessly. Whatever else this trip might accomplish, it had at least opened my eyes. I wondered if it was better to die with one’s eyes open or shut.

CHAPTER X

« ^ »

We reached Trader’s Roost after three days of travel during much of which I reviewed what I knew and what I didn’t know. I suppose I was bad company for Riker, but that couldn’t be helped. My ideas about “H-Day” didn’t change much. I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. That decision was in other hands. As for the rest, I would get word to HQ as soon as possible and in the meantime I’d try to collect more evidence.

Trader’s Roost was shabby and pitted with the dome itself badly in need of new plastic facets. A class IV structure that could have dated back before the punitive expedition, it was located on a low bare hill and was about one-quarter the size of Dunkelburg. It seemed small and unimpressive until I saw the armament. Most of the weaponry was concealed from casual inspection, but I had been in the Service long enough to know the true nature of those innocent-looking plasticone covered lumps and bulges along the rimwall. I whistled softly between my teeth. Whatever was inside must be pretty valuable.

We went in through the nearest of the two airlocks and past a battery of Patrol-type detectors. The folks who ran the place weren’t taking any more chances than they could help, and contrary to Dunkelburg police, they were efficient. A polite guard confiscated my magnum with a smile. “We don’t allow these in here, mister—at least not in private hands. I’ll store it for you until you’re ready to leave.” He put a tag through the trigger guard and wrote my name and ID on it. “If you don’t own one already, you can buy a small handgun at the gunshop if you don’t feel comfortable unarmed,” he added as an afterthought. “And as for you, Joe,” he said to Riker, “the Boss wants to see you as soon as you get cleared. Now get going.”

Riker looked puzzled. “Now what went wrong this time?” he asked of no one in particular.

We passed through a perfunctory decontamination and emerged into a closed area with a pair of big metal doors at the far end. We got out of the cab and walked over to a glassed-in cubbyhole near the doors. Riker checked his manifest with the man behind the glass and received a signed receipt which he folded and put away in his jacket.

He sighed, shrugged his shoulders as though he had just unloaded a heavy weight, and turned away. A couple of hard-faced men entered the wagon and drove it through the rear door which swung wide as the vehicle approached.

The interior of the Roost lived up to the outside appearance; battered, tough, dirty and primitive. The walks didn’t roll so we had to push our way through a jostling crowd of pedestrians. Fortunately, there was no vehicular traffic except handcarts, but our progress was constantly impeded by Outlanders, boisterous men who shook Joe’s hand, pounded his back, and questioned me silently with their eyes. Before we had gotten a quarter of a kilometer, I guessed that about half the population of the Roost knew that there was a doctor in town and had a general description of me to boot.

My impressions were confused. I had a kaleidoscopic picture of noise, color, an occasional scream, drunken laughter, and the sharp whiplike crack of a gunshot. The Roost put Dunkelburg’s Rim to shame, and made the company town look like a staid tea at a ladies’ aid meeting. Apparently there were no police here, or if there were, they were safely out of sight.

Everyone in the dome lived on the Rim because the Hub was nothing but a solid mass of windowless warehouses into which the two radius roads from the gates passed. It was the Rim and the outer rings of buildings that provided the life. And they did a good job if clamor, color, and confusion were any criteria. We made our way through the crowd until we came to the dark entrance of an office building backed against the warehouse area. The entrance was flanked by two guardposts and a robot doorkeeper. Riker stopped and looked at it for a moment.

“The Boss?” I asked.

Riker nodded, fumbled in an inside pocket of his jumper and produced a square of plastic which he passed into the nearest guardpost. The shining one-way glass gleamed featurelessly as we waited. Finally a mechanical voice came from the annunciator.

“You’re okay, Joe, but who’s the man with you?”

“Doc Williams,” Riker said proudly. “A real, honest-to-Shambra M.D.”

There was a clinking noise behind the glass and two squares of plastic came back through the slot. “Here’s your ID, Joe, and one for the medic. You’re cleared to enter. Take your friend with you. The Boss wants to see him.”

Inside, the small lobby was empty except for a guard post at the stairs and the elevator shaft. The place stunk of cheap perfume like a second rate call house. The smell made my eyes water as we crossed the lobby and entered the up shaft. We jumped and rose smoothly upward out of the stink. I counted the floor levels as we slipped by. At the sixth level Riker nodded to me, grabbed the exit rod and swung himself through the door. I was a little slow and dropped nearly a foot as ray heels hit the hall floor. I felt embarrassed at my clumsiness, but I had little recent familiarity with antigrav shafts, and leaving them is a trick that has to be practiced. Riker turned down the hall past another guardpost. This one stood beside an ordinary-looking door. Riker and I held our ID’s to the scanner plate and the door swung open.

There was no gradual transition of reception room. We entered a modern office filled with ‘breed girls busily working under the cold blue eye of a blond Lyranian. He looked at us, pursed his flexible lips at Riker in a gesture the humanoids use instead of a smile. Despite the fact he looked like he wanted to kiss Joe, it meant nothing of the sort.

Riker shrugged and pushed open a door at the far end of the office. “Hang onto your helmet,” he said as he entered. “We’re now coming into the fountainhead of authority.”

I blinked at him, wondering at the florid language, but in a moment I understood exactly what he meant. We walked straight into a set from the Videos. It looked like pre-atomic Arabian with modern conveniences, except that the decor was Arthean rather than Earthian. In the middle of this gorgeous collection of carved Calpawood, screens, divans, drapes and pottery, sat one of the fattest women I have ever seen.

She was enormous! She literally overflowed the divan on which she sat. She was smoking a fat Earth cigar and eating something small, round and juicy. The smell of food and good tobacco was pain in my perfume-clogged nostrils. Two cold gray eyes looked at me from their hiding places in the full moon of her face. Her body might be fat, but there was nothing fat about those eyes. They were cold, polished, gray ice. Once I looked into them I was acutely aware that this woman was perfectly capable of holding her own against any competition.

She gave no indication that she liked or disliked what she saw. She speared one of the brown balls with a fork and held it poised for a moment before she popped it into her mouth. She chewed, swallowed and wiped her lips with a napkin while I waited. I hoped that I seemed equally at ease, but I was at a disadvantage since I was standing and had nothing to occupy my mouth except silence.

Riker broke the ice. “Kate,” he said, “this is Doc Williams, the fellow I was telling you about in Dunkelburg. Doc, this is Kate. She owns the Roost. She’s Boss here.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said.

Kate took and ground her cigar into shreds in an ashtray beside the divan. “Are you?” she asked curiously in an utterly incongruous mellow contralto.

I made a quick evaluation and decided on the hard line. “Do you want truth or flattery?” I asked coldly. I did my best to get the idea across that I didn’t care much for her attitude, and I wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

Kate blinked. “Joe,” she said, ignoring me, “I thought you were going to bring us a doctor, not a rayburned space bum. He’ll scare patients to death instead of curing them. I don’t like your taste.”

Riker’s face whitened, and I felt a familiar flash of anger. She had unerringly found my tender spot. But I didn’t say anything. I just smiled. I let her have the grin with teeth in it. It must have been worse than usual because she shut up as though someone had slapped her across the face with a wet towel. Her eyes widened and a tiny flicker glinted momentarily in their depths. I guess it took plenty to shut Kate up once she got started, because Riker looked at me with open-mouthed surprise.

Kate did a complete turnabout. “You know,” she said smoothly, “on second thought, maybe you’re just the sort of man we need. Perhaps I should apologize.”

“That would be nice,” I murmured.

So help me, that mountain of blubber sitting in front of me started giggling and her eyes echoed the laughter of her mouth. The rolling billows of her fat shook and I couldn’t stay mad. Her laughter was contagious. I chuckled along with her, even though I was certain that her mind, like mine, was only superficially amused.

“Shambra!” she finally gasped. “You scared ten pounds off me! You looked like a devil straight from hell! But I guess I had it coming. Sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“Don’t kid me,” I said. “You don’t scare that easily. I’ll bet you just tried to see how far I’d push.”

“Possibly,” she admitted. “‘After all, a lily-liver has about as much chance in the Roost as a snowball would have in the middle of hell. If you don’t have guts I like to know it right off.” She chuckled easily, deep within her fat. “Well, let’s let it go at that. You’ll do. No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings,” I agreed. “And now that we’ve settled the problem of guts, I have a problem of my own.”

“So?”

“Money,” I said. I spelled out the proposal Riker had offered and then I said, “I’d like it in advance.”

“Why? Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that there’s too much uncertainty in this world. You have too many guards to be a good financial risk. Whoever’s trying to get you might succeed before I got my dough, and then I’d be out a fee that I could use.”

“And how do you know that this won’t happen to you?”

“That’s the chance you have to take. And besides, I figure if you have a good investment in me, you’ll take pains to protect it.”

“No dice,” Kate said. She stopped talking and thought for a moment. “Tell you what,” she said, “I’ll work it this way. I’ll put the money to your credit at the bank in Dunkelburg. Then if you do all right, you can get it when you get home, but if some accident happens and you don’t return, neither of us will be out anything.”

“That’s fair enough,” I said, “providing that I die of natural causes. Gunshot, poison, or any other violence make the dough mine.”

“And just what good will that do you if you’re dead?”

“Two goods,” I said. “In the first place you won’t be able to recover it by killing me, which is insurance for my staying alive. Secondly, it will help keep my clinic in Dunkelburg going in case I don’t survive.” I looked at Kate and decided to lay as much on the line as she should know.

“You see,” I continued, “I left Dunkelburg for this job because it is temporary, and because it involves enough munits to help me travel in the direction I wish to go.”

“And where’s that?” she asked.

“I want some first class instrumentation,” I said, “a cardiac bypass, a kidney shunt, a tissue transplanter and a leurocytograph.”

“Aren’t those things in the dome hospital?”

“They are,” I admitted, “but most of my patients either can’t afford them or are too stiff-necked to use company facilities. I’ve lost a few whom I could have saved with proper equipment.”

Kate snorted. “The trouble with you,” she said, “is that you’re an idealist. Get practical. Learn the purpose of money. The stuff is no good at all if you use it to relieve distress. There are always distressed people, and if you give them aid they ultimately forget it’s a favor and think it’s a right, and that you’re expected to provide for them forever. And if you do provide, you’re hated because you don’t provide more.” Kate shook her huge head. “Doc—you’re running down the wrong road. Money can be properly used in only one way, and that way is to gain power. To gain power over people, over production, over politics. Money and power—the two go hand in hand.” Her gray eyes took on a feral glitter. “I’m a fat old bag,” she continued, “but I have money and I have power. Some day my money is going to make me the biggest person on Arthe.” She paused and closed her mouth tightly, the compressed lips looked oddly tiny in the vastness of her face.

I couldn’t help the ribald thought that she was already the biggest person on Arthe. But in a way I pitied her. There was a cold amorality about Kate that was fascinating. It reminded me of the reptile house in a zoo, with its sluggish saurians that could be so dangerous when roused. I had the feeling of balancing on the razor edge of disaster as I talked with her. It was pure excitement! Outwardly at east, we were quite friendly when we parted, and whatever she wanted to see Riker about was forgotten. Joe and I walked out of the building and into the clean odors of oil and ozone. I drew a deep breath of relief. That atmosphere was almost unbearable.

“Thanks, Doc, you saved my neck again,” Riker said. “She would have been down my throat if you hadn’t been here. I think I’ve got it pegged. She’s sore over a lousy hundred munits I stuck her for on the expense account last month. She’s a tender woman with a munit—loves them like babies.”

I murmured something in reply and looked at the card Kate had given me. It had an address written on it in Kate’s fat handwriting. I showed it to Joe and he nodded, “Yeah. I know where it is,” he said. It was halfway around the Rim from Kate’s. The bottom part was one of the biggest bars in town, and the three stories above it were a whorehouse. It could have been worse. Some attempt had already been made to clean the second floor and turn it into a clinic. Furniture had been added to replace what had been moved out. The beds remained, but their purpose would be different. A couple of hard-eyed women were sitting in what might be the reception room. They looked tired. Probably they’d worked at cleaning the place. One of them—her name was Mana—even had a smattering of medical knowledge. Where she had picked it up I’ll never know. At any rate these two were probably no worse than the rest so I made them an offer to work with me. They went for it like a drunkard for a bottle, and the four of us pitched in and began to arrange the place properly. I sent Riker after my gear and dragooned the manager of the bar downstairs into lending me some of his people and some mops and brooms.

Riker brought back my supplies and helped for a couple of hours before going downstairs for his long delayed drink. It was slow work, and I could see that we’d never get done and open for business inside of a week unless I really got some help so I went downstairs, found Joe and explained the situation. He said he’d see what he could do and went out. In about half an hour, people began to arrive, halfbreeds looking hopefully for jobs, traders looking for excitement, and men and women who just wanted to help. I hired some and accepted the services of others, and when we knocked off late that night, we were ready for business the next morning.

I opened the place hopefully, expecting a few patients. I was disappointed. Instead of a few, it seemed that half the Roost was outside. They went clear down the stairs into the bar below. I thought that I’d worked in Dunkelburg and in the Service, but I never knew what the word meant until I opened this place. Treatment of wounds, lacerations and contusions was from the start a major part of my practice, a part that grew larger as new arrivals kept coming into the Roost from the Outside. For the first few weeks I was worked to death before I got my staff trained well enough to handle the minor emergencies. We ran the place strictly on an outpatient basis except for emergencies. There was too much to handle any other way. Fortunately the traders were a tough lot, and our recovery rate was good.

I made it clear from the beginning that my services were available to anyone, and held rigidly to the rule that emergencies came first, and afterwards it was first come, first served. Oddly enough, there wasn’t any trouble about my rulings, but I suppose Outlanders are basically more tolerant than their less rugged cousins in the domes. At any rate, I had an easy time getting the idea of equality of suffering across.

I never made the mistake of thinking that this operation was a free clinic. I knew Kate better than that. She never would have stood for giving something away that had value. So I charged regular fees from the start, and spent the first free hours I had in her office where we argued about costs, equipment and profits.

We hammered out an agreement. My retainer was already deposited in Dunkelburg. I’d charge regular fees and pay the help. Anything left over went to Kate out of which she’d supply necessary drugs, instruments, and equipment. The rest was hers. Kate was unhappy about it, but I flatly refused to consider any substantive modifications; so she made the best of it.

By the end of the week I had the whole second floor. Bill Alwyn, the fellow who leased the bar downstairs, used to call the place my harem on account of the number of girls I had working for me, but he was happy about it. His business was tripled what with nervous patients having a couple of quick ones before braving the doctor in his den. I ran a school at night, teaching my staff fundamentals of medicine and nursing. My little library, a dozen volumes ranging from Muller’s “Human Anatomy” to Maciewicz and Holland’s “Physiological Basis of Medical Practice” got a real working over. In my spare time I’d tape lectures and force feed them over Kate’s neurosynthesizer. They went through a meat grinder course that I’d never have taken, but they liked it and howled for more. As a result I had a useful and disciplined corps of assistants who would have been a credit to any clinic in the Confederation—and it was fast, too, I hadn’t been at them more than a week before they really took hold.

I never saw such desire. They took the routine matters off my hands and left me free to handle the emergencies and to do investigative work. However, the usual troubles were still with me. Since Kate probably had one or two spies among my help, I had to be careful to avoid the appearance of being nosy, and I was generally too busy to learn much at any one time. I marked down some interesting leads for future reference, but I seldom had a chance to follow up unless I could hospitalize the subject. It was considerably more difficult than Dunkelburg because I had no backup and no really trustworthy assistants. But one way and another, I accumulated bits of information. Superficially, they didn’t add up to much except a consensus that Kate was playing some sort of shady game. There were a few interesting sidelights on the trade in weapons that went on with the natives. I was a little surprised that the Traders who should have been smart enough to realize that they couldn’t sell blasters to hostile natives and expect to live to tell about it afterwards still traded Mark IV’s for gorron and ryk hides. Of course the Mark IV isn’t the latest thing but it’s a potent weapon even though its rate of fire is slow. The natives had the hides and the traders needed them to stay in business. The natives wanted blasters and wouldn’t trade for anything else; so the trade went on. About the only thing that would unite a group of Traders against gun running was the knowledge that a modern, high capacity, energy weapon like a Mark VII was in native hands. Under these conditions they declared private war for its recovery and, if the weapon could be traced they promptly executed the one who sold it.

I was hoping for the big break where I could get all the answers at once, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Most of my investigative work was negative, just like it had been in Dunkelburg. There were few interesting patients. Through small talk and narcosine, I learned enough that I could have made a comfortable income from blackmail. But I wasn’t interested in that sort of knowledge—what I wanted was tonocaine, and information on that subject was nil.

I couldn’t conceive that this place was as clean as it seemed. I firmly believed that Kate would sell her soul if the price was right and, furthermore, I couldn’t help thinking that she had already done it. I had accumulated no evidence to back my belief, but from what I knew of Kate, she was precisely the type who would go for the accountant’s answer. Where the rewards for winning were greater than the penalties for failure and where the odds in favor of winning were good enough to warrant the risk, there Kate would be found, immersed right up to her second chin.

The first break in the silence arrived in the person of one of Kate’s guards who came reeling into the clinic late one night with a split scalp. Since Mana was the duty nurse, I took a chance and gave him personal attention complete with narcosine. When he left with his torn head neatly sewn together, I was the possessor of more solid information than I had acquired in all the preceding months I had been involved with tonocaine.

Tonocaine was in the Roost all right, and Kate was deeply involved in it. It was being grown in that big vaultlike building where Kate had her offices. That explained the sickening perfume; it hid the faint but unmistakable odor of the fungus. That ended any doubts I had about this being a non-native operation. Maybe some Confed would grow tonocaine for the natives, maybe even Kate would if they could offer her enough wealth. But the natives didn’t have enough, not nearly enough to tempt her appetite.

Kate began to assume the larger figure of Mr. Big, the person for whose benefit the blood bath was being planned. Death on Arthe would drive the Companies’ stock to rock bottom levels on the Confederacy exchanges. Someone with money could pick them up for a song, and when the smoke died down that someone would be in control of more wealth than a human had a right to have.

The other break came just before the end of the Convo season. Already some of the traders had assembled their goods and weapons for another trip into the outside, but their departure had little effect on the number of casualties handled by my clinic. If anything, they increased since those remaining were the hard cases and had more room to swing bottles, knives and guns.

The casualty list was pretty much as usual for the evening until a badly battered girl was borne in on a makeshift stretcher by a pair of porters. I didn’t see her right away, but when I did, memory caused my blood pressure to jump about twenty millimeters.

“Killer!” I said.

The girl was out. Mana had already given her narcosine. She wasn’t nearly as damaged as Tehane had been but the M.O. was the same. I went to work on the cuts and bruises punctuating my efforts with a running sulphurous commentary as I repaired the damage. For a while I didn’t realize that the sounds coming from the girl’s bloodless lips were words. But when I did, I stopped swearing and started to ask intelligent questions, and listen to the answers. Finally I finished the job and pulled off my stained gown. I knew where my man was—at a dive called “Trader’s Rest.” It was on the other side of the Rim and I’d have to hurry because he might leave if I waited too long.

“Where are you going, Doctor?” Mana asked when I told her to finish the girl and take charge for the rest of the evening.

“To find this girl-beater,” I said.

“You’re too good a man to waste your life over a yashnik.”

“She’s a human being just like you, and you weren’t any better than she a few weeks ago,” I reminded her. “And I’d kill anyone who did this to you—or to any of my staff.”

“You are too good a man to waste yourself on me,” Mana said without emotion. “There will be no good served by what you plan to do. Even if you kill him it will do no good. I know this man. He is favored of the woman who owns this dome.”

The Rim was quieter than usual. A man probably could be heard across the street if he shouted. Of course, there were the usual run of drunks, most of them with bronze-limbed girls clinging to them like leeches.

Down the street one of the innumerable fights was going on. A motley crowd ringed two combatants who were exchanging blows for the favor of a half-naked tart who watched them with cold dispassionate eyes. It was a lousy fight. Both the principals were so drunk they could hardly see each other, and whichever of them won, he’d probably be the loser. I’d bet my last munit that the girl would roll him before night was done—and that Kate would get fifty per cent of the take!

I walked by without stopping, passing a couple in a doorway engaged in an abusive argument replete with anatomical detail. Their voices rose above the hoots and jeers of the spectators watching the fight, but nobody paid them the slightest attention. Someone screamed from one of the upper windows above my head. I shrugged, as I picked my way slowly down the street. It was bad, but no worse than usual.

I was pretty well known by now, so I didn’t have to go prepared for trouble. I was too valuable a property to be either a sparring partner or a target. Quite a few of the crowd were ex-patients of mine, and as a result I was kept busy answering assorted greetings that ranged from polite to obscene.

I finally came to Trader’s Rest, a cheap dive composed of one part bar, one part flophouse, and the remainder devoted to followers of the second oldest profession. I pushed the door to the bar open and went inside. The inky blackness was relieved but not lighted by a scattering of low intensity glow tubes in the corners. I turned to the bar which was located conveniently near the front door and somewhat better lighted than the murky area beyond, where an autorecorder continuously played squirm for those who wished to dance.

“Bourbon,” I said to the bartender—and wonder of wonders, I got exactly what I asked for, real Kentucky bourbon, straight from Mother Earth! I looked closely at he fellow in the white jacket, wondering if he could have made a mistake in the dark and given me the wrong bottle. Then I recognized him. He was the seven stitches and head poultice I had the first day I opened for business. He had healed nicely. The subcuticular sutures hadn’t even left a scar.

“Good ‘t’see ya, Doc,” he said. “Hope y’ like your drink, I keep that stuff for guys I like.”

“You look fine,” I said, “hardly a mark on you.”

“You’re good,” the bartender answered. “Anytime I can do you a favor—”

“You can,—right now.”

“Name it.”

“Know a character called Killer?”

“Yeah. He’s upstairs now.”

“Tough guy?”

“On dames. He likes t’ beat ‘em up. Crazy, I guess—but don’t let him fool ya. He’s hell on wheels in a fight. I’ve seen him clean the bar out all by himself. Y’ lookin’ for him on business—or pleasure?”

“A little of both,” I said. “When I get through my business with him, it’ll be a pleasure to patch the pieces—without anesthetic!”

“I’m sorry I told you,” the bartender said gloomily. “I hope you’ve got a gun and you know how t’ use it.”

“I have. I do. Where is he?”

“Third door on your left, third floor.”

The bartender watched me uneasily as I disappeared. It was obvious he classed me as a lamb going to slaughter. But outside of his air of disapproval, he didn’t make a move to help or hinder me. There was an unwritten law in the Roost that a man killed his own snakes. If he got bitten, that was his tough luck. I found the room easily enough and from the sounds coming through the metal door, I was barely in time to save myself another patient. There was a girl and she was screaming—nice strong screams with anger and outrage in them. The fellow hadn’t gotten to work yet. There would have been entirely different sounds coming through the door if he had.

I tried the door. The guy was careless, or maybe he just didn’t give a damn. It was unlocked. I opened it and looked inside. He had the girl stripped and spread-eagled on the bed and was dangling a belt in front of her nose. She knew what was coming, but she flared defiance and screamed threats and obscenities into his grinning face. He was giving her his entire attention, a single-minded attitude that would have been admirable under other circumstances. He stiffened with startled surprise as I slipped into the room and jabbed him gently in the brisket with the muzzle of my Kelly.

Pete Krasna’s twisted, hot-eyed face stared into mine.

CHAPTER XI

« ^ »

Expression vanished from Pete’s round features. Humanity vanished as though it had been wiped off with a sponge, leaving only a blank mass of flesh framing a twitching mouth and pinpoint-pupiled eyes.

“Colonel,” he said thickly. “Colonel Williams. Hi ‘ya!” He had trouble with his tongue. The words were slurred.

“So you’re the lousy sadist,” I said softly. “I thought you were back on Earth. I figured you a lot of ways, but not this.” I took a firmer grip on my Kelly. “I never figured you’d have to beat broads to get your kicks.” I nodded at the bed, never taking my eyes off his face. He was loaded with tonocaine and as dangerous as a turpentined tiger. He had been my friend once, but he was an addict now and I wasn’t taking any chances with him. That would be suicide.

Pete didn’t give me much warning as he made his move—just a slight flicker behind the drug-deadened eyes. He was an ex-Serviceman and he knew how to move—and the drug speeded him up, which compensated for his replacement parts. Despite that, he was far too slow. I blocked his slashing hand with my left forearm, hit him behind the ear with the butt of the Kelly and clipped him with the barrel across the back of his head as he went by on his way to the floor. His face slammed into the plastic. I nudged him with my toe, and then rolled him over on his back. He was out cold.

I felt sick. Pete had been my friend. Together we had lived through the long days of convalescence at Base Hospital on Gakan. Pete had been good medicine for me, but the Pete I knew had died when he went on tonocaine. All that was left was this thing in Pete’s flesh.

I kept mumbling the service litany over and over to myself as I looked down at Pete. “A tonocaine addict is not human—a tonocaine addict is not human—a tonocaine addict is not human—” and I couldn’t quite believe it. Sure, the words were right—an addict isn’t human. But this was Pete Krasna, and Pete had been my friend. Sure, it was true, he wasn’t human—and I felt like vomiting.

I loosened the nearest wrist of the girl, never taking my eyes off Pete. She did the rest of the job.

“Thanks, mister,” she said. “You saved my hide and I’m grateful.”

“Give me a hand with him. Let’s get him up on the bed.”

“Whatcha gonna do?” she asked. “Make the dirty bastard comfortable?” Her voice was cold.

“Not exactly,” I said.

Another sadist, I thought. She’d really like to do to him like he did to her. Her feelings showed in her feral eyes and too-wet lips. She took Pete’s feet and helped me lift the limp body onto the bed.

“You gonna work him over?” she asked eagerly.

“It’s none of your business. Just get out of here and leave me alone. You wouldn’t like it if you stayed.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t like it?” she asked. “Maybe I’d love it. You gonna kill him?” Her voice was insistent.

“Shut your damn mouth,” I snapped.

She glared at me, watching as I spread-eagled him to the bedposts. She eyed the stretched body approvingly and licked her lips again. Then she got mad when I pushed her out of the room and locked the door in her face. She swore, pounded on the panels, and behaved like something that shouldn’t be found in an alley. I wondered whether I had done right by interrupting Pete before he was finished.

Pete was conscious by the time she stopped yelling, and was trying his damndest to get loose. It wasn’t any use. He didn’t have the leverage and I had done a good job tying the knots. He saw me watching him and stopped working. His face lost its lines of frantic concentration, and he grinned up at me.

“That’s a helluva way to treat an old buddy,” he said. Right now he was as close to normal as an addict ever is. His struggles had worked enough of the drug out of his system to leave him sane and not enough to leave him mad with deprivation symptoms.

I grinned thinly, without humor. “You’d have clobbered me if I’d have given you the chance.”

“Sure I would. But I didn’t. Oh well—live and learn. Next time it’ll be different.”

“There isn’t going to be any next time,” I said gently.

Pete smiled. It was so natural that my guts twisted at the thought of what I was going to do to him. “Well—nobody lives forever,” he said. And his eyes mocked me as he said it.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you do it?”

He knew what I meant. His face twisted. “Your medic friends were wrong, Major. I wasn’t as good a man as I ever was. Fact is, I wasn’t even a man. Found it out during the trip home from Gakan. Had a nice willing redhead all to myself and I couldn’t do anything about it. So I got off here. It was hell here, too. Broads are easy to come by, but I couldn’t make the grade. Not one damn time!” His eyes had a haunted look. “I hate ‘em!—ever since that redhead told me off. Told me that since I couldn’t do anything with a girl I’d have to do without ‘em. Like hell I would! Maybe I couldn’t do anything with them but I sure as hell could do something to ‘em. She was a real surprised cupcake when I clobbered her, but she wasn’t nearly as busted up as I was.”

“So that’s how you got started with these pretty pastimes.”

“Sure, it made me feel better. At least I was part of a man, and since I was a Type ‘C’ I was a natural for this world, and—”

“And then you went on the drug,” I finished. “But simple narcotics weren’t enough for you. You had to play with the killer. You couldn’t get enough of thrills out of beating a girl, so you acted out tonocaine fantasies.”

He looked hatred at me from under bruised eyebrows. His face was beginning to puff a little from its contact with the floor, and he looked less like my old roommate. Somehow that made me feel a little better.

“All right,” he snarled, “so I’m an addict—but you’re wrong about why. I got plenty of charge out of beating those floozies without drugs. I didn’t go on the junk—I was put on it!”

“By who?” I asked.

“No dice. Think I want to lose my source?”

“You’ll tell me before you’re through,” I said. “I just thought you’d like to make it easy on yourself. You’ll tell me so I can avenge my friend Pete Krasna—who is dead. You’ll tell me everything. You’ll spill your guts and keep spilling until I let you stop. And you’ll love me when I let you go.”

He looked at me then. Really looked at me. He’d been in the Service, and he knew. His face came apart as though someone had loosened the strings holding it into a semblance of humanity. Naked fear danced in his eyes. His muscles twitched convulsively. In that second Pete Krasna disappeared, and all that was left was an addict, an inhuman mass of dope-driven flesh.

He started cursing me in a high shrill voice, and I let him rave on until he ran down.

“Through?” I asked.

There was no reply. He was in the first stage of the deprivation syndrome, and had no time for me or anything else. I waited until the seizure had passed and then I slapped him across the face. Not hard—I didn’t want to kill him yet. My hand got in the way of his bruised nose and it started bleeding. He screamed, a high saw-edged yell of agony. He was hypersensitive now, and the pain of the slap was almost unendurable.

“Want to tell me about the junk?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I waited.

A minute passed slowly. To him it must have been a year, as the symptoms chased each other through his body. Now he was past caring about anything I said or did. The horror of it was that he was conscious all the time and felt everything five or six times as bad as he would have normally.

The first small muscle spasms and epileptiform convulsions merged with incredible speed into violent abdominal cramps alternating with equally violent tonoclonic spasms as the central nervous system got into the act. Sometimes the visceral and somatic convulsions came together, and when they did the steel bed swayed and shook to the violence of his struggles. Finally the spasms passed into a catatonic paralysis, his respiration became typically Cheyne-Stokes, and when I laid a hand on his chest I could feel his heart hammering madly as though it would tear through its fibrous coverings and beat his lungs to a pulpy smear. Unless I did something soon, he would be dead.

I didn’t want that to happen, so I searched his pockets and found what I knew would be there—a leather case containing a dozen syrettes. I broke the seal on one and injected a couple of milliliters of the contents intravenously. The effect was magical. Inside of two minutes he was as normal as an addict ever is. He looked up at me, pale and sweating from his recent ordeal. “Thanks for the shot, Colonel,” he muttered through stiff lips.

I shuddered. Here I’d knocked him cold, tied him up, and let him run through every stage of the deficiency syndrome except death, and for a minimal shot of the drug that was killing him—he thanks me! I felt sick and disgusted with myself.

“Don’t thank me,” I said. “Pity yourself. From your reaction you’re pretty far gone. It won’t be long before the dose I gave you wears off, and then you’ll go through the mill again. If you want to avoid it start talking. As long as you talk, you’ll get more dope, and you’ll keep getting it. When you stop, there won’t be anymore until you start again.”

“This can’t go on forever,” he said unsteadily. “There isn’t that much stuff in my kit; so what happens then?” he asked.

“If you check out, I’ll set you free.”

He snorted. “I know the kind of freedom you’re talking about. The sort with a headstone on it. But I’ll tell you what—let me loose now and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

I laughed at this. It wasn’t a nice sound. “I’ll let you loose after you’ve talked. You can go then.”

“No dice,” he said. “I don’t want to go where you’ll send me.”

“Very well,” I answered. “I can wait. Let me know when you’re ready.” I pulled up a chair and sat down by the bed.

“Go to hell,” Pete said. “I’m not telling you anything.”

His courage lasted for one more round of symptoms. Then he talked—almost eagerly. For nearly three hours I rationed tonocaine and asked questions until I had milked him dry. I guess the end justified the means, but I felt dirty. It was necessary, of course, and an addict’s life means nothing when weighed against the death of a world—but that didn’t make me feel any happier. After it was all over, I checked him out with narcosine. I didn’t dare use it before because the anesthetic masked the deficiency syndrome, and Pete might have died before he told me everything he knew—but it didn’t make any difference now. He checked out a hundred per cent.

And between what he told me and the knowledge of what I had to do, I finally was sick—violently, convulsively, spasmically sick. Pete watched me with blank, unsympathetic eyes. He was full of his own troubles and terrors. He had no time for mine.

Then I kept my word. I set him free—after I had emptied the last three full syrettes of tonocaine into his bloodstream. The overdose acted as an analeptic. Pete opened his eyes and looked at me. There was an expression of peace on his face. He knew what I had done but he didn’t care. He grinned at me as he lay there on the bed relaxed and comfortable. He’d be dead within the hour and no medicine known to man could save him. His lips moved slowly. “I shoulda done this to myself a long time ago,” he said. “Thanks for doing it, Colonel. I just didn’t have the guts.” There was a short silence and I almost thought he was gone, but his eyes opened again. “Funny,” he murmured drowsily, “I never thought it would be this easy. I really shoulda done it myself.” His eyes closed and his breathing became shallow and soft. I stood there looking at him for a minute and then left the room, closing the door behind me.

Pete had known plenty. He was one of the contact men, and with the leads he had given me the law could make a cleanup that could break the backbone of the dope ring. I could almost feel good about it until I remembered what the information had cost.

My connection with the case was almost over, provided I could get the information I had to the place where it would do the most good. Five minutes on a communicator would fix everything, but the only long-range communicator in the Roost was in Kate’s office, and if I tried using that I’d be dead long before my five minutes were up. I had no choice but to wait out my contract and then get out of here.

The time element haunted me. I still didn’t know when H-Day was scheduled, and that knowledge was vital. Pete hadn’t known either. I assumed that it wouldn’t happen before the end of the Convo, until after Kate had collected every last munit of profit she could. Besides, Pete had told me that there were still contacts to make on his agenda that would keep him travelling for at least three weeks. He didn’t know whether they were the trigger for H-Day or not. All the signs seemed to indicate that I had plenty of time, but as the days passed, the uncertainty became agonizing.

However, there was one fact that was almost a pleasure to contemplate. Among other things, Pete had told me the names of some of the local leaders, and the one in Dunkelburg was John Dawson. I had known that Dawson was wrong from the moment I met him. I just didn’t know how wrong he was. A sadist was bad enough, but a head pusher for tonocaine was an even lower form of animal life. I got a positive delight out of visualizing that damned sadist sweating out the destruction of his ego in a rehabilitation cell. I would be happy to help him get there.

CHAPTER XII

« ^ »

I spent the last few days of my stay at the Roost rather unprofitably. The dome was calming down after the frenetic weeks of Convocation activities, and peace and quiet were becoming the rule rather than the exception. There was activity but it was a different sort, the activity of business, sales, consignments, contracts, and profits. The Roost was rapidly becoming a ghost town, and would remain in hibernation until another Convo season.

Soon I would be leaving. I bid reluctant goodbyes to my staff as they left. We had been through a lot these past weeks, and it was difficult parting. I guess they felt the same way because there was more than one pair of suspiciously moist eyes that looked into mine while their owner said farewell. I sent a report out with Mana. I wrote it in code and told her to deliver it to the chief of police in her home dome. She promised to do it, and I was sure she would. That was one thing about the ‘breeds; when they swore an oath by the Shambra, they kept their word.

The heavy footsteps in the hall outside my door roused me—some last customer no doubt—possibly a trader wanting a last-minute checkup before leaving for half a year of danger and loneliness in the Outlands. I sighed and opened the door.

One of Kate’s guards stood there. “Hiya, Doc, the Boss wants to see you,” he said.

“Payday?” I asked, half humorously.

“Yeah—payday. You got a bonus coming.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll get out of this smock and be right with you. Come in and sit down.” I disappeared into my room as the big fellow flopped into one of the waiting room chairs. I didn’t like this at all. Yesterday Kate and I had settled our accounts, and if I knew Kate—that was that! This bonus line was something I didn’t believe at all.

I took a syrette of anodyne from my kit, injected it deep into the muscles of my thigh, and stuffed a half dozen assorted others into my pockets. I took my Kelly, too, even though I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to use it if Kate were really on my tail. But no one would figure the syrettes as weapons. They were logical occupants of a doctor’s pocket. I wasn’t going into Kate’s den entirely defenseless. The anodyne would take care of truth serum, narcosine, or any of the other hypnotics. And the others might be useful. It’d take a lethal dose of hypnotic to put me under, and by the time I reached Kate’s den, my sensory nerves would be so numb that I’d have to be torn apart before I felt anything. But the stuff wouldn’t slow me up. I could fight if I had to, and I would fight if necessary. I slipped on my jacket and went to visit with Kate, cursing the luck that kept me here when I should be gone. If Riker had only left yesterday…

She was waiting for me, flanked by a pair of hard-eyed men with Kellys in their hands. She looked at me coldly. “Frisk him,” she ordered, pointing a fat finger at me.

My escort patted my pockets and removed my blaster. He also ran his hands along my sleeves, a trick I hadn’t seen since I left the Police School in Thermopolis. Deciding that I was clean, he stepped out of the line of fire.

Kate grinned at me. “It’s all over, Doc,” she said. “It’s been fun watching you, but someone should have told you that police spies never get to first base in Roost. It’s too bad, Doc, you were a rather nice fellow.”

I shrugged. I had expected this. Things had been too good too long. The roof had been overdue to fall in. But, I wasn’t about to give up without a try. I might be able to bluff it out. And even if I didn’t, Mana had the information that had to get to Headquarters. She’d see that it got through. “So,” I sneered, “you’re a welsher after all. I didn’t have that accident during Convo, so you’re manufacturing one to save yourself a lousy five thousand!”

“Nice try, Doc,” she said, “but it won’t work. Sure, I’d be glad to save the five thousand if I could, but I can’t. You saw to it with that death by violence gimmick. You’re going to die by violence, all right, but not because I’m a welsher. I’ve got proof that you’re working for the law.” She moved her huge bulk painfully and reached toward a small table beside her. She picked up a square of brown leather—Pete’s syringe case. “Your prints are all over it,” she said. “For a cop, you’re damn careless. You killed Pete.”

“So what? I’ve never denied it.”

“You didn’t volunteer either. Why did you kill him?”

“He was a tonocaine addict. He was better off dead.”

“Who gave you the right to judge?” she asked. She didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, she picked up my casebook and shook it at me. “Explain this while you’re at it, smart guy!” she snapped. My casebook! I was thankful for my scars! They hid the guilty expression that would have been a dead giveaway. Whoever had gotten that book was clever. I never even knew it was gone.

“It’s in police code,” she said accusingly.

“Well—I was a cop once. You knew that. I keep case notes. Someday I may want to write a book.”

“You also use narcosine.”

“Sure—lots of people do. I happen to like the stuff.”

“It—or its effects?” she queried. “You see, I’ve been reading up on that drug.”

I realized I wasn’t going to bluff this one out. “Besides,” she continued, “even if you weren’t a cop, you know too much about our activities. The only way you’ll ever get out of here is feet first. You’re a menace.”

I chuckled. “You’re having nightmares.”

“I like brave men,” Kate said, “but let’s lay it on the line. It’s my neck or yours, and I prefer it to be yours. Before I have you shot, I’ll show you what I’ve found out. First, I know that you know we’ve been growing tonocaine here.”

“Oh, great!” I exploded. “Now you tell me—so even if you hadn’t had an excuse to kill me before—you have it now!”

Kate laughed at me.

“Next,”—she gestured at the biggest of the two guards standing beside her. Big boy walked over to the far end of the room and opened a door set flush in the wall. He went inside and came back pushing a girl ahead of him. Her wrists were tied behind her back, and her body jerked and twitched as she moved. It was Mana! The shock and surprise nearly got through the anodyne. “Tonocaine,” Kate said, “is just as good a truth serum as narcosine—only you keep it away instead of giving it. You want to listen to her talk?”

“It’s not necessary.” I said. “How did you find out?”

“Once I knew you killed Pete, I took no chances. Every person who worked for you was given tonocaine. This is the only one who knew anything. I had to waste the others.”

“That’s him!” Mana screamed. “He worked Pete over. He gave me the papers. That’s the living truth. Now gimme that shot you promised!”

I could do nothing. I wasn’t able to realize that Kate had done what she had. Fifteen people had worked for me, and she had killed them all. The cold-blooded enormity of it paralyzed my will and held me motionless, frozen with shock and cold with anodyne.

Kate looked at Big Boy standing behind the girl, and shrugged. “Take her away, Alf,” she said. “I just wanted her for confirmation—and you don’t need to bother about giving her that shot. Just throw her out.”

Mana screamed as Big Boy dragged her out. She was already showing signs of deprivation. I didn’t think she’d live through them.

“She’s served her purpose,” Kate said callously, “and tonocaine is too valuable to waste.”

“You’ve killed her!”

“You killed Pete.”

“Sure—but I didn’t make him an addict. Nor did I kill him with deprivation symptoms. He went out on a cloud. And you can’t blame me for making him an addict. That was your work.”

“Admitted,” Kate said. “I liked Pete, but I had to be sure of him. What he was doing was pretty important, and I couldn’t take chances.” Her voice was introspective. “So I put him on junk. I knew I could count on him then. He was tied to me.”

At that moment I hated Kate with a bitterness beyond passion.

“Next,” Kate went on inexorably, “we checked up on you at Police Headquarters in Thermopolis. You’re still on the active list there although you were canned from the force in Dunkelburg. That means you’re still a cop. Then there’s this little black book and the notes we got from Mana. You did pretty well. Too bad you got stupid. But I suppose that killing Pete didn’t set too well with you. You’re a damned romantic, and it’s caught up with you.”

Well, that was that! She was playing with me, savoring the taste of power. She had me cold. Ruefully, I decided that I still had a lot to learn before I ever became a good undercover agent, but I probably wouldn’t get the chance. I had come so close to making it, but I had missed, and one miss in this game was all you got.

“Now, Boss?” the big fellow on her left asked.

“Yes, I think so. We’re wasting time,” Kate said. Her voice was as remote and detached as a judge passing the death sentence.

He raised his Kelly.

“No—wait!” Kate said. “Work him over a little first. I want him to feel a little of what Pete felt before he died. Then give him an overdose of tonocaine and let him go the easy way. Like Pete did.”

A grin of pleasure crossed the big fellow’s face as he put away his Kelly and moved in on me, keeping clear of his partner’s line of fire. The fellow who had brought me here stood off to one side, my Kelly drooping in his fist, watching the proceedings with bored alertness.

Big Boy hit me in the face.

Anodyne is a wonderful drug. I should have been blinded with pain as my nose spurted blood but I didn’t feel a thing. For a moment I didn’t even have sense enough to fall down. Then I did what I was supposed to—artistically—so I got in line between the two armed goons. I groaned and came to my knees, shaking my head and spattering drops of blood over Kate’s nice carpet. Big Boy stepped in and aimed a vicious kick at my ribs.

I helped it along with my hands on his ankle, and at the same time kicked backwards with both feet. Big Boy fell flat on his back, the wind jarred out of him as my feet struck true to the mark in the groin of the man holding my Kelly. He dropped the gun, screaming with agony.

I snaked the Kelly out of Big Boy’s shoulder holster as the searing blast from the third goon’s gun burned the rug where I had been. I snapped a blast at him that made him duck, caught him in the chest with a second shot, and burned Big Boy in the head as he tried to grapple with me. At such close range, the blast set my jacket afire and singed my hair. I ignored it and placed a fourth shot into the body of the man I had kicked as he lay writhing on the floor. As I once said, no normal man can match reflexes with me.

Kate never even realized what was happening before her three men were dead and I was standing over her beating the fire out of my jacket with one hand while with the other I held the Kelly pointed unwaveringly at her third chin.

“Well, Kate,” I said. I let the hate and loathing flow out of me and spatter over her.

She gasped. “Don’t do it!” she pleaded. “You can’t get out of here without any help.” There was desperation rather than confidence in her voice.

“You talk too much,” I replied. “Now you’ll get me out.” I smiled unreassuringly at her.

She looked at me, and if looks could kill, I’d have been dead on the spot. “Try and make me,” she snapped.

“Don’t tempt me.. I’ve never killed a woman, but I’ll burn you like a torch if you don’t pick up that phone and give me a clearance out of here.” To show her I meant it, I batted her a couple of times with my free hand. The red welts that leaped into life on her fat face must have hurt her pride as well as her flesh. “I hope it takes a little time,” I said. “I’m enjoying this. I could slap your blubber all day and it wouldn’t be enough.” I raised the Kelly with obvious intention of raking the heat dissipators across her face.

She flinched. Reluctantly, her fat hand reached for the phone. “Get me Mike,” she said into the speaker. She waited a few seconds. “Mike,” she began abruptly, “I checked Doc over. He doesn’t know anything. Let him go. Huh?—Mean it?—Sure, I mean it! He’s clean.” She cradled the phone. “There,” she said. “You’re clear to get out—much good it’ll do you. You’ll never leave the Roost. The gate guards are looking for you.”

I took my head from beside her ear where I had been listening to the other side of the conversation. “Not quite,” I said. She must have guessed what I was going to do because a scream started in her fat throat. It never got out…

I had intended to kill her, but when the chips were down, I discovered I couldn’t do it. And to my dying day I’ll never know why. Possibly being an executioner once was enough. So I merely batted her along one temple with the barrel of the Kelly. I looked down at the gross body sprawled unconscious on the floor, and reached into my pocket for the handful of syrettes I had taken from my office. Picking through them I found what I wanted and made two injections in the vein in the bend of her fat elbow. I should shoot her, I kept thinking. But I couldn’t. She deserved death, but someone else could give it. The narcosine should keep her out for at least twenty-four hours and since there was no other medic in the Roost, she’d be worthless for another four or five hours past that time. And in thirty hours I should be long gone.

She stirred and murmured. Maybe I’d get some answers to questions in the few moments between partial and total anesthesia. I knelt beside her. “Who heads this dope ring?” I demanded, knowing the answer would be “I do,” but I wanted to be sure. The answer shocked me. “I—don’t—know,” she said slowly. “Some—big—shot—in—Thermopolis.”

“A man?” I asked. All my good theory shot to hell! I still didn’t know why or who was back of this. I should have gone slower with the narcosine. But Kate was still talking. Her vitality was amazing.

“I—think—so. Sound—like—one. He’s—got—one—funny—hab—it. He—sssppp—ahh…” The fat lips bubbled but no sound came forth. I shook her.

“What habit?” I demanded.

There was no response. Kate was out of this world.

Well, there were more fools than one in this business, but I was by long odds the biggest. I picked up my casebook, recovered my Kelly and gave the corpse-littered room a quick once-over. In Kate’s desk, right on top, I found something that made me quiver. It was just a piece of paper from a communicator printout with a half dozen words typed on it. “Williams HQ cop. Kill him.” That was my death warrant and it had come from the outside. There was nothing about it that could be identified, no origin code, no time or date—nothing. It was virtually certain that the message had come over Kate’s long-range communicator. So that was that. I wasn’t going to use that instrument to call HQ and warn Lantham that there was a traitor in his group. It just might be the wrong person who got the message, and then my hopes of getting out of the Roost would be slim indeed.

I had muffed a chance that had dropped godsent into my lap. Had I not been so certain Kate was the one behind the dope I would have been more careful with the narcosine. Kate would have spilled like a round-bottomed bucket. She’d have answered any questions I asked, including the identity of the mysterious Mr. Big. But it was too late now. It would take hours to rouse her even with an antidote, and I didn’t have either the hours or the antidote. If I wanted to get out of here alive, I’d better get fast.

I peeled the jacket off Big Boy’s body and put it on.

The collar was charred a little but it wasn’t noticeable. Then I stuffed the pockets with papers from Kate’s desk and all that I could cram into the space between my body and the smooth split ryk hide of the jacket. I couldn’t stay around to leaf through them, but maybe there’d be something that would give me a clue to Mr. Big’s identity. I looked a little plump as I turned toward the door, but I didn’t think anyone would notice. On the way out I took a cigar from the full humidor on the desk, stripped off the plastic tube and puffed the self-lighting weed to a glow. Kate wouldn’t be needing that cigar, and I did—not for the tobacco but for the convincing touch that we parted friends!

I walked out of the building unmolested and unnoticed.

Once outside, I tossed the cigar away. I felt like running, but contented myself with a fast walk that took me through the quiet streets almost as fast as a run but not nearly as conspicuously. Back at my quarters I peeled off the jacket, slapped burn ointment on my blistered arm, stuffed the papers from Kate’s office into my instrument bag, put on another jacket, and left the office within five minutes after I had entered it.

I had a chance, and as long as Kate wasn’t discovered, the chance was better. Joe Riker was leaving on a run to Consol 30 that morning. He’d been in earlier to say goodbye to me, but if I could do it, that goodbye would be indefinitely postponed.

I found Joe in the warehouse section, supervising the loading of his wagon. He waved at me as I approached.

“I want to talk to you,” I said. “You about ready to go?”

“Yeah, in about five minutes.”

“That’ll be enough.”

He followed me over to one corner of the warehouse. The ‘breeds loading the wagon never gave us a second glance as I led him behind the corner of the building.

“What gives?” Joe asked.

“Look, Joe,” I said, “once you said you owed me a favor for saving your life. I never thought that I’d have to collect, but it seems as though I must. I have to get out of here, and I want a ride with you.”

Joe looked at me soberly. “You in trouble, Doc?”

“You don’t know the half of it!”

“Well—I dunno. I haven’t any authority to take you. You wouldn’t get past the gate.”

“I would if I hid in the cargo.”

“You must be in trouble! You’re asking for it! A Type ‘A’ like you would have no chance once we got outside. I’d give you four hours at the most, and we won’t be out of scanner range for at least five, no matter how fast I drive the buggy.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“Well—with a respirator you probably could make it, but the detectors’d pick you up at the gate if you wore it. So you’ll have to go barefaced.”

“I know that,” I said. “I’m not figuring on wearing one.”

“You’d be committing suicide,” Riker said. “I can’t do it—it’d be murder.”

“You’ve got to. I have to get out of here and I don’t want anyone to know how I’ve gone. You’re the only chance I have.”

“Well,” he hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s your neck, and you know what you’re doing with it—but in my book you’re sticking it out a kilometer. Bunk down in the cargo. If you leave your metal with me, you’ll get past the detectors at the gate. The boys there don’t usually check wagons going out as long as they don’t turn on the alarm. You’ll get out all right, but I wouldn’t give a damn for your chances after you do.”

I nodded and handed him the Kelly and the bag. It could be worse. If I stayed I was a gone pigeon as soon as they discovered the shambles in Kate’s quarters and got organized. Every minute I could keep them guessing was an advantage. Anyway, I was in pretty good shape, and I thought I’d be able to hold out long enough.

Riker looked doubtful. “I’ve seen big Type “A’s” like you try things like this before,” he said. “They didn’t turn out so good. I’ll let you out once we get under the edge of the escarpment. But that’s about five hours.” He looked at me curiously. “Say—what’s all this rush for anyway? What’d you do—cheat Kate?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. “It’s better now that you don’t know too much. If you got it blind, you may not get in trouble if I get caught.”

He nodded. “Okay, Doc, if that’s the way you want it.”

I could have kissed him. Now, I had a chance. I went toward the truck while Riker called the warehousemen forward on the pretext of checking on what had been loaded, and while he was talking to them, I crawled into the cargo compartment and bedded down between the bales of furs up front. There was a long wait, and then a few more bales were stacked in the box. The doors closed and I was left in inky darkness. The turbines whined into life beneath me. Then came the peculiar floating motion of a rolligon. We were moving!

Then we stopped.

I went through a long nerve-wracking wait that probably lasted a minute or two by the clock, but seemed like hours in the blackness of the van. I sweated it out, praying that Riker wouldn’t doublecross me, wishing that I had a Kelly, hoping that the outcheck was perfunctory. Then we started moving again.

CHAPTER XIII

« ^ »

We swayed along the track toward the Phargan Canal, and with every turn of the drivers my spirits grew lighter. I was safely Outside and no one knew about it except Joe Riker. It would be hours, maybe even days, before anyone thought of looking for me elsewhere than in the Roost.

If Kate were in condition to run things, it might be different. That woman was smart, but what I knew of her subordinates indicated they were strictly run of the mill. There’d be a search for me all right, but I had the easy feeling it would be unproductive. By the time someone with a first class brain took over and got things organized, a good deal of time would have passed.

But gradually it began to be hard to breathe as the pressurized air of the Roost seeped out through tiny cracks and crevices in the body of the van. My lungs labored and my heart pounded in my chest. The anodyne still exerted its effect; so I didn’t feel too bad, but I was very conscious that all wasn’t well. It wasn’t unbearable at first, but it was unpleasant. The howl of the turbines deafened me, and the smooth bounceless ride of the van made me feel that I was floating in a sea of viscid goo.

The wagon tilted forward, pitching me against the piled cargo. Despite Arthe’s light gravity and my conditioning on heavy Gakan, I found it hard to move. The characteristic anoxic weakness that affects wrong physiologic types on Arthe was beginning to get me—and the anodyne was wearing off! The full crushing weight of the agony that had been hammering at the closed portal of my nervous system was beginning to seep through the nerve blocks. There is, as I have mentioned, a trace of chlorine in Arthe’s atmosphere; not enough to bother Type C’s with their pulmonary adaptability, but plenty to raise particular cain with the lungs of a Type A. Sweat broke out on my face as the first messages crept through my deadened nerves. I had to bite my lips to keep from screaming—and I knew with cold certainty that this was only the beginning. The worst was yet to come!

It did.

The body of the truck became a smooth, softly cushioned, swaying hell, filled with pain I had never imagined. I lasted as long as I could, holding the screams back with an effort of will that brought sweat to my body and tears to my eyes. I strained against the stabbing thrusts in my chest and the massive ache of my oxygen-starved body until I could stand no more. The situation was fiendish in its simplicity. My body demanded oxygen which the thin air could almost supply—but only if I breathed fast. If I breathed slowly, sipping air instead of gulping it, the small amount of chlorine was endurable but if I breathed fast it was agony. Yet if I breathed slowly, my whole body was wracked with an agonized demand for air. Either way I was damned as my starved tissues screamed for oxygen or shrank from the bite of chlorine. I coughed, and each cough added to my pain. My lungs were fire in my chest. I wanted to die, to end this floating torture which had become an exquisite agony endlessly repeated. I didn’t care that my mission was uncompleted, that Sofra was waiting for my return. There was no room in my brain for these unimportant things.

Slowly the shrieking whine of the turbines, the sickening softness of the ride, the flaming torture of my body merged into a deep jet silence. I welcomed the numbness that enveloped me as consciousness retreated and I sank into a blackness darker than the lightless interior of the van.

I awoke to agony. Riker was bending over me, an oxygen bottle in his hand and a worried expression on his face. I cursed him feebly and retched as his leathery features split into a relieved grin.

“For a moment I thought you were a goner, Doc,” he said.

“I wish I were,” I said.

He lifted my shoulders, and somehow I got out of the van and into the cab. I lay there on the seat, twitching feebly as Riker crawled over my sprawled body and got behind the wheel. We were rolling again, and the good thick air revived me. After a while I managed to sit up, but I was sick for hours afterwards.

Riker pushed the wagon at its best speed, but it was slow. I groaned with anguish as we rolled on under the black, star-studded Arthean sky. Finally the last spasms of my tortured body subsided and I fell into a nightmare-haunted sleep where a faceless Kate pursued me through dome after dome choked with dead and dying men locked in ferocious combat. And all the while I caught glimpses of a dark, formless figure pouring can after can of tonocaine into the air regenerators.

I woke up with Riker shaking me. “Doc! What’s wrong? Wake up!” I struggled back to consciousness. “Uh-okay, Joe. What’s the matter?” I mumbled fuzzily, drugged with departing sleep.

“You were yelling like crazy. Something about wholesale murder.”

“Bad dream, I guess.”

“Bad dream, hell! You’ve got things on your mind!”

I grinned feebly at him. He must have heard plenty, but if he did know what I had been talking about, he didn’t show it. His seamed face only expressed concern. The van was on autocontrol running at cruising speed along the canal bottom. The scanners were on and our armament was on automatic. I suppose we had been going for hours, since Riker’s bunk was let down and I was lying on the seat with a blanket over me.

Riker pushed his bunk back into its rack as I sat up and felt my aches envelop me.

“It’s about dawn,” he said. “Time for breakfast. You’ll feel better with a meal inside you.” He punched the automat button and pulled the hot concentrate out of its receptable. “Here—get some food in you.”

I finished the concentrate, wishing there was more of it, and then lay back on the seat and thought about what I would tell him. It was obvious that I would have to tell him something if I was so full that it kept spilling over in my sleep. I’d probably sleep more before we reached a dome and I’d do it more comfortably if I knew where he stood. What’s more—I had to tell him where I could check his reactions. If he gave the wrong ones, I’d blast him and carry on by myself. In this case it made no difference that he had helped me. Too much hung upon what I knew. But it would be nice to have an ally; I had been going alone too long, and I wanted company.

So I told him the whole story. After about five minutes Riker’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way, and there was quite a silence after I had finished.

“Shambra!” Riker finally said, “No wonder you’ve been having bad dreams. Now I’m gonna have ‘em too!” His face hardened.

“You’re carrying some of the load now,” I said drily as I took his handgun out of its holster. “Now I want to see how you take it. Roll up your sleeve, Joe.”

He looked at me and at the Kelly in my hand pointing at his chest. “Hey! What’s the big idea? Whatcha pointing that thing at me for?”

“I like you, Joe, and I owe you my life. Ordinarily that’d be enough, but I’m carrying a lot of other lives besides my own. Probably you’re okay—you look it and act it—but I have to be sure.” I reached blindly into my jacket pocket, pushed aside the papers I had taken from Kate’s office, and found a syrette of narcosine.

Joe saw the blue syrette. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Truth drug,” I said.

He grinned. “Okay,” he said, “if you’re really worried about whether I’m on your side or not, go ahead.”

I took him at his word. He checked out clean. If he had any psychic blocks they were buried too deep for my poor equipment to handle. But I was satisfied. Nobody in Joe’s economic position would be big enough to rate the expensive and time-consuming process of psychic blockade. At any rate, he was an innocent bystander in the tonocaine plot. He may have transported it, but he never knew what he was transporting. And now that I knew his mental processes, his cryptic remarks about the addict who had died in Dunkelburg were not cryptic at all. He had merely assumed that the police had killed the man. My overactive imagination had done the rest.

Joe was a little resentful when he woke up, but I guess he understood because our relationship remained pleasant.

“Well, Doc, whatcha got in mind?”

Kate’s unconscious body had probably been discovered hours ago, and goon squads were undoubtedly searching the Roost for me. It wouldn’t be too long before someone would get the idea that I wasn’t in the Roost and start wondering how and when I had gotten out. It was inevitable that they’d connect me with Riker. After all, he’d sponsored me. About all the time I could count on had already passed. I had to get back to Dunkelburg as fast as I could, but the only fast way was by air transport, and to fly I’d have to get to a dome.

“How far is the nearest dome?” I asked.

Joe squinted at a route map, looked up at the fading stars, consulted the course computer, and finally said, “There’s one called Bluestone about six hours from here.

“How long have we been gone from the Roost?”

“Twenty hours.”

“Bluestone’s Class II,” I said. “We’ll go there. There’s time.”

“Okay, but how do I explain the detour to the gate guard?”

“Doesn’t anything ever go wrong with these rigs?”

He grinned. “Not usually, but something could if it’s really necessary.”

“Engine trouble—or something like it?”

He nodded. “I could jimmy the drive a bit—not enough to stall us, but enough to make us turn off course for repairs.”

“That’s the general idea,” I said, “but don’t damage the drive. We need all the speed we can get.”

He looked thoughtfully at the instrument panel. “How about shorting out the autocontrols? Automatic troubles call for second echelon repair at the nearest shop, and they’re a perfect excuse to turn into Bluestone.”

“Fine,” I said.

Riker nodded and swung the wagon into an intersecting canal. “We can damage the automatics later,” he said. “Meanwhile, there’s no sense in taking chances. I’ll leave ‘em on. I like to have them handy just in case of ambush.”

I spent the rest of the morning reviewing the papers I had taken from Kate’s desk. They didn’t add much except to give me a listing of the domes scheduled for H-Day. There were twenty, about a third of the inhabited domes on Arthe. Both Dunkelburg and Bluestone were on the list. By the time I finished the papers, it was getting on toward noon, and the long steep road to the rimrock lay before us. Beyond the Rim was Bluestone. Riker shorted out the control box. The air filters quickly cleared the oily smoke and ozone out of the cab as we drove toward the open sky of the desert.

“How far away is it?” I asked as we cleared the rimrock and began the run to the dome.

“About thirty kilometers, give or take five,” Riker said. “The map says thirty-two. That shouldn’t take more than two hours. I’d go faster if I could, but this road’s a mess.”

“Don’t push it,” I said. “We have plenty of time, so let’s get there alive.”

“You been here before?”

“Just passing through on my way to Dunkelburg. I came in on a local hop from Thermopolis. We stayed at the airfield about ten minutes. They didn’t let us off the plane and it was night, so I didn’t see anything much.”

The sudden explosion lifted the entire cab straight up in the air. I wasn’t really conscious of the sound, the screech of riven metal, or the slam and rattle of debris against the cab. I heard the noises, but it was the drunken tilt of the van that held my attention. The cab passed the point of no return and plunged downward. I remember thinking that the trunk wouldn’t go over, that it was moving far too slowly. I remember Riker saying with dragged-out deliberation “—that—god—damned—auto—control—I—blew—it—too—soon—”. And then something happened and I was enfolded in a blinding flash of light that gave way to a warm blackness that shut out sight and sound.

CHAPTER XIV

« ^ »

The roof of my skull was on fire. But aside from that I seemed to be all right. I couldn’t move, but that was because someone had tied me like a gift package. I was being carried on some sort of litter in through a long dark tunnel whose highly polished walls amplified the reflections of the bobbing lights and torches carried by the moving figures around me.

There was no echo. The shuffling of feet, the sounds of an occasional grunt, or sigh, or muttered word were muted. I was conscious that someone had put a respirator on my face. Someone was walking beside me, and turning my head I saw Joe Riker. His arms were tied behind his back and there was a rope around his neck held in the hand of one of the shadowy figures I now recognized as a native. Riker watched me, his eyes glittering in the reflected lights of the torches.

“The damned autocontrols should have been operative,” he said. “I’m stupid. I shorted them out too soon. We hit a mine! I never figured they’d try for us topside.”

“Thank God you’re alive,” I said.

“That’s unkind of you. Me—I was hoping you were dead.”

“Is it that bad?”

“You should know the natives well enough to answer that. Of course, we may be lucky and die quick, but I don’t think we will. They’ll make us last. Look at the tender loving care they’re giving you.”

“You didn’t have to bring that up,” I said. “It was bad enough before.”

Riker chuckled hoarsely. “I’m glad I don’t have much imagination. If I could really imagine what’s coming, I’d be screaming.”

“You have enough imagination for me. Say something pleasant or shut up.”

“Pleasant for who? For us there’s nothing pleasant. For them, they’re high on happiness already. They’re planning for our future, figuring how to wring the last screech and groan out of our carcasses.”

“We’re going to be the centerpiece of the biggest celebration of the year. They’re taking us north to someplace where they meet.”

“Just what’d happen if we managed to escape?” I asked.

“Oh, they’d try to catch us, but if they didn’t, they’d make do. They have others. There’s always plenty of ‘breeds.” Riker grimaced. “I was a spectator at one of those affairs once. It wasn’t pretty.”

“But where—”

” ‘Breeds are always getting kicked out of the domes for one reason or another. There’s a good supply of victims. And though they’re crazy, the natives aren’t stupid. They don’t kill all of the ‘breeds they catch. I doubt if there’s a single tribe that doesn’t have at least five or six ‘breeds whom they keep for auguries or holy days.”

“Horrible,” I muttered. I had mixed feelings. Naturally, I wanted to be somewhere else than here, but I was oddly enough sympathetic toward the natives. Their egos were as scarred as my face, and unlike me, they had no hope of cure. I knew how they felt, why they wanted to rend, tear and batter at the smug, superior self-sufficiency of the Confeds. By our judgment they were vicious, savage and inferior, and by our actions we added fresh wounds to those they already carried. And the hell of it was that their disease was self perpetuating. Parents passed the attitudes to children and the whole nauseous mess went from generation to generation.

Then the graveyard humor of it struck me. Here I was wondering how the native’s problems could be solved, and here they were carrying me off to some bloody devilment in which I would be the principal. I laughed. I should be thinking of my own problems.

Riker grunted, “What’s to laugh about, Doc?” he asked.

“It wasn’t happy laughing.”

“So why do it? There’s other ways to be cynical. Save your strength and look for a break.”

It was good advice, and that’s one thing I never reject; so I relaxed and tried to make the best of my situation. We moved along at a good clip—about five kilometers per hour I guessed.

“Where are we?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.

“In one of the Shambra tunnels,” Riker said. “The whole planet’s honeycombed with them. Many are ruined, but many are still usable. The natives use them to move about without revealing themselves.”

“What were they for?”

“Transportation, I think. Maybe something like a train ran through them. The Legends call them the Doorway to Distance which would argue transportation. Some of them are still open, some are blocked. Only the natives know which.”

This wasn’t doing me any good. Riker was a mine of information, but it wasn’t useful. I wondered why I started talking about the tunnels.

“Do we have a chance of getting away?” I asked.

Riker shrugged. “There’s always a chance. The thing is to recognize it and to take advantage of it when it comes along.” He shrugged. “Of course, there’s no chance right now. The tunnel kills that. But tunnels end—and maybe then.” He was silent for a moment. Then he grinned wryly. “We’ve got motivation,” he said, “for if we don’t escape, the natives’ll take care of us. They’re very ingenious.”

“You do nothing to help my morale,” I said.

“What’s the sense of worrying? Either your number is up on the Big Board, or it isn’t. And nothing you can do can change it.”

“That’s a helluva philosophy. It leaves you no freedom at all.”

“Where did you ever get the idea that anyone has freedom to determine his fate? You had no freedom when that Geek burned you. And I didn’t have any say about it when that halfbreed cut my throat. The fact that I didn’t get killed just meant that my number wasn’t on the Big Board.”

“I suppose I could have let Dawson beat that man while you bled to death?” I said.

“No—you had to try to help both of us. That’s the way you’re built. But you didn’t keep the ‘breed from dying.”

“But I did keep you alive.”

“Like I said, my number wasn’t up. If it was, nothing you could have done would have saved me. And just for fun, figure the odds on what sort of chance I had to run into a combat surgeon who knew about battlefield expedients. The odds were a million to one against it. But I did. And if I hadn’t—”

“You’d be dead,” I said.

He shook his head. “No. Something else would have happened. I had to stay alive.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I just did.”

“And you have to be here?”

“Uh huh.”

I sighed. Riker was one of those fatalists who figure everything is already decided. Ordinarily, they are good enough people, but when the going gets sticky, they have a tendency to sit down and do nothing—and trust in fate. I wondered if Riker was a sitdown type or the sort who struggled automatically. He’d better be the second, but nothing I knew of him gave much indication either way.

How long we went down that tunnel I never knew. I wasn’t in the best of shape. I kept drifting, half conscious of the unchanging monotony of my surroundings. Riker sank into a shell of silence and I didn’t try to rouse him. After a time we came to the end of the tunnel. I was unfastened from the cart, forced to my feet, and made to scramble out of a craterlike mass of jumbled rock where the roof had caved in. It was night—whether the same night or another I didn’t know, but on the horizon were chartreuse streaks of approaching dawn.

The natives seemed nervous. They kept glancing at the sky and muttering to each other in their outlandish jargon that flutters on the fringe of comprehension.

They feared the dawn, and the air search that would be made for us. They knew the effectiveness of our organic detectors, and the power of our weapons. I noticed a couple of Mark VII Kellys among them, plus a sprinkling of Mark IV’s, but their firepower was principally a chemical explosive that hurled metal slugs from the tube. I’ve never handled one of the things—rifles, I think they’re called—although for the life of me I don’t know why anyone would give them that name. A rifle is the mechanism that imparts the rotation to a space ship and gives it artificial gravity. Where that relates to a projectile weapon is beyond me.

Our captors hustled us along, up the rocky wall of the crater, over a stretch of desert, down the rimwall of a canal, into the brushy border of a stream, through a narrow pathway under the tangled growth, and into a long, colonnaded avenue covered with a viciously competing canopy of vegetation, but virtually devoid of ground cover save for the naked trunks of the trees and vines that formed the canopy overhead, and the thick mat of dead leaves underfoot.

The natives had their hand torches on again, and we moved forward at a brisk pace. My guard soon noticed my difficulty in breathing and in keeping up with the others, and attributed it quite rightly to the fact that my hands were bound and I could not adjust my respirator. So he loosened the ryk hide thongs about my wrists, but placed another about my neck—thus giving me an opportunity to adjust the compressor on my respiratory but gave me no chance to break away.

As the sun rose, the dark colonnades of the streamside forest lightened to a peculiar twilight. It quickly became hot and humid under the trees, even in this thin air, and I noticed with surprise that my respirator needed constant adjustment.

Riker appeared from somewhere behind me, grinned at me and pointed at my face. “Whycha try doing without that gadget?” he said. “You oughta be able to.”

I looked at him curiously. Was he crazy? Didn’t he remember how well I did in his truck?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Riker said. “But under the trees in the daytime it’s different. They should make enough oxygen to keep a Type “A” like you alive. Just try it.”

I did—and found he was right. The jungle overhead was a vast atmosphere plant, and with light it functioned well enough to let me breathe in relative comfort. At night, though, it would be a different story.

Its effect upon the natives was peculiar. From a taciturn lot, they began to exhibit signs of gaiety and lack of inhibition that I hadn’t previously seen.

“If we’re gonna try making a break for it,” Riker said, “we’d better do it when the sun’s overhead.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see what’s happening, you stupid domer?” Riker hissed. “The natives are getting an oxygen jag. In an hour or so, they’ll be busting out all over. If they weren’t afraid of an air search, they’d be outside this forest belt. But a patrol craft or a drone would pick them up too easily, and they’d have the devil of a time trying to explain us. So they stay under the trees where the detectors can’t separate them from the rest of the animal life.”

“Clever,” I said.

“But dangerous. In maybe an hour the oxygen tension should be high enough for the gorrons to be coming out.”

“Out of where?”

Hiker kicked the soft, springy leafmold underfoot. “Out of here,” he said. “They dig in at night, using their big claw-tipped forelimbs to hollow out a nest in the leaves. The spadelike tip of their tail drags the leaves back over them, hiding them perfectly. You’ve been walking over them for the past half hour.”

“Oh,” I said. All of a sudden I remembered a story told me about ryks and gorrons. The gorrons are the Arthean equivalent of a tiger, huge six-legged beasts with a splotchy gray and black hide whose colors ripple and change as light strikes the fur. The hairs have some peculiar refractile qualities that make gorron pelts worth their weight in platinum. They’re no good to wear because gorron hide is nearly a centimeter thick and so homogenous that it is virtually impossible to split as we do cowhide or ryk hide, but they make beautiful rugs, and there is a constant demand for them.

But as for the gorron, hair and hide are only part of it and the least important. Imagine a flat, triangular, snaky head, fifty centimeters between a pair of cold gray eyes, crowned with two ears that form a low crest across the top of its head. The head bears as formidable a set of teeth as can be found in a carnivore anywhere. The short massive neck blends smoothly into the brawny primary limbs of the huge, claw-tipped pads. Ordinarily these legs are carried against the body and are used only to secure prey or for feeding or digging. The running legs, oddly slender in proportion to the massive body, are four in number and can propel the animal at great speed for short distances. The tail is moderately long, tapering toward the tip but just before it ends, the tip is expanded into a flat, hairless, disc-like plate of horny skin and cartilage. I never could understand what purpose it might serve until Riker mentioned its use to cover the animal. It has another use, but I didn’t know it at the time.

The ryk, the particular prey of the gorron, is a herbivore with a long neck crowned with a conical head that tapers to a needle-like tip. Its eyes are protected by heavy lids and strong, bony rings around their orbits. There are no visible ears and the lower third of the head is split by an enormous mouth containing a long, prehensile tongue and blunt stumpy teeth. The ryk’s four walking legs are short, its body cylindrical, its tail long and armed with a terminal ball studded with bony spikes. Like the gorron and every other native species of terrestrial life on Arthe, it, too, has six legs, but its anterior members are tiny, almost vestigial, and terminate in an oddly human pair of hands.

Despite its awkward appearance, the ryk is superbly adapted to life in the forest colonnades. Its long neck and armored head enable it to reach through the canopy and feed upon the leaves and fruits on the side exposed to the sun. Its low slung cylindrical body enables it to penetrate the densest of undergrowth, and its brutally armed tail and thick skin protect it from attack. It is one of the few tool-using animals that is below level six on the Mergenthaller scale. Its hands can and do use rocks, clubs and sticks to help it feed and protect itself from the gorrons.

Ryk hide is peculiar. It ranges from a centimeter in thickness at the axillae and groin to heavy plates four to six centimeters thick over the neck and shoulders. The skin is layered and splits readily into sheets whose thickness depends upon the keenness of the knife and the purpose for which they are split. Ryk hide is one of the toughest organic fibers known, comparing favorably with the best synthetics for strength, yet lacking their slipperiness and difficulty of fastening. Ryk hide will tie, and with a knot of the proper kind is almost impossible to untie, although a bowline or a reef knot will break readily enough. It has a number of commercial uses, principally in the making of fine furniture and serving as ties or lashing where strength and flexibility are at a premium. Thin splits are also used as a kind of vellum in the quality book trade.

Despite its clumsy, almost comical look, the ryk is intelligent. It has to be with the gorron for an enemy. And despite its awkward appearance, it is a formidable antagonist, with its mace-like tail and its conical spear-like head. In general, it is an inoffensive sort of beast, but one that is virtually impossible to keep in captivity because wherever it can insert its sharp nose, the rest of the ryk will almost inevitably follow. Zoos have them, of course, but domestication is impossible since the cost of pens capable of holding them would eat up any possible profit. Except for their hides, they have no known economic value.

The ryks, so Sofra told me, can stand low oxygen better than the gorrons, and in certain areas where the predators are too numerous, the ryks will band together to root them out of their leafy lairs and kill them with stabbing thrusts of their head or blows from their mace-like tails. Sofra had learned this from the Shambra Legends, and possibly it was truth. Anyway, it made an interesting story.

“Keep your eyes open,” Riker muttered in my ear. “Any minute now we should be getting some action.”

Our native captors were becoming ever more careless. The one holding the end of the cord attached to my neck was now as affectionate as a strange drunk in a skidrow bar. He wanted to throw an arm around my shoulder and tell me his troubles. I gathered, rather sketchily, that someone—wife, sister, mistress or motherin-law didn’t understand his loose-lipped jabber.

I managed to guide my guard close to another native who carried a Mark VII and a bandolier of spare charges. Riker, some ten meters off to one side, saw what I was doing, grinned and nodded. Unlike me, his hands were still bound, so he was unable to do much toward arming himself if a break came.

And it did. Although the natives had been walking carefully in four parallel columns, each man placing his feet where the other had stepped, some one of the oxygen drunks was bound to make a mistake—and one did. The man—one file in front, and one to the side of me—staggered, stepped sidewise to regain his balance, and stepped on the circular plate of a gorron’s tail. It was just as though he had stepped on the trigger of a trap.

There was a nerve-shattering scream, an explosion of leaves, and in the middle of this violent upheaval of humus appeared the raking claw-tipped forelegs and the gaping triangular head of a gorron. The man didn’t have a chance against those talons and crunching jaws. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Men leaned aside and other explosions among the leaves marked where more gorrons broke cover, attracted by the noise and smell of blood. Projectile weapons roared, blasters coughed, flat heavy explosions racked the air as I caught my confidential guard in the face with a whipping elbow smash, raked his Mark IV from his belt, and burned the head off the man ahead who carried the Mark VII. Riker was at my side, holding out his wrists. “Burn it off,” he said.

I snapped the Mark IV down to minimum aperture and laid a line of pure heat across the ryk-hide. Riker howled with pain, but grabbed the blaster I thrust into his hands and covered me as I removed the Mark VII and the bandolier from the dead native.

He spaced his shots, I noted with approval, firing only at natives who saw we were free. But most of them didn’t notice. They were too busy with the gorrons. After the first surprise had passed, the advantage was all with the men. Quickly they formed into a tight group and began cutting down the half dozen carnivores that had erupted from the humus.

But neither Riker nor I had time for more than a brief glance. We were too busy making tracks away from there. Fortunately, we stepped upon no gorron tails. I suppose the noise had attracted all the nearby ones, and since they run in prides, there were probably no more in the immediate neighborhood.

We finally plunged into a screen of brush near the edge of the growth, burrowed well into the bushes, and waited. For the moment we could do no more. I was panting like a winded dog, and Riker, despite being a Type C was almost as badly off. The firing behind us finally died down.

“Now comes the problem. Do they write us off as dead, or do they collect their bottles and realize we’re alive?”

I shrugged.

“And what do we do? Run back the way we came, which is what they might expect, or should we do something clever?”

“And more dangerous,” I added.

“There isn’t much choice,” Riker said. “This is their country, and it’s their game. They’ll look for us, of course, but the big thing is the loot from the van. Just to make a guess, they’ll bivouac now—which they should have done an hour ago, and tonight they’ll send out a party to look for us while the main body heads for wherever they’re planning to go.”

“So what do we do?”

“We burrow through this brush to the outside,” Riker said. “Then we head in the same direction they’re going, only faster. And when we come to a cross canal we take it. Presently we climb out of the canal and head back towards Bluestone.”

“And that will fool them?” My voice was heavy with disbelief. “Why don’t we get out of this canyon and up on top right away. We could make better time across the desert and we’re closer to Bluestone.”

“Two reasons,” Riker said. “First, there probably won’t be a roadway to the top until we hit a cross canal and second, that’s exactly the thing they’ll expect us to do if there is a roadway nearby, and finally, we’d be visible for miles. I’m not going to point out the obvious facts that we have no canteens, that the upper surface is hot as a furnace, that a Mark VII can project two thousand meters with accuracy, and that your respirator won’t run forever without a rest. You know those things already.”

“But you did point them out,” I said, “and I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m glad you admit it,” Riker said. “We’ll do better as a team than as individuals, but I’m not going topside, team or no team. That’s suicide.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And we’re going to have trouble enough getting through this undergrowth,” Riker said, “without worrying about what we’ll do afterwards. No let’s get to work. We have some skin to lose.”

CHAPTER XV

« ^ »

Riker was right. We expended several minutes and quite a few square centimeters of skin inching our way through that jungle until we came to an old ryk tunnel where the brush was bent aside. Through this we moved with relative ease.

Late that afternoon I caught a flicker of movement about two kilometers behind us. I called Riker’s attention to it and he nodded grimly.

“Natives,” he said. “Probably the same ones who took us yesterday. I’d bet on it. I’ve been watching them for the past half hour, and they’re not closing in. They’re staying just beyond the range of a Mark VII.”

“Hmm, not good,” I said.

“Not good at all,” he agreed. “Our luck in running out.”

We went on, openly, at a good pace. My respirator purred comfortably as it concentrated air for my lungs. Behind us, the natives were having a bad time since they had to move from cover to cover.

“We’re going to have to get water this evening sometime,” Riker said, “and until the plants change their metabolism, this is going to be dangerous. The gorrons will be alert now until there’s an appreciable rise in carbon dioxide levels.”

“I don’t want any part of them again,” I said.

“Yet if we wait until it’s really safe, it’ll be black dark and our pursuers will be on top of us.”

“Then what’ll we do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do. We’ll have to ambush the natives. If we can hurt and confuse them, they’ll stop and think it over which will give us time to put a safer distance between us and them.”

“That’ll be great if it can be done.”

“Oh, it can be done all right. First we start running—but not too far. We pick a spot up ahead, preferably where a cross canyon cuts in. Then we run for it. They can’t see us, and they won’t know we’ve turned the corner—unless.” His eyes raked out back trail. “Give me that Mark VII,” he said.

I handed the Kelly over, watching curiously as he flopped belly down on the ground behind a slight roll in the terrain and aimed carefully down the backtrail. Then suddenly he rolled and slammed two bolts at the canal rim. Sand exploded, boiled and melted where he had lain. A flat explosion came from the cliff as a brown-robed figure flung its arms in the air and plunged fluttering from the three hundred meter escarpment. A few seconds later a wild howl of rage and dismay came faintly from behind. Riker grinned. “Well—that takes care of their lookout.” He handed the Mark VII back to me.

I stood looking at him, open-mouthed. I’ve seen some shooting in my life, but that was phenomenal. I pressed the Mark VII back at him. “Give me the Four,” I said, “and you keep the Seven. A man who can shoot like that needs a big gun. I couldn’t do a quarter as well.”

“Aw, I had him spotted and he was a sitting target. Anyone coulda done it.”

“Not me,” I said.

“Okay, if you feel that way, I’ll trade,” Riker said happily. “Now let’s get going with that ambush.”

It worked fairly well. We nicked two of them, killed one, and the other three ran.

“Seven men—a whole squad,” Riker said. “Guess they want us worse than I thought.”

“One of them had a Model S communicator strapped to his arm,” I said. “I saw it.”

“Agh!” Riker said. “You know what that means?”

“No.”

“There’ll be a whole tribe on our necks by morning.”

“Maybe,” I said as I turned into the side canyon and started walking up it.

“Hey! Where ya going?” Riker asked.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “The tunnel we were in came out in one of these side canyons. Maybe there’s another.”

There was. It wasn’t used and was plugged with a screen of brush which I cut with the needle aperture of the blaster.

Riker’s face lighted. “I get it,” he said. “Camouflage the opening after we go in.”

“It may work,” I said as I pulled the cut mat aside, set the aperture on wide, and blew a four-foot circle of smoking ruin through the dead growth behind the screen. We went in and pulled the mat behind us. “Now let’s get moving,” I said, as I faced the darkness.

“Down that?” Riker asked. “It’s probably blocked. The usable tunnels are used.”

“It’s no worse than being outside,” I said, “and I figure it’s about time to test that luck you’ve been complaining about. To me the luck’s been good. Now let’s find out how it really is.”

Riker produced a hand torch. “Good thing I took this from that native you killed,” he said. “We’ll need it now.” I nodded. I hadn’t thought of a torch, but Riker had. Somehow it made me feel inadequate.

With the light casting a fan of brilliance in front of us, we walked rapidly along the level floor. A few minutes from the opening, we came to a rockfall. It didn’t completely block the tunnel, so we negotiated it and pushed on. Riker’s expression in the reflected torchlight was dubious and grim, but he came along.

Actually, we didn’t have much choice. We never would have survived the night if we had stayed outside, and here we might. At worst our enemies could only come from two directions, and probably only from one if they were good enough to track us through the tunnel entrance. The chances were about even that the end of the tunnel down which we were travelling opened to the outside and that it wasn’t used because of the rockfall. I hoped that there were no more or if there were none of them made a complete block. So we passed three in the next half hour of walking; two of them weren’t bad, but the third we had to dig through. The tunnel wasn’t impassable but the rockfalls made it unsafe. To us, unsafe was a minor matter.

“Better than I thought,” Riker murmured, “Maybe we’ll make it yet. I figured this tunnel would be completely blocked.”

“Wonder what they used these things for?” I said.

Riker shrugged. “Nobody knows. You can’t figure anything about the Shambra. They weren’t human, and they didn’t think like we do.”

“They’d have to. After all, civilization is built on fundamental truths.”

“Based on whose laws?”

“Universal laws.”

“By whose definition? Interpreted by whom? Applied by whom?”

“Men, humanoids, other intelligent races,” I said

“What I say still goes. Who does the major thinking for the Confederacy? Who runs the labs? Who are the directors? I’ll tell you. They’re men for the most part, and humanoids—or others trained by men—for the rest. Now the Shambra never knew men and were never corrupted by man’s success. So they went in their own direction and with their own laws. So—what are these tunnels for? Who knows.”

I wasn’t too impressed. Riker was mouthing the same stuff I’d heard before. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. But it was an excuse to avoid rational consideration of the Shambra artefacts. Somehow it seemed to me that everyone wanted to avoid thinking about the Shambra. Was it because they were greater than men, more intelligent, more intellectual, more civilized? Was it because the legends gave them the appearance of the Egyptian god Anubis, who weighed the souls of the dead? Or was it because of mankind’s guilt complex? And were the Old Race the descendents of the Shambra or were they pets? I shrugged. I was at it again. I had no right to criticize Riker for speculating about the Shambra. I was just as bad.

We walked for hours. We were hungry, but we had no problem with water. There are seeps every few kilometers, and the air inside was cool and moist. We were close to the polar regions. Bluestone is right on the edge of the frost line and we had travelled perhaps eighty or ninety kilometers since we were taken from our wrecked truck. I was hungry and tired. I suppose Riker was too. But we couldn’t have everything, and maybe we’d find something edible later.

I stopped. Ahead, the tunnel glowed red. “Hey—what’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Riker said.

We moved forward cautiously. Was it radioactive? The red glow was cold. My pocket counter didn’t click. It was just a redness that came from a ring of metal passing around the circumference of the tunnel. Beyond it was a circular room with several other tunnel mouths radiating from it. The ones nearest us were dark and one of the ones beyond glowed a lambent blue.

We halted in the intersection and looked around us.

“That was a feeder,” Riker said gesturing down our backtail. “I’m going on the theory that red means the same to the Shambra as it does to us—danger,” Riker said, “and that no color means that things are out of order and that blue means go ahead.”

“So we go through the blue door?”

Riker nodded. “That’s right. It’s going about the same way we’ve been travelling.”

“The other tunnels could take us to another canal.”

“That’s a good way to get lost. We should get back to the Phargan Canal if we can. This far north the canals connect with each other and enter the polar catchbasin. We could be under the south shore of the basin.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “We can’t have travelled that far. But one direction is as good as another, so let’s go forward.”

Riker nodded, walked across the intersection, stepped through the blue glow—and vanished!

And then, he stepped out of the frame.”

“Well,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Where have you been?” I demanded.

“On the other side. There’s transportation waiting for us.” Riker grinned. “The Shambra had a highly developed technological civilization. I told you about the Legends. This is a Doorway to Distance. The only thing that surprised me is that it still works. I’ve always thought these tunnels were highways. Now I’m sure of it.”

“And what’s this?” I pointed at the glowing blue frame.

“Merely a signal,” Riker said, “that this tunnel is ready for passengers. Come on. Our chariot awaits—let’s see where it goes.”

With some queasy feelings, I stepped through the glow and into an airlock. It had to be an airlock. Nothing else would have interlock doors that were obviously airtight. The second door opened into a cabin lined with odd-shaped seats that were obviously designed for something larger than us. We sat down and a white light bearing a symbol that looked like two linked diamonds lit on the wall in front of us. In front of our seat a blue light glowed. Riker reached out a finger and touched it. A gentle motion followed his action. We were pushed back into our seats, then after awhile we were pulled out of them. There was a gentle bump and the white light went out. The whole sequence of events had taken about thirty minutes.

“All right, what was that?” I asked.

“You just had a ride. Maybe a long one.”

“Great—where are we?”

“Damned if I know. We could be at the North Pole or the South Pole or anywhere between. Anyway, wherever we are, we’re at the end of the line.”

“Well, let’s see,” I said. We left the car and passed through another blue lighted gateway and into a huge circular room lined with openings. Some glowed blue, others red, and still others were dark. I counted them. There were twenty.

“How many north-south canals?” I asked Riker as an idea struck me.

“Forty,” Riker said, “but I think each one of these doorways is related to a canal system. We’re probably at the north pole of Arthe somewhere under the ice cap. And just for your information, the north pole is something over a thousand kilometers north of Bluestone.”

“That last step was a big one,” I said.

“Oh we were probably safe enough. The Shambra were great engineers.”

“Now let’s get oriented before we go any farther.” It wasn’t hard to do. Each door frame bore a glyph above it and the one we left had two interlocking diamonds. It was easy enough to remember if you didn’t confuse it with the interlocking squares, ovals and triangles above the doors.

“Where do we go now?” I asked.

“Anywhere but here. Some of these doorways are apparently operational. Up the ramp might be best.” He pointed at a helical ramp winding around a metal column in the center of the room.

We ran up the ramp and had hardly reached the next level before natives began to pour out of one of the doorways.

Riker swore softly and began running up the ramp. I followed. He left the ramp at the next level, ran down a radiating corridor and turned off at the first cross corridor and stopped.

“What’s the rush?” I asked. “They didn’t see us.”

“I don’t want them to see us. I’ve just figured out where we are. We’d be cold meat if they caught us now. They might not even wait to kill us.”

“Why?”

“We’re in their holy-holy. This is the North Temple. It’s gotta be. No one believes it exists except those idiots who think the Shambra Legends tell literal truth.” He grinned at me.

“I think I’m becoming a believer,” I said.

“Well, right now we’re out of the griddle,” Riker said, “but we’re still in the fire. This isn’t a safe place for Confeds.”

“Is any place outside a dome safe?”

“I guess not, but this place is worse than most. It’s the home of the Shambra, the place of the Gods. There’s a dozen titles for it. It and the South Temple were the seats of the Shambra power.”

“You think there’s another place like this at the South Pole?”

Riker shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. The Legends speak of two Houses of Power. Look at the canals, the ruins of the cities, everything balances. So if there’s a North Temple, there’s probably a South one.”

“Interesting,” I murmured.

Riker gave me a glance of mingled anger and frustration. “I don’t know why you won’t accept this with an open mind. It’s all here in front of you.”

I shrugged. “It still doesn’t prove that the Shambra are anything more than aborigines.”

“Who cares?” he asked. “They lived. They had power. And they were infinitely more advanced than the Old Race, and probably more advanced than us. Just consider the Song of the Power.”

I did. It made me shiver to think of it. I remembered the rhythm, the chorus and the thin clear voice of the Chanter weaving a spell of words and sounds that made the short hairs at the back of my neck quiver. The Power! Power to cleave mountains, to drive glass-lined tunnels ruler straight through rock and soil, power to melt cities into slag, power to change a world!

The Shambra had it once. So did the Old Race, if the Legends were true. The natives still held a belief in it with all its potential for harm and good. The Power was god to these half-civilized regressives!

“I’ve considered it,” I said. “I’m not nearly as skeptical as I was. I also feel that we’d better get the hell out of here. I don’t like this place.”

“You state the obvious,” Riker said, “but how do we get out when the doorways are rilled with natives coming in?”

“We find a place that’s safe, and wait until the activity dies down, then we go.”

“Fine—now where’s a safe place?”

I shrugged. “The only way to find is to look.”

Riker laughed. “You’re right, of course,” he admitted, “but I think we’re going to have trouble. This area is probably crawling with natives.”

“The place is big,” I said. “And in something this size there ought to be a few holes where men can hide.”

“Okay—lead on,” Riker said. “We’re on borrowed time, anyway.”

I went away from the ramp down one of the corridors.

It went a long way. It started as a fairly wide passageway that ran ruler straight through the rock. Like the tunnels, it was smooth-walled and glassy, but unlike them, it was dimly lighted by plaques in the wall similar to our cold tubes. It felt different. There was something about it that left me vaguely uneasy. Perhaps it was the frequent sills and lintels crossing the passageway like so many doorless door frames. Perhaps it was because there were no cross-passages or doorways. Perhaps it was because the tunnel was too high in proportion to its width, or too straight, or too dark, but whatever the reason, I wasn’t happy about being inside it.

Neither was Riker. “Let’s get out of here, Doc,” Joe finally said. “I don’t like this.”

“Nothing has bothered us so far,” I countered. “We’d be better off staying right where we are than going back.”

“It’s too straight and unprotected,” Riker said. “Someone could turn a Mark VII down here and burn us without even exposing himself.”

“Well—let’s go on. There’s bound to be a turn soon.”

“You hope,” Riker said.

I did, but I wasn’t about to let him know. I would have welcomed a corner. We walked another hundred meters and came abruptly to a stop. The tunnel was barred by a smooth black barrier extending from wall to wall.

“Now what the devil is this?” Riker said. His voice had an oddly flat quality as though its sound was absorbed in the inky barrier that barred our way.

“It could be a door,” I said.

Riker stepped back and let me examine the barrier. It looked something like a modification of our force curtains, but instead of the pulsing translucent iridescence it was a shimmering black. And it had none of a force-screen’s electrostatic qualities. I took a coin from my pocket and tossed it at the barrier. The metal bounced off and clicked on the floor. I screwed up my courage and touched it. Nothing happened. The barrier was smooth, warm and impenetrable. It extended from the shining bar in the lintel to the shining bar in the sill. Its jet color and the flat echolessness of our voices when we were next to it indicated that it was probably one of the high order waves our physicists were just beginning to investigate. We had been using force planes in surgery for a few years, but as far as I knew we had nothing like this.

I checked the doorframe. Nestled in the metal, slightly above normal human hand height were two knobs, one black and one white. They were obviously to be pressed, and the only problem—and a serious one—was which one to press. I chose the white, purely because the screen was black. I touched it and the screen promptly vanished. I touched the black knob and the screen was restored.

“Take a look on the other side,” I said to Riker as I released the screen. “See if there’s some buttons there.”

Riker stepped across the threshold. “No buttons,” he announced.

“Hmm, a one-way lock,” I murmured. “Now what’s ahead that was to be kept in—or out?”

“That’s a good question. Shall we find out?”

“One of us should stay by this door and keep it open.”

“Not me,” Riker said.

“Nor I,” I answered.

“Can’t we leave it open?”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I don’t know what it would do.”

“Hey—wait a minute—what’s this thing?” Riker reached into a recess beside the door and came out with a curved piece of metal oddly similar to a cargo hook. I looked at it a moment and a crazy idea crossed my mind “Here,” I said, “you stand by out here and let me go inside. Once I’m in, close the door.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Let me try something,” I said. I took the crooked metal bar and stepped beyond the barrier. “Okay, turn it on.”

Instantly the jet screen formed. I lifted the metal hook and pushed it at the screen. Slowly, inch by inch, the hook disappeared into the inky surface. It was like pushing a probe through flesh. There was the same yielding resilience, the same resistance. I turned the hook, manipulating it slowly and carefully, and the screen vanished. The metal bar twisted in my hand and nearly tore out of my grasp.

I shook my tingling fingers and grinned at Riker’s startled face. “Okay, Joe—we have a key if we have the bad luck to get trapped,” I said triumphantly.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Joe said.

“We can go on now, and we can close this doorway behind us. It should be some protection against snoopers or snipers or anyone who might be curious enough to follow our tracks.”

“Good,” Riker said. “And what about that key?”

“I’m going to take it with us,” I said. “You never can tell when it’ll come in handy. There may be other doors it can open.”

We moved forward across the threshold. I placed the hook on the black button, pulled, and withdrew the hook. As I pulled it through the barrier, I noticed a pair of faint lines on the door frame. Someone else apparently had trouble placing the key where it belonged, and had added a memory refresher. I filed the information away, stuck the hook in a belt loop and followed Riker up the tunnel.

Almost immediately to our front the tunnel ended in a cross corridor lined on the far side with metal doors about a meter wide that slid upward in grooves and were moved by a prosaic worm and gear arrangement that was almost as old as human history and obviously not Shambran work. Each door had a fisheye lens peephole that revealed the cell beyond. It was slightly below my eye level, and it was no trick at all to see through it. The cell beyond was empty, just a narrow cubicle closed at the far end by a metal grating. Beyond the grating I could see a segment of a large semicircular open space, and on the far side tier after tier of seats rose beyond my vision. It was something like the Greek and Roman theaters of Earth except that it was enclosed and lighted with great shadowless globes of brilliance hanging over the semicircular area in front of the cages.

“It’s an arena!” I said. It may have been something else once, but that was what it was now. The blank rear wall of the stage behind which we were was faced with cages containing the sacrifices. The ritual trappings were out in front of the proscenium, and beyond were the semicircular rows of seats rilled with an attentive crowd of natives watching the stage. Like most human rituals, it had a great deal of solemnity, I supposed, but I couldn’t see too much of it. There was chanting and gorgeously robed priests in crimson and gold and white. The centerpiece was the pale body of a nude man shackled to a polished slab of black basalt which lay below a square-sided pillar of the same black stone. There was a ledge about halfway up the pillar and on it lay something that drew my eyes in utter fascination. A black hemisphere, so black that it left the stone looking gray by comparison, it sucked light into it and created an aura of lesser blackness around it. It was the most fascinating yet terrifying thing I had ever seen. I knew what it was the instant I saw it. It was The Power—the core of the Legends; for a moment I felt all the awe and terror that must have filled the seats in front of the stage. The thing was a simple hemisphere but it was monstrous with implications and terrible with potential! I shook as I pushed myself from the peephole.

“What’s going on?” Riker asked.

“It’s a stage of some sort,” I said.

“A big hall?” Riker asked.

“Look for yourself.” I showed him the peephole and he put his eye to it. He was there a long time. He drew a long slow breath. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stood there shivering.

“Is that The Power?” I asked.

“Yep—that’s it! Just like the description.”

He was talking about the Legends again. I could quote this part by heart. I’d heard it often enough.

“Deep in the cup of the Hall of the Northland

Ringed round by ice and eternal white snow

Stands on its pillar the half-dome of Power

Joined in its parts forming a unit

Lies half The Power born from its union

Tribes from all waters that flow to the sea

Watch they the Power—gift of the Shambra

Brought unto men by the slaves of the Lords

Lords of Creation the star-guided Shambra

Sleeping lies Power, dark with its slumber

Unit of darkness empty of light

Black as the caves of night everlasting

Black as the hearts of men who have sinned

Sleeping lies Power, born to melt cities

Sleeping lies Power, dark and quiescent

Sleeping lies Power, awaiting awakening

Center of Arthe, the gift of the Shambra

Power of sacrifice linked to the chosen

Linked to the blood of the sacrificed virgins

Linked to the black flames that burns men to ashes

Linked to the glory born from their union

Linked to the tribes joined here in worship—”

It went on and on, telling a repetitive tale of superstition, sacrifice and slaughter. It was truth. I knew that now. The Power was not a myth. It was as real and terrible as the Legends said it was, and the sacrifices were not made with a knife, bludgeon, or other mundane object as I had thought, but with the perverted use of The Power itself. The implications of that scene were crystal clear. But its use was insane. With a thing like The Power in their control, the natives could well be invincible—so why hadn’t they used it? Something as resistless and terrible as The Power could have driven every dome dweller from Arthe and could have overpowered both the Service and the Patrol. I didn’t know this, but I was as certain of it as I was that I was standing behind the cagerow that held the sacrifices the natives made to their Dark God. Why hadn’t they used it? Why hadn’t they wiped us off the face of Arthe?

I couldn’t stop shaking as I considered the implications…

Riker eyed me with sympathy. “I know how you’re feeling,” he said. “Trouble is that you’ve been conditioned against believing in native superstitions and now when you see a big one come true you can’t take it.”

“I’ll believe it from now on,” I said. “My trouble isn’t belief, it’s extrapolation.”

“Huh?”

“What’s to prevent them from wiping out the domes?”

Riker shook his head and sighed. “A closed mind,” he observed, “is the hardest of all things to open. You now can accept one legend. Why not accept the others. Don’t you remember The Charge of The Shambra?”

“I’m not going to swallow fairy tales,” I said. “I know human beings, and whatever else they are, the natives are human. Maybe you’re right and the Shambra charge that The Power must not be used for war can restrain these madmen. But I don’t even like the thought of taking such a chance!”

“Neither do I,” Riker said, “but let’s get going—we won’t get anywhere talking about stopping these guys. We have to get back and spread the word. A few nukes properly placed should stop this business permanently.”

Joe might not have been thinking as I was, but he was right. We didn’t have time to waste. H-Day was due anytime—the world was edging toward disaster—but with The Power a reality it had been trembling on the brink for years. It almost made me relax, for no plot, no matter how grisly, could conceivably compare to the havoc that could be caused if The Power were unleashed.

“Okay—so we hurry,” I said. My voice was strained. I wanted to get out of this place and run for help. This was nothing to fool with. Later, maybe, we could explore the ruins if anything was left. But now there were two problems. This one might wait but H-Day wouldn’t.

“If we’re going to get out of here, we’ll get out easier if we hold The Power,” Riker said. “No native’ll touch us.”

“The Legends again?”

He nodded. “You should study them,” he said, “and keep an open mind. Don’t let the poetic form fool you. They’re history, politics, anthropology and ethics, among other things.” He shrugged. He accepted the Legends as gospel. The implication was that I should too.

“We could get into the arena through this pen,” Riker said, touching the sliding door to emphasize his words. “We could burn the outer grille off and come out shooting.”

“Let’s see where this passage goes,” I said. “There’s no sense in advertising our presence until it’s necessary, and we’d waste a lot of time burning off that grille.”

Riker nodded. “You’re right. But I wasn’t thinking about that. These people aren’t expecting attack. If they were hit hard they’d maybe panic, and a couple of gunners could murder a panicky mob. But you’re right—we wouldn’t surprise anyone if we had to cut through that grille.”

We went on, down the row of doors. The next few were filled with animals. There were some gorrons and ryks, and a small gold animal about the size of a dog with beautiful silky fur.

“A wygran,” Riker said. “They’re sacred. Their fur is never sold. It’s used to trim those ceremonial cloaks the priests wear. It makes me drool to think of the prices we could get for a few hundred pelts. They make gorron fur look cheap.”

I took a quick look through the next peephole. My face must have mirrored my emotions, for Riker stopped muttering about priests and looked through the grille. “I told you about this,” he said.

My face was tight. The pen in itself wasn’t particularly horrible. All it contained was a big, well-built halfbreed sitting naked and dejected on the bare floor. But there was something about the man’s hopeless posture that made my stomach crawl. He was no longer a man. He was an animal awaiting slaughter, a sacrifice. He had no hope. There was such an air of conscious cruelty that I reached for the crank that raised the rear wall.

Riker stopped me. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he asked softly. “You’ll only call attention to yourself. That fellow would be no help. He’s broken, and you’re not going to cure him by letting him out of his cage.”

“So he’s a man. So what. There have been thousands before him. And there will be thousands after him if we get killed here. If you’re so damn hot to save Arthe from tonocaine and break the native priesthood you’ll have to stay alive to do it. Take him out of here now and you’ll blow the whole thing.”

I wasn’t convinced that Riker was right, but he was being pragmatic, and I was not, and I wasn’t at all certain that right won any more victories than common sense.

We went past other pens filled with naked human occupants, some male, some female, all adult. Some were terrified, some dejected, some indifferent, some obviously insane. Apparently mental states made no difference to the priests. As long as the body was there, it was enough.

We were almost at the end of the row. In front of us was another jet curtain. I peeked into the next to last pen. The occupant was Sofra!

CHAPTER XVI

« ^ »

“To hell with caution,” I said. “That’s my woman! She comes out now!”

Riker didn’t argue. “Just let her know what you’re going to do before you do it,” he said. “There’s no sense triggering screams.”

“How in hell can I tell her through this metal?”

“That’s your problem. Just don’t get her screaming.”

I put my eye to the peephole and tapped three times quickly on the metal door with the butt of by Kelly. Then three times slowly. She turned, her eyes wide, her face an agony of hope and fear. I tapped again and without further delay began to turn the crank that raised the door. It apparently hadn’t been used in years. It creaked and groaned and I was in an agony of impatience and fear that it might draw attention, but it did not. I only had to raise it a few decimeters and Sofra was through the crack, wriggling like a snake in her eagerness to get out of that cage.

I had no need to worry about the noise. Her arrival was heralded by a continuous scream, a raw note of mindless agony, drowning any lesser sound. The insignificant squeaks and raspings of the doorway were nothing against this. I spun the crank downward with frantic speed. The door closed as Joe helped Sofra to her feet. A moment later I held her in my arms, warm, smooth and beautiful. I didn’t ask how she got here. That I had found her before any harm had come to her was enough.

Riker watched, red-faced and envious. I slipped my jacket over her shoulders. Sofra rolled up the sleeves and knotted the belt around her slender waist.

She looked at me. “Sam, you’ve got to hurry. They’ve got a pair under the Power who were brought here with me. He’s the one who’s screaming. It will be my turn soon. I should have been dead days ago except… she let the sentence die.

“Except for what?” I snarled.

Incongruously, she giggled—a thin whisper of sound that made my scalp crawl. It sounded mad. I could accept she might scream, or faint, or do anything but giggle!

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “But not now. Let’s get out of here while their attention is on the sacrifice.”

“How long does it last?”

“It varies—usually about five or ten minutes. Seldom more.” She shuddered. “A burnt offering to the Shambra is made quickly when all The Power is assembled and the woman is strong and healthy. The tribes are all here now, so this sacrifice shouldn’t last very long.

“It takes two to make a sacrifice,” she said. “The woman furnishes the energy for The Power, and The Power burns the man. She is shut in that pillar on which the Power rests. He is laid on the altar. He can’t move except to scream. The mouth of The Power is toward the pillar and the man burns—slowly in the energy that spews from the vent. When he is consumed the pillar is opened and the woman is removed. She, too, is dead. Her voice force is consumed to burn the man.”

“Now?” Riker asked.

I nodded. “I think so. We’ll do it your way. First we panic them. Then we grab The Power.”

Riker looked at Sofra critically. “Guess we’ve got something to fight for,” he said. “Now while Doc and I try to convert these heathens, you go back up the line and let the other folks out. Get them to help you. Can you do it?”

Sofra nodded.

I looked at her helplessly. What she needed right now was something I couldn’t give. Sure—I could help her talk it out, but there was no time, and there were things in her that were screaming for release. She was on the ragged edge of hysteria. I looked at Riker as I pulled the hook from my belt loop.

Riker eyed me eagerly, the Mark VII balanced in his hands, a replacement charge dangling from his left hand. “Anytime now,” he said.

Sofra turned toward the cage doors and reached for the first crank handle as I probed with the hook through the shimmering blackness of the barrier feeling for the button and guided by the faint lines on the doorframe. Suddenly the barrier vanished—and hell broke loose!

Riker stepped into the doorway and began firing at maximum blast and minimum aperture. He blew two centimeter holes through the heads and bodies of the natives clustered around the altar. Without stopping, he switched apertures and laid a fan of energy across the arena, shifting his fire with paralyzing speed and precisions. He flipped out the spent charge, slapped in a new one, and went on firing with the right hand while he plucked a new replacement charge from his belt with his left. I was amazed. I knew the man was good, but I never dreamed he was that good.

I was doing my bit with the Mark IV to make things hot for the natives, but I was a feeble sputter compared to the inspired gunnery of Riker. I picked off the surviving priests, while Riker snapped the receiver open, spilled out the second expended charge, popped a third into the magazine, clicked the action shut, and continued firing without missing a beat in the rhythm of his shooting.

“Okay—get ready to move,” he rasped. “Get that Power!” He lifted his fire to the stands, stopping down to minimum intensity and setting the aperture wide open. At that range and setting the Mark VII could raise a painful burn but little more—but it could cover a five meter circle and would be more than enough to keep the crowd milling.

The confusion was wonderful. On the floor of the arena nothing moved. In the tiers of seats, natives were scrambling wildly, stung by the sublethal charges that crackled among them. Their shouts, screams and writhing bodies turned the whole of the visible stands into a milling mass rushing toward the exits, seeking only to escape.

Past me dashed naked men and women from the pens as Sofra turned them loose. Blind-eyed with hate, they ran into the arena. Some hurdled the barrier between floor and seats and attacked the crowds with fists and teeth. Others dashed onto the stage floor, recovered the weapons the priests had carried, and began to fire into the stands. Sofra darted to me, scooped up a Mark IV that had been dropped and added her bit to the din. She shot once at a priest I had killed and then turned to the stands firing at maximum into the spectators. Her lips were drawn back in a grimace of hate, and from her mouth poured a stream of screaming obscenity that blistered my ears! She was having her catharsis—with a vengeance!

Kelly in hand, I dashed onto the stage. My eyes were fixed on the incredibly black hemisphere setting in front of that fat black column. The hemisphere was so black it hurt the eyes, so black that it cast a halo of darkness around it. It was fascinating—and terrifying.

I went to the black column, kicked aside the double ring of carved wooden shrines at its base and reached for the Power. But before I touched it I paused. A chill premonition held my hand. I looked at it, feeling my eyes sink into its blackness, stared at the row of studs inset into the silver plate on which it rested, gazed at the dead priests around the column and nodded. That was it. I must have noticed it in the split second before Riker killed them. Two were wearing standard protective gauntlets. They must, I thought, be wearing them for a reason. I jerked a pair from the dead hands of the nearest priest and crammed my fingers into them. Then I took hold of the edges of the silver plate and lifted.

The pillar split down the one edge. The side swung out and a nude girl, wax-pale, shivering and empty-eyed, staggered out of the pillar. She looked unseeing at the carnage and moved unsteadily away. Like a sleepwalker, I thought. And then I thought of her no more.

The weight of the Power claimed all my attention. I doubted that any single native could have lifted it. Even I, who am stronger than most, had trouble holding it. The veins stood out on my forehead as I struggled with the brutal load. The metal prongs beneath the plate cut into my gloved hands. My breath came panting with strain. And a shrill, keening wail came from the topmost tiers of seats.

Action stopped, frozen into suspended animation. A deathly stillness fell over the gigantic hall as I took one labored step and then another away from the split pillar, carrying that enormously heavy thing in my hands.

“Sam—Doc!—listen.” Riker’s voice cut like a rusty knife. “You gotta make it! We have ‘em now. They don’t dare touch you! You hold The Power!”

I didn’t reply. My whole attention was focussed on carrying that thing to the doorway where Riker waited.

“The Green!” Sofra screamed. “Turn the Green!”

I could hardly hear her above the roaring in my ears and I couldn’t have done it even if I had known what “the green” was. My arms were fire, my legs were lead, my heart hammered in my chest, bright flashes blazed across my eyes. And Riker’s voice was soft with amazed wonder.

“You did it—by the Eternal Verities—you did it! It isn’t possible—” and then in a sharper tone, “Set it down, you fool! You’ve done all you need to.”

I lowered The Power to the floor. Vision came back to my eyes. My breathing slowed. And back from the arena came the survivors of the sacrifices, five men and three women, one of them Sofra. They stripped the dead priests of their cloaks which they wrapped around their bodies.

“Where’s the woman who was in the pillar?” I demanded.

“Dead, sir,” one of the men answered. “Too much life was drained from her.”

“The natives?”

“Gone, sir. Those that still live. They went in fear.” He grinned at me.

“But there will be others and they may not fear, Sofra said.

“There will be no others,” Riker said. “We have The Power. We have their God.”

“And just what good is it?” I asked. “It’s too heavy to carry, and too awkward to drag.”

“Give me your respirator, my lord,” one of the ‘breeds said. “I know a thing about this that is not chanted except by priests. My grandmother was the daughter of a priest.”

I handed it to him and watched in horror as he ripped it open and took out the tiny accumulators and the solar cells which fed them.

“What are you doing?” I gasped. “I can’t last without a respirator.”

“Wait, lord. Observe.” The man fastened the cell to the projections below the plate and touched the green stud. “Now, lord, lift The Power,” he said.

I did—and it weighed scarcely a dozen grams! It almost floated. I held it easily in my hand. “What—” I began, but the ‘breed motioned me to silence.

“Look at the studs on the plate,” he said. “There are eight of them.”

“No,” I said. “There are nine. Eight in a row and a gray one apart.”

“Forget the gray one. It merely breaks the segments. Now read me. The eight buttons are the Eight Ways of Power. The white creates, the black destroys, the red protects, the orange speaks, the yellow hears, the green bears, the blue sees and the violet knows. Which ways do you wish Power? You can have any four with half the sphere.”

I held The Power in front of me and turned the red stud. Nothing happened except that my breathing suddenly became easy. This, I thought, was crazy. I turned the stud back. My breathing was still easy. Somehow I’d been adapted to Arthe without pain, and without surgery. It was a miracle, but of course I didn’t believe in miracles. This thing would destroy medicine, I thought wryly.

“While you hold The Power and it is red, no harm can come to you from any physical source,” the ‘breed said.

“Does the effect last?” I asked.

“I don’t know, lord.”

One of the ‘breeds kept staring at me. Suddenly he began howling. “He holds The Power. He is Shambra.”

“What do you think of this thing, Joe?” I asked.

“I don’t like it. It scares me spitless.”

“You’re not alone. I’m afraid, too. This is not for men to handle. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Let’s get away from here,” Riker said.

A man gets a sixth sense about natives after dealing with them as long as Riker had, and I respected it. I touched the violet stud and sent The Power’s perception ranging through the vast hetacomb around us. There was natives—thousands of them, all leaving by corridor and tube. It was an exodus—swift and orderly.

“The natives are leaving,” I said.

“Why?”

I looked again—deeper, and presently I found it. Under us, under the arena was a roomful of duodecanitrinol, the most powerful explosive short of nuclear fission. It was fused and explosion was imminent. And to my mind came a knife-keen thought HURRY! ELSE YOU DIE!

“We can’t go the way we came,” I said. “Those passages are choked. And we can’t stay. We’re sitting on top of a bomb. There has to be another way out.”

“You have The Power,” Riker said. “Find it.”

I tried. I sent its perception racing through level after level, past ramps and tunnel openings. All were choked with departing natives. Upward I worked, level by level until it arrived at the one we were on. In a room stained with age and thick with dust I found a ring of four doorways, one of which glowed blue. I traced back to us, turned the green stud, picked up The Power and led the way out. We ran. There were no natives to stop us.

Somewhere below the limits of audibility, I was conscious of a giant sound that seemed like a bell tolling in measured strokes. I hadn’t the slightest idea what it was, and I didn’t want to know. Ahead was escape, and that was my direction. On I went, drawn by The Power and the knowledge that the way was clear.

I found the room just as I had envisioned it. Above stretched the empty wall of an airshaft. I stepped toward the blue glowing doorframe and stopped.

“You go first,” I said as I pushed Riker toward the gate.

“How come?”

“I’ll bring up the rear.”

I watched the last man vanish through the blue glow. Then I looked at The Power. Regretfully, I released the blue stud. It was very quiet as I stood beneath the airshaft in the center of the room. I reached for the green stud, and pushed it halfway down. Then I swore! What sort of god was I that I didn’t use my powers? Who was I to be afraid of a mere ton or two of duodec? I pushed the red stud and the black one and aimed The Power at the spot where the explosive was buried.

This time hell broke loose! A cylinder of absolute blackness leaped from the apex of the hemisphere and cut straight through the wall, leaving a smooth glass-lined tunnel in its wake. An enormous recoil hurled The Power from my hands. It bounced off the far wall, and caromed across the room. The black beam stopped. The Power floated upward into the airshaft. I watched it go, floating upward like a gas-filled balloon.

I wondered if I had destroyed the explosive. I looked at the receding Power and felt its loss. It was a gut-wrenching sensation. I couldn’t bear to let it go, yet I didn’t want it back. It was nothing for men to handle. I’d barely touched its surface but in those few minutes I had possessed it, I had become enamored of it. I loved it, not with the love man has for woman, but with the love man has for God! I had been drunk with the godlike powers it held. I knew with perfect certainty that this black hemisphere was the key to eternal glory. I could rule. I could do anything I wished. Nothing, literally nothing, could stand against me. And now, with it gone I knew it was wrong. Power such as this was not for one man to own, nor for one race to possess. It was too much.

I no longer wondered why the natives had never put the Power together and wiped the domes off the face of Arthe. The mutual distrust of the tribes must be almost as great as their hatred for us. No one tribe could conceivably have wielded the intact power. The others wouldn’t permit it. Had their rituals not called for mingling each year at the poles and at the equator, there would be virtually no intercourse between the tribes. And with the priests dead, The Power gone and the Temple perhaps destroyed, there would be nothing to bring the natives back here or to hold them together.

It might be just the break they needed. Their way of life was so thoroughly disrupted that the shock might give them a chance for sanity. Perhaps now, having lost the Shambra’s Power, they might return to the human race.

I sighed and stepped through the doorway. I had enough of this place…

The car stopped at an opening near the edge of a canal. We got out and clustered in a small group. I wondered it this was the same canal along which we had come north. I doubted it since the tiny Class VI dome a few hundred yards to the south hadn’t been in the watercourse we had followed. We lost no time getting to it. The inhabitants, a half dozen traders and their women, received us with suspicion, until they recognized Riker and me. Then they were open-minded.

“Whatcha doin’ up here, Doc?” one bearded fellow asked. “Thought you was goin’ back to Dunkelburg.”

“I never got there,” I said. “We got mouse-trapped outside of Bluestone.”

“How?”

“Mechanical difficulty,” I said, “plus high explosive. We hit a mine.”

Joe took it from there, and had our hosts open-mouthed and gasping before it was all over. I noticed with relief that he didn’t mention The Power.

Later Riker got me in a corner. “Look, Doc—what really happened back there? Did you use The Power on them?”

I shook my head. “No—I destroyed the duodec charges with the black stud—or at least I think I did, but the recoil knocked it out of my hands and—oh hell—I might as well tell you the whole story.” So I did.

“If I had the whole thing I’m sure I could have stopped that explosion. Hell, I could stop this world! That part in the arena was only half of it. The other half’s down south maybe. It might be at the South Polar Temple this winter.”

“Want to try for it?” Riker asked.

I shook my head. “No thanks. We pushed our luck too far this time. That job belongs to the Patrol or the Service.”

The traders fed us, gave us clothing and refused offers of payment. And for the first time I realized that some of my delusions of godhead when I held The Power weren’t due to encroaching divinity but to starvation. With surprise, I realized that I hadn’t eaten in at least three days.

But I made up for it.

The traders had a small rolligon which they loaned us together with one of their number as a driver. Bluestone was about a hundred kilometers to the south, and I was eager to get there. Three of the ‘breeds decided to stay at the dome and work for the traders, the other four, including the two women, thought they would rather try Bluestone. My personal feelings were that they were probably making a mistake, but that was their business.

So we went to Bluestone, armed and alert for trouble. And of course, we didn’t find any.

We cleared the dome entrance, thanked the trader and split. The ‘breeds vanished into the Authority. Riker headed for the nearest bar. And Sofra and I took a pair of rooms at a nearby hotel. For some reason, I was exhausted. I had no more energy left. Sofra tucked me in like a mother would a child, kissed me on the lips and turned out the lights.

CHAPTER XVII

« ^ »

Sofra was sitting in the big chair across the room watching me with troubled eyes. She had a blanket wrapped around her and looked far better than she should, considering everything. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

“You only rented one room,” she said. “Where could I go?”

“I rented two.”

“I didn’t notice. And besides, I don’t feel right without you around. Look at the mess I got myself into.” She smiled faintly. “But you weren’t what I expected. You went to sleep and had nightmares. They kept me awake. I wanted to comfort you, but I was afraid.”

“I would never hurt you. That hell I dream about is none of my making. Someday it will be gone.”

“I hope so. It is a part of you I have never seen—like that other part when you held The Power in your arms. You weren’t human then.”

“I was a god,” I said.

“I don’t think I care for gods.”

“I still feel bad that I had to leave it. You can’t realize what it was like. I was Lord of Creation.”

“The Shambra were.”

“They built The Power. They knew it. Yet even they were corrupted by it. They were nothing when your ancestors came to this world.”

“Those were not the Shambra,” Sofra said. “The Old Race knew nothing of The Power except that it lay broken apart in the polar temples, one-half in the north, and the other half in the south. It was we who put it together. Valra Kalkis set it up and pressed the red button. He killed himself later. When Kalkis pushed the button, we learned that the protection of us was the death of the Old Race. For some reason they were dangerous to our lives and to protect us The Power slew them. The colonists could not take it. They broke The Power into segments and separated it so it could not do that kind of harm again. Men fear The Power. Perhaps that is why they worship it.”

I shrugged. “The Power is evil. The Shambra vanished. It killed the Old Race. It made the natives revert to savages.”

She shook her head. “It is not evil. Only those who misuse it are evil. The Shambra were strong enough to control it. Men are not. Maybe someday they will be, but not now.”

I changed the subject. “You ought to get some sleep. You need it.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I tried.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked lightly. “Bad conscience?”

She looked at me with a perfectly sober face. “Yes,” she said.

“About what?” I asked. I was startled but I tried not to show it. Her voice held implications, and her next words confirmed them.

“Me,” she said, “and you.”

I thought about this minor enigma for a moment. It had some unpleasant implications, and I didn’t think I wanted to know what they were. I squeezed her hand she returned the pressure—hard. Her eyes were very bright, her lower lip trembled, and she hung onto my hand as if she would never let it go. “Hold me tight, Sam,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m going to start screaming.”

“Not you,” I said. “You’re not the type.”

“I’m not so sure. I never realized how much I loved life until they put me in that cage. Every time they came for another sacrifice I started praying it would not be me, and when they took someone else I was glad. I was happy that someone else was dying because I knew that I’d stay alive another day. And I watched those who died and all I could feel was gratitude that I wasn’t the one in the pillar. I didn’t think of them as people but as something that kept me from being shut in that living coffin while The Power slowly drained me of life. I’ll never forget that as long as I live!”

I shook my head. “You’ll forget, or at least you’ll forget the worst parts. That’s the fortunate thing about us humans. We’re able to forget the horrors. Otherwise we couldn’t live with ourselves.”

“I hope so, but I’m not sure I will. I was too close. There is too much to remember.”

I suppose I should have said something, but I did not. I had an idea how she managed to avoid dying, but I didn’t want to know if it was right. All that mattered was that she was here, that she was alive and whole, that she was with me. I had no right to ask for more.

“I almost hated you back at the temple,” Sofra said.

Her? Hate me! I looked at her with astonishment. Why should she hate me? For rescuing her? For loving her? “Why?” I finally managed. It was not what I had intended to say.

“Because you killed a certain priest before I could,” she said. “I wanted to kill him. I never wanted to kill a man before, but I would have given anything to kill him. But you did it. You blasted him just as I was picking up a Kelly. And I hated you.”

“Why? Because he—”

She shook her head. “No, Sam,” she said softly. “Not because he took me, but because he didn’t.”

“Huh?” If I was startled before, I was absolutely flabbergasted now. My ears heard it but it simply didn’t make sense. “This is incredible,” I said. “You wanted to kill him, because he didn’t bed you?”

“Yes.”

“But—but—” I stammered.

“It wasn’t a matter of love,” she said slowly, “it was a matter of pride.”

“Eh?”

She shrugged. “You might as well know. You’ll learn sometime anyway.” She looked at me with bright eyes in a tragic face. “I’m not much good, Sam. I thought I was something different, better than the others, but I’d never been put to a real test. I had no trouble remaining virginal. I kept the boys away. I went to parties in the Hub and flirted with the company men, but I never gave myself to any of them. I was a professional virgin, a teaser—the worst kind. I still am a virgin, but I’m not proud of it. Not now. I was just getting what I deserved when you rescued me from Johnny Sendal—you remember, the Mayor’s nephew?”

I stared at her.

“I’m not very clean, Sam,” she said finally, “and I’m not very honest.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know,” she said tightly. “I’m a fool to do it. I could lie to you and I think you’d believe me. But I can’t lie to you—not now.” She watched me with troubled eyes. “I owe you my life and I must tell the truth.”

“There’s an old cliché about confession being good for the soul,” I said. I couldn’t identify my emotions at the moment.

“Maybe that’s it. Anyway, my soul needs something. I’m full to the throat with myself, and I don’t like the taste.”

For the first time Sofra was a person to me, not just a beautiful body that would be a pleasure to sleep with and make love to. She was like myself, full of fears, emotions, insecurities, attitudes. She wasn’t my cool goddess. She was a woman.

“I lost my job at Disability Compensation because of Johnny,” she went on. “I lied to you when you hired me. I didn’t have a job. The mayor had me fired. I heard that you had opened a clinic and I was sure I could get a job from you.”

You did, eh? I thought. Was I that easy? Were you that certain of me? I shook my head. I was all mixed up. But one thing was clear and I hung onto it. I loved her.

“I was smart and clever,” Sofra said bitterly. “I went out to land you, and I did. It was so easy I could hardly believe it. You should have seen how you looked at me when you told me I could have that job as your nurse.”

“I know how I looked,” I said wryly.

“You were cute,” she said. “And I was curious about what came next. I thought you would make a pass at me, and when you didn’t I thought you were a fool. You could have had me easily for the price of marriage, and that wasn’t much since you could always go to Earth where I couldn’t follow. But you didn’t do anything except look at me. I couldn’t figure out why you were so damn virtuous. I got almost anything I wanted without paying any price at all. You were a good teacher and it was fun to learn about nursing. I liked the work, and it was more fun to watch you squirm and sweat. I was sure you were in love with me, but I never knew that I loved you until I kissed you the day you left Dunkelburg.”

She smiled at the memory. “I think I might not have been a virgin if you had stayed. I missed you badly when you left and it didn’t get any better. You were the first Confed who had ever treated me as a person, and I didn’t realize how much that meant to me until you were no longer around. I was pretty certain that you loved me and when you came back it would only be a question of time before you’d come for me, and we’d be married and I’d be Mrs. Doctor Sam Williams. It was a pleasant thought. And besides, you could offer me more than any other man in Dunkelburg. I weighed you, measured you, played up to you, and made you think I was a combination of everything good in a woman. I was pretty awful, Sam. There wasn’t much that was honest about me, except that I’d become fond of you. But I wasn’t about to let love interfere with profit. When you left, I didn’t do as you told me. I kept charging fees. I was greedy and stupid.”

“You did what?” For the first time I was outraged. “Who gave you a license?”

“I know, but I wanted the money. When the police arrested me, I was guilty.

“The court sentenced me to three months banishment. I was taken to the gate and placed on a freight caravan to Consol 27. There was a fellow with a beard who drove the truck I was in. We met a party of natives in the Phargan Canal. It must have been arranged. The convoys stopped and a couple of other banishees and I were turned over to the natives in return for a few gorron hides. I was terrified. I thought they’d rape me right away and kill me later, and it started out about like I expected. They took away my clothes and put me with the other ‘breeds they had. They had six of them, five men and a woman, plus the three they got from the caravan. But I didn’t see much of them because when the priest examined us, he found I was a virgin. That made me special.

“He took me away from the others and chained me in one of the wagons. I never had a chance to escape, nor was I touched. He treated me well, fed me plenty of food, saw that I had a cloak to protect me from the cold, and was careful that my chains didn’t chafe my skin. We travelled north almost a month before we came to the Temple and I was put in that cage. My priest was pretty high in the hierarchy and was in charge of selecting sacrifices. Because I was a virgin I was to be saved for one of the more important ceremonies near the end of the conclave. But I, of course, made up my mind that I was not going to be sacrificed at all.”

“That’s a natural decision,” I said. “In your shoes I would do the same thing.”

She sighed. “I played up to that priest. I did everything I could to make him notice me, to make him pass me by and take the others. I did everything I could to attract him. If he had shown the slightest desire for me, I would have welcomed him. All I wanted to do was stay out of that pillar.” Her face twitched. “I told you I was dirty, Sam,” she said.

“You can stop talking anytime you wish,” I said softly. “It doesn’t make any difference.”

“I want to finish,” she said. “I want you to know that I’d have done anything just for the assurance that I could stay alive in that cage.” Her lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “I’d have given that priest my soul. And he knew it. I wanted to influence him to pass me by, but he saw through me as though I was glass! I amused him. And while I worked on him, he worked on me. He left me not one shred of human dignity. But he left me a virgin!” Her eyes stared at me, round with remembered shame. “May his soul burn forever,” she added quietly.

“And he told me just before you came that I was to die that day. He’d never intended—never even thought of sparing me. I’d just been a bit of comic relief. And I begged! I grovelled! I wept and pleaded—and he turned his back on me.” Sofra covered her face with her hands. “So you see—I’m not worthy of your love. Oh—I have my virtue, but only because I couldn’t give it away!”

“I told you,” I said, “it doesn’t make any difference. The only thing that matters is—do you love me?” I looked at her, into her bright dry eyes, and suddenly they filled with tears, and turned wonderfully soft and luminous.

“You are a good man,” she said softly. “A better one than I deserve. Yes, Sam, I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ll say it a million times and mean it more each time I say it.”

“That’s all that’s necessary,” I said.

Her eyes were soft as velvet. “Sam,” she said.

“Mmm?”

“If you want me—”

“Yes?”

“You can have me.”

“No price?”

She shook her head. “For free,” she said very quietly.

I sat up. “Okay,” I said briskly, “let’s get going.”

She watched me, puzzled but acquiescent. “Do you want—” she began, but I cut her off. “First we go to the bank,” I said, “then to a store, then to the Recorder’s Office, then to the airline office. We need money and tickets to Dunkelburg. You need clothes and trimmings. I can’t marry you the way you are. You need a white dress, a veil and flowers.”

She looked at me as though I was mad. “Where in heaven’s name did you get those ideas? I’ve never heard of such nonsense—a white dress indeed! And a veil? For what?”

“For virginity,” I said. “For first marriage. It’s an old Earth custom.”

“Do you wear a veil, too?” she asked.

I laughed. For some strange reason I was a happy man.

I would liked to have found Riker to stand up with me at the Recorder’s Office, but he had vanished. I shrugged. I could always find him again if it were really necessary and until it was I could wait…

Marriage is an easy thing on Arthe. You pay your fees, sign the register, affix your thumbprints on a MANIAC facsimile card, and the deed is done. It takes about ten minutes.

“What are you thinking,” Sofra said softly. Marriage became her well, I thought, as I eyed her possessively. We made a good pair. I grinned at her and she smiled at me. She was no longer a virgin, but that loss didn’t seem to bother her. Although she was inexperienced, she was neither shy nor ignorant and our first union augured well for our future.

“About Riker,” I said. “I’d like to find him before we leave.”

“Do you have to?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I don’t have to—and maybe I shouldn’t bother.” I turned back to Sofra. She was far more interesting than Riker. After awhile I asked her a question. I hadn’t even been aware of it at first, but it gradually pushed its way into the forefront of my mind. “Sofra,” I said.

“Yes?”

“You said something about being evicted from Dunkelburg.”

“I was.”

“Who found out that you were charging fees?”

“Dawson,” she said. “One of his narks showed up with a boil on his neck. I lanced it and dressed it and charged ten munits for the job. The next morning Dawson and another officer arrested me for practising medicine without a license. They arrested Zelda too.”

“Why her?”

“Because she fought them.”

“She resisted Dawson?” I could see that long red stick flashing, stained a deeper and more sanguine red than nature had ever put into the iron grain of the Calpa tree. I could hear the smack of meaty blows, the snap of delicate bones and Dawson’s empty laugh. I grasped Sofra with frantic hands. I must have looked like a devil straight from hell, because she shrank back, her eyes wide with something akin to fear.

“Sam!—Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

I let go, feeling a little ashamed of myself. “Tell me what happened!” I said. “All of it!”

She looked at me steadily and said, “It was bad, but it could have been worse. Zelda should be all right. He didn’t kill her, and bruises heal. I don’t know what she did, but she hurt him badly enough to make him stop beating her. His partner had taken me out to the wagon before Zelda got in trouble.”

“I hope she fixed him good,” I said. Right then I knew I was going to get Dawson. It was Pete Krasna all over again. I have a hangup about sadistic bastards like Dawson. Pete could blame it on drugs, even though it probably wasn’t true, but Dawson could blame his acts on nothing but his damned sadistic brain. He simply liked to hurt people, and there was no excuse for that. I reached for Sofra and drew her to me. She came easily and softly to lie in the curve of my arm.

“Dawson’s nark testified,” Sofra went on with her head against my chest. “He had given me marked money and they had some old records in my handwriting to compare with the receipt. It was a cut and dried case. I was guilty and I admitted it. But Zelda wasn’t. Dawson had no need to beat her.”

“You’re wrong, Sofra,” I said. “He had a need.” I couldn’t do anything about it until we got to Dunkelburg, and there was no sense brooding about it until I had to. I didn’t want Sofra to know that I was going after Dawson. I knew she would worry if I told her. But I was going to finish that man. Before, Dawson had merely been business. Now he was personal.

“What can we do?” she asked. “The plane doesn’t leave for hours.”

I grinned and stored Dawson away for future action. Right now he wasn’t important. She blushed. It was quite a sight. “I didn’t mean that—” she began, “can’t you think of any—oh, Sam!—you’re awful!” But her voice didn’t sound as though she thought I was awful.

CHAPTER XVIII

« ^ »

We had an uneventful flight to Dunkelburg. One of Sofra’s friends put us up in the Authority. It was clean and private and that was enough for the moment. I didn’t wish to advertise Sofra’s presence since she wasn’t supposed to be back in town for another month. But that could be straightened out. I saw that she was settled comfortably, then caught a cab and headed for Marlin’s office as fast as I could bully the driver into travelling.

He screeched to a stop in front of Police Headquarters. I threw a five munit bill at the cabbie, who didn’t even look grateful, and hardheeled into the building. I ignored the lift, took the stairs three at a time and wound up on the fifth floor without even panting. Marlin’s office was down the hall and I slammed into its reception room like a small tornado, brushed a protesting secretary out of my way and opened the door to the inner sanctum of the Chief’s office.

Marlin was behind his desk when I came in. “Williams!” he said. “Where in hell have you been?”

“Getting evidence,” I said, “and wasting too much time. I should have been here days ago, but I got delayed en route.”

Marlin looked at me curiously. “All right, what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you while I’m calling Headquarters,” I said, and I gave him the password that identifies a Headquarters agent anywhere on Arthe. Marlin’s eyes widened.

“I want to use your private line,” I said.

Marlin hesitated a moment and then turned his back and reached for the bookshelves against the wall. A section swung out on oiled hinges and revealed the painted face of a Series XII Communicator. He adjusted the channel selector, depressed the scrambler key, and handed me the microphone.

It took two minutes to get Inspector Lantham and another ten to deliver my report. I used standard police code. Marlin knew it, of course, and his expression slowly changed from noncommittal to astonishment as I gave Lantham everything I had learned, details, names, places and my evaluation of what I believed was happening.

When I signed off, Marlin looked at me with respect. “Man!” he said, “you’ve really been active! You’ve broken this business wide open!”

“Oh—it’s good enough as far as it goes,” I said. “Trouble is it doesn’t go far enough. There is more to this than has surfaced, and I have no idea what it is. All I know is that it’s big.”

“That’s an understatement,” Marlin said. “And you’ve done more than anyone could expect.”

“Yeah—and what do I get for it. A crooked cop frames my employees, a biased judge evicts the one I’m in love with. I damn near kill myself bringing the information home. I’m running for my life ever since Trader’s Roost. I think it’s poor payment.”

“Sam,” he said, “it was a bum rap. Dawson had no business doing what he did. It was supposed to be a routine arrest. I didn’t recommend that eviction order. It got out of control.”

“You damn well bet it did,” I blazed. “The girls weren’t that illegal. Charging a fee isn’t a capital crime.”

“That wasn’t why they were arrested,” Marlin said. “Dawson said they were peddling dope!”

“That’s a goddamn lie!”

“When Dawson made the arrest—”

“After beating my girl to a pulp,” I interjected.

“We searched your offices,” Marlin went on as though I hadn’t interrupted, “and found several decks of tonocaine.”

I got the pitch. Dawson wanted to fix my clock or maybe he had an order to do it. He had rigged an arrest, planted the drug when he moved in, and had a nice open and shut case as long as he could maintain his pose as an honest cop. Since the rotten sadist thought with his muscles instead of his brain, he beat Zelda when she resisted. Of course, she had played into his hands, but that’s the way the ball bounces. “It’s a frame-up,” I said. “That dope was planted.”

“That remains to be proved,” Marlin said, but behind the voice lay uncertainty.

“You never found an addict among my staff, did you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he admitted, “and I thought the charge was phony. But the local Medical Association had your girl Sofra dead to rights on that illegal practice charge. And the mayor got in the act on account of his nephew. The drug evidence was concealed because we don’t want the public to know about tonocaine. But it affected the verdict. We should never have brought the girls to trial, but the mayor wanted blood, and I couldn’t stop it once it started. Your Sofra has a poor reputation. She’s been involved in a number of shady deals that never came to court.”

I wished the Old Man had a bit more iron in his pants. He wasn’t a bad guy, but once he let the initiative slip, he lost it completely.

“Where’s Dawson?” I asked.

“No way. You’re not going near him.”

“Why not? He’s mine. He leaned on my girls, and I want to lean on him.”

“Don’t be a fool, Williams. He’s not yours, he belongs to the law. And he wasn’t to blame for what he did to your—er—”

“Zelda,” I said.

“She broke a bottle of formaldehyde over his head.”

“Before or after he hit her?”

“The evidence isn’t clear on that point. She says after. He says before.”

“He’s a liar.”

“Maybe, but we can’t prove it. Anyway, I can’t blame him too much. A formaldehyde shower isn’t pleasant. It raises hell with the eyes and mucous membranes. Dawson was hospitalized for a week.”

“Good for Zelda! Now maybe that bastard’ll leave honest folks alone.” I chuckled. “I’ll bet he didn’t do much after that stuff hit him.”

“As a matter of fact he didn’t. His partner Officer Zeihlski made the arrest.”

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Give me Dawson for twenty minutes.”

“No way. I’m going to put you in protective custody, hold you incommunicado and keep you safe until we’re ready for your evidence.”

“What about Sofra?’

“Well—what about her?”

“I married her in Bluestone, and brought her back with me.”

“Oh, she’ll keep. No one will bother her. She’s not important now. You’re the material witness.”

“If you don’t give her protection, she’ll be snatched to shut my mouth—and it will shut it.”

“No dice. All we’d do is call attention to her.”

“Gratitude, thy name is Marlin,” I replied.

Marlin looked at me. “All right, let’s go downstairs.”

I resisted on principle, and Marlin growled at me. But, it was all strictly routine, and I was presently installed in a nice, quiet windowless cell. The scanners gave an impression of windows and I had a good view of the Hub. It was as though I was up in the penthouse rather than three stories underground. There was even a private John in a little room by itself.

The days passed while Headquarters laid plans. Sofra wanted me out, but Marlin talked her out of it when she phoned in. She didn’t like it, but she did as she was told, and stayed away from police headquarters. Her appearance would only complicate an already sticky situation, and since Marlin didn’t mind her being in town and would do nothing as long as she stayed out of sight, she stayed out of sight. As far as I was concerned, the enforced rest did me good and I slept better than I had in weeks.

Waiting wasn’t easy, particularly since the action at Trader’s Roost had certainly alarmed the gang. But there wasn’t a thing I could do except grind my teeth and hope everything came off all right. I’d done my part. Now it was a strategic rather than a tactical problem and in the bailiwick of Commissioner Crowninshield and Inspector Lantham.

It was almost a week before Headquarters gave the go ahead signal. I don’t think time has ever dragged more slowly. I’ll never forget the feeling when the cops hauled the first arrest into the pokey. The operation was rolling now. H-Day had been beaten. I could imagine that all over Arthe the police were moving just as they were here. It was a comforting thought.

CHAPTER XIX

« ^ »

In Dunkelburg the police ran into trouble almost immediately. Apparently the pushers also had plans for an emergency. Violence broke out in a dozen spots all over town. It started with a raid on our communications center by a dozen hopped-up ‘breeds armed with Mark IV Kellys.

We stopped it but we lost three men and had to use a semiportable to wipe out the diehards. Right on the heels of that, there was an attack on the air regenerators. This was apparently the main effort and was sparked by a hard core of normals leading a group of about forty addicts. They had Mark VIIs and twenty kilograms of tonocaine with them which they apparently intended to put into the air regenerators. We lost twelve men smashing that one. Law and order vanished from the Rim as Marlin pulled his men into the Hub and around the gates to protect the vital installations.

Marlin was having a bad time. As chief of police he was responsible for Dunkelburg’s security and in a peaceable and fairly law-abiding town he did all right, but in this charged and violent atmosphere he lost his judgment. He could have kept order with the regular police force, but he tried to play it safe. In the beginning a show of force might have snuffed out the riot, but the trouble had grown beyond control by the time Marlin called up the reserves, filled the cadres to full strength and placed the town under martial law.

He had the power to do this, but it was exactly the wrong thing to do. To the fear filled ‘breeds, and to the tonocaine addicts that the pushers were making by the dozen and injecting into the riots, a military mobilization meant another pogrom and the call-up of the police reserve was a threat against their lives. It didn’t require anything to set the addicts off. They were already fused and primed by years of grievance and frustration. And the normals had past experiences with these undisciplined civilians and wanted no part of them. A regular cop could always get cooperation of a sort, but the civilian levies only provoked a lot of resistance.

Barricades sprang up all over town, cutting the Hub off from the Rim and the outside world. Kellys and native projectile weapons appeared from a thousand hiding places as desperate and frightened men and women prepared to resist the slaughter they were sure was coming. Within an hour after the attack on the air regenerators, the police were confined in the center of the dome, and in the fortified islands of the gates, surrounded by angry mobs of ‘breeds who needed only leadership to explode. And behind their cover the pushers were at work making new addicts out of as many ‘breeds as they needed and hurling them at the Hub in suicidal forays that were quickly wiped out or driven back, but which accounted for a few of our people in the bargain. For some reason I couldn’t understand, the ‘breeds left the dome virtually untouched. There were a few holes blown through the plastic, but the repair mechs quickly sealed them over, and none of them really influenced the air supply inside.

Marlin established a perimeter defense that was sound in every essential aspect except the important one. It left the initiative to the rioters. What he really needed was a plan that would deny the enemy support they were now getting. But he’d never get that on the defensive.

Outside of the first few pickups there were no more arrests. The enemy disappeared behind the barricades, lost in the mass of ‘breeds and the smattering of sympathizers. Although there was little shooting, the tension was severe and the strain was beginning to tell on the reservists in our ranks. They had no real discipline or experience in combat, and defensive actions are always hardest on the nerves since the excitement of the attack and the hope of victory are all on the other side. Right now their morale was low and they were ready to panic if some unforeseen danger appeared.

That was when Marlin turned me loose. He came down to my cell personally. His face was gray with the strain of the past twenty-four hours. “Sam” he said as he opened the cell door, “All hell’s broke loose! The town’s an armed camp. I’m afraid that I really loused things up by calling out the militia.”

“You called up the reserves!” I blurted. That was the first I knew of it. “Oh, Great! Now I suppose the ‘breeds think we’ve declared war.”

Marlin nodded. “That’s about it. We’re penned up here and we can’t expect help for at least a week. Other domes are having their troubles, too. Some are destroyed and the ‘breeds in those that are still operational are so jumpy that regular police can’t be spared.”

“Dammit!” I snapped. “That’s what Headquarters gets for piddling around for a week before ordering a roundup. They could have done it in twenty-four hours—but no—they had to give the pushers time to get organized!”

“They wanted a complete cleanup,” Marlin said.

“Yeah, and they’re going to get it! Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Get out there and stop this riot.”

I laughed in his face. “Me?—stop that? You’d do a lot better by sending out an SOS for the Patrol or the Service.”

“The ‘breeds know and trust you,” Marlin said. “You can assure them that we intend them no harm, that what we want to do is clean up these people who want to destroy us, and who are danger to us all. You can do it, and you’re probably the only one who can. They’re too afraid of a pogrom to think straight. Get them off the streets. That’s all I want. They can keep their weapons if they’re afraid. Make any promises you wish. I’ll back you to the limit. Just get those people off the streets.”

“Oh, well—there’s nothing like dying young,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do. Get me a shielded prowler with a PA system and I’ll give it a try. The worst they can do is kill me.”

That was how I found myself in the middle of Fourth Street with about twenty ‘breeds throwing solid and electronic death at me from behind a ten foot high barricade of machinery, office furniture, and great blocks of raw plastic shapes from the shops. The rain of projectile and blaster bolts bounced off the car’s metal and energy shielding.

I opened the PA system. “Friends,” I said over the amplifier, “this is Doc Williams. I want to talk to you!”

The howls died to a confused murmur as a tall black-browed ‘breed holding a Kelly poked his head over the barricade. I recognized him. Ramah Sotris was a driller at the Consol installations, and a leader of that loose, unofficial organization which the ‘breeds called the Union—a sort of government within a government that the authorities frowned upon but could do little or nothing about.

Ramah was the man whose girl Tehane encountered Pete Krasna and I figured he owed me a debt for patching her up, but apparently he didn’t feel the same way about it. He scowled at me as I focussed the directional microphone on him.

“What have you got to say, Cop?” he shouted.

“Fine thanks I get,” I said. “I asked for help so you wave a Kelly and call me cop. To hell with you Ramah Sotris. Hey—people—how about sending someone to talk who isn’t blinded with propaganda.”

His face changed color, and he looked a little ashamed.

I left the volume high on the PA. “I’m here to help you out of a jam,” I continued. “If you don’t want to listen you can keep on fighting. It isn’t going to do you any good. The Hub will hold out, and in a couple of days you’ll have the armed forces on your necks.”

Silence fell on the mob. Nobody wanted the service. Troopers had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions afterwards, and they had the power to flatten Dunkelburg into a heap of hot slag.

No one else appeared. Apparently Ramah was the spokesman for this group. All right, so be it, I thought. It could be worse. He was just a hothead. He wasn’t a fool. He finally started to say something. There was a lot of background noise, and all I got was “What is your proposition?”

“Come down here and I’ll tell you,” I said. “Bring others if you don’t want to come alone.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said, “but others should hear. And I guess you’re safe enough behind that screen—”

“I’ll drop it,” I said.

Ramah nodded and disappeared behind the barrier. Presently Ramah and a half dozen ‘breeds climbed over the roadblock. Most of them were carrying Kellys, and all of them looked frightened and determined.

“Well,” Ramah asked. “How about dropping the screen?”

I cut the screen off—and right then one of them levelled his Kelly at the car and triggered a blast. My reflexes were a trifle faster than his as I snapped the screen back on and let the shot splash harmlessly on the impervious electronic shield. A couple of others jumped the gunner, bore him to the pavement and wrenched the Kelly from his hand.

“You damn fool,” one of them growled, “that’s Doc!”

I left the screen up. The gunner probably had friends in the mob. “Hang onto that guy,” I snapped. “He’s one of those who’s getting you in trouble. You, Ramah, get over here and tell your people that I want to talk to them, that I’m here for their own good.”

“How do I know that?”

“You have my word,” I said. “Have I ever cheated you, or hurt you, or failed to keep my word all the time I worked on the Rim? Have I ever been your enemy?” There was bitterness on my tone. “Hell—I even avenged Tehane for you. The man who hurt her no longer lives.”

His face was a study of conflicting emotions. If what I said was true I had put him under an obligation that could not be denied. I was a blood brother, a kinsman, a defender of the family honor. Of course, I could be a liar, but that was out of character. He shrugged. “No, Doc, you’ve always been our friend,” he said reluctantly.

“Then get over here!”

“But—”

“Do you want to die so someone can get rich?” I asked.

He shook his head and came over, to the car. “Can you prove that?” he asked.

I snapped the power switch on and handed him the microphone through a safety port. “I can prove Confeds are mixed up in it,” I said. “Get it through your head that I’m not about to doublecross you. I’m trying to save your lives. Hell!—I’m married to Sofra.”

He looked at me curiously and then smiled. “I think you’re levelling,” he said. “I’ll take the chance.” He pressed the button on the side of the mike and shouted into it.

“MY PEOPLE!” the thunderous roar echoed down the broad street enforcing silence. Ramah grinned at me. “With this I could outshout Tehane,” he muttered. The sensitive microphone picked up his words and hurled them across the crowd. Somebody laughed and the laughter was picked up and re-echoed briefly before it died away. I felt a queer relief at the sound. There was hope here yet. The mob wasn’t hysterical. Ramah waited until there was silence. “Now hear me,” he began again. “This is Ramah Sotris of the Union Council. Doc Williams wishes to talk to you. Listen to him.” He handed me the microphone. “It’s your baby now,” he said.

I nodded as I pressed the contact button. Except for a few hecklers and a shot that splashed off the screen, the crowd was quiet as I began the story of tonocaine. I started with Gakan and told them what tonocaine did to men and why we did what we did to Gakan. I told them of the plot against Arthe as much as I knew of it, and that Dunkelburg was one of the towns marked for slaughter. I told them of Dawson, and Sofra, and Zelda. I told them that what they were doing here and how it would make their death certain if they continued. I told them how their fears were helping to destroy themselves by pinning down the only force which could help them. I asked for their cooperation to help the police restore order.

I pulled the emotional stops just like a professional politician—with one exception. I didn’t have to fake the sincerity behind the emotion. I believed everything I said and my voice carried my convictions. Finally, I was through. I had the ghastly feeling that I had done it all wrong. It was out of character. I had denied my scientific training and gave a spread-eagle speech like someone running for the Planetary Council. But then I heard the sound from behind the barrier, the sound that became a roar of approval and acceptance, and my worry disappeared in a great welling wave of thankfulness. They had listened to me, and believed!

I turned to Ramah. His face was impassive. “Come, my friend, let me in your car. We must go,” he said. “There are others who should hear you.”

I dropped the screen and he entered and sat beside me as I restored the car’s defenses.

He smiled uneasily. “I am sure you have not lied,” he continued. “But will the police do as you have said? We have had trouble with them before, and we do not trust them.”

“There will be no trouble this time. Everything will be all right.” I spoke with reasonable confidence. I didn’t think much of Marlin as a military leader, but he was honest and courageous, and once he had a plan to follow he was efficient. He’d hold the hotheads back.

Ramah took the microphone and gave directions to his followers behind the barricade. A thousand hands tore away a section of the barrier, and with Ramah sitting beside me, I drove through the gap and into the surging crowd on the other side. It was like a triumphal procession.

We played the same act with minor variations at the remaining barricades, except that I didn’t have to speak. Marlin had recorded my voice and was broadcasting it over the local communications network. It worked even when Ramah and I didn’t show up to give it the authority of our presence. Everywhere the results were the same. People were quietly going home. The pushers, of course, didn’t like it at all. I was shot at four times, but the bolts bounced off the car’s screen and the potential assassins were quickly hunted down by the dispersing crowd which was now my mob almost to a man. The ‘breeds had done a complete flopover. With the characteristic fickleness of a mob they were now all for law and order because I told them with simple sincerity that it was a good idea, and because, for some reason, they trusted me beyond their distrust of the police.

“Where do we go now, Doc?” Ramah asked as we pulled away from the last barricade, past the people streaming away from the barriers that had paralyzed the dome.

“To Khanad Smith’s,” I said. A murmur answered me. By now the prowler was surrounded by a half dozen ‘breeds we had picked up at the various barricades, all members of the Union Council.

“He has been a friend of ours,” Ramah said. “Why him?”

“He’s the one who’s been warehousing tonocaine in this dome,” I said. My voice was flat. A muttered growl answered me. If Khanad was a pusher, he was a traitor to them all. They weren’t so far removed from native customs that they didn’t know what to do with traitors.

I pulled the prowler to a stop in front of Khanad’s place, and burst into the shop with a half dozen ‘breeds at my heels. I was thinking that after this day’s work was over, I’d have no choice but to resign from the Police. I wasn’t behaving like a cop. I was setting my private ideas of justice before the law. Neither conscience nor decency would allow me to continue.

Smittie was behind the counter when he saw me come in and his face revealed everything. Guilt was written all over him.

“It wasn’t my doing, Doc,” he screamed. “I didn’t want to handle the stuff! Dawson made me!” I didn’t answer him. I just reached out, jerked him across the counter and handed him over to the ‘breeds. I had a peculiarly ambivalent feeling that had nothing to do with my actions; regret that I did not have the desire to turn him over to the law, satisfaction that he would get the sort of justice he deserved, and shame that I felt so right about what I was doing. Smittie looked into the merciless faces around him and screamed. My ambivalence dissolved into pity. “No,” I said. “You can’t do this. He belongs to the law. We cannot judge. Save him and give him to Chief Marlin.”

Ramah held me back. “This is our affair, Doc. Not yours. Stay out and don’t interfere.”

I shook him off. “I can’t do it,” I said. “Justice is for the law to decide, not for me. I can’t let you harm him.”

“You cannot stop us. Our justice is as old as yours. We, too, have our laws and he has violated them. He knows the penalty. That is why he is screaming.” Sick to my stomach, I watched them drag Smittie outside, and presently the screaming stopped.

Ramah came back into the shop. There was blood on his hands. “He talked,” Ramah said coldly. “Your enemy Dawson is in your office. He knew you were in the dome, but he didn’t know where. He’s waiting for you. He wants to kill you.” Ramah paused and then changed the subject. “In the back of this shop are others who work with the drug that steals men’s souls.” He eyed me with an odd expression of embarrassment and frustration on his face. “We did not kill Smith as we should have done,” he said. “He still lives. Two of our men are taking him to the police. We could not let you feel badly about us.”

I found Smittie’s Kelly by the cash box and checked it over: I couldn’t trust myself to look at Ramah at that moment. He and the others had done something ‘breeds had probably never done before. They had not killed their own snake. They had given him to the law. “How about the others who work here?” I said, and let the question hang between us.

Ramah nodded. “These, too, will be turned over to the police.”

I sighed, not from relief but because I was very tired. It was as though some unseen hand had loosened the strings holding me together. I sat down and let weariness flow out of me. I felt spent.

But the weariness vanished almost as quickly as it had come. There were still many things to do, and there was still John Dawson. The thought of him made my pulse pound. I opened the door to the rear of Smittie’s shop. One sniff was enough. There was tonocaine in there all right. I closed the door quickly. The infinitely small amount of drug needed to produce odor wouldn’t hurt, but there might be more powder in the air than the minimum. We would need respirators before going into that part of the building. I found one next to where Smittie’s Kelly had lain, and Ramah located a couple more on the shelves. He and another man put them on. The three of us went into the back where a couple of protective suited men wearing respirators were breaking up canisters of tonocaine powder into smaller packages. They didn’t give any trouble at all when they saw our Kellys, but came quickly and let themselves be tied without making a struggle. Then I called Marlin on the car radio and told him what had happened. He promised a squad of police as soon as possible, and told me that he’d set the militia on guard duty in the Hub, but wasn’t using them in the dome area.

“Just so long as the ‘breeds don’t come down to city center,” he said, “things’ll be all right.”

“You’d better keep an eye out for two of them,” I said. “They’ll be escorting a third who’ll be Khanad Smith. Treat those men with care. They’re on our side.” I looked at Ramah.

“Good,” Marlin said. “I’ll send a car to pick them up. Just don’t send any more down this way for awhile. There’s still a lot of confusion here.”

He didn’t say so in that many words, but I got the idea that he was as dubious about the undisciplined, trigger-happy civilian levies as I was. As long as they stayed in the Hub, and as long as Marlin kept an eye on them, things wouldn’t get out of control. I told Ramah the score and got a promise to keep his people out of the Hub area until Marlin got the amateurs disarmed.

I posted a guard over our prisoners and then I went after Dawson. I didn’t take a direct route. If Dawson had half a brain, he’d be watching the street and a direct approach would be suicide. Strategy was needed, so I took Ramah and another ‘breed aside and told them what I wanted.

Ramah smiled grimly. “I hope,” he said, “that you are as careful about serving your law as you were about us serving it.” His white teeth gleamed in the bronze of his face as he smiled at me.

It caught me by surprise. For the first time I wondered just what I was going to do with Dawson. I wanted to kill him, and God knows, the man deserved to die. But if I killed, I would be doing the same thing I had condemned in the ‘breeds. I shook my head. “I will not kill him unless it is necessary.”

He nodded.

I patted Ramah on the back and sent the two of them on their way. They started walking down the street while I headed for the 10th Street Gate. When they got close enough they’d give me covering fire to distract Dawson’s attention. The way we had timed it, I had five minutes to get to the back of my clinic and get inside.

The gate guard recognized me and let me into the walkway on top of the wall that ran past my back window. I hurried down the hundred meters that separated the window from the gate. It took a little time before I found the proper casement, as it was one of many that were almost exactly alike, but I finally recognized it just as blaster bolts began exploding in front of the building. I grinned as I jimmied the window open with an iron I had taken from the prowler. Any sound I made couldn’t possibly be heard above the covering fire that Ramah and his companion were laying down.

I pushed the window cautiously aside and slid silently over the sill. Kelly in hand, I opened the wardroom door and moved toward the front offices, my feet soundless on the resilient flooring. I flinched and ducked behind the doorway to the office as the asthmatic cough of a blaster echoed through the half open door. The faint explosion of the bolt was followed by a grunt of satisfaction. In the silence that I followed I could hear a metallic voice. For a moment I didn’t recognize that it was mine until I heard the words. It was my Fourth Street speech being rebroadcast from the Communications Center in the Hub. I sounded worse with repetition.

I looked into the room. Dawson was standing well back of the opening, staring out of the shattered front window, a Mark VII in his hands. He was, alert and tense-keyed to the breaking point. Beside him on my desk was a portable two-way communicator endlessly dinning my voice into the quiet of the room. It stopped finally, and Marlin came on with a promise of immunity to all those who would do as I asked and go home.

Dawson kept looking out of the window. “Come on out, you yellow dog!” he yelled into the street, “and I’ll burn you like I did your pal.”

“Don’t move, John,” I said quietly.

He stiffened as though he had been shot, but he didn’t turn around.

“Easy, John—slow,” I said. “Toss your Kelly out of the window.”

“Williams!” he gritted, “I should have known this was a diversion.” I watched the blaster leave his hands and arc toward the street.

“Steady now,” I said, as I came up behind him and felt his sleeves and clothing for more weapons.

That was a mistake. I should have made him lean against the wall. As it was, I was caught flat-footed. He spun with blinding speed, knocking my Kelly from my grasp before I could fire. Everything slowed down to a crawl for the next split second. I watched my gun slowly spin through the open window and disappear as I blocked his grab for my arm, smashed him across the face, and wrenched free of his grip.

We stood facing each other, and the communicator on the desk swung into my speech again. Dawson picked the thing up and threw it at me. I ducked and it caromed off the wall in a shower of shattered plastic. Dawson followed the communicator plunging recklessly toward me. I sidestepped and pushed him away. He hit the wall and scrambled for footing, glaring at me and panting with hate.

“I was going to burn you for what you did to me. You set me up, you dirty fink,” he said in a voice like ice. “But this is better. Now I’m going to break you apart before I kick the life out of you—you goddam nark!” He never took his eyes off me. I suppose he was remembering the time I had dropped my eyes from his that day we met long ago, and he figured it gave him a psychological edge. I laughed at him.

That did it. His control snapped and I ducked barely in time as his left hand whistled through the space occupied by my head a split second before. I brought the edge of my right hand down across his neck—hitting his ear as he ducked—blocked a knee driving at my groin, caught a blasting right under my ribs that staggered me, and hit him squarely on the mouth with a right of my own.

He staggered back and spat out a broken tooth. We looked at each other with naked hate, breathing a little deeper after that brief test of speed and strength. The exchange was about even. I felt a queer sort of satisfaction that it had come to this. It wouldn’t have been right any other way.

I started it this time. I threw a punch at his head and he picked my hand out of the air and pivoted to throw me. I blocked automatically, wondering at his clumsiness. Obviously he wasn’t a wrestler. The bones in my hand grated on each other as he applied crushing pressure. I stabbed at his brachial plexus with stiff fingers, and he howled as his grip loosened. I wrenched free and kicked him in the thigh as he backed and sidestepped, flexing his numb arm

“Smart guy,” he growled softly. He set himself and came at me again. I helped him. I was lying on my back as he spun through the air and crashed into the far wall of the room with an impact that shook the solid plastic. He scrambled to his feet apparently as active as ever as I finished the roll and stood facing him. I couldn’t believe he was still on his feet. The impact would have knocked the brains out of a normal man, but it only served to infuriate Dawson. He smashed at me with iron fists that had lost nothing of their power. The fury of his attack drove me backward across the room. He caught me with a savage right to the face that sent me staggering across the floor half stunned. I blocked, slipped and ducked under the punishing blows that rained on my face and body. Pinwheels of color flashed before my eyes. I felt a rib snap as his foot landed. I blocked another kick to the groin and stamped on his left instep. His face turned white with pain and for a moment his guard dropped. I smashed him across the face with two full armed blows that staggered him and drove him back across the room.

We drew deep sobbing breaths as we faced each other. He threw an office chair at me and I ducked. The chair sailed over my head and smashed against the wall. He wrenched the leg off another and came at me swinging it like a club. This was easy. I parried, bent and twisted and the club was in my hands and Dawson was on the floor. I threw the chair leg at his head. It missed. I stamped at his face and found myself on my back with Dawson on top. I bucked him off and we both came to our feet again. I noticed that he wasn’t as quick as he was earlier. He limped and didn’t get the same power into his blows as we came together again. That was his weakness if he had any—he relied on his fists too much!

I’ve heard it said that anyone who was good enough to pass the instructor’s course in unarmed combat in the Service could kill the best boxer who ever lived. The guy who said that should have met Dawson. I still had doubts about even denting him, let alone killing him. My face was puffed and bleeding, and I ached from head to foot. Dawson couldn’t have been in much better shape, but he seemed faster and stronger than I—and we had started about even.

His left connected and I went down. I scrambled away from his driving foot, staggered to my feet, and he knocked me down again. He stepped forward, his face a bloody grinning mask of victory and drove the heel of his damaged left foot at my face.

I saw the opening, and moved with all the speed I had left in me. I caught his right ankle with the instep of my right foot and drove my left foot at his right knee. The blow was perfectly timed and I felt a thrill of vicious pleasure as his knee joint gave way. Dawson screamed and fell. He writhed on the floor as I stumbled wearily to my feet, clutching the doorframe for support, holding myself erect, trying to shake some sense into my battered brain.

Dawson crawled toward me, dragging his broken leg. I stepped aside and he moaned with frustration when he found he couldn’t reach me. Things cleared a little, the room stopped spinning, and I could feel my strength come back. Dawson propped himself on his hands and looked at me with blind hate. He was done for and he knew it. But he didn’t quit. Whatever drove that rubbery body kept him going until he couldn’t move. He expected no mercy and I gave him none.

I finished him as cleanly as I could and as quickly as his indomitable will would let me. I wanted no more fighting. Every breath I took was agony as the broken ribs grated in my chest. I didn’t even feel happy about having won. I had worked my hatred until there wasn’t any more. I looked down at my handiwork. Dawson was alive, but as a fighting man he was finished.

So was I. My stomach heaved and I was violently sick. I started shouting into the silence of the room. The walls tilted and began spinning away from me down a long, black tunnel.

CHAPTER XX

« ^ »

Sofra had my head pillowed on her lap and was doing things to it with a wet cloth when I came into the light again. I didn’t know how she had gotten here, but I was glad to see her. Outside of a smudge on one cheekbone she didn’t seem worse for wear. My split lips twisted into a tired smile as I saw her face bending over mine.

She made a gasping sound of relief as she saw my eyes open. “Oh, my dear—my dear—why did you fight that terrible man?” she murmured. She kept on making soft noises as she wiped the blood away.

Behind her were a lot of people, cops, ‘breeds, strangers in Headquarters uniform, Marlin, Ramah, and Lantham. I felt a surge of relief at the sight of Ramah. At least he wasn’t the one Dawson had shot. I didn’t know the other fellow; so it didn’t affect me other than cerebrally. But Lantham; I didn’t expect him, and the sight of his lean gray figure left me speechless. He grinned down at me.

“A fine job, Williams,” he said. “You’re a credit to the Force.” He sounded fatherly again. He went on at some length but I didn’t hear anything he said—it was something about cleanup, heroism, and snatches of words and phrases that didn’t add up. I sighed and wiggled my head into a more comfortable position on Sofra’s lap.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Lantham said, finally seeing what the score was. I mumbled some reply and turned back to the business at hand. We were as alone as though we were in the middle of the desert. The people milling around us simply didn’t exist. Two busy cops, sparing a second to grin at us, cleared space for a couple of litter bearers who loaded Dawson on a stretcher and carried him out. He was still breathing, and he was tough enough to recover. He’d live to spend a long time in rehabilitation, and when he came out he would be John Dawson only in name.

A gleam of metal winked at me from under the edge of the overturned desk. I gestured at it with a feeble hand and Sofra bent over obligingly and retrieved it for me. She handed me the crumbled square of metal. It was Dawson’s notecase. I remembered it with an odd clarity. He’d used it when he wrote the log of that one and only night we worked as a team. Dawson had been inordinately proud of that square of platinum. He’d waved it at me, fishing for a question which I never asked. As I held it in my hands, I couldn’t help thinking that it had seen better days. It was useless except perhaps as a souvenir. I turned it over in my hand and a slip of paper dropped out of a hollow place behind the torn inner cover. It fluttered to the floor. I picked it up. It was a personal memento, a signed facsimile letter of appreciation and recommendation. I grimaced. It was inconceivable to me that anyone would think highly of Dawson. Curiously I looked at the signature and got the surprise of my life. It read John A. Lantham, Chief Inspector. I read the few lines of voicewrite print on its white surface. Lantham had obviously had a high regard for Dawson. I wondered why he thought Dawson was so wonderful. Lantham slid a little in my esteem. Certainly he wasn’t a good judge of character if he thought a sadist was outstanding. Things started slipping away once more and I headed toward darkness.

I awoke again with my head still pillowed on Sofra’s lap. This was getting to be a habit, I thought. It was the same situation, but a different environment. The room was gone and in its place were curving walls of padded metal. A bandage encircled my chest, others partly covered my face, and I was conscious of the warm nervelessness of anodyne smothering my nervous system. I smelled like a hospital and wore clean pyjamas. The hissing noise that filled my ears bothered me. For a moment I thought Dawson had bruised my brain as well as my body. Then a recognized jetblast. I was in an aircraft that was going places in a hurry.

Sofra smiled at me. “The medics say you have a concussion, Sam. You’re supposed to take it easy.”

I blinked. How much easier could I get? “Well, where am I this time?”

“On your way to Thermopolis,” she said. “Inspector Lantham thought you’d do better in a big hospital, and besides, you can get those final skin grafts while you’re there. You’ll get plush treatment, Sam. You’ve become a pretty important fellow. Some reporter got wind of what you did, and he looked up your Service record. I didn’t know I married such an important guy. You should have told me you were a Reward of Merit winner! You’re in all the sheets and newscasts.”

“In the obituary column?” I asked. “I’m dead.”

“No fear of that,” she smiled. “You’ll live. I’m not going to let you take the easy way out. I wanted a famous husband, and now I’m going to enjoy him.” Her eyes were soft as she laid cool fingers on my aching head.

I felt warm inside, a good feeling that glowed for a moment and then chilled as I remembered what had almost happened. Arthe was apparently secure now—I’d gotten that much from my previous awakening. But there was the big untied end that led to the individual or group who planned this.

A shadow moved behind Sofra’s shoulder. I strained to see it. It took an appreciable time for my eyes to focus and translate the formless mass into John Lantham. He was smiling at me. “Except for Dawson, you’re the worst looking wreck I’ve seen recently. You two must have had quite a time.”

“We did,” I said. “But it could have been worse. I could have sat on my fat duff and let crime run rampant all over me.”

He laughed. “It looks like that’s what happened anyway,” he said—“not only to you but to Arthe. We’ve lost at least a hundred men in the riots, and Shambra knows how many civilians and ‘breeds have died. It isn’t over yet. Consol 27 and Bluestone are wrecks. The Patrol has moved in where the pushers wouldn’t surrender. They’re cleaning up. Someone blew up the power station in Bluestone and the whole center of the dome collapsed. If half Bluestone survives it’ll be a miracle. And that report of yours was the cause of it. Why, of all times, did you have to deliver it when you did? Commander Kronfield of the Patrol was in Headquarters on an inspection trip. He was in Message Center when you called, and the inquisitive old devil had to listen. Before I could turn around, Kronfeld had my phone and was calling Lyna Base. He got the Patrol’s cybernetics heated up, and the big brain figured that the situation was critical. Hell, it’s been critical for a month! He didn’t even wait until I had given him the reports of the other agents. He went blasting off to assemble a combat team. But that’s the Patrol, they’re never willing to nail down a case before they move in.

“Sure—the plot’s smashed, and most of the domes are secure, but the people we caught were all small fry. The big ones got away—unless they were all down there.” He pointed out of the viewport at something below the ship.

I looked out of the port side of my seat. It was night, the pitch black night of Arthe when the moon is down. The surface should have been a darker mass of blackness invisible in the gloom that surrounded us—but it wasn’t. Instead, it glowed with a greenish luminescence. An enormous circle, fully ten kilometers in diameter shone a faint eerie green on the surface below. “What was it?” I asked.

“That outpost dome you mentioned in your report; Trader’s Roost, I believe you called it. The fools elected to fight.” He shrugged expressively. “The Army had a division on Arthe by that time and Kronfeld called for a super. He doesn’t like tonocaine.” Lantham’s voice was flat.

“I don’t doubt it,” I said.

Lantham looked at me for a moment, and then stared out of the port at the pattern already dim behind us. His mouth twisted in disgust.

I shivered. The death of the Roost was so final. Everything was gone, the hellraising, roistering rim, the dives, Kate’s perfumed tonocaine garden, the huge warehouses, the hard-bitten regulars—it was all vanished as though it had never been.

“That was our link,” Lantham continued. “With it gone, we’ll never know who the natives were who started this.”

“Natives?”

“This whole caper is typically native. They’ve always wanted to drive us off the planet. Who else could it be?”

“Confeds,” I said.

Lantham looked at me pityingly. “Ha!” he said. “If we’d been running this show none of the domes would have had a chance!”

“Maybe they didn’t want a complete kill,” I replied. “Maybe they wanted the natives to get the blame.”

“That’s too many maybes—and besides, why would a Confed do a thing like this?”

“Power, profit, hatred, revenge—there could be a dozen reasons. I think the motive was profit—drive the companies’ stocks down, buy cheap, end up rich.”

“Could be,” Lantham said, “but I don’t think so. I’ve had a lot of people besides you working on this and most of them are sure it’s a native caper. The rest aren’t so sure, but they think it might be. You’re the only one who’s flatly opposing the idea. The trouble is that you have weight. After all, you did blow the whistle on this cleanup and nobody is about to forget it.”

I felt something give way inside me. Dawson must have done more damage than I had guessed, causing a loose connection in my brain because right then I played the fool. I did it coldly, completely aware of the probable consequences but not giving a damn. It was as though someone else were talking. “All right,” my voice said. “What was the killing for? Why do you want the natives exterminated? What do they have that you want so bad that you’d kill them all? You ran this show. You’re the big man.” My big mouth! As soon as the words were out I could have bitten my treacherous tongue for uttering them, but he made me blind mad, standing there trying to pin it on the natives, trying to make me believe his lies!

“I?” Lantham queried in an oddly mild tone. “You mean you think I’m the top man? You’re crazy!”

I nodded. The fat was in the fire now, and I might as well see it through. “It had to be either you or Crowninshield. But Crowninshield doesn’t have the brains or the organizing ability. So it was you.”

“You have proof of this?”

“Some,” I said. “And it all points to you. There’s a lot of things—a note to Kate ordering her to kill me. Whoever wrote that knew I was a Headquarters cop. Nobody in Dunkelburg knew it, because I didn’t tell anyone,—but you knew it and the Commissioner knew it. I still wouldn’t have thought of you, if it hadn’t been for that recommendation you wrote for Dawson. Dawson was a sadist. Everyone knew it. Yet you wrote him a recommendation knowing he was a bad cop.”

“That was before he went sour. He was a brave man.”

“Brave maybe, but he was always sour. I talked to Marlin about him. The chief knew him for twenty years. Then there was the obvious thing. The pushers were all cued in. They knew a cleanup was coming, and when it would start. They were ready for us. The cleanup was your baby and if Kronfeld hadn’t preempted, the kill would still have gone according to plan. Even so, you nearly got your organization off the spot. All you really needed was a few more days to get the ‘breeds organized.

“Then there was your brand of Earth cigars in Kate’s office. It’s not evidence but it’s another piece that fits. She probably bought them to butter you up. I thought it was funny a woman’d be smoking cigars but Kate was peculiar. And maybe she liked Havanas. But I never connected them with you, and I should have made the connection if I was any kind of cop. But I didn’t, I just went on dumb and happy believing in you and truth and honor and duty.

“Who’s been pushing the idea that the natives were behind this? Maybe others believed it, but if anyone had an open mind, I’ll bet you closed it for them if you could. Of course, the natives didn’t help. I thought they were responsible before I had a chance to think about what they really were. After that it looked less and less certain and despite the cleverness of making the plan look like a sloppy native caper, a coordinated plan did exist. Those diversionary actions in the domes not marked for slaughter were beautifully timed to keep the police pinned down. Someone among the high brass had to be involved. The natives, by their very nature couldn’t have had a high command. It’s impossible, considering the independent nature of the tribes, for that bunch to organize. Kate might have headed the deal, except for those voicewrite orders to kill me, but the idea of natives is absurd.

“Of all the high brass I know, you had the best opportunity. You were coordinating the tonocaine investigation. You were in control of operations and assignments and could place people like Dawson—you had enough on him to hang him—where they were needed, and put greenhorns or psychos like me on investigations that should be done by first-class professionals. You could even get indecisives like Marlin appointed to key positions in the domes you had crossed off. But I never thought of you until I saw that note to Dawson. I guess I’m really stupid. Probably that’s why you sent me on this Dunkelburg assignment. You had to send someone, and I was a perfect patsy, a medic who knew tonocaine and who had a good war record. No one would guess I was hand-picked for slaughter. You knew I was a psycho—you couldn’t have missed it after that demonstration in your office.”

Words kept tumbling out of me, angry words that I couldn’t control, and didn’t want to. “Naturally you made a mistake in your analysis of what made me the way I was. You probably thought it was burnshock. That may have had something to do with it, but it was mostly self-pity and fear of what others thought about my lost manly beauty. I straightened out when I found out that I didn’t have to feel sorry for myself—that appearance made no real difference. Sofra taught me that—and from then on I started to use my head instead of my adrenals. I wasn’t quite as bad as you thought I’d be. Oh—you were clever enough. I still can’t prove you’re the top man. Probably I’d never be able to prove it. What evidence I have would never stand up in a planetary court, except for one thing. You were too clever. You covered your tracks all right, but when you started those riots in the domes, you were endangering planetary government on a protected world. And when you decided to use tonocaine you were dealing with a prohibited narcotic. That gives the Patrol a free hand to investigate. You’re done for, Lantham. The Patrol will put you under an analyzer and you’ll talk. You’re finished.”

Lantham looked at me, an expression of utter astonishment on his face. Then he laughed. “I’ve been accused of a good many things in my time,” he said, “but being a mass murderer isn’t one of them. You’ve added something new to the list.

“It’s a good thing for you that I’m not the head man,” Lantham said. “You really would have blown it. If I were the man behind this, I’d have no alternative except to kill you—and where would a better place be than here? I’d have the perfect out. You’re injured badly. There might have been something that the doctors in Dunkelburg missed. You death would be one of those sad but unavoidable accidents, and no suspicion would attach to me.”

“How about Sofra and the pilot?” I asked. “You wouldn’t dare kill me and leave them alive.”

“Don’t you think I’d be prepared for something like this?” His voice was amused.

“Like how?” I asked.

“Like having someone stowed away in the ship,” he said. “How’s this for a scenario? A ‘breed or Confed who worked for the uprising, sees it flattened because of you. He thinks that a grand gesture would be appropriate. So he stows away in the plane and then over the desert he comes out of hiding, shoots you, Sofra, and the pilot, but I get him before he gets me. Since I’m not a flyer, I bail out. The ship crashes and all the evidence goes up in smoke. You get a hero’s funeral and I get another chance. That is, of course, if I were the master mind.”

“Not too bad,” I said. “But you’d have to have a confederate’s body. You had no knowledge that I’d pull the string on you.”

“If I were the top man, I’d have the knowledge,” Lantham said. “And I just might kill you for wrecking my plans. As for the bodies, there were lots of them around Dunkelburg and the airport. It would be no great trick to put one in the plane.”

“You’d never get away with it.”

“Why not? It’s airtight. I’d be the only survivor and my position virtually places me above suspicion. Hell—it’s a natural.” He laughed. “It almost makes me wish I was the top man. It’d be interesting to see if I could get away with murder.”

“Your interest isn’t mine,” I said sulkily. I felt about three inches high. I had been positive that Lantham was the head man a moment ago; now I wasn’t sure. His reactions were wrong. He should have been frightened or angry—not amused. After all, I had no real evidence—only a frame of suspicion that Lantham happened to fit. I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that my idea was right. Even if it was, the head man could be someone other than John Lantham. Unless I was absolutely sure, I had no business accusing him of planning the wholesale slaughter of people he had sworn to protect. “Sorry, Chief,” I muttered. “Forget I said anything. I’m acting like an idiot.”

“Forget it,” Lantham said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

I sighed. “Guess so,” I said. My house of cards had fallen and I wasn’t too unhappy to see it go. Lantham couldn’t possibly be the one. What did he conceivably have to gain? What would give him any more power and authority than he already had?—Power?—Authority? Did he know something about The Power? He had been here for almost a century. He should know everything about The Power, and if he felt anything like the way I did when I held that incredible mechanism in my arms, he still was a suspect!

After all, he hadn’t denied anything. He had offered no proof of innocence. He had just laughed at me and handed me an understanding act that could be as phony as a counterfeit munit. Considering what I had accused him of, a man who could be that understanding would never have had the ruthless guts necessary to become top man on a frontier police force, let alone stay up there for decades. His callous scenario of what he might do if he were guilty was a truer measure of the man. And that didn’t jibe with empathy.

Well, there was a way to find out. I squeezed Sofra’s wrist gently—the high sign we used back in the clinic when we thought we were going to have trouble. I hoped she would understand, because what I was planning needed support which I couldn’t give. I looked up and I didn’t have to fake the weariness in my voice as I cued her. “I guess I’m tired,” I said. “It’s been a hard day.”

She looked at me sharply and I squeezed her wrist again—harder this time. She nodded imperceptibly. “Let me get you another blanket, dear,” she said. “You look cold. I think the Inspector is right—you’re suffering from shock.”

“So now you diagnose for me,” I said. I thought with quiet admiration that she was a wonder. Now the only fly in the ointment would be for Lantham to offer to get the blanket for her, but he didn’t offer. I didn’t think he would. Confeds just didn’t fetch things for ‘breeds.

She straightened me up in the seat, disengaged herself, and walked forward to the emergency lockers lining the wall that separated the pilot’s compartment from the cabin. She opened one of them and began rummaging around inside. It contained the usual gear, flares, respirators, concentrated rations, weapons, extra clothing and blankets—all the stuff necessary to survive on Arthe until rescue parties arrived, if we were unlucky enough to make a forced landing. I wondered how she knew so unerringly where a weapon might be. There was a lot about her I still didn’t know.

Lantham flashed her a quick look as she turned around. There was a blanket draped over her right arm. He sighed and turned back to me. My spirits fell—she had missed the signal after all! An enormous disappointment welled up inside me. I couldn’t do what I had planned. I would simply have to take a chance that he was innocent, and that could be fatal. Then she moved her arm and I saw the bulge under the blanket. I felt an equally enormous relief. She hadn’t missed after all. She stopped behind Lantham about halfway down the aisle as his voice became recognizable to my ears.

“Looking at it from your viewpoint,” he said. “I can see where I might be suspect, but really, Sam, this was a native caper. More investigators than you have been working on this case and their reports indicate that the Artheans are deeply involved. There are clever men among the natives and they have access to things that some Confeds would sell their souls for. It simply isn’t true that all the Shambra artefacts are gone. There are some left, and there is plenty of money from dealings in gorron and ryk hides. The tribes could pay their way clear into Headquarters if they wanted to. Personally, I think that your ideas and suspicions have clouded your objectivity.”

I heard, but I wasn’t satisfied. And I couldn’t let it go. There was too much at stake. If I were right, he’d find some slick way to get rid of us on this ride or soon after we reached Thermopolis. That was his territory and I couldn’t take the chance of letting him loose in it now that I had tipped my hand. I looked up at Lantham. “I guess I was a fool to suspect you,” I said. “It’ll be good when we reach Thermopolis and get straightened out. After you go through the analyzer and prove your innocence we’ll all feel better. I’ll clear the air, and maybe then—” I paused a second, watching for a reaction. This time I made the grade.

Lantham’s face hardened. “You have a stubborn, single track mind,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I have no intention of clearing the air for you or anyone else.”

“I can raise an ungodly amount of noise.”

He smiled. “Providing you’re alive to do it.” He laughed softly and stood up, towering over me. “Sam,” he went on, “You’re the living example of a man who should keep his mouth shut. Not that it would have done you much good because I had already decided to kill you.” He stood there, lean and erect, as fine a figure of a man as might be found in an entire quadrant of the Confederacy—and the cold inhuman hell that was his soul crept from his eyes and hung between us like a curtain.

Lantham looked at me with clinical detachment. “The perfect patsy,” he mused. “Emotional, violent, superficial, psychotic—every fatal quality in a police officer, and yet—” His voice dwindled to silence and he stood looking at me with his hell-ridden eyes. “Yet you killed the entire operation.”

“How did you do it?” There was honest curiosity in the rhetorical question. He rubbed his jawline and kept looking at me, and for the first time I could remember, I felt the bitter chill of fear. It was not so much of death as of the man who would deliver it.

“It was luck,” I said.

He nodded. “It had to be.”

I felt like laughing. The ego of the man amused me. “You know, you’ll have to kill me,” I said. “You can’t delegate the job to anyone else.”

He nodded. “It would have been better had you waited instead of forcing the issue. In Thermopolis you would have died quickly and easily. As it is, it may be messy.” He shrugged. “You place me in an impossible position. You force me to behave like a villain in a cheap melodrama. Had you waited, everything would have been much cleaner, and I wouldn’t have had the distasteful job of liquidating your woman.” His words had all the emotion of so much ice water.

Sofra moved. The blanket slipped from her arm, revealing a Kelly. “Don’t move, Mr. Lantham,” she said.

Deliberately Lantham turned to face her. “Why, you have a gun,” he murmured. There was no surprise in his voice. He had known it all along.

Sofra’s breath caught in her throat as she saw his face. “Don’t move,” she said unsteadily, “or I’ll fire!”

“You probably would, my dear, if there was a charge in that weapon,” Lantham said smoothly. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a stat pistol and emotionlessly rayed her down.

At the first nerve-jolting throb of the statter, I was out of my seat and scrambling towards him.

Sofra jerked, rose on her toes stiffly erect, straining, and crashed rigidly to the padded floor.

Lantham whirled, the statter pointing at my chest. “Sit down,” he said.

I sat. There was no use doing anything else. But I wasn’t afraid of him now. I was furious. “Damn you,” I said softly.

I sank back in the seat, forcing my muscles to relax. There was no percentage charging statter at close range. I didn’t have a chance now, but maybe if I stayed whole and alive, I’d get a break later. Lantham kicked the release on the next seat forward and flipped the back so that the seat faced me. He looked at his watch.

“Not yet,” he said. “We have about half an hour to kill.”

“How nice,” I replied. “A time and place for everything. How do you plan to do it?”

“What—” He frowned, “Oh—I see—kill. That’s not a nice play on words, but about what I might expect from you. I’ve already given you the scenario for your death. In about ten minutes I shall get the body and lay it in the aisles. After that I shall shoot your inamorata and the pilot. Then I shall bail out.”

“How nice,” I said. “You are certainly a planner. It’s too bad your plans couldn’t have been more successful.”

“You can’t beat luck,” he said, “but I’m not beaten yet.”

He wasn’t. In fact, he still had a fair chance of getting away with it. The statter never wavered from my direction, and I wasn’t about to force him to shoot. I wanted to stall for time. I knew exactly how Sofra must have felt in that cage in the temple—anything to keep the executioner from doing his task.

I wondered how I could keep him occupied until his guard relaxed. I might not get an opportunity, but I had to try.

CHAPTER XXI

« ^

“Tell me,” I said, “what was the reason for all this?”

Lantham looked at me and shrugged. “If you don’t know by now you’re an idiot,” he said.

I guessed what was passing through his mind. He had to talk to someone, and since I would be dead and unable to talk to anyone else, he might as well talk to me. If he had succeeded, this would not have been necessary. Success itself would have fed his ego. But since he failed he dared not talk to anyone—and he needed the catharsis; so who would be a better listener than his intended victim?

“Humor me,” I said. “I ought to get something out of this.”

Lantham’s eyes glittered. “I did it for power,” he said, “more power than any man held—Supreme Power! I did it for power to rule the galaxy, to put the Confederacy in my pocket, to rule, to control.” His voice died to a murmur. “I did it for The Power!”

He reminded me of Kate. The same rapacity. The same cruelty. The same ignorance. He confused power with happiness. He should know better. Power merely whets the appetite for more. And what it brings isn’t satisfaction. Fear, envy, greed, hatred, duty, and responsibility are the main corollaries of power.

What good would power do Lantham if he had it? He could do nothing with it except destroy. He couldn’t build. His knowledge wouldn’t be sufficient. He couldn’t organize—same limitation. He couldn’t conquer because he couldn’t administer. He couldn’t rule because no one would obey him unless he could enforce his laws, and he couldn’t enforce unless he could visit every world in the Confederacy simultaneously to see that he was obeyed. He was not an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God and he never would be. He couldn’t visit every world if he lived a dozen lifetimes. Numbers and distance would destroy any effort he could make. All that The Power could do for Latham was to give him the ability to destroy—and even that would be limited.

Could this be what he wanted? If so there was only one definition for John Lantham. He was as mad as the proverbial March hare, a capering, gibbering figure of low comedy against the awesome backdrop of the galaxy. But I couldn’t laugh. He could do untold damage before he was stopped by time and space. He could become a figure of horror in galactic history. But he would never be anything except a failure.

Lantham’s monologue was still going on and I turned my attention to what he was saying.

“I did it for The Power. It’s real! The Legends are truth. There is The Power—and the natives have it. It’s in those little shrines the tribes carry with them—all the little pieces of it. Each tribe has a piece. One is missing, but that tribe was exterminated during the first Punitive Expedition.”

“What happened to their part?” I asked, knowing the answer but feeling that I must say something.

“I have it,” Lantham said. “A little segment, like a half slice of watermelon. It’s tiny—but the things it can do!”

I nodded. I, too, had felt The Power, and I could see where a sliver of it might give a man ideas. I had half of it in my hands and it nearly drove me mad.

“Put microwatts into one end—kilowatts come out the other,” burbled Lantham. “Aim it at an energy source and receive the source augmented. Aim the receiver at the sun and melt a planet. It may have other functions than just power. The Legends say it does and I believe them.” His eyes shone with feral brilliance as he looked at me. “You’ll never know how much I want it, you dull, stupid clod. With the piece I have tasted godhead and I want it all—all—all!”

His voice died and I was silent. He didn’t really know what he wanted, or what it would do to him. He was insane now—but with the thing in his hand he’d be a slavering madman the like of whom the Universe had never seen.

“It’s marvelous,” Lantham said. “It’s nothing a human could build. It made me believe the Shambra.”

“You could do worse,” I said. “The Shambra make a good model. They minded their own business and they fragmented their Power.”

He scowled fleetingly at me, and then his face smoothed. “I’m going to have it all,” he said. “The stupid natives worship The Power instead of using it. It was a legacy, and if the natives had united, they could have dominated the Universe, but they never did.

“It’s frustrating to think that so potent an instrument should be in the possession of a few hundred thousand savages!” He shook his head. “Of course, there is only one thing to do—”

“Sure,” I said, “kill them and take the shrines off their dead bodies!”

“Even to you it’s obvious,” Lantham said drily. “But today is not the days of Empire. Nowadays the chicken-hearted slobs with consciences run things.” He snorted. “They won’t hurt anyone of they can help it, and particularly not on worlds of the Confederacy. Luckily Arthe isn’t Confederacy status yet. There’s all sorts of legal problems before that gets settled. While I could move in and take the shrines, I didn’t have the power to do so and there was no way to generate it since the planetary council would never let me exterminate the natives. A couple of centuries ago I could have done it, but not today. And I couldn’t wait for Arthe to make member status which would automatically keep the Patrol and the Service out, and let me maneuver the natives into their own destruction. I simply didn’t have the time of the force. I needed something to smash the natives completely and only the Patrol or the Service had that power. The Confederation had to be maneuvered into killing the natives.

“It took years to set this up. The real break came when the Geeks tried to peddle tonocaine in the Confederacy. The drug was ideal for what I had in mind, and the Gakan War showed me how it could be used. I had every contingency covered except the impossibly bad luck that brought you into the picture. I never worried about you, not even when the Commissioner had me send you to Dunkelburg. You couldn’t have solved a problem if it had bit you. You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself. And so what do you do?—you put together a mess of guesswork, romance, wishful thinking and half truth and come up with the answer!”

His eyes put Kate’s to shame. “I’m not beaten yet,” he said. “I’ll start again—and next time I won’t fail!” There was no doubt about it. He was mad. And he would fail.

Lantham looked at his watch. “You’ve heard enough.” he said. He squeezed the grip of the statter and my muscles froze into a rigid tetany. I was encased in a coffin of motionless flesh.

He eyed me with mild disinterest. “You may find it interesting to observe an aircraft crash first hand, but I doubt it,” he said.

So did I, but there was nothing I could do about it. I breathed, but my diaphragm was doing all the work. My heart was beating, my viscera were twitching, but that was all. I could not move a single voluntary muscle.

I stared at him with frozen eyes.

“Goodbye, Sam,” he said. It was his fatherly voice, the one he always used when there was some particularly dirty work to be done. He placed his hands on the armrests of his chair and started to push himself out of his seat, and the seat folded around him like a cocoon! For a second his eyeballs shone while from behind the transparent shield rose around his face. He screamed with sudden realization of failure!—and then he was gone!

Air swished out of the pressurized cabin into the square of blackness where his seat had been, and then the skin of the ship closed swiftly over the opening leaving an empty space on the cabin floor. He’d been jettisoned! The pilot had dropped him through the escape hatch that was a part of the seat. I had completely forgotten about those civilian safety devices that were standard equipment in all nonmilitary craft—the seat that became a foolproof escape cell capable of lowering the most panicky passenger safely to ground in case of trouble with the ship.

Lantham would be safe enough, but he wouldn’t be going anywhere except into the arms of the Patrol. The seat would protect him, but he’d be forced to stay in the escape cell until he was picked up since he didn’t have a respirator, and he wasn’t a Type C. They’d find him easily enough by the homing device that was already sending out loud electronic cries for help. I chuckled grimly inside my mind. It would serve him right if the natives found him first.

I found that I could move my eyes; so I focussed on the aisle and watched Sofra come down it, supported by the pilot. I felt pleased with myself. I hadn’t given Lantham the least idea of what was going on behind his back. I hadn’t let him know that Sofra had recovered while he was talking. I had kept him occupied. But the pride I felt in myself was nothing compared with the pride I had in her. She had really done the job.

Then I saw the pilot.

I did a mental doubletake and waited until the surprise had died. Life was just one damn thing after another. If anyone had told me that Joe Riker was piloting Lantham’s ship, I’d have laughed in his face.

Riker grinned at me, the same grin I knew so well. “Hi, Doc,” he said. I had the overwhelming desire to laugh hysterically, and wished that I could. In my life on Arthe, people never were what I expected—Pete Krasna, John Lantham, and now Joe Riker! I wondered if I’d spend all my life being surprised.

He bent over me, rolled my eyelids back, and squinted at my pupils. Then he turned and nodded to Sofra. “He’s all right. It’s just a second degree paralysis. He’s conscious but he can’t move.” Joe shrugged, reached into his tunic, extracted his reeking stub of a pipe and lighted it. He looked down at me, still grinning. “You can thank whatever God you worship,” he said, “that you managed to make me worry about you. Even so, we might all have died if it hadn’t been for your girl friend.”

I tried to tell him that Sofra was my wife. Somehow it seemed important he should know.

“You know, he just might have gotten away with it. We never figured him for the big fellow. He checked out clean right down the line. But I didn’t feel good about you. I told you once I had a feeling for things that were wrong, and nothing about you felt right. You were hit bait.” He grinned at me. “Besides, I owe you something for saving my life.”

“Sam forced his hand,” Sofra said. “I don’t know why…”

“Maybe he got mad. He has a habit of doing things like that. No patience at all unless he’s paralyzed.”

If I had been mobile, I’d have made him eat those words. No patience—indeed! Joe stopped grinning and looked at me soberly. “Take my advice, Doc. Stop trying to be a cop. Stick to medicine. You’re a lot better at it. I’ll admit you accomplished more in your awkwardly murderous fashion than I did with all my nosing around. You immobilized the natives, stopped a riot, and smoked the big fellow out of his hole. But it was just luck that Kronfeld heard you in Lantham’s office. Coming on top of what I’d told him, it was enough for intervention. Even so, it goes to prove that there’s a special providence that watches over fools and amateurs, and with this mess over, you’ve lost your amateur standing.”

“He will not be with the police any more,” Sofra said. “I promise you that.”

“Good,” Riker said. “Stay after him and see that he stays out. I don’t want to go to his funeral. As for Lantham, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“What about The Power?” I croaked. The stat was wearing off and it was about time.

“We’re looking for it. We’ve got search parties out all over the polar area, and we’re going to take the rest of it from the southern tribes. One way or another, we’ll get it all. We can’t have a thing like that in unfriendly hands.” He fell silent, and his lined leathery face became remote and introspective as though he was looking on an unpleasant future. “It’s a good thing Arthe doesn’t have full Confederation status,” he said. “We can do things here we wouldn’t dare to on a member world.”

“Are you a police officer?” Sofra asked curiously. “I thought you were a trader.” She was being stupid, I thought. It was obvious that Riker was a patrolman, but what was obvious to me might not be obvious to her. Women are funny that way.

“Great Lord, no!” Riker exploded. “I’m Captain Joseph Riker, Special Branch, Galactic Patrol.” His thin, pigeon-chested figure seemed to grow larger as he stood there. Behind him—almost invisible—was the power of the Confederacy. I relaxed and let returning sensation creep through my nerves. With sensation came pain, but even that felt good. It was all over. The relief from fear and tension was indescribable.

Lantham and Riker were both right when they said I was no cop. I wanted no more of it. I wanted to practise medicine and forget that I had ever listened to Valkyr’s song. I had enough of fighting. I was deconditioned at last.

Some day I would build a clinic with branches in the domes and along the canals—places where natives, ‘breeds and Confeds could come for help and receive it in equal measure. It shouldn’t be too hard to do. I had money enough to lay the foundation stones and since I was a hero, a popular appeal should bring good response. Undoubtedly, the Patrol would cooperate, and the Confederation might follow suit. I could see the places in my mind’s eye—low, white and beautiful with a tall central spire gleaming toward the sky—a place where mutual respect and trust could have a beginning.

And from that beginning might come other things—and perhaps some day there would be a true comradeship among the humans of Arthe and peace would come to stay.

Table of Contents

10

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

^