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VI

The man, large, heavy-featured, thick-mustached, introduced himself as Sheldon Wyler. "Sure, I'm working for the Baburites," he said almost coolly. "What's the Commonwealth or the League to me? And no, don't bother asking for details, because you won't get them."

He did, though, name his sullenly mute companion, Blyndwyr of the Vach Ruethen. "A fair number of Merseians are enlisted in the navy," he volunteered. "Mostly they belong to the aristocratic party at home and have no love for the League, considering how it shunted their kind aside and dealt instead with the Gethfennu group. You know, not many League people seem to understand what a cosmos of enemies it's made for itself over the years."

After the newcomers had unsuited, he squeezed past Adzel to a phone set in the wall. When he had punched, the screen lit with the likeness of a Baburite. "They're here," he reported in Anglic, and went on to describe the three from Muddlin' Through. "We're about to show them their quarters."

"Have you examined their effects for weapons?" asked the vocalizer voice.

"Why, no. What good—Well, all right. Hold on." To the prisoners: "You heard. We've got to check your gear."

"Proceed," Adzel said dully. "We are not so foolish as to use firearms inside an environmental unit; so we have brought none."

Wyler laughed. "Blyndwyr and I are good enough shots to blast you without putting a hole anywhere else." He went quickly through the luggage. The Merseian kept hand on gun butt. Chee's whiskers quivered with rage, her fur stood on end, her eyes had gone ice-green. A sickness gripped Falkayn by the throat.

Having verified the bags contained nothing more dangerous than compact tool kits, Wyler blanked the phone and led the way down a corridor. A room opening on it held four bunks and a window rapidly filling with night. "Bath and cleanup yonder," he pointed. "You can cook for yourselves; the kitchen's well stocked. Blyndwyr and me, we don't live here just now, but you'll be seeing a good deal of us, I'll bet. Behave yourselves and you won't be hurt. That includes telling us whatever we want to know."

Adzel brought his forelimbs through the door and the room grew crowded. "Uh, I guess you'd better sleep in the hall, fellow," Wyler said. "Tell you what, we'll go straight on to the mess, where there's space for all of us, and talk."

Falkayn gripped his spirit as if it were a wrestler trying to throw him. As he walked, his neck ached from its own stiffness. Lead him on, he thought. Collect information, no matter how unlikely it is you'll ever bring it to anybody who can use it. "What's this building for?" he got out in what he attempted to make a level tone.

"Engineering teams used to need it," Wyler said. "Later it housed officers of oxygen-breathing auxiliary forces while they got their indoctrination."

"You speak too freely," Blyndwyr reproved him.

Wyler bit his lip. "Well, I didn't sign on to be a goddamn interrogator—" He relaxed a little. "What the muck, my answer was pretty obvious, wasn't it? And they aren't going anywhere with it, either . . . . Here we are."

The messroom was broad and echoing. Furniture had been stacked against the walls and the air smelled musty, as if no one had adjusted the recyclers for some time. Adzel went motionless, like a statue of an elemental demon. Chee poised at his feet, her tail whipping her flanks and the floor. Falkayn and Wyler drew out a couple of chairs and sat. Blyndwyr stood well aside, ever watchful.

"Suppose you start by telling me exactly who sent you and why," Wyler said. "You've been goddamn vague so far."

Our assignment itself was vague, Falkayn thought. Van Rijn trusted we'd be able to improvise as we went, as we learned. Instead, we've been captured as casually as fish in a net. And as hopelessly? Aloud, he dared be defiant: "We might both be more interested in what you're doing. How can you claim it's not treason to your species?"

Wyler scowled. "Are you going to spout a sermon at me, Captain? I don't have to take that." He considered. "But okay, okay, I will explain. What's so evil about the Baburites? Without a navy, they'd never stand a chance. The Commonwealth would grab Mirkheim and the whole goddamn industrial revolution that Mirkheim means, with crumbs for anybody else. Or the League would. The Baburites think differently. To them, this is no question of profit or loss on a balance tape. No, it's an opportunity for the race. With it, they can buy their way into the front rank—buy ships, mount expeditions, plant colonies, not to speak of all they might do at home—immediately!"

"But Mirkheim was not foreseeable," Falkayn argued. "Before that, why was Babur arming? Why did it plan to fight . . . and whom?"

"The Commonwealth has a navy, doesn't it? And the League companies keep warships too. They've seen use. We never know what we may come up against tomorrow. You of all people should remember the Shenna. Babur has a right of self-defense."

"You talk like a convert."

"You do not talk like a businessman, Captain Falkayn," Wyler said in anger. "I think you're stalling me. And I'm not going to stand for that, you hear? Maybe you imagine being famous will protect you. Well, forget that. You're a long ways off into a territory that doesn't care a good goddamn about your reputation. They don't feel obliged here to send you back undamaged, or send you back at all. If we have to, we'll pump you full of babble juice. And if that doesn't seem to be working so well, we'll go on from there."

He stopped, swallowed, smoothed countenance and tone: "But hey, let's not quarrel. I'm sure you're a reasonable osco. And you say one of your aims is to see what you can dicker out for your employer. Well, I might be able to help you there, if you help me first. Let's brew some coffee and talk sense."

Chee Lan rattled a string of syllables. "What?" Wyler asked.

She spat out words like bullets: "I was making remarks about those refrigerated centipedes of yours that you wouldn't want to translate for them."

Falkayn sat very quiet. His blood made a cataract noise in his ears. Chee had used the Haijakatan language, which they three knew and surely no one else within many light-years. "If we don't escape, we'll die here sooner or later. And even what little we've learned is important to bring home. I think we can take these two, and get Davy back to the ship in disguise."

"Her comments are, however, quite apposite," the Wodenite put in. "I myself might go so far as to say—" He switched to Haijakatan. "If you can begin on the greenskin, Chee, I can handle the man."

"True and triple true." The Cynthian did not pace, she bounded, back and forth like a cat at play but with her tail bottled to twice its normal size.

Wyler's hand slipped down toward his gun. Blyndwyr drew a hissing breath and backed off, gripping his own blaster in its holster. Falkayn held himself altogether still, believing he saw what his comrades intended but not quite sure, ready only to trust them.

Start by distracting attention. "You can't blame my friends for getting excited," he said. "They're not Commonwealth citizens. Neither am I. And we haven't come on behalf of the League, just of a single company. Nevertheless we're to be interned indefinitely and quizzed under threats, possibly under drugs or torture. The best thing you can do, Wyler, is make the higher-ups of Babur listen to us. They should put away this blind hostility of theirs to the League. Its independent members want it to be in charge of Mirkheim. That'd guarantee everybody access to the supermetals."

"Would it?" Wyler snorted. "The League's split in pieces. And the Baburites know that."

"How? When we're as ignorant about them as we are, how did they get so close an impression of us? Who told them? And what makes them ready to stake their whole future on the word of those persons?"

"I don't know everything," Wyler admitted. "Goddamn, this planet's got eight times the surface of Earth, most of it land surface. Why shouldn't the Imperial Band feel confident?" He thrust out his jaw. "And that will be the last question you get to ask, Falkayn. I'm starting now."

Chee's restlessness had brought her near the Merseian. His alertness had focused itself back on the seated humans. Abruptly she made a final leap, sidewise but straight at him. Landing halfway up his belly, she gripped fast to his garment with her toes while both arms wrapped around his gun hand. He yelled and tried to draw regardless. She was too strong; she clung. He hammered at her with his free fist. Her teeth raked blood from it.

Adzel had taken a single stride. It brought him in reach of Wyler, whom he plucked from the chair, lowered, and bowled backward across the floor. His tail slapped down over the man's midriff to hold him pinioned. Meanwhile Adzel kept moving. He got to Blyndwyr, picked him up by the neck, shook him carefully, and set him down in a stunned condition. Chee hauled the blaster loose and scampered aside. Wyler was struggling to get at his gun. Falkayn arrived and took the weapon from its holster.

Adzel released Wyler and stepped back with his comrades. Wyler lurched to his feet; Blyndwyr sat gasping. "Are you crazy?" the human chattered. "What is this nonsense, you can't—can't—"

"Maybe we can." Glee surged through Falkayn. He knew he should have been more cautious, vetoed the attack, stayed meek lest he get himself killed. But if none of us three is an Earthling, Coya is; and on the whole, Earth has been good to us too. Besides, ours is Old Nick's single ship in these parts. He sent us mainly to gather information, that he might not have to grope totally blind. And his welfare is also the welfare of thousands of his workers, millions among the planetary peoples who trade with him . . . . To Satan with that. What counts is breaking free! The fire in his flesh roared too loudly for him to hear any fright.

At the same time, the logical part of him was starkly conscious. "Stay where you are, both of you," he told Wyler and Blyndwyr. "Adzel, Chee, your idea is that I can go out dressed as him, right?"

"Of course." The Cynthian settled down on her haunches and began to groom herself. "One human must look like another to a Baburite."

Adzel cocked his head and rubbed his snout with a loud sandpapering sound. "Perhaps not entirely. Freeman Wyler does have dark hair and a mustache. We must do something about that."

"Meanwhile, Wyler, off with your clothes," Chee ordered. The Merseian, half recovered, made as if to rise. She swung the blaster in his direction. "You stay put," she said in his native Eriau. "I'm not a bad marksman either."

Bloodless in the cheeks, Wyler cried, "You're on collision orbit, I tell you, you can't get away, you'll die for goddamn nothing!"

"Undress, I told you," Chee replied. "Or must Adzel do it?"

Looking at the muzzle of her weapon and the implacable eyes behind, Wyler started to remove his garments. "Falkayn, haven't you any sense?" he pleaded.

The response he got was a thoughtful "Yes. I'm planning how we can take you along to quiz."

Chee lifted her ears. "'We,' Davy?" she asked. "How are Adzel and I going to get out? No, you can ransom us later."

"You two most certainly are coming," Falkayn said. "We don't know how revengeful Baburites are, or their human and Merseian chums."

"But—"

"Besides, I'll need your help with Wyler, not to mention after we're spaceborne."

Adzel returned from the kitchen where he had been rummaging, "Here is the means to provide you with dark hair and mustache," he announced proudly. "A container of chocolate sauce."

It didn't seem like what a really dashing hero would use in a jailbreak, but it would have to do. While he stripped, put on Wyler's garb, and submitted to the anointing, Falkayn exchanged rapid-paced words with his companions. A scheme evolved, not much more precarious than the one which had gotten them this far.

Adzel ripped up Blyndwyr's clothes and tied him securely in place. He and Chee kept Wyler unbound, naked, under guard of her firearm. The Wodenite uttered a benediction, all the goodbye that Falkayn took time for. They three might never fare together again, he might never come back to Coya and Juanita, but he dared not stop to think about that, not now.

The hallway clattered to his footfalls. At the airlock, he punched the number he had seen and stood feeling as if he waited to be shot at in a duel. When the Baburite's four eyes peered out of the screen at him, he couldn't help passing his tongue over dry lips. A sweet taste reminded him of how crude his disguise was.

He spoke without preliminary, as Wyler had done before: "The prisoners seem to have lost morale. They asked me to fetch some medicines and comforts for them from their ship. I think that may make them cooperative."

He was gambling that human psychology would be as little known here as human bodies were.

A heartbeat and a heartbeat went by before the creature answered: "Very well. The guards will be told to expect you." Blankness.

Falkayn found Wyler's spacesuit and its undergarment in a locker. The suit was distinctively painted; probably every offplanet employee had an individual pattern for identification purposes. So he must adjust it to fit his somewhat taller frame. He could have used help, but didn't dare have anyone else in scanner range of the phone, lest the Baburite call him back.

Cycling through the lock, he emerged into bulldog jaws of gravitation. The field stretched bare before him, pockmarked with hatch covers. Here and there a caterpillar shape crossed it on some unguessable errand. Blue-white lights glared along the fronts of buildings till their ice shimmered like cold made visible. A wind whined and thrust. In darkness overhead, two moons shone dimly, but no stars. The walk was long to his destination.

It seemed impossible that no one challenged him while he opened the silo, stepped onto the elevator, and descended. By the time he had reached the personnel entrance of his ship, his helmet was chokeful of sweat-reek, he could barely whistle the countersign, and superstition rose from the grave of his childhood to croak, This can't go on. You're overdue for bad luck.

We've already had it, he defended. We came too late—after the fleet had left.

Do you think if it were still here, you would have been this lightly guarded?

The valve turned. Waiting in the chamber for air exchange, Falkayn invoked some of Adzel's Buddhist techniques and regained a measure of calm. "There should be no bow, no arrow, no archer: only the firing."

He left his space armor on inside, though frost was instantly white upon it. A flick of a switch in the heater controls cleared his faceplate, and he hurried to the bridge. Working his awkward bulk into his shockseat, he said via radio, "Muddlehead, we have to break Adzel and Chee loose. I'll steer, because you haven't seen where they are. We'll land in front of an entry lock. Blast it instantly—they won't have time to go through in the regular way—and have the outer valve of the number-two belly entrance open for them. The moment they're aboard, lift for space, taking such evasive maneuvers as your instruments suggest are best. Go into hyperdrive as soon as we're far enough out, and I mean as soon; forget about safety margins. Is this clear?"

"As clear as usual," said the computer.

The power plant came to full, murmurous life. Negafield generators thrust against that fabric of physical relationships which we call space. The ship glided upward.

"Yonder!" Falkayn yelled uselessly. Dancing over the manual pilot console, his fingers were handicapped by their gloves. But if the hull should be seriously holed by an enemy shot, an unprotected oxygen breather would be dead. Air roared outside. He had left the acceleration compensator off, in order that he might have that extra sensory input for this tricky task, and forces yanked at him, threw him against the safety web and then back into the seat. Hai-ah!

The building was straight ahead. He dropped, he hovered. A gun in its turret flung forth a shaped-charge shell. Flame erupted, the outer portal crumpled in wreckage. With surgical delicacy, an energy cannon sent its beam lancing at the inner valve. Metal turned white hot and flowed.

The caterpillar figures dashed about on the field. Had they no ground defenses? Well, who could have anticipated this kind of attack? Wait—above—forms in the moonglow, suddenly diving, aircraft—

The barrier went down. A frost-cloud boiled as Baburite and Terrestrial gases met. Falkayn was fleetingly glad that automatic doors would close off the module where Blyndwyr lay. Doubly gigantic in his spacesuit, Adzel stormed forth. Was he carrying Chee and Wyler? A firebolt spat from above. The spaceship swung her cannon about and threw lightning back. Adzel was out of sight, below the curve of the hull. What had happened, in God's name, what had happened?

"They are aboard," Muddlehead reported, and sent the vessel leaping.

Acceleration jammed Falkayn deep into his chair. "Compensators," he ordered hoarsely. A steady one gee underfoot returned. Split atmosphere raved and the first stars came in sight. Falkayn unlocked his faceplate and reached shakily for the intercom button. "Are you all right?" he called.

A shell exploded close by, flash of light, buffet of noise, trembling of deck. Muddlin' Through drove on outward.

Adzel's tones rumbled through the fury round about. "Essentially we are well, Chee and I. Unfortunately, a shot from an aircraft struck our prisoner, who was under my right arm, penetrated his suit, and killed him instantly. I left the body behind."

There's our bad luck, raged within Falkayn. I would've put him under narco and maybe learned—Damn, oh, damn!

"My own suit was damaged, but not too badly for the self-sealing to work, and I suffered no more than a scorched scale," Adzel went on. "Chee was safe on my left side . . . . I would like to say a prayer for Sheldon Wyler."

Steadiness took over in Falkayn. "Later. First we've got to escape. We've surprise and speed on our side, but the alarm must be in space by now. Take battle stations, you two."

He knew as well as they that in a close encounter with any fighter heavier than a corvette, they were done for. They might ward off missiles for a time; but so would the enemy, and meanwhile its energy beams, powered by generators more massive than Muddlin' Through could carry, would gnaw through plating much thinner than its own.

The chance of combat was small, however. Probably no Baburite had such a position and velocity at this moment that its grav drive was capable of equalizing vectors, at the same point in space, with the furiously accelerating Solar craft. Nearly all slug-it-out contests took place because opponents had deliberately sought each other.

Target-seeking torpedoes, whose mass was small enough to permit enormous changes in speed and direction, were something else. So were rays that traveled at the speed of light.

The sky of Babur had fallen well aft, the globe was still huge in heaven but dwindling. Stars burned manyfold, some among them the color of blood.

"When can we go hyper, Muddlehead?" Falkayn asked. It shouldn't be long. They were already high in the gravity well of Mogul and climbing upward fast in Babur's. Soon the metric of space would be too flat to interfere unduly with fine-tuned oscillators; and once they were moving at their top faster-than-light pseudovelocity, practically nothing ever built had legs to match theirs.

"One-point-one-six-hour, given our present vector," said the computer. "But I propose to add several minutes to that time by applying transverse thrust to bring us near the satellite called Ayisha. My instruments show a possible anomalous radiation pattern there."

Falkayn hesitated a second. If heavy ground installations were on the moon . . . Decision: "Very well. Carry on."

Time crawled. Twice Chee yelled savagely, when her guns destroyed a missile on its intercept course. Falkayn could only sit and think. Mostly he remembered, in jumbled oddments—wingsailing with Coya at Lunograd, a red sun forever above a desert on Ikrananka, his father's sternness about noblesse oblige, fear that he might drop newborn Juanita when she was laid in his arms, The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, his first night with Coya and his last, youthful beer hall arguments about God and girls, Rodin's Burghers of Calais, a double moonglade on the Auroral Ocean, a firefall between two stars, Coya beside him beholding the crooked towers of a city on a planet which did not yet have a human-bestowed name, his mother using a prism to show him what made the rainbow, Coya and he laughing like children as they had a snowball fight at an Antarctic resort, the splendor of an Ythrian on the wing, Coya bringing him sandwiches and coffee when he sat far into a nightwatch studying the data readouts on a new world the ship was circling, Coya—

The scarred moon-disc grew big in the viewscreen. Falkayn magnified, searched, suddenly found it: a sprawling complex of domes, turrets, ship housings, spacefield, test stands . . . . "Record!" he ordered automatically.

Did Muddlehead sound hurt? Impossible. "Of course. Infrared signs are of beings thermodynamically similar to or identical with humans."

"You mean that stuff's not meant for Baburites? Why, then—"

"A-yu!" Chee Lan screamed; and incandescence flared momentarily. "Close, friends, close!"

"I suggest we do not dawdle," Adzel said.

The colony, or whatever it was, reeled out of sight behind a mountain range as the ship sped past Ayisha. "According to my instruments," Muddlehead reported, "if we persevere as at present, surrounding conditions will grow progressively less unsalubrious for us."

That means we're going to get away, Falkayn thought. We're clear. The pains and tingles of tension spread upward through his body to the brain.

"Where are we bound, then?" he heard Chee ask.

He forced himself to say, "Mirkheim. We just might arrive ahead of the Baburites, in time to warn those approaching humans, whoever they are, and the workers there."

"I doubt that," the Cynthian replied. "The enemy probably has too big a jump on us. And should we take the risk? Isn't it more important to bring home the information we've collected, that somehow Babur's acquired a substantial corps of military and technical oxygen breathers? A courier torp might not get through."

"No, we must attempt to warn," Adzel said. "It could forestall a battle. One violent death is too much."

Falkayn nodded wearily. His gaze sought back to the uncaring stars. Poor Wyler, he thought. Poor everybody.

 

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