by Roger Elwood
Adzel did. He took part of the wall with him.
§
Korych rose through winter mists that turned gold as they smoked past city towers and above the river. Kettledrums rolled their ritual from Eidh Hill. Shutters came down off windows and doors, market circles began to fill, noise lifted out of a hundred small workshops. Distantly, but deeper and more portentous sounded the buzz of traffic and power from the new quarters, hoot of ships on the bay, whine of jets overhead, thunder of rockets as a craft left the spaceport for the moon Seith.
Morruchan Long-Ax switched off the lights in his confidence chamber. Dawnglow streamed pale through glass, picking out the haggardness of faces. “I am weary,” he said, “and we are on a barren trail.”
“Hand,” said Falkayn, “it had better not be. Here we stay until we have reached some decision.”
Morruchan and Dagla glared. Olgor grew expressionless. They were none of them accustomed to being addressed thus. Falkayn gave them stare for stare, and Adzel lifted his head from where he lay coiled on the floor. The Merseians slumped back onto their tails.
“Your whole world may be at stake, worthies,” Falkayn said. “My people will not wish to spend time and treasure, aye, some lives, if they look for such ungrateful treatment.”
He picked up the harness and kit which lay on Morruchan’s desk and hefted them. Guided by Muddlehead, searchers from this household had found the apparatus in a ditch outside town and brought it here several hours ago. Clearly Chee’s kidnappers had suspected a signal was being emitted. The things felt pitifully light in his hand.
“What more can be said?” Olgor argued. “We have each voiced a suspicion that one of the others engineered the deed to gain a lever for himself. Or yet a different Vach, or another nation, may have done it; or the Demonists; or even the Star
Believers, for some twisted reason. Morruchan’s service too, they could know what the situation is.”
“But,” Falkayn objected, “they are scarcely so naive as to think—”
“I shall investigate,” Morruchan promised. “I may make direct inquiry. But channels of communication with the Gethfennu masters are devious, therefore slow.”
“In any event,” Falkayn said bleakly, “Adzel and I do not propose to leave our partner in the grip of criminals—for years, after which they may cut her throat.”
“You do not know they have her,” Olgor reminded him. “True. Yet may we prowl somewhat through space, out toward their colony. For little can we do on Merseia, where our knowledge is scant. Here must ye search, worthies, and contrive that all others search with you.”
The command seemed to break Morruchan’s thin-stretched patience. “Do you imagine we’ve nothing better to do than hunt for one creature? We, who steer millions?”
Falkayn lost his temper likewise. “If ye wish to keep on doing thus, best ye make the finding of Chee Lan your foremost concern!”
“Gently, gently,” Olgor said. “We are so tired that we are turning on allies. And that is not well.” He laid a hand on Falkayn’s shoulder. “Galactic,” he said, “surely you can understand that organizing a systemwide hunt, in a world as diverse as ours, is a greater task than the hunt itself. Why, no few leaders of nations, tribes, clans, factions will not believe the truth if they are told. Proving it to them will require diplomatic skill. Then there are others whose main interest will be to see if they cannot somehow maneuver this affair to give them an advantage over us. And yet others hope you do go away and never return; I do not speak merely of the Demonists.”
“If Chee be not returned safely,” Falkayn said, “those last may well get their wish.”
Olgor smiled. The expression went no deeper than his lips. “Galactic,” he murmured, “let us not play word games. Your scientists stand to win knowledge and prestige here, your merchants a profit. They will not allow an unfortunate incident caused by a few Merseians and affecting only one of their folk … they will not let that come between them and their objectives. Will they?”
Falkayn looked into the ebony eyes. His own were the first to drop. Nausea caught at his gullet. The Warmaster of Lafdigu had identified his bluff and called it.
Oh, no doubt these who confronted him would mount some kind of search. If nothing else, they’d be anxious to learn what outfit had infiltrated agents onto their staffs and to what extent. No doubt, also, various other Merseians would cooperate. But the investigation would be ill-coordinated and lackadaisical. It would hardly succeed against beings as wily as those who captured Chee Lan.
These three here—nigh the whole of Merseia—just didn’t give a damn about her.
§
She awoke in a cell.
It was less than three meters long, half that in width and height: windowless, doorless, comfortless. A coat of paint did not hide the basic construction, which was of large blocks. Their unresponsiveness to her fist-pounding suggested a high density. Brackets were bolted into the walls, to hold equipment of different sorts in place. Despite non-Technic design, Chee recognized a glow lamp, a thermostated air renewer, a waste unit, an acceleration couch … space gear, by Cosmos!
No sound, no vibration other than the faint whirr of the air unit’s fan reached her. The walls were altogether blank. After a while, they seemed to move closer. She chattered obscenities at them.
But she came near weeping with relief when one block slid aside. A Merseian face looked in. Behind was polished metal. Rumble, clangor, shouted commands resounded through what must be a spaceship’s hull, from what must be a spaceport outside.
“Are you well?” asked the Merseian. He looked still tougher than average, but he was trying for courtesy, and he wore a neat tunic with insignia of rank.
Chee debated whether to make a jump, claw his eyes out, and bolt for freedom. No, not a chance. But neither was she going to embrace him. “Quite well, I thank thee,” she snarled, “if thou’lt set aside trifles such as that thy heart-rotten varlets have beaten and gassed me and I am athirst and ahungered. For this outrage, methinks I’ll summon my mates to blow thy pesthole of a planet from the universe it defileth.”
The Merseian laughed. “You can’t be too sick, with that kind of spirit. Here are food and water.” He passed her some containers. “We blast off soon for a voyage of a few days. Do you need anything?”
“Where are we bound? Who art thou? What meaneth—”
“Hurh, little one, I’m not going to leave this snugglehole open very long, for any spillmouth to notice. Tell me this instant what you want, so I can try to have it sent from the city.”
Later Chee swore at herself, more picturesquely than she had ever cursed even Adzel. Had she specified the right things, they might have been a clue for her partners. But she was too foggy in the head, too dazed by events. Automatically, she asked for books and films which might help her understand the Merseian situation better. And a grammar text, she added in haste. She was tired of sounding like a local Shakespeare. The Merseian nodded and pushed the block back in place. She heard a faint click. Doubtless a tongue-and-groove lock, operated by a magnetic key.
The rations were revivifying. Before long, Chee felt in shape to make deductions. She was evidently in a secret compartment built into the wall of a radiation shelter.
Merseian interplanetary vessels ran on a thermonuclear-powered ion drive. Those which made landings—ferries tending the big ships or special jobs such as this presumably was— set down in deep silos and departed from them, so that electromagnetic fields could contain the blast and neutralize it before it poisoned the neighborhood. And each craft carried a blockhouse for crew and passengers to huddle in, should they get caught by a solar storm. Altogether, the engineering was superb. Too bad it would go by the board as soon as gravity drive and forcescreens became available.
A few days, at one Merseian g: hm-m-m, that meant an adjacent planet. Not recalling the present positions, Chee wasn’t sure which. A lot of space traffic moved in the Korychan System, as instruments had shown
while Muddlin’ Through approached. From a distance, in magniscreens, she had observed some of the fleet, capacious cargo vessels and sleek naval units.
Her captor returned with the materials she had requested and a warning to strap in for blast-off. He introduced himself genially as Iriad the Wayfarer, in charge of this dispatch boat.
‘‘Who art thou working for?” Chee demanded.
He hesitated, then shrugged. “The Gethfennu.” The block glided back to imprison her.
§
Lift was nothing like the easy upward floating of a galactic ship. Acceleration rammed Chee down into her couch and sat on her chest. Thunder shuddered through the very blockhouse. Eternal minutes passed before the pressure slacked off and the boat fell into steady running.
After that, for a timeless time, Chee had nothing to do but study. The officers brought her rations. They were a mixed lot, from every part of Merseia; some did not speak Eriau, and none had much to say to her. She considered tinkering her life-support apparatus into a weapon, but without tools the prospect was hopeless. So for amusement she elaborated the things she would like to do to Iriad, come the day. Her partners would have flinched.
Once her stomach, the only clock she had, told her she was far overdue for a meal. When finally her cell was opened, she leaped forward in a whirlwind of abuse. Iriad stepped back
and raised a pistol. Chee stopped and said: “Well, what happened? Hadn’t my swill gotten moldy enough?”
Iriad looked shaken. “We were boarded,” he said low. “How’s that?” Acceleration had never varied.
“By … your people. They laid alongside, matching our vector as easily as one runner might pace another. I did not know what armament they had, so— He who came aboard was a dragon.”
Chee beat her fists on the shelter deck. Oh, no, no, no! Adzel had passed within meters of her, and never suspected … the big, ugly, vacuum-skulled bumblemaker!
Iriad straightened. “But Haguan warned me it might happen,” he said with a return of self-confidence. “We know somewhat about smuggling. And you are not gods, you galactics.” “Where did they go?”
“Away. To inspect other vessels. Let them.”
“Do you seriously hope to keep me hidden for long?” “Ronruad is full of Haguan s boltholes.” Iriad gave her her lunch, collected the empty containers, and departed.
He came back, several meals later, to supervise her transferral from the cell to a packing crate. Under guns, Chee obeyed his instructions. She was strapped into padding alongside an air unit and left in darkness. There followed hours of maneuver, landing, waiting, being unloaded and trucked to some destination.
Finally the box was opened. Chee emerged slowly. Weight was less than half a standard g, but her muscles were cramped. A pair of workers bore the crate away. Guards stayed behind, with a Merseian who claimed to be a medic. The checkup he gave her was expert and sophisticated enough to bear him out. He said she should rest awhile, and they left her alone.
Her suite was interior but luxurious. The food brought her was excellent. She curled in bed and told herself to sleep.
Eventually she was taken down a long, paneled corridor and up a spiral ramp to meet him who had ordered her caught.
He squatted behind a desk of dark, polished wood that looked a hectare in area. Thick white fur carpeted the room and muffled footsteps. Pictures glowed, music sighed, incense sweetened the air. Windows gave a view outside; this part of the warren projected aboveground. Chee saw ruddy sand, strange wild shrubbery, a dust storm walking across a gaunt range of hills and crowned with ice crystals. Korych stood near the horizon, shrunken, but fierce through the tenuous atmosphere. A few stars also shone in that purple sky. Chee recognized Valenderay and shivered a little. So bright and steady it looked; and yet, at this moment, death was riding from it on the wings of light.
‘‘Greeting, galactic.” The Eriau was accented differently from Olgor’s. “I am Haguan Eluatz. Your name, I gather, is Chee Lan.”
She arched her back, bottled her tail, and spat. But she felt very helpless. The Merseian was huge, with a belly that bulged forward his embroidered robe. He was not of the Wilwidh stock, his skin was shiny black and heavily scaled, his eyes almond-shaped, his nose a scimitar.
One ring-glittering hands made a gesture. Chee’s guards slapped tails to ankles and left. The door closed behind them. But a pistol lay on Haguan’s desk, next to an intercom.
He smiled. “Be not afraid. No harm is intended you. We regret the indignities you have suffered and will try to make amends. Sheer necessity forced us to act.”
“The necessity for suicide?” Chee snorted.
“For survival. Now why don’t you make yourself comfortable on yonder couch? We have talk to forge, we two. I can send for whatever refreshment you desire. Some arthberry wine, perhaps?”
Chee shook her head but did jump onto the seat. “Suppose you explain your abominable behavior,” she said.
“Gladly.” Haguan shifted the weight on his tail. “You may not know what the Gethfennu is. It came into being after the first galactics had departed. But by now—” He continued for a while. When he spoke of a systemwide syndicate, controlling millions of lives and uncounted wealth, strong enough to build its own city on this planet and wily enough to play its enemies off against each other so that none dared attack that colony— he was scarcely lying. Everything that Chee had seen confirmed it.
“Are we in this town of yours now?” she asked.
“No. Elsewhere on Ronruad. Best I not be specific. I have too much respect for your cleverness.”
“And I have none for yours.”
“Khraich? You must I think we operated quite smoothly, and on such short notice. Of course, an organization like ours must always be prepared for anything. And we have been on special alert ever since your arrival. What little we have learned—” Haguan’s gaze went to the white point of Valenderay and lingered. “That star, it is going to explode. True?” “Yes. Your civilization will be scrubbed out unless—”
“I know, I know. We have scientists in our pay.” Haguan leaned forward. “The assorted governments on Merseia see this as a millennial chance to rid themselves of the troublesome Gethfennu. We need only be denied help in saving our colony, our shipping, our properties on the home planet and elsewhere. Then we are finished. I expect you galactics would agree to this. Since not everything can be shielded in time, why not include us in that which is to be abandoned? You stand for some kind of law and order too, I suppose.”
Chee nodded. In their mask of dark fur, her eyes smoldered emerald. Haguan had guessed shrewdly. The League didn’t much care who it dealt with, but the solid citizens whose taxes were to finance the majority of the rescue operations did.
“So to win our friendship, you take me by force,” she sneered halfheartedly.
“What had we to lose? We might have conferred with you, pleaded our cause, but would that have wrought good for us?” “Suppose my partners recommend that no help be given your whole coprophagous Merseian race.”
“Why, then the collapse comes,” Haguan said with chilling calm, “and the Gethfennu has a better chance than most organizations of improving its relative position. But I doubt that any such recommendation will be made or that your overlords would heed it if it were.
“So we need a coin to buy technical assistance. You.” Chee’s whiskers twitched in a smile of sorts. “I’m scarcely that big a hostage.”
“Probably not,” Haguan agreed. “But you are a source of information.”
The Cynthian’s fur stood on end with alarm. “Do you have some screwbrained notion that I can tell you how to do everything for yourself? Im not even an engineer!”
“Understood. But surely you know your way about in your own civilization. You know what the engineers can and cannot do. More important, you know the planets, the different races and the cultures upon them, the mores, the laws, the needs. You can tell us what to expect. You can help us get interstellar
ships—hijacking under your advice should succeed, being unlooked for—and show us how to pilot them, and put us in touch with someone who, for pay, will come to our aid.”
“If you suppose for a moment that the Polesotechnic League would tolerate—”
Teeth flashed white in Haguan’s face. “Perhaps it won’t, perhaps it will. With so many stars, the diversity of peoples and interests is surely inconceivable. The Gethfennu is skilled in stirring up competition among others. What information you supply will tell us how, in this particular case. I don’t really visualize your League, whatever it is, fighting a war—at a time when every resource must be devoted to saving Merseia—to prevent someone else rescuing us.”
He spread his hands. “Or possibly we’ll find a different approach,” he finished. “It depends on what you tell and suggest.”
“How do you know you can trust me?”
Haguan said like iron: “We judge the soil by what crops it bears. If we fail, if we see the Gethfennu doomed, we can still enforce our policy regarding traitors. Would you care to visit my punishment facilities? They are quite extensive. Even though you are of a new species, I think we could keep you alive and aware for many days.”
Silence dwelt awhile in that room. Korych slipped under the horizon. Instantly the sky was black, strewn with the legions of the stars, beautiful and uncaring.
Haguan switched on a light to drive away that too enormous vision. “If you save us, however,” he said, “you will go free with a very good reward.”
“But—” Chee looked sickly into sterile years ahead of her. And the betrayal of friends and scorn if ever she returned, a lifetime’s exile. “You’ll keep me till then?”
“Of course.”
