The Five Gold Bands

by Jack Vance

  He tottered to the switch, threw it back to full gravity. He was master on this little world, lord of life and death. Too late, he thought numbly-useless. The air had departed at the speed of sound and faster. It would return only at gravitational acceleration.

  The vacuum would he nearly complete for an hour yet, while all on the little world died. But no-he felt the tingling at his skin slowly diminish, the throb of his throat lessen. He opened his mouth, gasped. Air-air in the little room at least, very rare yet, seepage from cracks, a film held by molecular attraction and the gravity of the asteroid itself, now concentrated around the gravity unit.

  Paddy dragged himself up the stairs against the gravity, augmented as it was by his nearness to the unit. As he climbed he felt the atmosphere rapidly thinning. His head pounded in a near-vacuum as he peered over the casement.

  The Kudthus lay sprawled twenty feet distant in the dark pool of their hemorrhages. The five Sons of Langtry lay dead in a little clump around the boat. Paddy blinked, taken aback.

  The most appalling crime in the history of space had been committed. Genocide, defilement of holy places, treachery against the entire universe-no sin could rival his deed. The Five Sons dead by his hand!

  Paddy licked his puffed lips. It seemed a great to-do for the mere pulling of a switch. They would have killed him without glancing to see whether his way was to kick or to twitch. He looked across the platform at the boat, stared past the luminous tubing at the five ships.

  They lay in a quiet parallel rank. Ha, could not the fools sense the horror? Or their telescopes must tell them something was amiss. Of course they might be under orders to keep eyes away from instruments for fear that there might be lip-reading.

  Paddy looked back to the boat with the longing of a lover. His sight was blurring pink, blood was running from his nose. The hundred feet to the boat was like a thousand miles. Two feet above the concrete casement meant strangulation. He backed down the shaft to breathe and gather his wits.

  He considered. How would the gravity unit be turned off? By someone in a pressure suit, to escape his own doom. Would there be such a garment left at hand for the purpose? He found it hanging in the shadows behind the powerbank, and was into it with what speed he could provoke from his trembling fingers.

  He fitted the dome over his head, turned on the air. Ah-h-h, what a blessed thing was the pure thick air with a taste like the finest water.

  But no time to savor his air. Up-if he wished to escape the nerve-suit. He sprang up the steps, darted across the dead world. At the corpses of the five Sons of Langtry he stopped short. Around the Shaul's thin forearm be found a glint of gold, unclasped the band. Then to the Koton, the leathery Badau, the Eagle and the butter-yellow Loristanese.

  Jingling the five bands Paddy ran to the ship. Inside the port, throw home the dogs, to the pilot's seat. He groped among the controls until he found the lift-valve. Inching it open he raised the ship a trifle above the surface, slewed it slowly around to the opposite side of the world.

  Then, keeping the little asteroid between himself and the five ships as long as possible he turned the accelerator on full and the little ship fell out, out, out-into the deep well of space with stars flickering the shiny pebbles at the bottom.

  Now-on with the space-drive and he was safe. Safe!

  He slumped back into the seat, fell into a torpor…

  Paddy looked about his ship, letting the sight of glossy metal and glass, the fittings, fabrics, the exquisite equipment gladden his vision, luxuriating in the surroundings like a gourmet rolling the flavor of a fine sauce through his mouth.

  Paddy rose from the couch, stretched like one reborn. The boat was a new life, a symbol of rebirth. His past seemed remote as if only a tenuous wisp linked Paddy Blackthorn of the Akhabats jail and Paddy Blackthorn standing on the deck-covering of crisp scarlet eggshell pile.

  Paddy clapped his arms to his sides, grinned with honest joy. Not only was he free with his life-enough to rejoice about-but he had played a devastating joke on his would-be slayers. A magnificent joke to make his name one for history. It was the pattern of circumstances that exactly filled a socket in the human brain, the biter bit, the bully tripped up by the underdog in a gutter full of slops.

  Paddy strolled here and there, surveyed his prize. It seemed to be engineered less for cruising than for use as an interplanetary pleasure-boat. It carried no large supply of stores, no arsenal.

  The fittings were of a quality and precision befitting the ceremonial boat of the Sons of Langtry. The joinerwork was a rare wood from a far planet, showing a grain of black and golden-green. There was a brown-violet matanne upholstery on the couch and the scarlet carpet with the pile that was like stepping on candied rose-petals.

  Paddy returned to the pilot's platform, studied the astrogation instruments. A boat of this type, with no cost spared on its construction would embody new equipment, much of which might be unfamiliar to him. And as he glanced along the panel he found levers, dials, arms, whose use he did not comprehend. He left them untouched. For all he knew one might set off an emergency SOS call.

  He turned to the wide couch, inspected the shiny heap of his loot-five bands of gold, each with a thin square compartment. Paddy stood back with a sensation close to awe. "Here," he said, "is the treasure of the ages, which all the wealth of Earth would buy cheap… And it's me, Paddy Blackthorn, who handles these lovelies.

  "But now let's open them and we'll see how to curl space-drive into them shiny tubes so next time there won't be that great explosion…"

  He snapped off the lid of the first, withdrew a bit of stiff parchment. It was imprinted with heavy Badaic letters: The Kamborogian Arrowhead Suite 10 The Foolish Man's Inclination Page 100

  Paddy raised his eyebrows high. "And what's this?" He was thunderstruck, apprehensive. Was there some colossal error?

  "Ah, well," said Paddy, "now we'll see." He opened the second band.

  Like the first it contained a bit of parchment, written in Pherasic script which Paddy could not read. He passed on to the third, which was stamped with the neat Shaul cuneiform: Corescens, the back wall. Three up, two over Irradiate with angstroms 685, 1444, 2590, 3001. Photograph.

  Paddy groaned, opened the fourth band. It held a key, engraved with the Loristanese loops and lines, nothing more. Paddy tossed it aside.

  The parchment in the Koton band read: The Plain of Thish, where Arma-Geth shows the heroes to the wondering stars. Under my mighty right hand.

  Paddy flung himself back on the couch. "A bloody treasure-hunt, that's what!" he cried. "And to think I've risked all for the only clues. Well, then, by Fergus, I'll fling them from the port and have done with it!"

  But he folded the four parchment slips carefully around the key, and replaced them in one of the bands, which he fitted on his own wrist.

  "Now for home." thought Paddy. "Peace and quiet and no more of this space-rampaging-and yet-" He rubbed his chin dubiously. He was by no means safe. He had escaped the asteroid with his skin, but the Langtry ships swarmed space like wasps in a shed.

  He was safe from the rear. But was he safe from interception? Space-wave messages flew as swiftly as thought. The description of the boat and Paddy's personal coordinates would reach every outpost in space. Paddy would be the quarry of the universe. Ordinary misdeeds would go unchallenged while the authorities combed the worlds for Paddy Blackthorn.

  Exultation waned to fretful uneasiness. In his mind's-eye he saw the placards, tacked up in every saloon, every post office, every transportation agency in the known universe-displaying his picture and the caption-

  wanted-for interplanetary crime! Paddy Blackthorn, Earther. Dangerous! Height, six feet; weight, one hundred eighty pounds. Age, approximately thirty. Red-brown hair, hazel eyes, broken nose.

  "And then," grumbled Paddy, "there'll be my fingerprints, my tongueprint, my psychograph. They'll describe the hairs of my head and they'll write at the bottom, 'Catch this fiend and name your ow
n reward.' I'm cursed with the luck of the devil himself. There's no haven for me on Earth, no place for me but the Thieves' Cluster-and then how long?"

  He rummaged through the chart index, found the proper code, punched the buttons and in front of him, projected by a series of lenses, appeared the sphere of space surrounding the Thieves' Cluster.

  At the edge a blue gleam of light indicated his own position with a white arrow indicating the vector of his position and course. Paddy sighted, gingerly changed course until the vector pointed at the Thieves' Cluster.

  He turned on the space-wave. It was staccato with coded messages. Let 'em rave, thought Paddy. Once in the Thieves' Cluster, not even the Sons of Langtry could drag him forth. Of course they might send agents in to assassinate him. But would they? He was the only man alive who knew, if not the secret of space-drive, the whereabouts of the secret.

  IV

  The Thieves' Cluster was a group of eight suns in the Perseian Limbo which had picked up a jostling swarm of dark stars, planets, planetoids, asteroids, meteorites, and general debris. Here was end-haven for the lost men of all worlds. Among the hundred thousand satellites a man could dodge a low-boat like a rabbit ducking a dog in a mile of blackberry thicket.

  If he cared nothing for the life of the settled planets, if he had money to pay for his stores, if he could protect himself, then he could live his life among the jostling little worlds with small fear of civilized justice.

  There was no law in the Thieves' Cluster except at Eleanor on the central planet Spade-Ace. Here a government of sorts existed-an order of men forced to cooperate by fear and despair, a society of the antisocial. The executive committee of the government was the Blue-nose Gang, after Blue-nose Pete, mayor of Eleanor.

  At Eleanor the strictest law in the universe was enforced. If a man could win to the Eleanor space-field he could sleep in an alley with his loot on his chest and when he awoke his gold would be there. The apparatus was clumsy and harsh but if a man violated the law of Eleanor the Gang would have his life.

  Paddy slipped through the crush of flaming suns and bright worlds without hindrance, fell against the swampy side of Spade-Ace, leveled off, flew screaming a few miles above the reed-covered morass. A ridge of black rock rose at the horizon. He crossed it and below him was Eleanor, a spatter of white and brown at the base of the mountain.

  He dropped to the field beside the alteration docks, where a Badau double-monitor lay half-dismantled.

  He jumped out of the domed boat, ran across the field to the line of ships at the boundary. At a hydrant he flung himself down, turned on the water, drank, drank, drank.

  An Earther lounging nearby, a tall dark man with narrow yellow eyes, watched him curiously. "Run out of water, Red?"

  Paddy pulled himself to his feet, ran his wet hands across his face.

  "Faith, I've eaten shrimp preserved in sweet syrup now it's four days and vile fare it is, believe me, after the third bite."

  "Sounds rough," said the tall dark man. He nodded at,the boat. "Nice rig you're flying. Planning to sell or holding on to her?"

  Paddy leaned against the hangar. "Perhaps you'd spare a cigarette? Thanks." He blow out a great puff of smoke. "Now as to the ship, as I am without funds, I think she'll have to be sold. What might a boat like that bring?"

  The Earther squinted reflectively. "A hundred thousand, maybe a little more. Say a hundred thirty."

  Paddy rubbed his face, already red-bearded. "Hmmm. The drive alone is worth a million on Earth."

  "This ain't Earth, Red."

  "If what I hear of prices here in the cluster is so, that'll feed me about a month."

  The Earther laughed. "Not quite that bad. Depends on what kind of service you like. The Casino Lodge up Napoleon Street is high. If you want something cheaper, try the Bowsprit, down Pickpocket Alley. It's clean but not too stylish."

  Paddy thanked the man gravely. "And perhaps you can tell me the best place to sell the boat because in truth I haven't a cent in my pocket."

  The tall man pointed across the field. "If you want a quick deal to go in that door with the yellow glass. Tell the Canope girl you want to talk to Ike."

  Paddy drove a hard bargain, eloquently describing the luxury, the comfort, the appointments of the spaceboat.

  "-the former property of one of the highest lords of Shaul! Like his private boudoir! Marvellous, my friend Ike, and the anti-gravs over-powered so that you never know when you leave the ground…"

  He left the space-field with a hundred and forty-five thousand marks in assorted notes-yellow, blue and blue-green. He turned his face toward the central part of town, passed through a district of warehouses, second-hand shops, rooming-houses. Then, climbing a slight rise, he came to the quarter of the restaurants, taverns, bordellos.

  Farther up the hill were the concrete and glass hotels, catering to exiles and regular visitors-smugglers, black-birders, ship-stealers, spies. The city was crowded, the streets filled with sauntering men of all races and variants-first-stage types like the Canopes, Maeves, Dyoks, varying in only a few details, then along the metamorphological gamut. The Shauls and Kotons, Labirites and Green-Rassins and then the Alpheratz Eagles, gaunt, sharp, bony as herons, the elfin Asmasians, the fat butter-yellow Loristanese.

  Paddy ate a slow meal at an Earth-style restaurant, then crossed the street to a barber shop, where he bought a shave and a haircut. At a clothing store he dressed himself in clean underclothes, a somber blue jumper, soft boots.

  The proprietress was an ancient Loristanese woman, whose youthful yellow had darkened to a horse-chestnut color. As paddy paid, he leaned confidentially across the counter, winked.

  "And where might I find a good beauty shop, my knowledgeable charmer?"

  The old woman gave him his change and the directions together. "Upstairs and down the hall. The doctor gives you a new face as easy as I change your clothes."

  Upstairs walked Paddy, down a long corridor broken by a line of cheap wooden doors, each door bearing a name-plate: Galtee Stowage-Chiutt Explosive Supply-Pretagni and Dha, Loristanese Financial Consultants-Ramadh Singh, Funeral Consultant and Insurance, Corpses Buried anywhere-Dr. Ira Tallogg, Dermatologist.

  Three hours later Paddy was a different man. His hair was black with Optichrome B. No longer was his nose broken. Instead it resembled the nose Paddy had worn during his youth. Even his fingers had been capped with new prints and his tongue had been slightly stitched, changing his voice and altering the pattern of the surface.

  Paddy surveyed the new man in the full-length mirror. Behind him the doctor stood silently-a fat neatly-shaved Earther with a sour expression.

  Paddy turned. "How much, doctor?"

  "Five thousand marks."

  As Paddy counted out the money it came as a sudden sharp discovery that the doctor was the sole link between the old and the new. He said, "How much for the operation and how much for keeping your mouth shut?"

  The doctor said, "All of it either way. I don't talk. I get asked plenty. There's more spies in Eleanor than there is in Novo Mundo. All I need to do is talk once and I'm done. The Blue-nose Gang would get me inside the day."

  Paddy studied his new profile. "Would you talk for a million marks and a free ride to Earth?"

  The doctor replied warily, "Hard to say. Nobody's ever offered it to me."

  Paddy tilted his head, looked down at his nose at the foreshortened reflection. The doctor connected the red-headed fugitive from Akhabats and the dark man from nowhere like the equal sign of an equation. As he had pointed out, Eleanor swarmed with spies.

  Now if he, Paddy Blackthorn, were the Executive Intelligencer on one of the Langtry worlds he would station a man at the Eleanor space-field-maybe leaning against the hangar. A man landing a ship with a crystal dome would set many wheels in motion.

  They would know he had bought a blue jumper before he appeared again on the streets. They might learn that he had visited the doctor. So far his new appearance was unknown. He was
still nameless. So long as he was unknown and nameless he was safe in the crowds of the wordless gray men coming and going.

  The doctor was the link. He would be approached, questioned, offered enormous bribes, an all-embracing pardon for past sins.

  "Doc," said Paddy gently, "do you have a back door out of here?"

  The doctor looked up from putting away his tools. "Fire escape down the rear," he said shortly.

  It would be watched, thought Paddy. He eyed the doctor speculatively. He could trust nobody. What was a million, ten million, a hundred million marks, one way or the other, either to himself or the Langtry worlds? The wealth of the universe, the cycle of empire was clasped to his wrist.

  He should kill the doctor. He should but he could not. The doctor read the thought in his eyes, drew back, read the dismissal, relaxed. Others had looked at him with the same expression and for that reason he carried a gun in his pocket.

  Paddy went to the window, looked out, into a drab back alley. Across the street was a blank wall, streaked with grime, raddled with a native red fungus.

  Paddy felt trapped. They knew where he was. Any minute he could expect a bullet in his head or kidnaping and the nerve-suit-a lifetime in the nerve-suit. His flesh crawled. It was a mistake, landing on Spade-Ace. As soon as he had set foot on the planet, his presence had been reported. Langtry agents would be converging like hounds on a fox.

  And yet he had to land sometime, somewhere. Paddy thought of the shrimps in syrup, grimaced. No water, no food-Earth would have been little, if any, better. He would have been extradited from Earth almost as soon as he landed and his story laughed off by a bribed magistrate; He turned back from the window, surveyed the dim little room with its settee and spindly blue lethe-plant, the operating table and racks of instruments, cabinets full of bottles. The walls were cheap spray-wood, the ceiling the same.