The Five Gold Bands

by Jack Vance

  The voice changed to an ululating howl that jarred their teeth, clawed at their inner ears. "Turn him off!" yelled Paddy. "He's talking nonsense!"

  Fay flung the switch. The silence was like salve.

  "Jammed," said Fay grimly. "They're on the frequency."

  Paddy blinked dubiously. "Did they hear what you said?"

  She shook her head. "I don't see how they could. The code is changed every week. And it's easy to jam the message."

  Paddy said, "We'd better get out of here fast. They might have us spotted."

  Fay threw on the power. She sat silently, face intent, mouth curved down at the comers. Serious creature, thought Paddy. Odd, fey-that was her name, Fay. Paddy decided it suited her.

  She said frowning, "There's no place for us to go now. They'll be watching every port."

  "If we could only have ducked out of Eleanor without being caught at it," muttered Paddy. "Then they wouldn't have known where I was."

  "Unless they caught the doctor. And in any event they wouldn't be taking any chances." She looked at him with eyes half-challenging, half-wistful. "Now-may I see it, this space-drive formula that's making so much trouble for me? Maybe we can broadcast it to Earth on the code frequency- or we can find a dead little world and hide it."

  Paddy laughed. "Young lady-Miss Bursill-whatever your name-I have no secret to the space-drive."

  "What!" Her eyes burnt even larger in her small face. They why all the turmoil? You must have it."

  Paddy yawned. "The five Sons trusted no one. Not even their successors, the new Sons, know what it is I've got. No one in the universe knows-except me."

  "Well, what is it?" she asked crossly. "Or do you intend to be mysterious?"

  Paddy said blandly, "No indeed. I'm surely not the type. Well, for one thing, it's not any directions on how to mix up space-drive. It's a key and four little slips of parchment. And all that's on them are a set of addresses."

  She stared at him and plain or not, thought Paddy, she had very lovely eyes, bright and intelligent, and her features weren't as pinched as he first thought but almost chiseled- delicate. Indeed, thought Paddy, he had seen worse-looking wenches. But this one-she was too pale and set, too sexless for his tastes.

  "May I see them?" she asked politely.

  And why not, thought Paddy. He unsnapped the band.

  She stared. "You're carrying them around your wrist?"

  "Where else?" demanded Paddy with asperity. "I never intended to be kidnaped and transported by a black imp of a female."

  She took the bits of parchment and the key. The first was written in the Pherasic script, which Paddy had been unable to read.

  She scrutinized it and he saw her lips moving. "Och, then you can read that heathen scribble?"

  "Certainly I can read it. It says: '28.3063 degrees north, 190.9995 degrees west. Under the Sacred Sign.' " She laughed. "It's like a treasure hunt. But why should they write directions down like this?"

  Paddy shrugged. "For each other, I gather. In case one of them got killed, then the others would know where the records were hid."

  Fay said thoughtfully, "We're not far from Alpheratz."

  Paddy stared aghast. "They'd draw and quarter me! They'd wear out their nerve-suits! They'd-"

  She said coolly," We could be tourists from Earth, making the Langtry Line. Alpheratz A, back into Pegasus for Scheat, down Andromeda-Ddhil, Almach, Mirach. There's thousands of others doing the same thing. A honeymoon couple, that's what we'd be. It's the last place they'd be looking for you. You'd never be safer."

  "Not much," said Paddy energetically. "I want to get back to Earth with my life and there I'll sell these bits to whomever wants to buy."

  She looked at him disgustedly. "Paddy Blackthorn-I'm running this ship. We settled that once."

  "Och," cried Paddy, "it's no source of wonder that you've never married. God pity the man who gets such a witch. No man would have you with your insistent ways."

  Fay smiled wryly. "No? Are you so sure, Paddy Blackthorn?"

  Paddy said, "Well, it's sure that I, for one, would never have the taste for the black-headed pint of spite that you are. I'd be drinking whiskey to ease my soul by night and by day."

  She sneered. "We're both of us suited then. And now- Alpheratz A.

  From Alpheratz A to Alpheratz B the stream of boats was like a caravan of ants-bringing pods, fibers, sheets, crystallized wood, fruit, meal, pollen, oil, plant-pearls, a thousand other products of B's miraculous vegetation to the windy gray world A, returning with agricultural equipment and supplies for the jungle workers.

  Into this swarm of space-craft Paddy and Fay merged their boat unnoticed.

  They dropped toward the bright side of the planet. Fay asked Paddy, "Ever been here before?"

  "No, my travels never brought me this far north. And from the looks of the planet, I'd as lief be back on Akhabats. If it's as dry there at least it's a planet with blue water." Paddy gestured at the telescopic projection on the screen. "Now just what might that ocean consist of? Maybe it's mud?"

  Fay said, "It's not water. It's something like a gas. It has all the properties of a gas except that it won't mix with air. It's heavier and settles out in the low places like water or fog -and the air rests on top."

  "Indeed, now-and is it poison?"

  She turned him a side-glance. "If you fall in you smother, because there's no oxygen."

  "Then that will be a fine place to leave our boat. And chance being good, we might find it another time."

  "We'd better stick to our first plan. "We'll be less conspicuous."

  "And suppose they recognize Paddy Blackthorn and his black-headed mistress-ah, now, don't take me wrong. That's just what they'd be calling you and no thanks to them either way. But now, supposing they do that and set out after us, then wouldn't it be a fine thing to jump into the ocean and soar off under their long skinny noses?"

  She said with a sigh, "We'll compromise. We'll hide it so that it's accessible. But we'll go back to it only if we can't get a regular tourist packet to Badau. Assuming, of course, that we're successful here."

  Paddy went to the chart of the planet. "That location is right on the lip of the cliff-North Cape, it's called, on Kolkhorit Island."

  She said doubtfully, "I think your interpolations are slack. I got a point just off the cliff."

  Paddy laughed. "Won't that be just like a woman? Her navigation sets us out in the ocean. You'll see that I'm right," he promised her. "We'll find what we're looking for on the edge of the cliff."

  She shook her head. "The point's off the edge of the cliff." She glanced at him sidewise with raised eyebrows. "What's the matter?"

  "You're too authoritative to suit the blood of one of the Skibbereen Blackthorns. We're a proud clan."

  She smiled. "They'll never hear about it unless you tell them. And I'm only giving orders because I'm more efficient and smarter than you are."

  "Hah!" cried Paddy. "Now then, you're as vain as the Shaul jailer that did the cube roots in his head, and an arrogant cur he was, and he's still nursing the bruise I gave him. I'll do the same for you, my black-headed minx, if you're not less bothersome with your orders."

  She made a mock obeisance. "Lead on, Sultan. Take it from here. You're the boss. Let's see how you handle it."

  "Well," Paddy rubbed his chin, "at least we'll talk things over a bit and there won't be these lordly decisions. Here's my idea-we'll drop low over that gas ocean and make for the shore. Well find a bit of quiet beach near the cliff, we'll drop down, seal our ship, get out and see what's to be done."

  "Good enough," said Fay. "Let's go."

  The gas ocean showed a queer roiling surface like slow-boiling water. In color it was the dirty yellow of oily smoke and the yellow light of Alpheratz penetrated only a few feet into the depths. From time to time the wind would scoop up a tall yellow tongue, lift it high, blow it over backwards.

  Paddy brought the boat down almost to the surface, steered cautiou
sly toward the lavender-blue bulk of Kolkhorit Island. The finger of the North Cape suddenly appeared through the haze with the sharp-cut silhouette of the cliff at the tip.

  Paddy changed course and the cape loomed swiftly over them-a rocky tumble of porphyry, pegmatite, granite. He cut the power, the boat drifted close to shore. Below them appeared a small table, rimmed by walls of shadowed gray rock and almost awash in the seethe of brown gas. Paddy dropped the boat into the most secluded corner and five minutes later they stood on the barren windy rock with the ship sealed.

  Paddy walked to the edge of the table, peered into the fog below. "Strange stuff." He turned. "Let's go."

  They climbed up over the rocks and after a hundred yards scrambling across loose gravel, came out on a well-paved path. Fay clutched Paddy's sleeve.

  "A couple of Eagles-there in the rocks. I hope they didn't see us land."

  The Eagles hopped solemnly up to the path, man-creatures seven feet tall with leathery hide stretched tight over sharp bones, narrow skulls with jutting noses, little red eyes, foot-long crests of orange hair. They bore pouches bulging with red gelatinous globes like jelly-fish.

  Paddy watched them advancing with truculent eyes. "A more curious race was never bred. They'll want to know all about us. Ah, these planets are like cuckoo's eggs in a wren's nest and to think that Earth once spent her best on them."

  He nodded to the Eagles. "Good morning, friend Eagles," he said in a syrupy voice. "And how's your bulb-picking today?"

  "Good enough." They look around the horizon. "Where's the little air-boat?"

  "Air-boat? Ah, yes. It flew very swiftly to the east and out of sight in a twinkling."

  The Eagles examined Paddy and Fay with sharp interest. "And what are you doing here along the shore?"

  "Well now-" Began Paddy. Fay interrupted him. "We're tourists walking up to the top of the North Cape. Could you tell us the best way?"

  The Eagle motioned. "Just follow the path. It will lead into the Sunset Road. You're Earthers?" He spat slyly to the side.

  "That we are-and as good as the best of you."

  "Better," said Fay softly.

  "What's your business on Alpheratz A?"

  "Och, but we're fond of your lovely landscape, your marvelous cities. There's never sights like these on old Earth. Truth to tell, we're tourists, out to see the wonders of the universe."

  The Eagles made a noise like "Rrrr r rr." Without further words they both set off down the path, muttering to each other.

  Paddy and Fay watching covertly, saw them pause, gesture along the horizon, point toward the rocks. But finally the continued along the path.

  Fay said, "They were only a hundred yards from where you insisted on leaving the boat. It's just blind luck they didn't climb the rocks."

  Paddy threw up his arms. "Like all women she will never miss the opportunity to crow at honest error. Lucky the day when I last see her skinny posterior walking away."

  Fay's eyebrows rose. "Skinny? It's not either."

  "Humph," said Paddy. "You don't get hams from a chicken."

  "For my size it's just right," said Fay. "I've even had it pinched-once or twice."

  Paddy made a face. "Faith, it's a sordid life you female agents live."

  She cocked her head. "Perhaps not so sordid as you might think. And if you've finished deriding my figure and slandering my morals, we'll be off."

  Paddy shook his head wonderingly, had no more to say. They turned their backs to the ocean of turbid gas, climbed the path the two Eagles had pointed out.

  They gained a rocky meadow, passed a small village. Here they saw a central obelisk topped by a whirling-bladed fetish, concentric circles of conical houses, a long raised platform for the Pherasic pavanne-like dancing. A dozen Eagles, standing in a solemn group near a half-unpacked crate of machinery, looked like odd hybrids of man and stick-insect.

  Fay said dreamily as they walked, "Isn't it a marvel, Paddy? When man first landed here he was man. In two generations the tall skinny ones predominated, in four the skull formation had begun. And now look at them. And to think that in spite of their appearance they're men. They can breed with true men and the same goes for the Asmasians, the Canopes, the Shauls-"

  "Don't forget the Maevites!" cried Paddy enthusiastically. "Ah, them beautiful women!"

  "-then there are the Loristanese, the Creepers, the Green-bags-and all the rest of the inbred overmen. It's truly wonderful how the planetary influence acts."

  Paddy snorted. "Earth populates them and a hundred years later they come returning like curses to spite their grandsires."

  Fay laughed. "We shouldn't be too arrogant, Paddy. It was the same differentiation and specialization that split the original simian stock into gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, a dozen types of submen-finally the true Cro-Magnon.

  "The situation has backfired now, Paddy. Today we're the root-stock, and all these splits and changes brought about by the differences in light, food, atmosphere, gravity-they may produce a race as much better than men as men were superior to the proto-simians."

  Paddy snorted, "That I'll believe when-"

  "Consider," said Fay seriously. "The Shauls can do complex mathematical operations in their heads. In a contest for survival that depended on mathematical ability they'd win. The Loristanese are physically keen. They can telepathize to some extent, and they're subtle in person-to-person dealings. They're the merchants of the universe and wonders at group enterprise.

  "These Eagles here-their curiosity is insatiable and they're so naturally persistent that there's no word for the quality in their language. Any more than the Earthers have a word for the will to live.

  "Men will shrug off a problem or a task but the Eagles will work till they've accomplished what they've started. The Asmasians have that pineal pleasure-lobe. It doesn't give them much survival value but how they enjoy their lives! Sometimes I wish I were an Asmasian."

  Paddy said contemptuously, "I've heard all of that in grade school. The Kotons are the ruthless chess-players, the daring ones, the soldiers. I think of them as the devils that figured out the most horrible tortures. Then there's the Canopes, that hive together like bees. What of it? None of them have a little of everything like the Earthers."

  Fay said seriously, "That's by our standards. We're taking ourselves as the base of comparison. By the standards of these other races we're at one extreme or another."

  Paddy grumbled, "Better that old Sam Langtry had smothered in his cradle. Look at the mess and jumble, men of all varieties. It was so simple before."

  Fay tilted her head back, laughed. "Don't be silly, Paddy. Human history has always been a series-a cycle of differentiation, then the mingling of the surviving stock back to uniformity. Bight now we're going through the cycle of differentiation."

  "And may the best man win," said Paddy dourly.

  "So far," said Fay, "we're not winning."

  Paddy shoved out his head, crooked his elbows. "Well, they went and tied up the space-drive on us. That's like blindfolding a man before he gets in a free-for-all. Give us Earthers an even crack at it-we'd have 'em backed to the boards, crying and pleading for mercy. What a joke! It was an Earther that discovered the gadget and gave them their lives."

  "Accident," said Fay, kicking at a pebble. "Langtry was only trying to accelerate mesons in a tungsten cylinder."

  "That's the man who's responsible for all this trouble!" cried Paddy. "Langtry! If I had the spalpeen here I'd give him a piece of my mind."

  "I would too," said Fay. "But mostly for giving the secret to his five sons instead of the Earth Parliament."

  "Well-the five sons, then. Greedy devils, they're the ones I'd rail at. What did they need, each with a planet to himself?"

  Fay made a careless gesture. "Love of power. The empire-building instinct. Or bad blood. Call it anything you like. They left Earth for the stars and settled along the Langtry line, each to a world, and set themselves up in the business of selling space-dri
ves to the home-world. Their descendants get the secret, no one else. I suppose nobody would be more surprised then old Sam Langtry at the way things have turned out."

  "If I had him here, you know what I'd be doing with him?"

  "Yes-you told me. You'd be giving him a piece of your mind."

  "Ah, you're mocking me now. But no, I'd send him back to guard our boat. And we'd beat his bones raw if divil an Eagle laid a finger on the polish."

  Fay looked up the ridge ahead. "You'd better be saving your breath for the climbing."

  VI

  The road bent up toward North Peak in a gradually steepening rise. Below and to their right spread the sea of dull gas, out as far as the eye could reach. Back along the shore the whirling fetishes of a thousand little villages flashed in the yellow light of Alpheratz. To the left, around the hook of the cape, was Sugksu, a city built on the same general plan as the villages. There was a central obelisk, surrounding circles of buildings.

  Fay clutched Paddy's arm. "Look! See there-maybe you're right after all…"

  It was a spindly trestle of steel, crowned with a whirling fetish, on the very lips of the cliff.

  "Those things are sacred to something or somebody. We'll have to look for a Sacred Sign."

  Standing around the edge of the cliff was a group of Eagles, males with scarlet or orange-dyed crests, females with greens and blues, all wearing the same black-brown sheath of fabric that covered their bony bodies from breast to knee, the same flat shoes.

  "Tourists," whispered Fay. "We'll have to wait till they leave."

  "Naturally," said Paddy.

  For twenty minutes they waited, looking out over the vast spread of view, eyeing the Eagles sidelong.

  A voice spoke at their elbow. An Eagle had stepped up beside them unnoticed. Paddy's Adam's apple twitched. The Eagle wore the official medallion of the Pherasic government.

  "Tourists?" asked the Eagle.

  "We're loving every minute of it," said Fay enthusiastically. "The view is marvelous! The city is beautiful…"

  The Eagle nodded. "It is indeed. This is one of our finest spectacles. Even the Revered Son of Langtry himself ascends from time to time to take the north airs."