This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  Some of the buildings had doors in them. I didn't want them. They would be offices. Some of them were orange and blue; some were silver and black. I circled them. I walked across endless pavement, discolored, cracked, heaved up occasionally in huge slabs. The ships got closer. They seemed to be leaning toward me, off balance. I had an uneasy, choked feeling that they were toppling.

  I walked past them toward other buildings. These were open-ended. As I walked, trucks passed me, piled high with bales, crates, and boxes. They vanished into one of the buildings. As I drew abreast of it, I saw that it was a warehouse. Men swarmed inside it. They marked things down in large ledgers as the goods were unloaded from the trucks. They stacked the boxes and crates and bales, they opened others, they repacked some, and they loaded some on other trucks. I looked back. The trucks were streaming from the base of one of the ships. The goods were lowered by a swaying cable from a gaping hole high in the side.

  A huge, low-slung vehicle on treads waddled slowly past me. On its groaning back was a long, flaring cylinder, blackened at the flared end, swelling to a bulbous growth at the other. It turned ponderously into a building beyond the warehouse.

  I walked to the building and stopped by the wide entrance, looking in. Here men were busy with tools and flames and machines. They worked and shaped intricate bits of metal and huge cylinders like the one that had just been brought in.

  I leaned against the corner of the wide entrance and watched. They had been to the stars, these machines, or they were going to the stars. These cylinders pushed those giant spears skyward, hurling defiance at time and distance, roaring disdain at the world that tried to hold them back.

  To the cylinder brought in by the crawling truck, men linked great chains. Motors whirred. The cylinder inched into the air, hesitated, and descended gently into a cradle. Men moved into place around it and went swiftly to work.

  Time passed. Once thunder came down from the sky, shaking the ground, tearing at it with a tongue of flame. The building quivered. I grabbed the wall to keep from being knocked to the ground, but the men worked on unconcerned.

  Far across the field, the ship came to rest, and I turned to watch it. In a few minutes, a black circle opened in the shining side. Something snaked out of it, uncoiling, dropping to the ground. Little manikins climbed down the swaying ladder, bright orange-and-blue dolls.

  They assembled on the ground and marched mechanically across the field to one of the office buildings. They kept coming down the ladder and forming and marching, endlessly.

  "What you want?" It was a hoarse voice close to my elbow.

  I turned, startled. Standing in front of me was a big man with a big belly, bristle-faced, dressed in dirty, sweat-stained working clothes.

  "You want something?" he asked sourly. "If you do, I'll help you. If not, move on. You're disturbing the men."

  I reached into my pocket and brought out the note. I had folded it once. I handed it to him that way.

  He opened it, looked at it for a moment, turned it over, looked at it again, and handed it back. "You've had your joke. What's it say?"

  "George," I said. "This is for George Falescu."

  His eyes narrowed. He looked to the right and the left, furtively. He jerked his head toward the rear of the building and walked away from me. I followed him, puzzled. He stopped in a dark corner, far from the other workers.

  "He ain't here," the man whispered.

  "Where is he?"

  "You oughta know."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your buddies came and got him this morning. Agents, like you. They took him away. You know what that means."

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  Chapter Eleven

  I stared at him, hard-eyed and unmoved. But inside I was chilled and shaking. I didn't know what it meant. It could mean too many things, and I wasn't sure of any of them. Only one thing was certain. My one good chance of getting off Brancusi was gone, if it had been a good chance, and I had to believe in that. I had to believe in Laurie. There was nothing left if I couldn't believe in Laurie.

  "Of course," I said. "And your help will be rewarded—in time."

  I was stabbing around in the dark, but I couldn't just say, "Oh?" and walk away. He had good grounds for suspicion already.

  He glowered at me. "It better."

  Unconsciously I licked my dry lips and found myself doing it and stopped. "Was Sabatini with them?"

  "Who's that?" he growled.

  "The dark-faced Agent with a big nose."

  He glared at me suspiciously. "Naw. There was nobody like that."

  I nodded. "He must have been busy on another job." I wasn't doing it right; I was making the wrong guesses, and making them the wrong way. But I had to try. "I've got something else for you. It'll pay you more than the other, if you can do it."

  "How much?"

  "As much as it's worth, and it's worth a lot."

  "No promises!" he said darkly.

  "Hard cash."

  He nodded. "What is it?"

  "It's important that I get away from here secretly. I've got to get passage on a ship."

  "What ship?"

  "The next."

  "The Phoenix, to MacLeod?"

  I nodded. "That's it."

  He sneered. "What you think I am, a magician? Nobody can get you on a ship except a Peddler. You know that."

  "Good!" I nodded decisively. Then our man won't slip through our fingers that way." I stared at him, my eyes narrowed. "You're a lucky man to be alive."

  He looked bewildered now and afraid. I turned abruptly and strode out of the shop before he could ask any questions. The sun was hot outside, but it didn't warm me any. Inside I was colder than deep space.

  Falescu had been picked up by Agents. What did it mean? They couldn't have known that I was going to contact him. I hadn't known myself until this morning. He may have been mixed up in something else, something not connected with me at all. There was no point in jumping at shadows. Because of me, the world didn't stop. It kept on turning, people lived and loved and died who did not know my name and didn't know or care that a mysterious pebble was missing. I was not the center of the universe; my existence had meant nothing; my extinction would mean less. Perhaps I was forgotten already.

  But I was still cold. I knew that I was not forgotten. Sabatini would not forget.

  I walked back toward the office buildings. Two of them were blue with orange trim. The imperial colors. I would not go there. Another was black with silver trim. The colors of space, the colors of the Peddlers. They shipped goods and tools and people. They were interested in profits, not intrigue. There was no reason they wouldn't take me. Around my waist was five thousand imperial chronors in one hundred chronor pieces.

  I stepped into the office. After the sunlight, the room was cavernously dark, filled with the faint aroma of out-world spices. My eyes adjusted. It was only a small room, not luxurious but neat. Shelves along two sides of the room were filled with samples of merchandise. Across the rear of the room was a long, high counter. Behind it a middle-aged man with a bald, shining head was bending over a ledger. He looked up. His face was shiny, too.

  "Something?" he asked, almost chirping. "The fabulous Arcadian black pepper, perhaps? Very scarce now that Arcadia has fallen. It will be some years before conditions are settled enough to permit another shipment."

  He was the first man who didn't change when he saw my black uniform.

  "No," I said.

  "You wish to ship something? Reasonable rates to all parts of the galaxy. All inhabited worlds—"

  "Myself," I said. "I want passage on the Phoenix."

  "Ah," he said wisely. He leafed through the book until he came to a page he liked. He looked up sadly. "Passenger space on the Phoenix is extremely limited, and it has been reserved for months. Perhaps some other ship for a later date?"

  "The Phoenix. Now."

  He cocked his head and studied my face as if I were some strange and in
teresting kind of worm. "Perhaps it would be possible to squeeze you in. The Phoenix is shipping without the services of a second officer. Such emergency accommodations come high, however, and—"

  "That doesn't matter." I felt relieved. He was after money; that was all right.

  "Then we will fill out an application blank." He skipped happily to the floor, and I saw how short he was. He must have been sitting on a high stool, because his head came just above the top of the counter. He went to the back wall, opened a cabinet, and pulled out several sheets of paper. He climbed back onto his stool, laid the papers in front of me, and held out a pen.

  "I can't write," I said. It was an impulse; it seemed to be a good one.

  He nodded cheerfully, turned the papers around to face him, and poised the pen in the air. "Name?"

  "John," I said. "John Michaelis."

  He wrote it in a round, flourishing hand. "Identity card?"

  I stared at him. "That won't be necessary."

  He looked up, one eyebrow raised, and shrugged. "Very well. Destination?"

  "MacLeod."

  "You won't be transferring there to another ship?"

  "No."

  "Business?"

  "Personal."

  He looked up quickly and then wrote on the paper. I watched the word as he traced it out. Upside down, it was hard to read, but I recognized at once that it wasn't: "Personal." Then I deciphered it. It said: "Secret." I glanced away quickly.

  The questioning went on endlessly. Birthplace? Date of birth? Race? Personal description? Identifying marks? Baggage? Would I sign a waiver relieving the company of responsibility in case of accident?…Some of my answers seemed satisfactory. Others made his pen hesitate before it wrote.

  "Master?" he said.

  I caught my breath. There it was. That was what he had been waiting for. Master, master. I couldn't think. It would be so easy to make a mistake. "None," I said. I looked straight into his eyes as he raised his head.

  He put down the pen with a gesture of finality. "Passage refused," he said quietly. Now he didn't sound birdlike at all.

  "I won't accept that," I said, making my face hard.

  "You have no choice. Passage is accepted or refused at the discretion of the company."

  "That isn't very smart of you," I said pointedly. "Important things depend upon my reaching MacLeod. Powerful men are going to be displeased."

  "By the terms of our charter with the Emperor, no masterless men can be given passage." He was immovable.

  "Let me see your superior."

  He smiled. "I have no superior."

  I studied him. "It isn't smart to know too much about business that doesn't concern you."

  "That may be true. I know it is unwise to know too little about your own business."

  "Wiser men than you have lost their heads."

  He shrugged. "If you have a master, tell me. If not, go away. I have work to do."

  "My master," I said slowly, "is the Emperor. He will be displeased to know that this has become common knowledge."

  "I can check on this, of course?"

  "Of course."

  He slid off his stool and started for a door in the rear, trotting. He pulled the door open. The room beyond was darker.

  "You are a brave man," I said. "It's too bad such courage must vanish from Brancusi."

  He smiled at me and closed the door behind him.

  He had called my bluff. I wasn't sure that he wasn't bluffing, too, but if so, it was a better bluff. I was convinced that he would get in touch with the Palace. The little man had won, and I had lost. I hoped that it wouldn't be fatal.

  I went quickly back into the sunshine and started across the field toward the tall ships. There was still a chance, a small one, but a chance.

  The ships had insignia painted on them, high up toward the nose, but they were blistered, weathered, and indecipherable. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and the shiny ships reflected the white light dazzlingly into my eyes. I was in the long shadows before I saw anything.

  The ship I had seen unloading deposited a final bale. On the truck a man unshackled the chain and waved a weary arm at the dark hole high in the side of the ship. Weaving snakily, the chain climbed into the air and disappeared. The hole closed. The man climbed down from the truck.

  I went up to him. "Where's the Phoenix?"

  He jerked his thumb across the field, yawned tiredly, and climbed into the cab of the truck. It rolled away toward the distant warehouse.

  I looked the way he had pointed. I saw it now, half a mile farther across the field. Trucks streamed toward it as they had streamed away from this one. I followed them, hungry, tired, and a feeling in the pit of my stomach that was neither one. It was fear, and I had lived with it for a long time. I couldn't remember when I hadn't been afraid.

  As I drew closer to the ship I saw that the blur of paint on the nose was a sun or a fire. Something was rising out of it, something with wings. The trucks passed me. I trudged on.

  At the ship the goods were flowing up. The ship opened a giant mouth, and the bales and boxes vanished into it. I watched, silent. One man directed the operation with shouted orders and gestures, and he stood occasionally with folded arms when everything was moving smoothly. He was dressed in a black-and-silver uniform, but it had been new a long time ago. The black was a dirty gray; the silver was only a little brighter.

  I moved closer to him. "Keep awake, there!' he shouted. 'Keep those trucks moving!"

  "Two thousand chronors for a passage," I said softly.

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "Go to the office."

  "This is for you. No one else needs to know."

  "And throw the ship out of balance?" he said, snorting. "Are you crazy? Hey, you!" he yelled. "The machinery goes first!"

  A truck pulled out of line and waited.

  "Make it legal," I said. "Sign me on as a crewman."

  "Where's your card?"

  "What card?" I asked warily.

  "Your guild card, stupid. You can't get a berth without a card."

  "Not even as an apprentice?"

  He snorted again. "Apprentices spend six years on the ground before they get into space."

  "Three thousand chronors," I said.

  He looked at me narrowly. "Cash?"

  "Cash."

  The sun had gone down. His features were indistinct in the twilight. "Done."

  I reached toward my waist.

  "Not here, stupid. Get over by the truck. On the other side from the ship."

  I slipped around the ship like a shadow in deeper shadows. The trucks had stopped coming. There were three waiting to be unloaded, and the drivers were gathered by the last one, talking. I slipped between the rear of one truck and the front of another and knelt beside the one being unloaded, my heart beating madly in my chest. Was it really happening? Was I really to get on board the ship?

  "All right, Tom." It was the voice I knew. It came from the other side of the truck. "I'll spell you for a minute. I want to ride this load and check on the stowage."

  Feet scuffling toward the rear of the truck, splatting on the ground. Other feet climbing. I stood up, caught the side of the truck, leaped, swinging my body, and rolled over the edge as the spaceman reached the top. He stood there, not looking at me, staring up along the dangling chain toward the black opening in the ship. There were no heads looking down.

  The chain was attached to a load of boxes. He motioned to me impatiently. One box remained to be loaded, and there was a gap where it should go. I crawled into the space and heard the box lowered on top of me. It was a tight squeeze; I couldn't take a full breath. Out of one end of the hole I was in I could see the darkening sky. Directly over the place where the sun had gone down, the sky was still a light blue. It reminded me of the color of a flash gun bolt. I shivered. Feet clumped up on the load, stood over my body.

  "Hoist!"

  The load jerked and began a slow climb. The world swayed, spu
n gently. I looked far out over the field. At the fence the lights came on, turning around me like a tremendous wheel. I went up and up; breathless, tingling.

  We stopped and swung back and forth in short arcs. Then we began to move sideways. Slowly the world disappeared until it was only a circle of dark blue surrounded by darkness. We dropped a few feet. The swaying stopped. Feet jumped off the load. The chain rattled.

  "I'll take care of this one."

  Feet walked away. The box was lifted off. I saw the face of the officer, lined and heavily tanned. He gestured me back. I slid out of the hole, backwards, and lowered my feet gently to the floor. Metal struck lightly against metal. In a moment the officer knelt beside me, fastening wire ropes to cleats in the deck.

  "The money," he whispered.

  I opened the belt at my waist and counted out thirty coins into his hand. He held them up to make certain that they were one hundred chronor pieces. They were. He grunted and slipped them into a pocket. He started to leave. I grabbed his arm.

  "Where do I stay?" I whispered.

  He jerked his head back toward the stacks of boxes. Before I could say anything more he pulled himself loose and disappeared around the nearest stack.

  I stared in the direction he had pointed. The stacks of boxes stretched interminably. I looked up. The ceiling was low, and the stacks reached almost to the top. I started moving back silently. There was barely enough room for me to slip through sideways. Once I caught my foot on a cable and almost stumbled but I grabbed the edge of a box and pulled myself up.

  The stacks grew steadily darker. Behind me chains clanked, boxes thumped, motors whirred. I hadn't found anything like a place in which I could survive a trip through space. And then the noises stopped. I halted to listen. Another motor began, a more powerful one. Slowly the darkness deepened until, with a final clank, night fell, deepest night without a glimmer of light. Footsteps faded in the distance. Something else clanked, and I was in silence as complete as the night.

  Fear coursed icily through my veins. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

  I took a few steps more, almost running, tripping over wires. And suddenly I was in a space where there were no boxes. There was nothing. I felt my way back to the narrow aisle and then slowly along the stack. It turned a right angle. Half a dozen steps brought me to another right angle. Half a dozen steps. Another right angle. When I came back to the aisle, I had a mental picture of the empty space. It was a square, half a dozen paces to a side.