This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  And I would wait some more, hollow-eyed and feverish. After three days, he came out. The little one with the dark face and the glittering eyes. He came out of the alley and walked away quickly. I was eating, and I dropped a coin on the table, not caring what it was, and picked up my cap, pulling it down over my forehead as I went out the door.

  The Agent took a tortuous path through the city. He stopped in a shop for a moment. He went into a tavern and stayed for fifteen minutes. Once he went into a tenement. I waited and he didn't come out. I thought I had lost him. But after an hour he stepped back into the street. Once more I took up my position behind him.

  A few minutes later I noticed that I was being followed.

  I made a mental note to go along with "Don't overlook the obvious." This one said: "Don't underestimate the enemy." I hoped that I would have a chance to take the advice to heart. Two black Agents strolled along the street, half a block behind me, and I didn't know whether they had picked me out or whether they were trailing behind only on suspicion.

  When I passed the next alley, I turned off. In three giant strides I reached the end of the narrow lane. I leaped, caught the edge of a low roof, and raised myself over the top. From the mouth of the alley to the roof had taken only a few seconds. Now I jumped again, and in another second I was on the two-story building that looked out over the street I had just left.

  They marched along beneath me, casually alert, watchful, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I ran along the roof top, jumped to a lower roof, dropped to an alley that paralleled the street, and raced to the end of it. An alley opening was opposite. I crossed the street, ran down the alley, and turned into the alley that met it at right angels. Close to the street along which came the Agents, I waited in the shadows and breathed deeply.

  In a moment the little dark one would appear. I would have only a few seconds to do what was necessary.

  "Pssst."

  The Agent hesitated, glanced back at his men, and stepped into the alley. He never saw me. Before he could move, I pinned his arms behind him, held them with one hand, and ripped the gun out of his jacket with the other.

  "Don't say anything!" I whispered. "Don't move! Don't make a noise! Listen, and you won't get hurt."

  He waited. I could feel the tension in his thin arms.

  "Tell your master—tell Sabatini—that Dane wants to see him. Tell him to come alone to the street of taverns closest to the Slave Cathedral. Tonight. Alone. If he brings anybody else, he won't see Dane. He will wait until somebody brushes past him and says, 'Follow me.' He will follow. At the end of the trip, he will find Dane. If you understand, nod your head." He nodded.

  "If Sabatini isn't there tonight, you die tomorrow. You know now how easily it can be done. Now go back to the street, and don't look behind you."

  I let him go, with a shove. He stumbled, straightened, and walked quickly on the way he had been going, not turning his head. The back of his neck was an angry red. As I turned and ran down the alley I heard him shout.

  Within two winding blocks, I had lost them. I waited for the night.

  I watched him for almost an hour. He leaned against the corner of the building with infinite patience. It was a dark corner, but I couldn't mistake the huge nose. I studied the painted motley of the street, and there were no Agents. Nobody loitered except Sabatini. Mercenaries and freedmen came and went, and Sabatini waited. Knowing Sabatini, I sensed something wrong.

  "Don't underestimate the enemy," I told myself. And it turned out to be so simple that I almost didn't think of it.

  I walked around the corner and found them almost immediately. They waited in the dark to follow Sabatini when he passed them. They waited on the side streets, one on each side. I walked past one of them, and he didn't notice me. From the dark doorway, his eyes gleamed whitely toward the street. I don't think he even saw the fist that hit him. He sighed; I caught him as he collapsed.

  The other one was lurking in an alley. I caught him from behind. I clubbed him down with a cobblestone against the base of his skull.

  A moment later I brushed past Sabatini, my head averted. Against my shoulder I felt the gun that nestled inside his jacket. "Follow me," I whispered.

  I walked on swiftly, down the street I had cleared, not looking back to see if he was following. He had made his preparations. He would follow.

  I led the way toward the Cathedral. As the streets grew darker and deserted, I heard his footsteps echoing behind me when I slowed up. I turned off, down a side street, catching a glimpse of him when I turned. He was black and shadowy. It sent shivers down my back.

  I waited for him halfway down the block, and he was a long time turning the corner. He was giving his men plenty of time to follow. But he wouldn't expect to see them. They would have orders to slink along in the shadows, staying well back, keeping out of sight.

  And he turned, and I began walking again. I went into an alley, and I stopped in the shadows. He stopped at the black mouth, trying to peer in. But this was not the place.

  "This way," I whispered.

  He waited a moment longer, looking back the way he had come, unobtrusively, and I wouldn't have known what he was looking for if I hadn't seen the others.

  Come, Sabatini. Don't be afraid, Sabatini. This isn't the place. You are afraid of nothing, smiling there with your cold eyes, and your desire is great. Come, Sabatini. Follow me.

  I walked away, crisply, so that he could hear my footsteps, and I felt his hesitation diminish, and he followed. I swung open the dark door, and I went into the warehouse. I took ten measured paces, swung around, and watched the square of grayer darkness. It blackened. A shadow hesitated there.

  "Here," I whispered, and I picked up the cords and held them in my hand. One of the cords had a knot in it. For this was the place.

  Slowly, catlike, he stepped through the doorway. The shadow grew darker and less distinguishable. A part of it moved, close to the floor. There was a whisper of sound, and the door slammed, echoing through the night. I couldn't see him any more, but I knew where he was. I could sense him there in the darkness, unwilling to move because the sound would give him away, poised, waiting, his breathing almost stilled.

  Gently I pulled the cord with the knot in it. Two lights sprang to life. One of them held Sabatini in a blinding glare. His gun was in his hand, ready, swinging toward the spotlight as he blinked once and slitted his eyes.

  "Don't!" I whispered, because a whisper is almost without direction. "Look at the other light!"

  He stopped. He stood there motionless, weighing the decision, and slowly his head turned, lifted. He saw the gun, high up in the rafters, pointed toward the spot where he stood. It was the gun I had taken from his man this morning. He saw the cord, trailing away from the trigger through the darkness. He knew what it meant.

  "Don't move!" I whispered. "Drop your gun."

  His face was immobile. He didn't move a muscle. But I could sense his mind churning. He dropped the gun. It clunked solidly on the floor.

  "Kick it away from you."

  He kicked it. It slithered into the darkness. I took one step and kicked it farther away, far into the maze of rubbish and boxes where it would never be found. But my eyes never left him, and the cord never slackened in my hand. I waited. I let him wait and wonder. He broke the silence.

  "Dane?" he said softly, peering through the screen of light. "I've walked into your trap. You've got the pebble. What else do you want beside revenge?"

  "Not revenge," I said, no longer whispering. "The girl."

  He frowned. "Frieda? She's dead. You know that."

  "Not Frieda. The dark-haired one. The one called Laurie."

  "I don't know what you're talking about." His voice was louder. "I haven't got any girls."

  "One. Just one. I want her, Sabatini. It's been a long time, but I want her. If you've killed her, you die here. If she's still alive, tell me where to find her, and I'll let you go."

  He chuckled. It was unexpectedly loud
in the echoing silence. "You always were a fool, Dane. If I had the girl, which I don't, you couldn't trust me to tell you the truth, and I couldn't trust you not to kill me when I had told you something—the truth or something else, anything to let me get away."

  "I could tell," I said. It was true. "And you'll have to trust me because you haven't any choice. It's either that or death."

  "It should be obvious," he said loudly, "that my inability to tell you anything, even to save my life, is the best proof that I'm telling the truth."

  "If," I pointed out, "that argument isn't a subtler and more convincing lie."

  "You overestimate me," he said wryly.

  The discussion went on for a moment, my voice floating softly out of the darkness to Sabatini in the spot of light. When I spoke Sabatini listened too intently.

  "They aren't coming," I said.

  He jumped, and relaxed. "You're too clever, Dane. You always have been. From the start. You could rule a world, if you weren't so soft in the guts. We could go far together, you and I. Let's pool our knowledge, Dane. Who knows what we might do together. We might conquer the galaxy. Give me the pebble and what you know about it, and I'll tell you everything I know, and I might even be able to find the girl you want. Or if she's gone—and I swear I haven't got her and I don't know anything about her—I'll get you a dozen who'll make you forget you ever knew her."

  He leaned forward eagerly. I let his words filter through my mind, and I knew he was speaking the truth. He meant what he said, but there was something else mixed up with it. And while I was trying to figure it out, he leaped, and that was it, and it was too late.

  He came sailing out of the light into the darkness, a shadow swooping at me now, and I dropped the cord. I stepped to one side, smashing at him with my fist as he passed, his eyes blinded by the light while mine were better adjusted, and I knew that I would have to take care of him quickly before we were more evenly matched.

  He grunted and staggered, but he kept his feet and came swinging back toward me, a shadow among shadows, and I realized that now I was outlined against the lights. I stooped and jerked. The lights went out, but Sabatini hit me with his shoulder while I was bent over, and I tumbled backward, rolling, crashing finally into a box which splintered into kindling.

  I got cautiously to my feet. The warehouse, where spices from the spice worlds and fabrics and exotic foods had once been stored, was a stinking pool of darkness, and somewhere in that darkness was Sabatini, waiting like I was. And every second he waited, I was losing my advantage. He was getting back his night vision.

  "Dane!" he shouted, and it was no help, because the warehouse echoed, "DANE! Dane! danedanedane…I'm going to kill you. KILL YOU. Kill you. Killyoukillyoukillyou.…"

  It was strangely fitting that we should meet here, where the wealth of the galaxy had been brought together, and fight like animals with our bare hands, fight to the death, because I knew that one of us would not leave the warehouse alive. I knew where he was now. I had located him by his hate, which poured out to me. I wondered at it. It was odd, I thought, as I slipped my feet out of my shoes, that the hate should be mixed with fear. Sabatini was afraid of me. Me, Dane, the acolyte. The fearless, smiling Agent with the big nose and the cold eyes was afraid of me, and I slipped toward him through the darkness, silent on stocking feet.

  A board creaked under my foot. I stood still, waiting. He shifted uneasily, and I saw him, black against blackness. I leaped, swinging. He ducked instinctively, and my fist smacked solidly against his shoulder instead of his chin. He reeled backward, and I followed him, hitting him again and again, sledgehammer blows that shook him as they landed on his chest and the side of his head. But never quite squarely. And then he was fighting back, standing up to me, trading blow for blow, and his fists got inside against my body, and my body went suddenly weak. My arms dropped. He leaped away and was gone again in the darkness.

  I fought for breath, fought to breathe quietly, and my heart slowed, and I listened again. The warehouse was silent. He crouched somewhere, recovering, and his eyesight would be as good as mine, now. I probed into the darkness, but I couldn't hear him and I couldn't sense him.

  I heard a whisper along the floor. He was crawling somewhere, but I couldn't locate it. Something crashed, far back in the warehouse, but it wasn't Sabatini. He had thrown something to draw me away, and I knew now where he was. He was trying to get out the door, and I ran silently and threw myself toward the spot I thought he would be.

  The breath whistled out of him as I landed squarely on his back, flattening him to the floor, but he twisted under me like a snake, fists and feet flailing at me. And inexplicably he was on top, striking down. I threw a fist at him, knocking him back, leaped at him again, and caught him in my arms. His knees flashed up toward my groin, and I twisted my body away, one arm across his chest, bending him over my knee, arching him like a limber piece of wood. His muscles corded and bulged as he strained against me.

  Then his body went limp as something cracked. "Ahnhuh!" he said in a strange, broken voice.

  I got up wearily. I went to the cords and searched along the dusty floor for a moment and found them. I pulled the one with the knot in it, and the lights came on. His head and shoulders lay just inside the spot. His feet and legs and hips were in the darkness. I thought he was dead, but his eyes flickered open, dark and cold, and he tried to raise himself on one elbow. His face jerked, and his teeth slowly turned red as they bit into his lower lip. He closed his eyes and fell back to the floor.

  I found my shoes in the darkness and put them on.

  "Dane." The voice was twisted, like his back; it was only a whisper. "Are you there, Dane?"

  "Yes."

  "What are you, Dane?" I looked toward him; his eyes were peering blindly into the darkness. "You aren't human. I fought my way up from the bottom. I was nothing, and I became dictator of the largest of the United Worlds where the competition was terrific, where Agents come up like bubbles in a cesspool. But I did it, Dane, and I did it alone. Then I gave it all up. I gave it up to come here, knowing that the man I left in my place would seize control the minute I was gone, because I wanted the pebble and with it I could conquer the sister worlds and after that the galaxy."

  It was a long speech, and it ended in a gasp of pain. He rested a moment before he went on.

  "You were the only one in my way, a sniveling acolyte, and you beat me every time. It was a miracle, Dane. What are you?"

  It was true. I had beaten him, even when he had me in the cavern room I had beaten him, and it hadn't really mattered that someone else had rescued me, because he was already beaten. It was a strange thing and a wonderful thing, and it hadn't been so surprising, after all, that he had been afraid of me.

  "Just a man," I said softly. "Just an ordinary man."

  "All I needed was the pebble," he said quietly, almost normally, "and I would have had the galaxy."

  "No," I said. "It wouldn't have done you any good. It isn't any good to anybody, except maybe to someone who hasn't been born yet."

  "You're lying!" he shouted. "I could have used it. Whatever it was, I could have used it. I was close to it once. I felt it. It was power. It poured out at me, and the galaxy nestled within it, glittering.…"

  He raved on. Desire, that was the pebble. Something different to everyone who came close to it, and no use to any of them. Not to Sabatini or Siller or me or Laurie or anyone. And it was a sad thing that the death and the torment had been for nothing. Yet, perhaps it was not for nothing. I had an idea. It isn't objects that shake worlds, but ideas.

  "Dane!" His voice was sane again, but it was weaker. "You don't owe me anything but hate. I'm going to ask you a favor, anyway. It won't cost you anything. Kill me, Dane. Before you leave, kill me."

  I studied his face, white now in the light, the darkness of the features fleeing, the nose more prominent than ever. It cast a grotesque shadow. He meant it.

  "I'll tell someone where to find you," I said
. "You can be fixed up."

  "No!" His voice was violent. "Dane! I beg you! Don't do that! If you won't kill me, leave me here to die. My back is broken. I'll never walk again. They'd fix me up to creep through life. Creep! Me! Sabatini! Please, Dane! Please!"

  His voice broke, and I knew that this was the first time Sabatini had ever asked anybody for anything, and it was the most precious thing anybody could ever give him, even more precious than he had thought the pebble to be.

  "Where is the girl?"

  "I don't know, Dane. Believe me. I don't know."

  He was telling the truth. Even if I hadn't been sure of it before, I was sure of it now. He was fighting for death, and he wouldn't lie now.

  "Who has her?"

  "Nobody."

  "Not the Emperor?"

  "Him!" His voice was contempt. "The fool doesn't even know what's going on in his own world."

  "The Citizens?"

  "No."

  "The Peddlers?"

  "No. Nobody, I tell you."

  "How do you know?"

  "Agents and counter-agents. Spies and counter-spies. They don't do anything that I don't know. Their organizations are riddled and rotten, because they aren't strong enough to keep their own counsel, as I did. The moment the pebble reached Brancusi, I knew about it. Before Frieda received her orders from the Citizens, I knew it, and I knew where she was supposed to take it, and who she was supposed to take it to. Then she didn't do it. She was taking it to someone else."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know," he said. His voice was puzzled. "She went mad before she told me. She kept babbling about the Cathedral."

  I thought about it, and it made sense. It fit into the pattern that was shaping up in my mind, about the unseen player in the game, the one force in the galaxy that hadn't made itself known. It was obvious. It was so obvious that I almost laughed that I, of all people, hadn't seen it before. I knew where Laurie was and where the pebble was and the meaning of the circular dot Laurie had put on her note. I didn't know yet how to get there, but I would think of a way. I would force the unseen player to show his hand.