“As a serving military officer I cannot discuss the conduct of my superiors. But I can agree that whoever briefed you was, I must say, economical with the truth.”
“Do you also know that he was economical with my health? And that in nineteen days I am going to keel over from time-released poison.”
“Regrettably, I have been informed that that is the case. And you have eighteen days left now. You appear to have lost track of one day during the past period.”
“Eighteen? Thanks much. That only makes what I have to say even more imperative. I need some help, some transportation.”
“All contact with the planet is forbidden.”
“I just changed the rules. You yourself told me that you are heading a committee to bring about major improvements here. The first change will be to get one of the ship’s launches down here. With that I can get around to the various bands of sheot shaggers before my personal deadline runs out.”
“If I do that I will be disobeying orders and it could end my career.”
“Well?”
The silence inside my head went on and on. I waited. Until I heard what could only have been a sigh.
“I suppose there are plenty of job opportunities for skilled civilians these days. The launch will land after dark. If it is not seen by anyone on the ground there is just a chance that my career change can be postponed.”
“You’re a good guy, Tremearne. My heartiest thanks.”
I hummed a bar or two from ‘The Swedish Monster’ as I walked back to inform my companions.
“Jim, you’re wonderful!” Madonette said, grabbed and kissed me. “I much prefer flying to walking.”
Floyd nodded happy agreement and reached for me.
“Away!” I shouted. “Girls, okay, but I don’t kiss guys with beards. What we do now is put a little distance between us and those religious nuts in case they want to come back for seconds. Then rest up until dark. I have a feeling that it is going to be a very busy night.”
CHAPTER 11
“Wake up, Jim—it’s almost dark.”
Madonette’s gentle hand was most welcome, since it drew me up out of a really repulsive nightmare. Tentacles, bulging eyeballs, yukk. The eighteen-day dead deadline must be getting to my subconscious. I sat up, yawned and stretched. With great reluctance the sun had finally dropped behind the horizon leaving behind a slowly fading band of light. The stars were coming out revealing some pretty boring constellations—and very few of them at that. This prison planet must be far out on the galactic rim.
Then something blotted out the stars in the zenith as a dark form drifted down to the ground, silently on null-grav drive. The door opened as we approached—and the cabin lights came on.
“Turn them off, lunkhead!” I shouted. “You want to ruin my night vision?” The pilot turned about in his seat and I grinned insincerely. “Sorry Captain, sir—that lunkhead, just a figure of speech.”
“My fault completely,” he said, and tapped one of his electronic eyeballs. “With these I forget. I’m piloting this thing because I have the best night vision in the fleet.”
He flipped the lights off and we groped our way aboard with just the dim red emergency lights to show us the way. I sat in the copilot’s seat and strapped in.
“What is your plan?” he asked.
“A simple one. You know the position of all the sheot flocks don’t you?”
“Observed and logged into the launch’s memory.”
“Great. Have the computer do a topological survey to plot a course that will let us visit them all in the shortest amount of time. We drift over to the first flock, find one of the shepherds who is maybe out of sight of the others—and talk to him. Show him the photograph and find out if he has seen the thing. If he hasn’t—on to the next bunch.”
“Seems a simple and practical plan. Belts fastened? Right, first flock coming up.”
We were slammed back into our seats and were on our way. High and fast on the plotted track. Then slow and drifting in low while Tremearne peered out into the darkness.
“There’s one,” he said. “On the far side of the flock—all by himself. Either to guard the beasts or keep them from wandering. I have a suggestion. I approach him from behind and immobilize him. Then you question him.”
“Creep up in the dark? Immobilize an armed and watchful guard? That’s a job for a combat trooper.”
“Well how do you think I got these electronic eyeballs? It will be entertaining to do a bit of work again.”
I had no choice but to agree. The Captain was proving to be an excellent ally. Working this way would be certainly a lot faster than me crawling around on my own. If he could do as he said. I had my doubts but kept them to myself. He was a gray-haired desk jockey with electric eyesight who might very well be past his sell-by date.
He wasn’t. After we landed he stepped out the door and vanished silently in the darkness. Not thirty seconds later he called to me quietly.
“Over here. You can use your light now.”
I turned on the handlight, it was really black under the almost starless sky, and saw two forms standing close together. The light revealed a bulging-eyed shepherd seized in an unbreakable grip, a hand on his throat keeping him silent. I waggled the light under his nose.
“Listen, oh shepherd who failed his duty. The hand that holds you could just as easily have killed you. Then we could rustle all your woolly flock and eat sheot shashlik until the end of time. But I will be merciful. The hand will be removed from your filthy throat and you will not shout or you really will be dead. You will speak to me softly and answer my questions. You may now speak.”
He coughed and groaned when the pressure was released. “Demons in the darkness! Release me, do not kill me, tell me what you wish of me then go back to the pit from which you have escaped …”
I reached out and tweaked his nose sharply. “Shut up. Open your eyes. Look at this photograph. Let me know if you have ever seen it before.”
I held the photo close, shone the light on it. Tremearne gave a twitch of emphasis to his arm and the captive moaned his answer. “Never, no, such a thing I would remember, no—” His voice gurgled into silence and he dropped unconscious to the ground.
“Don’t these sheot shepherds ever wash?” Tremearne asked.
“Only on alternate years. Let’s get to the next one.”
We quickly worked out a routine. We would land and he would be away. Usually, by the time I had exited the launch, he would be calling me. Many a terrified shepherd slept soundly this night. But only after looking at the picture of the artifact. I dozed between visits and the back of the launch echoed with snores and heavy breathing. Only the Captain was unsleeping and tireless, seemingly as fit on the eleventh visit as he had been on the first. It was a long, long night.
I was getting groggy by the time we hit thirteen. Unlucky thirteen; get it over with and on to fourteen. Another set of bulging eyes peeking over the top of another matted beard.
“Look!” I snarled. “Speak! And moaning does not count as speaking. Ever seen this thing?”
This one gurgled instead of moaning, then yiped as his arm got twisted a bit further. It looked as though even the stolid Captain was beginning to lose his patience.
“Imp of Satan … work of the devil … I warned them, but they wouldn’t listen … the grave, the grave!”
“Do you have any idea of what he is babbling about?” Tremearne asked.
“There may be hope, Captain. If he is not bonkers he might have seen it. Look—see! Ever see before?”
“I told him not touch it—death and damnation were sure to follow.”
“You have seen it. All right, Cap, you can let up on the arm—but stand ready.” I rooted in my pocket and took out a handful of silver cylinders, the local money, let the light shine on them. “Hey you, Smelly, look—fedha—and all for you. All yours.”
This got his attention all right and I closed my fist tight as he groped for them. “
Yours if you answer some simple questions. You will not be hurt—but only if you answer truthfully. You have seen this thing?”
“They fled. We found it in their skyship. I touched it, unclean, unclean.”
“You’re doing fine.” I shook half of the coins into his waiting hand. “Now the ten-thousand-fedha question. Where is it now?”
“Sold, sold to them. The Paradisians. May they be cursed by it, cursed forever …”
It wasn’t easy, but we finally worked all the details out of him. Stripped of all the curses and blasphemy it was a simple tale of larceny and chicanery. The spacer had landed—and been attacked as soon as the door had been opened. During the fracas the Fundamentaloids had trundled through the ship and grabbed everything portable, including the container with the alien artifact. They had carried the whole thing away with them because they had a job opening it. When they eventually succeeded they could not understand what it was. And ignorance meant fear. So they had unloaded it in the market in Paradise where almost anything could be sold. End of story.
We let the shepherd keep the money when we lowered him, unconscious, to the ground. “This calls for consultation,” I said.
“Yes, but not this close to the flock. Let’s get up to the plateau where the air is fresher.”
The others were awake when we landed this time, listening closely to what we had discovered.
“Well this narrows the field a bit,” Madonette said.
“Does it?” I asked. “How big is the population of this paradisaical nation?”
“Around one hundred thousand,” Tremearne admitted. “It may not be the best society on this planet but it appears to be the most successful one. I know very little about it, just photographs and observation.”
“Doesn’t anyone in the Pentagon know more?”
“Probably. But the information is classified and they aren’t talking.”
I cracked my knuckles, scowled and jabbed my finger at him. “That’s really not good enough—is it?”
Tremearne looked as unhappy as I did. “No, Jim, it is not. I don’t know why all that information is classified while your group is actually operating here on the planet. I have tried to get the information and have been not only rebuffed but warned off.”
“Who is doing this? Any idea?”
“None—other than that it is at the very highest level. The people I have been in contact with understand your problems and want to help. But any requests that they pass on are turned down instantly and with prejudice.”
“Am I paranoid—or is there someone in the chain of command who doesn’t like this operation? Who wants it to fail?”
It was Tremearne’s turn now to crack his knuckles and look glum.
“I’ve told you—I am a career officer. But I’m not fond of the situation here on this planet. Not only the way your group is being treated, but the whole ugly business. Well, I feel that it is getting away from me. At first I thought I could get some reform here by working through channels. It’s not good enough. I am being blocked just as completely as you are.
“Who—and why?”
“I don’t know. But I am doing my best to find out. About this city and the Paradisians I guess, basically, I know absolutely nothing.”
“An honest answer, Captain, and I thank you for it.”
“If you don’t know—why then we’ll just have to find out for ourselves,” Steengo said. “Play a gig or two and keep our eyes open.”
“May it be so easy,” I muttered under my breath. “Roll out the maps.”
It looked as though the largest part of the population was located in the single straggling city. Roads led from it to not-too-distant villages and there were scatterings of other buildings that might be farms. The only really puzzling thing about the 3D map was what looked like a wall that appeared to cut the city in two. There were no walls around the city, just this single one in the middle. I pointed to it.
“Any idea what this is—or what it means?”
Tremearne shook his head. “No idea. Looks like a wall, that’s all. But there is a road alongside it. Which appears to be the only road leading in from the plain.”
I poked my finger into the holomap.
“Here. Where the road fades and runs out in the grass. That’s where we have to go. Unless anyone has a better idea?”
“Looks good to me,” Tremearne said. “I’ll land you on this bit of plateau, beyond this ridge where we won’t be seen. Then I’ll take the launch out of there and stay in touch with you by radio.”
We unloaded. “Sleep first,” Floyd yawned. “It’s been a long night.”
It was even longer than that, what with the longer days here. Tremearne took off and we settled down to sleep. We slept, and woke up and it was still dark. Slept some more. At least the others snored on: I had too much on my mind to drift off as easily as they did. We had a clue now to the whereabouts of the alien artifact. A clue that was useless until we started looking. And we couldn’t look in the darkness. And I had—how many days left before the thirty-day poison zonked me? I counted on my fingers. Just about eighteen gone, which left twelve to go. Wonderful. Or had I counted wrong? I started again with the fingers, then grew angry with myself. Enough with the fingers already. I clicked on my computer and wrote a quick program. Then touched D for deadline—or death, whatever—and a glowing eighteen appeared before me accompanied by a flickering twelve. Not that I enjoyed looking at them, mind you, but this way I could stop worrying about the changing count. Some part of me must have been satisfied with this because I fell deeply asleep.
Finally, with great reluctance and sloth, the sky lightened and another day began. Before it was completely light the Captain drifted the launch in low and slow behind the hills, boarded us, then let us out behind the final ridge.
“Good luck,” he said, with a certain grimness. The port ground shut and the launch moved away and vanished in the growing light. Scarcely aware of what I was doing I punched D into the computer. The numbers snapped into existence, vanished just as quickly. But I remembered.
Day nineteen.
CHAPTER 12
Dawn crept on interminably as we walked, the sun dragging itself up over the horizon only with great reluctance. It was still not quite full daylight when we came to what had to be the beginning of the wall. Just a single row of bricks almost hidden in the grass.
“What do you think?” I asked of no one in particular. Steengo bent and rapped one with his knuckles.
“Brick,” he said.
“Red brick,” Madonette said brightly.
“Thanks, thanks,” I mumbled with complete lack of appreciation.
There was a barely visible path next to the right-hand side of the row of bricks; for want of a better idea we began walking along it.
“It’s higher, see,” Floyd said, pointing. “A second course has been added.”
“And more still ahead,” Madonette said. “Three bricks high now.”
“What’s this?” Steengo said, bending and pushing the grass aside to look more closely, touching the brick with his fingertip. “There’s some kind of symbol stamped into each of the bricks.” We all looked now.
“Sort of a circle with an arrow sticking out of it.”
“Arrow … circle,” I muttered. A sudden intuition bounced about inside my skull. “I’ve seen that symbol before—yes indeed! Would someone kindly step over the wall and see if there is a circle with a cross sticking out of it on the other side.”
Madonette lifted lovely eyebrows with curiosity, stepped daintily over the low wall, bent and looked. Eyebrows even higher now.
“How did you do that? On this side there is a circle-cross sign stamped into each brick.”
“Biology,” I said. “I remembered from school.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, stepping back. “The symbols for male and female.”
Floyd had strolled on ahead; he called out. “Right as rain. Here is VIROJ stamped into a brick. And,” he l
eaned over and looked, “VIRINOJ on the other side.”
Very gradually the wall became higher as we walked beside it. In addition to the symbols we came to LJUDI then MTUWA, HERRER, SIGNORI.
“Enough,” I said, stopping. “Packs off. We shall now take our break while we see what we have here. The message seems to be clear enough. Look at the path we have been following. Is there another path on the other side as well?”
The brick wall was as high as our waists now; Floyd put one hand on it and vaulted over, bent and looked.
“Maybe, but not too clear. Could have been here once but it is so overgrown with grass that it is hard to tell. Can I come back now?”
“Yes—because it’s about time for a decision.” I pointed ahead to the slowly heightening wall. “The Fundamentaloids said they came to the city to trade. So they must have come this way, possibly made this track that we are following.”
Madonette nodded agreement—and didn’t like it. “And they were all men, I remember that all too clearly. Unclean indeed! No women allowed. Or if the women did come this way they would have to have walked over on the other side of the wall. What do you want us to do, Jim?”
“What do we want to do? As I said—it’s time for a decision. Do we all stick together and ignore the obvious instructions? That’s the first question that we have to answer.”
“Do that and I’ll bet that eventually we get into some kind of trouble,” she said. “A lot of serious work went into this wall. So if we don’t read the message something not too nice is guaranteed to happen. It always does on this world. The choice is mine. I’ll cross over and trot down the other side—”
“No,” I broke in. “As we go along the wall gets higher and we’ll be separated, out of contact. That won’t do.”
“Well I’m not staying here—and I can’t go back. So we need contact, what you just said. Kindly clack your jaw-a-phone and get onto Tremearne. Tell him to get some radios down here that we can use to keep in touch. If we are going to complete this assignment the right way, we will have to know what is going on on both sides of the wall. And I’m the only one who can find out what happens—here.”
The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection Page 55
