Marion Zimmer Bradley Super Pack

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  He was beginning to feel hungry, and realized that he could not go into an ordinary restaurant without attracting attention. There were refreshment stands all over the spaceport, and he briefly considered getting a snack at one of these.

  No, that was just putting it off. The time had to come when he must face his fear and test his disguise among the Lhari themselves. Reviewing his knowledge of the construction of spaceports, he remembered that one side was the terminal, where humans and visitors and passengers were freely admitted; the other side, for Lhari and their Mentorian employees only, contained—along with business offices of many sorts—a sort of arcade with amusement centers, shops and restaurants catering to the personnel of the Lhari ships. With nine or ten ships docking every day, Raynor had assured him that a strange Lhari face would be lost in the crowds very easily.

  He went to one of the doors marked danger, Lhari lights beyond, and passed through the glaring corridor of offices and storage-warehouses, finally coming out into a sort of wide mall. The lights were fierce, but he could endure them without trouble now, though his head ached faintly. Raynor, testing his light tolerance, had assured him that he could endure anything the Lhari could, without permanent damage to his optic nerves, though he would have headaches until he got used to them.

  There were small shops and what looked like bars, and a glass-fronted place with a sign lettered largely, in black letters, a Lhari phrase meaning roughly home away from home: meals served, spacemen welcome, reasonable.

  Behind him a voice said in Lhari, “Tell me, does that sign mean what it says? Or is this one of those traps for separating the unwary spaceman from his hard-earned credits? How’s the food?”

  Bart carefully took hold of himself.

  “I was just wondering that myself.” He turned as he spoke, finding himself face to face with a young Lhari in the unadorned cloak of a spaceman without official rank. He knew the Lhari was young because his crest was still white.

  The young Lhari extended his claws in the closed-fist, hidden-claw gesture of Lhari greeting. “Shall we take a chance? Ringg son of Rahan greets you.”

  “Bartol son of Berihun.”

  “I don’t remember seeing you in the port, Bartol.”

  “I’ve mostly worked on the Polaris run.”

  “Way off there?” Ringg son of Rahan sounded startled and impressed. “You really get around, don’t you? Shall we sit here?”

  They sat on triangular chairs at a three-cornered table. Bart waited for Ringg to order, and ordered what he did. When it came, it was a sort of egg-and-fish casserole which Bart found extremely tasty, and he dug into it with pleasure. Allowing for the claws, Lhari table manners were not so much different from human—and remember, their customs differ as much as ours do. If you do something differently, they’ll just think you’re from another planet with a different culture.

  “Have you been here long?”

  “A day or so. I’m off the Swiftwing.”

  Bart decided to hazard his luck. “I was told there’s a vacancy on the Swiftwing.”

  Ringg looked at him curiously. “There is,” he said, “but I’d like to know how you found it out. Captain Vorongil said that anyone who talked about it would be sent to Kleeto for three cycles. But what happened to you? Miss your ship?”

  “No, I’ve just been laying off—traveling, sight-seeing, bumming around,” Bart said. “But I’m tired of it, and now I’d like to sign out again.”

  “Well, we could use another man. This is the long run we’re making, out to Antares and then home, and if everybody has to work extra shifts, it’s no fun. But if old Vorongil knows that there’s been talk in the port about Klanerol jumping ship, or whatever happened to him, we’ll all have to walk wide of his temper.”

  Bart was beginning to relax a little; Ringg apparently accepted him without scrutiny. At this close range Ringg did not seem a monster, but just a young fellow like himself, hearty, good-natured—in fact, not unlike Tommy.

  Bart chased the thought away as soon as it sneaked into his brain—one of those things, like Tommy? Then, rather grimly, he reminded himself, I’m one of those things. He said irritably, “So how do I account for asking your captain for the place?”

  Ringg cocked his fluffy crest to one side. “I know,” he said, “I told you. I’ll say you’re an old friend of mine. You don’t know what Vorongil’s like when he gets mad. But what he doesn’t know, he won’t shout about.” He shoved back the triangular chair. “Who did tell you, anyway?”

  This was the first real hurdle, and Bart’s brain raced desperately, but Ringg was not listening for an answer. “I suppose somebody gossiped, or one of those fool Mentorians picked it up. Got your papers? What rating?”

  “Astrogator first class.”

  “Klanerol was second, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.” Ringg led the way through the arcades, out across a guarded sector, passing half a dozen of the huge ships lying in their pits. Finally Ringg stopped and pointed. “This is the old hulk.”

  Bart had traveled only in Lhari passenger ships, which were new and fresh and sleek. This ship was enormous, ovoid like the egg of some space-monster, the sides dented and discolored, thin films of chemical discoloration lying over the glassy metallic hull.

  Bart followed Ringg. This was real, it was happening. He was signing out for his first interstellar cruise on one of the Lhari ships. Not a Mentorian assistant, half-trusted, half-tolerated, but one of the crew themselves. If I’m lucky, he reminded himself grimly.

  There was Lhari, in the black-banded officer’s cloak, at the doorway. He glanced at Ringg’s papers.

  “Friend of mine,” Ringg said, and Bart proffered his folder. The Lhari gave it a casual glance, handed it back.

  “Old Baldy on board?” Ringg asked.

  “Where else?” The officer laughed. “You don’t think he’d relax with cargo not loaded, do you?”

  They seemed casual and normal, and Bart’s confidence was growing. They had accepted him as one of themselves. But the great ordeal still lay before him—an interview with the Lhari captain. And the idea had Bart sweating scared.

  The corridors and decks seemed larger, wider, more spacious, but shabbier than on the clean, bright, commercial passenger decks Bart had seen. Dark-lensed men were rolling bales of cargo along on wheeled dollies. The corridors seemed endless. More to hear the sound of his own voice, and reassure himself of his ability to speak and be understood, than because he cared, he asked Ringg, “What’s your rating?”

  “Well, according to the logbooks, I’m an Expert Class Two, Metals-Fatigue,” said Ringg. “That sounds very technical and interesting. But what it means is just that I go all over the ship inch by inch, and when I finish, start all over again at the other end. Most of what I do is just boss around the maintenance crews and snarl at them about spots of rust on the paint.”

  They got into a small round elevator and Ringg punched buttons; it began to rise, slowly and creakily, toward the top. “This, for instance,” Ringg said. “I’ve been yelling for a new cable for six months.” He turned. “Take it easy, Bartol; don’t let Vorongil scare you. He likes to hear the sound of his own voice, but we’d all walk out the lock without spacesuits for him.”

  The elevator slid to a stop. The sign in Lhari letters said Level of Administration—Officers’ Deck. Ringg pushed at a door and said, “Captain Vorongil?”

  “I thought you were on leave,” said a Lhari voice, deeper and slower than most. “What are you doing, back here more than ten milliseconds before strap-in checks?”

  Ringg stepped back for Bart to go inside. The small cabin, with an elliptical bunk slung from the ceiling and a triangular table, was dwarfed by a tall, thin Lhari, in a cloak with four of the black bands that seemed to denote rank among them. He had a deeply lined face with a lacework of tiny wrinkles around the slanted eyes. His crest was not the high, fluffy white of a young Lhari, but broken short near the scalp, grayish pink showing through, the litt
le feathery ends yellowed with age. He growled, “Come in then, don’t stand there. I suppose Ringg’s told you what a tyrant I am? What do you want, feathertop?”

  Bart remembered being told that this was the Lhari equivalent of “Kid” or “Youngster.” He fumbled in the capacious folds of his cloak for his papers. His voice sounded shrill, even to himself.

  “Bartol son of Berihun in respectful greeting, rieko mori.” (“Honorable old-bald-one,” the Lhari equivalent of “sir.”) “Ringg told me there is a vacancy among the Astrogators, and I want to sign out.”

  Unmistakably, Vorongil’s snort was laughter.

  “So you’ve been talking, Ringg?”

  Ringg retorted, “Better that I tell one man than that you have to hunt the planet over—or run the long haul with the drive-room watches short by one man.”

  “Well, well, you’re right,” Vorongil growled. He glared at Bart. “On the last planet, one of our men disappeared. Jumped ship!” The creases around his eyes deepened, troubled. “Probably just gone on the drift, sight-seeing, but I wish he’d told me. As it is, I wonder if he’s been hurt, killed, kidnaped.”

  Ringg said, “Who’d dare? It would be reported.”

  Bart knew, with a cold chill, that the missing Klanerol had not simply gone “on the drift.” No Lhari port would ever see Klanerol, Second Class Astrogator, again.

  “Bartol,” mused the captain, riffling the forged papers. “Served on the Polaris run. Hm—you are a good long way off your orbit, aren’t you? Never been out that way myself. All right, I’ll take you on. You can do system programming? Good. Rating in Second Galaxy mathematics?”

  He nodded, hauled out a sheet of thin, wax-coated fabric and his claws made rapid imprints in the surface. He passed it to Bart, pointed. Bart hesitated, and Vorongil said impatiently, “Standard agreement, no hidden clauses. Put your mark on it, feathertop.”

  Bart realized it was something like a fingerprint they wanted. You’ll pass anything but X-rays. He pressed the top of one claw into the wax. Vorongil nodded, shoved it on a shelf without looking at it.

  “So much for that,” said Ringg, laughing, as they came out. “The Bald One was in a good temper. I’m going to the port and celebrate, not that this dim place is very festive. You?”

  “I—I think I’ll stay aboard.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be down there somewhere,” Ringg said. “See you later, shipmate.” He raised his closed fist in farewell, and went.

  Bart stood in the corridor, feeling astounded and strange. He belonged here! He had a right to be on board the ship! He wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

  A Lhari, as short and fat as a Lhari could possibly be and still be a Lhari, came or rather waddled out of the captain’s office. He saw Bartol and called, “Are you the new First Class? I’m Rugel, coordinator.”

  Rugel had a huge cleft darkish scar across his lip, and there were two bands on his cloak. He was completely bald, and he puffed when he walked. “Vorongil asked me to show you around. You’ll share quarters with Ringg—no sense shifting another man. Come down and see the chart rooms—or do you want to leave your kit in your cabin first?”

  “I don’t have much,” Bart said.

  Rugel’s seamed lip widened. “That’s the way—travel light when you’re on the drift,” he confirmed.

  Rugel took him down to the drive rooms, and here for a moment, in wonder and awe, Bart almost forgot his disguise. The old Lhari led him to the huge computer which filled one wall of the room, and Bart was smitten with the universality of mathematics. Here was something he knew he could handle.

  He could do this programming, easily enough. But as he stood before the banks of complex, yet beautifully familiar levers, the sheer exquisite complexity of it overcame him. To compute the movements of thousands of stars, all moving at different speeds in different directions in the vast swirling directionless chaos of the Universe—and yet to be sure that every separate movement would come out to within a quarter of a mile! It was something that no finite brain—man or Lhari—could ever accomplish, yet their limited brains had built these computers that could do it.

  Rugel watched him, laughing softly. “Well, you’ll have enough time down here. I like to have youngsters who are still in the middle of a love affair with their work. Come along, and I’ll show you your cabin.”

  Rugel left him in a cabin amidships; small and cramped, but tidy, two of the oval bunks slung at opposite ends, a small table between them, and drawers filled with pamphlets and manuals and maps. Furtively, ashamed of himself, yet driven by necessity, Bart searched Ringg’s belongings, wanting to get some idea of what possessions he ought to own. He looked around the shower and toilet facilities with extra care—this was something he couldn’t slip up on and be considered even halfway normal. He was afraid Ringg would come in, and see him staring curiously at something as ordinary, to a Lhari, as a cake of soap.

  He decided to go down to the port again and look around the shops. He was not afraid of being unable to handle his work. What he feared was something subtler—that the small items of everyday living, something as simple as a nail file, would betray him.

  On his way he looked into the Recreation Lounge, filled with comfortable seats, vision-screens, and what looked like simple pinball machines and mechanical games of skill. There were also stacks of tapereels and headsets for listening, not unlike those humans used. Bart felt fascinated, and wanted to explore, but decided he could do that later.

  Somehow he took the wrong turn coming out of the Recreation Lounge, and went through a door where the sudden dimming of lights told him he was in Mentorian quarters. The sudden darkness made him stumble, thrust out his hands to keep from falling, and an unmistakably human voice said, “Ouch!”

  “I’m sorry,” Bart said in Universal, without thinking.

  “I admit the lights are dim,” said the voice tartly, and Bart found himself looking down, as his eyes adjusted to the new light level, at a girl.

  She was small and slight, in a metallic blue cloak that swept out, like wings, around her thin shoulders; the hood framed a small, kittenlike face. She was a Mentorian, and she was human, and Bart’s eyes rested with comfort on her face; she, on the other hand, was looking up with anxiety and uneasy distrust. That’s right—I’m a Lhari, a nonhuman freak!

  “I seem to have missed my way.”

  “What are you looking for, sir? The medical quarters are through here.”

  “I’m looking for the elevator down to the crew exits.”

  “Through here,” she said, reopening the door through which he had come, and shading her large, lovely, long-lashed eyes with a slender hand. “You took the wrong turn. Are you new on board? I thought all ships were laid out exactly alike.”

  “I’ve only worked on passenger ships.”

  “I believe they are somewhat different,” said the girl in good Lhari. “Well, that is your way, sir.”

  He felt as if he had been snubbed and dismissed.

  “What is your name?”

  She stiffened as if about to salute. “Meta of the house of Marnay Three, sir.”

  Bart realized he was doing something wholly out of character for a Lhari—chatting casually with a Mentorian. With a wistful glance at the pretty girl, he said a stiff “Thank you” and went down the ramp she had indicated. He felt horribly lonely. Being a freak wasn’t going to be much fun.

  Chapter Eight

  He saw the girl again next day, when they checked in for blastoff. She was seated at a small desk, triangular like so much of the Lhari furniture, checking a register as they came out of the Decontam room, making sure they downed their greenish solution of microorganisms.

  “Papers, please?” She marked, and Bart noticed that she was using a red pencil.

  “Bartol,” she said aloud. “Is that how you pronounce it?” She made small scribbles in a sort of shorthand with the red pencil, then made other marks with the black one in Lhari; he supposed the red
marks were her own private memoranda, unreadable by the Lhari.

  “Next, please.” She handed a cup of the greenish stuff to Ringg, behind him. Bart went down toward the drive room, and to his own surprise, found himself wishing the girl were a mathematician rather than a medic. It would have been pleasant to watch her down there.

  Old Rugel, on duty in the drive room, watched Bart strap himself in before the computer. “Make sure you check all dials at null,” he reminded him, and Bart felt a last surge of panic.

  This was his first cruise, except for practice runs at the Academy! Yet his rating called him an experienced man on the Polaris run. He’d had the Lhari training tape, which was supposed to condition his responses, but would it? He tried to clench his fists, drove a claw into his palm, winced, and commanded himself to stay calm and keep his mind on what he was doing.

  It calmed him to make the routine check of his dials.

  “Strapdown check,” said a Lhari with a yellowed crest and a rasping voice. “New man, eh?” He gave Bart’s straps perfunctory tugs at shoulders and waist, tightened a buckle. “Karol son of Garin.”

  Bells rang in the ship, and Bart felt the odd, tonic touch of fear. This was it.

  Vorongil strode through the door, his banded cloak sweeping behind him, and took the control couch.

  “Ready from fueling room, sir.”

  “Position,” Vorongil snapped.

  Bart heard himself reading off a string of figures in Lhari. His voice sounded perfectly calm.

  “Communication.”

  “Clear channels from Pylon Dispatch, sir.” It was old Rugel’s voice.

  “Well,” Vorongil said, slowly and almost reflectively, “let’s take her up then.”

  He touched some controls. The humming grew. Then, swift, hard and crushing, weight mashed Bart against his couch.

  “Position!” Vorongil’s voice sounded harsh, and Bart fought the crushing weight of it. Even his eyeballs ached as he struggled to turn the tiny eye muscles from dial to dial, and his voice was a dim croak: “Fourteen seven sidereal twelve point one one four nine....”