Star quest

by Dean Koontz

  The table was very long and broad, constructed of an odd wood he had never seen before, one that shone like polished stone, black and glossy. It was medieval in design, supported by crude, massive blocks of wood instead of regular legs. The chairs were a hodge-podge of styles and materials. Tohm had been given a seat near the head of the table to the left of Hazabob. "We believe in eating well," the captain said, chuckling.

  As the cooks brought in the trays, Tohm could see what Hazabob meant. The white-smocked men, gruff and burly as the crewmen themselves, flashed about, moving like lightning bolts, depositing the trays, returning with more, setting things down, busy as all Hell. When they left, there were platters of unknown meat chops, two dozen servings on each platter. There were large bowls of peas and pea-like yellow vegetables steaming heartily, forming ghosts above the heads of the thirty sailors sitting the length of the table. Huge baskets of rolls and chips of butter were everywhere along the ebony surface so that no one had to ask for the bread to be passed. Two different varieties of beans were offered to Tohm. He took both, and both were delicious. He had been accustomed to a simple spread in his village, a few courses, always the same. The great variety nearly overwhelmed him. The wine glass was never empty; one of the cooks saw to that And the wine was best of all. It was black, absolutely Stygian, and bittersweet like no fruit he had ever tasted.

  While they were consuming the gobs of cream and cake that was dessert, Hazabob leaned over and tapped his arm. "Ye won't be forgetting to tell yer father about the way we fed ye?"

  "I won't be forgetting a bit," Tohm answered, his mouth stuffed.

  "Good," Hazabob said, spooning cream into his mouth. "I like ye, boy."

  There was no orderly dismissal after supper. The men began to leave in ragtag order, staggering away with bloated bellies to go to sleep and prepare for the next day, dreaming about what the cooks would whip up for that supper.

  "I believe I'll turn in," Tohm said to Hazabob.

  "Oh?"

  "Food makes me sleepy."

  "Ya," the captain said, starting on his second dish of cake. "Ya, ye was probably used to those prissy dinners with little sanditches and cookies."

  "And caca tea," Tohm added, smiling. He had read about that in the floating library.

  "Yeah." Hazabob laughed, slapping the table with the palm of his hand. "Yeah, and caca tea!"

  Caca tea was an aphrodisiac of the wealthy.

  "Excuse me," Tohm said, standing.

  "Umm," Hazabob replied, his face buried in dessert.

  He left, climbing the companionway to the desk. The moons were out, two silver featureless faces on the blackness of the sky. The water slopped against the ship, and that was the only sound. Tohm walked casually to his cabin, closed the door behind. He would have locked it, but they had not seen fit to supply him with any such safeguard. He turned to the wall and looked it over. He just might be able to get through.

  Standing in one corner, he sighted along the stubby barrel of the gas pistol. He didn't want to penetrate the wall and blow up something on the other side; he wanted to blast open the wall That meant an angled shot. The gas pistol was a marvelous little weapon. It was good for a hundred or so shots before a refill was needed, and it was not bulky. A minute pellet of compressed gas left the barrel. When it sunk into the object fired at, resistance caused heat and expanded the pellet The "explosion" caused thereby could down any man or beast. Or, he hoped, a metal wall. He wanted to strike the wall so that the pellet would have to travel through it at an angle, thus giving it time to expand before it crashed through into the storeroom. He depressed the stud.

  Almost immediately, the wall ruptured, split back. From the same position, he fired again. Again. When he put down the pistol, the rent was large enough to squeeze through. He squeezed.

  The place was dark. Very. There was a musty odor, part of it the dankness of any closed space, part of it food scraps, organic wastes. He stumbled about, looking for a light switch, found a palmer next to what seemed to be the outline of the door, and flooded the place with light. The door would be watertight, and certainly, no cracks should be there to emit light onto the deck.

  Blinking his eyes, he surveyed the room. There were a number of crates, unmarked, stacked about, lashed to the walls in columns and to rings set in the floor. There were walkways between the cargo boxes, but he could see nothing that might have moaned.

  There was a rustle.

  He looked to the floor for rats.

  "Well," a voice croaked. It was like dragging a rake across tarpaper. "Well, what do you want?"

  The renting wall had made only a soft screeching sound, so the person was unaware that he hadn't come in through the door. But what person? He didn't see anyone. It began asking him again, and it proved a £0od beacon to home on. He followed it among the crates and came finally to a cage. He jumped back. There was a face looking out of the cage at him. A face and nothing more. The thing was a head with a lump of ugly gray tissue beneath its pate where a neck ordinarily would have been. Several tentacles snaked out from that lump.

  "Well?" the face asked

  One of the tentacles smashed down onto the floor of the cage.

  Slap-crackity!

  He now knew where the sound had been coming from.

  "What the Hell do you want?" the face screamed.

  "Shhh," he said, forcing himself to go closer to the cage, bending down, finally hunkering on the floor. "They don't know I'm in here."

  The gray eyes looked at him calculatingly. "Who are you?"

  "Wait. If I tell you, will you answer some questions for me?"

  The tentacles slapped about in annoyance. "Okay, okay. God, let's not quibble."

  "Then I am called Tohm."

  "What do you do on the ship?"

  "Nothing. I'm a passenger. I'm trying to get to the capital to hunt for my woman."

  "Your woman?"

  "Yes. She was kidnapped, as I was, by the Romaghins. I feel she will soon be sold. I must find her." To the other's further questioning, he recounted his history as a Jumbo and now as a man again.

  "Why does this crew help you?"

  "They think my father is a wealthy trader of concubines."

  "Hah," the face said, puckered with glee. "Good. They deserve it."

  "Now," Tohm said, leaning forward but not too close, "who are you?"

  "They call me Hunk."

  "Well," he said hesitantly, "what… what are you?"

  There was silence a moment.

  "You mean you've never seen a Mutie before?"

  "What's a Mutie?" Tohm asked, relieved that now he would finally find out.

  "By the gods, you are a stoical bastard, aren't you! Very few people would have reacted so calmly to seeing a Mutie for the first time."

  "Then you're a Mutie?"

  "Yeah. I'm the result of all the nuclear wars the Romaghins and Setessins fought before atomics went obsolete and the laser cannon came into use. Radiation changed me as a fetus. I have a heart stuffed up here in my necks, a brain, and the digestive system of a bird, simple and compact."

  Tohm swallowed, but found there was no saliva. His mouth was perfectly dry. "Then you're all—"

  "No, no. Each is different from the last. I'm a very severe case. At least, I'm unique."

  Tohm sighed. Things were beginning to clear in some corners. Still, most of his concepts were confused and incomplete. "What happened to the city?"

  "Hah," the head said. It slapped tentacles against the floor and laughed again. Finally, tears rolling down its cheeks, it said, "That was good, wasn't it? Maybe we didn't carry through a complete exchange, but we came close. Damn close. That'll give them something to worry about for a while."

  "But what did you do to it?"

  "We put it eight hundred miles up the coast!"

  "What were you trying to do with it?" Tohm asked exasperatedly.

  "Exchange it boy, transfer it. Oh, we had the Fringe all shook, let me tell you. For a momen
t there, you could have transferred the whole damned universe through. But we weren't fast enough. Besides, I've discovered you can't hold the Fringe and transfer at the same time."

  "I don't understand."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I come from a primitive world, remember. I don't even know what the Fringe is."

  "It's the quasi-reality—"

  "Between the realities," Tohm finished.

  "There, see, you know."

  "I know how to say it, but I don't know what it means."

  "Well," Hunk said, crossing his tentacles in consternation, "I'll be damned! I thought everyone knew."

  "I don't. Everyone knows but me."

  Hunk moaned, rolled around a bit. "Look, for eight centuries the Romaghins and Setessins have been fighting wars. The inhabited galaxy has not been able to live in peace, for even the innocent, neutral planets are forced into the game sooner or later. We Muties are trying to rid the universe of the Romaghins and Setessins. Without them, the galaxy would be better off. We Muties might even be able to have citizenship and pensions. We might even be able to walk the streets without being shot on sight."

  "You're the good guys."

  "Yeah. You could say that." Hunk crept to the front of the cage, pressed against the bars. "Look, the old one-legger who runs this ship—"

  "Captain Hazabob."

  "That's him. Well, he located our party along the beach where we were hiding. He killed the others and took me captive. I'm sort of a wanted person aside from being a Mutie. They caught us just after we had dropped the city and were still a little groggy. They plan to string me up in the public square and have a gala celebration. Could you get me out of here?"

  "I don't know. I don't see how. I can't jeopardize everything. I have to get to the city."

  Hunk moved around in the cage, stumbling over his own snaking arms that dragged him about clumsily. "I know where the city is. I could guide you. What was this girl's name again?"

  "Tarnilee."

  "Suppose, when we get to Cap Five, I help you find your Tarnilee?"

  Tohm stared into the gray eyes. They appeared sincere. "What could you do to help? I mean—"

  "There is a Mutie underground nearly everywhere. We evacuated the city when we tried to transfer it, hut by the time we reach there, the Old Man will have the remainder of our cell, who didn't accompany the transfer group, back in business."

  "Old Man?"

  "Yeah. We have a chief."

  "And this entire underground will help me?"

  "I guarantee it. Look, I discovered something important in the attempt we made back there. We shouldn't try to hold the Fringe and lift the city too. Strangely enough, it's easier to transfer large bulk instead of bits and pieces. We have to transfer all the universe except the Romaghins and Setessins. Just the reverse of what we've been doing. It was a moment of revelation. May-he the others saw it too, but the others are dead. I'm the only one with the theory, and I have to get it back."

  "I don't understand a thing you're saying."

  "Transferring ninety-nine point nine percent of the universe would be easy, for the bulk would serve to hold the Fringe without our aid once the process was begun. We lift and the stuff goes through slick as all Hell. But never mind. Will you help?"

  "You promise me Tarnilee?"

  "I promise you a good chance of finding her, nothing more."

  Tohm thought a moment. "Fair enough."

  He unlatched the cage by using a crowbar from the tool rack to twist the sturdy lock apart. Hunk directed the carrying of himself. He could move only at a crawl by himself. Tohm set the Mutie on his shoulder and watched while the thin tentacles laced themselves under his arm and across his chest. He now had two heads.

  "I have a flybelt," Tohm said. "We'll coast to the city from here, follow the shoreline until we hit it."

  "You're in charge now," Hunk said.

  They walked back to the rent in the wall, stepped through into the guest rooms.

  "Going somewhere, Mr. Tohm?" Hazabob asked, standing in the doorway.

  Chapter Seven

  "I SEE," Hazabob said to Jake, who stood next to him, "that we have a pervert amongst us."

  Jake was scowling.

  "Perverts are the only lands who are friendly with Muties, Mr. Tohm."

  "Look, so I'm a pervert," he ad-libbed, "so what?"

  Hazabob chuckled "So perverts are hung with their Mutie friends."

  "You won't get a concubine from my father. You won't get anything."

  "I think ye aren't the son of a merchant Suddenly, yer speech is different Yer don't even sound Romaghin, boy."

  "Yer crazy," he said, recovering and realizing the blunder. "My father is a merchant. We rich are perverts and get away with it. Privilege of class."

  "Then what is yer father's name?" Hazabob asked shrewdly.

  Tohm grasped out at any combination of syllables he could find. "Branhosi."

  Hazabob turned to look at Jake, who was clenching and unclenching his fists over and over again. "Ye recollect a slave merchant o' that name?"

  "No!" Jake roared, his face red and nostrils flared.

  "Jake doesn't remember," Hazabob said, looking back to them.

  Tohm had a picture in his mind, suddenly, of Tarnilee being sold because he had not made the city on time— or had not made it at all. That was all the incentive to action he needed. They would think him unarmed, for his clothing would not serve to conceal an ordinary weapon. The gas pistol, however, was quite small and inconspicuous. He brought the gun from the pocket of his velour and caught the captain in the stomach. Blood splashed out, bones prickling through the torn flesh, and the man fell, dragging the wheel-leg, a final gasp of surprise frozen on his features.

  Jake charged like an animal. Tohm whirled, fired. The man's side spattered against the wall. The charge spun him around like a doll but did not topple him. He hinged, snarling, no longer the passive dolt he had seemed. Tohm fired again and again, bringing the giant down with only moments and inches to spare.

  He broke from the doorway then, running, fumbling with the flybelt with one hand and clutching the pistol with the other. He needed the gun first. A dark-haired man with a face like the bottom of a garbage can blasted at him with a hand laser, missed. He didn't get a second chance. The pellet slammed into him, tore open his shoulder, sent his arm spinning away from his body.

  He climbed the rail with Hunk, who was shouting curses at the sailors and waving his single free tentacle in fury. Laser beams slid around them, spurts of light sinking through the darkness, eventually touching the stars or lighting the water for a moment on their death ride to the murky bottom. Leaping, he activated the flybelt, felt it jerk him as it caught hold, and soared away. The shouting died. Once, the searchlight flashed on, scanning the sea, but they were too far away by then. The crew gave up after several minutes.

  "Very good, Tohm," Hunk said from his shoulder.

  "How far to the city, do you think?"

  "Quite a ways. I'm lashed on tightly, though. Let's move."

  The sea mist cooled them as the stiff wind whipped it about. They moved along the coast, not stopping until late the following afternoon.

  "There is a village along here somewhere," Hunk said. "I recognize those rocks. We should eat."

  Tohm looked to that portion of the cliff that the pseudo-arm pointed to. Natural stone pillars stood tall and straight as the red-leafed trees of his home land. The cliffs were dirty brown, but the pillars, composed of a different substance, glittered whitely, magnificent, wind-weathered things.

  "How farr

  "I don't know," Hunk said against the whistle of the wind. "About five miles inland, I guess."

  Tohm banked toward the shore and coasted over the rim of the cliffs. They buzzed the pillars for a while, admiring their fine, gale-carved faces, the intricate patterns of the god of the winds. Dropping lower, they cruised out of sight behind plain, pine-needled trees, looking for some clue of the v
illage. Eventually, they found a road. In a short time, they discovered a hovercraft loaded with vegetables and fruits. There were swollen apples colored orange rather than red and wicker baskets of berries on the back.

  "Hold them up," Hunk advised.

  "Steal it?"

  They won't give it away. Especially to a Mutie. Muties are killed on sight—sooner, if possible."

  "Well, all right." The growing hunger in his stomach was driving him to criminality, but he didn't care so much anymore. The bellyful from last night's supper on the ship had worn off by now. His gut bubbled like a geyser, growled like a beast.

  They dropped in behind the cart, hovered directly over the heads of the unsuspecting driver and passengers. "Stop this cart!" Tohm yelled at them. They looked up—a man, bearded and with a bushy head of hair, a raven-headed woman with a too full bodice and eyes filled with hate. And the boy. The same boy that he had tried to save from the nomads now looked up at him out of white-white eyes. Tohm looked to the woman, looked into her horrid normal eyes and decided the boy was no better off than before. "Stop this cart!" he shouted again.

  The driver shrugged his shoulders. Tohm fired a warning shot, tore the front fender apart. The bearded man reached for the lever of the brake and settled the cart gently to the ground. "What ye want?"

  "Just a little food," Tohm said. "Set down a melon, some berries, a little of everything."

  The driver got out and began selecting a variety. Gun drawn, Tohm drifted toward the boy. "Why did you run away?"

  "Leave him alone," the bosomy young woman snapped.

  "Why did you run away?" he persisted.

  The white-white eyes glared at him.

  "Leave him alone," Hunk said uneasily.

  The boy smiled.

  "I saved his life," Tohm explained. "I saved his life, and he ran away with the men who were going to kill him."

  "Get away from him!" Hunk screamed at his friend and only transportation.

  Tohm strained his neck to look at the Mutie. "What's the matter?"

  Suddenly colors washed over him…

  Waves of color ridden by nubile maidens…

  He brought up the pistol while he still had time and some sense of reality. He fired. The shot burst above the head of the boy but was enough to scare him into stopping the dreams. The driver crawled back into his seat. "The food is there. Let us go."