by Allen Wold
He needed to ask someone for help. "Don't talk to strangers" was rule one. "Mind your own business" was rule two. He intended to abide by those rules as well as he could. But unless someone gave him directions he would have to go back to the hostel. The day clerk would be amused, he was sure. She had probably sent him out on a wild-goose chase. Maybe the night clerk had fed him a line too, and there was no Rodik Bedik, no mining domes.
It would do him no good to go back in defeat. Though his map wasn't true, he had no other reason to believe the day clerk had actually lied to him. It would be even worse if he gave up prematurely. He kept on walking, wishing he had a car.
He came to a place with the courtyard fully open to the street. It was a service station, or this world's equivalent.
Even here, cars needed to be attended to sometimes, though this was the first such station he'd seen.
It was primitive. There were no robotic lifts, no cybernetic analyzers. The simple machines were operated by a human attendant, a woman, he thought, though it wasn't easy to tell in this case. Rikard waited as a small floater drove in, was fueled, and drove out after an exchange of currency. Then he went up to the attendant.
"Excuse me," he said, "but I'm lost and—"
"You sure are," the woman said, not unkindly.
"I'm trying to find Msr. Bedik's offices. Do you know where they are, and would you tell me how to get there?"
"Boss Bedik? Now how'd you hear about him? Sure, I know where he works. Dome 14 out in Skareem."
"What's Skareem?"
"The sector of town where Dome 14 is. You got a map? Let me see it."
He gave it to her. She looked it over quickly and snorted.
"Somebody's idea of a joke," she said. "Keep the tourists at home. You really ought to be at home, you know."
"Yes, I do, but I'd really like to see Msr. Bedik."
"Boss Bedik. That's the way he likes it. And since he runs the mines, that's the way he has it. It's not easy to get to see him, you know."
"That's what I've been told, but I don't want to give up before I try."
"Admirable sentiments, I'm sure. Lots of luck. Okay, look here." She pointed to the map. "This street is right here, though it's not shown. It runs this way, with some wiggles in it. Now, out here you'll cross Farjeon. Go three blocks more and take a left. It's an alley with no name. Go on for seven blocks more, and you'll come out on Skareem. Take it north and you'll see the domes, right at the edge of town. It's number fourteen. After that you're on your own."
"Thanks very much." Rikard offered her a small bill. She took it as if she had been expecting it—which could explain why she had been less unfriendly than many of the other people he'd met.
Rikard found Farjeon with no problem and turned into the narrow, nameless alley three blocks farther on. It was crooked, and the streets that intersected it were just as narrow and dark.
He passed the third intersection, and the narrow street turned a corner, opened out into a court, and came to a dead end. Three men and a woman sat on the curb. They were all looking at him as if they had been waiting for him.
Rikard slowed to a stop, a knot of apprehension—mingled with that sense of thrill—growing in his stomach. He had assumed that the service attendant had just been friendly, like the night clerk, and that had been a mistake.
The four people got to their feet and fanned out away from the curb.
"You've made a wrong turn," one of the men said.
"You're way out of your territory," the woman added.
They moved toward him slowly, one of the men sidling around to cut off his retreat.
The attendant at the service station had set him up for a mugging. Rikard, without thinking, spun on the man now blocking the alley behind him, dodged to the right, sidestepped to the left, and lashed out with a fist, striking the man behind the ear. Then he ran, took the first corner and ran to the next, turned it and ran on until he could no longer hear footfalls chasing after him.
5
There were more people here, which probably meant less likelihood of another mugging. The eyes that watched him were not friendly, but nobody approached him. He slowed to a walk and, while the sense of thrill faded, tried to catch his breath.
Now he was really lost. He wished he dared ask somebody for directions, but he'd learned another lesson about talking to strangers—and about muggers—and he couldn't trust anything they might tell him.
Not everybody would lie to him, he was sure, but he would have no way of knowing if they had until it was too late. He hoped he wouldn't be so surprised the next time something like that happened.
He could try to find his way back to the street he'd been following before he'd turned off, but he wasn't sure he would be able to recognize it when he came to it. The best thing he could do would be to go on. He went in the general direction of the domes, following the instructions the clerk at the hostel had told him, not the way the service-station attendant had pointed out.
The name on a street sign at one intersection seemed familiar. He looked at his map and found it. He kept walking, and farther on there was another correlation. All of a sudden, for no reason he could guess, the map and the streets matched each other again.
But if his map was true, he was far off course. He'd gotten turned around somewhere and was going at right angles to the way he wanted to go. He decided to follow the map as long as it corresponded with the actual streets. At least now he thought he could find his way back to the hostel again, though since he'd come this far, he might as well continue. But the morning was more than half gone, and if he didn't hurry, he'd be far from home when night fell.
He walked quickly, keeping alert, staying out of people's way. He passed a door, and a man came out and fell into step beside him. The man didn't say anything for a while. He was wearing a gun—Rikard didn't know what kind—and a knife.
"Whatcher hurry?" the man said at last, his voice slurred.
"I'm trying to make an appointment."
"Zat so? Think you'll make it?"
"I'm beginning to have my doubts." Rikard didn't pause. He tensed himself inwardly, in case the man decided to jump him.
But he never found out the man's intentions. Without warning a tall, glittery thing stepped around the corner they were approaching, half a block away, and everybody on the street came to a startled stop.
It was like the thing Rikard had half seen in the park. It was twelve meters tall, serpentine, transparent, shining.
The man beside him grabbed his arm convulsively. Rikard felt the hair on his head and neck stand up. Then suddenly the man was running away. Everybody else on the street was running too, away from the thing up ahead. They didn't yell; they just ran.
Rikard wanted to run too, but he couldn't make his legs work. The glittering, transparent monster swung its head— if that was what it was—from side to side, as if watching the fleeing pedestrians.
Rikard found his legs at last and took a hesitant, leaden step backward. The thing swung to stare at him. He froze. It looked away. He took another step.
He couldn't see its edges. It was bright and transparent in the middle, but faded to thin air where an outline should have been. It was basically yellow and orange in color, but there were hints of shades Rikard's eyes did not recognize and could not quite see. Deep within what might have been its body were several spots of intense light that slowly tumbled over each other. It seemed to have two small arms, or forelegs, and two larger hind legs. The air rippled behind it.
The thing moved, and the impression of neck and legs faded. It wasn't really serpentine; it had just looked that way. Now it was just a sphere of yellow light, borderless, pulsing, five meters in diameter at least, floating three meters above the pavement. Only the bright spots in its center remained clear, slowly revolving around each other. And the eyes.
A hand grabbed his elbow. He was jerked roughly through a doorway into a plant-filled courtyard, where a man and a woman hustled him throu
gh another door into a bar.
"It almost got you," the man said.
"Not even a damned tourist deserves to die that way," the woman added. Then someone shoved a glass in his hands, and without word or hesitation Rikard drank it down.
6
"What the hell was that thing?" Rikard asked as he paid for his second drink.
"I don't know what they really are," the bartender said, "but we call them dragons."
"Good name for them." He gulped half the whiskey. "How come they're allowed to run loose?"
"There's no allowing to it, kid," a patron said, an older man, well into his second century. "The dragons come and the dragons go and the only thing they don't do is come into our houses. Thank God." The close call with the so-called dragon seemed to have made the citizens more tolerant of strangers.
"Can't you kill them?"
"It's been tried," the tender said, "but as far as I know, nothing seems to hurt them much. Bullets make them go away. A blaster will send one off in a hurry, if you've got a blaster. But a freezer or flamer does nothing to them."
"How about electricity?"
"I think they like it. I've seen them dancing around in a thunderstorm, with the lightning striking down on them, and they just come back for more."
"I don't remember ever hearing about an animal like that."
"Hell, kid, that's no animal," said the woman who'd helped drag him in off the street. "It's just a bundle of energy with eyes."
"Is it aware of us?"
"Sure is. If we move or stand still too long. You notice how they kind of fade out around the edges? We really can't see them too well. I don't think they can see us too well either. But they sure as hell know we're here."
"Just seeing that thing made my hair stand on end," Rikard said. "How dangerous are they?"
"Let's put it this way," the tender said. "If they touch you, you fry. On the spot. And if they look at you too long, you freeze up, just like you did. And then they come over and poke around you a little bit, and then up you go, a puff of smoke and a clinker."
"I don't think they do it on purpose," the old man said.
"The hell they don't," the woman snapped back.
"What difference does it make?" the tender asked. "Fried is fried, accidental or on purpose."
Somebody poked his head in the door, announced that the dragon had gone, and popped out again.
"Real close shave you had there," the tender said as Rikard downed the last of his whiskey. "What the hell is a tourist like you doing way out here anyway? If you don't mind my asking."
"Trying to find Boss Bedik."
"Oh, yeah? Aim high, don't you? You don't just knock on his door and walk in, you know."
"That's what I've been told."
"Look, I don't mean to be nosy, but what are bartenders for? I mean, you're a tourist. Bedik was born here. You can't know him from Ephram. You're not from Solvay or you'd be in a big car with a couple of cops for company. So what kind of business could you possibly have with Boss Bedik?"
"I was told that he might be able to help me trace someone who was here eleven years ago, who never left, and who was not reported dead."
"Eleven years. That's a long time. Yeah, Bedik might know. He's got strings out all over the city. But you've got two problems first. One is getting to see him. And the other is getting him to tell you anything."
"There's another problem—just finding out where he is in the first place."
"Hell, everybody knows that. He's in Dome 14 out in Skareem. That's where he does all his business."
"That much I've heard, but look at this." Rikard showed the tender his map.
"One of those," the tender said. "Damn fool things. No two the same. Only the central port area is accurate. Look, here you are. Just follow this street here. Now here the map goes all funny. Turn left, though that's not shown, and follow around to here. This is Skareem Street, just like it says, and Dome 14 is about here."
"The last time I followed directions like that, I wound up in a dead end with four hungry types."
"No kidding. Who'd you ask, the bartender, the service attendant, or the beggar?"
"The service attendant."
"That'll be Saleth. She does that whenever she gets a chance, even to locals. For ten percent of the take. How'd you get out?"
"Clipped one guy up the side of the head and ran like the devil."
The tender laughed. "No kidding? Good for you, kid. Serves them right. If they can't roll without losing the tip, they deserve to be clobbered."
"So I was just wondering, no offense, mind, if I'd have to keep on the lookout for dead ends if I follow the route you've shown me."
"No dead ends, kid, but keep a lookout anyway. You've been lucky so far, you know. You could have gotten killed about eleven times between the port and here. Not counting the dragon."
"Only eleven times?"
The tender laughed again.
"Okay," Rikard said, "I'll take the chance. But I'd like some lunch first. Do you make sandwiches?"
"Sure do. What do you want?"
Rikard told him, then thought of something else.
"If Boss Bedik won't help me," he said, "I've been told to try the Troishia."
"Boy, does somebody want you dead?"
"I don't think so. I know it's supposed to be a rough place, but they're also supposed to have a lot of information there."
"Sure they do. Nothing happens in the city they don't hear about at the Troishia eventually. But kid, listen, if you think you've been having trouble on the streets, you have no idea what it would be like for you in the Troishia. I've been there a couple of times myself, and I know. It's rough. This city's just one jumble of special conventions, but the ones in the Troishia are different, more special, and enforced to the limit. And they decide what that limit is."
"Just what is the Troishla?"
"A real joint." The tender gave Rikard his sandwich. "Bar, restaurant, shows downstairs. Sex, drugs, other stuff upstairs. Part of it is a hotel. There are offices there, some club rooms. Lots of stuff. It's a big place. And don't let anybody take you into the cellars. People don't come back from there."
"I saw an ad for it downtown."
"Yeah, sure. They've got some good shows there. Great food. The whiskey is the best. If you stay out where casual drop-ins come, you'll have no trouble—no more than on any city street at night. But if you want information, you'll have to go into one of the main rooms, and kid, that's dangerous."
"Let's hope Bedik will tell me what I want to know."
"Yeah, lets."
7
There was no way he could miss the domes when he got to them two hours later. They were right at the north edge of the city, huge, stark hemispheres, separated from the other buildings on either side, and the forests just north of them, by concrete aprons and trimmed lawns. They were window-less, but each had a door, above which was a number. He found number fourteen and went in. Beyond the front entrance was a pleasant lobby, with three people working at desks at the far end.
Rikard had never seen so many people employed in menial tasks. It reflected a level of technology far below that of the average Federal world. The station in orbit had been perfectly up to date. The port of the city was fully functional, if somewhat outmoded. It was almost as if someone were deliberately keeping the city backward.
He approached the three receptionists.
One of them, the man, looked up inquiringly. "How may I help you?" he asked. His tone was perfectly polite, but there was a knife scar that ran from his temple, through his right eye, down past his nose, across the comer of his mouth, and over his chin.
"I would like to see Boss Bedik," Rikard said. He'd seen no other disfigured people in the city.
"May I inquire as to your business?" The man's voice was smooth, his intonation bland. He had gone to the trouble, Rikard saw, to have his right eye replaced.
"I'm trying to locate someone who disappeared here about eleve
n years ago. I was told that Boss Bedik might have known him, or have known of him, or might know somebody else who could help me."
"I see." The man looked down at his console, shuffled his papers, then looked up again. "The Boss is busy."
"I won't take much of his time, only five minutes or so. It's a long walk from the port."
The man's eyes held Rikard's for a long moment. The color of the right one did not quite match the color of the left. "The Boss is busy."
"All right then, I can come back another time. May I make an appointment?"
"I don't handle that." He pointed to the woman to his left.
Rikard went over to her. She looked up at him pleasantly. "I'd like to make an appointment," he said.
"Who with, please?"
"With Boss Bedik."
"On what business?"
Rikard explained again, though he was sure she must have overheard him talking to the man.
"The Boss is a very busy man," she said. "I'm sure you'll understand that he doesn't have the time to see everyone who wants a favor from him, and many people want favors from the Boss."
"I just want to ask him—"
"So do a lot of other people, all kinds of things. I'm sorry, I can't make the appointment."
"Not even for five minutes?"
"I'm sorry."
Rikard looked helplessly at the other two receptionists. The man's face was expressionless. The other woman was smiling pleasantly.
The eyes of all three were laughing at him. They were playing a game with him, and he didn't know the rules. He kept his own face bland as he turned away and left the dome.
They had, he realized, never intended to let a mere tourist see the Boss.
He walked away from the domes until he saw a sign which he now knew signified a tavern. He entered the courtyard. The plants were more profuse here than usual, and many were in bloom. There were four other businesses besides the tavern.
