by Allen Wold
They had lunch, then went to see the man himself. His shop was easy enough to find, and well stocked. There were three clerks and a constant stream of customers. On Kohltri, more than on most worlds, a hardware store was an important business.
None of the three clerks was old enough to be Arshaud, so they asked one of them where the boss was. The clerk directed them to a back room. There was a set of heavy shelves loaded with tools against the inside wall and just beyond it an ancient desk where they found an old man going over stacks of invoices. He looked up as they entered, a bland smile on his face.
"Aben Arshaud?" Darcy asked.
"I am," the old man answered. Some animation came into his expression as he looked at her.
"We've been told," Darcy went on, "that you once knew a man named Arin Braeth."
"Arin Braeth? Sure, I knew him. I knew him way back when. We went out a couple of times together. He was one hotshot kid, he was. Why, he was just an infant when we first met, and he was already my match in just about everything except cold-bloodedness. Couldn't say we were friends, exactly. He didn't approve of me. No, indeed. Said I hurt too many people. But what the hell, he was no innocent himself. Just had a different style, that's all. Why, I'd been out dashing around for a hundred years before he'd had his first adventure. If he'd kept on, he'd have gotten hardened too, but no, he pulls a goody and marries a Lady and drops out. Doggone, I envied him. I never met anybody I liked enough to drop out for."
"Did you know him here on Kohltri?" Darcy asked, seizing a gap in the flow of words.
"Hell, yes, I sure did. Why, he wasn't surfaced three days before he came knocking on my door. Glad to see a familiar face, he said, even mine. Goddamn but it was good to see him again. Always did like him, even if he was a bit prissy. He had that way about him, you know. If you lived through the encounter, you liked him. Yes, sure I knew him here. But that was a long time ago."
"We know he was public for half a year or better," Darcy said, "and then he disappeared. We have reason to believe he's still alive."
"Oh, yes, he is, yes, definitely, no doubt about it, though I haven't seen him since then. Nobody has, as far as I know. Become a hermit he has. Some trouble back then, I don't know exactly what. He was looking for something, and I think he found it, or almost found it, but something happened, I don't know what, and I don't think he ever got his hands on what he came for, but I couldn't say for sure. No, haven't seen him in eleven years or more. Get a note from him now and then, though. He's changed. Whatever went wrong did something to him. But he's still alive. Oh, my, yes, absolutely."
"You know where he is, then?"
"Oh, well, now, I wouldn't want to betray an old friend. Not that he's that old, not yet eighty I'd wager, just a kid yet really. No, I couldn't say anything about that."
"We don't mean—"
Rikard put his hand on Darcy's arm and stopped her. "We appreciate your position," he said, "and we thank you for your confidence."
"Well, now, don't rush off."
"I'm sorry, we have lots of other business. Thank you again." And with Darcy in tow, he left the shop.
"Rikard," Darcy said when they were back on the street, "where are you going? You could have leaned on him a little bit and he'd have talked."
"I don't think so. He's not as senile as he seems to be. Let it sit a couple of days, then we'll visit him again."
"Whatever you say," she muttered. But she smiled as if she approved of his taking command.
7
They went back two days later. Aben Arshaud was out in his shop, tending a counter. He raised his eyebrows when he saw them come in. He finished with his customer and turned to them.
"I thought you'd come back," he said. "Especially after I found out who you were. Msr. Glemtide, I've heard of you. You're making quite a reputation for yourself. And Msr. Braeth, let me look at you. Arin told me he had a family, but I never thought I'd meet any of them. Yep, you're his son all right. Same eyes. Same set to the mouth. Can't mistake it. It's a habit of his, couldn't be picked up by an impostor. You'd have to live with him from birth."
"I was hoping," Rikard said, "that once you found out who I was, you'd be a little more willing to talk to me."
"But why didn't you tell me who you were two days ago?"
"Would you have believed me then? Nobody else has."
"No, I guess not, and I would have been angry at the supposed trick and I wouldn't have taken the time to look at you closely and I would have kicked you out or worse. He and I were never really friends, but we knew each other, and I wasn't about to give away any secrets."
"Why did my father disappear?"
"I don't really know. He never told me what he was looking for, but one day he said he'd found it, and he was going out with a couple of people to get it. He never came back. But I got a letter. He said only that something had gone desperately wrong, and he didn't dare show his face. Well, whatever happened, it had to be bad for him to react like that. Your father's no coward, not any way."
"Thank you, that's good to know. And you say you hear from him every now and then?"
"I do. But he's changed, I can't quite put my finger on it. There are some bad things out there beyond the city. Whatever he ran into could have been pretty awful. But he's not the same man he used to be. Be ready for that."
"All right, I will. Then you'll tell me where he is?"
"Yes, I will. I don't think you mean him any harm. If you did, you'd not get a hint. But you're like your father in many ways. I can tell even from these two short visits. We weren't what you'd call friends. He never approved of my running guns and explosives. I used to be a pretty nasty character, you know, but your father never was. Hard, yes, and cruel sometimes, and certainly ruthless, but never mean or nasty. He just wasn't that kind. So when you went off without leaning on me and came back figuring I'd have heard who you were, well, that's just like him."
"Where is he?" Rikard asked softly. He felt Darcy's hand squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.
"Now, I've never been to his place. He asked me not to come. So I can't give you precise directions, but if you can't find it the first time, come back and I'll try again."
"Where is he?" Rikard asked again.
"Sorry," the old man said. "I ramble on." And he told them.
Part Six
1
The next morning, with Darcy's help and advice, Rikard found somebody who would rent him a car. Darcy had suggested a floater rather than a wheeled vehicle, since he would be going out of town quite a way and there might not be roads that far out.
The daily rental was steep, and before he could take the car he had to put down a deposit equal to the floater's replacement value, which on Kohltri was almost as much as a standard fare to the next world. The rental charges would be deducted from that and the rest returned, if and when he brought the car back.
The deposit had taken over half of Rikard's reserve money, but Darcy had a scheme which she thought would make them a few bills. Because of that, and because she didn't want to intrude on Rikard's reunion with his father, she had decided not to accompany him. So he drove through town alone.
The floater was an old one, and the controls were unfamiliar to him. He drove carefully and had almost reached the southern edge of the city before he felt comfortable with the vehicle.
Aben Arshaud had given quite explicit directions, despite his protestation of never having been to Ann's hideout himself. And he had left Rikard with the feeling that while everything he had said about his father had been true, it hadn't been the whole story.
Rikard had to let it go at that. He would find out everything firsthand from his father when he got to him.
The south side of the city did not end as abruptly as it did on the north and west. There was a transition area of warehouses, then he passed through an extended region of farms and processing plants.
Agriculture was as backward on Kohltri as everything else. The crops were actually gro
wn on the ground, protected only by hothouse shields covering an area almost as big as the rest of the city. Rikard didn't know much about farming, but he felt sure they could be getting no more than four crops a year.
The smooth crystal roof of the farms was interrupted only occasionally by the square shape of a processing plant. Less frequent were the mining domes, with their concrete aprons and lawns. Rikard saw no human workers in the fields, but the equipment he did see was archaic.
The road ran south, fairly straight and level, past the farms and into the prairie-veld beyond. There were only a few scattered trees here, unlike the forests on the north where Boss Bedik had his offices, or on the west where the Troishla was located. There were even occasional isolated houses, all well fortified. Life in the country was no easier than in the city.
After driving for about an hour, he saw what looked like a village up ahead. He slowed when he came to it. Unlike in the city, the buildings here were well separated. There was no other street parallel to the road he was on, and only three short cross streets. He drove through at a moderate pace.
When he came to the other side, four people, all carrying drawn guns, stepped out from behind the last building and waved at him to stop. Arshaud hadn't warned him of this.
Rikard stopped the floater but didn't turn off the engine or get out. One of the four people, a man, came up to the window on his side. A woman went up to the other window. The other two, another man and woman, stayed in front of the car.
"Toll," the man said.
"I don't understand," Rikard answered.
"You came through Logarth. You've gotta pay toll."
"How much?"
"Four hundred."
"What if I can't pay that much?"
"We take the car," the man said matter-of-factly.
"I don't have cash. Will you take merchandise?"
"If it's worth four hundred. Whatcha got?"
"Body armor."
"Way out here? What for?"
"I have no idea. I was just told to take it out to the first road going east after here, and somebody would meet me."
"Dumb idea. Okay, let's see what you got."
"It's in the trunk. I can't open it from inside."
"Well, get out and show us."
Rikard got out of the car and went around to the back. He grabbed his gun, and time slowed down.
Through the concentric circles in his eyes he could see the "toll takers'" guns come up ever so slowly. He fired at the near man first and, as his target jerked backward with a huge hole in his chest, he fired at the woman on the other side. He saw her head explode as he aimed and fired at the remaining man in front of the car, felt a bullet crack past his own head, and fired at the other woman, whose left shoulder came away. Then the first body hit the ground.
He jumped over the near man, got in the floater, dropped the gun onto the seat beside him, and hit the accelerator. When the village was out of sight behind him, he pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the car, and sat, shaking, for a while.
His reaction, he realized, was more because of the narrowness of his escape than from the fact that he had killed four more people. He knew they would have killed him for his car once they had found he couldn't actually pay the "toll."
It was a neat setup. And it had been too close a thing. One bullet had nearly hit him. When he got back to the city, he would mention this little incident to Arshaud. He hoped that the old pirate had a good explanation for failing to warn him of the trap.
When his hands were steady again, he reloaded his gun and put it back in its holster. He had almost taken the holster off when he'd gotten in the car back at the rental place, in order to sit more comfortably. If he had, he would be dead now. Never take it off, he told himself over and over, never take it off. The technology of the gun had gotten him through this trap, but he'd had more than a little luck. He started the car again and drove on.
A few kilometers farther on the road entered some low hills. He came to a dirt track leading east, as Arshaud had said he would, and took it.
A thin forest rose up around him as he drove on: widely spaced trees, tall and slender, with few leaves. The ground was hilly and the track uneven, but the floater, riding thirty centimeters above the surface, had no difficulty negotiating it. After a while the ground became rocky, and the floater began lurching. Rikard elevated it to seventy centimeters and drove on.
A flash off to his right attracted his attention. Half a kilometer away, through the trees, he saw the coiling, glowing, yellow and orange transparency of a dragon. Rikard tensed as he drove on, but the creature did not seem to notice him.
A little later the road dippeddown into a broad river valley. Near the water he came upon the first of the ruins, mostly tans and light browns in color, though a few were ocher. There weren't many, and most were badly broken, but by the hexagonal outlines of their foundations he knew they were of Belshpaer origin. He made a mental note to ask Darcy more about these long-vanished people when he got back.
He passed slowly among the jumbled and weathered plasticlike material of the ruins, some of them still with fragments of upper floors, until he came to the riverbank, where he turned south again. Some of the buildings here were more complete, and one of them was where his father was supposed to be living.
The thought made his heart hammer. His emotions were mixed about this meeting, and after the frustrations of the last two years, he had difficulty believing he would really find him. He wondered what he would look like, whether his father would remember him. Would his father even care?
He came to a building, of which only the bottom story was still standing. It had obviously been patched up. He stopped the floater and got out.
It was quiet. Nobody came to greet him. Nobody shot at him. The crude repairs to the building indicated that somebody lived here. Whether his father or somebody else, the resident was either away, asleep, or hiding.
"Is anybody home?" Rikard called. There was no answer. He went to the makeshift door of the ruin and knocked. There was no response. He pulled it open.
There was a room with a rough bed in one corner, a stove in another, and another door on one of the inside walls. Odds and ends of junk lay everywhere, including an unusual pistol. It had a burned grip, a bulbous frame, something like an automatic slide that projected over the back, and a flaring barrel with what looked like a spark coil in the middle Either the person who lived here had another gun or nobody ever came around
This wasn't like his father at all, especially leaving a weapon out in the open like that Whatever had happened eleven years ago must have been really bad.
The room had a strong lived-in smell. His father couldn't be far away. Rikard called out again, not too loudly, just in case he was near. There was still no answer. He opened the inner door and in the hexagonal room beyond saw stacks of dried animal skins.
He couldn't imagine what anybody would want with animal skins. Artificial leather and fur lasted longer, were better looking, and felt better to the touch. Maybe his father ate what he caught, but still, why save the skins?
Rikard went back outside to his car. It would be better to wait out here in plain view than inside where he might be assumed to be trespassing. He was getting a growing feeling that the person who lived here might not be his father after all. Everything about this place felt too different, even accounting for thirteen years.
He didn't have to wait long. The sound of uncertain footsteps came from behind a pile of rubble near the river. Then a face showed itself over a low wall.
"Got nothing worth stealing," the man said. He was more than a century old, dirty, hairy, and twitchy. It wasn't his father.
"I know that," Rikard said. He kept his hand lightly on the butt of his gun. "I didn't come here to steal."
"Well, in that case," the hermit said, coming into full view, "welcome. Don't get many visitors."
"Thank you." Now Rikard knew what some of the skins were used f
or. The hermit was wearing them. "I'm looking for Arin Braeth."
The strange old man, grinning broadly, tottered toward him. "You've found him," he said. "I'm Arin Braeth."
2
Rikard was surprised at the assertion and started to deny it. But the old hermit's behavior indicated an unsettled mind. Rikard didn't know what would happen if he called the old man a liar.
"I thought Arin Braeth was taller," he said instead.
"Taller, no, I'm not taller. Always been this height. You sure you want Arin Braeth?"
"I thought I did, but he was a taller man." He was intensely disappointed. If this was who Arshaud had been corresponding with for the last eleven years, then his father might be dead after all.
"No, no," the hermit said, "I'm not taller. Now, my partner, he was taller, tall as you are. Handsome devil too."
"I see. Ah, how did you come here, Arin Braeth?"
The hermit was far older than his years. He smiled, evidently pleased that Rikard had accepted his identity.
"Well, that's quite an interesting story," he said. "Old Sed Blakely and I were partners."
"I see. Who is Sed Blakely?"
"Like I told you, he was my partner. Tall fellow. Pretty clever too. He cheated me."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Where did it happen?"
"Beyond the tathas place." His expression became grim and morose. "And now I'm trapped. Trapped forever."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"You don't know Sed Blakely. He wanted it all. So he had me go in past the creepies, hand him out the stuff, and then, instead of helping me get out, he went off and left me."
"That was a terrible thing to do."
"Damn right. And it's true too."
"I believe it," Rikard said, though the hermit's story didn't make any sense.
"You'd better. Want to see my skins?"
