[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Some of Miss Schlupe's assistants arrived with crates of assorted sandwiches and a keg of cider. Miss Schlupe returned and went about offering food to everyone, even the gesardl representatives. "We might as well eat the surplus before it gets stale," she said.

  Finally she offered Malina a sandwich. Malina said, "I couldn't - " Miss Schlupe placed it on her lap. "Eat it. You can't help matters by starving yourself."

  Malina looked down at the sandwich. Something was written on the wrapper. She recognized Miss Schlupe's scrawl and moved the sandwich so that the writing caught the light.

  The message was brief. "I hid them. Eat this."

  Revelation came instantly. Miss Schlupe, so admirably placed to find out everything that went on at the mart, probably knew about the tragedy as soon as the gesardl did. She somehow had smuggled the children from their beds and out of the Prime Common and hidden them. Ever since, under the suspicious eyes of the gesardl secretaries, she'd been trying to find an absolutely safe way to tell Malina what had happened.

  Malina managed a smile. From across the room, Miss Schlupe smiled back. And Malina solemnly ate all of her sandwich, including the part of the wrapper that contained the message.

  While she did so, she watched Miss Schlupe. Now it was apparent to her that the peppery old lady was enjoying this immensely, with all of the delight of one who holds nothing but trump cards when no one else knows what the game is.

  Malina got to her feet. As long as her children were safe, she thought she could play a hand of her own in Miss Schlupe's game. She marched over to the gesardl delegation and, speaking large-talk, invited Moluklo to interpret for her.

  "About this treaty between the gesardl and the Monturan natives," she said. "Where is it?"

  Moluklo translated. The only response was what she assumed were bewildered looks.

  "I want to see a copy of that treaty," Malina said. "I also want a full explanation of the legalities by which the gesardl has bound everyone at the mart to a treaty that no one has seen. Is that clear?"

  Obviously it was not. Malina continued, "About this alleged murder. Gula Schlu obtained permission from the gesardl for my children to play in the park. The gesardl assured her that they would not be in danger. The gesardl would not have given that permission and that assurance without consulting the natives. Therefore I would like a full explanation of this grave offense the natives have committed by permitting their scientists to use the park while my children were there."

  By the time Moluklo finished his translation, the members of the delegation were not even breathing perceptibly.

  "I want to know what relief the treaty provides for injuries the natives inflict on aliens," Malina went on. "Because of that permission, and that assurance, we were entitled to assume that there would be no natives in the park. But natives were illegally present, and the resultant damage to the unshaped personalities of my children is beyond calculation. I intend to demand the maximum in damages that the treaty permits, and I'm also demanding severe punishment for the natives responsible."

  Moluklo began his translation.

  Rok Wllon hissed, "Surely you don't think the natives will believe that!"

  "Perhaps not," Malina said. "But there's enough substance in it to make them think very seriously. By the time they've framed a reply, I'll have something else for them to think about."

  14

  Again Malina awoke to a dreary morning and aching emptiness.

  Her children were safe, but they would be lonely and frightened, and she couldn't risk going to them as long as the gesardl secretaries followed her everywhere.

  At least she knew where they were and how they got there. Miss Schlupe had discovered a bath lounge on an underground level of their tower. It contained accommodations for every conceivable life form, with features ranging from deep pools to ceiling and floor sprays, and from chilling water to steam rooms. Malina and Miss Schlupe shared one of the steam rooms, and since this form of relaxation held no appeal for the gesardl secretaries following them, they had the room to themselves. Under the cover of hissing steam, Miss Schlupe whispered what had happened.

  "I didn't dare say anything or even be seen passing you a note," Miss Schlupe said. "We aren't even safe speaking English - they may have the entire mart bugged, and one member of the gesardl is a klo. I'm betting the kloatraz can figure out any language, and if they could slip it a recording of me telling you in English where the children are, that'd be the end of it."

  She had smuggled the children from the Prime Common by the simple expedient of dispatching all the assistants in the room on errands. The children had cooperated beautifully. She told them, "Come quickly — we've got to hide you." And they went.

  They knew, Malina thought. Your children murdered a native.

  Miss Schlupe had taken them by transmitter from the Prime Common to the lower level where her storerooms were located. The one moment of risk was when they stepped out of the transmitter there; but that level was infrequently used, and they met no on~ From her storerooms she took them through her own transmitter to her office in the column and hid them inside the large hassock she used for a chair.

  Malina exclaimed, "You mean - all the time I was sitting there - "

  "Right. That's why I had you sit there. The dears performed perfectly."

  She considered the children safe enough for the present. The gesardl had searched the entire column - it thought - and was convinced they weren't there. Since Miss Schlupe no longer had her transmitters, the only way into the column was by way of the door from the arena, and gesardl secretaries were watching that in case the children approached it looking for food.

  "As long as they think the children aren't there and can't get in without being seen, they aren't likely to search the place again. It's a long climb to the top."

  The children were comfortably established on the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth levels, where someone had constructed a three-level apartment. They had plenty of food, they were comfortable, and they sent their mother their love. Miss Schlupe already had taken them some clothing and a package of books, gathered up while Malina had been sleeping off her sedative. She had an excuse for daily visits to the column because of the office work involved in liquidating her business.

  Three of her assistants were living on the lower levels, supposedly to guard her property until liquidation was completed. They didn't know the children were in the column, but they had strict orders not to admit anyone without Miss Schlupe's permission.

  "I doubt that they could keep the gesardl out," Miss Schlupe said, "but at least no one will wander in and find the children by accident. We haven't solved anything, of course. With the column being watched, it'll be awfully tough getting them out. And if we get them out, then we'll have the problem of finding another hiding place."

  Malina did not need to be told that the only permanent solution was to spirit them away from the world of Montura.

  "Mr. Darzek will think of something," Miss Schlupe had said confidently.

  Now, as Malina stepped around her children's abandoned pallets to open her bedroom door, she heard that gentleman's voice. He and Miss Schlupe were in the lounge, quietly talking in English. Malina was curious enough about this miracle worker to eavesdrop.

  "When I got up, I tripped over URSDwad," Darzek said, "He jumped up wanting to know if it was his watch. We were in space too long. Does this world have anything resembling a bath and breakfast?"

  A gesardl secretary, again posted outside Malina's bedroom door, was eying her suspiciously. Leaving the door open, she returned to her pallet. She heard Miss Schlupe tell Darzek about the bath lounge and offer him a choice of canned goods from Malina's stock or a stale submarine sandwich. He said he'd have the bath first and hurried away. Malina dozed off again while trying to devise a rescue: arena column to shuttle ship to one of E-Wusk's freighters.

  Their voices awakened her. Darzek had returned and evidently was ea
ting a sandwich while studying the view from the curving lounge windows. "It's a sick-looking world," he said. "It needs its face lifted."

  "We've seen sicker," Miss Schlupe said.

  "Looking down on it like this is like seeing it on a viewing screen," .

  Darzek said absently. "I can't remember the last time I looked down on a living world that wasn't about to be murdered."

  "Then what Rok Wllon said is true? You really are going to save the universe?"

  "I don't seem to be doing so well. Someone better do it."

  "Another sandwich?" Miss Schlupe asked. "I've got hundreds left. It's an appalling waste."

  "Can't you freeze them?"

  "Nope. I've got some in cold boxes, which are crude refrigerators, but they have no frozen foods. I wanted to put in a line of ice cream products, but there's no way to make ice cream when there's no ice and no cream, or even milk."

  "Down, Schluppy. We aren't here to Americanize the galaxy. Where's Ceres this morning?"

  "Ceres?"

  "Tragic mother who'd lost her children. Wrong complexion, much too blonde, but she had all the other characteristics."

  "She's sleeping?"

  "What about the children?"

  Miss Schlupe must have made some kind of signal, because he changed the subject instantly. "Schluppy, I never heard of this place until URSDwad brought Rok Wllon's message. What's so special about Montura?"

  "We've been trying to figure that out ever since we arrived. I don't know, except that it's very special as a trading center."

  "Is there some kind of advanced scientific establishment here?" "Not that anyone has ever heard of. According to Supreme, the whole purpose of our mission is to get on the good side of the natives, and until this incident with the children, we didn't know there were any. I still don't know where they keep themselves. The world has no cities or towns, no roads, no engineering works, no nothing. Except for the mart, there's no sign of any kind of habitation anywhere."

  "Then they must live underground," Darzek said.

  Miss Schlupe repeated the word doubtfully. "Underground?"

  "This terrain looks similar to what would be called a karst plateau on Earth. It's probably riddled with caverns. That wouldn't make the natives unique, though, or even interesting. Isn't there anyone or anything at the mart that's remarkable?"

  Miss Schlupe was silent for a moment. "There's the kloatraz. It's certainly unusual-looking, but it's only a computer. I've a hunch that it communicates telepathically with the creatures that work for it. Is that remarkable?"

  "Probably not. Anything else?"

  "There are life forms and products that confound the imagination, but that isn't what you mean."

  "Anyone from this galaxy would consider them ordinary," Darzek said. "I'll have a look around."

  "Mr. Darzek - about the children - "

  "Mmm - yes. If we came here to get on the good side of the natives, that wasn't the way to do it. Have you figured out why Supreme recommended this kind of medical specialist? Not even a hint? Strange. It wouldn't be the first time Supreme has produced an enigma, but I've never known it to goof on something it stated so precisely."

  "The goof was Rok Wllon's."

  "It would seem so. At the very least, he should have found a skin specialist with interworld experience. If he thought he had to bring someone from Earth, a veterinarian would have been far better equipped to deal with alien life forms than a physician. I suggest that the Darr family be shipped back to Earth. The sooner accomplished - "

  "But the children!"

  "I'll think about it," Darzek said.

  Miss Schlupe told him about Arluklo, in case he wanted an interpreter, and walked to the transmitter with him.

  Malina got out of bed and went to the lounge windows for her own view of what Darzek had called a sick-looking world. Miss Schlupe returned in a thoughtful mood.

  "He's aged terribly," she said. "He must have had horrible experiences."

  Malina made no comment. A miracle worker whose reaction to a problem was to send it home did not inspire confidence. She was evolving a plan of her own, and as soon as she had munched one of the stale sandwiches she went down to the bath lounge with two of the secretaries trailing after her and left them waiting outside while she had another steam bath. She intended to repeat the performance six or eight or ten times a day. Eventually they would become suspicious about all this steam bathing, especially if they investigated and found she'd never been in the lounge until her children disappeared. It would focus their attention on an area far from the real hiding place.

  From the bath lounge she went to the Kloa Common. She was not particularly surprised to find Jan Darzek there, but what he was doing surprised her. He had abstracted a stool from one of the cubicles, and he sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the kloatraz. The flickering illumination dramatically highlighted his unhealthy pallor and reinforced her conclusion that he was not a well man. He did not notice her, and she did not speak to him.

  She had asked the gesardl secretaries for a copy of the treaty between the gesardl and the natives. One had been produced for her, and Arluklo had been designated to translate it for her. He escorted her to his cubicle and began to read from a formidably abstruse legal document. She understood none of it.

  After a time she stopped him. "Never mind that," she said. "All I want to know right now is what it says about my children."

  For the first time in her contacts with Arluklo, she found the klo speechless.

  "Where does it mention children?" she asked. ”It doesn't mention children," Arluklo said.

  "Then of course it doesn't apply to my children. Please inform the gesardl of that and ask it for a legal justification of this persecution it's engaged in."

  She took her leave with what she hoped was an impression of smiling innocence. Jan Darzek was still perched on his stool, hypnotically concentrating on the kloatraz, and again she walked past him without speaking. Outside the common, she resolutely turned her back on the arena. If she went near the central column, the temptation to look up, to count the windows - eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth levels, Miss Schlupe had said - would have been overwhelming. Instead, with the gesardl secretaries still solemnly marching after - her, she returned to the bath lounge and took another steam bath.

  She then went back to the Prime Common to wait for Miss Schlupe, who was meeting with the gesardl to discuss the uproar that still raged in the wake of her closing the refreshment stand. E-Wusk sat in his private cubicle looking forlorn - a trader forbidden to trade. A few of his assistants were lounging about in a desultory manner.

  Malina joined him and patiently listened to his inventory of complaints. She wondered if, like the mythical songbird forbidden to sing, a trader forbidden to trade would waste away and die.

  Miss Schlupe burst from the transmitter. She called excitedly, "I've seen a native! I actually saw one! There was a native at the gesardl meeting!"

  They gathered about her excitedly - Malina, E-Wusk, and several of the assistants. The ubiquitous gesardl secretaries stood looking on blankly.

  "Now I understand why Supreme thought the natives needed a dermatologist," Miss Schlupe said. "They wear - at least, this one wore heavy protective clothing and a thick, tinted light shield. He looked like a monster from the nether regions. No wonder the children threw stones. If I'd met a creature like that in the woods, I'd have thrown something myself."

  Malina said thoughtfully, "What we have to find out is why they wear protective clothing and a thick tinted light shield."

  "What we have to find out," Jan Darzek's voice said, "is how a stone thrown by a child could cause the death of a creature wearing heavy protective clothing and a thick tinted light shield."

  They all turned and stared. None of them had seen him come in. "How much of the head did the light shield cover?" Darzek asked. "In terms of a human, the area from the forehead to the nose,
at least," Miss Schlupe said. "And it curved around past where a human's ears would be."

  "Then the stone must have struck it on top of the head or in the back. Describe this protective clothing."

  "It was white. It seemed thick. At least, it hung loosely and in folds, as though the suit were five sizes too large."

  "Did it cover the head?"

  "It covered everything except an opening for the eyes, and the light shield covered that."

  "One would think it would give the head some protection. Has anyone seen this dead native? Is he lying in state somewhere?"

  No one knew.

  "As for why they wear protective clothing and a light shield," Darzek went on, "they live underground. Obviously they've adapted to an underground existence, or else they never lived on the surface. Light probably is painful to them."