"The Hymantel, you mean? It's tough and water-resistant, and it insulates against heat and cold. Yes, people wanted to make clothes out of them, so they used to hunt Hymenopts. At least, they tried to. I never saw anybody wearing a Hymantel. But did you fight one?"
"Yes. I had to, it was part of the course."
"And how did it go?"
"Oh, I beat it. Rather easily, as a matter of fact. They are not nearly as formidable as some people will tell you."
Lightning reactions, acute vision, impenetrable hide, poison sting.
"A real Hymenopt, like Kallik there? Or a simulation?"
"A simulation. We were told that all living Hymenopts are out in the Zardalu Communion. I was surprised to see that you have one as a crew member."
"A slave, you mean." Nenda grunted. "Maybe sometime you'd like to try a tussle with Kallik."
"I might. But I don't think that would be nearly as much fun as one with you."
The terrible thing was, Louis suspected that she was right. He looked at the way she was sitting, sprawled back provocatively with one knee raised high and her bare foot on the seat of the chair. Her calf and thigh had the plump smooth firmness of youth. The big blue eyes and curls of golden hair suggested an innocence quite alien to Louis. He had the feeling that it was equally alien to Sinara.
He stood up abruptly. "We're through the node, and that's our destination neutron star showin' on the screen. I better go to the navigation deck an' check the planetary patterns."
His departure was only partially a pretext. Somebody on the ship ought to be taking practical survival steps, even if they had no formal training. The Have-It-All had the best computer that you could buy in the Orion Arm, but past a certain point an organic intelligence had to take over. The ship's detection system had already performed the first checks needed on entering a new stellar system. It had asked and answered the question, were there warning beacons or other evidence that a planetary approach would be regarded as hostile?
Of course there was always the danger that such signals might be unrecognizably different between Orion Arm and Sag Arm civilizations, but thousands of years of trade by the Chism Polyphemes encouraged the idea that the Have-It-All's signal beacon and message of friendly intent would be familiar to at least one of the planetary receivers.
Louis seated himself at the navigation console. Without a word being spoken, Kallik had trotted along behind and now crouched in the smaller seat at his side. She could react ten times as fast as he could, and in an emergency it was understood that she would take action on her own initiative.
Without looking at her, Nenda said, "So far, so good."
"I concur." Kallik's double ring of bright black eyes had scanned every display around the cabin walls. "The transition went as planned."
"Six planets. That's a hell of a lot for a neutron star."
"It is. But with respect, there is only one of interest. Five lack atmospheres, and they do not emanate structured radiation patterns consistent with the presence of intelligence."
Nenda stared at the fierce point of violet-blue that formed the system's primary. Most of the emitted energy was X-rays and hard ultraviolet, invisible to human eyes. And deadly.
"Think we'll be able to live on the sixth one? There's enough hot stuff coming out of that star to fry us."
"The atmosphere of the planet is breathable. The ionization at its outer edges will provide some protection, but special clothing and masking will be needed if we hope to operate down on the surface."
"Before we get to that, let's find out if there's anybody down there we'll be able to talk to."
"With respect, do you now wish me to seek to establish communication?"
"Better you than me. I don't know a word of Polypheme gargle."
"I will be honored. My feeling is that the unguarded nature of the signals coming from the planet implies pacific intent on their part."
"Go to it, then, see if you can raise anybody. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Nenda left as Kallik opened a communications channel. He headed not back to the main cabin, but farther forward toward the Have-It-All's weapons control center.
Pacific intent was all very well. In Nenda's experience, once you learned to fake that you had it made.
* * *
The Have-It-All's space-to-surface pinnace held two humans comfortably and four at a pinch. Nenda had given the matter a good deal of thought before he made his decision.
"Look." He was explaining to Atvar H'sial. "She's the most dangerous sort of incompetent you can get. Completely wet behind the ears, but doesn't know it. If she's ever to learn what life is really like, better for her to do it here and now, where all the signs are that it will be pretty safe, rather than trying to learn when we are already in a bad fix. And it makes sense to use humans because that's who the Polypheme we'll be meeting is used to. You and Archimedes would put him right off. Not only that, you'd both have trouble fitting into the pinnace."
The Cecropian did not seem enthusiastic, but at least she didn't give Nenda a hard time. To lie using pheromones needed more skill than he possessed, and in this case he was speaking the exact truth and Atvar H'sial knew it.
The planet that the pinnace was drifting down to had an atmospheric haze that concealed detail. Only when they were below two thousand meters could Louis Nenda and Sinara Bellstock make out the rough terrain of jagged rocks and, lower still, mounds of purple and gray plant life. The spaceport was little more than a long cleared area, next to four low buildings with beyond them a great body of dark water.
"It doesn't look much like Pleasureworld to me." Sinara was staring out of the forward port with the enormous curiosity of one who had never visited worlds beyond her native regions of the Fourth Alliance. "Are you sure your Hymenopt understood what they were saying and translated it right?"
"Quite sure." Nenda brought the pinnace in close to the line of buildings at the end of the landing area. "Kallik heard it in Polypheme talk. I heard it myself in a language of the Zardalu Communion, once they found somebody down here who'd traded in the Orion Arm."
"Pleasureworld. That name is ridiculous." Sinara was wearing a heavy leaded oversuit and hat, opaque to both ultraviolet and X-rays. She wore dark goggles, and all exposed skin was coated with a thick yellow cream. She looked grotesquely unattractive. Nenda regarded it as protective garb in more than one sense of the word.
"The name isn't ridiculous at all—if you happen to be a Chism Polypheme or cater to them. There's a huge colony of Polyphemes here, according to Kallik, even though they are not native to Pleasureworld."
"Where are they native to?"
"A Polypheme never tells. But they're great travellers, and one of them here says he's totally fluent in human universal. In a few minutes we'll find out if he's telling the truth."
"If they're not born here, why do they come to such an awful place?"
"For the radiation. That's why At and I picked a neutron star as target. The UV intensity on the surface of this planet is a hundred times what our eyes and skin can stand, but the Polyphemes love it. If you went for a walk by the water's edge—which I don't recommend—you'd find hundreds of them out there, sunning themselves. Of course, it makes them drunk."
"Doesn't the radiation hurt them?"
"That's a matter of opinion. Does alcohol harm a human?" Nenda opened the hatch of the pinnace. Reflected radiation poured in and the air took on a smell of ozone, as though a continuing electrical discharge was going on. "We have to go outside, but we won't be there for long. Kallik has arranged for our contact to meet us in a shielded setting. Come on, let's get this over as quick as we can. Even with protection, enough radiation gets through to give you a burn in a few minutes."
Sinara took a quick look around as she moved between pinnace and building. Close up, the plants between the buildings wore lethal-looking spines. The flowers at their tips were gray to human eyes, but in the hard ultraviolet region where the native pollinators
of Pleasureworld lived, those flowers must glow and dazzle in a whole spectrum of colors.
She followed Nenda through a stone doorway and tunnel, and found herself after a few more paces in a chamber so dark that she was forced to remove her goggles to see anything at all. As her eyes adjusted, she found herself facing a green thing—alien? plant? animal?—perched on a slab of stone and balancing itself on a long curled tail.
The creature weaved slightly. It said in a croaking growl, "Here at last. What kept you? You brought me in out of a good hot sun-wallow, so this had better be good."
"We'll make it worth your while." If Nenda found the alien at all peculiar, he didn't show it. "I am Louis Nenda, and this is Sinara Bellstock. We are both from the Orion Arm."
"I can see that." The blubbery lips of a broad green mouth turned down in a scowl. "Humans, eh? My name in your talk is Claudius. I'm a Master Pilot, and I've travelled all the Orion Arm. Make it worth my while, you say? How? Backward, primitive place. Nothing there worth having."
"I think I can change your mind about that. I've worked with a Chism Polypheme before. Do you know Dulcimer? He's a Master Pilot, too, and he can vouch for us."
"I know Dulcimer. Master Pilot, he calls himself? Pah! Dulcimer is a hopeless amateur. Do you both know Dulcimer?"
Sinara shook her head, then, not sure that the gesture would be understood, said, "I don't know him."
"Lucky you." Claudius sniffed and bobbed up and down on his thick tail. The alien was a three-meter helical cylinder, an upright corkscrew of smooth muscle covered with rubbery green skin and with a head as wide as his body. One huge eye, bulging and shifty, peered out from under the wrinkled brow. The slate-gray organ was almost half as wide as Claudius's head. The mouth beneath it was wide and seemed to be fixed in a permanent sneer. Between the mouth and the big eye, a tiny gold-rimmed scanning eye, no bigger than a pea, continuously moved across the scene.
The midsection of Claudius was hidden by an orange garment, tight-fitting, from which protruded five three-fingered limbs, all on the same side of the flexible body.
Claudius tightened the angle of his spiral, so that his head moved down to be level with Louis Nenda's. "Tell me why you're here. Better make it quick, and make it good. Or I'll be gone. It's close to noon, and I'm missing the best part of the day."
"This won't take more than a minute. I know of a world, a world in desperate need of help. It's dead, or it's dying. Whoever goes there will make a tremendous fortune. Either you take what you want because there is nobody to stop you, or the survivors will give you anything if you can save them."
"Ah. Interesting." The secondary eye continued its scanning, but the main optic fixed its attention on Nenda. "Back in the Orion Arm, is it?"
"Until we have a deal, I'm not saying where this world is."
"You can trust me, human."
"I wouldn't question that for a moment."
"Ah. But it's not clear why you need me. Unless this world of yours is hard to get to, and you're looking for the best pilot in the galaxy to take you there? If so, maybe we can do a deal."
"I don't think it's hard to get to." Nenda consulted a list, derived from the ship's data bank of the dead Marglotta. "Do you know of planets called Vintner, Blossom, Riser's Folly, Marglot, Meridian Wall, Desire, and Temblor?"
"Of course I do. I told you, I'm the best, and I've been piloting for ten thousand of your years. I know them all, and the best way to get to them. Near one of those, is it?"
"It might be."
"You're a long way from most. And I'll tell you now, I won't go near some of those places. Ships travel to them, never come back. Which one are you interested in?"
"We need to reach an agreement before I'll tell you more."
"Aye. I can understand that." Claudius stretched upward, uncoiling his tail a fraction. His main eye blinked and rolled toward Sinara, then back to Louis. "I think maybe you and I ought to have a bit of a chat, private-like. Man to man, as you would say."
He nodded toward Sinara and winked.
"Now wait a minute." If the first sight of Claudius had overwhelmed Sinara, she was over that. "I'm our ship's survival specialist."
"No danger here on Pleasureworld. What I have to say is personal."
"I don't care." Sinara put her hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving. Anything you have to say, you say it while I am here."
"Then there will be nothing said. And no deal." Claudius elevated himself to his full height. "That's it for me. I'm off for a wallow-bake."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Louis said, "Sinara, maybe if you—"
"You want me to take orders from that—that overgrown twisted cucumber? I won't."
"If he has something personal that he wants to say—maybe about Dulcimer—"
"Exactly." Claudius was nodding. "It's about Dulcimer. Very private, and very personal." He turned to Sinara. "Now, if you had known Dulcimer, like the captain here . . . then I'd have been free to talk to both of you."
"Five minutes. You have five minutes." Sinara snapped her goggles back in place and turned toward the chamber exit. As she was leaving she added, "And Louis, if you are not outside at our ship in five minutes I will be back in here. It's my job to make sure you are safe."
Claudius watched as she left, then bobbed after her on his corkscrew tail to make sure that she was not hiding outside where she could hear what was said.
Nenda said, "What's this about Dulcimer?"
"Forget Dulcimer. Dulcimer's a half-wit, I don't want to talk about him. Or a possible space deal, either. I've got something else in mind. That's a human female, isn't it, under all those coverings and horrible glop?"
"It is."
"Does it always give you so much trouble?"
"None of your business."
"Ah. Because you see, I was thinking." The broad mouth lost its scowl and took on a knowing leer. "Nobody in this part of the Sag Arm has ever seen a human female. Males, yes, now and again, but not a female—though I must say, even the males didn't look much like you. I wonder if they were genuine. Anyway, there's a freak show here on Pleasureworld, the biggest one within twenty lightyears. It's in a main resort, a town called Carnival not more than a few hours away. Now, if you were to take the female to Carnival, put her in a cage, strip off all those coverings so visitors could get a close look at what's underneath—well, I'm telling you, that would be a star attraction. Let me have her, and we could be partners. We would both do well."
The temptation was enormous. Get rid of Sinara, with all the potential problems she promised, and at the same time cement the deal with Claudius. Atvar H'sial would agree. The others on the Have-It-All would not care. You could explain to Julian Graves, if you ever had another meeting with the Ethical Councilor, by saying—
Louis paused. By saying what? That you had sold Sinara?
He shook his head, and Claudius nodded understandingly. "I see. The old, old story. Mating with her, are you?"
"I am not!"
"But hoping to, eh?" The leer on the wide mouth broadened. "In that case, I'll bide my time. Once you've had her a few times, you'll likely be glad to be rid of her. Then we can come to an arrangement."
"It's a possibility. But let's leave that for the future. One deal at a time. What would you require to come with us, and serve as our pilot?"
"Using whose ship? Yours, or mine?"
"Mine. But does it matter?"
"Could matter a great deal. You don't get ships from the Orion Arm in these parts. Different basic principles, different technology. If we went in my ship, then you could leave yours here—"
"Forget it. It took years to get the Have-It-All the way I like. I'll not have anybody else's paws on it."
"First the female, now the ship. Bit touchy, aren't you? But if it's to be your vessel I'm piloting, that ups my price—and I'll need to have a good look-see before we talk terms. Some of the clapped-out bits of junk that people bring you, and ask you to fly! You'd not believe it."
"The Have-It-All is in perfect shape."
"I'll need to see that for myself. Where's your ship?"
"Synchronous equatorial orbit. We're beaconed, easy to find."
"Then I'll be up to visit. Tomorrow." Claudius nodded, and bobbed on his springy tail toward the exit. "I'm going to catch me a few rays." He sniffed. "Good luck with the female. Whatever good luck might mean in this case, you'd know that better than I would."
As Claudius was leaving he passed Sinara on the way in. She had heard his final remark, and was frowning.
She snapped at Nenda, "Good luck with the female? What did that disgusting object mean by that remark?"
"I have no idea."
But Louis thought of lost opportunities, and wondered how far it was to Carnival.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Claudius.
Louis decided within fifteen minutes of Claudius's arrival aboard the Have-It-All that the Polypheme must be a uniquely competent pilot; otherwise, no one in the universe would employ an individual so rude, insulting, and cantankerous.
Claudius had arrived in his own vessel, a stuttering wreck with failing engines and a body so dilapidated and rusted that Nenda would have hesitated to take it in for salvage had he found the hulk in open space.
The fittings of the Have-It-All were magnificent, gathered with a true collector's eye that Louis Nenda did not realize he possessed. He just knew what he liked, and he had assembled those through the years from all over the Orion Arm. Claudius had no nose to turn up, but his sneering contempt for all that he saw showed on his other features.
"Vegetables? How can anything that calls itself civilized try to make a ship out of bits of vegetation?" Claudius ran the fingers of his five hands over a polished rail of rare Styx blackwood, "borrowed" from a rich vessel of the Fourth Alliance. Nenda, at the Polypheme's request, was giving Claudius a stem-to-stern inspection of the Have-It-All—omitting, of course, the concealed weapons ports and their well-hidden controls.
Claudius went on, "Do you lack metal, so that you must resort to such primitive materials?"
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