by Tubb, E. C.
“Earl,” she whispered, “I don’t know what is wrong. Help me to understand. Why are you so disturbed? So restless? So reluctant to accept things as they are? Here you have all any man could want. You are safe, snug, secure. You have comfort and time in which to indulge your pleasures. If you want you could have me. What more could you hope to gain.”
“A home.”
“Here you have that.”
“No.” He didn’t turn to look at her. “Here I have a gilded cage. A prison. A world which is nothing more than a trap. You say I could have you if I want. What as? A pleasing companion? As the mother of my children? A friend? As something more than a toy?”
“Is that how you see me?”
“You are what you are. As we are all what we are. You seem to be happy here. I am not. I want more than you offer. More than Shandaha seems willing to provide.”
He paused, waiting for her reply, and when none came turned and found he was alone.
Nada had vanished like a puff of wind, as she had when first they had met, gone as if she had never existed. The door had made no sound. He had heard no footsteps. But memories remained together with the hint of perfume in the air.
Sweet memories of warm and yielding flesh, of a mutual melding, a union that had made two people one. Of passion mounting to climax in gushing release. Of the calmness that had followed, the satisfaction, the joy of pleasure shared and consummated. Ghosts that need never return.
A sheet from the bed served as a towel and he dressed, slipping the knife from beneath the pillow and sheathing the sharp steel in his boot, remembering the wound the point had made, how that same wound had vanished.
A memory that was a weakness. Nada a woman to be forgotten. Outside Chagal could be found and plans made. If the doctor refused to cooperate Dumarest would go his own way. Demanding the release Shandaha had promised, and if his freedom threatened his life then it would be in a world he understood and from an enemy he could recognize.
Three paces and he was at the door. It opened at a touch and he stared at the swirling bank of mist outside. He stepped into it—and abruptly was young again.
CHAPTER FIVE
The captain was dying. He had been dying all during their recent voyage growing skeletal thin, coughing clots of stained mucus and gobbets of ravaged tissue from decaying lungs. Spending the last of his strength to land safely then to slump in the big chair in the control cabin to stare with glassy eyes at the screens, dials, glowing signals from the assembled panels. Standing beside him Dumarest heard the liquid rasping, the soft rustle of clothing against plastic, saw the twist of the lips, the movements of the hands and eyes, the ghastly sagging of a face now more than old.
“Steady,” he soothed. “Just rest easy.”
“Rest?” Bazan Deralta heaved in his chair. Coughing he fought the phlegm which clogged his throat. “Earl!”
He positioned the bowl, waited as the captain hawked and spat, clearing his throat, breathing with a harsh, ragged sound. He lifted a protesting hand as Dumarest wiped his lips as he slumped back into his chair.
“No, Earl! That’s enough!”
Ignoring him he dipped the cloth into scented water and laved the captain’s forehead, throat and cheeks. The flesh burned as if with inner fire.
“How is he?” Entering the control room the navigator stared at the slumped figure. “Bad as ever. The poor devil. He hasn’t a hope of making it.”
“We could take him to the infirmary.”
“Sure,” agreed Raistar. He was a tall, aging man with a harassed expression and a curt, blunt manner. “They could take him and check his insides and take samples so as to grow new tissue. When ready they could slice him open and replace his diseased organs and dump him into an amniotic tank. Slowtime would speed the healing. They could fix him up as good as new. It could all be done in a few weeks.” Bitterly he added, “All it takes is money.”
“He has money. He has the ship.”
“And when that’s gone, what then?” The navigator shook his head. “And you’re wrong, Earl. The captain doesn’t own the ship. We all have a share. So we sell it and pay for the treatment. If it works the captain will be alive—but there will be no ship. At his age he hasn’t a chance of getting another command. Not even a berth. He’d be stranded.”
“But alive.”
“Or he doesn’t make it.” Raistar ignored the comment. “And we still have no ship.”
“He’s the captain! You just can’t let him die!”
“We can’t ruin ourselves to give him a chance.” Anger tinged the navigator’s voice. “You think we don’t give a damn? You think we don’t care? But the facts are what they are. Either way we’d be stranded. Can you even begin to imagine what that would be like? No berth, no cash, no future. No escape from this hell-hole of a world. It’s a gamble we can’t win. One we aren’t going to take.”
“But—”
“He’s right, Earl.” Zander had joined them in the control room. “We’ll do the best we can but we can’t take the captain to the infirmary. The authorities will be notified in case of contamination. The ship will be impounded and there will be heavy fees mounting day by day.”
“We can work to pay them.”
“It isn’t as simple as that” said the engineer. “We can’t afford to linger. As soon as Jesso has got us a cargo we’re off.”
“Without a captain?”
“Raistar can handle the ship. He can take care of the formalities. No one will know about the captain. Once in space we’ll do the best we can.”
A best that needn’t be good enough. None of the drugs they had carried had helped and Dumarest felt a chill of foreboding as he again bathed the burning flesh of the emaciated face. One he had come to know and like too well. A face of a man he had come to think of as a father, someone who had helped, who seemed to understand, to be concerned. One who was going to die.
“We all have to go, Earl.” The engineer, watching, had sensed his thoughts, guessed his emotions. His voice was unusually gentle. “Today, tomorrow, someday—it all has to end. Bazan has done more than most. Seen more than most. Now, maybe, it’s time for him to move on.”
“But there must be something we can do.”
“There is and we will. Dorph is arranging it.” Zander turned to lead the way from the control room, the big chair, the wasted figure it contained. “You’re to go with him to collect some medications. Hurry, Earl. He’s waiting for you outside.”
Figona was a harsh world, one of clouded sunlight, tainted air and winds carrying the acrid stench of chemicals. From where he stood at the head of the ramp Dumarest could see ugly glows on the horizon from the smelters turning ore into ingots. Wisps of vapor streamed over the field, catching at his lungs, stinging his eyes. The reason why the port had slammed close behind him. Such an atmosphere had no place within the vessel. Especially when the captain was lying ill and coughing blood.
“Coming?”
Dorph, at the foot of the ramp, was impatient.
Dumarest ignored him, years of association had lessened his importance. Now the steward was just another person in a tiny world. As the engineer was another, the handler a third. Both now busy on their own tasks.
“Earl! Damn it, boy, do you have to stand like some star-struck idiot? You’ve seen ships and landing fields before. They’re all the same. Let’s get on with it.”
Reluctantly he obeyed. It was true he had seen ships and fields before but, always, they held a special magic. The attraction of the unknown. The hint of exotic adventure and unexpected possibilities. The ships scattered around him had roamed the void and touched the planets of stars far distant.
The crews that manned them had trodden on worlds he had yet to see. Many of which he would never have the time to see.
Three years of travel had barely allowed him to touch the fringe of the universe.
“Hurry!” Dorph looked from side to side as Dumarest descended the ramp. A nervous gesture with no appa
rent cause.
“We haven’t much time,” he said as he led the way to the gate. “The captain needs a special drug. Only a few sell it. The man we need won’t entertain visitors after dark.”
Too many words and, like the furtive looks, foreign to his nature. Dorph never volunteered explanations. He liked to remain enigmatic and, in his mind, mysterious. Now he wore a peaked cap fitted with an eye-screen that masked his face. He had insisted that Dumarest wore one like it. An odd request but there was no point in arguing about it.
“Keep moving!” Dorph grunted as a guard blocked their passage. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just take it easy.”
The guard was a big man, armed and irritable. “Just give it a minute. Someone special wants some room.”
Dumarest looked to where the guard was facing. The crowd of men was parting, yielding to clear a passage down which came a tall, thin figure. One seeming to glide over the tamped dirt, resplendent in a robe of vivid scarlet, the breast adorned with a gleaming sigil. Beneath the raised cowl he caught a glimpse of a taut, skull-like visage, the glow of sunken eyes.
“Who—”
“Quiet, boy!” snapped Dorph. “Don’t be curious!” The guard wasn’t so reticent.
“You’ve never seen one before?” His eyes roved over Dumarest. “Well, maybe not, you’re young and there aren’t many in this area. You’re looking at a cyber. An associate of the Cyclan. Closer to the Centre they can be found on every thriving world.” He spat on the dirt. “Scum, the lot of them! They should be burned!”
“Why?”
“Forget it, Earl!”
Like Dumarest the guard ignored the steward.
“You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. I was born on Helgar, a warm and easy world a long way from here. My family shared and farmed a valley for five generations. We all lived well. Then the new Magnate wanted to increase his revenue. He hired the Cyclan to advise him how best to do it. Their advice turned the valley into a reservoir. We lost our home, land, everything. For compensation we were given a tract of desert. My father cut his throat. My mother starved, my sisters and other brothers—” He broke off, quivering with rage. “All thanks to the Cyclan. Damn the red swine!”
Dumarest looked at the tall figure with fresh interest. He had passed deeper into the field but now it was obvious he was not alone. Two others accompanied him; acolytes wearing simple robes. The ship to which they headed stood in isolation at the far edge of the field.
“What are they doing here?”
“Who knows? Who cares?” As the guard lowered his arm Dorph headed towards the gate. “Hurry! Let’s get moving!”
Through the gate, past the guards, the cluster of loungers, the curious, the hopeful, the desperate.
“Mister!” One grabbed at the steward. “You from a ship? I need passage. I can work, do anything, I just have to get away.”
Dorph was curt. “Forget it.”
“I don’t want much. Just a passage.”
“You willing to ride Low?”
“Anything, mister. Anything!”
“Got cash?”
“Some. Look.”
“Not enough.” Dorph waved aside the handful of coins. “It’s no deal.”
“Mister! I’m begging you!”
As they left him behind Dumarest said, “Shouldn’t Jesso have made the decision?”
“Why waste his time? You know the rules—no cash no ride. Anyway, he would never have made it.”
“Jesso—”
“Damn it, Earl, forget Jesso. He would have done the same. Now let’s get on with what we came to do.”
The apothecary was housed in a building adorned with the depiction of great flasks of varied colors. Lamps hung between them, now lit against the growing darkness, casting swathes of cerise, orange, lavender, ruby, golden yellow, lambent emerald. The man himself was small with darting eyes in a creased and puckered face. Around him reared shelves bearing an assortment of containers. Dumarest stared with interest at glowing heaps of crystalline dusts, mounds of elaborately convoluted seeds, phials of enigmatic fluids, the mummified corpses of insects and fish, worms, things like spiders and tadpoles, others like the substance of nightmares.
“Ears,” said the apothecary. “Culled from those executed at dawn, steeped in bile and blood and dried in the heat of a noonday sun. And these—” his finger rapped against another container—“eyes. Plucked from the living sockets of those condemned to end their days in torment. Basted in the effluvium of seared and living fat, chilled, left to shrink in the glow of a gibbous moon. Are you interested, young sir? Have you a problem? Here, within these walls, all can be solved. A subtle poison. A strong aphrodisiac. A rival disposed of and a woman eager to fall into your arms. Could paradise offer more?”
“Forget it,” snapped Dorph. “He may be young but he isn’t stupid.”
“Young, yes, but the future comes closer with each second and each second we age. A year, two, who can tell?” The apothecary’s shrug was as old as time. “Yet, perhaps, the aphrodisiac will not be necessary. Many maidens would be eager to make a gift of their charms. But the poison is another matter. A defence carried against a time of need. A ring, hollowed, shedding a lethal drop into a goblet of wine, feeding the tip of a needle so that a touch would be sufficient. I can supply such a device capable of both means of execution.”
“You’re wasting your time,” said the steward. “He can’t afford it. Anyway, what would he want with poison? He’s just a boy.”
“No,” said the apothecary softly. “In that you are mistaken. Your companion is not a boy. He is a young man. One, I would wager, who has seen more than most. Done more than most. Would you swear I am wrong?” Again he shrugged at the lack of an answer. “Well, if I have nothing he can use, how can I serve you?” He squinted at the paper Dorph slapped down before him. “It seems, my friend, you are in trouble.”
“Never mind that. Can you supply what I need?”
“Be patient.” Again the apothecary studied the list.
“The one coughing blood—how long has the condition lasted?”
“Did I say someone was coughing blood?”
“You ask for a drug designed to combat just such a condition. Naturally, it could have many causes, some relatively harmless. Others could be of far greater concern.”
The apothecary tapped a finger on the list. “Now this item. Slowtime, expensive but—”
“I didn’t come for a lecture,” snapped Dorph. “Can you give me what’s listed? If not I’ll go somewhere else.”
“To the field infirmary, perhaps?” The apothecary’s smile held nothing of humor. “To a registered physician? An officially authorized pharmacy? If so do not let me detain you.” He waited then, “No? Then let us get down to business. You have money? These items are not cheap.”
But the price would include more than the product; silence gained and anonymity provided. Dumarest wondered at the need. Before he could ask the steward snarled his impatience.
“Look at that rubbish.” He gestured at the assembled containers. “Did you believe what he told you?”
“About the eyes and ears?”
“They are fungi and galls. The rest a collection of seeds, pods, roots, fruits, twigs—hell, you name it. Stuff the ignorant believe will bring health and cure their ills.”
“Like those leeches?” Dumarest pointed to a jar in which slender shapes drifted in a murky fluid. “Those maggots?”
Both, he had learned, of worth in the treatment of wounds and a variety of ailments. Despite appearances the apothecary had a knowledge of medicine. Dorph must have known that. But why had he chosen to deal with such a man?
A question unanswered as he returned bearing a parcel.
Dorph checked the contents. Money changed hands. Bolts grated as the door slammed shut behind them.
“Here.” Dorph handed Dumarest the package. “Let’s get back to the ship.”
Night had fallen, clouds s
hielding the stars, the sky a pattern of reflected light from the distant smelters. On all sides patches of brilliance illuminated the shuttered buildings, lanterns set behind panes of glass glowing in a broad spectrum of color. Shapes moved across them, the figures of pedestrians, cloaked, hooded, some masked against the acrid wind. Coughs merged with the rasp of boots, the tapping of canes.
“Be careful.” Dorph slowed as they neared the glow of illumination from the field, head moving as his eyes quested the dimness. “There could be thieves. We don’t want to be robbed. Killed, even.”
“So close to the field?”
“What’s to stop them?”
“The guards—”
“Are tough when in the company of their own kind. Alone they watch their skin, but you never see them alone.” The steward halted. “This is close enough. You can make your own way from here. Go down that street, turn right at the end, left at the next turn and the field will lie directly ahead. Get to the ship and hand over the parcel. If the others aren’t there Raistar will manage.”
“What about you?”
“That’s my business.”
“You’re the steward,” said Dumarest. “You should conduct any medication. It isn’t Raistar’s job.”
Dorph said, thickly, “Listen, boy! I’ve had enough of your mouth. Just remember who you are and do as you’re told.”
He added, as Dumarest drew in his breath, “If you want to keep riding with us just do as I say. Deliver the parcel. I’ve other things to do.”
He vanished into the writhing mist and Dumarest resisted the urge to follow him. The man had never been a friend and now he’d shown his true colors. Later he would decide what to do about it. Now he had the drugs to deliver and a life to save.
A shadow loomed before him as he neared the gate. A thick arm clamped his chest and a hand rose to cover his mouth.
“Don’t move! Don’t make a noise!”
