The Terridae dot-25

by E. C. Tubb

  "You there! Halt!" The rasp in his tone was that of one accustomed to obedience. "Lower those beams! Immediately!"

  Automatically they obeyed.

  "Your numbers?" Dumarest waited as they gave them. "I am reporting you both for gross negligence. Do you think the man we are searching for is deaf? I heard your babble long before you appeared. Had I been the criminal I could have killed you both. Fools! Return to your checkpoint and report to your officer."

  It almost worked. If he had worn a familiar uniform they would have obeyed but the robe was soiled and creased and Franz had seen too much in the diffused glow of his torch.

  "Your authority, sir? Your name?"

  "Major Wyle-I am known."

  Franz hesitated. The man had stepped forward without being challenged and it was not uncommon for spot checks to be made. And they had been talking too loudly. Yet he was reluctant to compound the error.

  Tousel solved the dilemma. "Your identification, sir? Please show me your identification."

  "Of course." Dumarest stepped closer to the guards as he fumbled beneath the robe. One, the elder, stood back, both hands on his club, which he carried like a stave before him. The standard alert-stance from which he could move in any direction and bring his weapon into play with maximum efficiency. The other had taken a step forward, one hand extended, the club dangling from its thong. "I wondered when you would ask for it. Your light?"

  Dumarest moved on as Tousel aimed his torch to illuminate his robe. The elder of the two hadn't moved but his eyes shifted a little as Dumarest drew closer. The more wary of the two, he must be taken care of first.

  "Here," said Dumarest. "Check this."

  His hand came from beneath the robe, fingers clenched as if holding something, his arm extending as he neared the watchful guard. Another step and the fingers had straightened to form a blunted spear which he thrust up and forward to strike at the throat, at the nerves buried deep beneath the skin. He delivered the blow with lightning speed and the man was falling before Tousel knew what was happening. Even so he was fast.

  "Alarm!" he shouted. "Tome! Al-" He slumped, stunned, not feeling the impact of the gravel, but the damage had been done. From the far end of the warehouse came the dancing glow of lights, accompanied by the blare of whistles. Dumarest glanced the other way, saw more lights signaling more guards. Trapped between them, he had only one way left to go.

  He backed, breathing deeply, knowing he would have only this one chance. Before him the building loomed dark against the sky and it was hard to spot the exact position of the eaves. A run and he threw himself upwards, hands extended, feeling the bruising impact of the wall against legs and chest as the tips of his fingers caught the gutter. For a moment he hung suspended, then, with a convulsive effort, had drawn himself up and over the eaves to lie sprawled on the low slope of the roof.

  Above him something snarled.

  The creature which had betrayed him, startled then and furious now. Dumarest heard the rasp of claws and swung up a hand, striking fur, hearing the beast land and dart away.

  "What was that?" A guard below swung up the beam of his light. "I heard something up there. It-" The beam jerked as the creature jumped from the roof, chasing it as it landed to race into darkness. "There! He's running down there!"

  A natural mistake, and Dumarest lay silent as the guards ran after the vanished beast.

  Dawn came to illuminate the warehouse, one of a row set widely apart, the spaces between patrolled by guards. Dumarest watched them, careful not to reveal himself against the sky, checking the distance between himself and the field with its ships. Safety lay there if he could reach them and find a handler willing to give him passage. One wise enough to know that he would never get the posted reward for handing over the wanted man. To insist would be to wait for the hearing, wait for the final assessment and then with luck, to receive only a portion. Professional guards did not take kindly to those wanting to deprive them of their rewards.

  The problem lay in choosing the right vessel. That was the first problem-there were others: to reach it unseen, to gain time to make the arrangements, to stay free until it left. But first, to find the right ship.

  Dumarest studied them from his position on the roof: a freighter which would carry massed cargoes, some free traders open to charter, an agency vessel belonging to a trading consortium, a couple of others he guessed had been hired for a specific task. The dealers who had come to trade and buy would not wait for the Sporing but once they had gone it would be a long time before the tourists followed. If he was to escape it had to be soon.

  Dumarest looked at the sky, at the wheeling shapes of birds and other shapes which rose to glide low and steady through the air. Rafts filled with watching men who would search every inch of open ground.

  The roof was thin; corrugated metal heavily painted to provide protection against the elements. Inset panels of transparent glass provided light for the interior of the building. Dumarest reached one, tested the edge and found it bolted firm. Given time he could have found one not so fast but he had no time. Stripping off the hampering robe, he bundled it around his fist, punched, felt glass yield beneath the blow. Carefully he widened the opening and, using the robe to protect his hands, swung himself down through the shattered pane. A short drop and he landed in a shadowed dimness filled with crates and bales and enigmatic packages-goods waiting shipment. Soon the building would be bright with light from the rising sun. Dumarest moved among the stacks looking for something light enough to carry yet large enough to provide cover. A burden suitable for one man and an excuse for him to cross the field and reach the ships. A weak excuse but if he could find clothes to fit the part and others he could join, it offered a chance.

  He tensed as something hammered on the door, the sound yielding to the rumble of voices.

  "Quit that, Palmer! You want to warn him?"

  "If he's in there." The voice held disgust. "How the hell could he be?"

  "The same way he got free of Franz and Tousel. With brains and guts, that's how. Two experienced men like that and they let him get away. Do the same and you'll join them in punishment."

  "But a sealed building?"

  "Just obey orders. Once the area has been checked from the air we search each warehouse in turn. In the meantime no one is to enter or leave under any pretext. Got that? No loading-the damn ships can wait."

  A trap and Dumarest was in it. He glanced at the broken skylight-once spotted from the air they would have him located and the rest would be only a matter of time. How to get clear? A guard? Called in, knocked out, his uniform taken-but no, guards operated in pairs and now they would be extra cautious. Use gas before entering the building, perhaps-vapors to induce sleep and knock out anyone inside.

  Again Dumarest examined the building, looking for something, anything, to use in the emergency. A heap of bales stood to one side and he squeezed behind them, following a narrow passage to a cleared space littered with bindings, ropes and padding. Resting amid the litter stood the unmistakable shape of a familiar casket. The one Carina had painted.

  It had to be that-the decorations were complete, and he moved around it, checking, thinking. Finished, it had been shifted to the warehouse from the Hurich Complex to wait shipment from Caval. The Huag-Chi-Tsacowa was an efficient company and would not have wanted to cause their client the high expense of a special charter. What did a few weeks matter? The casket could wait until the traders arrived and be added to other cargo for shipment.

  A logical explanation-ships would have been few before the Sporing and none would have urgent reason to go where the casket was bound. Brundel? No, that was the depot but not necessarily the casket's final destination. Where then? Where?

  Dumarest searched the exterior of the box, scanning the decorations, the carvings, the smoothly finished surfaces for some clue as to its final destination. He saw nothing but the sticker bearing the Huag-Chi-Tsacowa sigil. Later the casket would be wrapped in protective paddin
g, and he probed the litter, finding nothing of help. As he straightened, he heard the dull clang of shifting metal from the doors.

  "Steady now!" The voice held a brisk efficiency. "If you spot him stand well clear. There's no sense in getting hurt. We'll bring him down with gas and nets and split the reward. Any fool who acts the hero will deserve all he gets."

  Another guard said, "He won't try anything once he knows he's cornered."

  "Believe that and you could wind up dead. Spread out and watch the roof. He could be clinging to a strut. Check each pile of bales and make sure he isn't on the top. Watch to see he doesn't leap from one to another. If he's in here we'll all be sharing a nice bonus."

  A prediction-the guards would make no mistakes. Dumarest glanced at the roof, the skylights now bright with sunlight. Even if he could reach one unseen and make his way outside he would be spotted from the air. To try to reach the door would be to invite capture. To fight was to be maimed.

  Dumarest stepped toward the casket, remembering the details he had gained from the folder. Luck was with him, the lid rose with silent ease to reveal the interior, padded and bright with a nacreous sheen. A moment and he was inside, the lid closing as the guards came near.

  Chapter Eight

  Like a swimmer rising from the floor of an incredible sea, Dumarest floated upward through layers of ebon chill, waiting for the warming impact of eddy currents, praying the handler had administered the numbing drugs which alone could prevent the searing agony of returning circulation. The journey would end either in the burning euphoria of resurrection or the oblivion of death.

  A nightmare which yielded to a soft and reassuring comfort. The layers of ebon chill turned into bands and swathes of rainbow color, a kaleidoscope filled with unexpected delights and enticing novelties. The handler became a benign figure who smiled and extended a hand and radiated a warm bonhomie-with a familiar face.

  "It's time, Earl," said Nubar Kusche. "Time for you to wake up."

  To wake and stretch and to remember a plethora of dreams. Of faces which had come to him in scented darkness and scenes fashioned in a world of kindly benevolence. Of a man who had helped and guided his stumbling footsteps and a woman who had tended him with the loving care of an angel. Snatches of a childhood he had never experienced, of a father he had never known, of a mother who had died too soon. Dreams to comfort and entertain as there had been others: adventures in which he had strode through gilded courts in heroic guise to be adored by nubile women and admired by noted warriors.

  And Kalin had come to him. Kalin with the flame-red hair and the deep, sea-green eyes. The woman he had loved and who, loving him, had bequeathed him the secret which had made him the most hunted man in the galaxy.

  "Earl?" Kusche looked anxious. "Earl-you know me?"

  Dumarest looked at the face, the tracery of minute lines, the eyes set beneath their prominent brows, the shape of the lips, the chin, the line of the jaw, small details he had ignored before but which could now mean his life.

  "No!" Kusche, watching in turn, had recognized the warning of the eyes, the cruel set of the mouth. "No, Earl, you have nothing to fear from me. I am your friend. I swear it."

  Words, a part of any entrepreneur's stock in trade, as was the easy smile, the radiated assurance. Dumarest looked beyond the face which hung suspended over the open casket, haloed with a soft effulgence which turned the gray mass of his roached hair into a crest of tarnished silver. Behind reared a featureless wall of dull olive, a ceiling of glowing azure. The air, while crisp, did not strike chill and held the scent of roses and pine.

  "Where is this?"

  "A place, Earl." Kusche beamed his relief as he answered the question. "A safe place."

  "How long?"

  "Long enough for you to have left Caval. Can you rise? Sit up? Come, this is no place to talk. We need wine and delicacies and soft furnishings to celebrate the moment. Come!" He stepped back as Dumarest knocked aside his hand and stood watching as the other left the casket. "This way, my friend."

  He led Dumarest to a passage opening on a room containing a bath, in which Dumarest soaked. The room was fitted with a table and chairs and drifting light from a revolving fabrication which painted the furnishings with bright and changing hues.

  "You must be full of questions," said Kusche as he poured wine. "And I am here to answer them. First, my congratulations for having escaped the guards on Caval. A demonstration of your ability to survive which can only be admired. To have assessed the situation, to have acted with such promptness, to have utilized all available means of help and to have recognized the one remaining way of eluding capture-a worthy achievement. Here." He handed Dumarest a goblet. "I drink to you, my friend. To you and to the happy accident which drew us together."

  A toast Dumarest ignored. As Kusche lowered his goblet he said, "Where are we?"

  "On Zabul."

  "And you?"

  "I am here as your friend, Earl. As your attendant. As your guide." Then, as Dumarest made no comment, Kusche added, "At times we manipulate fate and, at others, we are directed in turn. A matter of coincidence and fortuitous circumstances. If we hadn't met and shared wine on that balcony. If I hadn't been what I am and guessed certain things and, yes, taken my opportunity when I recognized it, I wouldn't be here facing you now. Fate, my friend; at times it governs us all."

  The wine was amber flecked with motes of emerald. Dumarest touched it to his lips and tasted a sweet astringency.

  "You say nothing," mused Kusche. "In that you are wise. How often has a man sold himself short by his inability to remain silent? Jumped to the wrong conclusion by his reluctance to wait? First let us dispose of the casket. You must know or have guessed how they operate. When you closed the lid you locked yourself in a sealed environment which could only be broken by the lapse of time, conscious effort or skilled intervention." He drank a mouthful of his wine. "When the guards searched the warehouse they found nothing but a sealed box which they could not open. Obviously, therefore, you could not have been inside it. Naturally they concluded the broken skylight was a decoy and you had moved on to hide elsewhere."

  "And?"

  Kusche shrugged. "The traders began to leave and the assembled cargo with them. The Huag-Chi-Tsacowa shipped the casket from Caval. You see, my friend, it is all so very simple."

  All but for the one fact he had carefully not mentioned. Dumarest said bluntly, "And you? How did you know I was in the box?"

  After a moment of hesitation Kusche said blandly, "A matter of logic, Earl. Where else could you have been?"

  Logic which the entrepreneur might have the ability to exercise but in Dumarest's experience, only one type of man could have been so certain of the strength of his prediction.

  Was Kusche a cyber?

  A possibility Dumarest considered while toying with his wine. The man wore ordinary clothing but a scarlet robe could be removed and hair allowed to grow on a shaven scalp. Emotions, too, could be counterfeited and yet his instinct told him the man was what he seemed. No cyber would ape the type of person he despised. If not pride then respect for his organization would make him cling to his robe, the fellowship with others of his kind.

  And if Kusche was a cyber, why the wine, the delicacies, the talk? If the casket had been delivered into the hands of the Cyclan there would be no need of this charade.

  And yet-why was he here?

  Kusche met his eyes as, bluntly, Dumarest asked the question. He was as blunt in his answer.

  "For profit, Earl. For gain. It was obvious you are no ordinary criminal. The guards were too eager, the reward too high. If you are so valuable to those who wanted you captured it seemed advisable for me to become your partner. In helping you I would be helping myself." His tone grew bitter. "A simple plan-how was I to guess at the complications? All I wanted was to ride with you and be at hand when you left the casket. To talk about us making a deal. But the Huag-Chi-Tsacowa proved most uncooperative and it cost a fortune in bribes. W
asted money."

  "But you got here."

  "No, Earl, I was brought." Kusche looked at his hands, at the gemmed ring adorning the left one. "I don't remember much about it. I was asleep, then I woke up here in a room like this. A man questioned me and told me this was Zabul. Then I was taken to the casket and the rest you know." He added, "There's one more thing. The man I saw is coming to ask you a question. He asked it of me and I stalled and put the answer on you. One question, Earl-they're crazy!"

  "Who are?"

  "The people who live here. The man I saw. That question, Earl, he meant it. One damned question." Kusche reached for his wine and drank and sat staring into the empty goblet. He said dully, "He wanted me to give him one reason why I should be allowed to stay alive."

  In the dreams there had been music: deep threnodies emulating the restless surge of mighty oceans, the wail of keening winds, the susurration of rippling grasses, the murmur of somnolent bees. Sounds captured by the sensory apparatus and translated to fit into the pattern of electronically stimulated fantasies. Now Dumarest heard it again as, rising, he paced the room.

  It was small, a score of feet on a side, the roof less than half as high. A chamber decorated with the neat precision of one accustomed to regimented tidiness. One which could have belonged to a person of either sex but of a narrow field of profession.

  Dumarest touched the wall with the tips of his fingers, frowned, knelt to examine the floor. Without looking at Nubar Kusche, he said, "Have you ever seen a window? Looked outside?"

  "No."

  "They just told you this was Zabul?"

  "He told me, Earl. Urich Volodya. The one who asked that damned stupid question." He added, "He's the only one I've seen."

  Rising, Dumarest walked to where the outline of a door marred the smooth perfection of a wall. It was locked. The bathroom was as he had left it but the door to the room holding the casket was closed and sealed. Back with Kusche he listened again to the music, which seemed to originate in the very air-a vibration carried by a trick of acoustics or a lingering hallucination from his recent dreams.