Silence is Deadly

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Is there any chance that the dukes might agree to the restoration of the kingship?

  There is. They may have agreed to it already.

  Darzek leaned back, eyes closed, to consider the effect of this information on his own mission. The problem of a pazul on Kamm had been solved; at least, it had been transferred elsewhere, and the Department of Uncertified Worlds could deal with it on whatever world or worlds were responsible.

  This left him two things to work for: The expulsion of the aliens along with all of their hardware, and the rescue of Rok Wllon and any of the missing Synthesis agents who had survived.

  I must think deeply about all of this, Darzek told the captain. My own mission is to protect your world and its people against the plots of outsiders, and to rescue friends whom the dukes have taken prisoner.

  It was the captain’s turn to meditate. Finally he asked, If a king is chosen, would you be willing to assist us in attempting to make it one of the two capable dukes?

  I feel strongly that outsiders should not interfere in the affairs of Kamm, Darzek said slowly. I am obliged to do everything I can to prevent these other outsiders from raising a duke of their choice to the kingship, and I can’t in good conscience replace their scheming with my own. But if I succeed, it may leave the way open for your candidate. And if chance placed me in a position to influence the outcome, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it to benefit the People of Kamm.

  The captain smiled. Bovranulz spoke truly. Your principles are not for sale, but I think you would not betray a friend for them. I pledge you my support and also that of the Sailor’s League, of which I also am a captain.

  I accept with gratitude.

  As soon as darkness fell, the captain left for home. He maintained a small dwelling and a mate in a sailor’s village a short distance down the coast from the metropolis. Darzek followed him at a respectful three paces, a common sailor performing a duty for his master. He carried a basket of namafj. The namafj were noticeably overripe, and Darzek huffed all the way, breathing through his mouth.

  In the captain’s modest but brightly painted house, Darzek joined him and his mate for their evening meal. Kammian etiquette wisely prohibited conversation when the hands could be better occupied with other matters, and they ate their tastily prepared dishes of sea foods without exchanging a word. As soon as they had finished, the mate cleared the table and discreetly disappeared.

  The captain leaned back meditatively. They were waiting for information about Sajjo—where she was, what kind of a guard she was under, whether she could be rescued.

  Darzek, after half a day of furious activity and intense nervous strain, felt exhausted. The light, a crude lamp burning namafj oil, had a hypnotic effect on him. He caught himself dozing off, willed himself awake, and finally, it seemed only an instant later, he awakened himself again by almost pitching from his chair. As he straightened up, he discovered to his embarrassment that there were four more captains seated in the room. They had arrived, found him asleep, and waited patiently until he woke up.

  Captain Wanulzk introduced his associates. They are fellow officers of the Sailor’s League, he said. You may trust them as you trust me. They are here to assist you.

  Is there news about Sajjo? Darzek asked anxiously.

  We still wait for it. There are many difficulties in discovering what happens within the duke’s castle.

  Today, when the duke visited the fair, he had a companion in his carriage, Darzek said. Do any of you know anything about that companion?

  Evil meets with evil in the duke’s carriage, one of the captains remarked.

  Bovranulz has told us that such as he are not of this world, another captain said. The duke has been seen with two such companions. We know no more than that.

  Darzek nodded his understanding.

  Captain Wanulzk’s fingers flicked instantly. You must not move your head. You either raise your shoulder—thus—or you must move your hand—so.

  Darzek grinned embarrassedly. The head gesture is a common one among my people. I know that I should avoid it, but it is difficult not to move my head unknowingly. Is that how the black-capes became suspicious of me?

  It was the captain’s turn to show embarrassment. Probably not, he said, with obvious reluctance.

  I must have given myself away somehow, Darzek persisted. A knight of the Winged Beast walked past, took a good look at me, and began to follow me. I can’t understand it, because I have traveled far in your land, and until that moment everyone seemed to accept me for what I was pretending to be. Why would one of the black-capes of OO be able to detect my disguise?

  The captains exchanged glances. If Darzek could read anything of Kammian character—and he thought he could—all of them were embarrassed.

  If there’s a reason, I beg you to tell me, he said. I must correct it, whatever it is. Otherwise, I can exist here only by hiding, and my effectiveness is at an end. I can’t accomplish my mission and help the citizens of Storoz if I can’t move about freely.

  Again the captains exchanged glances. Captain Wanulzk said finally, and his embarrassment was acute, The reason the black-cape suspected you is because you stink.

  CHAPTER 14

  Darzek, clothed in the black garments and cape of a lackey of the Winged Beast, looked up at the sheer wall that surrounded the Duke of OO’s castle and contended with his seething impatience.

  He was deeply worried about Sajjo.

  He also felt deeply chagrined.

  He should have guessed. Had he exercised an iota of the imagination and intelligence he hoped he’d been endowed with, he would have guessed. Terran animals recognized other animals by scent. He’d known that the deaf inhabitants of Kamm had powerfully developed senses of smell. Surely he should have been able to deduce that the human animal would have a characteristic scent, and that the Kammians would be aware of it.

  There’d been an embarrassing abundance of clues.

  That first day on Kamm, when he’d thought he was attracting attention because, unlike the Kammians, he was not wearing a personal perfume: It hadn’t been the lack of a perfume that shocked the Kammians. It was a whiff of his revolting humanity that turned stares in his direction.

  The phony black knight also had caught a whiff of his true self. He’d thought that Darzek, a perfumer, had mixed a bad batch.

  And the fact that the fellow workers and superiors in the Duke Lonorlk’s maz forest avoided his company so assiduously should have conveyed some kind of message to him.

  On the other hand, Darzek had been reasonably safe when he was actively working as a perfumer—when he was actually handling and bottling various scents. These must have given him a powerfully blended protective veneer. When he traveled, his close association with the reeking nabrula and the foul wayside forums provided an additional measure of protection.

  But in OO, where the forums were kept clean and the fair was immaculate, he had been functioning as a peddler. Obviously the perfume he’d selected as his personal scent hadn’t been strong enough to cover his natural odor. All of these circumstances had combined to strip Darzek of every olfactory camouflage at the precise moment he most needed one.

  He wondered how many of the vanished agents had been caught in the same way. Had the dukes alerted their knights to the presence in Storoz of creatures who looked normal but wore odors of unworldly foulness? The black knight had been suspicious of Darzek the moment he caught a whiff of him—suspicious but not certain. He had kept Darzek in sight and signaled for reinforcements before he decided to pounce. What finally made him certain? Darzek’s meandering conduct?

  Once Darzek got aboard the stinking namafj boat, he was safe. The black-cape, because of the power of the Sailor’s League, did not dare arrest him without the certainty that his nose could not give him in that foul atmosphere. And the sailor’s clothing had protected Darzek when he went ashore again.

  Even so, Captain Wanulzk had given Darzek a basket of overripe namafj to carry, which mea
nt that by evening his human scent had permeated the clothing. The captain probably found the smell of rotting namafj much less offensive.

  And all the Kammians Darzek had come in contact with had been too polite to mention his unsociability—the danger Darzek carried with him, as Bovranulz had put it. Not even Darzek’s Kammian family had told him. Sajjo must have suffered acutely on their long journey together, but she’d kept strictly to herself the painful fact that her adopted father stank.

  Sajjo. Was it possible that the duke would subject a child to torture?

  He wondered, with a chilling apprehension, whether she had been trapped by some residue of scent that he’d left about the cart.

  In the wall opposite Darzek, a door opened. The fact that some duke now lost to history had breached his own wall with a door for the convenience of his employees was striking indication of how long it had been since this particular castle was besieged. A hand beckoned to Darzek, and he sprinted across to it. A young sailor—also attired like a black-caped lackey—waved Darzek through the door and quickly closed it.

  The sailors had politely refused Darzek’s offer to lead this invasion of the castle, no matter what magic powers he claimed for his amulet. Probably they thought his human scent would betray them. Darzek had not argued. From the ease with which the captain produced enough black clothing to outfit an entire company of sailors, he knew that they had done this kind of thing before.

  But Darzek insisted on going into the dungeon himself, not only to rescue Sajjo, but to see whether any of the missing Synthesis agents were there. Once inside the wall, Darzek and the young sailor headed for a service entrance. They did not speak. The courtyard, lit only by a distant torch, was too dim for talk.

  At the castle entrance a stout, barred portcullis had been raised, and just inside it, where a torch burned brightly, four guards lay unconscious. The black-caped figure inside gave the sailor’s greeting and pointed, and Darzek raced down a ramp without waiting for the others. At the bottom he stepped over the figures of two prone guards. The black-caped sailor waiting there signaled, Quickly!

  Darzek called out, “Synthesis! Galaxy! Primores!” He went from stone cell to stone cell, studying each occupant and speaking the words again. There was no response. The prisoners were only pathetic, broken Kammians. The sailors would not release them. To do so would bring reprisals against their friends and relatives.

  There was no child.

  Is this the only prison? Darzek demanded.

  The sailor shrugged an affirmative. We are trying to get information about the child through our friends in the castle.

  Darzek turned and hurried back up the ramp. At the top, he gestured a negative to the waiting sailors. The cart, he said.

  Carts and wagons of all descriptions were parked in the courtyard. A sailor was waiting for them there, and they stumbled over another unconscious guard as they approached him.

  Darzek jumped onto the nearest wagon, looked about him, and then went from one end of the park to the other, leaping from vehicle to vehicle. He returned the same way, on the far side of the park, and he paused to investigate several carts that seemed only vaguely similar to his.

  Finally he swung down and signaled a negative. The sailors, crouched in the shadows, were looking about them uneasily. Their clothing would confuse the duke’s men at first contact, but there were too few of them to fight a pitched battle, and they probably handled whips clumsily. It was time to leave.

  They slipped out through the door in the wall, and they were halfway back to the harbor before processions of torches on the castle walls showed that an alarm had been given.

  They went directly to the ship of Captain Wanulzk, where their sailor’s clothing was waiting for them. So was the captain. He had not accompanied them—a captain of the Sailor’s League was too well known to engage in breaking and entering at the duke’s castle—but his evening had not been uneventful. He greeted them in his cabin with an amused pucker of a smile on his face.

  The child was released this evening, he said.

  Darzek asked quickly, Where is she?

  We do not know. But she conducted herself well, and the knights found nothing suspicious about her. She said her father had left her at the fair to vend while he traveled about OO buying more stock. When the fair vendors sent the duke an official complaint concerning the arrest of a child innocently assisting in a family business, the duke ordered her release. They also released the cart and the nabrula, and she drove them away. No one knows where she went, but I’m confident she is safe.

  Why was she arrested? Darzek asked.

  The black-capes went through the fair looking for any display where a peddler was missing.

  Is someone searching for her?

  Of course.

  The black-capes may have followed her, expecting her to lead them to me.

  We’ve considered that.

  Darzek dropped into a chair. His brief nap at the captain’s house had done little for the exhaustion he felt.

  The black-capes called at my home shortly after you left, the captain said. They inquired after the sailor who behaved so awkwardly this afternoon.

  I’ve had much personal experience of police operations, Darzek told him. Your black-capes are commendably efficient.

  The captain smiled again. Not quite efficient enough—fortunately. I could only express my regret that they had not come sooner, if they did in fact have legitimate business with that particular member of my League. Because, of course, after I had reprimanded him for his behavior, I sent him back to his ship—which sailed at the half night. Such an investigation is contrary to the agreed procedures concerning members of the League. I asked for an explanation, and they refused to answer. I’ll see the duke today. If he doesn’t discipline those particular knights in my presence—as well as the lackey who went aboard a ship yesterday without first securing permission—I’ll close the port.

  Darzek pursed his lips. Isn’t that rather severe?

  No. Rights not zealously guarded are quickly eroded. But it would be unwise for you to stay at my home. A ship would be the safest place for you.

  I must look for Sajjo.

  This particular ship will be loading tomorrow. All kinds of carts and wagons will come and go all through the day. We can arrange for you to come and go with them.

  I would like to see your friend, Bovranulz.

  The captain scowled. He is at the fair. It would be unwise for you to return there—at least before another friend of mine, Nijezor, has done a certain job for you. He is waiting for you on the ship. He is a master perfumer.

  Darzek’s hand cupped an exclamation.

  He is eagerly awaiting you, the captain said. An excellent craftsman always appreciates a challenge.

  Nijezor the perfumer was a stout little individual with a florid face. He carried his head slightly bent forward, and his eyes were perpetually squinting, as though he were peering at the world through distillation vapors. He prowled about Darzek for an hour, sniffing and making frightful grimaces, and then he returned to his factory to see what he could concoct.

  Darzek went to the cabin that had been assigned to him and tried to sleep. But despite his exhaustion, and the fact that the motion of the gently rocking ship seemed superbly restful, his mind kept evolving plans for finding Sajjo and carrying her to safety.

  Somewhere in OO there was an abandoned Synthesis headquarters, closed because of the danger to agents in OO, but Darzek did not know where it was or whether any equipment had been left there. He wondered if the transmitter was still there and whether it was functional.

  He sensed the approach of a crisis in OO. If the black-capes were to persuade the duke that the sailors were concealing a wanted fugitive, his temper might prevail over his good judgment; and the duke was not known for his good judgment.

  Darzek finally slept, only to be awakened at dawn by Captain Wanulzk, who wanted to discuss his plans for locating Sajjo. Their talk was interrupted by Ni
jezor, who arrived triumphantly with a flask of colorless liquid in his hand, the product of his night’s work. He dabbed it onto Darzek in various unlikely places, and then both he and the captain retreated a few paces and sniffed thoughtfully.

  No, Captain Wanulzk pronounced with emphasis. You have blended one evil scent with another. They do not cancel; they reinforce each other. He turned apologetically to Darzek. No offense, my friend.

  Better you than the Duke of OO, Darzek told him.

  It is difficult, Nijezor admitted. One can always cover a stench with a powerful scent, but when the scent fades, the stench does not. I strive to neutralize the stench, after which friend Lazk will be able to display the most delicate fragrances with effect.

  A noble aim, the captain said. Its achievement surely will be your masterpiece. If you fail, we can always make him a vendor of overripe namafj.

  Late that afternoon, Darzek lay in a covered cart that was proceeding slowly along one of the main surlanes of the city of OO. Moving from one side to the other, he peered through openings at the pedestrians they passed.

  He was looking for Sajjo. The captain had assured him that his help was not needed. The sailors had many friends searching for her, and Darzek’s presence would be a liability to them and a danger to himself. But Darzek was not convinced that the searchers could tell one child from another merely on the basis of a description. He, the adopted father, knew the child. He also thought he knew where and how to look for her.

  Because he was certain she would be looking for him.

  The cart’s driver was a weaver, and his mate rode at his side. They had brought a load of fabrics to the ship, and they were on their way to pick up another load. If their route meandered far more than was strictly necessary, that was no one’s concern but their own.