by Ларри Нивен
The intercom said, «And that's it, ladies and gentlemen and other guests. We will make one short hyperspace hop into the system of Gummidgy and will proceed from there in normal space. We will be landing in sixteen hours.»
There was a collective sigh. The Kdatlyno sculptor took his horn out of my sleeve and stood up, improbably erect.
And what would his next work be like? I thought of human faces set in expressions of sheer wonder and grinning incredulity, muscles bunched and backs arched forward for a better view of a flat wall. Had Lloobee known of the starseed in advance? I thought he had.
Most of the spectators were drifting away, though the starseed still showed. My tea was icy. We'd been watching for nearly an hour, though it felt like ten minutes.
Emil said, «How are you doing with Captain Tellefsen?»
I looked blank.
«You called her Margo a while back.»
«Oh, that. I'm not really trying, Emil. What would she see in a crashlander?»
«That girl must have hurt you pretty bad.»
«What girl?»
«It shows through your skull, Bey. None of my business, though.» He looked me up and down, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that my skull really was transparent. «What would she see? She'd see a crashlander, yes. Height seven feet, weight one sixty pounds — close enough? White hair, eyes blood-red. Skin darkened with tannin pills, just like the rest of us. But you must take more tannin pills than anybody.»
«I do. Not, as you said, that it's any of your business.»
«Was it a secret?»
I had to grin at that. How do you hide the fact that you're an albino? «No, but it's half my problem. Do you know that the Fertility Board of Earth won't accept albinos as potential fathers?»
«Earth is hardly the place to raise children, anyway. Once a flatlander, always a flatlander.»
«I fell in love with a flatlander.»
«Sorry.»
«She loved me, too. Still does, I hope. But she couldn't leave Earth.»
«A lot of flatlanders can't stand space. Some of them never know it. Did you want children?»
«Yeah.»
In silent sympathy Emil dialed two Bloody Marriages. In silent thanks I raised the bulb in toast and drank.
It was as neat a cleft stick as had ever caught man and woman. Sharrol couldn't leave Earth. On Earth she was born, on Earth she would die, and on Earth she would have her children.
But Earth wouldn't let me have children. No matter that forty percent of We Made It is albino. No matter that albinism can be cured by a simple supply of tannin pills, which anyone but a full-blooded Maori has to take anyway if he's visiting a world with a brighter than average star. Earth has to restrict its population, to keep it down to a comfortable eighteen billion. To a flatlander that's comfortable. So … prevent the useless ones from having children — the liabilities, such as paranoia prones, mental deficients, criminals, uglies, and Beowulf Shaeffer.
Emil said, «Shouldn't we be in hyperspace by now?»
«Up to the captain,» I told him.
Most of the passengers who had watched the starseed were now at tables. Sleeping cubicles induce claustrophobia. Bridge games were forming, reading screens were being folded out of the walls, drinks were being served. I reached for my Bloody Marriage and found, to my amazement, that it was too heavy to pick up.
Then I fainted.
* * *
I woke up thinking, It wasn't that strong!
And everyone else was waking, too.
Something had knocked us all out at once. Which might mean the ship had an unconscious captain! I left the lounge at full speed, which was a wobbly walk.
The control-room door was open, which is bad practice. I reached to close it and changed my mind because the lock and doorknob were gone, replaced by a smooth hole nine inches across.
Margo drooped in her chair. I patted her cheeks until she stirred.
«What happened?» she wanted to know.
«We all went to sleep together. My guess is gas. Stun guns don't work across a vacuum.»
«Oh!» It was a gasp of outrage. She'd spotted the gaping hole in her control board, as smooth and rounded as the hole in the door. The gap where the hyperwave radio ought to be.
«Right,» I said. «We've been boarded, and we can't tell anyone about it. Now what?»
«That hole …» She touched the rounded metal with her fingertips.
«Slaver disintegrator, I think. A digging tool. It projects a beam that suppresses the charge on the electron, so that matter tears itself apart. If that's what it was, we'll find the dust in the air filters.»
«There was a ship,» said Margo. «A big one. I noticed it just after I ended the show. By then it was inside the mass limit. I couldn't go into hyperspace until it left.»
«I wonder how they found us.» I thought of some other good questions but let them pass. One I let out. «What's missing? We'd better check.»
«That's what I don't understand. We aren't carrying anything salable! Valuable, yes. Instruments for the base. But hardly black-market stuff.» She stood up. «I'll have to go through the cargo hold.»
«Waste of time. Where's the cargo mass meter on this hulk?»
«Oh, of course.» She found it somewhere among the dials. «No change. Nothing missing there, unless they replaced whatever they took with equivalent masses.»
«Why, so we wouldn't know they were here? Nuts.»
«Then they didn't take anything.»
«Or they took personal luggage. The lifesystem mass meter won't tell us. Passengers move around so. You'd think they'd have the courtesy to stay put just in case some pirates should — ung.»
«What?»
I tasted the idea and found it reasonable. More. «Ten to one Lloobee's missing.»
«Who?»
«Our famous, valuable Kdatlyno sculptor. The third Kdatlyno in history to leave his home planet.»
«One of the ET passengers?»
Oh, brother. I left, running.
Because Lloobee was the perfect theft. As a well-known alien artist who had been under the protection of Earth, the ransom he could command was huge. As a hostage his value would be equal. No special equipment would be needed; Lloobee could breathe Earth-normal air. His body could even use certain human food proteins and certain gaseous human anesthetics.
Lloobee wasn't in the lounge. And his cabin was empty.
* * *
With Lloobee missing and with the hyperwave smashed, the Argos proceeded to Gummidgy at normal speed. Normal speed was top speed; there are few good reasons to dawdle in space. It took us six hours in hyperdrive to reach the edge of CY Aquarii's gravity well. From there we had to proceed on reaction drive and gravity drag.
Margo called Gummidgy with a com laser as soon as we were out of hyperspace. By the time we landed, the news would be ten hours old. We would land at three in the morning, ship's time, and at roughly noon Gummidgy time.
Most of us, including me, went to our cabins to get some sleep. An hour before planetfall I was back in the lounge, watching us come in.
Emil didn't want to watch. He wanted to talk.
«Have you heard? The kidnappers called the base a couple of hours ago.»
«What'd they have to say?»
«They want ten million stars and a contract before they turn the Kdatlyno loose. They also —» Emil was outraged at their effrontery. «— reminded the base that Kdatlyno don't eat what humans eat. And they don't have any Kdat foodstuffs!»
«They must be crazy. Where would the base get ten million stars in time?»
«Oh, that's not the problem. If the base doesn't have funds, they can borrow money from the hunting parties, I'm sure. There's a group down there with their own private yacht. It's the contract that bothers me.»
Gummidgy was blue on blue under a broken layer of white, with a diminutive moon showing behind an arc of horizon. Very Earthlike but with none of the signs that mark Earth: no yellow glow of sp
rawling cities on the dark side, no tracery of broken freeways across the day. A nice-looking world, from up here. Unspoiled. No transfer booths, no good nightclubs, no tridee except old tapes and those only on one channel. Unspoiled –
With only half my mind working on conversation, I said, «Be glad we've got contracts. Otherwise we might get him back dead.»
«Obviously you don't know much about Kdatlyno.»
«Obviously.» I was nettled.
«They'll do it, you know. They'll pay the kidnappers ten million stars to give Lloobee back, and they'll tape an immunity contract, too. Total immunity for the kidnappers. No reprisals, no publicity. Do you know what the Kdatlyno will think about that?»
«They'll be glad to have their second-best sculptor back.»
«Best.»
«Hrodenu is the best.»
«It doesn't matter. What they'll think is, they'll wonder why we haven't taken revenge for the insult to Lloobee. They'll wonder what we're doing about getting revenge. And when they finally realize we aren't doing anything at all …»
«Go on.»
«They'll blame the whole human race. You know what the kzinti will think?»
«Who cares what the kzinti think?»
He snorted. Great. Now he had me pegged as a chauvinist.
«Why don't you drop it?» I suggested. «We can't do anything about it. It's up to the base MPs.»
«It's up to nobody. The base MPs don't have ships.»
Right about then I should have accidentally bitten my tongue off. I didn't have that much sense. I never do. Instead I said, «They don't need ships. Whoever took Lloobee has to land somewhere.»
«The message came in on hyperwave. Whoever sent it is circling outside the system's gravity well.»
«Whoever sent it may well be.» I was showing off. «But whoever took Lloobee landed. A Kdatlyno needs lots of room, room he can feel. He sends out a supersonic whistle — one tone — all his life, and when the echoes hit the tympanum above his mouth, he knows what's around him. On a liner he can feel corridors leading all around the ship. He can sense the access tubes behind walls and the rooms and closets behind doors. Nothing smaller than a liner is big enough for him. You don't seriously suggest that the kidnappers borrowed a liner for the job, do you?»
«I apologize. You do seem to know something about Kdatlyno.»
«I accept your apology. Now, the kidnappers have definitely landed. Where?»
«Have to be some rock. Gummidgy's the only planet-sized body in the system. Look down there.»
I looked out the window. One of Gummidgy's oceans was passing beneath us. The biggest ocean Gummidgy had, it covered a third of the planet.
«Circle Sea. Round as a ten-star piece. A whale of a big asteroid must have hit there when Gummidgy was passing through the system. Stopped it cold, or almost. All the other rocks in the system are close enough to the star to be half-molten.»
«Okay. Could they have built their own space station? Or borrowed one? Doubtful. So they must have landed on Gummidgy,» I concluded happily, and waited for the applause.
Emil was slowly nodding his head, up, down, up, down. Suddenly he stood up. «Let's ask Captain Tellefsen.»
«Hold it! Ask her what?»
«Ask her how big the ship was. She saw it, didn't she? She'll know whether it was a liner.»
«Sit down. Let's wait till we're aground, then tell the MPs. Let them ask Margo.»
«What for?»
Belatedly, I was getting cautious. «Just take my word for it, will you. Assume I'm a genius.»
He gave me a peculiar look, but he did sit down.
Later, after we landed, we favored the police with our suggestions. They'd already asked Margo about the ship. It was a hell of a lot smaller than the Argos … about the size of a big yacht.
* * *
«They aren't trying,» Emil said as we emerged from city hall.
«You can't blame them,» I told him. «Suppose we knew exactly where Lloobee was. Suppose that. Then what? Should we charge in with lasers blazing and risk Lloobee catching a stray beam?»
«Yes, we should. That's the way Kdatlyno think.»
«I know, but it's not the way I think.»
I couldn't see Emil's face, which was bent in thought two feet below eye level. But his words came slowly, as if he had picked them with care. «We could find the ship that brought him down. You can't hide a spaceship landing. The gravity drag makes waves on a spaceport indicator.»
«Granted.»
«He could be right here in the base. So many ships go in and out.»
«Most of the base ships don't have hyperdrive.»
«Good. Then we can find them wherever they landed.» He looked up. «What are we waiting for? Let's go look at the spaceport records!»
It was a waste of time, but there was no talking him out of it. I tagged along.
* * *
The timing was a problem.
From where the kidnapping took place, any ship in known space would take six hours to reach the breakout Point. If it tried to go farther in hyperspace, CY Aquarii's gee well would drop it permanently into the Blind Spot.
From breakout it had taken us ten hours to reach Gummidgy. That was at five-gee acceleration, fusion drive and gravity drag, with four gees compensated by the internal gee field. CY Aquarii was a hot star, and if Gummidgy hadn't been near the edge of the system, it would have been boiling rock. Now, the fastest ship I'd ever heard of could make twenty gees …
«Which would take it here in five hours,» said Emil. «Total of eleven. A one-gee ship would —»
«Would take too long. Lloobee would go crazy. They must know something about Kdatlyno. In fact, I'll bet they're lying about not having Kdatlyno food.»
«Maybe. Okay, assume they're at least as fast as the Argos. That gives us five hours to play in. Hmmm …?»
«Nineteen ships.» On the timetable they were listed according to class. I crossed out fifteen that didn't have hyperdrive, crossed out the Argos itself to leave three. Crossed out the Pregnant Banana because it was a cargo job, flown by computer, ten gee with no internal compensating fields. Crossed out the Golden Voyage, a passenger ship smaller than the Argos, with a one-gee drive.
«That's nice,» said Emil. «Drunkard's Walk. Say! Remember the hunting party I told you about, with their own yacht?»
«Yeah. I know that name.»
«Well, that's the yacht. Drunkard's Walk. What did you say?»
«The owner of the yacht. Larchmont Bellamy. I met him once, at Elephant's house.»
«Go on.»
By then it was too late to bite my tongue, though I didn't know it yet. «Not much to tell. Elephant's a friend of mine, a flatlander. He's got friends all over known space. I walked in at lush hour one afternoon, and Bellamy was there, with a woman named … here she is, Tanya Wilson. She's in the same hunting party. She's Bellamy's age.»
«What's Bellamy like?»
«He's three hundred years old, no kidding. He was wearing a checkerboard skin-dye job and a shocking-pink Belter crest. He talked well. Old jokes, but he told them well, and he had some new ones, too.»
«Would he kidnap a Kdatlyno?»
I had to think about that. «He might. He's no xenophobe; aliens don't make him nervous, but he doesn't like them. I remember him telling us that we ought to wipe out the kzinti for good and all. He doesn't need money, though.»
«Would he do it for kicks?»
Bellamy. Pink bushy eyebrows over deep eyes. A mimic's voice, a deadpan way of telling a story, deadpan delivery of a punch line. I'd wondered at the time if that was a put-on. In three hundred years you hear the same joke so many times, tell the same story so many ways, change your politics again and again to match a changing universe … Was he deadpan because he didn't care anymore? How much boredom can you meet in three hundred years?
How many times can you change your morals without losing them all? Bellamy was born before a certain Jinxian biological laboratory produce
d boosterspice. He reached maturity when the organ banks were the only key to long life, when a criminal's life wasn't worth a paper star. He was at draft age when the kzinti were the only known extrasolar civilization and a fearful alien threat. Now civilization included human and nine known alien life-forms, and criminal rehabilitation accounted for half of all published work in biochemistry and psychotherapy.
What would Bellamy's morals say about Lloobee? If he wouldn't kidnap a Kdatlyno, would he «steal» one?
«You make your own guess there. I don't know Bellamy that well.»
«Well, it's worth checking.» Jilson bent over the timetables. «Mist Demons, he landed a third of the way around the planet! Oh, well. Let's go rent a car.»
«Huh?»
«We'll need a car.» He saw he'd left me behind. «To get to their camp. To find out if they rescued Lloobee. You know, the Kdatlyno touch sculptor who —»
«I get the picture. Good-bye and good luck. If they ask who sent you, for Finagle's sake don't mention me.»
«That won't work,» Emil said firmly. «Bellamy won't talk to me. He doesn't know me.»
«Apparently I didn't make it clear. I'll try again. If we knew who the kidnappers were, which we don't, we still couldn't charge in with lasers blazing.»
But he was shaking his head, left, right, left, right. «It's different now. These men have reputations to protect, don't they? What would happen to those reputations if all human space knew they'd kidnapped a Kdatlyno?»
«You're not thinking. Even if everyone on Gummidgy knew the truth, the pirates would simply change the contract. A secrecy clause enforced by monetary penalty.»
Emil slapped the table, and the walls echoed. «Are we just going to sit here while they rob us? You're a hell of a man to wear a hero's name!»
«Look, you're taking this too personally — huh?»
«A hero's name! Beowulf! He must be turning over in his barrow about now.»
«Who's Beowulf?»
Emil stood up, putting us eye to eye, so that I could see his utter disgust. «Beowulf was the first epic hero in English literature. He killed monsters bare-handed, and he did it to help people who didn't even belong to his own country. And you —» He turned away. «I'm going after Bellamy.»
