Doomstar. Part 9

"He doesn't know it."

"Oh?" said Flay. "Well, it is different in different lands. With us, a friend and partner would be the first to know."

"Not," said Kettrick, "if your friend and partner is an honest man and wishes to stay that way...and you con-template a crime."

Now he reached resolutely for the cup and laughed to cover his unsteadiness.

"You knew, perhaps, that the I-C drove me out of the Cl.u.s.ter, under pain of arrest if I ever came back."

"I knew that. Seri himself told me when he first came here."

"Ah," said Kettrick. "Then you must understand that I came back secretly."

He drank, aware that Flay was watching him with eyes like two little bright hard stones. Aware of Boker drinking, desperately silent. Aware of Chai in a corner, always in a corner watching, and her muzzle twitching as it did when something smelled wrong to her.

"Secretly?" said Flay. "And yet you are trading."

"Boker is trading. My friend and I are only shadows." He grinned at Flay. "Boker is transporting shadows to a certain place, and in the meantime we're depending on my friends to keep the secret in case the I-C asks." He leaned a little closer. "Because of that the trading will be extra good...if you haven't already stripped yourselves for Seri. We can afford it, you see, because in a very short while we'll be rich."

"Shadows," said Flay. "Well, well. And when will the shadows come out into the light? Where does a trader who cannot trade go to get rich in the Cl.u.s.ter?"

"To the White Sun," said Kettrick, "to buy heartstones from the Krinn. That's where I was going when they caught me, just a hair's breadth away from a million credits. I couldn't forget that, Flay. That's why I came back, and that's why Boker is risking a stretch at Narkad to help me."Flay's eyes opened wider, losing some of their hard glaze. "A million credits," he repeated. Suddenly he was roaring with laughter. "We don't give a hang for money here, but we like courage, and we like independence, and we don't greatly like the I-C, who come meddling with their d.a.m.ned spot-checks every so often to see if we're sending out drugs or poisons."

He leaned over and shook Kettrick by the shoulder. "Good luck, Johnny. I'm glad to see you again, and since I will not see you again after you go, we must make this week a special one, a sort of hail and farewell from the Firgals." He filled the cups again, all bluff good fellowship and honest joy. "How's that?

We'll hunt, and eat, and drink, and shower each other with gifts, and we'll trade, even though Seri was just here. We'll do you better than you did on Gurra." He thrust the cup at Kettrick and another at Boker. "The women have been weaving a great deal of cloth, and last winter's pelts were especially..."

Kettrick caught it. "Gurra?"

"You just came from there, didn't you?" asked Flay. "I thought you said..."

"No," said Kettrick. "We came from Pellin-" naming one of the alternates to the Gurra route "-and the trading was good there."

"Pellin," said Flay, shaking his head. "I must have heard wrong. Well, it's no matter. No matter at all." He went to the stairway and hollered down it in his own tongue. While his back was turned both men tossed back their drinks and wiped the nervous sweat off their faces, and Boker's lips formed silently a word that meant, "There was a dirty one!"

The tension seemed to have disappeared. A buxom girl with thick red braids swinging down her back brought up a huge tray of food, and they ate, and Flay's strapping sons began to come in from their work, and they ate and drank, and after a while everyone was happy and roaring out songs.

At a quite early hour, because the Firgals went early to bed, Kettrick and Boker rode back to the ship in the dark blowing dusk, loaded with food and drink. Three of Flay's sons went along as escort, to keep them from straying in the hills. When they reached the ship the sons went in with them, smiling and interested, chattering in fluent lingua. They were fascinated by ships, they said, and wanted to look around.

They looked, while Hurth and Glevan stuffed themselves and fell gratefully into their bunks. Kettrick had half ex-pected something like this, so the sons peered everywhere without finding the spare bars hidden among the cargo, see-ing only the obvious break in the pump linkage that fed the air supply. They stood around watching for quite a while after Boker and Kettrick went to work on the jump unit, and Kettrick fumed inwardly because they had to keep the pace leisurely while the audience was around.

Finally the sons got bored and drifted off to the bridgeroom and went to sleep on the seats. After that Boker and Kettrick worked like madmen.

When at last it was Kettrick's turn to sleep it was easy to believe that everything would go all right now. The sons would be a nuisance, but as long as that link bar was missing they would be content.

Boker and Hurth and Glevan would work around the clock. Kettrick would do the trading and keep Flay happy, and help the others as much as he could. They would have Grellah jump ready in record time and...

And go on after Seri with their hands reached out to catch the Doomstar.

And how much chance did they have to catch it, or stop it, or even slow it down.

The Firgals were in on it. They knew. Perhaps some-where in that honeycomb town they had hidden away a piece of another world's destruction, bribed by Seri's glibly friendly, subtly threatening tongue. Just one thing promised to them would be enough for these people...safety for their own sun, their own cherished world. "The Doomstar will never shine for us." They had given their lives, their devotion, and endless hard work to this dying land. It would be a little thing to them to sacrifice someother planet, some other sun, to the ambitions of other men, as long as Thwayn was safe. The quarrel was none of theirs. All they knew was what belonged to them, what they made with their own strong hands and kept at the price of their own blood.

He did not know that he could entirely blame them.

But he could and did hate Seri with a vicious and dreadful hatred.

He slept and dreamed, and this time he walked in the sick light of the Doomstar with Boker and Nillaine and Flay and a host of others, all led by Glevan beating solemnly on a m.u.f.fled drum. Presently Kettrick left them and ran by him-self, searching and calling through the twisted streets, be-cause Larith was somewhere there and needed him. He heard her voice quite clearly, crying out his name. Once or twice he saw the vanishing flutter of her skirts. He did not find her.

Next day he began the trading. It was too cold for an outside fair around the ship such as they had had at Gurra. Long lines of pack animals carried the bales of boxes into the city, to the Council Hall, and carried the furs and woollens and raw yarns back to Grellah.

If Seri had actually done any trading here, it had not made a noticeable dent in the Firgals' wealth.

Kettrick traded all day and then took his turn with the others at night in the rusty bowels of the ship, getting gla.s.sy-eyed for lack of sleep but pleased all the same that Grellah would be ready in a little over two days instead of four.

Next morning Flay came out to the ship with no pack ani-mals, but with a dozen men accoutred for the hunt, and a gaggle of "hounds," hairy creatures all tooth and claw and snuffling eagerness.

"There is no haste, Johnny," he said. "My son the smith, and he is the best smith even though he is my son, says it will take him more than seven days to make your bar. Perhaps as many as ten, because he must get a special metal."

Kettrick allowed his face to fall, but not too far.

"So," said Flay, "let the trading wait for a while. The goods will keep, but my hounds are spoiling for a run. Come and hunt."

Kettrick hesitated. "Ten days," he said. "That's too bad."

"Why, Johnny?"

"It's still a long way to the White Sun."

"Learn patience. It will wait."

"Well, since there's no help for it..." Kettrick shrugged. "Maybe it's a good thing at that, when I think about it. Kirnanoc is the next jump from here..."

Flay appeared to be waiting politely for him to explain.

"I mean, Seri has to go there, too, so it's just as well for us to sit here for a while, give him time to do his business and clear out. I wouldn't want to run into Seri, especially on Kirnanoc." Kettrick's smile was dazzling in its sincerity. "Part-ner or not, I wouldn't trust him not to turn me in to the I-C office there. He had enough trouble on my account two years ago."

He knew that this possibility was exactly what was on Flay's mind, only in reverse. He was worried about Seri, not Kettrick, and he wanted no risk of a chance meeting.

Kettrick went hunting with Flay. Chai ran by his stirrup. The hounds did not like her, nor she them, and they stayed apart. The hounds killed twice. Something red and strange came into Chai's gaze. When they sighted a third quarry she said, "Kill, John-nee?"

He spoke to Flay and the hounds were leashed. The men watched while the great gray Tch.e.l.l wentcoursing, transfig-ured with a deadly beauty. Her body bent and swayed and stretched itself in the steps of a ballet dancer with a horned and fleeing creature across the red-gold gra.s.s, a swift ballet climaxed with a single leap. Flay grunted, with mingled ad-miration and distaste.

"You have a peculiar friend."

"She is loyal," Kettrick said. "Her people are still too close to the beast for treachery."

They rode back toward the city with the lolling carca.s.ses strapped behind saddles and Chai cleaned herself daintily with handsful of gra.s.s.

It was dusk and coming on to snow when they met a boy, riding like the wind.

13.

The company reined up, waiting while the boy talked to Flay, his voice urgent and excited. Because of the way the boy kept glancing at him, Kettrick knew that this was no do-mestic matter. It concerned him.

He sat very still in the saddle, his hands tight on the reins. Snowflakes brushed his face with their cold, delicate touch. It seemed a very long time before Flay turned to him and said in lingua, "An I-C ship has landed, Johnny."

Kettrick's heart gave a great leap. Luck was with them for once. They would not have to wait until they reached Kirnanoc. Help was here. They could tell the I-C men about Seri and the Doomstar, and with their faster ship they...

A veil of snow blew between him and Flay, and through it in the dusk he could feel what he could not clearly see; Flay's eyes straining to read his face.

And he realized that luck was not with them at all.

Until the two ships were jump ready, they were all guests of the Firgals. And if the Firgals became suspicious, because of one slight word or action, that either or both groups might be on the track of Seri and the Doomstar, then none of them would live to take off.

And the I-C could not possibly have chosen a worse time for a random spot check of Thwayn.

Their arrival so close behind Grellah, and both of them so close behind Starbird, was enough to make anyone suspicious.

He was surprised at the steadiness of his own voice when he spoke.

"This is what we were afraid of, why we brought the trade goods and tried to make everything look normal. But now comes the real test, Flay."

"Test, Johnny?"

"Boker and the others can take care of themselves. The I-C has nothing against them. So it comes down to me, and you. Will you hide me, or will you turn me in?"

He had never thought to see the day when he would hope that the answer would be, "I'll turn you in and be d.a.m.ned."

"Turn you in, Johnny? My friend? May the Frost King freeze me into white, stone if I could think of such a thing?" Flay pondered a moment, shaking the snowflakes from his red braids. Then he spoke to the boy, who moved over beside Kettrick. "Go with him, Johnny. Don't worry about the I-C!"

In a minute Flay and his party had vanished into the dark-ening snowfall. Kettrick looked after his friend with some-thing less than grat.i.tude, and prayed that Boker and Hurth and Glevan would keep their mouths shut. The boy called to him and started away in a different direction. Kettrick fol-lowed, keepingclose so as not to lose him. Chai ran easily beside him with her hand on his knee.

Presently, in what was now full dark and increasing cold, Kettrick smelled smoke and the heavy sweet-sour reek of penned animals. Stone walls appeared on either side of him, narrow as a cattle chute, and he realized that that was what it was. The boy halted and opened a gate, and they pa.s.sed through into one of the big caves, half natural and half man-made, where stock was held over the winter.

Kettrick was aware of dim shuffling ma.s.s movements as the creatures got Chai's scent and shifted away from it, snorting. The air became warmer and free from snow. The boy leaned over and took hold of Kettrick's bridle. They moved on very slowly and then stopped in pitch darkness. Kettrick heard the boy jump to the ground. A moment later a sulphur match spluttered brightly, dimmed, and brightened again to the larger glow of a lantern. The boy beckoned.

Kettrick dismounted and followed him with Chai, into a hallway or tunnel cut in the stone at the back of the cave. They followed it for a long way. The floor slanted sometimes up, sometimes down. In places, the rock walls and ceiling were replaced by stout timbers c.h.i.n.ked with clay. At irregular in-tervals there were doorways. Those on his left hand opened into buried storerooms. Those on the right belonged to houses, and through them he could hear the many sounds of fami-lies getting their dinners. The boy had brought them in at the lower end of one of the streets and they were now going behind the houses in one of the network of tunnels that gave access to storage cellars and to the cattle pens on days when extreme cold or heavy drifting made the street undesirable.

At length the boy halted and knocked on one of the doors. It opened a crack and Kettrick saw the same buxom red-braided girl who had brought the food up to them, and he knew they were back at Flay's.

There was some hurried low-voiced conversation, only this time Kettrick knew it did not concern him. The boy caught one of the red braids in his hand and pulled on it until the girl's face was in a position where she could not avoid being kissed, and she pushed at him with a great show of rage but no determination, and they both laughed, and Kettrick was glad that there were some people still with no more on their minds than kissing. He wished he were one of them.

The girl beckoned him in finally, with a sidelong look at Chai. This was a different part of the house from the one Kettrick had seen before, and temporarily deserted, though there was noise enough beyond. The girl whisked him up an-other narrow stair that was like a ladder, her thick st.u.r.dy legs in knitted stockings as agile as a goat's. Under her woollen skirt she wore knickers made out of material as thick as a horse blanket. It was a cold world, Kettrick thought, and wondered if he would ever see another.

At the top of the ladder was a room with a close bed and a s.h.a.ggy hide rug on the floor. A tray of food and a clay bottle were laid ready on a table, and a lantern burned. A feeble fire struggled against a down draught in the small hearth, so that the room was well supplied with smoke but little warmth. The girl crooked her ringer importantly and he followed her to the bed. She scrambled into it and pointed with her finger to a place in the wall where the c.h.i.n.king was gone from between the stone and a ma.s.sive support post. He was about to ask her a futile question when she made a gesture of wild im-patience, as though to a very stupid child, bidding him be quiet. At the same time he heard voices from beyond the wall.

The girl wriggled out of the bed and went away, shutting the door carefully behind her. Kettrick put his eye to the c.h.i.n.k.

On the other side of the wall was the room where Flay had entertained him and Boker. Flay and Boker were there now. They had just come in, and with them were two men in the dull-green uniforms of the I-C.

One of them was Sekma.Kettrick drew back, feeling physically sick. He could hear them talking, but for the moment he was too stunned to lis-ten. Chai started to speak to him and he caught her just in time, warning her to silence.

Then he pointed to the table. "Eat," he whispered. "Not hungry now, bring the bottle."

She brought him the clay bottle and then settled herself to eat from the tray. Kettrick pulled one of the heavy blankets around him and hunched up in the corner of the bed where the c.h.i.n.k was. He took a long pull at the whiskey and then laid his head against the cold stone.

On the other side of the wall the men had sat down and Flay was pouring drinks for them, and everything was friend-ly. The second I-C man, a plum-colored, loose-jointed chap from Shargo on the other side of the Cl.u.s.ter, was just at the edge of Kettrick's view. His rather blobby features ap-peared free from all strain. Boker, his silver mane bristling down over the neck of his coverall, had his back to Ket-trick. His voice sounded as jovial and careless as ever. It was only because Kettrick knew him so well that he could tell by the set of his back and rather overlargeness of his gestures that he was inwardly anything but careless.

Sekma was facing Kettrick. The narrow head, the tight curls like a copper helmet, the chiseled bones, the brilliant blue eyes...there he was, so close, so tantalizingly close. Kettrick had only to cry out through the c.h.i.n.k in the wall...

He bit hard on hiis tongue to keep from doing it.

"Just a routine check," Sekma was saying. "Thank you, Flay." They all drank politely.

And why the h.e.l.l, thought Kettrick, couldn't you have made your routine check a little earlier, when Seri was here? You could have caught him then...

No. Seri would have set up shop for an innocent trader. He would have had the components of the Doomstar well hidden, most certainly beyond the range of any ordinary search. And if by chance he had been caught, the Firgals would have seen to it that Sekma did not profit by his interference.

"Everything is in order," Boker was telling Sekma. "You're welcome to inspect the ship."

"I shall," said Sekma, and accepted another cup from Flay, who now sat down beside him.

"You may inspect the trading place, too," said Flay. "Al-though every time you do it is the same thing. Some day I will have to arrange a few parcels of narcotic just to make you happy."

"It's a kind thought, Flay," said Sekma. "We like to have some justification for these trips, which are quite as tire-some for us as they are for you."

"At least," said Flay, "Interworld-Commerce is democratic. It sends its high officers to work as well as the rank-and-file."

Sekma smiled. "It doesn't 'send.' The choice is mine."

"Then I would say that your devotion to duty is almost as good as a Firgal's." He flourished the bottle again, though Sekma had hardly touched his second cup. "Here, make your routine visit less tiresome with this. And perhaps tomorrow we will hunt, eh? This snow will not lie deep."

"That would be enjoyable," said Sekma. "Thank you." He lifted his cup and sipped from it.

Apparently his attention now was centered entirely on the liquor. Kettrick knew better. Sekma's whole body was a quivering antenna, sensitive to the flicker of an eyelash, the silence of a held breath.

Boker said, "On Pellin I was offered a piece of contraband...a very attractive piece, I might say...but I declined it."

Sekma's gaze never lifted from the smoky liquid in the cup. "You're learning virtue, Boker. I'm pleased." He savored the rather musty bouquet and then drank. He set the cup back down. "This trip has one aspect that is not routine, I must admit.""Ah," said Flay. "Aha."

Boker's back stiffened. Only the Shargonese continued to sip his drink contentedly, unaware that death in the shape of strong red-braided men filled all the house and all the town around him. If he were not unaware, Kettrick envied him his iron nerve.