Inside Man and Other Science Fiction Stories Part 7

"There are still some on Earth who call us demons, Mattern. Your rulers and administrators do not call us demons no, they are too learned for that but your s.p.a.ce Service, by means of diversions and conditionings, prevents most of those who pa.s.s through hypers.p.a.ce from seeing and hearing us. And, of those who do, most are too frightened for negotiation."

She asked with sorrowful archness, "Are we so terrible in your eyes, Mattern?"

"I don't know," he said slowly, bewilderedly. "Sometimes you are, and I know you will be again. But right now, to me you look almost beautiful."

There was silence, and, for a moment, he thought that he had offended her.

Then, "Thank you," she said softly. "It is a great compliment."

He was anxious to know why they had chosen him as their human representative.

"Weren't there any men who did try to get through?" he asked.

"A few a very few reached this s.p.a.ce." She added reluctantly, "Some of themproved to lack stability of substance-"

He was angry, at her, and at himself, for not realizing that he had not been chosen. It had merely been a question of survival. "Then you knew what could happen to Schiemann!"

"It could have happened to anyone, Mattern. You knew there were risks to be taken.

We did not conceal that from you."

And that was true. It had not occurred to him that the risks would not be equally shared by all three members of the ship's company.

The mbretersha continued "And others of those who come through go mad. We feared that might happen to you, Mattern."

"Others go sane also," he said.

"This is the first time that has happened in my experience. But truly, Mattern, a madman would not seek to reach us."

"I wonder," Mattern said. "I wonder if anybody but a madman would."

This time he had displeased her. There was chill silence, and then: "Time is short. It is best that we return to discussing our business together. Now we will pay you for the merchandise you have brought us with a substance which is stable on Earth at least it was in times gone by and which used to become a stuff of considerable value. On your next trip"

"What makes you think there's going to be a next trip? What makes you think I'm going to come back here again?" He would really have to be a madman to go through that all over again.

The mbretersha smiled. "You will come, Mattern," she said. "You will come when you see how rewarding it is to deal with us. And you will come because"

"Because of what?" he demanded, more sharply than one should address a queen.

"Because your kqyres will make sure that you do." The tall, splendidly illuminated being who stood close to her throne bowed as she introduced him: "This is Lord Njeri, who served as kqyres with the previous captain. He will serve with you."

"Kqyres? What's that?" Apprehension quickened inside Mattern. "And what right have you to"

"Your partner is dead," the mbretersha told him. "Lord Njeri is your new partner."

Mattern stood staring at her. No point protesting further, he knew; he was on her world, in her power. For the time being, he would have to obey her.

"Come, Captain Mattern," said the kqyres. "It is fitting that we superintend theloading of the ship."

So they went back to the port and Mattern watched the xhindi fill the Valkyrie's hold with some queer, spongy-looking substance that couldn't possibly be of value anywhere. And beside him stood the kqyres, as he was to be beside him for the next fifteen years.

"If you are disturbed about my effect upon your people when they catch sight of me," the kqyres a.s.sured the young man, "you may ease your mind. I shall make myself so that I am barely visible in your universe. Only those who look for me can see me. You need have no fear," he added with a sigh. "I have been through all this before."

"Yeah, that's what she told me," said Mattern grimly.

"It is disloyal of me, I know," the xhind murmured, "but I had hoped the mbretersha would not find a human representative before I died. I am aware of my obligation to my world but it is not a pleasant prospect to spend one's last years in exile, however honorable."

"Don't worry, as soon as we get to norms.p.a.ce, I'll send you back. I'm not going on with this."

The kqyres seemed to shrug sadly. "You cannot send me back, for I am permanently attached to you. Wherever you go, I go until the mbretersha chooses to free us, one from the other."

Mattern couldn't believe that. Once he got out of this alien universe, none of its laws could apply to him.

"Secondly," the kqyres informed him, "you will want to come back here. When you look at the cargo and see what it is, you will want to come back." He sighed again. "I know your species so well. And I do not fancy they have changed."

VI.

When the Valkyrie reached norms.p.a.ce, her cargo proved to be the traditional reward gold.

Not the most precious metal in the universe any more, certainly, but still valuable.

What there was in her hold would come to perhaps as much money as Mattern might, if his luck had held, have ama.s.sed in several decades of operating with Schiemann in norm s.p.a.ce.

"Well," said the kqyres as Mattern stood goggling at the glowing bullion, "is the payment just?"

"Yeah," Mattern grunted, "fair enough." His mind was working busily: Captain Schiemann is dead, and so is Balas, so I can't do anything about that. A man's got tohave some kind of business. Why shouldn't I go on trading with the xhindi, since I seem to be one of the few people lucky enough to be able to do it? Besides, from what the mbretersha said, I couldn't get out of it even if I wanted to. So why fight?

Ethics aside, it's a good deal. I'd make more money that way than any other way. I could see a lot of Lyddy.

He caught a flicker in the shifting planes of a grayness that the kqyres had become, according to promise.

"I'm thinking the way you want me to think right, Lord Njeri?" Mattern asked self-mockingly.

"You are thinking the way any reasonable being would think."

Left to his own devices, Mattern would have disposed of the gold as quickly as he could, and then gone back to Erytheia to spend it all on a year or so with Lyddy.

She came that expensive.

"And then what would you do?" the kqyres queried.

"Well, then I'd go out to hypers.p.a.ce and make more, I guess. I know it's a little tough on you," Mattern added apologetically, "but you know how it is; I'm crazy about that woman!"

The kqyres evidently did not know, but he made an effort to understand. "And, meanwhile, she will go back to doing what she has been doing, with other men?"

Mattern frowned. "Yeah, I guess so!"

"This procedure is acceptable in terms of your culture?"

"Well," Mattern said, "for women like Lyddy, sure. I mean oh, h.e.l.l it's hard to explain."

"But it doesn't disturb you?"

"All right," Mattern said sullenly, "so it disturbs me. So what can I do about it?"

"Would it not be wiser," the kqyres suggested, "for you to wait until you can get enough money so you can have her for yourself alone? After all, how long would it take for you to get together a sufficient sum at that rate?" And the kqyres indicated the gold.

"You got a point there." Mattern could see that the xhind was right. It would be a lot more sensible to make a few more trips and himself a sizable bankroll before going after Lyddy, so he'd never have to share her again. Otherwise it would be back and forth, back and forth, until it sent him off his mental course.

So, as soon as he disposed of the gold, he went back with another cargo, and then another. Waiting for Lyddy wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, because hecould talk to the kqyres about her. He'd never had somebody he could really talk to; even Captain Schiemann hadn't really been a companion. The kqyres always seemed interested in what Mattern had to say. He never talked much about himself, but he listened patiently to Mattern's description of Lyddy's talents and charms, including some which, as a non-human, he could understand only intellectually, if at all.

And he didn't only listen, with it going in one ear and out the other or whatever the xhindi had instead of ears. He made helpful suggestions, such as maybe Mattern ought to fix himself up a little before going back for Lyddy.

"I know she is to be bought," he said, as if he still didn't quite understand what that meant, "but would you not derive greater pleasure from your purchase if you knew you were a man whom a woman could like for his own self?"

Len was silent. He knew the kqyres couldn't understand human concepts of beauty; he had taken Len's own word that the young man wasn't much of a specimen, that his body and his teeth were crooked and his skin bad, his vision defective and his hair drab. Lyddy deserved something better than that; Len knew it himself. Even if she would go with him for the sake of the money, it wasn't the same thing.

"I could get my teeth fixed up in this sector," he said at last, "but I'd need to go to the Near Planets, maybe even Earth, to have my leg fixed. It'd take a long time and pa.s.sage costs a h.e.l.l of a lot. People don't go that far just for a junket, you know. For most of 'em, it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal."

"Of course," Njeri said. "Your wealth is dearly won; you wouldn't want to squander it. However, wouldn't a considerable economy be effected if you went in your own ship?"

"The Valkyrie!" Len was shocked into laughter. "She'd never make it to Earth! She'd crumple up like an old paper bag!"

"She will not last much longer, in any case," said Njeri.

Len had been thinking that himself for some time wondering how soon he would have no ship left at all, and what he would do then.

"It would be wise," the kqyres suggested, "for you first to get enough money to pay for a new ship. Only a few more trips should be necessary. Then go to whatever planet you deem most suitable for the necessary improvements, and finally return to Lyddy a man worthy not only of her but of any woman?"

"It'll take so long," Mattern said, tempted, and yet driven wild by the idea of Lyddy, so close to attainment.

"At your age, what are a few more trips?"

Len gave in.Actually, it took five trips into hypers.p.a.ce merely to pay for the new vessel, a much larger and more elaborate model than Len had planned on buying. "In the long run,"

his partner told him, "the best is most economical. A sound, s.p.a.ceworthy vessel such as this one will last out your lifetime. And you can call her the Hesperian Queen, after Lyddy."

"Why?" Len asked. "Is that what Lyddy is short for?"

"It is the same as naming it after her," the kqyres said shortly. "Only it's a little more subtle."

"Oh." Somehow the kqyres made Len feel stupid, uncouth almost, even though he was the human being and the other nothing but hyperextraterrestrial.

The treatments were even costlier than antic.i.p.ated, and it took many more trips to pay for them. Expenses were increased by the fact that he had to commute back and forth from his sector of s.p.a.ce to the planet where he was being treated, since he couldn't afford to neglect his business now that his costs were mounting.

He had his leg straightened on Earth. That world was as colorful, as complex, as intoxicating as it was claimed to be. One series of marvels after another presented themselves before his inexperienced eyes like scenes in a vision show except that he was actually there, breathing, tasting, feeling a part of this vast sophistication.

Earth had many beautiful women, and he enjoyed the favors of those in Lyddy's profession, but only to prove to himself that she was much more wonderful.

He decided there was no point bothering with the other planets; he might as well have his teeth and everything else taken care of on Earth, too. "Very wise of you,"

the kqyres approved. "The best is always the soundest, and, hence, most worth waiting for. Like Lyddy."

"Yes," Mattern agreed, "she is the best. And the most beautiful."

"Of course," the kqyres said. "Tell me more about her."

And Mattern talked, far into the night. What he couldn't remember of her by now, he imagined, so that the picture should be complete not only for the xhind but for himself.

When his leg and his teeth had been fixed, "Why stop at that?" the kqyres asked. "If it had not been for the way that stepfather of yours treated you as a child" for Len had found himself telling his companion not only about Lyddy but about everything "you would be a fine-looking man today. It would be no difficult task to have you restored to what you should rightfully be."

Mattern would not, of course, do such a thing out of vanity. But the more presentable he made himself, the more he would be offering Lyddy. So it would be worth the extra time, especially since he could spend so much of it on Earth. Lyddy had come from Earth; it would be a bond between them later.Doctors and cosmetologists got to work on him. Each treatment seemed to be lengthier than the preceding one, and more expensive. He could, however, easily afford it all he had to do was make more trips. The kqyres not only told him what cargoes to take advised him on the investments to make with his profits.

They did very well together. As far as Mattern was concerned, did fabulously well, because he had to make enough on his end to counterbalance the entire expenses of a planet on the other. The thought impressed him. I am, in a sense, equal to the mbretersha, he thought, and she is a monarch. As a result, he walked a little more erect than even the operations had rendered him.

The dangers of his trade grew less and less frightening as he came to know his way between the universes, even though, at the same time, he began to realize how great those dangers were. He had not conceived of their immensity before. The reason there were asteroid belts in so many of the solar systems, he learned now, was that the xhindi had traded with other intelligent races in earlier eras, and there had been accidents. Those races were now extinct.

The xhindi themselves ceased to be monstrous in his eyes. He grew to accept their appearance as perfectly natural in their universe. Toward the kqyres, he came to feel something of what he had felt toward Schiemann, except that where Schiemann had looked up to him and relied on him, he found himself increasingly dependent on Njeri. He told him all his hopes and ambitions, and the kqyres listened attentively.

Mattern tried to explain to him how he himself felt about Lyddy, and the kqyres tried to understand.

The kqyres taught Mattern how to play chess. "But that's our game!" Mattern said.

"I mean we play it in our universe!"

"In ours also," the xhind smiled. "Who knows whether it came from our universe to yours, or yours to ours? Nor does it matter. It is an old game and a good one."

Mattern became increasingly skillful at it. He was pleased that there was an intellectual activity in which he could engage as an equal with the kqyres, and the kqyres seemed pleased, too.

When the treatments were over, Mattern looked in a mirror. He was straight; he was handsome. His skin was clear, his eyes bright He looked less than his age. Now he could go back to Lyddy, a.s.sured that most women would find his physical appearance more than acceptable.

But he found himself hesitating. Only his physical appearance would be truly acceptable. There was something still lacking in him. His body was right, but the way he stood, the way he moved, the way he spoke, all these were wrong.

"I'm not finished yet," he said stumblingly to the kqyres, "not quite straightened out.

I ought to be more well, more smooth.""You do lack polish," the kqyres admitted, "although you are far less awkward, shall we say, than when we first met."

"That's because of you, Njeri!" Mattern declared, with genuine grat.i.tude. "You've taught me a lot!" And he looked at his outlandish friend with a great affection.

The kqyres seemed quite moved; he flickered like a pinwheel. "You have been an exceedingly apt pupil, Mattern. When first I saw you, I did not think it possible that I should ever consider you a companion. However, I have found myself taking an increasing pleasure in your company. Sometimes I even forget you are a human."

Mattern could not speak; he was so overwhelmed by the tribute.

"The pa.s.sage of time disclosed to me that there were sensitivities and perceptions beneath that forgive me, but we know how misleading first impressions can be boorish exterior. The very fact that you are conscious of your own deficiencies proves that you are more than the mere clod you still, on occasion, seem to be."

"Can't I improve myself that way, too?" Mattern asked plaintively. "Can't I make myself worthy of Lyddy in every Way?"

"Of course you can," the kqyres beamed. "Were you to apply yourself specifically to the acquisition of culture, I am sure you could become as polished as any human being can hope to be. But it will take time!"