Starman's Quest Part 18

The winner reached the centrally located rostrum. Alan looked at him. He was tall, fairly young--in his thirties, perhaps--with stooped shoulders and a dull glazedness about his eyes. He looked familiar.

Steve.

Feeling no excitement now that the quest had reached success, Alan slipped from his seat and made his way around the croupier's rostrum and down the far aisle. Steve had already taken his seat at Table 111. Alan came up behind him, just as the gong sounded to signal the new round.

Steve was hunched over the board, calculating with almost desperate fury. Alan touched his shoulder.

"Steve?"

Without looking up Steve snapped, "Get out of here, whoever you are!

Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Steve, I----"

A robot sidled up to Alan and grasped him firmly by the arm. "It is forbidden to disturb the players while they are engaged in the game. We will have to eject you from this parlor."

Angrily Alan broke loose from the robot's grasp and leaned over Steve.

He shook him by the shoulder, roughly, trying to shake loose his mind from the flickering games board.

"Steve, look up! It's me--Alan--your brother!"

Steve slapped at Alan's hand as he would at a fly. Alan saw other robots converging on him from various points in the room. In a minute they'd hurl him out into the street.

Recklessly he grabbed Steve by the shoulders and spun him around in his seat. A curse tumbled from Steve's lips; then he fell strangely silent.

"You remember me, Steve? Your brother Alan. Your _twin_ brother, once."

Steve had changed, certainly. His hair was no longer thick and curly; it seemed to have straightened out, and darkened a little. Wrinkles seamed his forehead; his eyes were deep-set and surrounded by lines. He was slightly overweight, and it showed. He looked terribly tired. Looking at him was like looking at a comic mirror that distorted and altered your features. But there was nothing comic about Steve's appearance.

In a hoa.r.s.e whisper he said, "Alan?"

"Yes."

Alan felt robot arms grasping him firmly. He struggled to break loose, and saw Steve trying to say something, only no words were coming. Steve was very pale.

"Let go of him!" Steve said finally, "He--he wasn't disturbing me."

"He must be ejected. It is the rule."

Conflict traced deep lines on Steve's face. "All right, then. We'll both leave."

The robots released Alan, who rubbed his arms ruefully. Together they walked up the aisle and out into the street.

Hawkes stood waiting there.

"I see you've found him. It took long enough."

"M-Max, this is my brother, Steven Donnell." Alan's voice was shaky with tension. "Steve, this is a friend of mine. Max Hawkes."

"You don't need to tell me who he is," Steve said. His voice was deeper and harsher than Alan remembered it. "Every gamesman knows Hawkes. He's the best there is." In the warm daylight, Steve looked even older than the twenty-six years that was his chronological age. To Alan's eyes he seemed to be a man who had been kicked around by life, a man who had not yet given up but who knew he didn't stand much of a chance for the future.

And he looked ashamed. The old sparkle was gone from his brother's eyes.

Quietly Steve said, "Okay, Alan. You tracked me down. Call me whatever names you want to call me and let me get about my business. I don't do quite as well as your friend Hawkes, and I happen to be in need of a lot of cash in a hurry."

"I didn't come to call you names. Let's go someplace where we can talk,"

Alan said. "There's a lot for us to talk about."

_Chapter Eleven_

They adjourned to a small tavern three doors down 68th Avenue from the games parlor, an old-fashioned tavern with manually operated doors and stuffed moose heads over the bar. Alan and Hawkes took seats next to each other in a booth in back; Steve sat facing them.

The barkeep came scuttling out--no robot in here, just a tired-faced old man--and took their orders. Hawkes called for beer, Steve for whiskey; Alan did not order.

He sat staring at his brother's oddly changed face. Steve was twenty-six. From Alan's seventeen-year-old vantage-point, that seemed tremendously old, well past the prime of life.

He said, "The _Valhalla_ landed on Earth a few days ago. We're bound out for Procyon in a few days."

"So?"

"The Captain would like to see you again, Steve."

Steve stared moodily at his drink without speaking, for a long moment.

Alan studied him. Less than two months had pa.s.sed for Alan since Steve had jumped ship; he still remembered how his twin had looked. There had been something smouldering in Steve's eyes then, a kind of rebellious fire, a smoky pa.s.sion. That was gone now. It had burned out long ago. In its place Alan saw only tiny red veins--the bloodshot eyes of a man who had been through a lot, little of it very pleasant.

"Is that the truth?" Steve asked. "_Would_ he like to see me? Or wouldn't he just prefer to think I never was born at all?"

"No."

"I know the Captain--Dad--pretty well. Even though I haven't seen him in nine years. He'd never forgive me for jumping ship. I don't want to pay any visits to the _Valhalla_, Alan."

"Who said anything about visiting?"

"Then what _were_ you talking about?"

"I was talking about going back into the Crew," Alan said quietly.

The words seemed to strike Steve like physical blows. He shuddered a little and gulped down the drink he held clutched in tobacco-stained fingers. He looked up at Alan, finally.

"I can't. It's impossible. Flatly impossible."

"But----"

Alan felt Hawkes' foot kick him sharply under the table. He caught the hint, and changed the subject. There was time to return to it later.

"Okay, let's skip it for now. Why don't you tell me about your life on Earth these last nine years?"