David Falkayn: Star Trader (Technic Civlization) Page 8

  I do think, though, his way of talking did it. He could pull Jupiter from Sol with, oh, just one of his rambles through xenology or analytics or Shakespeare or history or hypertheory or anything. Happen I've still got a tape, like I notice you making now. You cogno yours stays private, for your personal journal, right? I wouldn't admit the truth about this to another human. Not to anybeing, if I wasn't an angstrom drunk. But listen, here's Noah Arkwright.

  "—isn't merely that society in the large goes through its repetitions. In fact, I rather doubt the cliché that we are living in some kind of neo-Elizabethan age. There are certain analogies, no more. Now a life has cycles. Within a given context, the kinds of event that can happen to you are of a finite number. The permutations change, the elements remain the same.

  "Consider today's most romantic figure, the merchant adventurer. Everyone, especially himself, thinks he leads a gorgeously variegated existence. And yet, how different can one episode be from the next? He deals with a curious planetary environment, natives whose inwardness he must try to understand, crafty rivals, women tempting or belligerent, a few classes of dangers, the eternal problems of making his enterprise pay off—what more, ever? What I would like to do is less spectacular on the surface. But it would mean a breaking of the circle: an altogether new order of experience. Were you not so obsessed with your vision of yourself as a bold pioneer, you would see what I mean." Yah. Now I do.

  We didn't see we'd been blued till we put the articles of partnership through a semantic computer. He must have used symbolic logic to write them, under all the rainbow language. The one isolated fusing thing he was legally committed to do was conduct explorations on our behalf. He could go anywhere, do anything, for any reason he liked. So of course he used our money to outfit his damned expedition! He'd found that rhenium beforehand. He didn't want to wait five years for the returns to quantum in; might not've been enough anyway. So he dozzled up that potburning machine of his and— On Earth they call that swindle the Gypsy Blessing.

  Oh, in time we got some sort of profit out of Despair, though not half what we should've dragged on so big an investment. And he tried to repay us in selfcharge if not in cash. But—the output of the whole works is—here I am, with a whole star cluster named after me, and there's not a fellow human being in the universe that I can tell why!

  —Recorded in the diary of Urwain

  the Wide-Faring

  The Trouble Twisters

  I

  Poker is not a very good three-handed game, so the crew of the trade pioneer ship Muddlin' Through had programmed her computer to play with them. It bought chips with IOUs. Being adjusted to an exactly average level of competence, it just about balanced winnings and losses in the course of a mission. This freed the crew to go after each other's blood.

  "Two cards," said its mechanical voice. David Falkayn dealt them onto a scanner plate that he had rigged at one end of the saloon table. An arm projecting from a modified waldo box shoved the discards aside. Down in their armored tank, at the middle of the ship, think cells assessed the new odds.

  "One," said Chee Lan.

  "None for me, thank you," rumbled Adzel.

  Falkayn gave himself three and picked up his hand. He'd improved: a pair of treys to match his kings. Adzel might well stand pat on nothing better, and Chee had probably tried to complete a flush; the first round of betting, opened by the machine, had been unenthusiastic. But Muddlehead itself, now—

  The steel arm dropped a blue chip into the pot.

  " Damn! " shrieked Chee. Her tail bottled out to twice its normal size, the silky-white fur stood erect over her whole small body, and she threw her cards down so hard that the tabletop ought to have rung.

  "Pestilence upon you! I hate your cryogenic guts!"

  Imperturbably, Adzel doubled the bet. Falkayn sighed and folded. Chee's fury ebbed as fast as it had come. She settled down on her elevated stool and began washing, cat-fashion. Falkayn reached for a cigarette.

  Muddlehead raised back. Adzel's dragon countenance wasn't able to change expression, except for the rubbery lips, but his huge scaly form, sprawled across the cabin, grew tense. He studied his cards again. A bell tone interrupted him. That part of the computer which was always on watch had observed something unusual.

  "I'll go," Falkayn said. He rose and went quickly down the forward passageway: a tall and muscled young man, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, snub-nosed, and high of cheekbone. Even here, light-years from the nearest fellow human, he wore lounging pajamas that would not have been out of place in Tycho Lodge. He told himself that he was obliged to maintain standards—younger son of a baronial house on Hermes, currently a representative of the Polesotechnic League, and all that sort of thing—but the fact was that he had not quite outgrown a certain vanity.

  At the midsection scanner turret, he punched controls. No oddities appeared in the screen. What the devil had the observer units noticed? So much computer capacity was engaged in the game that the ship herself couldn't tell him. Maybe he'd better— He shifted the cigarette in his mouth and increased the magnification.

  Westward in a deep purplish sky, the sun stood at eternal late afternoon. It was a K0dwarf, barely one-tenth as luminous as man's home star, furnace red. But at a mere third of an astronomical unit from Ikrananka, it showed nearly three and a half times the angular diameter and gave about as much irradiation. Through the dull light and thin air, a few other stars were visible. Spica, little more than three parsecs away, shone like a white jewel. Otherwise the heavens held nothing but a flock of leathery-winged flying beasties and, above the northern heights, the yellow cloud of a dust storm. Halfway up a hill, Muddlin' Through commanded a wide overlook of the Chakora. That former sea bottom stretched ruddy-green and indigo shadowed, densely planted with low succulent crops. Here and there on it Falkayn could see clusters of buildings, woven in patterns from gaily colored fibers, each surrounding a stone tower: the thorps and defensive keeps of agricultural families. Wherever a spring seeped forth, the vegetation became intensely verdant and gold. And there thickets of long stalks, like plumed bamboo, the closest this world had ever come to trees, swayed in the wind. The hill itself was craggy, eroded, with little except scrub growing between the boulders. On its top loomed the ramparts of Haijakata. At the foot was a tower guarding the town's well, accessible from above through a tunnel. Nearby, a dirt road from the east twisted to enter the gates. Falkayn didn't see any natives abroad.

  No, wait. Dust smoked on that highway, three or four kilometers off but rapidly nearing. Somebody was bound here in an awful hurry.

  Falkayn adjusted the scanner. The scene leaped at him.

  Half a dozen Ikranankans were urging their zandaras on. The big, brown-furred, thick-tailed bipeds rose in soaring arcs, touched earth, instantly gathered their leg muscles and sprang again. The riders shook lances and sabers aloft. Their open beaks showed that they screamed.

  A breeze blew aside the dust and Falkayn saw what they were pursuing. He just avoided swallowing his cigarette.

  "No," he heard himself feebly say. "Such things don't happen, I swear they don't." His paralysis broke. He whirled and ran back aft. At a mere sixty-five percent of Terrestrial gravity, he moved like a scared comet. He burst into the saloon, skidded to a halt, and roared, "Emergency!" Chee Lan hopped across the table and switched the computer back to normal function. Adzel thrust a final chip into the pot and turned over his cards. He had a straight. "What is the matter?" Chee asked, glacially self-possessed as always when trouble showed.

  "A . . . a woman," Falkayn panted. "Being chased."

  "By whom?"

  "Not me, dammit. But listen, it's so! Bunch of native cavalry after a human female. Her zandara looks tired. They'll catch her before she gets here, and Lord knows what they'll do." While Falkayn was blurting, Adzel looked at Muddlehead's hand. Full house. He sighed philosophically and shoved the pot over. Rising, he said, "Best we go remonstrate with them. Chee, stand by." The Cynthian nodded and p
attered off to the bridge. Adzel followed Falkayn to the lower exit. His cloven hooves clanged on the deck. At the locker, the man slipped on a gun belt and stuck a radio transceiver into a pocket of the coat he grabbed. They valved through.

  To avoid delays when going out, they maintained interior air pressure at local norm, about three-fourths of Earth sea level. But they preferred more warmth and moisture. Swift, dry, and chill, the wind struck savagely at Falkayn's mucous membranes. His eyes needed a moment to adapt. Adzel picked him up in two great horny hands and set him on his own back, just behind the centauroid torso. The Wodenite had had one of the sharp plates which jutted from his head, along his spine to the end of his tail, removed for that purpose. He started downhill in a smooth gallop. His musky odor blew back around Falkayn.

  "One supposes that another ship has come," he said, his basso as placid as if they were still dealing cards. "By accident?"

  "Must be." Falkayn squinted ahead. "She's dressed funny, though. Could she have run afoul of barbarian raiders? We do keep getting hints of war in the Sundhadarta mountains." He could barely make out the highest peaks of that range, glooming above the eastern horizon. On his left marched the tawny cliffs which had once been a continental shelf. To the right lay only the evergreen fields of the Chakora. Behind him reared Haijakata hill, and his ship like a shining spearhead. But the view here had grown deadly familiar. He wasn't sorry for a bit of action. No danger to speak of; that gang would probably head for home and mother the minute they saw Adzel.

  Muscles rippled between his thighs. The cloven air shrilled and nipped his ears. Hoofbeats drummed. And now, ahead, he could clearly see the girl and her pursuers. Harsh nonhuman yelps reached him. She waved and spurred her flagging zandara to a last rush. The Ikranankans shouted to each other. Falkayn caught a few words—why, they spoke the Katandaran language perfectly—

  One of them halted his beast and unshipped a crossbow from his saddle. It was a slender weapon. His arms had merely half a man's strength to cock it. But the darts it threw were needle sharp and traveled far in this gravity. He fired. The missile zipped within centimeters of her loosened auburn braids. He cried an order while he fitted another dart. Two more riders unlimbered their own bows.

  "Judas on Pluto!" Falkayn gasped. "They mean to kill her!" Every sense he had surged to full alertness. He looked through red-tinged dust and ruby light as if he were face to face with the closest autochthon.

  The being stood some one hundred fifty centimeters tall. In body he resembled a barrel-chested, wasp-waisted man with unduly long, thin limbs. Sleek brown fur covered him; he was warm-blooded and omnivorous, and his mate brought forth her young alive; but for all that, he was no mammal. Atop a slender neck, his bowling-ball head sported a black ruff, pale eyes, donkeylike ears, and a corvine beak that might have been molded in amber. His padded feet were bare so the three long toes on each could grip stirrups. Otherwise he wore tight cross-gartered pants, a leather cuirass with iron shoulder pieces and a zigzag insigne on the breast, and a wide belt from which there hung dagger and saber. Three sharp-nailed fingers and a thumb cranked the bow taut. His right hand lifted the stock. Falkayn snatched forth his blaster and fired upward. It was a warning; also, the beam dazzled native eyes and spoiled their aim. The girl cheered.

  The squad at her back scattered. They were all accoutered more or less alike. The kinship symbol they shared was not familiar to Falkayn. Their leader screeched a command. They rallied and charged on. A dart buzzed near the man. Another broke on Adzel's scales.

  "Why—why—they have decided to kill us, too," the Wodenite stammered. "They must have been prepared for the sight of us."

  " Get going! " Falkayn howled.

  He was born and bred an aristocrat on a planet where they still needed soldiers. Boyhood training took over in him. Gone metal steady, he narrowed his fire beam for maximum range and dropped one zandara in its tracks.

  Adzel opened up. His ton of mass accelerated to a sprint of one hundred fifty KPH. Wind whipped blindingly in Falkayn's eyes. But he wasn't needed any more. Adzel had gotten in among the Ikranankans. He simply bowled over the first animal and rider. Two others spun through the air in a bow wave. His tail struck to one side, and that flattened a fourth. The last two bolted off across the fields. Adzel braked himself and trotted back. A couple of the opposition were hotfooting it elsewhere, the other casualties seemed barely able to move. "Oh, dear," he said. "I do hope we did not injure them seriously."

  Falkayn shrugged. A race of giants could afford to be gentler than men. "Let's get back to the ship," he said.

  The girl had stopped further down the road. As they neared her, his lips shaped a whistle. Perhaps she was a little too muscular for his taste. But what a figure! Tall, full, long-legged and straight-backed . . . and her outfit showed delightfully much of it, what with half-length boots, fur kilt hiked up for riding, doublet appropriately curved over a sleeveless blouse, and a short blue cloak. She was armed with cutlery similar to the natives', had a painted shield hung by her saddle and a flat helmet over her rusty coils of hair. Her skin was very white. The features had an almost Hellenic clearness, with big gray eyes and wide mouth to soften them.

  "What ho! " Falkayn murmured. "And where are you from, lass?" She wiped sweat off her brow and breathed hard, which was pleasant to see. Adzel continued lumbering down the road. She clucked to her zandara. It walked alongside, too exhausted to be skittish of his enormousness.

  "You . . . are . . . are in truth from Beyond-the-World?" she asked. Her husky Anglic held an accent he had never met before.

  "Yes. I suppose so." Falkayn pointed to the ship.

  She traced a sign. " Algat is good!" The word was local, meaning approximately "magic." Recovering some composure, she peered after her enemies. They had restored order, but weren't giving chase. Even as she watched, one of them on an unharmed animal started off, hell for leather, toward the far side of the hill. The rest followed slowly.

  She reached out to touch Falkayn's hand, as if to make sure he was real. "Only rumors drifted usward," she said low. "We heard a strange Ershokh had arrived in a flying chariot, and the Emperor forbade anyone to come near. But the story could've grown in telling. You are truly from Beyond-the-World?

  Even from Earth?"

  "I said yes," he answered. "But what are you talking about? What do you mean, Ershokh?"

  "Humans. Did you not know? They call us Ershoka in Katandara." She considered him, and it was as if a mask slid over her. With a slowness and caution he did not understand, she ventured: "Ever since our ancestors came, over four hundred years ago."

  "Four hundred?" Falkayn's jaw hit his Adam's apple. "But the hyperdrive wasn't invented then!"

  "Obviously she means Ikranankan years," said Adzel, who was hard to surprise. "Let me see, with a revolution period of seventy-two standard days . . . yes, that makes about seventy-five Terrestrial years."

  "But—I say, how the deuce—"

  "They were bound elsewhere, to . . . what is the word? . . . to be colonists," the girl said. "Robbers captured them and left them here, the whole five hundred."

  Falkayn tried to make his mind stop whirling. Vaguely he heard Adzel say, "Ah, yes, doubtless a squadron from the Pirate Suns, venturing so far from their bases in the hope of just such valuable booty as a large ship. They were not interested in ransom. But it was meritorious of them to find a habitable planet and maroon rather than kill their prisoners." He patted her shoulder. "Do not fret, small female. The Polesotechnic League has long since taught the Pirate Sun dwellers the error of their ways." Falkayn decided that any comforting should be done by him. "Well!" he beamed. "What a sensation this will make! As soon as we tell Earth, they'll send transportation for you." Still she watched him, strangely and disappointingly careful. A damsel lately in distress ought not to act that way. "You are an Ersho—I mean an Earthman?"

  "Actually I'm a citizen of the Grand Duchy of Hermes, and my shipmates are from other planets. But we ope
rate out of Earth. David Falkayn's my name."

  "I am Stepha Carls, a lieutenant in the household troops of—" She broke off. "No matter now."

  "Why were those klongs chasing you?"

  She smiled a little. "One thing at a time, I beg. So much to tell each other, truth?" But then she did drop her reserve. Her eyes widened, her smile went up to about fifty megawatts, she clapped her hands and cried: "Oh, this is purest wonder! A man from Earth—my own rescuer!" Well, now, Falkayn thought, a bit stunned, that's more like it. He dropped his questions and simply admired the scenery. After all, he'd been away from humankind for a good many weeks. At the ship they tethered the zandara to a landing jack. Falkayn bowed Stepha up the ramp to the lock. Chee Lan came springing to meet them. "What a darling pet," the girl exclaimed. Chee bristled. In some respects she was not unlike Master Beljagor. "You try to kitchy-koo me, young lady, and you'll be lucky to get your fingers back." She swung on her fellows. "What in the name of nine times nine to the ninety-ninth devils is going on?"

  "Didn't you watch the fight?" Falkayn said. Under Stepha's eyes, he preened himself. "I thought we did a rather good job on those bandits."

  "What bandits?" Chee snapped. "From here I could see them go right into town. If you ask me—if you have the wit to ask me, you pair of vacuum-headed louts—you've clobbered a squad of Imperial soldiers—the same Emperor's that we came here to deal with!"