Doomstar

15

Hurth lived. That was one good, fine, happy thing. The slug had plowed along his heart ribs, knocking him unconscious and losing him a considerable amount of blood, but he lived.

Otherwise, there was nothing to cheer about.

"I did not get one minute alone with Sekma," Boker said furiously. "None of us did. Those three red apes, or their brothers, were with us every breath we drew. They wanted to be sure, I guess…in case there was any collusion, they wanted to know about it. And I didn't dare take a chance. None of us was armed, and they were set on a hair trigger, waiting to pounce on the first wrong move."

"Also," said Kettrick, "there was me."

"I love you, Johnny," Boker said, "like a brother. But if I'd thought I could do it and get away with it…"

"Sure," said Kettrick. "I know. So now what? Sekma's on his way to Gurra, so we can forget him."

"Johnny, there was something not quite right. When he inspected the ship, he saw the stuff from Gurra, and of course I had to say I'd got it on Pellin. Flay's sons didn't know the difference but you know damn well Sekma did, and yet he never batted an eye. He's a smart man, a very smart man, as nobody should know better than we. Maybe he got the message. Maybe he's really on Seri's track himself, and just using their story about you as a cover."

"I clung to some such hope myself," said Kettrick. "I hope it's true. However, just in case it isn't, we'd better think what we're going to do when we hit Kirnanoc." And he added grimly, "There's one good thing about Kirnanoc. I don't have any friends there."

"Nobody does," said Boker. "And for that reason, you'd better stay in the ship, out of sight, while we're there. I'll do the footwork."

They discussed it over and over while they were in jump.

"Unless we find that Sekma is on the job," said Boker, "We'll have to tell the I–C what we know, there's no doubt about that. Only I'm wondering when."

"What do you mean, when?" asked Hurth, who was in a constant chafe lest his wound not heal quick enough to let him be in on everything that happened.

"If we go to them first thing," said Boker, "right after land, we might never take off again. They might want to hold us for questioning, or until somebody higher up comes and tells them what to do. They might want to throw Johnny in the pokey and the rest of us along with him."

Hurth nodded. "I never thought of that."

"I have," said Kettrick. "The Doomstar is more important than what happens to us, but on the other hand…Hell, they might not even believe us. They might think it was all just a big grandstand play to take the heat off us. And by the time they could get hold of Sekma and check with him, it would be too late."

"My suggestion," said Boker, "is to wait until we're ready to jump, meanwhile finding out all we can about Seri…Then send the I–C a message and run like hell."

"Unless," said Kettrick, "Starbird is still on her pad when we get there. If she is, we'd better yell for help, loud and clear."

Glevan, who had little time for talk between nursing Hurth and nursing the jump unit, was of the opinion that they would never catch up with Seri and neither would the I–C, and that the Doomstar would presently be shining for the whole Cluster to see and bow to.

He was also of the opinion that Sekma had gone to Gurra just as he said he would. Kettrick was afraid to think otherwise himself. Yet when they came out of jump and entered their landing pattern at Kirnanoc, he found that he was hoping, wildly hoping, that they would find Sekma waiting for them when they hit the dirt.

The starport of Achera, Kirnanoc's principal city, was as busy as Kettrick remembered it. Achera was the center from which all flowed, blessing and curse alike, to the remainder of the planet. There were some small fields scattered abroad for emergency medical or military use, but they were not open to traders. They were among the human tribes of Kirnanoc, and on this world the human was not the dominant animal. They had nothing to trade, and they supplied neither useful hides nor edible meat. Humans from other planets found them depressing in the extreme.

Kirnanoc, because it was situated at a kind of crossroads in the Cluster, had worked up quite an enviable position as an exchange and clearing house where traders often came to barter with other traders, as an easier means of obtaining goods from very distant or difficult worlds than by going after them personally. Kettrick had often done business here in the Market, selling cargoes ftom the special touch places like Gurra and Thwayn for a better price than he could get at Tananaru.

Port Authority guided them in to a pad in the northwest quadrant of the field. There were several score of ships ranged in orderly rows as far as the eye, at this level, could see. It was impossible to tell whether or not Starbird was among them.

"I'll go sign in, and check the board," Boker said. "Back in half an hour."

He went out into the tawny glare of the afternoon. Kettrick watched him walk out to the transport strip and catch one of the trams. He rode away in it toward the Administration Center and was lost to sight among the looming ships.

Grellah's fans were going, sucking in the outside air. The smell of heat and water and the faint indescribable sweetness like a wicked spice that was the true ancient breath of Achera began slowly to replace the stale metallic-tasting stuff inside the ship. Overcome with restlessness, Kettrick went below to work with Glevan and Hurth on the jump unit Chai, who had been forbidden to go outside, sat forlornly peering out the open hatch.

For all his fatalistic pessimism, Glevan had an obsession now about getting that unit ready. He had hardly waited for Grellah to sit down before he was grubbing at her vitals. Hurth, still sore and wobbly, was handing him tools and making insulting answers to Glevan's running commentary concerning the woes that were about to befall the Cluster.

"And soon. Very soon." Glevan's hands worked swiftly, his monkey face screwed up and his eyes intent on the mass of relay terminals he was checking. "If Grellah should turn into a space hawk as quick-flying as thought, she still would be too slow to catch the Doomstar."

"Then why work so hard?" demanded Hurth.

"Because I am a man, and a man is made of folly." His hands flickered among the colored wires, the many-colored posts, checking, tightening. One loose contact could mean disaster. "Man is also made of vanity. Between foolishness and vanity I fashion my own downfall. I like to think that I, with the skill of my hands and brain, can make this old ship do what she cannot do." He glanced abruptly at Kettrick. "Do you know, Johnny, there is a little less than one unit of Universal Arbitrary Time left before the meeting of the League of Cluster Worlds?"

"I do," said Kettrick. "I do."

And Hurth said gloomily, "Why is it that there's always some crazy idiot that has to make trouble?"

"The great cry of the human race," said Kettrick. "Nobody ever answered it yet."

They worked. The half hour passed, and few minutes more, and then Chai barked down the ladder well.

"John-nee!"

They jumped up, thinking it was Boker. But she said, "Men come. No Boker. Strange men."

They raced up the ladder to the companionway. Through the hatch Kettrick could see a small carrier bouncing toward them over the scorched concrete of the pad. There were several men in it, or rather several Achernans. He could make out the yellow tunics of spaceport guards.

"What do they want?" said Hurth. "And where's Boker?"

"I don't know," said Kettrick. "But my guess would be that we've stepped into a hornet's nest."

They stood for a moment, a little stunned by the suddenness of it, watching the carrier speed toward them.

"I never did like Kirnanoc," said Glevan softly. "There's a smell of evil about it." He struck Kettrick across the chest, pushing him away. "Get out of sight, Johnny, you and Chai. They've got no way of knowing you're aboard."

Kettrick hesitated.

Hurth said, "Go, Johnny. We may need you, awful bad."

He went then, swinging up the ladder as fast as he could, with Chai behind him. In Grellah's swagging mid-belly was the hatch into the cargo holds. He went through it with Chai and closed it very quietly behind him, and as he did so he heard the carrier stopping far below, and a challenging of voices.

In the close darkness he groped his way among the fixed cargo cradles until he judged he was hidden from anything but a determined inspection. He sat down on the cold iron that was a deck on land and a bulkhead in flight. Chai sat beside him.

They waited, in the silence and the blind dark.

After a short while Kettrick heard the muffled clatter of persons going up the ladder to the bridgeroom. There were voices. Even through the bulkhead door he could tell by the sound and cadence of them that they were not any of his. A little later they came down again pausing at various levels, and the pauses were accompanied by the clanging of hatch doors.

The steps approached their own hatch, and Kettrick put his hand on Chai to stop her growling.

"Freeze," he whispered.

They froze, hugged tight against the bolted frame of a cradle. From the baled goods within it a faint scene of crushed grasses and far-off sunlight touched him and made him think of Nillaine. The door was flung open. The powerful beam of a torch probed here and there. The alien voices spoke again, with a soft sweet sibilance that to Kettrick had always been profoundly unpleasant. Then they went away, leaving the hatch open. The light from, the center well made a small puddle in the blackness.

The noises from below were muted but unmistakable. Voices raised in angry protest; a brief confusion; the sound of the carrier starting up and going away; silence.

Kettrick wondered if they had left a guard. He waited a long time, listening. At length he sent Chai to find out. Her ears and nose were far keener than his. She came back shaking her head and snorting with displeasure.

"No one, John-nee. Bad smell, like footless thing." In the light from the door she made a gesture indicating a writhing movement.

"They're warm-blooded, just like us," said Kettrick. "They bear their young alive. They have really very pretty skin. But I agree with you."

"What now?"

"We wait till dark."

He looked at his wrist chronometer. It would not be a long wait. After that he would do something. He had no idea what it would be. But he knew that he had better think about it, and think fast.

He sat by the hatch, where he could hear if anyone came. The ship was uncannily quiet, hollow, creeping with faint echoes. Chai watched. And Kettrick felt most terribly alone.