Doomstar

3

It was night when Johnny Kettrick came back to Tananaru, second world of one of the great mild orange suns of the Hyades.

He had come by devious ways. Vickers and Sekma had insisted, and he had been forced to agree with them, that a sudden reversal of the official position in regard to him would make him instantly suspect to those persons he was supposed to seek out. So his reinstated license lay securely in a bank vault, and Kettrick was, as far as anybody here but Sekma and Dr. Takinu knew, reentering the Cluster illegally.

It had chagrined Kettrick somewhat to find out that Sekma was still one step ahead of him.

"It would not do," he had said, "for you to take all the risk and trouble of going back merely to engage in some more trading activities. No one would believe this either. But fortunately, Johnny, you have an excuse that anyone, even the maker of a Doomstar, would believe."

And Kettrick had looked at him, and Sekma had smiled.

"When I did finally lay you by the heels, you were on your way to the White Sun, with your alien and illegal hands outstretched to grasp the best part of that million credits you have just now reproached me with. One quick, easily portable haul of those beautiful stones and you…But Johnny, didn't you think I knew?"

"No," said Kettrick, "I did not. But I might as well tell you that I've had exactly that idea in mind, to sneak back into the Cluster just long enough to finish that transaction." He shook his head. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to make friends with the Krinn, to get them to trade with me? And then you had to step in."

"Even I," said Sekma, "felt that such skill and courage deserved a better reward. But the Krinn are protected under Cluster law. And how fortunate it turned out that way, because now you have what Mr. Vickers would call the perfect cover."

And they had left it to Kettrick to find his own way back to Tananaru, technically as illegal an alien as ever. Even Sekma's department would not be instructed to let him alone. It was up to him not to get caught.

That was all right with Kettrick. And he thought he might have a surprise or two for Sekma yet.

It had taken him some time to lose his identity. He had done that on the swarming waystation worlds of Aldebaran, where he had altered the tint of his skin and hair and submerged himself in the masses of humanity and near-humanity that mingled around the starports. Using a forged Aldebaranian permit, he had found a job in the crew of a small freighter bound for the Hyades, of which Tananaru was the port of entry.

And so he came home.

Carrying his duffel bag over his shoulder, he shuffled with the rest of the shabby gang of men and man-things through the fourth class gate of the fourth class docking area of the starport, waited while the relays of the electronic scanner clicked over his permit and found no black mark against it or the fingerprints thereon, which were not his own, and passed freely on into the noisy squalid streets beyond.

He walked, not hurrying, breathing the air and feeling the presence of this earthly-unearthly world that had always seemed more home to him than the world of his birth.

He left the vast port area behind, and at length was in the old winding streets of the city that had been here long before the starships and the outland men, long before the age of power and the machine. This was Ree Darva, the changeless, the beautiful. Her people could look both ways, and because they were excited by the future they did not forget to love the past. They were a warm people and liked warm friendly things, and they found the high glittering glass-and-steel geometries of Earthly cities both cold and repellent. They modernized their plumbing and their lighting and all the other things that gave them comfort, but they still preferred to build low sprawling structures of the red-brown stone that kept them cool in the hot summer noons and warm in the mild winter midnights, and they crowned the flat roofs as they had always done, with gardens of flowers and graceful shrubs. Now it was summer, and from the roofs came the sounds of music and laughter and women's voices.

Kettrick smiled, and wandered, but always in the same direction.

Along these narrow ways, more than twenty years ago, he had run with the golden Darva boys and regretted his ugly sunbrowned skin and straight dark hair. Later, among these same roof gardens, he had pursued the golden Darva girls and been pleased that his exotic appearance sometimes gave him an edge over the local swains. His father, Byron Kettrick, had headed the first trade mission to the Hyades from Earth, and stayed there so long that his youngest child thought of Earth only as a place of exile. When the senior Kettrick and the rest of the family returned home, Johnny Kettrick bade them farewell, got a license to trade, and lost himself in that drifting archipelago of suns. Lost himself so well that he forgot about certain laws and regulations governing alien trade, perhaps in part because he did not think of himself as an alien. That, and Sekma's perseverance, had been his downfall.

And now he was home again.

But not safe.

He remembered that with an abrupt start when he saw some men walking ahead of him where two lanes met. This was a residential area, and a slovenly tramp crewman from Aldebaran would be hard put to explain what he was doing in it, so far from the port and so late at night. He stepped into the dark archway of a service gate until the men were out of sight, and then retraced his steps to the last crossing and began to work his way westward, not dreaming any more.

Three of the five small coppery moons were in the sky, weaving shifting light and shadow. He stayed in the shadows. The busy parts of town where the streets were thronged all night with pleasure seekers were off to the southeast, and here there was little traffic of any sort. He saw no more pedestrians. Once he had to jump to the top of the wall and lie there while a ground car went chirring by in the narrow lane, its open body filled with laughing youngsters. But that was all, and presently he came to a house that stood on the bank of a placid little river, where the water gleamed softly in the moonlight.

Kettrick stood a while in the darkness under some ornamental trees and examined the house. Lamps still glowed among the shrubbery of the roof garden, light pleasantly subdued so that it aided the shining of the small moons but did not glare it out. A breeze blowing across the river brought the scent of flowers and, he thought, a murmur of voices. He shook his head, frowning. He would have preferred the house to be silent in sleep. It would be awkward if the place was full of guests.

Still, he had to get off the streets, before daylight or a cruising patrol caught him there. He crossed quickly to the shadow of the house and pressed against it, listening.

He could hear only two voices, speaking quietly in the high garden. He could not hear the words they were saying. He could not even be sure he recognized them, they were so remote. But one of them was the voice of a woman, and Kettrick's heart gave a sudden wild leap.

He moved on then along the wall to the service gate. It was not barred, and that should have warned him, but he was impatient now to see the face of the woman on the roof and he slipped in silently, closing the gate behind him. The paved area behind the house contained two of the small ground cars. Around the walls were the neat little buildings for the storage of tools and necessary items, with the inevitable trees, tall shrubs, and clambering vines making black clots of shadow here and there. The back of the house was dark, and there was no sound but the breeze and the murmur of voices from above.

Kettrick dropped his duffel bag out of sight in some shrubbery and started for the stone stairway that led up from the courtyard to the roof.

He was less than halfway there when he heard a rushing whisper of movement in the shadows and there was a looming of tall shapes, and great horny hands caught him and lifted him and flung him down breathless on the paving stones, shaken like a child in the hands of strong men. Crushing weight descended on him. He struggled briefly, startled and gasping for air, seeing in silhouette above him the shapes of massive bending shoulders and smooth heads against the sky. A smell of dry clean fur came to him. There was a low, almost gentle growling, and then the suggestive pricking of claws at his throat.

Kettrick began to laugh.

"Hroo, hroo!" he said to them in their own tongue. "Khitu, Chai…it be Johnny. John-nee!"

A brilliant light sprang on, slamming away the shadows. Half blinded, Kettrick looked up into the two broad faces bent above his own, seeing the round dark eyes begin to brighten.

"John-nee?"

The claw tips went away from his throat.

"John-nee! John-nee!" they clamored, and bared their white teeth, laughing. Their strong arms lifted him up, and the great hands were now as gentle as velvet. "Long go away," Chai said. "You play with us, see if we forget."

Khitu shook him reproachfully. "You come by dark. Look different. But smell the same, same John-nee!"

"Same Johnny," he said, and patted them with rough affection, as he would two great dogs, rumpling the fine smoke-gray fur. Then he looked up and saw the two people standing on the stone steps, looking down at him.

One was a man, a golden Darvan with copper curls. He wore light summer clothing, shorts and sandals and a thin shirt that left his supple body half bare above the waist. His name was Seri Otku, and he had used to be Kettrick's partner. He had a shocker in his hand.

The other was a woman, a golden Darvan also, but her skin was pale and warm like honey in the sun, and her hair had a softer luster and it was long enough to brush her bare shoulders when she turned her head. Her eyes were blue and her mouth was red, and she was built and curved and balanced so that every move she made was music. She wore a gown of soft green like a flowing of mist around her. Her name was Larith, and she had used to be something to Kettrick too.

Now she came down one step, and then another, looking at him as she might have looked at a ghost come rattling unbidded at her door.

"Johnny," she whispered. "Johnny, you shouldn't have come back!"