The Planet Killers

Chapter XI

Gardner moved rapidly. He jumped forward, getting between the door and its jamb before Archer could slam it in his face. Reaching out into the hallway, he grabbed the fleeing Archer by the shoulder and spun him back into the room; the door slammed shut.

“What’s your hurry?” Gardner demanded. “I told you to stick around.”

Instead of answering, Archer crashed a fist into Gardner’s midsection. Gardner gasped and doubled up, but as Archer confidently brought his fist round for another blow, Gardner grabbed it suddenly, pivoted, and flipped Archer over his shoulder.

The thin man shot backward, landing heavily against the wall with a sharp crack. He scrabbled to his feet, but by that time Gardner was on top of him. Archer’s eyes were glaring desperately; his mild face had come to life in a startling way. He strained to roll over, clawed at Gardner’s arms, tried to force the weight of the heavier man off him.

He succeeded. Archer was thin, but he seemed to have the tensile strength of beryllium steel. He forced Gardner off him, and then sprang up. Archer was quick on his feet. He ducked back and lunged at Gardner. Gardner left his guard open, rolled with a soft punch under the heart, and sent Archer rocking backward toward the wall with a stiff jolt to the chin.

Gardner followed it up with a barrage of light punches and a swift crack across Archer’s exposed throat. It was dirty fighting, no denying it, but such niceties didn’t matter now.

Archer gagged and started to topple. Gardner caught him, slapped him twice, just to loosen him up, then thumped his skull hard against the wall. Archer’s eyes glazed and closed.

Puffing for breath, Gardner turned back to face the visi-screen. Leopold, who had watched the entire encounter, peered out of the screen, eyes wide in the puzzled oval face.

“That was Archer, wasn’t it?” Leopold asked. “What in blazes is happening?”

“I don’t know,” said Gardner, nursing bruised knuckles. He glanced at the unconscious Archer. “But he made me take the doorseal down, and then he maneuvered me into dictating what amounted to a full confession of… of the Company’s trade secrets. And then when yo.u called he tried a quick getaway. I’m going to look through his suitcase. Suppose you call me back in about ten minutes, eh?”

Gardner,broke the contact. He didn’t think it would be very wise to have the contents of Archer’s suitcase sent out over public beam.

Archer was still unconscious. Good, Gardner thought, Working hastily, he slit the suitcase open with a penknife and looked inside.

Much clothing. A small package containing the sonic generator. And…

Gardner dragged a little device out from where it nestled between two layers of shirts, and peered grimly at it. A pocket recorder! One of those devilish little subminiaturized devices that could record for an hour on a single reel, one that picked up a good clear signal even when hidden in a suitcase.

Gardner depressed a stud and heard a tinny simulacrum of his own voice say, “Okay. Here’s your summary: we’ve been sent here as a team of five with the assignment of destroying Lurion. It takes five of us to do it, each equipped with a sonic generator that…”

Smiling coldly, he set the tape back to its beginning and

pressed the erase stud. Checking again, he found that the tape was now blank. He tossed the little recorder down on the bed.

Then he drew a glass of cold water and tossed it in Archer’s face. The man on the floor shook his head, sputtered, coughed, and opened his eyes.

Gardner knelt next to him. “I’ve just played back that tape you made,” he said. “Who are you working for, Archer?”

Archer looked dazed. His head lolled to one side. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gardner.”

“Don’t bluster your way clear. It won’t do you any good. Who paid you to wiggle a confession out of me?”

“Don’t be crazy. First you attack me like a wild man, then you insinuate—”

Gardner slapped him. The big man’s eyes blazed. “I suppose you were making that tape for yourself as a souvenir of this mission!”

Archer made no reply. After a moment’s silence, Gardner said, “If you’re really a Security man, you know that we don’t draw the line at torture if we think the means is justified by the end. I’d hate to have to act uncivilized, Archer, but—”

Archer grinned confidently. “You wouldn’t torture me. I’ve seen your psych report. You’re soft inside, Gardner. You try to talk tough, but your mind is just a mass of doubts and contradictions and softbellied evasions—”

Gardner slapped him again, to shut him up. “Who’s paying you?”

“No one, yet,” Archer said quietly. “But I imagine the Confederacy of Rim Stars will be interested in the way Earth lives up to its high ethical pronouncements. Don’t you think so?”

And Archer rose abruptly from his sitting position. His foot lashed out at the squatting Gardner. The heavy boot caught Gardner square in the chest and he toppled over, more stunned with surprise than injured. The attack had been wholly unexpected.

As Gardner came dizzily to a half-sitting position, he saw

the other man open the door—this time Archer had no trouble with the latch—and race out into the hallway. Gardner gasped for breath, feeling a dull throbbing under his breastbone where Archer had kicked him. He forced himself up.

Gardner made his way into the corridor, pausing only to lock his door. Even in emergency, it was’wrong to leave the room open to any plunderer who might choose this moment to come along.

By the time Gardner had finished locking up, Archer had disappeared into the lift-shaft. Cursing, Gardner streaked down the hallway just in time to see the lift begin to lower itself groundward. Gardner pounded impotently on the door, to no avail.

Other residents of the hotel, their early-evening slumbers disturbed by the fighting and chasing about, now began to open their doors and give vent to their complaints, loudly and in a variety of languages. Gardner ignored their protests. There was still a chance he might catch the fugitive Archer, after all.

Remembering how slowly the lift-shaft operated, Gardner made for the stairs. The staircase was poorly lit, a deepening spiral illuminated only by a sputtering glowlamp near each landing. Gripping the bannister tightly, Gardner sprang down_ two and three steps at a bound, half expecting to come fetching up against the curved Lurioni blade of some lurking looter crouching spiderlike on the staircase, waiting for just such an occurrence.

But he reached the lobby unhindered. The desk clerk looked up, blinking.

“Did an Earthman just leave the lift-shaft?” Gardner demanded.

“Why… yes… that is…”

Gardner did not pause for details. Negotiating the steps of the hotel in one sprawling leap, he landed upright on the street and looked around.

It was late, only an hour till midnight, and the streets were far from crowded. That made it that much harder for

Archer to escape. Gardner caught sight of the fleeing spy, half a block away, and gave pursuit.

Archer moved swiftly, but Gardner had the benefit of the same kind of training, and kept pace. That was all, though; the half-block gap between them remained constant, and no expense of effort on Gardner’s part seemed to close it. Archer turned down a twisting side street; Gardner followed. But at any moment the fugitive might think to duck into one of the numerous doorways, and then he could lose himself forever.

Obviously Archer was panicking, or he would have evaded Gardner minutes ago. Gardner pressed forward dodging round the few passersby.

But there seemed no hope of catching him—unless there were help.

On a sudden impulse, Gardner shouted, “That man’s a thief! Stop him! Stop that thief!”

A massive Lurioni, rounding the corner in front of Archer, heard the outcry and looked quizzically at the approaching man. Gardner waved frantically and called, “Yes, that’s himl Catch the thief!”

The Lurioni extended one broad hand and Archer ran squarely into it. The Earthman rebounded, turned, saw Gardner gaining on him.

Gardner watched Archer fumble in his pocket, as if hoping to bluff the Lurioni with a weapon. The alien’s reaction was swift and decisive. Producing the short, wickedly curved Lurioni blade that no free citizen seemed to be without, the tall being stepped forward, passed the knife with blinding rapidity from one hand to the other several times, and deftly plunged it into Archer’s breast.

Gardner stopped short, ten feet away, panting for breath. The Lurioni was smiling benignly.

“The thief has been stopped.”

“You killed him!”

“What better way to stop a thief?”

Archer was on his knees, now, writhing in his last agonies. His face was a blank mask of pain; his hands clutched at the hilt of the blade, but his efforts to remove it only drove it in deeper. He had been slashed from belly to breastbone. Great gouts of blood welled out, trickling across the pavement into the gutter. Already, smelling the blood, inquisitive dog-like creatures were beginning to gather.

The dying man muttered something incoherent, stretched his limbs taut, held the spreadeagle for a moment, and went limp.

“He is dead,” the Lurioni said calmly. “I have undertaken blood-guilt for you, Earthman.”

“I didn’t ask you to kill him, only to stop him from getting away.”

“You said he was a thief. A thief’s life is forfeit, is it not? I have saved the government money.”

On this planet all lives are forfeit, Gardner thought. He stared down at the grotesquely twisted form lying sprawled on the pavement. Several strollers had paused on the far side of the street to watch. There was no sign of a Lurioni policeman anywhere.

The killer stooped and casually wrenched his blade free from the body. Looking down at Gardner from his enormous height, the Lurioni said, “This was no affair of mine. You must buy me free of it.”

“How much do you want?”

“A thousand Units,” the Lurioni replied immediately. “It* is the usual price.”

Gardner scowled, wondering if he ought to try to haggle. He decided against it. The money meant nothing to him, and the sooner he extricated himself from this nightmarish incident, the better. He took out his wallet and surrendered ten hundred-unit notes.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“You must pronounce the formula. Say, ‘I take upon myself the blood-guilt for the man slain at my request by Binnachar dur Sliquein.’ ”

“I take upon myself the blood-guilt for the man slain at my request by Binnachar dur Sliquein,” Gardner repeated. “Is that all?”

“That is all. I am absolved.”

“What about me, though? What happens to the body, now?”

Binnachar shrugged elaborately. “What concern is that of yours or mine? The man was a thief; you said so yourself. Since he is an Earther, he probably will not have relatives here to seek for his body. Leave him for the Carrion-pickers.”

“But the police?”

“The death of thieves does not interest the police.” Binnachar knelt again and wiped his blade clean on Archer’s jacket after which he replaced the knife in his own tunic. “I am grateful to have been of service to you, ser Earthman. A pleasant night to you.”

Gardner remained where he was for a moment, still shaken by the swiftness, the brutality of the incident.

And no one seemed to care. Perhaps that was the worst of it. The knot of watchers was gone; Binnachar dur Sliquein, having received his blood-fee and having been absolved of blood-guilt, had probably already begun to forget the incident; the police had never even shown up on the scene. The only ones at all interested were the animals that clustered in the gutter, sipping the warm blood that runneled from the gash in Archer’s breast. No doubt when they tired of drinking the blood, they would devour the body. Gardner shuddered.

The longer he remained here, he knew, the greater was his chance of finding trouble. Turning, leaving the body where it lay, he retraced his steps until he reached the hotel.

The desk clerk woke once again from his slumber to ask, “Did you find him?”

“Yes,” Gardner said.

He rode upstairs.

To his relief, he saw that no one had attempted to enter his room during his brief absence. He sank down wearily on the bed, bitterly regretting the fact that he had thrown away the khall bottle. He needed a drink badly. He was shaken to his core.

The computer had failed again, he thought. And this time it had failed in a way that threw doubt on the validity of any of its predictions. Somehow it had managed to send out one who was rotten within, who had chosen to betray Earth instead of work for Earth’s safety. How could such a thing happen? Security agents went through fine screening. Those chosen for this particular assignment were screened even more thoroughly. And yet Archer had passed through the net, a traitor.

The computer, Gardner thought, is only a machine. It takes the facts as given to it, weaves in a dollop of random variables, and produces a prediction. But it can’t see into the human brain. It had proved unable to peer behind the bland exterior of Damon Archer and detect the traitor lurking within. Archer had fooled the computer; or, rather, the computer had failed to predict his behavior accurately. It had similarly bungled the first expedition to Lurion.

There was no escaping the fact now, Gardner thought. The computer’s judgment could not be trusted. It had failed on a short-range prediction, the reliability of one man; how could its word be accepted for such a mighty extrapolation as the coming galactic war?

Gardner realized dully that he was on the edge of turning traitor himself: traitor to Security, traitor to Earth, traitor to the computer; all this, but, perhaps, not a traitor to himself.

Very carefully, Gardner took the dead man’s recorder and touched the playback stud. The reel had been completely erased. But there were ways, he had heard, of compelling an erased tape to yield some of its secrets. Just to be absolutely certain, Gardner opened the mechanism, worried out the tiny reel of tape, and shredded it between thumb and forefinger. Then he stuffed it thoughtfully in the disposal chute, following it a moment later with the crushed casing of the recorder itself.

So much for Archer’s spying, he thought.

The visi-screen bleeped. It was Leopold, calling back, no doubt. Gardner still felt shaky. He was on the threshold of an imDortaif decision, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone till the decision was complete. But he couldn’t very well ignore the screen.

Gardner activated the set. Yes, it was Leopold. The bearded man looked agitated. “What happened?”

“He was making a tape of our conversation,” Gardner said. “I guess he was planning to peddle it to some third party after the project was complete.”

“The little worm,” Leopold muttered. “Where did he go?”

“He woke up, knocked me over, and made a break for it. About three blocks from here he ran into a Lurioni with a long knife.”

“Dead?”

Gardner nodded. “I left him in the street. He won’t be making any little deals.”

“But what about—?”

“The project?” Gardner’s face darkened. “I don’t know. I don’t know at all, right now. Just stay in touch with me, and I’ll keep you posted on the developments.”

“Will do.”

The screen went blank. Gardner pounded one fist into the palm of his other hand.

Assuming he still wanted to go through with the project, there would have to be a replacement for Archer. And perhaps a second replacement would be needed. Smee, cracking slowly under the psychological strain of the assignment, was obviously on the verge of a complete burnout. He might not last out the time it would take to get Archer’s replacement to Lurion.

Gardner put his head in his hands. Killing a planet was no matter for weak men.

He wondered about Archer. No doubt Archer had had some grand idea of collecting damning and unchallengeable evidence and peddling it. “The Confederacy of Rim Stars,” Archer had said. Yes, that loose linkage of second-rate worlds would pay well for anything that might tear down Earth’s interstellar prestige.

But Archer had panicked guiltily, and now he would do no betraying. His act might yet save a world, Gardner thought.

Weary, his head throbbing, Gardner rose and pushed Archer’s suitcase into the closet, slapping the seal on the closet door. They’d have to rip up the walls before they found it.

What to do now? Send back to Earth for replacements? Continue as scheduled? No, Gardner thought.

He remembered Steeves and his two earnest young Lurioni “philosophers.” He had to have another talk with Steeves. Then, perhaps, he could frame his decision. Meanwhile, he would have to stall off Smee, Leopold, and Weegan on the matter of asking for a replacement for Archer.

Gardner restored the room to a semblance of order. Then, knowing that the best thing he could do now was to get some sleep, he began to undress.