The Planet Killers

Chapter VI

After breakfast, Gardner set out to peddle his wares. If he had ostensibly come to Lurion as a jewel-merchant, he would have to work at his trade, unless he wanted to risk getting into trouble. The Lurioni authorities might just be checking on all newcomers, for unspecified reasons, and he wanted to coyer himself.

The local jewel merchants’ exchange was some five or six blocks from his hotel, which is why that hotel had been chosen for him. As in all cities on all humanoid worlds, jewel traders tended to concentrate in one crowded district, hawking their wares at each other out on the -street, exposing palmsful of pearls and rubies and emeralds to the highest bidder. Gardner carried his little pouch of merchandise in his bosom.

The jewels, he knew, would have to be very carefully managed. He had to spin his supply out to last at least the three weeks, arid possibly a good deal more. He had the usual six-month visa, but he dreaded the thought of spending an indefinite amount of time with no occupation to keep his mind away from the project.

He entered the bourse, which lined both sides of a narrow street for several blocks.. Stern-looking Lurioni police, no doubt well paid by the jewel merchants’ association here, stood guard.

The first step was to find an Earthman. Again, it was protective camouflage; a newly-arrived Terran would be expected to seek out a professional comrade from his home world.

In Gardner’s case, though, it hurt. In three weeks or so, he knew, he would be on his way safely back to Earth, while the people he might meet and befriend now would have to perish with all of Lurion. Those Earthmen now on Lurion were considered expendable according to the harsh mathematics that governed this entire operation. Three thousand souls, more or less, could not be considered important when the lives of untold generations of Earthmen hung in the balance.

Gardner found himself suddenly face-to-face with an Earthman, a man in his sixties, short, stout, prosperous-looking, who smiled genially at him.

“You’re an unfamiliar face. Welcome to Lurion. I’m Tom Steeves.”

“Roy Gardner,” Gardner said, extending a hand to take the plump, slightly clammy one of the older man.

“Just arrived?” Steeves asked.

“Yesterday.”

“For how long?”

“Six months. Or until I’ve sold what I’ve brought. I represent a private trader.”

Steeves chuckled. “You’ve got to be careful here, Gardner. These Lurioni will rob you blind if you don’t watch out. Look at these.”

The older man opened his palm, revealing three flawless-looking sapphires. Gardner bent close over them, uncomfortably aware that he was being asked to pronounce a professional opinion.

“Lovely,” he said finally. “Of course, I’d have to study them closely.”

“Of course they’re lovely,” Steeves said. “Full-blooded beauties. And phony, every one of them.”

“No!”

Steeves smiled benignly. “They’re products of the furnace of Guair bin Netali, and if I hadn’t seen them manufactured myself I wouldn’t believe they were paste. Netali is only

one of the professionals here. Watch out for his work.” Steeves restored the sapphires to his pocket, and patted his capacious stomach. “I’ve been here twenty years, Gardner. I know all the tricks of Lurioni jewel-trading. If you’re unsure, check with me first. You’ll always find me on this corner, every day of the week.”

“Thanks,” Gardner said. “I appreciate your offer. I may need some help until I know the ropes.”

He chatted with Steeves a while longer, then moved on through the bourse. He spent most of the morning investigating, chatting with the other Earthmen, learning the angles, finding out who was trustworthy and who was not. By noon, Gardner had met and exchanged greetings with several dozen fellow Earthmen. He had had a hurry-up hypno-course in the technique of jewel trading, but now he was getting a practical course in professional argot and mannerisms.

At half past noon, he found himself in the company of two Earthmen and an Ariagonid who invited him to join them for lunch. Gardner accepted; they ate at a small Ariagonid-operated restaurant a block from the exchange, where the food was downright splendid compared with the usual Lurioni slops. During the course of dinner, Gardner consummated his first deal, unloading a ruby for a good price.

“Payable in Terran currency,” he specified.

The Ariagonid, who was the purchaser, hemmed and hawed and stroked his purple wattles; the conversion rate would favor him if payment were made in his own currency. But Gardner remained adamant, whittling the purchase price down a little to ease the pressure on the Ariagonid, and the deal was closed.

“I will register the currency this afternoon,” the Ariagonid promised. “By tonight you will deliver my gem?”

“Fair enough,” Gardner said.

Glancing quickly at his two fellow Earthmen, Gardner knew he had struck a good deal. He was pleased at his bargaining success, though he knew all too well that he was simply playing out a game against time; the price he got for the jewels was an irrelevancy. All that mattered was the need to have some sort of gainful employ until the time came to leave Lurion.

At the end of the day, Gardner returned to his hotel, footsore and hoarse, but secure in the knowledge that he had firmly established his new identity. He had haggled and bought and sold most convincingly, he thought. If any observers had been trailing him, they could not fail to believe that he was a legitimate merchant of precious and semiprecious stones, nothing more.

When evening came, he remained in the vicinity of his hotel, taking special care to get indoors before the hour grew late. His life was far too precious to the project to chance it on the streets in so dangerous a city at night.

There was a bistro opposite the hotel; he spent the hours after dinner there, as he might be expected to do, sipping judicious quantities of khall and eyeing the passing crowd. Later at night, when the streets began to empty out and the neighborhood became more dangerous, Gardner would stroll back to the hotel. For a twenty-segment piece he could buy admission to the orthicon room, where a gay kaleidoscope whirled endlessly to the stupified delight of an eager audience. It was a harmless enough diversion, especially if you kept your eyes off the screen and watched with interest the efficient tactics of the numerous pickpockets moving through the room. Around eleven each night, Gardner would retire to his own room, read for a while, and go to sleep.

It was a lonely life.

On the third day, when Gardner was beginning to get bored with the routine, there was a call, late one night, from Smee.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for Continent East tomorrow,” Smee said.

“Fine. Drop me a postcard or something when you get there.”

“How has it been, so far?”

“No complaints,” Gardner said. “You like Lurion?”

“It has its points of interest.”

“Drinking much?” Smee asked next.

“A nip or two of khall before bedtime. It helps to relax me.”

“I’m sure it does,” Smee said thoughtfully. “Well, be seeing you in a few weeks.”

“Yes. A few weeks.”

Gardner hung up the phone and emerged from the curtained alcove. One of the,ubiquitous Lurioni houseboys was staring at him quizzically. There was no privacy to be had at the telephone, of course. But Gardner was certain he had said nothing to Smee that might arouse the anxiety of a spy.

He was pleased that Smee was leaving, at any rate. He had been worried that so long as he stayed here, the little man might grow increasingly reckless. Just because he had survived six months in this city, he wouldn’t necessarily be immune to a policeman’s truncheon or the knife of a Lurioni delinquent.

The trouble with the project, Gardner thought, was that every man was indispensable. Five generators was the minimum, and one member of the team put out of commission would snarl the entire enterprise. Perhaps three or four or a dozen five-man teams would have to be sent out before the entire necessary complement could be assembled on Lurion at the same time.

The first four days had gone along smoothly enough for Gardner: up early, out to the exchange, mingle with the jewel traders, buy and sell; then back to the hotel, kill the evening in loneliness, get to sleep. It was not an exciting routine, or even a pleasant one, but it was one that he could endure. He resisted any attempt of the Earther jewel traders to form after-hours friendships with him. They were all men condemned to die at his hand, and he knew he could not allow himself to become intimate with any of them. The job was hard enough to shoulder as it was.

As he saw it, he would go along, living this way for a while. In a few days Weegan would arrive, and then Leopold, and finally Damon Archer. Then, if all were still going well, they would perform their dreadful task and leave.

But on the morning of the fourth day he saw the girl, and from then on he knew that there would be complications, much as he wanted to avoid them.

She was going out, just as Gardner arrived in the lobby. She was an Earthgirl, and she walked with a cheerful, determined stride. Gardner froze, watching her skip down the steps of the hotel and lose herself in the rapidly-moving crowd.

He thought about her all day. And, when he returned to the hotel at nightfall, after his day at the jewel exchange, he was pleasantly surprised to find her standing at the desk in the hotel lobby, tearing open an envelope she had just picked up at the mail rack.

He walked to the mail rack and made a conspicuous thing out of searching his own box for a letter. Inwardly he told himself not to be a damned fool; he had nothing to gain by this escapade but trouble. Still, he rummaged in the box, and shrugged his shoulders when he found the expected emptiness.

“Nothing for me, I guess,” he said sofdy, and’turned as though to leave. But the girl had noticed him, and she looked up, smiling.

“Hello, Earthman,” she said lightly. “Do you live here? Oh, of course, you must, if you’re looking for your mail!”

“I live here,” Gardner said.

He studied her with care. She was tall, five-seven at least, with hair dyed green and an open, wide-eyed face with cheekbones just a shade too broad. She looked very attractive. She was well dressed, in an informal way, and a notebook was slung in a litde harness over her left shoulder. Gardner guessed that she was in her middle, or perhaps late twenties. There were no rings on her slim, tapering fingers.

He realized the dangers inherent in any such encounter as this, and tried to wrench himself free. But his eyes had met hers, and he stood where he was, unable to move away from her.

“I live here too,” she said, laughing prettily. “A few days ago they told me at the desk that another Terran had moved in, but I didn’t know if you were the one.”

“I’ve been here four days.”

“Then you’re the one they told me about. It’s good to see a friendly face again.”

“Yes,” Gardner said vaguely. He knew that this was a crisis point. He had to succeed in breaking this relationship before it began, or all might be jeopardized foolishly. He said, “It was good to meet you, but I really ought to run along now. I—”

She was pouting. “You don’t have to run away from me so fast, you know. I’m not going to bite you. Honest, that’s a promise.”

Gardner forced a good imitation of a chuckle. He told himself that he was getting into trouble, very serious trouble. But perhaps” he might still work his way out of it without having to seem impolite.

“Okay, then. I appreciate your subtlety. Would you care to be bought a drink?”

“I would indeed. You’re most kind to make the offer,” she said impishly.

“There’s a little cafe across the street.”

She wrinkled her nose. She was lightly sprinkled with freckles, Gardner noticed. “That place is so terribly vulgar,” she said. “Why don’t we just go into the hotel casino?”

Gardner shrugged. Drinks in the casino were twice as expensive as across the street, for one thing. But he was bound by the rules of chivalry, now. “The casino it is, then.”

They went to the rear of the lobby and through the automatically-operated doors into the dimly-lit room. A Lurioni clad in the local equivalent of a tuxedo-andrtails came gliding unctuously up to them to ask if they were interested in gambling.

“Not at the moment,” Gardner said. “We’d just like a table in the back, and something to drink.”

“Of course, ser Earthman. Come with me.”

They were led to a nook at the rear, behind the gaming tables. It might have been romantic, secluded as it was, but the lighting in the ceiling was defective, and buzzed annoying-ly; besides, the place had the sour reek of the foul Lurioni beer. They settled into the alcove facing each other. “Do you drink khallT he asked.

She nodded. “I’ve sampled a little. But you have to understand that I haven’t had the opportunity to do much social drinking on Lurion. That’s why I practically shanghaied you just now.”

Gardner grinned and ordered two khalls. While they waited for the liquor to arrive, he said, “Now tell me what such a handsome piece of womanflesh is doing all by herself on a nasty world like this.”

“I’m a graduate anthropology student, working on my doctoral thesis,” she said.

“I never would have guessed it! What’s your field of special interest?”

She said, as the waiter deposited the drinks on the table, “My thesis is called Abnormal Cruelty on Civilized Worlds.”

“You’ve certainly come to the right place for that. How long have you been here?”

“Four months.” She chuckled. “Here we are getting into a complicated discussion, and we don’t even know each other’s names. I’m Lori Marks.”

“Roy Gardner.”

“North American?”

“Yes. So are you.”

“Very north,” she said. “I’m Canadian. Bom in Ottawa. And you’re from the northeastern part of the United States, or else you’re trying to fool me with a phony accent.”

“I’m not. I’m a Massachusetts boy.”

She giggled. “Massachusetts seems so insignificant when you’re umpteen light-years away. So does Ottawa, fpr that matter. Or the whole hemisphere. They all seem to blur into one.” Sipping her drink, she said, “And what do you do, Roy? Don’t tell me you’re an anthropologist working on the same thing I am, or I’ll absolutely have a fit.”

Gardner smiled genüy. “No chance. I’m a dealer in precious gems.”

“Really!” Her eyes went wide with disbelief. “Really,” he said. “Is it so improbable?”

“It’s just… well, funny, that’s all.”

“How so, funny?”

“Funny because I always pictured a jewel merchant as a little shrunken sort of man with a squint in his eyes from peering through his loupe. You just don’t look the part, dammit! You look more like… well, an adventurer, or a spy, or something romantic. Anything but a trader in precious gems.”

Gardner tried to keep from wincing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Remind me to shrink next time I see you. And some day remind me to tell you what I think anthropologists ought to look like.”

She giggled delightedly. “Touché.”

The conversation, which had become almost giddy, slackened for a moment. Gardner looked at the girl thoughtfully. She was young, pretty, intelligent, lively, unmarried.

And she was condemned to death.

Gardner felt his throat grow dry. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long, deep pull of the fiery khall. He looked away, suddenly, so she would not see the pain on his face.