The Winds of Gath

Chapter One

He woke counting seconds, rising through interminable strata of ebony chill to warmth, light and a growing awareness. At thirty-two the eddy currents had warmed him back to normal. At fifty-eight his heart began beating under its own power. At seventy-three the pulmotor ceased helping his lungs. At two hundred and fifteen the lid swung open with a pneumatic hiss.

He lay enjoying the euphoria of resurrection.

It was always the same, this feeling of well-being. Each time he woke there was the surge of gladness that once again he had beaten the odds. His body tingled with life after the long sleep during which it had been given the opportunity to mend minor ills. The waking drugs stimulated his imagination. It was pleasant to lie, eyes closed, lost in the pleasure of the moment.

"You okay?"

The voice was sharp, anxious, breaking into his mood. Dumarest sighed and opened his eyes. The light was too bright. He lifted a hand to shield his face, lowered it as something blocked the glare. Benson stood looking down at him from the foot of the open box. He looked the same as Dumarest remembered, a small man with a puckered face, an elaborate fringe of beard and a slick of black hair, but how much did a man have to age before it showed?

"You made it," said the handler. He sounded pleased. "I didn't expect trouble but for a minute back there you had me worried." He leaned forward, his head blocking more of the light. "You sure that you're okay?"

Dumarest nodded, reluctantly recognizing the need to move. Reaching out, he clamped his hands on the edges of the box and slowly pulled himself upright. His body was as expected, nude, bleached white, the skin tight over prominent bone. Cautiously he flexed his muscles, inflated the barrel of his chest He had lost fat but little else. He was still numb for which he was thankful.

"I haven't lost a one yet," boasted the handler. "That's why you had me worried. I've got a clean score and I want it to stay that way."

It wouldn't, of course. Benson was still fresh at the game. Give him time and he would become less conscientious, more time and he would grow careless, finally he wouldn't give a damn. That's when some of his kind thought it cute to cut the dope and watch some poor devil scream his lungs raw with the agony of restored circulation.

"I'm forgetting," he said. He passed over a cup of brackish water. Dumarest drank it, handed back the cup.

"Thanks." His voice was thin, a little rusty. He swallowed and tried again. This time he sounded more like his normal self. "How about some basic?"

"Coming right up."

Dumarest sat hunched in the box as Benson crossed to the dispenser. He wrapped his arms about his chest, conscious of the cold, the bleakness of the compartment The place resembled a morgue. A chill, blue-lighted cavern, the air tainted with a chemical smell. A low place, shapeless with jutting struts and curved beams, harsh with the unrelieved monotony of unpainted metal.

There was no need for heat in this part of the ship and no intention of providing comfort. Just the bare metal, the ultraviolet lamps washing the naked, coffin-like boxes with their sterilizing glow. Here was where the livestock rode, doped, frozen, ninety per cent dead. Here was the steerage for travelers willing to gamble against the fifteen per cent mortality rate.

Such travel was cheap-its sole virtue.

But something was wrong.

Dumarest sensed it with the caution born of long years of experience. It wasn't the waking. He had gained awareness long before the end of the five-minute waking cycle. It wasn't Benson. It was something else-something which should not be.

He found it after he had moistened the tips of his fingers and rested them lightly against the bare metal of the structure. They tingled with the faint but unmistakable effect of the Erhaft field. The ship was still in space.

And travelers were never revived until after landing.

Benson returned with a pint of basic. A thin vapor rose from the cup, scientifically designed to stimulate the appetite. He smiled as he passed it over.

"Here," he said. "Get this down while it's still warm."

The fluid was sickly with glucose, laced with vitamins, thick with protein. Dumarest swallowed it with caution, taking small sips, careful of his stomach. He handed Benson the empty container and stepped from the box. A drawer beneath held his clothes and personal effects. He dressed and checked his gear.

"It's all there," said Benson. His voice was hollow against the echoing metal. "Everything's just as you left it."

Dumarest tightened his belt and stamped his feet in their boots. They were good boots, A wise traveler looked after his feet.

"I wouldn't steal anything from you people." The handler was insistent on his honesty. "I don't blame you for checking your gear but I wouldn't steal it."

"Not if you've got any sense," agreed Dumarest. He straightened, towering over the other man. "But it's been tried."

"Maybe. But not by me."

"Not yet."

"Not ever. I'd never do a thing like that."

Dumarest shrugged, knowing better, then looked at the other boxes. He crossed to them, checking their contents. Three young bulls, two rams, a solid block of ice containing salmon, a dog, a plethora of cats-the general livestock cargo of any starship traveling at random and trading in anything which would yield a profit. Animals but no people-despite all the empty boxes. He looked at the handler.

"There were other travelers wanting passage at your last port of call," he said evenly. "Why only me?"

"You came early."

"So?"

"We had a last-minute charter. The Matriarch of Kund and party. You were already in freeze or you'd have been dumped out with the other passengers and freight." Benson crossed to the dispenser and refilled the empty cup. "They took the whole ship."

"Big money," said Dumarest. The only way to break the Captain's Bond was to buy off anyone who could claim prior right. "Didn't she have a ship of her own?"

"She did." Benson rejoined Dumarest. "I heard one of our engineers talking and he said that their drive was on the blink. Anyway, the Old Man took the charter and we left right away."

Dumarest nodded, taking his time over the second pint. A spaceman could live on four ounces of basic a day and he was beginning to feel bloated. Benson sat close, his eyes on the big man's face. He seemed eager to talk, to break the silence normal to his part of the ship. Dumarest humored him.

"A matriarch, eh? Plenty of women to liven things up."

"They're traveling High," said Benson. "All but the guards, and they don't want to play." He hunched even closer. "What's it like being a traveler? I mean, what do you get out of it?"

His eyes were curious and something else. Dumarest had seen it so often before, the look of the stay-put to the mover-on. They all had it and the envy would grow. Then, as the prison of their ship began to close in, that envy would sour into hate. That's when a wise traveler waited for another ship.

"It's a way of life," said Dumarest. "Some like it, some don't. I do."

"How do you go about it? What do you do between trips?"

"Look around, get a job, build another stake for passage to somewhere else." Dumarest finished the basic and set down the empty cup. "Broome is a busy world. I won't have too much trouble finding a ship heading for somewhere I haven't yet seen." He caught the handler's expression. "We're going to Broome? The place you told me was the next port of call?"

"No." Benson retreated a little. Dumarest caught his arm.

"I booked for Broome," he said coldly. His hand tightened. The handler winced. "Did you lie?"

"No!" Benson had courage. "You booked the usual," he said. "A passage to the next port of call. I thought it was Broome. It was Broome until we got that charter."

"And now?"

"We're three days flight from Gath."

Close your eyes, hold your breath, concentrate. On Gath you can hear the music of the spheres!

So claimed the admen and they could have been telling the truth-Dumarest had never wanted to find out. Gath was for tourists with a two-way ticket. It was an "attraction" with no home industry, no stable society in which a traveler could work to build the price of get-away fare. A dead, dumb, blind-alley of a world at the end of the line.

He stood at the edge of the field looking it over. He wasn't alone. Down past the leveled area, crouched in the scoop of a valley running down to the sea, squatted a huddle of ramshackle dwellings. They reflected the poverty which hung over them like a miasma. They gave some shelter and a measure of privacy and that was all.

Further off and to one side, on some high ground well away from the danger of the field and the smell of the camp, sat a prim collection of prefabricated huts and inflatable tents. There sat the money and the comfort money could provide-the tourists who traveled High, doped with quick-time so that a day seemed an hour, a week a day.

Those in the camp had traveled like Dumarest-Low. Those who rode Middle stayed with the ships which were their home. They would stay, so Benson had said, until after the storm. Then they would leave. Others would return for the next storm. On Gath that was about four months. An age.

Dumarest walked from the field, thrusting his way past a handful of men who stared at the ships with hopeless eyes, feeling his boots sink into the dirt as he left the hardened surface. It was hot, the air heavy, the humidity high. He opened his collar as he entered the camp. A narrow lane wound between the dwellings, uneven and thick with dust. It would lead, he knew, to a central area-common to all such encampments. He was looking for information. He found it sooner than he hoped.

A man sat before the open front of one of the dwellings. It had been clumsily built from scraps of discarded plastic sheeting supported by branches, weighted with rocks. The man was bearded, dirty, his clothing a shapeless mess. He stooped over a boot trying to mend a gaping rip in the side. He looked up as Dumarest approached.

"Earl!" The boot and scraps of twisted wire fell aside as he sprang to his feet. "Man, am I sorry to see you!"

"Megan!" Dumarest's eyes probed the dirt, the beard, the shapeless clothing. "As bad as all that?"

"Worse." Megan stooped, picked up his boot, swore as he thrust a finger through the hole. "Just arrived?"

"Yes."

"How was the handler on your ship?" Megan was too casual. "A decent type?"

"Couldn't be better. Why?"

"Decent enough to trust a man?"

"He isn't a fool." Dumarest sat down before the hut. "You know the rules, Megan. No cash, no ride. How long have you been stuck here?"

"Over a year." Viciously he flung down the damaged boot. "Four times I've seen the ships come in and four times they've left without me. If I don't get away soon I won't be able to get away at all. Even now I'd be taking more than a normal risk."

He was optimistic. Beneath the dirt Megan was gaunt, his clothes hanging from a skeletal frame. For him to travel Low in his condition was suicide. He looked enviously at Dumarest.

"You're looking fit," he said. "For a man who's just landed."

"I had luck," said Dumarest, and smiled at the memory. "The handler stepped out of line and got himself disciplined. He woke me three days early for the sake of company. He wanted someone to talk to. I let him talk."

"And got well fed for listening." Megan scowled. "I bet he wanted to know all about being a traveler."

"You know?"

"It happens all the time. Damn yokels! They can't understand that it takes guts to operate on your own. They get to hate us for being what they can't and they vent their spite any way they can. Damn them all to hell!"

He sat down, lacking the strength for sustained anger.

"I got here by mistake," he said quietly. "A lying handler said the ship was bound for Largis. I didn't know he'd lied until I was outside the ship. At first I wasn't too worried. I'd heard about Gath and was curious. I wanted-well, never mind that. I even had a little money to tide me over before settling down to earn a stake. That's when it hit me."

"No work," said Dumarest. "No loose money lying around. I know how it is."

"You were always smart," said Megan dully. "I remember you talking about it that time on Shick. The worlds a traveler had to stay away from if he didn't want to get stranded. Well, what good did it do you?"

"None," said Dumarest flatly. He explained how he came to be on the planet. Megan nodded, moodily examining his boot.

"I saw the party land. Big, well-armed, enough stuff to stock a store."

"They've got money," agreed Dumarest. "Maybe they came here to hunt."

"Then they're wasting their time." Megan spat his disgust. "There's no game on this planet-not here at least. And people don't visit Gath to hunt."

"Then the guns must be for something else." Dumarest was thoughtful. "A big party, you say?"

"That's right. They didn't look like a bunch of tourists and didn't act like ones. More like a military detachment than anything else. Female guards everywhere, tough as nails and as ugly as sin. They've set up their tents in Hightown." Megan picked up the scraps of wire and began to fumble with his boot. His hands were shaking. "I offered to carry some of their stuff. One of them pushed me aside. That's how I ripped my boot. I tripped and almost busted an ankle." He pursed his lips. "Nice people."

"I know the type." Dumarest reached out and took the boot and wire. "Here, let me do that."

Megan didn't object. He sat watching, trying to pluck up his courage. "Earl. I-"

"Later," said Dumarest quickly. "After I've finished this you can show me where I can get us something to eat." He didn't look at the other man, concentrating on the repair. "Now let me see," he mused. "The problem is to last it tight enough not to yield but leave it flexible enough to give."

But that wasn't the real problem.