Uncharted Stars Read online

  But if they had a reading on Eet, then how much more so they must have me imprinted on their search tapes! I had been their quarry long before I met Eet, ever since after my father’s murder, when someone must have guessed that I had taken from his plundered office the zero stone their man had not found. They had set up the trap which had caught Vondar Ustle but not me. And they had laid another trap on the Free Trader, one which Eet had foiled, although I did not know of it until later. On the planet of ruins they had actually held me prisoner until Eet again freed me. So they had had innumerable chances of taping me for their hounds—a fact which was frightening to consider.

  “You will think yourself a cover.” Eet’s calm order cut across my uneasiness.

  “I cannot! Remember, I am of a limited species—” I struck back with the baffled anger that realization of my plight aroused in me.

  “You have only the limits you yourself set,” Eet returned unruffled. “Perceive—”

  He waddled on his stumpy pookha legs to the opposite side of the room, and as suddenly flowed back into Eet again, stretching his normal body up against the wall at such a lengthening as I would not have believed even his supple muscles and flesh capable of. With one of his paw-hands he managed to touch a button and the wall provided us with a mirror surface. In that I saw myself.

  I am not outstanding in any way. My hair is darkish brown, which is true of billions of males of Terran stock. I have a face which is wide across the eyes, narrowing somewhat to the chin, undistinguished for either good looks or downright ugliness. My eyes are green-brown, and my brows, black, as are my lashes. As a merchant who travels space a great deal, I had had my beard permanently eradicated when it first showed. A beard in a space helmet is unpleasant. And for the same reason I wear my hair cropped short. I am of medium height as my race goes, and I have all the right number of limbs and organs for my own species. I could be anyone—except that the identification patterns the Guild might hold on me could go deeper and be far more searching than a glance at a passing stranger.

  Eet flowed back across the room with his usual liquid movement, made one of his effortless springs to my shoulder, and settled down in position behind my neck, his head resting on top of mine, his hand-paws flat on either side of my skull just below my ears.

  “Now!” he commanded. “Think of another face—anyone’s—”

  When so ordered I found that I could not—at first. I looked into the mirror and my reflection was all that was there. I could feel Eet’s impatience and that made it even more difficult for me to concentrate. Then that impatience faded and I guessed that he was willing it under control.

  “Think of another.” He was less demanding, more coaxing. “Close your eyes if you must—”

  I did, trying to summon up some sort of picture in my mind—a face which was not my own. Why I settled for Faskel I could not say, but somehow my foster brother’s unliked countenance swam out of memory and I concentrated upon it.

  It was not clear but I persevered, setting up the long narrow outline—the nose as I had last seen it, jutting out over a straggle of lip-grown hair. Faskel Jern had been my father’s true son, while I was but one by adoption. Yet it had always seemed that I was Hywel Jern’s son in spirit and Faskel the stranger. I put the purplish scar on Faskel’s forehead near his hairline, added the petulant twist of lips which had been his usual expression when facing me in later years, and held to the whole mental picture with determination.

  “Look!”

  Obediently I opened my eyes to the mirror. And for several startled seconds I looked at someone. He was certainly not me—nor was he Faskel as I remembered him, but an odd, almost distorted combination of us both. It was a sight I did not in the least relish. My head was still gripped in the vise maintained by Eet’s hold and I could not turn away. But as I watched, the misty Faskel faded and I was myself again.

  “You see—it can be done,” was Eet’s comment as he released me and flowed down my body to the floor.

  “You did it.”

  “Only in part. There has been, with my help, a breakthrough. Your species use only a small fraction of your brain. You are content to do so. This wastage should shame you forever. Practice will aid you. And with a new face you will not have to fear going where you can find a pilot.”

  “If we ever can.” I push-buttoned a chair out of the wall and sat down with a sigh. My worries were a heavy burden. “We shall have to take a black-listed man if we get any.”

  “Ssssss—” No sound, only an impression of one in my mind. Eet had flashed to the door of the room, was crouched against it, his whole attitude one of strained listening, as if all his body, not just his ear, served him for that purpose.

  I could hear nothing, of course. These rooms were completely screened and soundproofed. And I could use a hall-and-wall detect if I wished to prove it so. Spaceport caravansaries were the few places where one could be truly certain of not being overlooked, overheard, or otherwise checked upon.

  But their guards were not proofed against such talents as Eet’s, and I guessed from his attitude not only that he was suspicious of what might be arriving outside but that it was to be feared. Then he turned and I caught his thought. I moved to snap over a small luggage compartment and he folded himself into hiding there in an instant. But his thoughts were not hidden.

  “Patrol snoop on his way—coming here,” he warned, and it was alert enough to prepare me.

  II

  As yet, the visitor’s light had not flashed above the door. I moved, perhaps not with Eet’s speed but fast enough, to snap the room’s furnishings out and in place so that the compartment would look normal even to the searching study of a trained Patrolman. The Patrol, jealous of its authority after long centuries of supremacy as the greatest law-enforcement body in the galaxy, had neither forgotten nor forgiven the fact that Eet and I had been able to prove them wrong in their too-quick declaration of my outlawry (I had indeed been framed by the Guild). That we had dared, actually dared, to strike a bargain and keep them to it, galled them bitterly. We had rescued their man, saved his skin and his ship for him in the very teeth of the Thieves’ Guild. But he had fought bitterly against the idea that we did have the power to bargain and that he had to yield on what were practically our terms. Even now the method of that bargaining made me queasy, for Eet had joined us mind to mind with ruthless dispatch. And such an invasion, mutual as it was, left a kind of unhealed wound.

  I have heard it stated that the universe is understood by each species according to the sensory equipment of the creature involved, or rather, the meaning it attaches to the reports of those exploring and testing senses. Therefore, while our universe, as we see it, may be akin to that of an animal, a bird, an alien, it still differs. There are barriers set mercifully in place (and I say mercifully after tasting what can happen when such a barrier goes down) to limit one’s conception of the universe to what he is prepared to accept. Shared minds between human and human is not one of the sensations we are fitted to endure. The Patrolman and I had learned enough—too much—of each other to know that a bargain could be made and kept. But I think I would face a laser unarmed before I would undergo that again.

  Legally the Patrol had nothing against us, except suspicions perhaps and their own dislike for what we had dared. And I think that they were in a measure pleased that if they had to swear truce, the Guild still held us as a target. And it might well be that once we had lifted from the Patrol base we had been regarded as expendable bait for some future trap in which to catch a Veep of the Guild—a thought which heated me more than a little every time it crossed my mind.

  I gave a last hurried glance around the room as the warn light flashed on, and then went to thumb the peephole. What confronted my eye was a wrist, around which was locked, past all counterfeiting, the black and silver of a Patrol badge. I opened the door.

  “Yes?” I allowed my real exasperation to creep into my voice as I fronted him.

  He was no
t in uniform, wearing rather the ornate, form-fitting tunic of an inner-world tourist. On him, as the Patrol must keep fit, it looked better than it did on most of the flabby, paunchy specimens I had seen in these halls. But that was not saying much, for its extreme of fashion was too gaudy and fantastic to suit my eyes.

  “Gentle Homo Jern—” He did not make a question of my name, and his eyes were more intent on the room behind me than on meeting mine.

  “The same. You wish?”

  “To speak with you—privately.” He moved forward and involuntarily I gave a step before I realized that he had no right to enter. It was the prestige of the badge he wore which won him that first slight advantage and he made the most of it. He was in, with the door rolled into place behind him, before I was prepared to resist.

  “We are private. Speak.” I did not gesture him to a chair, nor make a single hospitable move.

  “You are having difficulty in finding a pilot.” He looked at me about half the time now, the rest of his attention still given to the room.

  “I am.” There was no use in denying a truth which was apparent.

  Perhaps he did not believe in wasting time either, for he came directly to the point.

  “We can deal—”

  That really surprised me. Eet and I had left the Patrol base with the impression that the powers there were gleefully throwing us forth to what they believed certain disaster with the Guild. The only explanation which came to me at the moment was that they had speedily discovered that the information we had given them concerning the zero stones had consisted of the whereabouts of caches only and they suspected the true source was still our secret. In fact, we knew no more than we had told them.

  “What deal?” I parried and dared not mind-touch Eet at that moment, much as I wanted his reception to this suggestion. No one knows what secret equipment the Patrol had access to. And it might well be that, knowing Eet was telepathic, they had some ingenious method of monitoring our exchange.

  “Sooner or later,” he said deliberately, almost as if he savored it, “the Guild is going to close in upon you—”

  But I was ready, having thought that out long ago. “So I am bait and you want me for some trap of yours.”

  He was not in the least disconcerted. “One way of putting it.”

  “And the right way. What do you want to do, plant one of your men in our ship?”

  “As protection for you and, of course, to alert us.”

  “Very altruistic. But the answer is no.” The Patrol’s highhanded method of using pawns made me aware that there was something to being their opponent.

  “You cannot find a pilot.”

  “I am beginning to wonder”—and at that moment I was—“how much my present difficulty may be due to the influence of your organization.”

  He neither affirmed nor denied it. But I believe I was right. Just as a pilot might be black-listed, so had our ship been, before we had even had a chance for a first voyage. No one who wanted to preserve his legal license would sign our log now. So I must turn to the murky outlaw depths if I was to have any luck at all. I would see the ship rust away on its landing fins before I would raise with a Patrol nominee at her controls.

  “The Guild can provide you with a man as easily, if you try to hire an off-rolls man, and you will not know it,” he remarked, as if he were very sure that I would eventually be forced to accept his offer.

  That, too, was true. But not if I took Eet with me on any search. Even if the prospective pilot had been brainwashed and blanked to hide his true affiliation, my companion would be able to read that fact. But that, I hoped, my visitor and those who had sent him did not know. That Eet was telepathic we could not hide—but Eet himself—

  “I will make my own mistakes,” I allowed myself to snap.

  “And die from them,” he replied indifferently. He took one last glance at the room and suddenly smiled. “Toys now—I wonder why.” With a swoop as quick and sure as that of a harpy hawk he was down and up again, holding the pookha by its whisker mane. “Quite an expensive toy, too, Jern. And you must be running low in funds, unless you have tapped a river running with credits. Now why, I wonder, would you want a stuffed pookha.”

  I grimaced in return. “Always provide my visitors with a minor mystery. You figure it out. In fact, take it with you—just to make sure it is not a smuggling cover. It might just be, you know. I am a gem buyer—what better way to get some stones off world than in a play pookha’s inwards?”

  Whether he thought my explanation was as lame as it seemed to me I do not know. But he tossed the toy onto the nearest chair and then, on his way to the door, spoke over his shoulder. “Dial 1-0. Jern, when you have stopped battering your head against a stone wall. And we shall have a man for you, one guaranteed not to sign you over to the Guild.”

  “No—just to the Patrol,” I countered. “When I am ready to be bait, I shall tell you.”

  He made no formal farewell, just went. I closed the door sharply behind him and was across the room to let Eet out as quickly as I could. My alien companion sat back on his haunches, absent-mindedly smoothing the fur on his stomach.

  “They think that they have us.” I tried to jolt him—though he must already have picked up everything pertinent from our visitor’s mind, unless the latter had worn a shield.

  “Which he did,” Eet replied to my suspicion. “But not wholly adequate, only what your breed prepares against the mechanical means of detecting thought waves. They are not,” he continued complacently, “able to operate against my type of talent. But yes, they believe that they have us sitting on the palm of a hand”—he stretched out his own—“and need only curl their fingers, so—” His clawed digits bent to form a fist. “Such ignorance! However, it will be well, I believe, to move swiftly now that we know the worst.”

  “Do we?” I asked morosely as I hustled out my flight bag and began to pack. That it was not intelligent to stay where we were with Patrol snoops about, I could well understand. But where we would go next—

  “To the Diving Lokworm,” Eet replied as if the answer was plain and he was amused that I had not guessed it for myself.

  For a moment I was totally adrift. The name he mentioned meant nothing, though it suggested one of those dives which filled the murky shadows of the wrong side of the port, the last place in the world where any sane man would venture with the Guild already sniffing for him.

  But at present I was more intent on getting out of this building without being spotted by a Patrol tail. I rolled up my last clean undertunic and counted out three credit disks. In a transit lodging one’s daily charges are conspicuous each morning on a small wall plate. And no one can beat the instant force field which locks the room if one does not erase these charges when the scanner below says he is departing. The room might be insured for privacy in other ways, but there are precautions the owners are legally allowed to install.

  I dropped the credits into the slot under the charge plate and that winked out. Thus reassured I could get out, I must now figure how. When I turned it was to see that Eet was again a pookha. For a moment I hesitated, not quite sure which of the furry creatures was my companion until he moved out to be picked up.

  With Eet in the crook of one arm and my bag in my other hand, I went out into the corridor after a quick look told me it was empty. When I turned toward the down grav shaft Eet spoke:

  “Left and back!”

  I obeyed. His directions took me where I did not know the territory, bringing me to another grav shaft, that which served the robos who took care of the rooms. There might be scanners here, even though I had paid my bill. This was an exit intended only for machines and one of them rumbled along toward us now.

  It was a room-service feeder, a box on wheels, its top studded with call buttons for a choice of meal. I had to squeeze back against the wall to let it by, since this back corridor had never been meant for the human and alien patrons of the caravansary.

  “On it!” Eet or
dered.

  I had no idea what he intended, but I had been brought out of tight corners enough in the past to know that he generally did have some saving plan in mind. So I swung Eet, my bag, and myself to the table top of the feeder, trying to take care that I did not trigger any of the buttons.

  My weight apparently was nothing to the machine. It did not pause in its steady roll down the remainder of the corridor. But I was tense and stiff, striving to preserve my balance on this box where there was nothing to grip for safety.

  When it moved without pause off the floor and onto the empty air of the grav shaft I could have cried out. But the grav supported its weight and it descended as evenly under me as if it had been a lift platform bringing luggage and passengers out of a liner at the port. A sweeper joined us at the next level, but apparently the machines were equipped with avoid rays, as they did not bump, but kept from scraping against each other. Above and below us, in the dusk of the shaft, I could see other robo-servers descending, as if this was the time when they were through their morning work.

  We came down floor by floor, I counting them as we passed, a little more relieved with each one we left behind, knowing that we were that much nearer our goal. But when we reached ground level we faced only blank surface, and my support contined to descend.

  The end was some distance below the surface, at least equal, I believed, to three floors above. And the feeder, with us still aboard, rolled out in pitch dark, where the sounds of clanging movement kept me frozen. Nor did Eet suggest any answer to this.

  I did gain enough courage to bring out a hand beamer and flash it about us, only to gain disturbing glimpses of machines scuttling hither and thither across a wide expanse of floor. Nor were there any signs of human tenders.

  I was now afraid to dismount from my carrier, not knowing whether the avoid rays of the various busy robos would also keep them from running me down. To this hour I had always taken the service department of a caravansary for granted and such an establishment as this I had never imagined.