Uncharted Stars Read online

  But it was not dark. The outer Lokworm had here its companions, who writhed about the walls in far too lifelike fashion. And though parts of those gleaming runnels of light had darkened through want of replacement, the whole gave enough radiance so one could actually see the customers’ faces after a fashion, if not what might be served in the cups, beakers, tubes, and the like placed before them.

  Unlike the drinking and eating places in the more civilized (if that was the proper term) part of the port, the Diving Lokworm had no table dials to finger to produce nourishment, no robo-servers whipping about. The trays were carried by humans or aliens, none of whom had a face to be observed long without acute distaste. Some of them were noticeably female, others—well, it could be a guess. And frankly, had I been drinking the local poison, it would have stopped a second order to have the first slopped down before me by a lizardoid with two pairs of arms. Unless the drink had been more important than what I saw when I looked about me.

  The lizardoid was serving three booths along the wall, and doing it most efficiently; four hands were useful. There was a very drunk party of Regillians in the first. In the second something gray, large, and warty squatted. But in the third slumped a Terran, his head supported on one hand, with the elbow of that arm planted firmly on the table top. He had on the remains of a space officer’s uniform which had not been cleaned for a long time. One insignia still clung by a few loose threads to his tunic collar, but there was no house or ship badge on the breast, only a dark splotch there to show he had sometime lost that mark of respectability.

  To take a man out of this stew was indeed combing the depths. On the other hand, all we really needed to clear the port was a pilot on board. I did not doubt that Eet and I together could get us out by setting automatic for the first jump. And to accept a blacklisted man—always supposing he was not a plant—was our only chance now.

  “He is a pilot and a fash-smoker.” Eet supplied information, some of which I did not care to hear.

  Fash-smoke does not addict, but it does bring about a temporary personality change which is dangerous. And a man who indulges in it is certainly not a pilot to be relied upon. If this derelict was sniffing it now, he was to be my last choice instead of my first. The only bright thought was that fash-smoke is expensive and one who set light to the brazier to inhale it was not likely to patronize the Diving Lokworm.

  “Not now,” Eet answered. “He is, I believe, drinking veever—”

  The cheapest beverage one could buy and enough to make a man as sick as a sudden ripple of color in the tube worm on the wall made this lounger appear. The fact that the light was a sickly green might have had something to do with his queasy expression. But he roused to pull the beaker before him into place and bend his head to catch the suck tube between his lips. And he went on drinking as we came to the side of the booth.

  Perhaps he would not have been my first choice. But the stained insignia on his collar was that of a pilot and he was the only one I had sighted here. Also, he was the only humanoid with a face I would halfway trust, and Eet appeared to have singled him out.

  He did not look up as I slipped into the bench across from him, but the lizard waiter slithered up and I pointed to the drinker, then raised a finger, ordering a return for my unknown boothmate. The latter glanced at me without dropping the tube from his lip hold. His brows drew together in a scowl and then he spat out his sipper and said in a slurred mumble:

  “Blast! Whatever you’re offering—I’m not buying.”

  “You are a pilot,” I countered. The lizardoid had made double time to whatever sewer the drinks had been piped from and slammed down another beaker. I flipped a tenth-point credit and one of his second pair of hands clawed it out of the air so fast I never really saw it disappear.

  “You’re late in your reckoning.” He pushed aside his first and now empty beaker, drew the second to him. “I was a pilot.”

  “System or deep-space ticket?” I asked.

  He paused, the sipper only a fraction away from his lips. “Deep space. Do you want to see it all plain and proper?” There was a sneer in his growl. “And what’s it to you, anyway?”

  There is this about fash-smoking—while it makes a man temporarily belligerent during indulgence, it also alters the flow of emotion so that between bouts, where rage might normally flare, one gets only a flash of weak irritation.

  “A lot maybe. Want a job?”

  He laughed then, seemingly in real amusement. “Again you’re too late. I’m planet-rooted now.”

  “You offered to show your plate. That hasn’t been confiscated?” I persisted.

  “No. But that’s just because no one cares enough to squawk. I haven’t lifted for two planet years, and that’s the truth. Quite a spiller tonight, aren’t I? Maybe they’ve cooked some babble stuff into this goop.” He stared down into his beaker with dim interest, as if he expected to see something floating on its turgid surface.

  Then he mouthed the sipper, but with one hand he pulled at the frayed front seam of his tunic and brought out, in a shaking hand, a badly-worn case, which he dropped on the table top, not pushing it toward me, but rather as if he were indifferent to any interest of mine in its contents. I reached for it just as another ripple of light in the wall pattern gave me sight of the plate within that covering.

  It had been issued to one Kano Ryzk, certified pilot for galactic service. The date of issuance was some ten years back, and his age was noted as problematical, since he had been space-born. But what did startle me was the small symbol deeply incised below his name—a symbol which certified him as a Free Trader.

  From their beginnings as men who were willing to take risks outside the regular lines, which were the monopolies of the big combines, the Free Traders, loners and explorers by temperament, had become, through several centuries of space travel, more and more a race apart. They tended to look upon their ships as their home worlds, knowing no planet for any length of time, ranging out where only First-in Scouts and such explorers dared to go. In the first years they had lived on the short rations of those who snatch at the remnants of the feast the combines grew fat upon.

  Not able to bid at the planet auctions when newly discovered worlds were put up for sale to those wanting their trade, they had to explore, take small gains at high risks, and hope for some trick of fate which would render a big profit. And such happened just often enough to keep them in space.

  But seeing their ships as the only worlds to which they owed allegiance, they were a clannish lot, marrying among themselves when they wed at all. They had space-hung ports now, asteroids they had converted, on which they established quasi family life. But they did not contact the planet-born save for business. And to find one such as Ryzk adrift in a port—since the Free Traders cared for their own—was so unusual as to be astounding.

  “It is true.” He did not raise his eyes from the beaker. He must have encountered the same surprise so many times before that he was weary of it. “I didn’t roll some star-stepper to get that plate.”

  That, too, must be true, since such plates were always carried close to a man’s body. If any other besides the rightful owner had kept that plate, the information on it would be totally unreadable by now, since it had a self-erase attuned to personal chemistry.

  There was no use in asking what brought a Free Trader shipless into the Diving Lokworm. To inquire might turn him so hostile I would not be able to bargain. But the very fact he was a Free Trader was a point in his favor. A broken combine man would be less likely to take to the kind of spacing we planned.

  “I have a ship”—I put it bluntly now—“and I need a pilot.”

  “Try the Register,” he mumbled and held out his hand. I closed the case and laid it on his palm. How much was the exact truth going to serve me?

  “I want a man off the lists.”

  That did make him look at me. His pupils were large and very dark. He might not be on fash-smoke, but he was certainly under some type of
mind-dampening cloud.

  “You aren’t.” he said after a moment, “a runner.”

  “No.” I replied. Smuggling was a paying game. However, the Guild had it sewed up so well that only someone with addled brains would try it.

  “Then what are you?” His scowl was back.

  “Someone who needs a pilot—” I was beginning when Eet’s thought pricked me.

  “We have stayed here too long. Be ready to guide him.”

  There was silence. I had not finished my sentence. Ryzk stared at me, but his eyes seemed unfocused, as if he did not really see me at all. Then he grunted and pushed aside the still unfinished second beaker.

  “Sleepy,” he muttered. “Out of here—”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Come to my place.” I was on his left, helping him to balance on unsteady feet, my hand slipped under his elbow to guide him. Luckily he was still enough in command of his body to walk. I could not have pulled him along, since though he was several inches shorter than I, his planet days had given him bulk of body which was largely ill-carried lard.

  The lizard stepped out as if to bar our way and I felt Eet stir. Whether he planted some warning, as he seemed to have planted the desire to go in Ryzk, I do not know. But the waiter turned abruptly to the next booth, leaving us a free path to the door. And we made it out of the stink of the place without any opposition. Once in the backways of the Off-port, I tried to put on speed, but found that Ryzk, though he did keep on his feet and moving, could not be hurried. And pulling at him seemed to disturb the thought Eet had put in his mind, so I did not dare to put pressure on him. I was haunted by the feeling that we were being followed, or at least watched. Though whether our cover had been detected or we had just been marked down for prey generally by one of the lurking harpies, I did not try to deduce. Either was dangerous.

  The floodlights of the port cut out the night, reducing all three moons now progressing at a stately pace over our heads to pallid ghosts of their usual brilliance. To pass the gates and cut across the apron to our ship’s berth was the crucial problem. If, as I thought, the Patrol and perhaps the Guild were keeping me under surveillance, there would be a watch on the ship, even if we had lost them in town. And my scar, if I still wore it, would not stand up in the persona scanner at the final check point. Escape might depend on speed, and Ryzk did not have that.

  I lingered no longer at the first check point than it took to snap down my own identity plate and Ryzk’s. Somehow he had fumbled it out of hiding as we approached, some part of his bemused brain answering Eet’s direction. Then I saw a chance to gain more speed. There was a luggage conveyer parked to one side, a luxury item I with my one flight bag had never seen reason to waste half a credit on. But there was need for it now.

  Somehow I pushed and pulled Ryzk to it. There was a fine for using it as a passenger vehicle, but such minor points of law did not trouble me at that moment. I got him flat on it, pulled a layer of weather covering over his more obvious outlines, and planted my flight bag squarely on top to suggest that it did carry cargo. Then I punched the berth number for our ship, fed in my credit, and let it go. If Ryzk did not try to disembark en route I could be sure he would eventually arrive at the ramp of our ship.

  Meanwhile Eet and I had to reach the same point by the least conspicuous and quickest route. I glanced around for some suggestions as to how to accomplish that. A tourist-class inter-system rocket ship was loading, with a mass of passengers waiting below its ramp and more stragglers headed for it. Many of the travelers were being escorted by family parties or boisterous collections of friends. I joined the tail of one such, matching my pace to keep at the end of the procession. Those I walked with were united in commiserating with a couple of men wearing Guard uniforms and apparently about to lift to an extremely disliked post on Memfors, the next planet out in this sytem, and one which had the reputation of being far from a pleasure spot.

  Since most of the crowd were male, and looked like rather hard cases, I did not feel too conspicuous. And it was the best cover I saw. However, I still had to break away when we reached the rocket slot and cross to my own ship. It was during those last few paces I would be clearly seen.

  I edged around the fringes of the waiting crowd, putting as many of those between me and the dark as I could, trying to be alert to any attention I might attract But as far as I could see, I might once more be enveloped in Eet’s vision-defying blur.

  I wanted to run, or to scuttle along under some protective shell like a pictick crab. But both of those safety devices were denied me. Now I dared not even look around as though I feared any pursuit, for wariness alone could betray me.

  Ahead I saw the luggage conveyer crawling purposefully on a course which had been more of a straight line than my own. My bag had not shifted from the top, which meant, I trusted, that Ryzk had not moved. It reached the foot of the ramp well before me and stood waiting for the lifting of its burden to release it.

  “Watcher—to the right—Patrol—”

  Eet came alive with that warning. I did not glance in the direction he indicated.

  “Is he moving in?”

  “No. He took a video shot of the carrier. He has no orders to prevent take-off—just make sure you do go.”

  “So they can know the bait is ready and they need only set their trap. Very neat,” I commented. But there was no drawing back now, and I did not fear the Patrol at this moment half as much as the Guild. After all, I had some importance to the Patrol—bait has until the moment for sacrificing it comes. Once we were off planet I had the feeling it was not going to be so easy for them to use me as they so arrogantly planned. I still had what they did not suspect I carried—the zero stone.

  So I gave no sign that I knew I was under observation as I hauled Ryzk off the luggage carrier, guided him up the ramp, snapped that in, and sealed ship. I stowed my prize, such as he was, in one of the two lower-level cabins, strapped him down, taking his pilot’s plate with me, and climbed with Eet to the control cabin.

  There I fed Ryzk’s plate into the viewer to satisfy the field law and prepared for take-off, Eet guiding me in the setting of the automatics. But I had no trip tape to feed in, which meant that once in space Ryzk would have to play his part or we would find another port only by the slim margin of chance.

  IV

  Since we lacked a trip tape, we could not go into hyper until Ryzk found us jump co-ordinates. So our initial thrust off world merely set us voyaging within the system itself, an added danger. While a ship in hyper cannot be traced, one system-traveling can readily be picked up. Thus, when I recovered from grav shock, I unstrapped myself and sought out my pilot, Eet making better time, as usual, down the inner stair of the ship.

  Our transport, the Wendwind, was not as small as a scout, though not as large as a Free Trader of the D class. She might once have been the private yacht of some Veep. If so, all luxury fittings had long since been torn out, though there were painted-over scars to suggest that my guess was correct. Later she had been on system runs as a general carrier. And her final fate had been confiscation by the Patrol for smuggling, after which she had been bought by the Salarik dealer as a speculation.

  She had four cabins besides the regular crew quarters. But three of these had been knocked together for a storage hold. And one feature within attracted me, a persona-pressure sealed strongbox, something a dealer in gems could put to use.

  At one time the Wendwind must have mounted strictly illegal G-lasers, judging by the sealed ports and markings on decks and walls. But now she had no such protection.

  Ryzk had been left in the last remaining passenger cabin. As I came in he was struggling against the grav straps, looking about him wildly.

  “What—where—”

  “You are in space, on a ship as pilot.” I gave it to him without long explanation. “We are still in system, ready to go into hyper as soon as you can set course—”

  He blinked rapidly, and oddly enough, the slack lines of his fac
e appeared to firm, so that under the blurring of planetside indulgence you could see something of the man he had been. He stretched out his hand and laid it palm flat against the wall, as if he needed the reassurance of touch to help him believe that what I said was true.

  “What ship?” His voice had lost the slur, just as his face had changed.

  “Mine.”

  “And who are you?” His eyes narrowed as he stared up at me.

  “Murdoc Jern. I am a gem buyer.”

  Eet made one of his sudden leaps from deck to the end of the bunk, where he squatted on his haunches, his handpaws resting on what would have been his knees had he possessed a humanoid body.

  Ryzk looked from me to Eet and then back again. “All right, all right! I’ll wake up sooner or later.”

  “Not”—I picked up the thought Eet aimed at Ryzk—“until you set us a course—”

  The pilot started, then rubbed his hands across his forehead as if he could so rub away what he had heard, not through his ears, but in his mind.

  “A course to where?” he asked, as one humoring some image born out of fash-smoke or veever drink.

  “To quadrant 7-10-500.” At least I had had plenty of time to lay plans such as these during the past weeks when I feared we would never be space-borne. The sooner we began to earn our way the better. And I had Vondar’s experience to suggest a good beginning.

  “I haven’t set a course in—in—” His voice trailed off. Once more he put his hand to the ship’s wall. “This is—this is a ship! I’m not dreaming it!”

  “It is a ship. Can you get us into hyper now?” I allowed some of my impatience to show.

  He pulled himself out of his bunk, moving unsteadily at first. But perhaps the feel of a ship about him was a tonic, for by the time he reached the core ladder to the control cabin he had picked up speed, and he swung up that with ease. Nor did he wait to be shown the pilot’s seat, but crossed to sit there, giving quick, practiced looks to the control board.