No World of Their Own (6 page)

“Your servant, my lord,” said Langley.

“No, no. I've no title. Poor old greasy lickspittle Goltam Valti is not to the colors born. I'm of the Commercial Society, and we don't have nobles. Can't afford 'em. Hard enough to make an honest living these days, with buyers and sellers alike grudging you enough profit to eat on, and one's dear old homestead generations away. Well, about a decade in my case, I'm from Ammon in the Tau Ceti system orginally. A sweet planet, that, with golden beer and a lovely girl to serve it to you, ah, yes!”

Langley felt a stirring of interest. He'd heard something about the Society, but not enough. Valti led him to a divan and they sat down and whistled at a passing table for refreshments.

“I'm chief factor at Sol,” continued Valti. “You must come see our building sometime. Souvenirs of a hundred planets there, I'm sure it'll interest you. But 5000 years' worth of wandering, that is too much even for a trader. You must have seen a great deal, Captain, a great deal. Ah, were I young again …”

Langley threw subtlety aside and asked a few straightforward questions. Getting information out of Valti took patience; you had to listen to a paragraph of self-pity to get a sentence worth hearing, but something emerged. The Society had existed for a thousand years or more, recruited from all planets, even nonhuman races: it carried on most of the interstellar trade there was, dealing in goods which were often from worlds unknown to this little section of the galaxy. For Society personnel, the great spaceships were home, men and women and children living their lives on them. They had their own laws, customs, language; they owed allegiance to no one else.

“Haven't you a capital, a government?”

“Details, my friend, details we can discuss later. Do come see me. I am a lonely old man. Perhaps I can offer you some small entertainment. Did you by any chance stop in the Tau Ceti system? No? That's a shame. It would have interested you: the double ring system of Osiris and the natives of Horus and the beautiful, beautiful valleys of Ammon, yes, yes.” The names originally given to the planets had changed, but not so much that Langley could not recognize what mythical figures the discoverers had had in mind. Valti went on to reminisce about worlds he had seen in the lost lamented days of his youth, and Langley found it an enjoyable conversation.

“Ho, there!”

Valti jumped up and bowed wheezily. “My lord! You honor me beyond my worth. It has been overly long since I saw you.”

“All of two weeks,” grinned the blond giant in the screaming crimson jacket and blue trousers. He had a wine goblet in one brawny hand, the other held the ankles of a tiny, exquisite dancing girl who perched on his shoulder and squealed with laughter. “And then you diddled me out of a thousand solars, you and your loaded dice.”

“Most excellent lord, fortune must now and then smile even on my ugly face; the probability-distribution curve demands it.” Valti made washing motions with his hands. “Perhaps my lord would care for revenge some evening next week?”

“Could be. Whoops!” The giant slid the girl to earth and dismissed her with a playful thwack. “Run along, Thura, Kolin, whatever your name is. I'll see you later.” His eyes were very bright and blue on Langley. “Is this the dawn man I've been hearing about?”

“Yes. My lord, may I present Captain Edward Langley? Lord Brannoch dhu Crombar, the Centaurian ambassador.”

So this was one of the hated and feared men from Thor. He and Valti were the first recognizably Caucasoid types the American had seen in this age: presumably their ancestors had left Earth before the races had melted into an almost uniform stock here, and possibly environmental factors had had something to do with fixing their distinctive features.

Brannoch grinned jovially, sat down and told an uproariously improper story. Langley countered with the tale of the cowboy who got three wishes, and Brannoch's guffaw made glasses tremble.

“So you still used horses?” he asked afterward.

“Yes, my lord. I was raised in horse country. We used them in conjunction with trucks. I was … going to raise them myself.”

Brannoch seemed to note the pain in the spaceman's voice, and with a surprising tact went on to describe his stable at home. “I think you'd like Thor, Captain,” he finished. “We still have elbow room. How they can breathe with twenty billion hunks of fat meat in the Solar System, I'll never know. Why not come see us sometime?”

“I'd like to, my lord,” said Langley, and maybe he wasn't being entirely a liar.

Brannoch sprawled back, letting his long legs stretch across the polished floor. “I've kicked around a bit too,” he said. “Had to get out of the system a while back, when my family got the short end of a feud. Spent a hundred years external time knocking around, till I got a chance to make a comeback. Planetography's a sort of hobby with me, which is the only reason I come to your parties, Valti, you kettle-bellied old fraud. Tell me, Captain, did you ever touch at Procyon?”

For half an hour the conversation spanned stars and planets. Something of the weight within Langley lifted. The vision of many-faced strangeness spinning through an endless outer dark was one to catch at his heart.

“By the way,” said Brannoch, “I've been hearing some rumors about an alien you had along, who broke loose. What's the truth on that?”

“Ah, yes,” murmured Valti in his tangled beard. “I too have been intrigued. Yes, a most interesting sort he seems to be. Why should he take such a desperate action?”

Langley stiffened. What had Chanthavar said? Wasn't the whole affair supposed to be confidential?

Brannoch would have his spies, of course. And seemingly Valti did too. The American had a chilling sense of immense contending powers, a machine running wild. And he was caught in the whirling gears.

“I'd rather like to add him to the collection,” said Brannoch idly. “That is, not to harm him, just to meet the creature. If he really is a true telepath, he's almost unique.”

“The Society would also have an interest in this matter,” said Valti diffidently. “The planet may have something to trade worth even such a long trip.”

After a moment, he added dreamily: “I think the payment for such information would be quite generous, Captain. The Society has its little quirks, and the desire to meet a new race is one. Yes, there would be money in it.”

“Could be I'd venture a little fling myself,” said Brannoch. “Couple million solars—and my protection. These are troubled times, Captain. A powerful patron isn't to be sniffed at.”

“The Society,” remarked Valti, “has extraterritorial rights. It can grant sanctuary, as well as removal from Earth, which is becoming an unsalubrious place. And, of course, monetary rewards: three million solars, as an investment in new knowledge?”

“This is hardly the place to talk business,” said Brannoch. “But as I said, I think you might like Thor. Or we could set you up anywhere else you chose. Three and a half million.”

Valti groaned. “My lord, do you wish to impoverish me? I have a family to support.”

“Yeh. One on each planet,” chuckled Brannoch.

Langley sat very still. He thought he knew why they all wanted Saris Hronna. But what could he do about it?

Chanthavar's short supple form emerged from the crowd. “Oh, there you are,” he said. He bowed casually to Brannoch and Valti. “Your servant, my lord and good sir.”

“Thanks, Channy,” said Brannoch. “Sit down, why don't you?

“No. Another person would like to meet the captain. Excuse us.”

When they were safely into the mob, Chanthavar drew Langley aside. “Were those men after you to deliver this alien up to them?” he asked. There was something ugly on his face.

“Yes,” said Langley wearily.

“I thought so. The Solar government's riddled with their agents. Well, don't do it.”

A tired, harried anger bristled in Langley. “Look here, son,” he said, straightening till Chanthavar's eyes were well below his, “I don't see as how I owe any faction today anything. Why don't you quit treating me like a child?”

“I'm not going to hold you incommunicado, though I could,” said Chanthavar mildly. “Isn't worth the trouble, because we'll probably have that beast before long. I'm just warning you, though, that if he should fall into any hands but mine, it'll go hard with you.”

“Why not lock me up and be done with it?”

“It wouldn't make you think, as I'll want you to think in case my own search fails. And it's too crude.” Chanthavar paused, then said with a curious intensity: “Do you know why I play out this game of politics and war? Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That's for fools who want to command other fools. It's fun to play, though. Life gets so thundering tedious otherwise. What else can I do that I haven't done a hundred times already? But it's fun to match wits with Brannoch and that slobbering redbeard. Win, lose, or draw, it's amusing; but I intend to win.”

“Ever thought of … compromising?”

“Don't let Brannoch bluff you. He's one of the coldest and cleverest brains in the galaxy. Fairly decent sort—I'll be sorry when I finally have to kill him—but—never mind!” Chanthavar turned away. “Come on, let's get down to the serious business of getting drunk.”

VI

Progress does get made: Langley's refresher cabinet removed all trace of hangover from him the next morning, and the service robot slid breakfast from a chute onto a table and removed it when he was through. But after that there was a day of nothing to do but sit around and brood.

It would be so easy to give in, cooperate with Chanthavar, and glide with the current. How did he know it wouldn't be right? The Technate seemed to represent order, civilization, justice of sorts. He had no business setting himself up against twenty billion people and 5000 years of history. Had Peggy been along, he would have surrendered; her neck was not one to risk for a principle he wasn't even sure of.

But Peggy was dead, and he had little except principle to live for. It was no fun playing God, even on this petty scale, but he had come from a society which laid on each man the obligation to decide things for himself.

Chanthavar called on the group that afternoon. He was still yawning. “What a time to get up!” he complained. “Life isn't worth the effort before sundown. Well, shall we go?”

As he led them out, half a dozen of his guards closed in around the party. “What're they for, anyhow?” asked Langley. “Protection against the commons?”

“I'd like to see a commoner even think about making trouble,” said Chanthavar. “If he can think, which I sometimes doubt. No, I need these fellows against my own rivals. Brannoch, for instance, would gladly knock me off just to get an incompetent successor. I've ferreted out a lot of his agents. And then I have my competitors within the Technate. Having discovered that bribery and cabals won't unseat me, they may very well try the direct approach.”

“What would they stand to gain by … assassinating you?” inquired Blaustein.

“Power, position, maybe some of my estates. Or they may be out and out enemies. I had to kick in a lot of teeth on my own way up.”

They emerged on a bridgeway and let its moving belt carry them along, dizzily high over the city. At this altitude, Langley could see that Lora was built as a single integrated unit. No building stood alone. They were all connected, and there was a solid roof underneath decking over the lower levels.

Chanthavar pointed to the misty horizon, where a single great tower reared. “Weather-control station,” he said. “Most of what you see belongs to the city, Ministerial public park, but over that way is the boundary of an estate belonging to Tarahoe. He raises grain on it, being a back-to-nature crank.”

“Haven't you any small farms?” asked Langley.

“Space, no!” Chanthavar looked surprised. “They do on the Centaurian planets, but I'd find it hard to imagine a more inefficient system. A lot of our food is synthesized; the rest is grown on Ministerial lands.”

They had lunch at a terrace restaurant, where machines served a gaily dressed, stiff-mannered clientele of aristocrats. Chanthavar paid the bill with a shrug. “I hate to put money into the purse of Minister Agaz—he's after my head—but you must admit he keeps a good chef.”

The guards did not eat; they were trained to a sparse diet and an untiring watchfulness.

“There's a lot to see, here in the upper levels,” said Chanthavar. He nodded at the discreet glow-sign of an amusement house. “But it's more of the same. Come on downside for a change.”

A gravity shaft dropped them two thousand feet, and they stepped into another world.

Here there was no sun, no sky. Walls and ceiling were metal; floors were soft and springy, and a ruler-straight drabness filled Langley's vision. The air was fresh enough, but it throbbed and rang with a noise that never ended: pumping, hammering, vibrating—the deep steady heartbeat of that great machine which was the city. The corridors—streets—were crowded, restless, alive with motion and shrill talking.

So these were the commoners. Langley stood for a moment in the shaft entrance, watching them. He didn't know what he had expected—gray-clad zombies, perhaps—but he was surprised. The disorderly mass reminded him of cities he had seen in Asia.

Dress was a cheap version of that of the Ministerial: tunics for men, long dresses for women; it seemed to fall into a number of uniforms, green and blue and red, but was sloppily worn. The men's heads were shaven; the faces reflected that mixture of races which man on Earth had become. There were incredible numbers of naked children playing under the very feet of the mob; there was not that segregation of the sexes which the upper levels enforced.

Chanthavar offered cigarettes, struck one for himself, and led the way behind a couple of guards. People fell aside, bowing respectfully and then resuming their affairs. “We'll have to walk,” said the agent. “No slideways down here.”