Edmond Hamilton - Fugitives of the Stars

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Renaissance E Books

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THE TWO THOUSAND CENTURIES:

[The Era of the Federation—62,339-129,999]

FUGITIVES OF THE STARS

EDMOND HAMILTON

ISBN 978-1-60089-016-1

Reprinted by permission Spectrum Literary Agency

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

For information contact:

PageTurnerEditions.com

PageTurner Editions/Futures-Past Science Fiction

A Renaissance E Books publication

CHAPTER I

TO FALL with a soundless scream through an empty chaos of contending forces,

to be riven right out of your own dimensions and hurled quaking through alien

continua ... that was how it was, if you looked at it one way.

But not, thought Horne, if you looked at it his way. It was a voyage through

enchanted isles on the shores of the universe, through the great lamps of foreign

suns, where pale planets rose up in colored sunlight like mysterious new Hesperides,

and dropped behind you, and you went on and on, mystery into mystery.

"The trouble with me,” he thought wryly, “is that I've still got a little of the romantic

fourteen-year-old in me."

He was a long way from being a boy in a Connecticut city who had dreamed of

stars. Eighteen years of time and a hundred-odd light-years of space. A long way,

but he still got a bit of the old thrill when he looked out ahead through the pilot room

windows. And this was nice, not only for his own sake but because he could share

the thrill with Vinson, the young Second Pilot, who was making his first trip out here.

Vinson spent most of his time staring out the windows as though he wanted to

absorb into himself, everything that he saw, so that he might keep it forever,

unchanged.

The windows were not really windows. In a ship going many times faster than light

by cross-cutting through dimensions, all you would see was a twisted blur. A ship's

eyes were radar instruments of fantastic speed and scope, but human and

near-human people had their psychological limitations, and it had been found that

pilots functioned better when they could see with their physical eyes a summation of

radar's information presented on window-like screens.

Horne looked out at beauty and danger. This was the Fringe, where not many

star-ships ever went. These swarms of high-piled suns, smoky red and pallid green,

cruel white and warm, beckoning orange, lured and glittered like fabled islands. But

they could lure to destruction. There were very few radar beacons or navigation aids

out here, for this was far outside the vast network of the Federation. This was the

coast of the galaxy, and if you went much farther you found yourself out in the black

emptiness that-ran all the way to Andromeda.

Horne said to Denman, the third man in the pilot room, “Five, six times I've piloted

through the Fringe, and I've never seen anything of all these wild worlds, but a few

landing-fields for a few hours. I envy you."

"Don't,” said Denman. He was a small, graying man, with a worried expression that

had got more pronounced all the way. Not being ship's crew, he had no right to be in

the pilot-room of the Vega Queen. But he was Federation personnel, and Captain

Wasek had given him full freedom of the ship—

"Don't what?” said Horne.

"Don't envy me. The Fringe may look like adventure and romance to you. What it

really is, is headache. To me, and to the Federation."

Vinson said knowledgeably, “I should think it would be. I mean, these primitive

worlds don't belong to the Federation. Yet they depend on it for protection against

invasion, that kind of thing. They're so far away and there's so much red tape about

sovereignty and observers and so on...

"Well,” said Denman, feigning astonishment, “the little rascal has been reading!

Exactly right, my boy. Only you don't know the half of it, not till you've been

through it as an observer.” After a moment he added gloomily, “Three months on

Allamar Two, observing. I hope I'm still there when the next ship stops to pick me

up."

Horne was a little shocked. “I thought the humanoids on nearly all these worlds were

friendly."

Denman nodded. “They were. Whether they still are is doubtful. Something's going

on out here. That's why I was sent here. Trouble in the Fringe? Need an observer?

Send Denman. He's expendable."

As though regretting his little outburst, Denman shut his mouth up tight. He

continued to look sourly at the window picturing the red spark of Binnoth, the twin

golden suns of Vira, and, much nearer and brighter, the blue-white flare of Allamar.

"But,” said Vinson, staring curiously now at Denman, “they must have asked for you

on Allamar Two, or the Federation Council wouldn't have sent you."

"Oh, they asked,” said Denman absently. “Or some of them did. But they could

change their minds. And it wasn't entirely the natives of Allamar I was thinking

about..."

His voice trailed off. Vinson continued to stare at him.

Horne said, “Time to check the board."

Vinson jerked a glance at the chrono and jumped up. “Sorry.” He went to the

navigation-board. Out in deep space, a ship flew itself by its own cybernetic

controls. But even electronic brains had been known to slip a cog, and it required the

human pilot to watch for the alarm-lights that would show such a lapse. Vinson bent

over it, a tall wide-shouldered boy in immaculate uniform, full of pride at being

Second Pilot on a Federation packet, full of youth and wonder and excitement. He

was also full of ability, and Horne forgot about the navigation-board. He turned to

Denman.

"I'm not pumping for information he began.

"Meaning, you are,” said Denman.

Horne grinned. “All right, then, I am, but feel free to slap me down if I'm out of line.

This trouble in the Fringe ... has it any relation to all the stuff you were asking me,

about possible unauthorized ships poking about out here?"

Denman nodded. “It has.” Horne thought that was all he was going to say but after a

moment he addled, “You're bound to hear it at Allamar or some other stop, so I

might as well tell you. Unauthorized ships have indeed been prowling about the

Fringe. Slavers."

For a moment, Horne didn't get it, the idea was so outlandish. Over by the

navigation-board, Vinson's dark head had snapped erect.

Horne said, “Slavers? You mean, raiding for humanoid slaves...?"

"Yes. Why anyone would want the poor devils, even for cheap labor, I don't know.

But the complaints have been filtering through. So, send Denman to look into it."

Horne shook his head, incredulous. “In this day and age...?"

Vinson came back from the board. “But that,” he said, “is against every law there is!

The Federation has cruisers. Why don't they patrol the Fringe and break it up?” As

an afterthought he turned and said to Horne, “Board checked out, sir. A-OK."

Denman said, “You're not thinking, boy. Cruisers on extended patrol have got to

have bases within reach on civilized worlds able to handle all the problems of supply

and maintenance. There are very few civilized worlds out here, and not one of them

has chosen to join the Federation."

Vinson nodded. “So, no bases, no patrols. I see."

Denman looked bitterly at an orange-yellow star shining out in the farther distance of

the Fringe, and added, “Skereth would be the key to the whole Fringe, if we had it in

the Federation. But it isn't. They've held off joining; they've argued; they've

demurred. So instead of a decent force capable of going out and dealing with such a

situation, we have to send an under-official out to ‘investigate.’ That's me."

Horne began to understand why Denman was so sour. He said, “We're stopping to

pick up passengers at Skereth, on the way back. I've heard..."

"I know,” said Denman cynically, “I've heard the same thing. Special envoys going

to Vega to talk about Skereth entering the Federation. Fine and dandy. I hope they

do! But it won't do me any good. All the preliminary talks, and the ratification

red-tape, and the time required to build a base and get it operating...” He shook his

head. “For the next two years, at least, I'll still be hitch-hiking on tramp freighters

from one Fringe world to another—that is, if I'm alive to hitch."

"You're thinking of the slavers,” Horne said.

"They wouldn't be anxious to have me get back home, do you think? No. And of

course the humanoids are always an uncertain quantity ... most living things are,

especially if they've been frightened or hurt.” Denman sighed and looked at the

diamond-clear flame that was Allamar. “I wish,” he said, “that I was a drinking man."

Later, lying in the dark cabin in his bunk, listening to the deep faint throbbing of the

drives and feeling the fabric of the ship around him like an extension of his own

flesh, Horne thought that Denman was taking the whole thing too big. He was a

lonely man, obviously, far from what home and family he might have, and, just as

obviously, he carried something of a grudge against his superiors, with all this talk of

Denman being expendable and always getting the dirty jobs. Horne thought he was

dramatizing the situation, both its importance and its danger, in order to dramatize

himself.

Later still, when he came trundling down the beam of the automatic beacon to land

on the single primitive field of Allamar Two, he was not so sure.

Horne had landed at Allamar once before, some five years ago. He remembered how

it had been then, a festive occasion with much drumming and squealing of outlandish

instruments, much waving of banners made out of feathers and bright leaves, and

all-night sessions of solemn drinking after the business of trade was finished.

This time there were neither music nor banners. The Yoga Queen settled down in a

totally deserted field. After the smoke and dust cleared away and the gangway was

run out, Horne and Captain Wasek and the Third Officer went down with Denman to

stand in the clear sunlight. A brisk cool breeze went by with a smell of distant

snowfields in it, and there was nobody at all to meet them.

Then Horne pointed toward the forest edge that hemmed the landing-field.

The people of Allamar Two were a tall race, averaging nine feet or so for the adult

men, very powerful in build, richly furred from crown to toe in varying shades of

brown. They had huge eyes that reflected their gentle and rather solemn natures, and

a turn of feature that gave them a permanent expression of mild dejection, lightened

only occasionally, even at festival times, by a smile.

This time, now, they stood ranked in the shelter of the trees with weapons in their

hands, primitive things made clumsily of wood and stone, for they were a peaceable

folk. There were no women or children that Horne could see, only able-bodied men.

They stood looking at the ship with an air of desperate incompetence that made

Horne want to laugh, only it was not in the least funny.

Denman said, “You see?"

He began to walk toward the trees, his hands held up with the palms forward. He

called out to the people, not in lingua franca but in their own tongue, which Horne

did not understand. They answered him, and he stopped, and presently a group of

five men came out from the trees to meet him. From their dress and ornaments

Horne knew that these were chiefs. They talked with Denman, and after a time all six

of them turned and came back toward the ship. Then the chiefs stopped and would

come no farther.

Denman came all the way and picked up his bag. “They don't trust anybody any

more,” he said to Wasek. “Will you come and speak to them? It might make things

easier the next time a Federation ship wants to land here."

Wasek went back with Denman and talked to the chiefs in the lingua franca. The

talking did not last long. Wasek shook hands with Denman and returned to the ship.

Looking tiny and forlorn amid the massive shaggy shapes, Denman went the other

way, toward the forest.

Wasek shook his head. “Something has them all upset. I didn't really believe that talk

about slavers, but now I'm beginning to."

Horne looked after Denman. “I hope he'll be all right. I certainly don't envy his job

here."

He was worried about Denman. He was so worried that he felt guilty at the thought

of leaving him and going on to the stopover at Skereth and the pleasant fleshpots

there that awaited them before the return voyage.

He spoke of this to Vinson, and later he would remember that when he spoke, he

had not the slightest premonitory prickle down his spine.

CHAPTER II

ON SKERETH, once in a lifetime a man may see the sun or catch a glimpse of the

stars. Otherwise he lives beneath a wall of eternal cloud and takes the universe

beyond on faith. Some people said that that peculiarity of nature explained the whole

psychology of Skereth.

But, in the port city of Skambar, there was no need either of the stars or the single

unseen moon to light the long nights. The glare of neons did that job with eye-searing

efficiency. Skambar was a new city, grown up all haphazard around the big modern

spaceport that served Skereth's lively interstellar trade among the Fringe worlds.

There were blocks of tall new buildings set on fine straight streets, and then suddenly

you were past them into a jumble of plastic shacks and jerry-built rooming houses,

bars and shops and more bars and dubious-looking places with shuttered windows,

gambling dens and still more bars, the whole mass of it shrieking with red and blue

and green and yellow light. These lesser streets were narrow and inclined to wander

furtively. By daylight, under the tawny blaze of the sky they looked cheap, frowsy

and unclean. By night, while not exactly a fairyland, they were attractive enough to

men who had been a long time in space.

Vinson was finding it delightful. Horne had been at some pains to take him to the

better places he had found when he was here before. There were girls, quite human

girls because the dominant people of Skereth were quite human, and some of the

girls had cried out, “Jim! Jim!” and been glad to see him, which made Horne feel

pleasantly experienced, so that he swaggered just a little before Vinson's admiring

gaze. The girls were glad to have drinks bought for them, and they made much of

Vinson, and altogether it looked as though it was going to be a good evening.

"Remember,” he said dryly to Vinson, “that the nights here are as long as three of

ours, so space yourself. That palegreen stuff will have you flat on your ear."

"It tastes like soda-pop,” Vinson said.

"It pops, all right. Like the top of your head off.” Horne lay back on the shoddy

cushions that were provided for sitting, finding his head most pleasurably propped

against something soft and warm. The room was big, with a low ceiling and no

windows. Inside here the light was soft and dim, the warm air murmurous with

voices and laughter. Horne thought fleetingly of Denman out on Allamar Two,

crouched in some dismal village with his charges hunkered around him like so many

unhappy Saint Bernards. He shook his head, and once again he felt a faint twinge of

guiltiness.

The food, placed on tiny tables islanded among the cushions, was very good, and

the girls were friendly, and presently the lights dimmed even more, except for one

pale shaft in the middle of the room, and, a girl appeared in it carrying a curious

basket woven of rushes. She was not a human. Her beauty was faintly shocking at

first, and Horne heard Vinson draw his breath in sharply. The girl bent her silvery

head over the basket and opened it, and then she began to dance.

Golden globes of light no bigger than might be circled by a thumb and finger floated

up out of the basket and joined in her dancing.

Her body was slender and glinty and pliant as mist. It drifted and swayed in the

single shaft of light, and the golden globes swirled around her, making a game out of

the dancing, swooping with a rush like bursting bubbles up the slim curve of her

flank, evading her hands as she laughed and caught at them, clothing her in veils of

soft radiance and then whipping free in a kind of comet's tail to follow shining

behind her head. At the last she lifted up her arms and all the shining globes were

gathered into them, and she let them fall in a glittering cascade back into the rush

basket, and closed the lid, and all the lights went out. When they came back on again

the girl and her basket were gone.

In the midst of the applause, Horne saw that two young men had come up and were

standing close by, looking down at him and Vinson.

They were natives of Skereth, with the light hair and clean-cut features of their race.

They were little more than youngsters ... students, Horne thought, out for an evening

of glamor and excitement among the wild life of Skambar. They were staring with

great interest at his and Vinson's shoulder patches with the insigne of the interlocking

suns on them.

"You're off the Federation packet, aren't you?” one of them asked, and Horne

nodded. They both smiled, and the other one said, “May we buy you a drink?"

Horne said that was an invitation he couldn't refuse, and he and Vinson and the girls

rearranged themselves on the cushions so that there was room for them to sit down.

They wanted to talk about space and spacemen. They were starry-eyed about it, but

they also wanted to know how much it paid and what conditions were like on the

Federation ships. After a while Vinson said, “But you people aren't in the

Federation."

"We're going to be in it,” said one of the boys. “And soon. Morivenn's going to

Vega in your ship. We thought you knew that."

"Outside of our department,” Horne said, “which is navigation, we don't know

anything."

"I remember hearing some talk of an envoy, or envoys,” Vinson said, “but we

thought it might be just rumor. Who is Morivenn?"

"The leader of the Pro-Federation party here on Skereth,” said the boy. His name

was Mica, and he had eyes of a darker blue than one would ever see on Earth, so

dark they were almost black. “Oh, he'll get us in, all right, one way or another. They

can't keep us barred off forever from the big wide universe beyond the Fringe."

"Who's they?” asked Horne.

"The anti-Federation party,” said the other boy, and grinned. His name was Durin, or

something like it, and there was nothing at all extraordinary about him. “They've had

things their own way so long that they just can't bear to think of competition. But it's

got to come."

"And when it does come,” said Mica, “we'd like to get berths on a Federation ship.

You see, our traders just make the same stupid little circuit around the posts out here

on the Fringe, and we want to go to Vega, and Altair and the Cluster Worlds, and all

the other places there are to see."

"What are the girls like at Vega?” asked Durin.

"What kind do you want?” Vinson said with a princely gesture. “You name it, we

have it.” He was Vega-born, and proud of it.

"We've just got to get Skereth into the Federation,” said Durin, and closed his eyes,

sighing in anticipation of the myriad Vegan girls.

The pale-green stuff he had been drinking was beginning to make Horne's head buzz

just a trifle. The warm scented air began to be oppressive. He stretched and got up.

"Thanks for the drinks,” he said, “and good luck to you. Who knows, maybe you'll

be serving with one of us on a ship sometime.” He turned to Vinson. “I'm going out

for some air. I'll just remind you again that the nights are long here, and you can take

it from there."

"I'm happy right here,” said Vinson. “Now, I've got both the girls."

The two boys jumped up. “We'll go with you. There's a place down in the

Nightbirds’ Quarter. You ever been there?"

Horne said he hadn't.

"Well,” said Durin, “you can't really say you've been to Skereth if you haven't been

there.” He added, “You can get plenty of fresh air on the way."

"What's the Nightbirds’ Quarter?” Vinson wanted to know.

"Where the Nightbirds live."

"Logical enough. Now what are Nightbirds?"

"Just what they sound like. An avian race from the far north where the nights go on

forever, and they don't care much for daylight. There's a lot of them on the night

shifts at the spaceport, and the pleasure spots down in their quarter really swing."

"I'm game,” said Horne. “Let's go.'

Vinson hesitated, torn between present pleasures and the thought of being left alone

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RenaissanceEBookswww.renebooks.comCopyright©THETWOTHOUSANDCENTURIES:[TheEraoftheFederation—62,339-129,999]FUGITIVESOFTHESTARSByEDMONDHAMILTONISBN978-1-60089-016-1AllrightsreservedCopyright©1965,renewedEstateofEdmondHamiltonReprintedbypermissionSpectrumLiteraryAgencyThisbookmaynotbereproducedinwholeo...

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