E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 25 - The Terridae

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2024-12-23 0 0 370.79KB 176 页 5.9玖币
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The Terridae by E. C.
Tubb.
Chapter One
He was small, brown, dressed in a upon of scarlet edged with
silver, a pointed cap on a rich tangle of curls and striped hose on
slender legs, a boy of about ten now caught in a mesh of
brambles with one foot snared in the clamped jaws of a vegetable
trap. On each wrist captive bells made a harsh jangling as he
waved his arms.
Dumarest had heard the sound as he crested the ridge and
tracked it to its source lower down the slope. Now, halting, he
eased the weight of the pack on his shoulders.
"Are you hurt?" Dumarest frowned as the boy shook his head.
"Can't you speak?"
Again the shake of the head, this time accompanied by the
thrust of a finger toward the opened mouth. A mute, trapped in
a prison of thorns, the bells his only means of calling for help. Yet
would such a boy be out alone?
Dumarest turned, eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. On
all sides the ground fell from the encircling hills to cup the
solitary town of Shard in a spined embrace. Matted grass broken
with tall fronds bright with lacelike blooms intermingled with
rearing brambles. Sprawling growths reared twice the height of
a man, bearing succulent berries and traps designed to snare
insects and small rodents. The branches and stems, some as
thick as a man's body, were covered with curved and vicious
barbs.
"Don't move!" Dumarest called the warning as, again, the air
shook to the desperate jangle of bells. "Just stay calm. I'll get you
out."
He studied the ground as the lad obeyed, noting marks in the
matted grass, the lie of stems. To one side a thorned branch had
been broken and sap oozed from the fracture. As he knelt to
check for tracks he heard a soft rustle and spun, snatching at the
knife he carried in his boot, sunlight splintering from the nine
inches of edged and pointed steel.
A rustle, followed by others as a gust of wind stirred the
fronds and filled the somnolent air with the heady scent of their
perfume.
Rising, Dumarest slipped the pack from his shoulders and
eased his way toward the trapped boy. Small and lithe, the lad
would have had little trouble slipping through the brambles, but
three times Dumarest had to slash clear a path. As he reached
the recumbent figure certain things became clear.
The jupon was of cheap material, patched, frayed, the silver
edging nothing but scraps of discarded foil. The bells were of
brass suspended from wires on either wrist. The hose were
covered with darns and the pointed hat had been roughly
made—unmistakable signs of poverty despite their bright show,
matched by the hollow cheeks and the too-bright eyes, the frail
bones of the boy himself. A basket to one side explained his
presence, the container half-full of purple berries; a harvest
painfully won.
"Steady!" The thin ankle trapped in the jaws was mottled with
bruises, blood dappling the hose, evidence of frantic efforts to
pull it free. The knife flashed as Dumarest cut at the tangle of
thorns. "Don't move!"
Though mute, the lad could hear and understand and he
remained still as Dumarest finished the task and sheathed his
knife. Bells jangled as he lifted the boy and he saw the extended
hand, the determination stamped on the small face.
"You want the fruit, is that it?" He recovered the basket as the
lad nodded. "Here. Can you walk?" He watched as the boy took a
cautious, limping step. "Too slow. I'll carry you."
A heave and the lad was riding on his shoulder, the basket
held firmly in the small hands. Cautiously Dumarest retraced his
path, halting as, again, he heard a soft rustle.
This time there was no wind.
A patch of grass lay to one side and Dumarest moved toward
it, throwing the boy into its softness as again something rustled
close. He turned, ducking. A club aimed at his head missed to
whine through the air, the man holding it thrown off-balance by
the unexpected lack of resistance. He was a grimy, rat-faced man
wearing garments stained green and brown, camouflage
protecting him from the human predators who lurked in the
brush. He doubled, retching, as Dumarest kicked him in the
stomach, staggering back to become hooked in thorned spines.
"Jarl?" The voice came from ahead, impatient, querulous.
"You get him? You get him, Jarl?"
Two of them and there could be more. Dumarest lifted the
knife from his boot and slipped to one side among the brambles
feeling the rasp of thorns over his clothing, the drag and burn as
a barb tore at his scalp.
"Jarl? Answer me, damn you!"
A rustle and Dumarest saw a mottled bulk, the loom of gross
body, the gleam of sunlight reflected from furtive eyes. A man
lunged forward, gripping a gnarled branch. His fingers parted
beneath the slash of razor-edged steel to fall in spurting showers
of blood.
"You bastard!" Pain and rage convulsed the ravaged face. "I'll
have your eyes for that! Leave you to wander blind in the brush!
Jarl! Kelly! Get him, damn you!"
He backed, his uninjured hand diving into a pocket, lifting
again weighted with the bulk of a gun. A wide-barreled
shot-projector which could fill the air with a lethal hail. As it
appeared Dumarest threw himself forward, blade extended, the
point ripping into the body below the breastbone in an upwards
thrust which reached the heart. Killing as surely as the burn of a
laser through the brain.
As the man fell he heard a frantic cursing, the clumsy passage
of a body close at hand, the echoes of another from where he had
left his pack. When he reached the spot he found it gone.
The jangle of bells reminded him of the boy.
He sat where he'd been thrown, his eyes anxious, the injured
leg held stiffly before him. The ankle was too swollen for the lad
to do more than crawl. Jarl had vanished, scraps of skin and
clothing left hanging on broken thorns, a trail of blood marking
his passage, a trail Dumarest could easily follow but not while
carrying the boy. And, with darkness, other predators would
come eager for helpless prey.
"Up!" Dumarest lifted the small body to his shoulder. "I'd
better get you home."
The town matched the planet—small, bleak, devoid of all but
functional utility. The field was an expanse of rutted dirt,
deserted now, the warehouses sagging and empty. Once there
had been a bustling tide of commerce but the veins of valuable
ores had been exhausted, the operation closed down, sheds and
workers abandoned. Among them had been the local factor.
"Earl!" He rose as Dumarest entered his store. "Man, it's good
to see you!"
Mel Glover was a one-time face-worker who had been hurt in
an accident and now dragged a useless foot. A big, broad man
with a rugged build and a face marred with a perpetual scowl, he
ran the store and acted as agent and hated every moment of it.
He found surcease in talk and drugs and exotic dreams. Now he
frowned as Dumarest set down the boy.
"Anton! What the devil have you been up to?" He looked at
Dumarest. "He find you or what?" The frown deepened as he
listened to an answer. "Caught in the brambles—anything else?"
An attempt on his life, theft, a man lying dead—but Dumarest
chose not to elaborate. He said, "That's it. I heard him and found
him and brought him in. You know where he lives?"
"In the Drell."
"With his people?"
"His mother. His father got himself killed last year." Glover
reached into a jar and threw the boy a ball of wrapped candy.
"Here, lad. Can you walk? Try hopping. Good. Off you go now."
As the boy hopped away, sucking his sweet, the basket hung over
one arm, he added, "I bet you didn't know he could do that."
"No."
"But you know he's a mute?"
Dumarest nodded and looked around the store. It was as he
remembered, cluttered with a variety of produce, most of local
manufacture. Baskets of woven reed filled with delicate blooms
rested beside pots of sunbaked clay crammed with spices, seeds,
sections of narcotic weed. A bale held furs, another the tanned
hides of ferocious lizards, the scales seeming to be made of nacre
traced with silver, jet and gold. Products of minor value but still
worth collecting by ships content with small profits. Beneath a
window facing the foothills stood a bench, a book lying on its
surface together with a pair of powerful binoculars.
"You've been out almost a month," said Glover. "I was
beginning to get anxious. Any luck?"
"None." The pack had contained a mass of corbinite; thirty
pounds of near-pure crystal worth a half-dozen High Passages
together with gear costing most of what he owned. "In the Drell,
you say?"
"What? Oh, the boy." Glover sucked in his cheeks as he
reached for a bottle. "Join me? No? Well, here's to success." He
emptied the glass at a swallow, the reek of crudely distilled spirit
tainting the air as he refilled it. "The nearest thing to Lowtown
you'll find on Shard. Once it was Lowtown but then the company
pulled out and things evened out a little. The poor stayed poor
but the top rich got up and went. So what was left was up for
grabs." He drank again. "If it hadn't been for my busted foot I'd
have gone too. A good job," he said bitterly. "That's what they
told me. A good, responsible position. Hell, look at it! Even a
Hausi couldn't make a living in this dump!"
A lie—but a Hausi wouldn't have drunk his profits, let his
wares rot for lack of attention or wallowed in self-pity.
Dumarest said, patiently, "Where in the Drell?"
"You still on about that boy?" Glover shook his head. "A dumb
kid—what's he to you? Have a drink and forget him." He reached
for the bottle, halted its movement as he met Dumarest's eyes.
"Fivelane," he said. "Number eighteen."
Once it had been smart with clean paint and windows clean
and unpatched with paper and sacking. A home with dignity for
people with pride. Now it held smells and decay and a slut who
stared at Dumarest with calculating eyes.
"Anton," she said. "What do you want with him?" Her
expression became speculative. "If you're thinking of—"
"Are you his mother?"
"In a way. His true mother's ill. I can take care of things." She
sucked in her breath as Dumarest closed his fingers around her
arm. "All right, mister! No harm done! She's upstairs!"
Dumarest found the woman in a room with a narrow window
half-blocked with rags against the cold of night. There was a
truckle bed, a table, a chair, a box, a heap of assorted fabrics
piled in an opposite corner. A jupon of frayed scarlet cloth lay on
the lap of a woman who had once been young and could have
been beautiful. She coughed and sucked in air to cough again
with a betraying liquidity.
"Anton's a good boy," she said. "He does what he can. He
wouldn't hurt anyone."
Dumarest was patient. "I mean him no harm. I just want to
know about him. Was he born a mute?"
"A genetic defect but it can be corrected. A new larynx—" Her
hands closed on the faded scarlet of the patched jupon. "All it
needs is money."
The cure for so many ills. Dumarest noted the thinness of the
hands, the lankness of the hair. She had met his eyes only at
their first meeting, dropping her own as if ashamed, pretending
to be engrossed in her sewing. From below came a sudden shout,
a slap, a following scream.
"Martia," she said. "Her man has little patience."
"And yours?"
"Dead." Her voice was as dull as her eyes. "Over a year ago
now. An accident."
"At work?"
"In the brush. A friend brought the news." She didn't want to
talk about it and Dumarest watched the movement of her hands
on the jupon. A spare—the garment was edged with gold instead
of silver. Anton had not yet returned home. "What do you want,
mister?"
"I'm looking for someone. A man named Kelly. He could have
been a friend of your husband. Anton might know him. Does
he?"
She was silent a moment then she shook her head. "Think,"
urged Dumarest. "Your man could have mentioned him.
Anton—you can communicate?" He continued as she nodded.
"Kelly could have befriended the boy. Jarl too. You know Jarl?"
"No."
Her denial came too fast, perhaps simply an automatic
defense. In such places as the Drell strangers were always objects
of suspicion and it would be natural for her to protect the boy.
"A pity." Dumarest was casual. "There could be money in it. I
want to get my business done and be on my way. Did your man
have a favorite place? Who brought you the news of his death?"
The question was asked without change of tone and she
answered with unthinking response. "Fenton. Boyle Fenton. He
owns the Barracoon. It's on the corner of Tenlane and Three."
She added, "He's a good man."
He had softened the bad news, given her a little money,
promised aid if she should need it, a promise she could have
been too proud to ask him to keep.
Had the boy been willing bait?
It was possible and he fit the part; young, weak, helpless,
unable to do more than jangle his bells, a decoy to disarm the
suspicious, placed by the predators who had been willing to kill
for what loot they could find. Or had they merely taken
advantage of a genuine accident?
"Does Anton go out often?"
"Every day."
"Into the brush? Alone?"
"He's used to it. He collects what he can and sells it for what
he can get." Pride in her son lifted the woman's head, a ray of
sunlight touching her hair and lending it a transient beauty,
echoed in the bones of cheek and jaw, the arched brows over the
sunken eyes. The fever staining her cheeks gave her a false
appearance of health. "He's a good boy, mister!"
The boy was small and frail and unable to speak yet wise in
the dangers of the brush. It had not been an accident, then, but
even so he was not wholly to be blamed. Those who had used him
carried the guilt.
Downstairs the woman who had greeted him was waiting in
the doorway.
"Any luck, mister?" Her eyes moved toward the upper regions.
One was dark with a fresh bruise and weals marked the shallow
cheek. "If you really want the boy I could arrange it."
Dumarest said, "Is there a hospital here?"
"An infirmary at the Rotunda but they want paying in
advance." Her eyes moved over his face to settle on the dried
blood marking his lacerated scalp. "For her or yourself? If it's for
her then forget it—she won't last another season. If it's for you
then why waste money? The monks will treat you for free."
It had been a hard day and Brother Pandion was tired. He
rested his shoulders against the sun-warmed brick of the
building used as a church and looked at the line which never
seemed to end. Many of the faces were familiar; but all were
suppliants coming to gain the comfort of confession. They would
kneel before the benediction light to ease their guilt, then to
suffer subjective penance and, after, to receive the Bread of
Forgiveness. And if many came only to get the wafer of
concentrates it was a fair exchange—for all who knelt to be
hypnotized beneath the swirling glow of the light were
conditioned against killing a fellow man.
A fair exchange, but how many would need to be so
conditioned before all could walk safely and in peace? Pandion
knew the answer, as did all dedicated to serve the Church of
Universal Brotherhood, but knowing it did not lessen his resolve.
Once all could look at their fellows and recognize the truth of the
credo—there, but for the grace of God, go I!—the millennium
would have arrived.
He would never live to see it as would no monk now living.
Men traveled too far and bred too fast yet each person touched
by the church lessened pain and anguish by just that amount.
Each who saw in another the reflection of what he might have
been was a step upward from barbarism and savagery. A life
spent in that pursuit was a life well-spent.
He straightened as Dumarest approached, the brown
homespun robe shielding the angular lines of his body. Even as a
youth he had never been plump and now years of privation had
drawn skin taut over bone and shrinking muscle. But the
privation had been chosen and was not a duty, for the church did
not believe in the virtue of pain or the benefit of suffering, yet
how could he indulge himself while so many remained unfed?
"Brother?" His eyes, deep-set beneath prominent brows,
studied the tall figure now halted before him. "If you wish to use
the church there is a line already waiting." The line was too long
and Pandion felt a touch of guilt at his indolence. Brother Lloyd
was now on duty, fresh from his time of rest, but even so the
guilt remained, tainted, perhaps, by the sin of pride—when
would he learn that others could take his place?
He added, "If it is a matter of other business I will be pleased
to help."
"A boy," said Dumarest. "A mute about ten years of age. You
know him?"
"Anton? Yes."
"He was hurt and I wondered if he'd called here for
treatment."
"It is possible," said Pandion. "I have not seen him myself but
I have been standing here only a short while. You know him
well?"
"No, but I am concerned."
The old monk smiled with genuine pleasure. "He may have
asked for help. If so Carina Davaranch would have attended
him."
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