Andre Norton - Ross Murdock 02 - Uncharted Stars

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Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton

Chapter One

It was like any other caravansary at a space port, not providing quarters

for a Veep or some off-planet functionary, but not for a belt as sparsely

packed with credits as mine was at that moment either. My fingers twitched

and I got a cold chill in my middle every time my thoughts strayed to how

flat that belt was at present. But there is such a thing as face, or

prestige, whatever name you want to give it, and that I must have now or

fail completely. And my aching feet, my depressed spirits told me that I was

already at the point where one surrendered hope and waited for the

inevitable blow to fall. That blow could only fell me in one direction. I

would lose what I had played the biggest gamble of my life to win--a ship

now sitting on its tail fins in a field I could have sighted from this hotel

had I been a Veep and able to afford one of the crown tower rooms with

actual windows. One may be able to buy a ship but thereafter it sits eating

up more and more credits in ground fees, field service--more costs than my

innocence would have believed possible a planet month earlier. And one

cannot lift off world until he has a qualified pilot at the controls, the

which I was not, and the which I had not been able to locate.

It had all sounded so easy in the beginning. My thinking had certainly been

clouded when I had plunged into this. No--been plunged! Now I centered my

gaze on the door which was the entrance to what I could temporarily call

"home," and I had very unkind thoughts, approaching the dire, about the

partner waiting me behind it.

The past year had certainly not been one to soothe my nerves, or lead me to

believe that providence smiled sweetly at me. It had begun as usual. I,

Murdoc Jern, had been going about my business in the way any roving gem

buyer's apprentice would. Not that our lives, mine and my master Vondar

Ustle's, had been without exciting incident. But on Tanth, in the spin of a

diabolical

"sacred" arrow, everything had broken apart as if a laser ray had been used

to sever me not only from Vondar but from any peace of mind or body.

When the sacrifice arrow of the green-robed priests had swung to a stop

between Vondar and me, we had not feared; off-worlders were not meat to

satisfy their demonic master. Only we had been jumped by the tavern crowd,

probably only too glad to see a choice which had not included one of them.

Vondar had died from a knife thrust and I had been hunted down the byways of

that dark city, to claim sanctuary in the hold of another of their grisly

godlings. From there I had, I thought, paid my way for escape on a Free

Trader. But I had only taken a wide stride from a stinking morass into a

bush fire--since my rise into space had started me on a series of adventures

so wild that, had another recited them to me, I would have thought them the

product of fash-smoke breathing, or something he had heard from a story

tape. Suffice it that I was set adrift in space itself, along with a

companion whose entrance into my time and space was as weird as his looks.

He was born rightly enough, in the proper manner, out of a ship's cat. Only

his father was a black stone, or at least several men trained to observe the

unusual would state that. Eet and I had been drawn by the zero stone--the

zero stone! One might well term that the seed of all disorder!

I had seen it first in my father's hands--dull, lifeless, set in a great

ring meant to be worn over the bulk of a space glove. It had been found on

the body of an alien on an unknown asteroid. And how long dead its suited

owner was might be anyone's guess--up to and including a million years on

the average planet. That it had a secret, my father knew, and its

fascination held him. In fact, he died to keep it as a threatening heritage

for me. It was the zero stone on my own gloved hand which had drawn me, and

Eet, through empty space to a drifting derelict which might or might not

have been the very ship its dead owner had once known. And from that a

lifeboat had taken us to a world of forest and ruins, where, to keep our

secret and our lives, we had fought both the Thieves' Guild (which my father

must have defied, though he had once been a respected member of its upper

circles) and the Patrol. Eet had found one cache of the zero stones. By

chance we both stumbled on another. And that one was weird enough to make a

man remember it for the rest of his days, for it had been carefully laid up

in a temporary tomb, shared by the bodies of more than one species of alien,

as if intended to pay their passage home to distant and unknown planets of

origin. And we knew part of their secret. Zero stones had the power to boost

any energy they contacted, and they would also home on their fellows,

activating such in turn. But that the planet we had landed upon by chance

was the source of the stones, Eet denied. We used the caches for bargaining,

not with the Guild, but with the Patrol, and we came out of the deal with

credits for a ship of our own, plus--very sourly given--clean records and

our freedom to go as we willed. Our ship was Eet's suggestion. Eet, a

creature I could crush in my two hands (sometimes I thought that solution

was an excellent one for me), had an invisible presence which towered higher

than any Veep I had ever met. In part, his feline mother had shaped him,

though I sometimes speculated as to whether his physical appearance did not

continue to change subtly. He was furred, though his tail carried only a

ridge of that covering down it. But his feet were bare-skinned and his

forepaws were small hands which he could use to purposes which proved them

more akin to my palms and fingers than a feline's paws. His ears were small

and set close to his head, his body elongated and sinuous. But it was his

mind, not the body he informed me had been "made" for him, which counted.

Not only was he telepathic, but the knowledge which abode in his memory, and

which he gave me in bits and pieces, must have rivaled the lore of the famed

Zacathan libraries, which are crammed with centuries of learning. Who--or

what--Eet was he would never say. But that I would ever be free of him again

I greatly doubted. I could resent his calm dictatorship, which steered me

on occasion, but there was a fascination (I sometimes speculated as to

whether this was deliberately used to entangle me, but if it was a trap it

had been very skillfully constructed) which kept me his partner. He had told

me many times our companionship was needful, that I provided one part, he

the other, to make a greater whole. And I had to admit that it was through

him we had come out of our brush with Patrol and Guild as well as we

had--with a zero stone still in our possession.

For it was Eet's intention, which I could share at more optimistic times, to

search out the source of the stones. Some small things I had noted on the

unknown planet of the caches made me sure that Eet knew more about the

unknown civilization or confederation which had first used the stones than

he had told me. And he was right in that the man who had the secret of their

source could name his own price--always providing he could manage to market

that secret without winding up knifed, burned, or disintegrated in some

messy fashion before he could sell it properly.

We had found a ship in a break-down yard maintained by a Salarik who knew

bargaining as even my late master (whom I had heretofore thought unbeatable)

did not. I will admit at once that without Eet I would not have lasted ten

planet minutes against such skill and would have issued forth owning the

most battered junk the alien had sitting lopsidedly on rusting fins. But the

Salariki are feline-ancestered, and perhaps Eet's cat mother gave him

special insight into the other's mind. The result was we emerged with a

useful ship. It was old, it had been through changes of registry many times,

but it was, Eet insisted, sound. And it was small enough for the planet

hopping we had in mind. Also, it was, when Eet finished bargaining, within

the price we could pay, which in the end included its being serviced for

space and moved to the port ready for take-off.

But there it had sat through far too many days, lacking a pilot. Eet might

have qualified had he inhabited a body humanoid enough to master the

controls. I had never yet come to the end of any branch of knowledge in my

companion, who might evade a direct answer to be sure, but whose supreme

confidence always led me to believe that he did have the correct one.

It was now a simple problem: We had a ship but no pilot. We were piling up

rental on the field and we could not lift. And we were very close to the end

of that small sum we had left after we paid for the ship. Such gems as

remained in my belt were not enough to do more than pay for a couple more

days' reckoning at the caravansary, if I could find a buyer. And that was

another worry to tug at my mind.

As Vondar's assistant and apprentice, I had met many of the major gem buyers

on scores of planets. But it was to Ustle that they opened their doors and

gave confidence. When I dealt on my own I might find the prospect bleak,

unless I drifted into what was so often the downfall of the ambitious, the

fringes of the black market which dealt in stolen gems or those with dubious

pasts. And there I would come face to face with the Guild, a prospect which

was enough to warn me off even more than a desire to keep my record clean.

I had not found a pilot. Resolutely now I pushed my worries back into the

immediate channel. Deal with one thing at a time, and that, the one facing

you. We had to have a pilot to lift, and we had to lift soon, very soon, or

lose the ship before making a single venture into space with her.

None of the reputable hiring agencies had available a man who would be

willing--at our wages--to ship out on what would seem a desperate venture,

the more so when I could not offer any voyage bond. This left the rejects,

men black-listed by major lines, written off agency books for some mistake

or crime. And to find such a one I must go down into the Off-port, that part

of the city where even the Patrol and local police went on sufferance and in

couples, where the Guild ruled. To call attention to myself there was asking

for a disagreeable future--kidnaping, mind scanning, all the other illegal

ways of gaining my knowledge. The Guild had a long and accurate memory.

There was a third course. I could throw up everything--turn on my heel and

walk away from the door I was about to activate by thumb pressure on

personal seal, take a position in one of the gem shops (if I could find

one), forget Eet's wild dream. Even throw the stone in my belt into the

nearest disposal to remove the last temptation. In fact, become as ordinary

and law-abiding a citizen as I could.

I was greatly tempted. But I was enough of a Jern not to yield. Instead I

set thumb to the door and at the same time beamed a thought before me in

greeting. As far as I knew, the seals in any caravansary, once set to

individual thumbprints, could not be fooled. But there can always be a first

time and the Guild is notorious for buying up or otherwise acquiring new

methods of achieving results which even the Patrol does not suspect have

been discovered. If we had been traced here, then there just might be a

reception committee waiting beyond. So I tried mind-touch with Eet for

reassurance. What I got kept me standing where I was, thumb to doorplate,

bewildered, then suspicious. Eet was there. I received enough to be sure of

that. We had been mind-coupled long enough for even tenuous linkage to be

clear to my poorer human senses. But now Eet was withdrawn, concentrating

elsewhere. My fumbling attempts to communicate failed.

Only it was not preoccupation with danger, no warn-off. I pressed my thumb

down and watched the door roll back into the wall, intent on what lay

beyond. The room was small, not the cubby of a freeze-class traveler, but

certainly not the space of a Veep suite. The various fixtures were

wall-folded. And now the room was unusually empty, for apparently Eet had

sent every chair, as well as the table, desk, and bed back into the walls,

leaving the carpeted floor bare, a single bracket light going.

A circle of dazzling radiance was cast by that (I noted at once that it had

been set on the highest frequency and a small portion of my mind began

calculating how many minutes of that overpower would be added to our bill).

Then I saw what was set squarely under it and I was really startled.

As was true of all port caravansaries, this one catered to tourists as well

as business travelers. In the lobby was a shop--charging astronomical

prices--where one could buy a souvenir or at least a present for one's

future host or some member of the family. Most of it was, as always, a

parade of eye-catching local handicrafts to prove one had been on Theba,

with odds and ends of exotic imports from other planets to attract the

attention of the less sophisticated traveler. There were always in such

shops replicas of the native fauna, in miniature for the most part. Some

were carved as art, others wrought in furs or fabrics to create a very close

likeness of the original, often life-size for smaller beasts, birds, or

what-is-its. What sat now in the full beam of the lamp was a stuffed pookha.

It was native to Theba. I had lingered by a pet shop (intrigued in spite of

my worries) only that morning to watch three live pookhas. And I could well

understand their appeal. They were, even in the stuffed state, luxury items

of the first class. This one was not much larger than Eet when he drew his

long thin body together in a hunched position, but it was of a far different

shape, being chubby and plump and with the instant appeal to my species that

all its kind possess. Its plushy fur was, a light green-gray with a faint

mottling which gave it the appearance of the watered brocade woven on

Astrudia. Its fore-paws were bluntly rounded pads, unclawed, though it was

well provided with teeth, which in live pookhas were used for crushing their

food--rich leaves. The head was round with no visible ears, but between the

points where ears might normally be, from one side of that skull-ball to the

other, there stood erect a broad mane of whisker growth fanning out in fine

display. The eyes were very large and green, of a shade several tints darker

than its fur. It was life-size and very handsome--also very, very expensive.

And how it had come here I did not have the slightest idea. I would have

moved forward to examine it more closely but a sharp crack of thought from

Eet froze me where I stood. It was not a concrete message but a warning not

to interfere. Interfere in what? I looked from the stuffed pookha to my

roommate. Though I had been through much with Eet and had thought I had

learned not to be surprised at any action of my alien companion, he now

succeeded very well in startling me. He was, as I had seen, hunched on the

floor just beyond the circle of intense light cast by the lamp. And he was

staring as intently at the toy as if he had been watching the advance of

some enemy. Only Eet was no longer entirely Eet. His slim, almost reptilian

body was not only hunched into a contracted position but actually appeared

to have become plumper and shorter, aping most grotesquely the outward

contours of the pookha. In addition, his dark fur had lightened, held a

greenish sheen. Totally bewildered, yet fascinated by what was occurring

before my unbelieving eyes, I watched him turn into a pookha, altering his

limbs, head shape, color, and all the rest. Then he shuffled into the light

and squatted by the toy to face me. His thought rang loudly in my head.

"Well?"

"You are that one." I pointed a finger, but I could not be sure. To the last

raised whisker of crest, the last tuft of soft greenish fur, Eet was twin to

the toy he had copied.

"Close your eyes!" His order came so quickly I obeyed without question.

A little irritated, I immediately opened them again, to confront once more

two pookhas. I guessed his intent, that I should again choose between them.

But to my closest survey there was no difference between the toy and Eet,

who had settled without any visible signs of life into the same posture. I

put out my hand at last and lifted the nearest, to discover I had the model.

And I felt Eet's satisfaction and amusement.

"Why?" I demanded.

"I am unique." Was there a trace of complacency in that remark? "So I would

be recognized, remarked upon. It is necessary that I assume another guise."

"But how did you do this?"

He sat back on his haunches. I had gone down on my knees to see him the

closer, once more setting the toy beside him and looking from one to the

other for some small difference, though I could see none.

"It is a matter of mind." He seemed impatient. "How little you know. Your

species is shut into a shell of your own contriving, and I see little signs

of your struggling to break out of it." This did not answer my question very

well. I still refused to accept the fact that Eet, in spite of all he had

been able to do in the past, could think himself into a pookha.

He caught my train of thought easily enough. "Think myself into a

hallucination of a pookha," he corrected in that superior manner I found

irking.

"Hallucination!" Now that I could believe. I had never seen it done with

such skill and exactitude, but there were aliens who dealt in such illusions

with great effect and I had heard enough factual tales of such to believe

that it could be done, and that one receptive to such influences and

patterns could be made to see as they willed. Was it because I had so long

companied Eet and at times been under his domination that I was so deceived

now? Or would the illusion he had spun hold for others also?

"For whom and as long as I wish," he snapped in reply to my unasked

question.

"Tactile illusion as well --feel!" He thrust forth a furred forelimb, which

I touched. Under my fingers it was little different from the toy, except

that it had life and was not just fur laid over stuffing.

"Yes." I sat back on my heels, convinced. Eet was right, as so often he

was--often enough to irritate a less logical being such as I. In his own

form Eet was strange enough to be noticed, even in a space port, where there

is always a coming and going of aliens and unusual pets. He could furnish a

clue to our stay here. I had never underrated the Guild or their spy system.

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.

Chapter Two

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 not 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 ordered. 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 continued 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.

That the feeder seemed to know just where it was going was apparent, for it

rolled purposefully on until we reached a wall with slits in it. The machine

locked to one of these and I guessed that the refuse and disposable dishes

were being deposited in some sort of refuse system. Not only the feeder was

clamped there. Beyond was a sweeper, also dumping its cargo.

A flash of my beamer showed that the wall did not reach the roof, so there

might be a passage along its top to take us out of the paths of the roving

machines-- though such a way might well lead to a dead end.

I stood up cautiously on the feeder, and Eet took the beamer between his

stubby pookha paws. The bag was easy to toss to the top of the wall, my

furry companion less so, since his new body did not lend itself well to such

feats. However, once aloft, he squatted, holding the beamer in his mouth,

his teeth gripping more easily than his paws.

With that as my guide I leaped and caught the top of the wall, though I was

afraid for a moment my fingers would slip from its slick surface. Then I

made an effort which seemed enough to tear my muscles, and drew my whole

body up on an unpleasantly narrow surface.

Not only was it narrow but it throbbed and vibrated under me, and I mentally

pictured some form of combustion reducing the debris dumped in, or else a

conveyer belt running on into a reducer of such refuse.

Above me, near enough to keep me hunched on my hams, was the roof of the

place. A careful use of the beamer showed me that the wall on which I

crouched ran into a dark opening in another wall met at right angles, as if

it were a path leading into a cave.

For want of a better solution I began to edge along, dragging my bag, my

destination that hole. Luckily Eet did not need my assistance but balanced

on his wide pookha feet behind me.

When I reached that opening I found it large enough to give me standing room

in a small cubby. The beam lighted a series of ladder steps bolted to the

wall, as though this was an inspection site visited at intervals by a human

maintenance man. Blessing my luck, I was ready to try that ladder, for the

clanging din of the rushing machines, the whir of their passing rung in my

ears, making me dizzy. The sooner I was out of their domain the better.

Eet's paws were not made for climbing, and I wondered if he would loose the

disguise for the attempt. I had no desire to carry him; in fact I did not

see how I could.

But if he could release the disguise he was not choosing to do so. Thus, in

the end, I had to sling the bag on my back by its carrying strap and loosen

my tunic to form a sling, with Eet crawling part-way down inside my collar

at my. shoulders. Both burdens interfered cruelly with my balance as I began

to climb. And I had had to put away the beamer, not being conveniently

endowed with a third hand.

For the moment all I wanted was to get out of the dark country of the

robo-servers, even though I was climbing into the unknown. Perhaps I had

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