Dumarest continues his restless wandering - combing the spaceways for an ancient and almost forgotten planet called Earth. Then, on a primitive world, he fights a giant mutant for the life of the lovely psychic Lallia - and wins a vital clue that could lead him to the end of his quest . . . (First published 1971)
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
116
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ON AARN A man was murdered and Dumarest watched him die.
It was a thing quickly done in a place close to the landing field: a bright tavern of gleaming comfort just beyond the main
gate of the high perimeter fence, a cultured place of softness and gentle lighting snugly set on a cultured world. The raw
violence was all the more unexpected because of that.
Dumarest saw it all as he stood with his back to a living mural in which naked women swam in an emerald sea and sported with
slimed beasts of obscene proportions. Before him, scattered over soft carpets, the customers of the tavern lounged in chairs
or stood at the long bar of luminescent wood. An assorted crowd of crewmen and officers, field personnel, traders, and transients.
Bright among them was the gaudy finery of pleasure girls, flaunting their charms. Soft music susurrated from the carved ceiling
and perfumed smoke stained the air.
Against the softness and luxury the killer looked like a skull at a feast: tall, horribly emaciated, eyes smouldering in the
blotched skin of his face. He was a mutant with mottled hair and hands grotesquely large, a sport from some frontier world.
He crossed to the long bar, snatched up a bottle of heavy glass and, without hesitation, smashed it on the back of his unsuspecting
victim’s head. Half-stunned, dazed, the man turned, and received the splintered shards in face and throat.
“Damn you!” The mutant dropped the stained weapon as he spat at the dying man. “Remember me? I swore I’d get you and I have.
It’s taken years but I did it. You hear me? I did it! I got you, you stinking bastard! Now roast in hell!”
A woman screamed and men came from the shadows to grasp the killer. Dumarest took two long strides towards the door then paused,
thinking. The tavern was close to the field, police could not be far away and it was possible that he had already been noticed. To leave now would be to invite
suspicion with the resultant interrogation and interminable delay. He regained his position before the mural as officers poured
into the tavern. On Aarn the police were highly efficient, and they moved quickly about the tavern as they quested for witnesses.
Not surprisingly they discovered them hard to find.
“You there!” The officer was middle-aged, his face hard beneath the rim of his helmet. His uniform was impeccable and the
leather of his boots, belt, and laser holster shone with a mirror-finish. “Did you see what happened?”
“Sorry, no,” said Dumarest.
“You too?” The officer echoed his disgust. “Over fifty people in the place and no one saw what happened.” He glanced over
his shoulder towards the scene of the crime. “If you were standing here how could you avoid seeing? You’ve a perfect view.”
“I wasn’t looking that way,” explained Dumarest. “I was studying this.” He pointed at the mural. “All I heard was some shouting.
When I turned the sport was standing over something on the floor. What happened? Did he hurt someone?”
“You could say that,” said the officer dryly. “He killed a man with a bottle.” He stared curiously at Dumarest, eyes narrowing
as he took in the grey plastic finish of pants, knee boots, and tunic. The tunic was long-sleeved, falling to mid-thigh and
fastened high and snug around the throat. It was unusual wear for a city dweller of Aarn. “Are you a resident?”
“No, a traveller. I came here to arrange an outward passage.”
“Why not go to the field office?” The officer didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind. I suppose a tavern is the best place
to do business if you can afford it. Your papers?”
Dumarest handed over the identification slip given to him when he had landed. The officer checked the photographic likeness
and physical details incorporated in the plastic. He softened a little as he saw the credit rating.
“Earl Dumarest,” he mused. “Planet of origin: Earth.” He raised his eyebrows. “An odd name for a world. I don’t think I’ve
ever heard it before. Is it far?”
“A long way from here,” said Dumarest flatly.
“It must be. Why did you come to Aarn?”
“To work. To look around.” Dumarest smiled. “But mainly to visit your museum. It is something rather exceptional.”
He had struck the right note by his appeal to planetary pride. The officer relaxed as he handed back the identification.
“We’re rather proud of it,” he admitted and then added, casually, “my son has a position there. In the ancient artefact division,
with special reference to Aarn’s early history. Did you know that once the planet held an intelligent race of sea creatures?
They must have been amphibious and there is evidence they used fire and tools of stone.”
“I didn’t,” said Dumarest. “Not before I visited your museum, that is. Tell me, is your son a tall, well-built youngster with
thick curly hair? About twenty-five, with vivid blue eyes?” The officer had blue eyes and the hair on the backs of his hands
was thick and curled. “If so I may have met him. A person like that was most helpful to me in my investigations.”
“I doubt if that was Hercho,” said the officer quickly. “He works in the laboratories. Reconstruction and radioactive dating.”
“Specialized work,” said Dumarest. “It’s a pretty important position for a young man to hold. You must be very proud of him.”
“He’s done well enough for himself.” The officer glanced to where two men carried a stretcher towards the dead man. “May I
ask what your own particular subject of interest at the museum might be?”
“Navigational charts and tables,” said Dumarest easily. “Really old ones. The type which were in use before the centre-oriented
charts we have now. I didn’t find any.”
“I’m not surprised. We have data from over a hundred thousand habitable worlds and ten times that many items on display, but
there has to be a limit. And perhaps you were looking for something which doesn’t exist. Are you sure there are such tables?”
“I think so,” said Dumarest. “I hope so.”
“Well,” said the officer politely, “there’s no harm in hoping.” He turned to move away then halted as Dumarest touched his
arm. “What is it?”
“A matter of curiosity,” said Dumarest. He nodded to where the attendants carried a sheeted figure towards the door of the
tavern. “That man. Who was he?”
“The victim?” The officer shrugged. “No one special. Just a handler from one of the ships.”
“The Starbinder?”
“The Moray. Captain Sheyan’s vessel. His name was Elgart. Did you know him?”
“No. I was simply curious.”
Dumarest turned to stare at the mural as the dead man was carried away.
The Moray was a small ship, battered, old, standing to one side of the busy field as if ashamed of associating with her sister vessels.
Her captain matched his command. Bernard Sheyan was small. A ruff of white hair showed beneath his uniform cap. His face,
beneath the visor, was seamed and scored with vicissitude and time. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at Dumarest
over the wide expanse of his desk.
“You wanted to see me,” he snapped curtly. For such a small man his voice was startlingly deep. “Why?”
“I want a job.”
“Forget it. I’ve a full complement.”
“No,” said Dumarest flatly. “You haven’t. You’re short a handler. A bit of Elgart’s past caught up with him and he’s dead.”
Sheyan narrowed his eyes. “This past you’re talking about,” he said softly. “You?”
“No. I just saw it happen. My guess is that Elgart was rotten. That he got his kicks from letting those riding Low wake without
the benefit of drugs. One of them finally caught up with him.” Dumarest’s eyes were bleak. “If I’m right, he asked for all
he got. The only thing is that he got it too easily. A man like that should be given a double dose of his own medicine.”
To wake, rising through layers of ebon chill to light and the stimulating warmth of the eddy currents … the screaming agony
of returning circulation without the aid of drugs to numb the pain so that throat and lungs grew raw with the violence of
shrieking torment.
Sheyan said quietly, “You’ve travelled Low?”
“Yes.”
“Often?”
Dumarest nodded, thinking of a skein of barely remembered journeys when he’d travelled doped and frozen and ninety per cent dead.
Riding in the bleak cold section in caskets meant for the transport of livestock, risking the fifteen per cent death rate for the
sake of cheap travel. Risking, too, the possibility of a sadistic handler who revelled in the sight and sound of anguish.
“So Elgart’s dead,” mused Sheyan. “You could be right in what you assume, but he didn’t play his tricks with me. Even so,
he came from one of the big ships and a man doesn’t do that without reason. You want his job?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I want to leave Aarn,” said Dumarest. “Working a passage is better than travelling Low.”
Anything, thought Sheyan, was better than travelling Low; but Aarn was a busy world and a hard worker would have little trouble
in gaining the cost of a High passage.
He leaned further back in his chair, shrewd eyes studying the figure standing before him. The man was honest, that he liked,
and he was an opportunist—few would have acted so quickly to fill a dead man’s shoes. He looked at the clothing, at the spot
above the right boot where the plastic caught the light with an extra gleam. The hilt of a blade would have caused such a
burnishing and it was almost certain that the knife was now tucked safely out of sight beneath the tunic.
His eyes lifted higher, lingering on the hard planes and hollows of the face, the tight, almost cruel set of the mouth. It
was the face of a man who had early learned to live without the protection of house, guild, or combine. The face of a loner,
of a man, perhaps, who had good reason for wanting a quick passage away from the planet. But that was not his concern.
“You have had experience?”
“Yes,” said Dumarest. “I’ve worked on ships before.”
Sheyan smiled. “That is probably a lie,” he said mildly. “Those who ride Middle rarely do anything else. But could you perform
a handler’s duties?”
“It was no lie,” said Dumarest. “And the answer is yes.”
Abruptly Sheyan made his decision. “This is a rough ship. A small ship. Snatching the trade others manage without. Short journeys,
mostly, planet hopping with freight and such, heavy loads and hard work. You’ll be paid like the rest of us, with a share
of the profit. Sometimes we make a pile, but mostly we break even. At times we carry passengers who like to gamble. If you
accommodate them I get a half of the profit.”
“And if I lose?”
“If you can’t win then don’t play.” Sheyan leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. “Work hard, be willing, and cause
no trouble. That way we’ll get along. Questions?”
“When do we leave?”
“Soon. You’ll find a uniform in Elgart’s cabin.” The captain looked curiously at his new handler. “Aren’t you interested as
to where we are bound?”
“I’ll find out,” said Dumarest, “when we get there.”
The steward guided him to the cabin. He was young, recent to space with a voice which had barely broken, but already his eyes
held a flowering hardness.
“Elgart was a pig,” he said as he led the way from the captain’s office. “Mean and close and hard to get along with. I’m glad
he’s dead.”
Dumarest made no comment. Instead he looked at the walls and ceiling of the passage down which they passed. The plastic carried
a thin patina of grime and was marked with a mesh of scratches. The floor was heavily scuffed, uneven in places, and showing
signs of wear and neglect.
“My name is Linardo del Froshure del Brachontari del Hershray Klarge,” said the steward as they reached the cabin door. “But
everyone calls me Lin. Will it be all right for me to call you Earl?”
“I’ve no objection.” Dumarest pushed open the door of the cabin and passed inside. It was as he’d expected: a bare room fitted
with a bunk, a chair, a small table. Cabinets filled one wall; the others bore lurid photographs of naked women. A scrap of
carpet, frayed, covered the floor, and a player stood on the table. He switched it on and the thin, piping strains of cazendal
music filled the air.
“Elgart was a funny one,” commented Lin. “That music and this other stuff.” His eyes moved to the photographs. “A real weird.”
Dumarest switched off the player. “How many in the crew?”
“Five. You’ve met the captain. Nimino’s the navigator and Claude’s the engineer. Both are o. . .
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