The Changeling Worlds

by Kenneth Bulmer

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

On the gold-symbol world of Beresford's Planet, Richard Kirby lived in total luxury. As a member of "The Set" his life was a never-ending round of planetary party-hopping. The only restriction imposed on him - that he never put down on any world marked with a red or black symbol - was something that he had always accepted without question. That is, until his brother Alec was murdered in cold blood! Alec had been an undercover agent to those forbidden planets, and in order to avenge him, Kirby had to find out for himself what was really happening there. But with the start of his investigation, Kirby found out quickly that the authorities meant business when they said "Hands off!" The secret they were protecting was of vital importance, and it now became a matter of life and death, not only to Kirby, but to all the inhabitants of THE CHANGELING WORLDS.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 174

Sample

RECLINING comfortably three feet in the air, with his robo-dressers scurrying in silent deftness around him, Richard Makepeace Kirby struggled with the weighty problem of deciding whether to take the .1 needle gun or his new variable-aperture flarer to the forthcoming party. He pushed the problem away to be solved later and said to Molly: “We’ve been married for—what is it—four days now? Do you want a divorce for this party tonight or shall we stay married for a bit?”

“My vote says we stay married.” Molly walked slowly from her dressing room. “And I was thinking we ought to have had a baby by now.”

Kirby said casually: “Sure.”

“After all, that Margot Bailey bought one the day she married that thin young architect; I forget his name.”

“That wasn’t her last, was it?”

“No. Three ago.”

“His name was Jim. All right then, Molly, why don’t you drop by the B.E. tomorrow and pick one out.” He chuckled suddenly and a robo-dresser seized the chance of running the pin-stripe trousers on to his legs. “I don’t have to remind you we’ll have to stay married for a year. Can you stand that?”

Molly put the foot-long ivory cigarette holder into the corner of her mouth and said: “I don’t like the way you say that, Dick. Of course I don’t mind.”

“Ah, but,” said Kirby, “will I?”

“You’d damn well better not! I’ve a good mind to go right down to the B.E. this minute and buy a baby——”

“Hold it! Hold it!” Kirby sat up, his body moving against the magnegrav field without conscious effort. He looked across the bent backs of the temporarily baffled robots at Molly. “We take off for this party in thirty minutes.”

Molly coughed on her cigarette holder. “Ow!” she wailed. “I’ve no idea what fancy dress to wear. I came in to see if you had any suggestions.” Molly was wearing a petulantly perplexed expression and nothing else.

Kirby said: “I have, but thirty minutes isn’t long enough. And I won’t suggest you go as you are. Remember Alice Evans?”

They both laughed with tired, malicious amusement. The Set was still giggling over poor Alice and her dramatic entry to a party. At one of the incessantly regular parties she appeared as Eve-before-snake until the U.V.’s caught her nude back and everyone could read a certain suggestion some joker had scrawled there in fluorescent crayon. Abdul Rahman had shouted above the uproar: “Take the snake’s advice, Alice—cover up!” The joke had gone the rounds and been fresh for a whole week.

“Anyway,” continued Molly, dragging her half-practical half-butterfly mind back on to her own problems, “what are those ghastly objects you’re wearing? What are you supposed to be?”

Kirby recognised Molly’s gambit. In only four days of marriage he had learned more about her than all their previous three-week acquaintanceship, which was as should be, he had decided luxuriously more than once. He smiled and the robo-dressers took their chance and ran the black frock coat up his arms and settled it neatly about his wide shoulders. He rolled off the magnegrav couch and stood up. He spread his arms out and twirled on tiptoes.

“You look like some dam’ great vulture,” Molly said.

“Flattery comes naturally to you, my dear.” Kirby had to move his head half-an-inch to allow the robo-dresser’s aim to settle the silk hat on his head and he frowned and made a mental note to send the thing for adjustment. “I am a symbol of a vanished age, a romantic figure from the past, a——”

“A bag of wind. And time’s running out.”

“I’m a Twentieth Century capitalist,” Kirby said shortly, obscurely annoyed that Molly had effectively punctured his little pantomime. He might have done better to have married Yolande; at least she had no brains, and brains in a woman of The Set were a proven emotional hazard. Five minutes with Molly proved that.

“One of those,” Molly said, tapping cigarette ash into the suction floor gratings, “from Earth, I suppose?”

“Oh, surely. Old ancestral home and stuff like that.”

“Thank you. Dick. I shall go as a Twenty-First century TV personality. All you need is a contrast make-up and a sheath. I remember that from school.”

“Well hurry it up. I have to meet Alec, don’t forget. Haven’t seen him in two years.”

“Alec! Oh, wonderful! My sister June was married to him for a week. Didn’t work. But I blame June “

“Go, go, go!” shouted Kirby. He pointed at the door and made shooing motions. Molly, pouting, went.

The unaccustomed clothes did not chafe Kirby as he walked slowly towards the picture window. The equation between near-perfect robot servants and perfect service was one being solved every thirty-hour day, without thought and without comment. Had the fancy dress not fitted Kirby like a second skin, he would have felt vague annoyance and called in a robot repair-robot.

From the window he had an uninterrupted view across the village and, not for the first time, he debated whether to continue to live here, a few degrees off the equator of Beresford’s Planet, or take an idly casual stroll around this end of the Galaxy in order to turn up a different and more exciting home. As he had with the weapon problem, he pushed this one aside too. The first sun was on the point of setting, and rich violet shadows stretched away from him, throwing the outline of the building on to the grass and concrete below. As everyone had long ago agreed that to live in a penthouse was the only possible way to live, everyone lived in penthouses. Below Kirby, the tracery of supporting columns and elevators and service conduits laid an amusing shadow pattern across the village square and cut the central fish lake into segmented patterns of darkness and glitter.

In about twenty minutes, when they took off for the party over at Kraswic’s, on the other limb of the planet, the second sun would be rising here in orange and red splendour. Not that anyone bothered much about where the suns were in the sky since everyone was almost continuously embarked upon a party that might last a mere week or extend until all the guests had departed for fresh parties. There was talk of a party over in the Narciss system, three light years away, that had been running for ten years now. If it were a good party, then, why not? Why break it up if the drinks were still flowing and the conversation amusing and the women beautiful? What else to do if you broke that one up except go on to another that might be a bore?

To be a member of The Set, Kirby decided, stretching was a very good thing. Life was good. Life was amusing. He felt very contented.

He would still be contented even if Molly did intend to drop by the B.E. and buy a baby. It would be amusing to have a baby. And very much in fashion, too. Yes, life, including wife and baby, was very good to Richard Makepeace Kirby.

A shadow flitted on the picture window sill and a wall valve opened. A cheerful bubbling voice said: “What on planet are you wearing, Dick?”

Kirby turned with a smile and extended hand. “Hullo, Wynne! Glad to see you.” The two men shook hands.

Wynne Statham was tall, slender, elegant, polished and looked a fool but wasn’t. His height matched Kirby’s but Kirby could never have donned the red-and-lemon jacket Statham wore.

“Where’s Molly?”

“Dressing. You look fit, Wynne. How’s the Galaxy these days?”

Statham gestured largely. “It’s still there.” He spoke as though a billion stars remained in their orbits only through his own magnanimity. Kirby chuckled. Statham was a bit of a crackpot, but a worthy member of The Set and one who added zing to any gathering.

“Any stories?”

“A million, my dear Dick.” Statham glanced around, located the joy-dispenser and headed across. There was no need to ask Kirby if he might use Kirby’s possessions; possessions were by their very nature communal property—apart, that is, from the very personal things of a man’s life, and these a man would kill to protect. Statham selected his dope and unbuttoned the sleeve of the vivid jacket. He gave a little gasp and a satisfied wriggle as the needle slid in.

“That’s better. Feel more like my old self now.”

“What happened?” Kirby was fascinated by the personality-shift. He didn’t dope himself—at least, not much—and he considered that he derived greater enjoyment from indulging in the harmless habit himself. He couldn’t explain his attitude, but it amused him; and that was the important thing in this life.

“What happened? I’ll tell you. But you haven’t told me what those perfectly horrid things are you’re wearing—if ‘wearing’ is the word for it.”

“Twentieth Century capitalist.” Kirby was beginning to wonder if his brilliant notion had been so luminous after all. He would be getting touchy about the clothes soon.

“Really?” Statham walked around him, studying the pin-stripe trousers, the black frock coat and the silk hat. “Didn’t they wear some sort of neckcloth like a butterfly?”

“I believe so. Bow tie, they called it. I looked it up. But I prefer to leave my neck open to the breeze in the natural way.” Kirby felt vaguely that he had been caught out cheating. “After all,” he protested, “this was a hell of a long time ago and, anyway, it’s fancy dress.”

“Five thousand years ago that’s all. Plus a little bit for accuracy. I’m disappointed in you Dick.” And Statham laughed.

Kirby laughed too. You could laugh, with one of The Set. Of course, with anyone else—say someone of another Set—it would have been a killing matter.

Laughing, Kirby remembered and immediately felt loutish. He said: “Oh, sorry, Wynne. Forgive me. How’s Eva?”

“Nothing to forgive, laddie. We parted company. She was—well, you know—a little too much. Especially after that courageous business off Starholm.”

“Oh?”

“Names always attracted me. Starholm. It’s a black symbol world, you know. Funny thing. The old Liza——”

“I thought you’d sold that yacht and bought yourself—”

“No, sir! Found I couldn’t part with the old Liza. She’s a real beauty, still does fifty parsecs per——”

“Well, what about Starholm?” Kirby suddenly had a horrid thought. “You didn’t set down on the planet? You said it was a black symbol world. You didn’t——?”

“Steady, laddie.” Statham wandered around the room, deliberately tantalizing Kirby and, at the same time, on the look-out for any new acquisitions that might have been added since his last visit. Kirby, despite the irritated feeling that Statham was a jackass, still chuckled at thought of the set of Sirian carved gemstone chessmen that was very securely locked up. Most friends had taking ways. That was why they were friends. Statham began his protracted business of choosing a cigarette and flicking for the robo-dispenser to pop it between his lips He had the decency to go on talking during the performance.

“Sure, I knew Starholm was a black symbol world. But I thought I’d drop down and rustle up some fun with the natives. And Eva wanted to have a swim.”

“Wynne! You utter idiot!”

Statham had the grace to look microscopically uncomfortable. “Well,” he said gesturing vaguely, “you know how it is when you feel a marriage is breaking up. And it makes it megatons worse when you’re in space at the time. Sorta cramped, if you follow me.”

“But, Wynne,” Kirby persevered “Starholm is a black symbol world. Lord! I know you and I were usually off woman-hunting or surf-riding or something or other when we should have been attending lectures at school. How we made University with honours still beats me, but we still learned the Law. And we still had time to understand very thoroughly that, of the colour symbol worlds we may visit, black symbol and red symbol are strictly off limits!” He paused and looked balefully at Statham. “If you told this to some people they’d—well—they’d never talk to you again. Civilised people just don’t meddle with black and red; they stick to the white and golden worlds.”

“So I’m a nut case, Dick. So okay. So the old Liza doesn’t boast any swimming facilities.” He went on excitedly. “I’ve. . .