No World of Their Own (14 page)

“Well … is there anything we can do, now, except get ourselves killed in a fit of messy heroism?”

“No. I see no out-way. That doess not mean none exists. Best to follow the scent ass laid, while snuffing after a new track.”

Langley nodded indifferently. He was too sick of the whole slimy business to care much as yet. Let the Centaurians win. They were no worse than anybody else. “Okay, Brannoch,” he said. “We'll string along.”

“Excellent!” The giant shivered, as if with a nearly, uncontrollable exuberance.

“You realize, of course,” said Valti, “that this means war.”

“What else?” asked Brannoch, honestly surprised.

“A war which, with or without nullifiers, could wreck civilization in both systems. How would you like, say, the procyonites to come take over the radioactive ruins of Thor?”

“All life is a gamble,” said Brannoch. “If you didn't load your dice and mark your cards—I know blazing well you do, tool—you'd see that. So far the balance of power has been pretty even. Now we will have the nullifier. It may tip the scales very far indeed, if we use it right. It's not a final weapon, but it's potent.” He threw back his head and shook with silent laughter.

Recovering himself: “All right. I've got a little den of my own, in Africa. We'll go there first to make preliminary arrangements—among other things, a nice convincing synthetic dummy, Saris' corpse, for Chanthavar to find. I can't leave Earth right away, or he'd suspect too much. The thing to do is tip my hand just enough to get declared persona non grata, leave in disgrace—and come back with a fleet behind me!”

Langley found himself hustled outside, onto a slope where snow crackled underfoot and the sky was a dark vault of stars. His breath smoked white from his mouth; breathing was keen and cold, and his body shuddered. Marin crept near him, as if for warmth, and he stepped aside from her.
Tool!

No … no, he wasn't being fair to her, was he? She had not been responsible when she had betrayed him, with less will of her own than if someone had held a gun at her back. But he couldn't look at her now without feeling unclean.

A spaceship hovered just off the ground. Langley walked up the ladder, found himself a chair in the saloon and tried not to think. Marin gave him a glance full of pain and then took a seat away from the others. A couple of armed guards, arrogant blond men who must be Thorians themselves, lounged at the doors. Saris had been taken elsewhere. He was not yet helpless, but his only possible action would be the suicidal one of crashing the ship. And Brannoch seemed willing to chance that.

The mountains fell away under their keel. There was a brief booming of sundered air, and then they were over the atmosphere, curving around the planet toward central Africa.

Langley wondered what he was going to do with himself, all the remaining days of his life. Quite possibly Brannoch would establish him on some Earth-type world as promised. He wouldn't see the war, but all his life there would be nightmares in which the sky tore open and a billion human creatures were burned, flayed, gutted and baked into the ground. And yet what else could he have done? He had tried and failed. Wasn't it enough?

No, said some distant New England ancestor in him.

Time slipped by. He was getting so many minutes closer to his death, he thought wearily. Although Africa was on the dayside now, Brannoch's ship went down. Langley supposed that something had been flanged up, fake recognition signals maybe, to get it by the sky patrols. There was a viewscreen, and he watched a broad river which must be the Congo. Neat plantations stretched in orderly squares as far as he could see, and scattered over the continent were medium-sized cities. The ship ignored them, flying low it reached a small cluster of dome-shaped buildings.

“Ah,” said Valti. “A plantation administrative center—perfectly genuine too, I have no doubt. But down underground, hm.”

A section of dusty earth opened metal lips and the ship descended into a hangar. Langley followed the rest out and into the austere rooms beyond. At the end of the walk there was a very large chamber; it held some office equipment and a tank.

Langley studied the tank with a glimmer of interest. It was a big thing, a steel box twenty feet square by fifty long, mounted on its own antigravity sled. There were auxiliary bottles for gas, pumps, engines, meters, a dial reading an internal pressure which he translated as over a thousand atmospheres. Nice trick, that, he thought. Was it done by force-fields, or simply today's metallurgy? The whole device was a great, self-moving machine, crouched there as if it were a living thing.

Brannoch stepped ahead of the party and waved gaily at it. His triumph had given him an almost boyish swagger. “Here they are, you Thrymkas,” he said. “We bagged every one of them!”

XIII

The flat microphonic voice answered bleakly: “Yes. Now, are you certain that” no traps have been laid, that you have not been traced, that everything is in order?”

“Of course!” Brannoch's glee seemed to nose-dive; all at once, he looked sullen. “Unless you were seen flying your tank here.”

“We were not. But after arrival, we made an inspection. The laxity of the plantation superintendent—which means yours—has been deplorable. In the past week he has bought two new farm hands and neglected to condition them against remembering whatever they see of us and our activities.”

“Oh, well—plantation slaves! They'll never see the compound anyway.”

“The probability is small, but it exists and it can be guarded against. The error has been rectified, but you will order the superintendent put under five minutes of neural shock.”

“Look here—” Brannoch's lips drew back from his teeth. “Mujara has been in my pay for five years, and served faithfully. A reprimand is enough. I won't have—”

“You will.”

For a moment longer the big man stood defiantly, as if before an enemy. Then something seemed to bend inside him, and he shrugged and smiled with a certain bitterness. “Very well. No use making an issue of it. There's enough else to do.”

Langley's mind seemed to pick itself up and start moving again. He still felt hollow, drained of emotion, but he could think and his reflections were not pleasant.
Valti was hinting at this. Those gazabos in that glorified ashcan aren't just Brannoch's little helpers. They're the boss. In their own quiet way, they're running this show.

But what do they want out of it? Why are they bothering? How can they gain by brewing up a war? The Thorians could use more land, but an Earth-type planet's no good to a hydrogen breather.

“Stand forth, alien,” said the machine voice. “Let us get a better look at you.”

Saris glided forward, under the muzzles of guns. His lean brown form was crouched low, unmoving save that the very end of his tail twitched hungrily. He watched the tank with cold eyes.

“Yes,” said the Thrymans after a long interval. “Yes, there is something about him. We have never felt those particular life currents before, in any of a hundred races. He may well be dangerous.”

“He'll be useful,” said Brannoch.

“If that effect
can
be duplicated mechanically, my lord,” interrupted Valti in his most oily tone. “Are you so sure of the possibility? Could it not be that
only
a living nervous system of his type can generate that field … or control it? Control is a most complex problem, you know. It may require something as good as a genuine brain, which no known science has ever made artificially.”

“That is a matter for study,” mumbled Brannoch. “It's up to the scientists.”

“And if your scientists fail? Has that eventuality occurred to you? Then you have precipitated a war without the advantage you were hoping for. Sol's forces
are
larger and better coordinated than yours, my lord. They might win an all-out victory.”

Langley had to admire the resolute way Brannoch faced an idea which had not existed for him before. He stood a while, looking down at his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I don't know,” he said at last, quietly. “I'm not a scientist myself. What of it, Thrymka? Do you think it can be done?”

“The chance of the task being an impossible one has been considered by us,” answered the tank. “It has a finite probability.”

“Well … maybe the best thing to do is disintegrate him, then. We may be taking too much of a gamble—because I won't be able to fool Chanthavar very long. Perhaps we should stall, build up our conventional armaments for a few years—”

“No,” said the monsters. “The factors have been weighed. The optimum date for war is very near now, with or without the nullifier.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do not ask needless questions. You would lose weeks trying to understand the details of our analysis. Proceed as planned.”

“Welll … all right!” The decision made for him, Brannoch plunged into action as if eager to escape thought. He rapped out his orders, and the prisoners were marched off to a block of cells. Langley had a, glimpse of Marin as she went by; then he and Saris were thrust together into one small room. A barred door clanged shut behind them, and two Thorians stood by their guns just outside.

The room was small and bare and windowless. There were sanitary facilities, a pair of bunks—nothing else. Langley sat down and gave Saris, who curled by his feet, a weary grin. “This reminds me of the way the cops back in my time used to shift a suspect from one jail to another, keeping him a jump ahead of his lawyer and a habeas corpus writ.”

The Holatan did not ask for explanations; it was strange how relaxed he lay. After a while, Langley went on: “I wonder why they stuck us in the same room.”

“Becausse we can together talk,” said Saris.

“Oh, you sense recorders, microphones, in the wall? But we're talking English.”

“Doubtless they iss … they hawe translation facilitiess. Our discussion iss recorded and iss transslated tomorrow, maybe.”

“Hm, yeh. Well, there isn't anything important we can talk about anyway. Let's just think up remarks on Centaurian ancestry, appearance and morals.”

“Oh, but we hawe much to discuss, my friend. I shall stop the recorder when we come to such topics.”

Langley laughed, a short hard bark. “Good enough! And those birds outside don't savvy English.”

“I wish my t'oughtss to order,” said the Holatan. “Meanwhile, see if you can draw them out in conwersation. Iss especially important to learn T'ryman motiwes.”

“So? I should think you'd be more interested to know what's going to become of you. They were talking about killing you back there, just in case you don't know.”

“Iss not so vital ass you t'ink.” Saris closed his eyes.

Langley gave him a puzzled stare.
I'll never figure that critter out.
The flicker of hope was faintly astonishing; he suppressed it and strolled over to the door.

One of the guards swung up his gun, nervously. It had a non-standard look about it. It was probably a smoothbore, designed and built for this one job. “Take it easy, son,” said Langley. “I don't bite … often.”

“We have strict orders,” said the Thorian. He was young, a little frightened, and it thickened the rough accent. “If anything at all goes wrong, whether it seems to be your fault or not, you're both to be shot. Remember that.”

“Taking no chances, huh? Well, suit yourselves.” Langley leaned on the bars. It wasn't hard to act relaxed and companionable—not any more, now when nothing mattered. “I was just wondering what you boys were getting out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I suppose you came here along with the diplomatic mission, or maybe in a later consignment. When did you hit Earth?”

“Three years ago,” said the other guard. “Outplanet service is normally for four.”

“But that don't include transportation time,” pointed out Langley. “Makes about thirteen years you're gone. Your parents have gotten old, maybe died; your girl friend has married someone else.… Back where I come from, we'd consider that a hell of a long term.”

“Shut up!” The answer was a bit too stiff and prompt.

“I'm not talking sedition,” said Langley mildly. “Just wondering. Suppose you get paid pretty well, eh, to compensate?”

“There are bonuses for outplanet service,” said the first guard.

“Big ones?”

“Well—”

“I kind of thought so. Not enough to matter. The boys go off for a couple of decades; the old folks have to mortgage the farm to keep going; the boys come back without money to get out of hock, and spend the rest of their lives working for somebody else—some banker who was smart enough to stay at home. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Happened on Earth about 7000 years ago. Place called Rome.”

The heavy, blunt faces—faces of stolid, slow-thinking, stubborn yeomen—screwed up trying to find a suitably devastating retort. But nothing came out.

“I'm sorry,” said Langley. “Didn't mean to needle you. I'm just curious, you see. Looks as if Centauri's going to be top dog, so I ought to learn about you, eh? I suppose you personally figure on getting a nice piece of land in the Solar System. But why is Thrym backing you?”

“Thrym is part of the League,” said one of the men. Langley didn't miss the reluctance in his tone. “They go along with us … they have to.”

“But they have a vote, don't they? They could have argued against this adventure. Or have they been promised Jupiter to colonize?”

“They couldn't,” said the guard. “Some difference in the air, not enough ammonia I think. They can't use any planet in this system.”

“Then why are they interested in conquering Sol? Why are they backing you? Sol never hurt them any, but Thor fought a war with them not so long ago.”