Gateway To Xanadu (49 page)

When I opened my eyes again, the light in the room was brighter than the deep night shown through the vu-cast window. Jane was nowhere to be seen-something that really pleased me-so I grabbed the opportunity to see if I’d made any progress in the moving around department. My whole body felt fuzzy and almost numb, showing that the neranol had been given to me very recently, and sitting up was no more trouble than getting the proper muscles moving. There was some dizziness that passed quickly, letting me raise the back of the bed and make myself as comfortable as possible.

The peace and quiet lasted until Jane discovered I was awake. She wore a crisp new uniform and looked well rested, so I knew I’d probably been out the entire Station night and part of the morning. Prying the time out of her was like digging out ultra-secret naval plans, but when I finally had the information I found I was right.

Not long after Jane went on her way again, the door to my room was opened. I’d been staring at the blank light-tan walls around me, trying to pinpoint what was so damned irritating about them, but sight of the short, round figure in the doorway lightened my mood to the grinning point.

“A friendly face at last,” I greeted him, watching Ringer frown around the room before coming all the way in and over to my bed. Despite the frown I was glad to see him, just the way I usually was.

“I didn’t think I’d find you sitting up,” he growled, moving those eyes over me to inspect my wrists.

“Why is it that the complications you find usually turn out to be worse than the assignments?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I shrugged, in turn giving the up and down to his dark gray business suit. “Or maybe it’s part of my talent. Isn’t Val with you?”

“He should be along in a minute,” Ringer said, opening his jacket so he could put his hands in his pockets. “I left word for him when my ship docked, and came ahead to talk to your doctor. Do you want to be moved out of here to one of our own places?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” I shrugged again, shaking my hair back over my shoulders. “it all depends on how long they try to keep me in bed. By the way, I’ve got something for you. ”

I began reaching over to the drawer where Jane had put my bio-ring the day before, only peripherally seeing the door open to admit Val.

“Don’t stretch like that!” Ringer ordered, grabbing my arm gently before I’d moved very far. “Do you want to have another day like the one you had yesterday? I’ll get it.”

Val’s head came up when he heard that, and he stopped short and said, “What happened yesterday?”

“How was your trip, Ringer?” I tried to interrupt, hoping he’d missed Val’s question while inspecting the bio-ring. “Anything interesting happen?”

“Be quiet!” Val snapped at me, then repeated to Ringer. “What happened yesterday?” and there was no way I could stop it.

“They gave her a grade Z suppressant and it wore off too soon,” Ringer said, studying Val as he put away the ring in a pocket. “Her doctor told me they had to go after her with butterfly nets, and he still doesn’t understand why. Where were you that you didn’t know about it?”

Val’s face was a strange combination of conflicting emotions, but his eyes were hard and angry. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if the anger had been directed toward me, but I could see he was angry with himself for not being there when he might have been needed. He glanced at me quickly, almost in embarrassment, and I knew I’d have to find a way of telling him I’d gotten rid of him on purpose. He was bound to be even angrier at that, but there was nothing else I could do.

“I was-busy yesterday,” he said at last, looking at Ringer with a suddenly expressionless face.

“Obviously it was the wrong thing to be.”

Ringer studied Val’s face, but he didn’t say what was going through his mind. The situation could have become considerably more awkward, but you can always trust Ringer to stick to the basics.

“I think it’s time I had a report on this thing,” he growled, filling the silence. “I didn’t come all this way just to keep you two company.”

At that point there was a brisk knock, and Jane opened the door to stick her head in.

“No more than fifteen minutes, men,” she ordered, looking at Ringer and Val. “You can see her again tomorrow when she’s stronger.”

When Jane’s head disappeared, Ringer sat down in the chair that was still near my bed and pulled out a cigarette.

“Let’s make it move,” he said. “We don’t have much time. ”

“I think I ought to start,” I said, and while Val came closer .to lean against a wall, I gave Ringer a rundown on all the preliminaries as well as my part of the end without going into needless detail. Val paid close attention to the doings he, hadn’t been around for, an odd expression flickering in his eyes when I mentioned the ledge I’d used to reach Radman. I ran it through to the end, and then it was my partner’s turn.

“At dinner that night, when she said she wanted to go back to our apartment, I was reasonably certain she wasn’t really ill,” he said, keeping his eyes on Ringer. “I had the feeling she was up to something, but I was up to something myself with Little, and didn’t want to waste the chance if I could help it. Little had something he wanted to show me, and while he was showing, I was going to try pumping him about the guests, to see if he knew too much about any of them. I didn’t notice when the man who had been sitting next to Diana left, and I didn’t know he was sick. Diana hadn’t told me he was Radman, and she hadn’t told me what she planned on doing.”

Ringer’s eyes came to me briefly then, no real expression on his face, his attention then on Val to keep from interrupting the narrative.

“I spent the next two or three hours with Little, but wasn’t able to do much in the way of questioning,”

Val continued, his arms folded where he leaned against the wall, his gaze now filled with memory.

“There was some sort of transmission from what he called The Arena, and more than a few of the other guests watched it with us. Naked men fought with one another bare-handed and with weapons, and in each fight only one of the combatants survived. The surviving fighter was then given a female slave to use right there where he’d fought, and the screaming of the spectators never stopped. I stayed until I was just short of kicking the walls down, then insisted on leaving.

“When I finally got back to our apartment, Diana wasn’t there., I very nearly went back out into the corridor to ask the slaves if they’d seen her, then realized I couldn’t do that. For all I knew she might have been following a clue to Radman or even taking care of him, so the last thing I could do was call attention to her. There was nothing else for it but to wait, but I waited all night and she never showed up.

By the time morning came and she still hadn’t come back, I decided it was past time to be cautious. I made it into the corridor just in time to be rounded up with a number of the other guests who were awake, to be questioned about Richard Radman’s death. They said it had happened some time during the previous evening, and that bothered me. I looked around and noticed that although Matthew was there, James was nowhere to be seen. I remembered how James had looked at her and what he’d said about her when he’d spoken to me, so when Matthew left I followed him to their apartment. I could feel that she was in there—I’m still attuned to her, you know-so I clobbered Matthew and took his place. When James opened the door, I went in and got her out. ”

“My hero,” I said, more in a murmur than aloud, and neither he nor Ringer heard it.

. “I never expected the Management to handle things the way they did,” he went on, looking frowningly confused. “I did expect at least a few questions about why I hadn’t reported Diana missing the night before, but they never even brought the matter up. They took Matthew away somewhere, and a little while later they came for Little. He screamed and blubbered when they dragged him out of the dining room where he had been eating, and except for the slaves in that place, I’ve never seen a man so afraid.

They must have found out from Matthew that he was involved with Radman in trying to sell Diana, and he was the only one left for them to take their mad out on. After seeing that, I spent a minute or two regretting that Diana had reached Radman after all. It would have been more fitting if he had lived to experience what he had made so many other people experience.”

I had to admit I agreed with that sentiment, but Ringer didn’t look like he was agreeing with anything.

He hadn’t said anything during the entire recital, but his eyes had drifted back to me toward the end of Val’s lecture. When the last word had been said, he shook his head at me.

“What a mess,” he growled, dropping his second cigarette onto the floor to grind it under his foot. “Is that your idea of a partnership? Why didn’t you brief him properly instead of taking off on your own? I ought to cite you right now for stupidity like that.”

“You use your definition of partnership, I use mine,” I answered, barely able to shrug. “Mine might turn out to be better in the long run, so why not give it a chance?”

“I’ll think about it,” Ringer said grimly, answering a question I hadn’t expected an answer to, while he rose from the chair. “If you hadn’t forced yourself to show him how to use the telelink, I’d still be waiting for your call. You didn’t follow any of the standard precautionary procedures for a two-agent operation, and it could have turned out a lot worse than it did. I’ll make my report to the Council and let you know what they say tomorrow. Right now you’d better get,; some more rest. Come on, Valdon.”

“I need company more than I need rest,” I called after them as they went toward the door, trying to get rid of the faint depression that had settled on me from talking about the Sphere. “How about leaving Val here to amuse me?”

“I’ll amuse you,” Jane said from the suddenly open door, her fist on her hip as she glared around. “Out, you two men, and don’t come back till tomorrow.”

Ringer and Val disappeared faster than they would have at an order from the Council, and I was left with my good buddy Jane. I thought about breaking out of there, but instructions had been left by my doctor about how much sleep I was supposed to get. Since I hadn’t done anything about it on my own, Jane had come in to help me out, and my thoughts about breaking out lasted about three seconds after the sound of the hypo.

When Ringer came back alone the next day, my mood was a good deal blacker than it had been the day before. Ringed wasn’t looking any too jolly himself as he reclaimed the chair near my bed, but with Jane taking advantage of the shape I was in to push me around, I couldn’t muster much sympathy for him. He didn’t say a word until he’d settled himself in the chair, and then those sharp, piercing eyes glared at my face.

“Why didn’t you mention this thing about being a teenager again?” he growled without preamble. “Slip your mind, did it?”

I snarled wordlessly at the reminder and swallowed down what my first reactions would have made me say, and satisfied myself with throwing the plastic water glass in my hand as far as I could without crippling myself.

“That’s a very touchy subject with me,” I told him. “I don’t like any part of it, and I’ve long since been fed up with being treated like a child. I want a certificate of majority here as soon as humanly possible, sooner if you think you can swing it.”

“Do you,” he murmured, staring at me with a strange expression I had the feeling I’d seen before. “Well, I’ve already spoken to the Council about it, but I’d rather get to another of their points first. I spent some time thinking about how you handled this assignment, and I’m convinced you left Valdon out of a lot of it on purpose. The Council agrees with me, and is very disturbed about it. I passed on what he told me about wanting to take a ship from the shuttle port, and they feel he could have been killed because you didn’t give him enough information to work with. Considering that they’ve decided to try friendly relations with Valdon’s people, they are understandably upset that you might have put them in the embarrassing position of having to report his death at the first conference. They have therefore decided to cite you, but you don’t get away with three months of desk duty. You will accompany Valdon during a three-month procedures course at the Agent Training Academy, and you will be returned to cadet grade and status during that time.”

His voice had been stiff and official with that handing-down-a-verdict tone, and suddenly I comprehended his expression. It was the same one he’d worn when he’d taken away my knife on Faraway Station, one that said he wasn’t likely to listen to anything I said to change his mind. I frowned and shook my head, not really believing he could be serious; he saw my headshake, and leaned forward in the chair to point a finger at me.

“Are you still glad you did it all yourself?” he asked, his voice now back to normal. “If you are, think again. There’s more. ”

“What do you mean, more?” I demanded, starting to get mad. “Isn’t the first of that imbecility enough?

Do all of you want my blood to go with it?”

“You can keep what’s left of your blood,” Ringer snorted, grinning faintly. “I know you better than you think I do, and I was asked for a recommendation on this point. I discussed the minority matter with them, telling them how well you liked it, and they decided to let your conduct during the next three months have a say as to whether or not you get what you need. Until that certificate is approved, you travel as a minor and watch your step. If your step takes you out of line, no certificate.”

“The hell you say!” I snarled, pulling the cover off me so that I could move around to face him. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be blackmailed like that! I won’t do it!”

“You’ll do it or they’ll throw you out,” Ringer said, his voice warning as his eyes measured my anger.

“You have no idea how angry they were.”

“Let them throw me out,” I snarled, running my hand through my hair. “If I can’t find anything else to do, I’ll just go home for a few years. I won’t be a teenager forever.”

Ringer didn’t say anything, he just stared at me, and I felt a cold chill start around my backbone where I shouldn’t have felt anything at all.