Secret of the Stars (3 page)
Read Secret of the Stars Online
Authors: Andre Norton
The plate came to a stop and Joktar’s palm flattened on the wall where the heat of his flesh, as well as the patterns on his fingertips, unlocked a door for them. Ahead was a narrow corridor. The tingle of the alarm snuffed out. Orrin snorted.
“They must be close. Let’s hope most of the boys made it in time.”
At the end of the corridor a series of toe and finger holds led them to a climb-shaft. Topping that they would be directly under the roof. Of course the E-copters would be waiting up there, but the refugees would have fog bombs to handle that situation.
“You got a good lay-up, kid?”
Joktar’s sixth sense pricked. Why did Orrin ask that? Every employee of Kern had his own hiding place for the raids.
“Any reason not to try the regular?”
“Dunno,” Orrin sounded uneasy. “Just wondered . . . if the boss did set this one off . . . well . . .”
Yes, Kern could have betrayed every bolt hole, every hideout. The trouble was, as Kern’s man, he had no choice now. He’d have to follow the set pattern of escape already learned. All other avenues would be the property of Norwold’s crowd, or Dander’s or Rusanki’s and so closed to outsiders.
“Better speed up, they’ll be puffing soon,” Orrin warned.
Yes, the raiders would loose narcotic gas into the building, following that with the “shake-up” of sonic vibration: an efficient combination to clean out the building. Joktar pulled up to the section where he crawled on hands and knees under the shell of the roof. It was dark here, he would have to locate the fog bombs by touch.
His outstretched hand swept across a row of egg-shaped objects. Joktar wiggled one free and nursed it in his left hand, his other going to the blade in his sash.
He hunched close to the end of the passage, his shoulders now under the trap door. Heaving it up an inch or so he looked out. The glare of raid lights dazzled his eyes. Bringing the small bomb up to that gap he triggered its control and rolled it out.
A second egg followed the first. Then there was a pain twisting at him nerve and muscle: a warning of what would be agony in seconds to come. The sonics were on below.
“Get going!” Orrin shoved him. The fog was curling up from the eggs, cutting down visibility.
“Now!” Orrin’s hand at his back half-propelled him through the trapdoor. Apparently, the ex-marine was more sensitive to the vibrator.
Joktar was in the half-crouch of the experienced knife fighter. The fog formed an envelope about them, a mist into which E-men would not dare to blast for fear of shooting their own men.
The dealer made for the far side of the roof. He must swing over, out, and down; a way not to be taken blindly by anyone who had not practiced that maneuver. Then, a short dash to another concealed door and the rest of the escape route tailored to Kern’s orders.
Joktar leaped into the whirling blank of the cottony mist. He lighted on solid footing, sped on to the door. There was no sound of Orrin behind, perhaps the guard had not dared to make that jump into nothingness. For a moment, the dealer hesitated, and then the first law of his jungle prevailed: in a raid it was each man for himself.
A panel swung under his hand. He plunged through only to be pinned in a spearhead of brilliant light. Joktar’s last coherent thoughts, as he went down under the full impact of a stun ray, was that he must have been included on Kern’s list of expendables after all.
Joktar did not open his eyes at once. He let the senses of hearing and smell relay the first information of his new quarters to his brain. He knew he was not alone; a moan, a grunt, a querulous mumble to his left, assured him of company in misfortune. The smell of closely packed and none-too-clean humanity backed up that deduction.
He concentrated on his last clear memory; he had burst through the proper bolt hole, straight into the arms of a reception committee. So, now he must be in the E-pens. For a moment, wild panic shook Joktar’s control. Then he forced himself to open his eyes slowly, to lie still, when every inch of him, mind and body, clamored for action. But his first lesson on the streets had been the need for patience—that and the folly of fighting against overwhelming odds blindly and without plan.
Letting his head roll to one side he obtained a floor-level view of his present quarters. Haggy from the SunSpot lay next to him, a drooling thread of saliva spinning from his slack mouth. Haggy, and beyond him was a stranger wearing the grimy skin which spelled happy-smoke addiction.
There were two more, both strangers and drifters, the sort easily swept up in any E-raid. But to find Haggy a fellow captive, that meant that more than one bolt hole of the SunSpot had been tagged. Haggy was not one to linger after the alert was on. Were all of Kern’s senior employees here?
Time was one factor which must be reckoned with. Joktar tried to remember whether there had been E-ships waiting in port. But then such a raid usually occurred only when there was a ship ready. No use housing and feeding emigrants at government expense.
A man might escape from a planetside prison. However, as far as Joktar had ever heard, there was no escape except a buy-out from the E-pens. Unless you could prove that you were an honest citizen in good standing with a job. They were careful on that point nowadays, ever since the big stink when they had swept up the son of a councilor who had been doing some sight-seeing on the streets and shipped him off to the stars. Now there was supposed to be a double-check on the status of emigrants and that was when a buy-out could be arranged. But for that a man had to have someone working from the outside.
Kern? Joktar considered the possibility of help from the boss. He thought there was a thin chance, a very thin one, of that. And a man clung to any chance at a time such as this. He had no weapon, they had taken his knife, and the very possession of such a blade would count against him. His hands explored—yes, they’d taken his purse, his other small belongings. But what he wore beneath his shirt, the one thing which he had carried out of his misty childhood, that was still on him.
“Attention!” That impersonal bark out of the air overhead was like a whip-snap. “You will come out through the door immediately!”
2
As a section of the wall opened, Joktar felt the warning twinge of a vibrator. The captives would leave, all right, or twist in agony. He got to his feet, stooped to shake Haggy. The barman moaned, opened bleared eyes which became terror-stricken as he grew aware of his surroundings. Lurching free of Joktar’s hold, he staggered to the door. The dealer followed, to be caught up in the web of a tangle-field. He could still walk, in fact he had to, since he was being drawn down a brightly lighted corridor, but otherwise he could not raise a finger.
The E-men had all the props. But then, why shouldn’t they? The Galactic Council was solidly behind this emigration policy which worked two ways. First it got rid of the drifters and those outside the law on the civilized worlds, and second, it helped to open new planets. Thus both problems were settled to the satisfaction of all but the victims, who had no political power anyway.
Haggy had passed through another door ahead; now it was Joktar’s turn. The barman was in the process of stripping off his gaudy clothing under the supervision of a bored medic.
“All right, you there,” the same man spoke to Joktar, “strip.”
Joktar regarded him mutinously. They had relaxed the tangle-field,
but if he tried to jump the medic, they would slap it on again and they could tighten those lines of invisible energy to choke the breath out of a man’s lungs. No use fighting when there wasn’t the smallest chance to win. He dropped his jacket, unwound his belt sash. No chance to palm anything since they must have a spy-spot on him. But, as his shirt followed his jacket, the dealer’s hand went to the disc hanging on a chain about his throat.
“Hand that over, you!” the medic was alert.
For the first time since the momentary panic upon his awakening in the pens, Joktar’s control came close to snapping. He stood breathing a little raggedly. The medic clasped one hand into a fist and Joktar staggered, bit his lip against an answering cry. That vicious squeeze of the tangle was a warning. He tossed the disc to the medic, who allowed it to fall to the floor and kicked it away spinning.
So he was processed after Haggy, run through the examination machines, his brain busy with escape plans as impossible as they were fleeting. Then, wearing a coverall of coarse red stuff, vividly visible, he was steered into a cell with five others, all strangers.
They were fed from mess kits slid through a wall panel. And there was little talk among them. These were all young, Joktar noted, but of the drifter class, spineless hangers-on such as could be picked up by the hundred in the streets. He squatted back on a bench, the mess tin on his knee.
“Hey!” one of his cellmates sidled down the bench. “You worked for Kern, didn’t you?” There was a malicious twist to his half-grin. The gap between his sort and a man who was employed in one of the big spots was an ocean wide.
“Me, I usta run for Lafty ’fore he got wiped off the books,” he added in a spurt of half-defiance. “Saw you in the SunSpot layin’ ’em out. Think Kern’ll unpocket for you now?” His grin grew wider.
Joktar shrugged, chewing methodically at the tasteless mess on his plate.
“Kern got wiped proper,” one of the others raised his head to sputter through a full mouth. “Saw four—five of his men being run through here.”
That could be true. Though how such a coup could have been managed with runners and spotters planted to prevent just such a catastrophe Joktar did not understand. This report dimmed his one small hope of rescue. Kern himself might be in the pens now. Who was behind it, Norwold?
“Anybody heard where they’re fixing to send us?” The thin voice shook a little.
“Ship in port bound for Avar,” volunteered the ex-runner.
“Yeah? What’s Avar, anybody know?” another of the captives asked.
“Field work,” someone answered, but he didn’t sound too convincing and Joktar was sure that was a guess. Perhaps because field work could be preferred over labor in a mine.
The ex-runner gave a laugh which was close to a snarl. “Don’t matter much, burnout—you goes where you is sent. No pickin’ or choosin’. You ain’t no colonist. When you lands here your luck is out anyway.”
That was only too true. Someone sighed and Joktar finished the last of his food.
“They freezes you, don’t they?” the quavering voice asked.
“Sure thing,” the ex-runner responded with a ghoulish relish. “No room in an E-ship to have you sittin’ round eatin’ your fat head off. Stick some needles full of goop in a fella, make him stiff as a board, and bed him down in a hold. He’ll keep ’til you get planetside again.”
“Only I heard as some don’t make it to wake up again.”
The ex-runner leaned forward on the bench. “Sure, a man’s luck may be run out all the way. They gets enough of ’em through to make a trip pay. Maybe them machines they had us in and out of tell ’em which can make the big jump and live.”
“Hey!” One of the others started away from the wall. “I hear someone comin’! Maybe they’ll run us out now.”
Joktar was on his feet, his mess tin held as if that could serve him in place of his lost force blade. The ex-runner laughed.
“Fixin’ for a rumble, kid? You ain’t got a chance. Every guard in here carries a tangle. Me, I’d take what they dish out peaceable. No use askin’ to be worked over just to prove how big and brave you are.”
He was right, but Joktar resented that rightness. His own helplessness was a frightening thing. He had believed he was tough and independent. But he began to realize now that there had always been Kern and the SunSpot between him and the full rawness of the streets. Now he was really alone and he needed time to adjust. He put the tin plate on the bench, seated himself beside it. And the ex-runner, reading his face with the shrewdness of his kind, stopped grinning.
A guard stood in an open panel, surveying them with contempt. His glance fastened on Joktar and he beckoned. The hope which had died a few moments earlier revived. Kern, buying him out? Joktar shoved past the ex-runner, only too willing to obey that summons. The familiar strangle of the tangle fell about him and his spark of hope flickered.
Two more guards closed in at the end of the corridor and one of them spoke to the man escorting the captive.
“Gentlehomo Ericksen wants you at the front office. We’re to hold this one until later.”
“Why the change?”
“Spaceport police want to ask him some questions.”
Spaceport police? Joktar was bewildered. Was this some move of Kern’s? The boss had his contacts in the port control, all vips did. But, as the first guard left, the tangle caught with a painful grip about his middle.
“Get going, you!”
The pace they set was close to a run and Joktar sweated, his first uneasiness growing close to fear. These guards had a furtive air, as if they were acting beyond their orders. Yet their attitude toward him did not suggest they were in Kern’s pay.
His puzzlement grew as he was hustled into a small room to front a man in the uniform of the port police as well as a young man wearing a tunic Joktar had not seen before. The regular space patrol went in dark blue, this man’s garb was silver-gray and sported a badge bearing a glittering constellation, instead of the comet and circle of stars. Joktar blinked. Somewhere—perhaps in that portion of his brain which had been blocked so long ago—a small prick of warning flashed, then spread. He knew that this stranger spelled a deadly danger out of all proportion to their present meeting.
Then he glimpsed what the strange officer was holding and sucked in his breath. The disc he had been forced to abandon in the examination room swung from its chain gripped between the other’s forefinger and thumb. Above it the man’s face was stark with anger. Yet Joktar was sure he had never seen the other before.
“Well, Gentlehomo,” the policeman spoke first, “this one of the scum who jumped you and your friend?”
“If he isn’t, he knows them! This proves it, doesn’t it? How else would a burnout from the streets get a scout’s ident? You—” he added two descriptive expressions which flattened Joktar’s lips against his teeth in a tight snarl. Then the dealer rocked under a blow across his face.
“Well? Speak up! Where did you get this ident?” In its way, the policeman’s reasonable tone was as deadly as the open brutality of the officer’s attack.
“I’ve always had it.” Joktar was startled into the direct truth and knew that they would never believe him.
One of the guards who had brought him there spoke hurriedly:
“Look here, we’ll have to make this quick. They’ve ordered him up to the front office. There’s a buy-out waiting.”
The officer in the gray tunic stiffened. “Who’d unpocket for this dirt?” he demanded. “Talk you, and straight on orbit! Who burned down Kender last week? And where did you get his ident, you swine?” He swung the disc as a flail and the metal ripped Joktar’s already bruised cheek.
When he shook his head, as much to combat dizziness as to deny the charge, they really went to work. He was helpless in the tangle and they battered him until at last, he lay on the floor, trying to hold to the ragged edge of consciousness, still bewildered. There was a bustle at the door.
“. . . ordered to get him to the front office. He’s been cleared.”
Cutting across that came a hot protest from the officer. “He’s not going to get away so easy. He’s one of the gang who mugged Kender, and he’s going to pay for it.”
Again the reasonable policeman: “If we hold him legally, we’ll have to have more proof than just that ident-disc. He could have bought that from some stumble-bum for the price of a drink. And how do you know he didn’t?”
“Wouldn’t he have said so? This story about its being his—these things don’t just float around in free-fall, you know. One is given to a man when he swears in, and he doesn’t lose it easy. Kender was
dead when they ripped his off. Why this little scum could trade on that ident anywhere, saying he was on detached duty, and live high!”
“But you’ll still have a time proving murder on him.”
“I tell you he isn’t just going to walk out of here!”
There was an amused chuckle from the policeman. “No, you’ve seen to that. The boys’ll have to carry him.”
“Yeah,” the guard sounded morose. “We take him upstairs looking this way and there’ll be a beef blowing us higher than the first Moon base.”
“Look here,” a new voice said. “How about this, we’re loading ’em in the
Griffin
right this minute. Slip him in with the rest of that bunch and who’ll care afterwards? Just a mistake on somebody’s part. They can’t reach out and grab him out of space, and the front office won’t speak up if there’s likely to be a stink. He can’t do anyone any harm where the
Griffin
’s going.”
“And where’s that?” demanded the space officer.
“Fenris.”
The name meant nothing to Joktar but he detected an appeased note in the other’s answer.
“Fenris!” The officer laughed. “That should do for him all right. Can you get him out on that ship?”
“If we hurry him through. And what if he doesn’t get all the shots? Who’s going to care if he doesn’t wake up on the other side?”
The last thing Joktar heard was the judicial reply of the policeman: “Seems like you boys have it all figured out. No, I guess no one is going to worry. This whole thing’s off record, remember. And you’ll have to cook up a tale to satisfy your front office. Me, I’m not going to be dragged into any hassle with them.”
They gathered their victim up from the floor and that pushed
him over the border of unconsciousness. When he half-aroused again he had been dumped on a flat surface with force enough to set his body aching.
“. . . stupid fools. Bring in this one late . . .” voices ebbed and flowed over him.
“What happened? He looks to me like an accident case.”
“You aren’t paid to ask questions. Probably a fight in one of the pens and this one started it. They hauled him out to keep the peace. We get enough of those.”
Hands were stripping off his coverall. There was a sharp stab of pain, then another. A persistent buzzing, then black and cold—a cold so intense he shriveled, as a man shriveled under a force blade slash.
