The Five Gold Bands (9 page)

Paddy jerked around, put his hand in the pocket where he carried his little gun. “To the ship, Fay,” he ground between clenched teeth. “Run, you’ve still got time.”

“No,” said Fay. “Wrong again. He’s trying to tell us a boat is coming down on our heads.”

Paddy, glancing up, saw the underside of a great excursion boat not two hundred feet above. They dodged swiftly out of danger.

There was their boat—the familiar little hull which had traversed so much emptiness, the observation dome through which they had seen so many stars.

“Inside,” said Paddy. “Quick! Oh, there’s a trap somewhere. I can smell it. They’re trailing us to our boat and they’ve shorted out our drive.” He ran to the controls, jerked the lift lever. “See? It’s dead. No power.”

“Of course not,” said Fay. The port is still open.”

She slammed it shut. Paddy threw power to the jets, the boat lofted into the bright sky of Loristan.

“It
can’t
be this easy,” said Paddy, wiping sweat from his forehead. There must be some catch, some trick.”

“It
can’t
be this easy.” Fay agreed, watching from the side window. “But it is. No one is after us. No one even knows we’ve been here.”

Paddy sank into a seat. “
Phew!
” he sighed. “It would be less strain on my poor tired nerves if we had a little trouble. Then I’d feel we had earned our loot.”

Fay laughed, tossed the package to the desk, began to tear it open.

It was much like the other two. The first paragraph, like the one on the Pherasic sheet, dictated the spacing of the activation coils. The second paragraph detailed the time-sequences for each of the five banks of coils. Then, as on the other sheets, there were two columns of three numbers apiece.

“We’re off to Delta Trianguli and Angry Dragon Peak,” said Fay. “And then to Almach and we’ll see how the Shauls treat us.”

Almach lay to the right and below. Ahead hung the lurid face of Shaul. Paddy turned away from the telescope, spat in disgust.

“The first Langtry Son was a maniac when he picked this planet. It’s like the hell old Father O’Toole predicted for me. I believe I’d rather raise my cottage in the shadow of the Angry Dragon.”

“Shaul’s very beautiful,” Fay said mildly, “in a frightening sort of way.”

“It’s a yelling Satan’s kitchen of a planet. Now see there— those orange spots. Are they volcanic craters or are they not?”

“They are.”

“And those lava flows and steaming cinder heaps and the dust storms. How can men live on a planet like this?”

“They grow flaps of skin to protect their necks and to shield their faces,” said Fay. “They develop a tolerance for acid in the air and don’t feel easy unless they’re mining the marvelous ores and jewels of Shaul.”

“I’ve no flap of skin,” growled Paddy. “I don’t like acid and I don’t like tunnels since the affair at Akhabats—though my ideas are not in demand. Now then, where are we heading?”

Fay said, “‘Corescens. The back wall. Irradiate with angstroms 685, 1444, 2590, 3001. Photograph!’”

Paddy looked up marvelling. “And you remembered all those numbers?”

She twisted her lips in a bashful crooked grin. “I’ve got a good memory. And we’re trained to use it in the Agency. It’s easy to memorize numbers, once you know how.”

Paddy made a long face. “And now you’ll be telling me how you do it. Six eight five—add six and eight. That’s fourteen; the one and four make five, and that’s the third number. Also the one and four in one four four four. As for the two last fours, they make eight, and since there’s two of ’em, double it and that’s sixteen. One from six is five, and there’s your one four four four. Now as for two five nine aught—”

Fay said, “When you’ve done talking like an idiot, look up Corescens in the almanac.”

Paddy thumbed through the Langtry Directory. “There’s no Corescens listed.”

“None?” asked Fay in a hurt voice.

“None. But we’ll find it. And we’ll need a camera and a means to deliver radiation at those frequencies.”

“There’s a good camera in that forward gear locker. Case Five, I think. We’ll need respirators but we can get those at the space terminal and I suppose we can have a projector built for us at Aevelye.”

“Correct. And now it’s the hour’s end. Let’s hear the news.”

Fay turned on the space-wave. A Shaul voice spoke from the mesh. “An official release from the capitol has confirmed the rumors circulating the system for several weeks.

“Kolcheyou, Shaul Son of Langtry, together with the Sons from Alpheratz A, Badau, Loristan and Koto, was killed by an Earther pirate at the yearly council.

“The Earther, a convict by the name of Patrick Blackthorn, escaped and is the quarry of the most intensive manhunt in history. Reward for his capture reached unprecedented heights. There are hints that Blackthorn escaped with valuable space-drive information.

“The new Shaul Son of Langtry, Cheyonkiv Dessa, has announced that the mass assassination has created no emergency, that the fabulous rewards are offered merely to bring the Earth monster to justice.

“Blackthorn has been reported in hundreds of localities and each report is being carefully checked by local police. His last authoritatively known position was at Spade-Ace, Thieves’ Cluster, in the company of a young Earther woman, name unknown. However there are other clues which the authorities will not publicize.”

Paddy slumped back in the seat. “
Hah!
We’re wanted, we’re wanted bad!”

Fay said, “There’s all space to hide in, a lot of little planets, a lot of big ones. For all anyone knows we might have taken off on a line and be clear out of the cluster by now.”

Paddy grimaced. “I keep seeing a picture of us hanging by our heels from a post or kicking inside a nerve-suit.” He wiped his forehead, ran his hand through his blond bristles. “It gives a man the value of his existence, this life of the hare and the hound. And never a priest to help you into the blessed life to come.”

“Pish,” said Fay. “Confess to me if you want to.”

“Very well and why not? It’s the intent that swashes a man’s soul free of guilt. Now then, sister,” and Paddy studied the bulkhead, “there was a sin which occurred on the planet Maeve but it’s to be supposed I was sorely tempted.

“Ah, there’s a green garden there at Meran—a terrace where men sit under plane trees and drink the soft mouth-filling beer of the place. Then those soft-eyed girls come swinging by with their shoulders and their long brown legs bare.

“They wear pearls in their navels and emeralds in their ears and when they look those long slow looks there’s honey in a river between you and all the will for a decent Christian life flits away like gulls down the Bloody Foreland. Now then—”

Fay’s face twisted in rage and disgust. “A confession?
Pah!
You’re boasting!” She marched across the cabin. “The Shauls are right. Earther savages think of nothing but their glands.”

“Now, now, my dear—”

“I’m not your dear! I’m an Earth Agent, worse luck, and if this weren’t the most important thing in my life I’d turn around and head for Earth and put you as far out of my sight and mind as I possibly could!”

“Now, now, now. You don’t know how lovely you look with your little face all pink with rage.”

Fay laughed bitterly. “Rage? Not on your life!” She strode to the galley and poured herself a bowl of soup, which she ate with crackers in moody silence.

Still turned away from Paddy she said, “We’ll be landing in an hour or two.”

Paddy interpreted the statement as an invitation to join her. Sitting down he chewed reflectively on one of her crackers.

“It’s a sad responsibility for a pair of fallible humans… Now had we old Father O’Toole with us he’d go forth, take the data, hide all in his cassock, come back to the ship and none would dare to interfere.”

“Father O’Toole is far away,” Fay pointed out acidly. “We must cope with this problem ourselves. Though I wish he were here and you were back in Skibbereen… We’ve got a problem which you insist on ignoring. Shaul won’t be like Loristan. They’ve got the brains of the system, the Shauls, and they’re oversuspicious.”

“Hmm.” Paddy frowned, drummed the table with his fingers. “If we were journalists when we set down we’d be allowed more freedom with our camera.”

Fay said grudgingly, “You may be a lecher and a thief but you come up with an idea now and then.”

They sat a moment in silence. Fay looked suddenly at Paddy with wide eyes. “We’ll have to land on the central field, because there’s no other… We’ll have to go through all that uncertainty again, only the Shauls are more careful and thorough. Suppose they take your psychograph?”

“Suppose they do?” said Paddy lightly. “Don’t you know that I’m three different men? I’m Paddy Blackthorn, the Rapparee, and I’m Patrick Blackthorn, the pride of St. Luke’s Seminary, who’ll talk you the Greek and the Romish and the Gaelic till your ear shivers for the joy of it, and I’m Patrick Delorcy Blackthorn of Skibbereen, the gentleman farmer and horse-raiser.”

“There’s also Paddy Blackthorn the great lover,” suggested Fay.

“Right,” assented Paddy. “There’s four of me and a different psychograph for ’em all. So you see, I’ve three chances in four to confuse the suspicious devils.”

“If you do you’ll be the first. You can change your fingerprints but you can’t change your brain strenuata.”

The Shauls had sheared off and leveled the peak of an old volcano to make Aevelye’s space-field. When Paddy and Fay brought their boat down they found themselves overlooking a vast panorama of badlands, a chopped and hacked region of red, yellow and green-gray rock.

Directly below, a tremendous rift rent the planet, a chasm miles across and miles deep. Down one side, on a series of ledges, sat the city Aevelye—white buildings pressed against the walls of the gorge, facing out across the awesome valley.

As Almach sank, the light played on wisps of mist hanging in the valley on a level with the rim and the colors were like fantastic music—greens and lavenders, oranges, unbelievable pastels from the reflected and refracted light.

The boat came to rest on Aevelye Field—bare and quiet compared to the fields at Badau and Loristan. Fay shivered. “We can’t help but be noticed.”

Paddy looked out the dome. “Here they come—the Cossacks!” He patted Fay’s shoulder. “The bold front, now, lass.”

Four Shaul guards drove up to the ship in a jeep, jumped out. They wore tight sheaths of blue metallic cloth and three carried carbines slung over their shoulders. Their hoods of skin, which they held rigid and stiff, were stained red and painted with indications of rank. The officer, wearing a black star on his hood, climbed up the ladder, rapped smartly on the door.

Paddy opened for him without pumping clear the entrance lock and coughed at the acrid dust that followed the Shaul into the cabin.

The officer was a young man, very terse and exact. He pulled out a pad of printed forms. “Your papers, please.”

Fay handed him the ship’s license. The officer bent to look.

“Albuquerque Field, Earth.” He looked up, turned to Paddy, scrutinized him up and down. “Name, please?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith.”

“Your business here on Shaul?”

“Business and pleasure,” Paddy replied jocularly. “We’re tourists and journalists at the same time. We’ve been wanting to make the Big Line, and when we caught the news of the assassination we thought maybe we’d take some pictures around the planet.”

The officer said without emotion, “Earthers are not in good reputation around the Five Planets.”

Paddy protested, “Ah now, we’re just working people and we’ve our living to make, whether there’s births or deaths or war or peace. And if you’d say a good word for us we’d sure appreciate it”

The officer swept the interior of the craft with his eyes. “We don’t have too many Earth journalists setting down at Aevelye in these small boats.”

“Listen now!” said Paddy eagerly. “Then we’re the first? There’s been none from the Fax Syndicate—that’s our competitor?”

“No,” said the officer coolly. “You’re the first.” He returned to his printed form. “How long do you plan to stay?”

“Oh, maybe a week or until we accomplish our business. Then maybe we’ll be on to Loristan or Koto for more.”

“Ghouls,” said the officer under his breath. He handed them an ink-pad. “Your thumbprints please.”

Gingerly they pressed their identities on his sheet.

“Now”—he wrote a moment—“here’s a receipt and I’ll have to take your power-arm and keys. Your boat is impounded. When you want to leave apply to Room Twelve, Terminal Hall, for a permit.”

“Here now,” protested Paddy. “Isn’t this high-handed? Suppose we want to tour across the planet?”

“Sorry,” said the officer. “There’s a state of emergency, and we’re bound to take precautions until things are normal again.”

“Now then,” Fay said nervously, “we don’t mind a little inconvenience if we get what we want.”

The officer was copying information from the ship’s papers. At last he looked up, produced a pair of small flat boxes.

“Here are temporary respirators, which will serve until you buy permanent breathers. Now, please, if you will come with me there’s a formality required of all Earthers.”

“And what’s that?” demanded Paddy truculently. “A return to the old closed-space system? I’ll have you know I’m a citizen of Earth and Ireland too and—”

“I’m sorry,” said the officer. “I merely obey orders, which are to pass all Earthers, no matter how innocent, through the psychograph. If you are not a criminal then you need not worry. If you are, then you will be accorded justice.”

“The psychograph is not an instrument for innocent people,” said Paddy. “Why, the indignity of it! I’ll leave the planet first and spend my money on Loristan.”

“Not now,” said the officer. “I regret that these are emergency conditions and that certain hardships must be endured. Please follow me.”

Paddy shrugged. “As you wish. I’ll have you know, however, that I protest bitterly.”

The officer did not reply but stood watching as Paddy and Fay donned their respirators. Fay’s mouth drooped, her eyes were moist when they fell on Paddy. Paddy moved with sullen deliberation.

The officer gave them seats in the jeep, trundled them to a ramp leading to a hall under the field.

“Into Room B, please.”

In Boom B, they found three other Earthers, two angry old women and a sixteen-year-old boy waiting for their psycho-graphs. One by one they were taken into an inner room to emerge a minute or so later.

At last the Shaul nurse beckoned to Fay. “You first, please.”

She rose, patted Patty’s cheek. “I’m sorry it had to end like this,” she said softly and disappeared.

A moment later the attendant motioned for Paddy.

Paddy entered a room, bare except for a desk, a chair and the psychographer. A doctor stood waiting while an orderly in blue metallic military uniform sat by a desk watching a screen with a psychgraph pattern pinned to a board beside it.

The doctor looked at Paddy once, then again searchingly. He turned to the orderly. “This one fits the physical data. The face is different, the hair and eyes are different but of course… Into the chair, please,” he said to Paddy.

“Just a minute,” said Paddy. “Am I a common criminal then?”

“That’s what we are about to find out,” the doctor told him quizzically. “In any event this is merely a routine check.”

“What’s all this?” Paddy motioned to the screen and the psychograph pinned up beside it—a pattern of lines like a weather chart superimposed on a relief map of the Himalayas.

“That, my friend,” said the doctor imperturbably, “is the psychic pattern of Patrick Blackthorn—and if I may say so it’s the oddest pattern I’ve ever seen. It’s unmistakable.

“There’s little chance of doing anyone injustice. Now if you’ll take this seat and let me fit these pick-ups on your head…”

“I’ll fit ’em,” growled Paddy, taking a seat. He jammed the contacts down across his scalp. “Go ahead now and be damned to your bureaucratic nonsense.”