Uncharted Stars (19 page)

Eet and I shared that bounty, as well as the somewhat sickening vita drink in the container. I did have a fleeting suspicion that perhaps some foreign substance had been introduced into either, one of those drugs which will either make a man tell all he knows or eradicate his will, so that for a time thereafter he becomes merely the tool of whoever exerts mastery over him. But that suspicion did not keep me from eating.

As I dumped the empty containers down the disposal unit I knew that just as I had had to eat, so I must now sleep. But it seemed that Eet did not agree, or not as far as he himself was concerned.

“The stone!” He made a command of those two words.

I did not have to ask what stone. My hand was already at the small pocket in my belt.

“Why?”

“Do you expect me to go exploring in the body of a phwat?”

Go exploring? How? I had already tried the cabin door and found it sealed. Nor did I doubt that they had guards outside, perhaps in the very walls about us—scan rays—

“Not here.” Eet appeared very sure of that. “As to how—through there.” He indicated a narrow duct near the ceiling, an opening which, if the grill over it were removed, might offer a very small exit.

I sat on the bunk and glanced from the hairy man-thing Eet now was to that opening. When we had first tried this kind of change I had believed it all illusion, though tactile as well as visual. But now, had Eet really altered in bulk so that what I saw before me was actually many times the size of my alien companion? If so—how had that been done? And (in me a sharp fear stabbed) if one did not have the stone, would changes remain permanent?

“The stone!” Eet demanded. He did not answer any of my thoughts. It was as if he were suddenly pressed for time and must be off on some important errand from which I detained him.

I knew I was not going to get any answers from Eet until he was ready to give them. But his ability to read minds was perhaps our best key to this venture and if he now saw the necessity for crawling through ventilation ducts, then I must aid him.

I kept my hand cupped about the stone. Though Eet had said there were no snoop rays on us, yet I would not uncover that treasure in Waystar. I stared at Eet where he hunkered on the floor and forced myself to see with the mind's eye, not a furred humanoid, but rather a mutant feline, until just that crouched at my feet.

It was easy to screw out the mesh covering of the duct. And then Eet, using me as a ladder, was up into it with speed. Nor did he leave me with any assurance as to when he would return, or where his journey would lead, though perhaps he did not know himself.

I wanted to keep awake, hoping that Eet might report via mind-touch, but my body needed sleep and I finally collapsed on the bunk into such slumber as might indeed have come from being drugged.

From that I awoke relucantly, opening eyes which seemed glued shut. The first thing I saw was Eet, back in his hairy disguise, rolled in a ball. I sat up dazedly, trying to win out over the stupor of fatigue.

Eet was back, not only in this cell but in his other body. How had he managed the latter? Fear sharpened my senses and sent my hand to my belt again, but I felt with relief the shape of the stone in the pocket.

Even as I watched bleerily, he unwound, sat up blinking, and stretched his arms, as if aroused from a sleep as deep as mine had been.

“Visitors coming.” He might give the outward seeming of one only half awake, but his thought was clear.

I shambled to the fresher. Best not let any arrival know I had warning. I used the equipment therein and emerged feeling far more alert. Even as I looked to the food server, the door opened and one of the Orbsleon's followers looked in.

“Veep wants you.”

“I have not eaten.” I thought it well to show some independence at the suggestion that I was now the Orbsleon's creature.

“All right. Eat now.” If he made that concession (and the very fact that he did was a matter of both surprise and returning confidence for me) he was not going to enlarge upon it. For he stood in the doorway watching me dial the unappetizing food and share it with Eet.

“You—” The guard stared at the mutant. “What do you do?”

“No good talking to him,” I improvised hurriedly. “You would need a sonic. He is—was—my pilot. Only fourth part intelligence, but good as a tech.”

“So. What is he anyway?” Whether he spoke out of idle curiosity or was following an order to learn more, I did not know. But I had made a reasonable start on providing Eet with a background and I enlarged upon it a little with the name he had given himself.

“He is a phwat, from Formalh—” I added to my inventions. With so many planets supporting intelligent or quasi-intelligent life in the galaxy, no one could be expected to know even a thousandth of them.

“He stays here—” As I prepared to leave, the guard stepped in front of Eet.

I shook my head. “He is empathic-oriented. Without me he will will himself to death.” Now I referred to something I had always thought a legend—that two species could be so emotionally intertied. But since I had believed, until last year, that the place in which I now stood was also a legend, there might be truth in other strange tales. At least the guard seemed inclined to accept what I said as a fact; he allowed Eet to shamble along behind me.

We did not return to the room in which the Orbsleon had interviewed me, but rather to one which might be a small edition of the hock-locks I well knew. There was a long table with various specto-devices clamped on it. In fact, it was a lab which many an appraiser on a planet might have envied. And on the walls were outlines of “safe” cupboards, each one with the locking thumb hole conspicuous in the center, where only the thumb of one authorized to open it would register to release its contents.

“Snooper ray on us,” Eet informed me. But I had already guessed that, knowing why I had been brought here. They were going to prove my claim of being an appraiser, which meant tricky business. I would have to call on all I had learned from the man I seemed to be, all that I had picked up since I had left his tutelage, in order to survive such a test.

The things to be valued were spread on the table, under a protective ull web. I went straight to it, for in that moment my lifetime preoccupation took command.

There were four pieces in all, gemmed and set in metal—their glitter sparking life clear across the room. The first was a necklace—koro stones, those prized gems from out of the Sargolian seas which the Salariki doubly value because of their ability to give forth perfume when warmed by the body heat of the wearer.

I held it up to the light, weighed each of the jewels in my hand, sniffed at each stone. Then I let it slide carelessly from my grasp to the bare surface of the table.

“Synthetic. Probably the work of Ramper of Norstead—or of one of his apprentices—about fifty planet years old. They used marquee scent on it—five, maybe six steepings.” I gave my verdict and turned to the next piece, knowing I did not have to impress the guard, or the two other men in the room, but rather those who held the snooper ray on me.

The second piece was set in a very simple mounting. And its dark rich fire held me for a moment or two. Then I put it in the cup below the infrascope and took two readings.

“This purports to be a Terran ruby of the first class. It is unflawed, true enough. But it has been subjected to two forms of treatment. One I can identify, the other is new to me. This has resulted in a color shift. I think it was originally a much lighter shade. It will pass, save for quality lab testing. But any expert gemologist would be uneasy about it.”

The third on that table was an arm band of metal which was reddish but carried a golden overcast that shifted across the surface when the ornament was handled. The maker had taken advantage of that overcast in working out the pattern on it, which was of flowers and vine, so that the gold appeared to line some of the leaves at all times. There was no mistaking it and my mind jumped back to the day my father had shown me such work, but then as a small pendant he had sold to a museum.

“This is Forerunner, and it is authentic. The only piece I have previously seen was taken from a Rostandian tomb. That was decided by the archaeologists to be very much older than the tomb even. Perhaps it had been found by the Rostandian buried there. Its origin is unknown as yet.”

In contrast to the three other offerings the fourth was dull, leaden-gray, ugly metal set with an ill-formed cluster of badly-cut stones. It was only the center stone, one of perhaps four carats, which seemed to have any real life, and that, too, had been unimaginately treated.

“Kamperel work. The centerpiece is a sol sapphire and would pay recutting. The rest”—I shrugged—“not worth working with. A tourist bauble. If this”—I turned to the two men, who had not spoken—“is the best you have to show me, then indeed, rumor has greatly overrated the take of Waystar.”

One of them came around the table to restow the four pieces under the web. I was wondering if I were now to be returned to my cell when the monotonous click of the Veep's voice sounded from some concealed com.

“As you think, this was test. You will see other things. The sol—can you recut?”

Inwardly I sighed with relief. My father had not had that training, I need not be forced to claim it.

“I am an appraiser, not a cutter. It will take skill to make the most out of that stone after it has been mishandled the way it has. I would suggest that it be offered as is”—I thought furiously—“to such a firm as Phatka and Njila.” Again I pulled names from my memory, but this time from Vondar's warning about borderline dealers whose inventories of stones were kept in two or three different accountings, those they could sell openly, those to be sold privately. That they had Guild affiliations was suspected but unproved. But my ability to name them would be more proof that I had dealt on the border line of the law.

There was a period of silence. The man who had re-wrapped the treasures in the web now sealed them into one of the wall cubbies. No one commented, nor did the com speak again. I shifted from one foot to the other, wondering what would happen now.

“Bring here—” the com finally clicked.

So I was taken back to the room where the Orbsleon Veep wallowed in his fluid-filled seat. Swung out over the surface of that was a lap table and on it lay a single small piece of metal.

It had no gem and it was an odd size. But the shape I had seen before and knew very well indeed. A ring—meant to fit, not a bare finger, but over the bulky glove of a space suit. Only this had no zero stone, dull and lifeless, in its empty prongs. That it was, or had been, twin to the ring which had caused my father's death, I was sure. Yet the most important part was missing. I knew instantly that this was another test, not of my knowledge as an appraiser, but of how much I might know on another subject. My story must hold enough truth to convince them.

“There is a snooper ray on.” Eet had picked up my thought.

“What this?” The Veep wasted no time in coming to the test.

“May I examine it?” I asked.

“Take, look, then say,” I was ordered.

I picked up the ring. Without its stone it was even more like a piece of battered junk. How much dared I say? They must know a great deal about my father's “death”—So I would give them all my father had known.

“I have seen one of these before—but that had a stone.” I began with the truth. “A dim stone. It had been subjected to some process which rendered it lifeless, of no value at all. The ring was found on the space glove of a dead alien—probably a Forerunner—and brought to me for hock-lock.”

“No value,” clicked the voice of the Veep. “Yet you bought.”

“It was alien, Forerunner. Each bit we learn about such things is knowledge, which makes some men richer. A hint here, a hint there, and one can be led to a find. This in itself has no value, but its age and why it was worn over a space glove—that makes it worth payment.”

“Why worn on glove?”

“I do not know. How much do we know of the Forerunners? They were not even all of one civilization, species, or time. The Zacathans list at least four different star empires before they themselves developed a civilization, and claim there are more. Cities can crumble, suns burn out, sometimes artifacts remain—given proper circumstances. Space itself preserves, as you know well. All we can learn of those Forerunners comes in bits and pieces, which makes any bit of value.”

“He asks,” Eeet told me, “but the questions are now from another.”

“Who?”

“One more important than this half-fish.” For the first time Eet used a derogatory expression, allowed an aura of contempt to pervade his mind-touch. “That is all I know. The other wears a protective antiesper, antisnoop device.”

“This was a ring,” I repeated aloud and laid the plundered circlet back on the lap table. “It held a stone now gone, and it resembles the one I held for a time which had been found on a Forerunner.”

“You held—now where?”

“Ask that,” I returned sharply, “of those who left me for dead when they plundered my shop.” False now, but would any snooper detect that? I waited, almost expecting some loud contradiction of my lie. If any had been made perhaps those in the room were not aware of it yet. And if my last statement were accepted as truth, perhaps there might be awkward questions asked inside the ranks of the Guild, the which would do me no harm at all.

“Enough,” the voicer clicked. “You go—sales placewatch.”

My escort moved for the door. He did not snap to attention as a Patrolman, but he wore a tangler at his belt and I did not dispute his right to see me to where the Veep ordered my attendance.

We passed along one of the balcony corridors which rimmed the open center. It was necessary to shuffle, not lifting the feet much, keeping a handhold on the wall rail, or the low gravity became a hazard. When our way led down on a curled rod with handholds instead of stairsteps, we managed almost as if we were in a grav lift, coming to the third level below that where the Veep had his quarters.