Uncharted Stars (3 page)

I have heard it stated that the universe is understood by each species according to the sensory equipment of the creature involved, or rather, the meaning it attaches to the reports of those exploring and testing senses. Therefore, while
our
universe, as we see it, may be akin to that of an animal, a bird, an alien, it still differs. There are barriers set mercifully in place (and I say mercifully after tasting what can happen when such a barrier goes down) to limit one's conception of the universe to what he is prepared to accept. Shared minds between human and human is not one of the sensations we are fitted to endure. The Patrolman and I had learned enough—too much—of each other to know that a bargain could be made and kept. But I think I would face a laser unarmed before I would undergo that again.

Legally the Patrol had nothing against us, except suspicions perhaps and their own dislike for what we had dared. And I think that they were in a measure pleased that if they had to swear truce, the Guild still held us as a target. And it might well be that once we had lifted from the Patrol base we had been regarded as expendable bait for some future trap in which to catch a Veep of the Guild—a thought which heated me more than a little every time it crossed my mind.

I gave a last hurried glance around the room as the warn light flashed on, and then went to thumb the peephole. What confronted my eye was a wrist, around which was locked, past all counterfeiting, the black and silver of a Patrol badge. I opened the door.

“Yes?” I allowed my real exasperation to creep into my voice as I fronted him.

He was not in uniform, wearing rather the ornate, form-fitting tunic of an inner-world tourist. On him, as the Patrol must keep fit, it looked better than it did on most of the flabby, paunchy specimens I had seen in these halls. But that was not saying much, for its extreme of fashion was too gaudy and fantastic to suit my eyes.

“Gentle Homo Jern—” He did not make a question of my name, and his eyes were more intent on the room behind me than on meeting mine.

“The same. You wish?”

“To speak with you—privately.” He moved forward and involuntarily I gave a step before I realized that he had no right to enter. It was the prestige of the badge he wore which won him that first slight advantage and he made the most of it. He was in, with the door rolled into place behind him, before I was prepared to resist.

“We are private. Speak.” I did not gesture him to a chair, nor make a single hospitable move.

“You are having difficulty in finding a pilot.” He looked at me about half the time now, the rest of his attention still given to the room.

“I am.” There was no use in denying a truth which was apparent.

Perhaps he did not believe in wasting time either, for he came directly to the point.

“We can deal—”

That really surprised me. Eet and I had left the Patrol base with the impression that the powers there were gleefully throwing us forth to what they believed certain disaster with the Guild. The only explanation which came to me at the moment was that they had speedily discovered that the information we had given them concerning the zero stones had consisted of the whereabouts of caches only and they suspected the true source was still our secret. In fact, we knew no more than we had told them.

“What deal?” I parried and dared not mind-touch Eet at that moment, much as I wanted his reception to this suggestion. No one knows what secret equipment the Patrol had access to. And it might well be that, knowing Eet was telepathic, they had some ingenious method of monitoring our exchange.

“Sooner or later,” he said deliberately, almost as if he savored it, “the Guild is going to close in upon you—”

But I was ready, having thought that out long ago. “So I am bait and you want me for some trap of yours.”

He was not in the least disconcerted. “One way of putting it.”

“And the right way. What do you want to do, plant one of your men in our ship?”

“As protection for you and, of course, to alert us.”

“Very altruistic. But the answer is no.” The Patrol's highhanded method of using pawns made me aware that there was something to being their opponent.

“You cannot find a pilot.”

“I am beginning to wonder”—and at that moment I was—“how much my present difficulty may be due to the influence of your organization.”

He neither affirmed nor denied it. But I believe I was right. Just as a pilot might be black-listed, so had our ship been, before we had even had a chance for a first voyage. No one who wanted to preserve his legal license would sign our log now. So I must turn to the murky outlaw depths if I was to have any luck at all. I would see the ship rust away on its landing fins before I would raise with a Patrol nominee at her controls.

“The Guild can provide you with a man as easily, if you try to hire an off-rolls man, and you will not know it,” he remarked, as if he were very sure that I would eventually be forced to accept his offer.

That, too, was true. But not if I took Eet with me on any search. Even if the prospective pilot had been brainwashed and blanked to hide his true affiliation, my companion would be able to read that fact. But that, I hoped, my visitor and those who had sent him did not know. That Eet was telepathic we could not hide—but Eet himself—

“I will make my own mistakes,” I allowed myself to snap.

“And die from them,” he replied indifferently. He took one last glance at the room and suddenly smiled. “Toys now—I wonder why.” With a swoop as quick and sure as that of a harpy hawk he was down and up again, holding the pookha by its whisker mane. “Quite an expensive toy, too, Jern. And you must be running low in funds, unless you have tapped a river running with credits. Now why, I wonder, would you want a stuffed pookha.”

I grimaced in return. “Always provide my visitors with a minor mystery. You figure it out. In fact, take it with you—just to make sure it is not a smuggling cover. It might just be, you know. I am a gem buyer—what better way to get some stones off world than in a play pookha's inwards?”

Whether he thought my explanation was as lame as it seemed to me I do not know. But he tossed the toy onto the nearest chair and then, on his way to the door, spoke over his shoulder. “Dial 1-0. Jern, when you have stopped battering your head against a stone wall. And we shall have a man for you, one guaranteed not to sign you over to the Guild.”

“No—just to the Patrol,” I countered. “When I am ready to be bait, I shall tell you.”

He made no formal farewell, just went. I closed the door sharply behind him and was across the room to let Eet out as quickly as I could. My alien companion sat back on his haunches, absent-mindedly smoothing the fur on his stomach.

“They think that they have us.” I tried to jolt him—though he must already have picked up everything pertinent from our visitor's mind, unless the latter had worn a shield.

“Which he did,” Eet replied to my suspicion. “But not wholly adequate, only what your breed prepares against the mechanical means of detecting thought waves. They are not,” he continued complacently, “able to operate against my type of talent. But yes, they believe that they have us sitting on the palm of a hand”—he stretched out his own—“and need only curl their fingers, so—” His clawed digits bent to form a fist. “Such ignorance! However, it will be well, I believe, to move swiftly now that we know the worst.”

“Do we?” I asked morosely as I hustled out my flight bag and began to pack. That it was not intelligent to stay where we were with Patrol snoops about, I could well understand. But where we would go next—

“To the Diving Lokworm,” Eet replied as if the answer was plain and he was amused that I had not guessed it for myself.

For a moment I was totally adrift. The name he mentioned meant nothing, though it suggested one of those dives which filled the murky shadows of the wrong side of the port, the last place in the world where any sane man would venture with the Guild already sniffing for him.

But at present I was more intent on getting out of this building without being spotted by a Patrol tail. I rolled up my last clean undertunic and counted out three credit disks. In a transit lodging one's daily charges are conspicuous each morning on a small wall plate. And no one can beat the instant force field which locks the room if one does not erase these charges when the scanner below says he is departing. The room might be insured for privacy in other ways, but there are precautions the owners are legally allowed to install.

I dropped the credits into the slot under the charge plate and that winked out. Thus reassured I could get out, I must now figure how. When I turned it was to see that Eet was again a pookha. For a moment I hesitated, not quite sure which of the furry creatures was my companion until he moved out to be picked up.

With Eet in the crook of one arm and my bag in my other hand, I went out into the corridor after a quick look told me it was empty. When I turned toward the down grav shaft Eet spoke:

“Left and back!”

I obeyed. His directions took me where I did not know the territory, bringing me to another grav shaft, that which served the robos who took care of the rooms. There might be scanners here, even though I had paid my bill. This was an exit intended only for machines and one of them rumbled along toward us now.

It was a room-service feeder, a box on wheels, its top studded with call buttons for a choice of meal. I had to squeeze back against the wall to let it by, since this back corridor had never been meant for the human and alien patrons of the caravansary.

“On it!” Eet ordered.

I had no idea what he intended, but I had been brought out of tight corners enough in the past to know that he generally did have some saving plan in mind. So I swung Eet, my bag, and myself to the table top of the feeder, trying to take care that I did not trigger any of the buttons.

My weight apparently was nothing to the machine. It did not pause in its steady roll down the remainder of the corridor. But I was tense and stiff, striving to preserve my balance on this box where there was nothing to grip for safety.

When it moved without pause off the floor and onto the empty air of the grav shaft I could have cried out. But the grav supported its weight and it descended as evenly under me as if it had been a lift platform bringing luggage and passengers out of a liner at the port. A sweeper joined us at the next level, but apparently the machines were equipped with avoid rays, as they did not bump, but kept from scraping against each other. Above and below us, in the dusk of the shaft, I could see other robo-servers descending, as if this was the time when they were through their morning work.

We came down floor by floor, I counting them as we passed, a little more relieved with each one we left behind, knowing that we were that much nearer our goal. But when we reached ground level we faced only blank surface, and my support contined to descend.

The end was some distance below the surface, at least equal, I believed, to three floors above. And the feeder, with us still aboard, rolled out in pitch dark, where the sounds of clanging movement kept me frozen. Nor did Eet suggest any answer to this.

I did gain enough courage to bring out a hand beamer and flash it about us, only to gain disturbing glimpses of machines scuttling hither and thither across a wide expanse of floor. Nor were there any signs of human tenders.

I was now afraid to dismount from my carrier, not knowing whether the avoid rays of the various busy robos would also keep them from running me down. To this hour I had always taken the service department of a caravansary for granted and such an establishment as this I had never imagined.

That the feeder seemed to know just where it was going was apparent, for it rolled purposefully on until we reached a wall with slits in it. The machine locked to one of these and I guessed that the refuse and disposable dishes were being deposited in some sort of refuse system. Not only the feeder was clamped there. Beyond was a sweeper, also dumping its cargo.

A flash of my beamer showed that the wall did not reach the roof, so there might be a passage along its top to take us out of the paths of the roving machines—though such a way might well lead to a dead end.

I stood up cautiously on the feeder, and Eet took the beamer between his stubby pookha paws. The bag was easy to toss to the top of the wall, my furry companion less so, since his new body did not lend itself well to such feats. However, once aloft, he squatted, holding the beamer in his mouth, his teeth gripping more easily than his paws.

With that as my guide I leaped and caught the top of the wall, though I was afraid for a moment my fingers would slip from its slick surface. Then I made an effort which seemed enough to tear my muscles, and drew my whole body up on an unpleasantly narrow surface.

Not only was it narrow but it throbbed and vibrated under me, and I mentally pictured some form of combustion reducing the debris dumped in, or else a conveyer belt running on into a reducer of such refuse.

Above me, near enough to keep me hunched on my hams, was the roof of the place. A careful use of the beamer showed me that the wall on which I crouched ran into a dark opening in another wall met at right angles, as if it were a path leading into a cave.

For want of a better solution I began to edge along, dragging my bag, my destination that hole. Luckily Eet did not need my assistance but balanced on his wide pookha feet behind me.

When I reached that opening I found it large enough to give me standing room in a small cubby. The beam lighted a series of ladder steps bolted to the wall, as though this was an inspection site visited at intervals by a human maintenance man. Blessing my luck, I was ready to try that ladder, for the clanging din of the rushing machines, the whir of their passing rung in my ears, making me dizzy. The sooner I was out of their domain the better.

Eet's paws were not made for climbing, and I wondered if he would loose the disguise for the attempt. I had no desire to carry him; in fact I did not see how I could.