Uncharted Stars (7 page)

As wandering people, traveling from one water hole to the next across a land which was for the most part volcanic rock (with some still active cones breathing smoke by day, giving forth a red glow at night), sand, wind to a punishing degree, and pallid vegetation growing in the bottom of sharp-cut gullies, the Lorgalians wanted mainly food for their too often empty bellies, and water, which for far too many days seemed to have vanished from, or rather into, their earth's crust.

I had visited there once with Vondar, and he had achieved instantaneous results with a small solar converter. Into this could be fed the scabrous leaves of the vegetation, the end product emerging as small blocks about a finger in length containing a highly nutritious food which would keep a man going for perhaps five of their dust- and wind-filled days, one of their plodding beasts for three. The machine had been simple, if bulky, and had had no parts so complicated that a nontechnically-inclined people could put it out of running order. The only trouble was that it was so large that it had to be slung between two of their beasts for transport—though that had not deterred the chieftain from welcoming it as he might have a supernatural gift from one of his demon gods.

I had found, in my more recent prowlings through supply warehouses where the residue of scout and exploration ships was turned in for resale, a similar machine which was but half the size of that we had offered before. And while I could raise the price of only two of these, I had hopes that they would more than pay for our voyage.

I knew zorans, and I also knew the market for them. They were one of those special gems whose origin was organic rather than mineral. Lorgal must once have had an extremely wet climate which supported a highly varied vegetable growth. This had vanished, perhaps quite suddenly in a series of volcanic outbreaks. Some gas or other had killed certain of those plants, and their substance was then engulfed in earth fissures which closed to apply great pressure. That, combined with the gas the plants had absorbed, wrought the changes to produce zorans.

In their natural state they were often found still in the form of a mat of crushed leaves or a barked limb, sometimes even with a crystalized insect (if you were very lucky indeed) embedded in them. But once polished and cut, they were a deep purple-blue-green through which ran streaked lines of silver or glittering gold. Or else they were a crystalline yellow (probably depending upon some variation in the plant, or in the gas which had slain it) with flecks of glittering bronze.

The chunks or veins of the stuff were regularly mined by the nomads, who, until the arrival of the first off-world traders, used it mainly to tip their spears. It could be sharpened to a needle point which, upon entering flesh, would break off, to fester and eventually kill, even though the initial wound had not been a deep one.

And during the first cutting a zoran had to be handled with gloves, since any break in the outer layer made it poisonous. Once that had been buffed away, the gems could be shaped easily, even more so by the application of heat than by a cutting tool. Then, plunged into deep freeze, they hardened completely and would not yield again to any treatment. Their cutting was thus a complicated process, but their final beauty made them prized, and even in the rough they brought excellent prices.

So it would be zorans, and from Lorgal we could lift next to Rakipur, where zorans could be sold uncut to the priests of Mankspher and the pearls of lonnex crabs bought. From there perhaps to Rohan for caberon sapphires or—But there was no use planning too far ahead. I had learned long ago that all trading was a gamble and that to concentrate on the immediate future was the best way.

Eet wandered in and out while I studied my tapes. Sometimes he sat on the table to follow with a show of interest some particular one, at other times curling up to sleep. At length Ryzk, probably for lack of something to do, also found his way to where I studied, and his casual interest gave way to genuine attention.

“Rohan,” he commented when I ran through Vondar's tape on that world. “Thax Thorman had trading rights on Rohan back in 3949. He made a good thing out of it. Not sapphires, though. He was after mossilk. That was before the thrinx plague wiped out the spinners. They never did find out what started the thrinx, though Thorman had his suspicions.”

“Those being?” I asked when he did not continue.

“Well, those were the days when the combines tried to make it hard for the Free Men.” He gave their own name to the Free Traders. “And there were a lot of tricks pulled. Thorman bid for Rohan in a syndicate of five Free ships, and he was able to overtop the Bendix Combine for it. The Combine had the auction fixed to go their way and then a Survey referee showed up and their bribed auctioneer couldn't set the computer. So their low bid was knocked out and Thorman got his. It was a chance for him. Bendix had a good idea of what was there, and he was just speculating because he knew they were set on it.

“So—he and the other ships had about four planet years of really skimming the good stuff. Then the thrinx finished that. Wiped out three of the other captains. They had been fool enough to give credit for two years running. But Thorman never trusted Bendix and he kind of expected something might blow up. No way, of course, of proving the B people had a hand in it. Nowadays, since the Free Men have had their own confederation, combines can't pull such tricks. I've seen a couple of those sapphires. Tough to find, aren't they?”

“They wouldn't be if anyone could locate the source. What is discovered are the pieces washed down the north rivers in the spring—loose in the gravel. Been plenty of prospectors who tried to get over the Knife Ridge to hunt the blue earth holes which must be there. Most of them were never heard from again. That's taboo country in there.”

“Easier to buy 'em than to hunt them, eh?”

“Sometimes. Other times it is just the opposite. We have our dangers, too.” I was somewhat irked by what I thought I detected underlying his comment.

But he was already changing the subject. “We come out of hyper on the yellow signal. Where do you want to set down on Lorgal, western or eastern continent?”

“Eastern. As near the Black River line as you can make it. There is no real port, as perhaps you know.”

“Been a lot of time spinning by since I was there. Things could be changed, even a port there. Black River region.” He looked over my shoulder at the wall of the cabin as if a map had been video-cast there. “We'll fin down in the Big Pot, unless that has boiled over into rough land again.”

The Big Pot was noted on Lorgal, a giant crater with a burned-out heart which was relatively smooth and which had been used as an improvised space port. Though we had not landed there on my one visit to Lorgal, I knew enough from what I had heard then to recognize that Ryzk had chosen the best landing the eastern continent could offer.

Though the Big Pot was off the main nomad route along the series of water holes the Black River had shrunk to, we had a one-man flitter in our tail hold. And that could scout out the nearest camp site, saving a trek over the horribly broken land, which could not be traveled on foot by any off-worlder.

I looked to the recorded time dial. It was solidly blue, which meant that the yellow signal was not too far off. Ryzk arose and stretched.

“After we come out of hyper, it will take us four color spans to get into orbit at Lorgal, then maybe one more to set down, if we are lucky. How long do we stay planetside?”

“I cannot say. Depends upon finding a tribe and setting up a talk fire. Five days, ten, a couple of weeks—”

He grimaced. “On Lorgal that is too long. But you're the owner, it's your ration supply. Only hope you can cut it shorter.”

He went out to climb to the control cabin. I packed away the tapes and the viewer. I certainly shared his hope—though I knew that once I entered upon the actual trading, I would find in it the zest which it always held for me. Yet Lorgal was not a world on which one wanted to linger. And now it was for me only a means to an end, the end still lying too far ahead to visualize.

I was not long behind Ryzk in seeking the control cabin and the second seat there. While I could not second his duties, yet I wanted to watch the visa-screen as we came in. This was my first real venture, and success or failure here meant very much. Perhaps Eet was as uncertain as I, for though he curled up in his familiar position against my chest and shoulder, his mind was closed to me.

We snapped out of hyper and it was plain that Ryzk deserved so far the trust I had had to place in him, for the yellow orb was certainly Lorgal. He did not put the ship on automatic, but played with fingers on the controls, setting our course, orbiting us about that golden sphere.

As we cut into atmosphere the contours of the planet cleared. There were the huge scars of old seas, now shrunken into deep pockets in the centers of what had once been their beds, their waters bitterly salt. The continents arose on what were now plateaus, left well above the dried surface of the almost vanished seas. In a short time we could distinguish the broken chains of volcanic mountains, the river valley with lava, country in between.

And then the pockmark of the Big Pot could be seen. But as we rode our deter rockets into that promise of a halfway fair landing, I caught a startling glimpse of something else.

We sat down, waiting that one tense moment to see if it had indeed been a fair three-fin landing. Then, as there came no warning tilt of the cabin, Ryzk triggered the visa-screen, starting its circular sweep of our immediate surroundings. It was only a second before I was able to see that we were indeed not alone in the Big Pot.

There was another ship standing some distance away. It was plainly a trader-for-hire. Which meant dire competition, because Lorgal had only one marketable off-world product—zorans. And the yield in any year from one tribe was not enough to satisfy two gem merchants, not if one had to have a large profit to continue to exist. I could only wonder which one of Vondar's old rivals was now sitting by a talk fire and what he had to offer. The only slim chance which remained to me was the fact that he might not have one of the reduced-in-size converters, and that I could so outbid him.

“Company,” Ryzk commented. “Trouble for you?” With that question he disassociated himself from any failure of mine. He was strictly a wage man and would get his pay, from the value of the ship if need be, if I went under.

“We shall see,” was the best answer I could make as I unstrapped to go and see the flitter and make a try at finding a nomad camp.

V

My advantage lay in that I had been to Lorgal before, though then the trade responsibility had lain with Vondar, and I had only been an observer. Our success or failure now depended upon how well I remembered what I had observed. The nomads were humanoid, but not of Terran stock, so dealing with them required X-Tee techniques. Even Terrans, or Terran colonist descendants, could not themselves agree over semantics, customs, or moral standards from planet to planet, and dealing with utterly alien mores added just that much more confusion.

The small converter I selected as my best exhibit could be crowded into the flitter's tail storage section. I strapped on the voca-translator and made sure that a water supply and E-rations were to hand. Eet was already curled up inside waiting for me.

“Good luck.” Ryzk stood ready to thumb open the hatch. “Be sure to keep contact beam—”

“That is one thing I will not forget!” I promised. Though we had little in common, save that we shared the same ship and some of the duties of keeping it activated, we were two of the same species on an alien world, a situation which tended to make a strong, if temporary, bond between us now.

Ryzk would monitor me all the time the flitter was away from the ship. And I knew that should disaster strike either of us the other would do what he could to aid. It was a ship law, a planet law—one never put onto actual record tape but one which had existed since the first of our breed shot into space.

My memory of my first visit to Lorgal gave me one possible site for a nomad meeting, a deep pool in the river bed which had been excavated time and time again by the wandering tribes until they were always sure of some moisture at its bottom. I set off in that direction, taking my marking from two volcanic cones.

The churned ground passing under the flitter was a nightmare of broken ridges, knife-sharp pinnacles, and pitted holes. I do not believe that even the nomads could have crossed it—not that they ever wandered far from the faint promise of water along the ancient courses of the river.

While most of the rock about the Big Pot had been of a yellow-red-brown shade, here it was gray, showing a shiny, glassy black in patches. We had planeted about midmorning and now the sun caught those gleaming surfaces to make them fountains of glare. There were more and more of these as the flitter dipped over the Black River, where even the sands were of that somber color.

Here the water pits broke the general dark with their side mounds of reddish under-surface sand, which had been laboriously dug out in the past by the few native animals or the nomads. And on the inner sides of those mounds, ringing what small deposits of moisture there might be, grew the stunted plants which were the nomads only attempts at agriculture.

They saved every seed, carrying them where they went, as another race on a more hospitable world might treasure precious stones or metal, planting them one by one in the newly-dug sides of any hole before they left. When they circled back weeks or months later, they found, if they were fortunate, a meager harvest waiting.

Judging by the height of the scrubby brush around the first two pits I dipped to inspect, the Lorgalians had not yet reached them—which meant I must fly farther east to pick up their camp.

I had seen no sign of life about that other ship as I had taken off. Nor had my course taken me close to it. However, I had noted that its flitter hatch was open and guessed that the trader was already out in the field. Time might already have defeated me.