CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ringg was still bending over Meta's hand when Vorongil came into thecabin. He started to speak, then noticed Ringg. "I might have known," hegrowled, "if there was anything to find out, you'd find it."
"Shall I go, _rieko mori_?"
"No, stay. You'll find it out some way or other, you might as well getit right the first time. But first of all--are you all right, Meta?"
Her chin went up, defiantly. "Yes. And why have you lied to us all theseyears--all of you?"
Vorongil looked mildly startled. "It wasn't exactly a lie. Nine out often Lhari captains believe it with all their heart--that humans die inwarp-drive. I wasn't sure myself until I heard the debates in CouncilCity, last year."
"But why?"
Vorongil sighed. His eyes rested disconcertingly on Bart. "I presume youknow human history," he said, "better than I do. The Lhari have neverhad a war, in all written history. Quite frankly, you terrified us. Itwas decided, on the highest summit levels, that we wouldn't give humanstoo many chances to find out things we preferred to keep to ourselves.The first few ships to carry Mentorians had carried them withoutcold-sleep, but people forget easily. The truth is buried in the recordsof those early voyages.
"As the Mentorians grew more important to us, we began to regret thepolicy, but by that time the Mentorians themselves believed it so firmlythat when we tried the experiment of carrying them through the shiftinto warp-drive, they died of fear--pure suggestion. I tried it withyou, Meta, because I knew Bart's presence would reassure you. The otherswere given an inert sedative they believed to be the cold-sleep drug.How are you feeling, Bart?"
"Fine--but wondering what's going to happen."
"You won't be hurt," Vorongil said, quickly. Then: "You don't believeme, do you?"
"I don't, sir. David Briscoe did what I did, and he's dead. So are threeother men."
"Men do strange things from fear--men and Lhari. Your people, as I saidbefore, have a strange history. It scares us. Can you guarantee thatsome, at least, of your people wouldn't try to come and take thestar-drive by force? We left a man on Lharillis who thought nothing ofkilling twenty-four of us. I suppose the captain of the _Multiphase_,knowing he had gravely violated Lhari laws, knowing that Briscoe'sreport might touch off an intergalactic war between men and Lhari--well,I suppose he felt that half a dozen deaths were better than half amillion. I'm not defending him. Just explaining, maybe, why he did whathe did."
Bart lowered his eyes. He had no answer to that.
"No, you won't be killed. But that's all I can guarantee. My personalfeelings have nothing to do with it. You'll have to go to Council Planetwith us, and you'll have to be psych-checked there. That is Lharilaw--and by treaty with your Federation, it is human law, too. If youknow anything dangerous to us, we have a legal right to eliminate thosememories before you can be released."
Meta smiled at him, encouragingly, but Bart shivered. That was almostworse than the thought of death.
And the fear grew more oppressive as the ship forged onward toward thehome world of the Lhari. And it did not lessen when, after they toucheddown, he was taken from the ship under guard.
He had only a glimpse, through dark glasses, of the terrible brillianceof the Lhari sun dazzling on crystal towers, before he was hustled intoa closed surface car. It whisked him away to a building he did not seefrom the outside; he was taken up by private elevator to a suite ofrooms which might--for all he could tell--have been a suite in a luxuryhotel or a lunatic asylum. The walls were translucent, the furnitureoddly colored, and so carefully padded that even a homicidal or suicidalperson could not have hurt himself or anyone else on it or with it.
Food reached him often enough so that he never got hungry, but not oftenenough to keep him from being bored between meals, or from brooding. Twoenormous Lhari came in to look at him every hour or so, but either theywere deaf and dumb, did not understand his dialect of Lhari, or wereunder orders not to speak to him. It was the most frustrating time ofhis entire voyage.
One day it ended. A Lhari and a Mentorian came for him and took him downelevators and up stairs, and into a quiet, neutral room where four Lhariwere gathered. They sat him in a comfortable chair, and the Mentorianinterpreter said gently, with apology:
"Bart Steele, I have been asked to say to you that you will not bephysically harmed in any way. This will be much simpler, and will havemuch less injurious effect on your mind if you cooperate with us. At thesame time, I have been asked to remind you that resistance is absolutelyuseless, and if you attempt it, you will only be treated with forcerather than with courtesy."
Bart sat facing them, shaking with humiliation. The thought ofresistance flashed through his mind. Maybe he should make them fight forwhat they got! At least they'd see that all humans weren't like theMentorians, to sit quietly and let themselves be brainwashed without aword of protest.
He started to spring up, and the hands of his guards tightened, swiftand strong, even before his muscles had fully tightened. Bart's headdropped. Cold common sense doused over his brave thoughts. He wasuncountable millions of light-years from his own people. He wasabsolutely alone. Bravery would mean nothing; submission would meannothing. Would he be more of a man, somehow, if he let his mind bewrecked?
"All right," he muttered, "I won't fight."
"You show your good sense," the Mentorian said quietly. "Give me yourleft arm, please--or, if you are left-handed, your right. As youprefer."
Deftly, almost painlessly, a needle slid into his arm. _Giving in._ Adizzying welter of thoughts spun suddenly in his mind. Briscoe. RaynorOne and Raynor Three. The net between the stars. Ringg, Vorongil, Meta,his father....
Consciousness slid away.
Years later--he never knew whether it was memory or imagination--itseemed to him that he could reach into that patch of gray and dreamlesstime and fish out questions and answers whole, the faces of Lhariswelling up suddenly in his eyes and shrinking back into interstellardistance, the sting-smell of drugs, the sound of unexpected voices, oddreflex pains, cobwebs of patchy memories that fitted nowhere else intohis life so that he supposed they must go here.
He only knew that there was a time he did not remember and then a timewhen he began to think there was such a thing as memory, and then a timewhen he floated without a body, and then another time when the path ofevery separate nerve in his body seemed to be outlined, a shimmering webin the gray murk. There was a mirror and a face. There were blotchyworms of light like the star-trails of peaking warp-drive through theviewport, colors shifting and receding, a green star, the red eye ofAntares.
Then the peak-point faded, his mind began to decelerate and angle slowlydown and down into the field of awareness, and he became fuzzily awarethat he was lying full length on a sort of couch. He shook his headgroggily. It hurt. He sat up. That hurt, too. A hand closed gentlyaround his elbow and he felt the cold edge of a cup against his soremouth.
"Take a sip of this."
The liquid felt cool on his tongue, evaporating almost before he couldswallow; the fumes seemed to mount inside the root of his nose,expanding tremendously inside his head and brain. Abruptly his head wasclear, the last traces of gray fuzz gone.
"When you feel able," the Mentorian said courteously, "the High Councilwill see you."
Bart blinked. As if exploring a sore tooth with his tongue, his mindsought for memories, but they all seemed clear, marshaled in line. Thedetails, clear and unblurred, of his voyage here. His humiliation andresentment against the Lhari. _They could have changed my thinking, myattitudes. They could have made me admire or be loyal to the Lhari. Theydidn't. I'm still me._
"I'm ready now." He got up, reeled and had to lean on the Mentorian; hisfeet did not seem to touch the ground in quite the right way. After aminute he could walk steadily, and followed the Mentorian along acorridor. The Mentorian said into a small grille, "The Vegan Bartol,alias Bart Steele," and after a moment a doorway opened.
Inside a room rose, high, domed,
vaulted above his head, whitishopalescent, washed with green. For a moment, while his eyes adjusted tothe light, he wondered how the Lhari saw it.
Beyond an expanse of black, glassy floor, he saw a low semicirculartable, behind which sat eight Lhari. All wore pale robes with highcollars that rose stiffly behind their domed heads; all were old, theirfaces lined with many wrinkles, and seven of the eight were as bald asthe hull of the _Swiftwing_. Under their eyes he hesitated; then,unexpectedly, pride stiffened his back.
They should have done a better job of brainwashing, if they expected himto skulk in like a scared rabbit! He held his head high and moved acrossthe floor step by steady step, trying not to limp or display that hefelt tired or sore.
_You're human! Act proud of it!_
No one moved until he stood before the semicircle of ancients. Then theyoungest, the only one of the eight with some trace of feathery crest onhis high gray head, said "Captain Vorongil, you identify this person?"
"I do," Vorongil said, and Bart saw him seated before the high Council.To Bart, the Lhari captain seemed a familiar, almost a friendly face.
"Well, Bart Steele, alias Bartol son of Berihun," said one old Lhari,"what have you to say for yourself?"
Bart stood silent, not moving. What could he say that would not revealhow desperately alone, how young and foolish and frightened he felt? Allhis brave resolutions seemed to drain away before their old, gnomishfaces. Here he'd been thinking of himself as a brave spy, a gallantfighter in humanity's cause and what not. Now he saw himself for what hewas; a reckless boy, meddling in affairs too big for him. He lowered hiseyes.
"We have read the transcript of your knowledge," said the old Lhari."There is little in it that we do not know. We are not, of course,concerned with human conspiracies unless they endanger Lhari lives. TheAntares authorities will deal with the man Montano for an unauthorizedlanding on Lharillis, in violation of Federation treaty."
He smiled, his gnome's face breaking into a million tiny cracks like apiece of gray-glazed pottery. "Bartol, or whatever you call yourself,you are a brave young man. I suppose you are afraid we will block yourmemories, or your ability to speak of them?"
Bart nodded, gulping. Did the old Lhari read his mind?
"A year ago we might have done so. Captain Vorongil, you will beinterested to know that we have discussed this in Council, and yourrecommendations have been taken. The secret that humans can endurestar-drive has outlived its usefulness. For good or ill, it is secret nolonger. We cannot possibly eliminate all the old records, or theenterprising people who hunt them out.
"The captain who had David Briscoe killed, under the mistaken notionthat this would excuse his own negligence in letting Briscoe stow awayon his ship, is undergoing psychotherapy and may eventually recover.
"As for the rest--Bart Steele, you know nothing that is a danger to us.You do not know the coordinates of our world, or even in which galaxy itis located. You do not know where we secure the catalyst your peopleseek. In fact, you know nothing that is not soon to become commonknowledge. In view of that, we have decided not to interfere with yourmemories."
"Talk as much as you like," added another of the ancients, "and may yourmemories of this voyage help in understanding between the Lhari andother human races. Good fortune to you." And he was smiling.
"There is another side to this," said a third, more sternly and gravely."You have broken a treaty between Lhari and man. We have dealt with youas the laws required; now your own people must do so. You must returnwith the _Swiftwing_ to the planet where the violation originated--" heconsulted a memorandum--"Procyon Alpha. There you and the man RaynorThree will face charges of unlawful conspiracy to board a Lhari ship, inviolation of Intergalactic Trade treaties. Captain Vorongil, will you beresponsible for him?"
_So I've lost_, Bart thought drearily. _I didn't even learn anythingimportant enough for them to suppress._ There was a strange woundedpride in this; after all his trouble, he was being treated like a littleboy who has used a great deal of enterprise and intelligence to rob acookie cupboard, and for his pains is sent home with the stolen cookiein his hand.
Vorongil touched his arm. "Come, Bartol," he said gently, "I'm takingyou back to the _Swiftwing_. I don't have to treat you like a prisoner,do I?"
Numbly, Bart gave what the old Lhari asked, his word of honor not toattempt escape (_Escape? Where to?_) or to attempt to enter the drivechamber of the _Swiftwing_ while they were still among the Lhari worlds.
As they left the council hall, Bart, in a gesture of despair, coveredhis face with his hands. As he brought them down, he found himselfstaring at them, transfixed.
The fingers looked longer and thinner than he remembered them, but theywere his own hands again. The nails seemed faintly thick and ridged, andthere was still a faint grayish tinge through the pale flesh color, butthey were human hands. Unmistakably. He felt of his nose and ears, withfumbling fingers; raised his hand and touched the very short, crisp hairgrowing on his newly shaven skull.
"You fool," said Vorongil to the Mentorian, in disgust, "why didn't youtell him what the medics had done for him? Easy, Bartol!" The oldLhari's arm tightened around his shoulder. "I thought they'd told you.Somebody come here and give the youngster a hand."
Later, in the small cabin (it had been Rugel's) which was to be hisprison during the return voyage of the _Swiftwing_, he had a chance tostudy his familiar-strange face. He had thought that only a shorttime--an hour or so--had elapsed between the time he was drugged and thetime they took him before the Council. Later, from what he learned aboutthe dispatch schedules of the _Swiftwing_, he realized that he had beenkept under sedation for nearly three weeks, while his face and handshealed.
As Raynor Three had warned, the change was not altogether reversible.Studying his face in the mirror, he could still see a hint of somethingthin, strange, alien in the set of his features; the nose and chinsomewhat too pointed, elfin, to be human. His hands would always be toolong, too narrow, too supple. For the rest, he looked grim, older. Hecould never go back to what he had been before he became a Lhari; it hadleft its mark on him forever.
Before the _Swiftwing_ lifted, outbound, Vorongil came to his cabin."You've seen very little of our world," he said diffidently. "I havepermission for you to visit the city before we leave Council Spaceport."
"You think you can trust me?" Bart asked bitterly.
Vorongil said gravely, without humor, "The question does not arise. Youdo not know the coordinates of this world, and have no way of findingthem. Within those limitations, you are an honored guest here, and if itwould give you any pleasure, you are welcome to see as much of CouncilPlanet as time permits."
It seemed, through Vorongil's kindness, that the old Lhari sensed hisbitter defeat. Nothing was to be gained by sulking in his cabin, aprisoner. He had an opportunity which no human, except the Mentorians,had ever had; which perhaps no human would ever have again. He might aswell take advantage of it.
Ringg and Meta both seemed startled at his new appearance, but Metainstantly held out her hands, clasping his quickly and warmly. "Bart! Iwondered what your real face looked like. But I think I'd have known youanyhow."
Ringg surveyed him wonderingly, shaking his head. "Say something," heimplored, "so I'll know you're Bartol."
Bart held out his arm, less gray by the day as the drug wore out of hissystem. The thin line of the scar was still on it. He raised hisforefinger lightly to the fine line on Ringg's cheek. "I couldn't returnthat now. So let's not get into any more fights."
Ringg laughed and gave him a rough, affectionate shove. "You're Bartol,all right!"
Even his sense of defeat vanished in wonder as they came out into thegreat spaceport. He saw, now, that the Lhari spaceports in human worldswere built to create, for the spacemen so far from their native worlds,some feeling of home. But everything here was so vast as to stagger theimagination. There were miles and miles of the great ships, lying strewnlike pebbles on this monster beachhead into space, bear
ing thestrangeness of a million far-flung stars. He gaped like a child.
Above them, the burning brilliance of a star gave strange glow and colorto the crystal pylons. What color was the star? He turned to Meta,irritated at his inability to be sure.
"Meta, what color is this sun? I've been all around the spectrum, andit's not red, blue, green, orange, violet--" He broke off, realizingwhat he had said and what he had seen. "An eighth color," he finished,anticlimatically.
"You and your talk of colors," Ringg grumbled, "I wish I knew what youMentorians see! It's like trying to imagine seeing a smell or hearinglight!"
Meta laughed. "As far as I know, no one's named it. Sometimes weMentorians call it _catalyst color_. I think only Mentorians can see itas separate color."
"So what?" Ringg said impatiently, "What are we going to do, chatterabout light waves or see the city?"
Bart acquiesced, trying to sound eager, but a wild excitement wasgusting up in him. He dutifully pretended fascination with the towers,the many-leveled roads, the giant dams and pylons, but his thoughts wereracing.
_The eighth color!_ There can't be too many suns of this color, orthey'd have named it and known it! And telescopes can find it.
Could success be salvaged, then, at the very edge of failure? Maybe heneed not go empty-handed, empty-eyed, from the Lhari worlds! They haddismissed him, scornfully, stolen cookie in hand--but maybe it would bea bigger cookie than they dreamed!
The exhilaration lasted through the tour of the port, through the heavysurge of acceleration which brought them up, out and way from CouncilPlanet. Bart, confined in Rugel's cabin, hardly felt like a prisoner,his mind busy with schemes.
_I'll study star-maps, and spectroscope reports...._
It lasted almost two days of shiptime, and they were readying forAcceleration Two, before he came, figuratively, down to earth. To pickone star out of trillions--and not even in his own galaxy? It would takea lifetime and he didn't even know which of the four or five spiralnebulae in the skies of the human worlds was the Lhari Galaxy. Alifetime? A hundred lifetimes wouldn't do it!
He might have known. If there had been one chance in the odd billion ofhis making any such discovery, the Lhari would never have given Vorongilpermission for the intruder to visit the planet at all. He would havebeen returned to the _Swiftwing_ as he had been taken from it, by closedcar, and imprisoned, maybe even drugged, until he was safely back in thehuman worlds again.
He was under parole not to enter the drive chamber (and sure he would bestopped if he attempted it anyhow), but when Acceleration One wascompleted, he went to the viewport in the Recreation Lounge, and nobodythrew him out. He stood long, looking at the unfamiliar galaxy of theLhari stars; the unknown, forever unknowable constellations with theirstrange shapes. Stars green, gold, topaz, burning blue, sullen red, andthe great strangely colored receding sun of the Lhari people, known tothem by the melodious name of the Ke Lhiro--which meant, simply, _TheSun_: it was their first home.
Where had he seen that color? In that stolen glimpse of the Lhari shiplanding, long ago? Of all the colors of space, this one he would neverknow.
He turned away from the unsolvable riddle of the strange constellations;and went to his cabin, to dream of the green star Meristem where he hadfirst plotted known coordinates for a previously unknown world, and towander in baffling nightmares where he fed jagged, star-colored piecesof hail into the ship's computer and watched them come out as tinypaperdoll spaceships with the letterhead of Eight Colors printed neatlyacross their sides.
After the warp-drive shift, Vorongil came to his cabin, this time crispand businesslike.
"We're back in your galaxy," he said, "among the stars you know. We haveno passenger space on the _Swiftwing_; we had to ship out withoutreplacing Rugel, which means we're short two men. I've no authority toask this of you, but--would you like your old job back for the rest ofthe voyage?"
Bart glanced at his human hands.
Vorongil shrugged. "We've carried Mentorians as full-rankingAstrogators. There don't happen to be any on the _Swiftwing_. Butthere's no law about it."
Bart looked the old Lhari in the eye. "I won't accept Mentorian terms,Vorongil."
"I wouldn't ask it. You worked your way outward on this run, and theHigh Council didn't see fit to erase those memories or inhibit them. Whyshould I? Do you want it or not?"
Did he want it? Until this moment Bart had not identified the worst ofhis pain and defeat--to travel as a passenger, a supercargo, when he hadonce been part of the _Swiftwing_. Literally he ached to be back with itagain. "I do, _rieko mori_."
"Very well," Vorongil rapped, "see that you turn out next watch!" Hespun round and walked out. His tone was no longer gently indulgent, butsharp and distant. Bart, at first surprised, suddenly understood.
Not now a prisoner, a passenger, a guest on the _Swiftwing_. He was partof the crew again--and Vorongil was his captain.
The Lhari crew were oddly constrained at first. But Ringg was the sameas always, and before long they were almost on the old terms. With everywatch, it seemed, he was building a bridge between man and Lhari. Theyaccepted him.
But for what? Something might come, in the far future, of hisacceptance, but he wouldn't get the benefit of it. This would be hisonly voyage; after this he'd be chained again, crawling from planet toplanet of a single sun. And as warp-shift followed warp-shift, the_Swiftwing_ retracing the path of her outward cruise star by star, Bartsaid farewell to them.
One day, at last, he stood at the viewport, watching Procyon Alphanearing. A year ago, frightened, terribly alone, still unsteady on hisnew Lhari muscles and terrified by the monsters that were his shipmates,he had watched these planets spinning away. Poor old Rugel, poor oldBaldy!
Behind him, Meta came into the lounge.
"Bart--"
He turned to face her. "It won't be much longer, Meta. Tomorrow I'llfind out what the Federation is going to do to me. _Conspiracyunlawfully to board_--and all the rest of it. Even if I don't go to aprison planet, I'll spend the rest of my life chained down to Vega."
"It doesn't have to be that way."
"What other choice is there?" he demanded.
"You're half Mentorian," she said, raising her eager face. "Oh, Bart,you love it so, you know you can't bear to give it up. Stay withus--please stay!"
Before answering, he looked out the viewport a last time. The clouds ofcosmic dust swirled and foamed around the familiar jewels of his ownsky. Blue, beloved Vega, burning in the heart of the Lyre--_home--whenwould he go home? He had no home now._ Yet his father had left him VegaInterplanet, as well as Eight Colors and a quest to the stars.
He searched for the topaz of Sol, where he had learned astrogation;Procyon, where he had become a Lhari; the ruby of Aldebaran (_hail andfarewell, David Briscoe!_); the bloodstone of Antares, where he hadlearned fear and the shape of integrity. The colors, the unknowablecolors of space. And others. Nameless stars where he and his Lharishipmates had worked and played. And stars he had never seen and wouldnever see, all the endless worlds beyond worlds and stars beyondstars....
He took a last, longing look at the colors of space, then turned hisback on them, deliberately giving them up. He could not pay the pricethe Mentorians paid.
"No, Meta," he said huskily. "The Mentorian way is one way, but--I'vehad a taste of being one of the masters of space. It's more than mostmen ever have, maybe it's more than I deserve. But I can't settle foranything less. Not even if it means losing you."
He shut his eyes and stood, head bowed. When he looked up again, he wasalone with the stars beyond the viewport, and the lounge was empty.