The Stars, Like Dust

  “My lady, I do not waste my time. I have already tried to do what I could toward discrediting your father as a source of information. I think I have succeeded somewhat. The Tyranni will wonder if they ought to listen further to a man whose daughter and cousin are obvious traitors. And then again, if they are still disposed to believe him, why, I am on the point of vanishing into the Nebula where they will not find me. I should think my actions tend to prove my story rather than otherwise.”

  Biron drew a deep breath and said, “Let us consider the interview at an end, Jonti. We have agreed to the extent that we will accompany you and that you will grant us needed supplies. That is enough. Granting that all you have just said is truth, it is still beside the point. The crimes of the Director of Rhodia are not inherited by his daughter. Artemisia oth Hinriad stays here with me, provided she herself agrees.”

  “I do,” said Artemisia.

  “Good. I think that covers everything. I warn you, by the way. You are armed; so am I. Your ships are fighters, perhaps; mine is a Tyrannian cruiser.”

  “Don’t be silly, Farrill. My intentions are quite friendly. You wish to keep the girl here? So be it. May I leave by contact air lock?”

  Biron nodded. “We will trust you so far.”

  The two ships maneuvered ever closer, until the flexible air-lock extensions pouted outward toward one another. Carefully, they edged about, trying for the perfect fit. Gillbret hung upon the radio.

  “They’ll be trying to contact again in two minutes,” he said.

  Three times already the magnetic field had been triggered, and each time the extending tubes had stretched toward one another and met off-center, gaping crescents of space between them.

  “Two minutes,” repeated Biron, and waited tensely.

  The second hand moved and the magnetic field clicked into existence a fourth time, the lights dimming as the motors adjusted to the sudden drain of power. Again the air-lock extensions reached out, hovered on the brink of instability, and then, with a noiseless jar, the vibration of which hummed its way into the pilot room, settled into place properly, clamps automatically locking in position. An airtight seal had been formed.

  Biron drew the back of his hand slowly across his forehead and some of the tension oozed out of him.

  “There it is,” he said.

  The Autarch lifted his space suit. There was still a thin film of moisture under it.

  “Thanks,” he said pleasantly. “An officer of mine will be right back. You will arrange the details of the supplies necessary with him.”

  The Autarch left.

  Biron said, “Take care of Jonti’s officer for me for a while, will you, Gil. When he comes in, break the air-lock contact. All you’ll have to do is remove the magnetic field. This is the photonic switch you’ll flash.”

  He turned and stepped out of the pilot room. Right now he needed time for himself. Time to think, mostly.

  But there was the hurried footstep behind him, and the soft voice. He stopped.

  “Biron,” said Artemisia, “I want to speak to you.”

  He faced her. “Later, if you don’t mind, Arta.”

  She was looking up at him intently. “No, now.”

  Her arms were poised as though she would have liked to embrace him but was not sure of her reception. She said, “You didn’t believe what he said about my father?”

  “It has no bearing,” said Biron.

  “Biron,” she began, and stopped. It was hard for her to say it. She tried again, “Biron, I know that part of what has been going on between us has been because we’ve been alone and together and in danger, but——” She stopped again.

  Biron said, “If you’re trying to say you’re a Hinriad, Arta, there’s no need. I know it. I won’t hold you to anything afterward.”

  “No. Oh no.” She caught his arm and placed her cheek against his hard shoulder. She was speaking rapidly. “That’s not it at all. It doesn’t matter about Hinriad and Widemos at all. I—I love you, Biron.”

  Her eyes went up, meeting his. “I think you love me too. I think you would admit it if you could forget that I am a Hinriad. Maybe you will now that I’ve said it first. You told the Autarch you would not hold my father’s deeds against me. Don’t hold his rank against me, either.”

  Her arms were around his neck now. Biron could feel the softness of her breasts against him and the warmth of her breath on his lips. Slowly his own hands went upward and gently grasped her forearms. As gently, he disengaged her arms and, still as gently, stepped back from her.

  He said, “I am not quits with the Hinriads, my lady.”

  She was startled. “You told the Autarch that——”

  He looked away. “Sorry, Arta. Don’t go by what I told the Autarch.”

  She wanted to cry out that it wasn’t true, that her father had not done this thing, that in any case——

  But he turned into the cabin and left her standing in the corridor, her eyes filling with hurt and shame.

  15. THE HOLE IN SPACE

  Tedor Rizzett turned as Biron entered the pilot room again. His hair was gray, but his body was still vigorous and his face was broad, red, and smiling.

  He covered the distance between himself and Biron in a stride and seized the young man’s hand heartily.

  “By the stars,” he said, “I’d need no word from you to tell me that you are your father’s son. It is the old Rancher alive again.”

  “I wish it were,” said Biron, somberly.

  Rizzett’s smile faltered. “So do we all. Every one of us. I’m Ted Rizzett, by the way. I’m a colonel in the regular Linganian forces, but we don’t use titles in our own little game. We even say ‘sir’ to the Autarch. That reminds me!” He looked grave. “We don’t have lords and ladies or even Ranchers on Lingane. I hope I won’t offend if I forget to throw in the proper title sometimes.”

  Biron shrugged. “As you said, no titles in our little game. But what about the trailer? I’m to make arrangements with you, I take it.”

  For a flickering moment he looked across the room. Gillbret was seated, quietly listening. Artemisia had her back to him. Her slim, pale fingers wove an abstracted pattern on the photocontacts of the computer. Rizzett’s voice brought him back.

  The Linganian had cast an all-inclusive glance about the room. “First time I’ve ever seen a Tyrannian vessel from the inside. Don’t care much for it. Now you’ve got the emergency air lock due stern, haven’t you? It seems to me the power thrusters girdle the midsection.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good. Then there won’t be any trouble. Some of the old model ships had power thrusters due stern, so that trailers had to be set off at an angle. This makes the gravity adjustment difficult and the maneuverability in atmospheres just about nil.”

  “How long will it take, Rizzett?”

  “Not long. How big would you want it?”

  “How big could you get it?”

  “Super de luxe? Sure. If the Autarch says so, there’s no higher priority. We can get one that’s practically a space ship in itself. It would even have auxiliary motors.”

  “It would have living quarters, I suppose.”

  “For Miss Hinriad? It would be considerably better than you have here——” He stopped abruptly.

  At the mention of her name, Artemisia had drifted past coldly and slowly, moving out of the pilot room. Biron’s eyes followed her.

  Rizzett said, “I shouldn’t have said Miss Hinriad, I suppose.”

  “No, no. It’s nothing. Pay no attention. You were saying?”

  “Oh, about the rooms. At least two sizable ones, with a communicating shower. It’s got the usual closet room and plumbing arrangements of the big liners. She would be comfortable.”

  “Good. We’ll need food and water.”

  “Sure. Water tank will hold a two months’ supply; a little less if you want to arrange for a swimming pool aboard ship. And you would have frozen whole meats. You’re eating Tyrannia
n concentrate now, aren’t you?”

  Biron nodded and Rizzett grimaced.

  “It tastes like chopped sawdust, doesn’t it? What else?”

  “A supply of clothes for the lady,” said Biron.

  Rizzett wrinkled his forehead. “Yes, of course. Well, that will be her job.”

  “No, sir, it won’t. We’ll supply you with all the necessary measurements and you can supply us with whatever we ask for in whatever the current styles happen to be.”

  Rizzett laughed shortly and shook his head. “Rancher, she won’t like that. She wouldn’t be satisfied with any clothes she didn’t pick. Not even if they were the identical items she would have picked if she had been given the chance. This isn’t a guess now. I’ve had experience with the creatures.”

  Biron said, “I’m sure you’re right, Rizzett. But that’s the way it will have to be.”

  “All right, but I’ve warned you. It will be your argument. What else?”

  “Little things. Little things. A supply of detergents. Oh yes, cosmetics, perfume—the things women need. We’ll make the arrangements in time. Let’s get the trailer started.”

  And now Gillbret was leaving without speaking. Biron’s eyes followed him, too, and he felt his jaw muscles tighten. Hinriads! They were Hinriads! There was nothing he could do about it. They were Hinriads! Gillbret was one and she was another.

  He said, “And, of course, there’ll be clothes for Mr. Hinriad and myself. That won’t be very important.”

  “Right. Mind if I use your radio? I’d better stay on this ship till the adjustments are made.”

  Biron waited while the initial orders went out. Then Rizzett turned on the seat and said, “I can’t get used to seeing you here, moving, talking, alive. You’re so like him. The Rancher used to speak about you every once in a while. You went to school on Earth, didn’t you?”

  “I did. I would have graduated a little over a week ago, if things hadn’t been interrupted.”

  Rizzett looked uncomfortable. “Look, about your being sent to Rhodia the way you were. You mustn’t hold it against us. We didn’t like it. I mean, this is strictly between us, but some of the boys didn’t like it at all. The Autarch didn’t consult us, of course. Naturally, he wouldn’t. Frankly, it was a risk on his part. Some of us—I’m not mentioning names—even wondered if we shouldn’t stop the liner you were on and pull you off. Naturally that would have been the worst thing we could possibly have done. Still, we might have done it, except that in the last analysis, we knew that the Autarch must have known what he was doing.”

  “It’s nice to be able to inspire that kind of confidence.”

  “We know him. There’s no denying it. He’s got it here.” A finger slowly tapped his forehead. “Nobody knows exactly what makes him take a certain course sometimes. But it always seems the right one. At least he’s outsmarted the Tyranni so far and others don’t.”

  “Like my father, for instance.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of him, exactly, but in a sense, you’re right. Even the Rancher was caught. But then he was a different kind of man. His way of thinking was straight. He would never allow for crookedness. He would always underestimate the worthlessness of the next man. But then again, that was what we liked best, somehow. He was the same to everyone, you know.

  “I’m a commoner for all I’m a colonel. My father was a metalworker, you see. It didn’t make any difference to him. And it wasn’t that I was a colonel, either. If he met the engineer’s ’prentice walking down the corridor, he’d step aside and say a pleasant word or two, and for the rest of the day, the ’prentice would feel like a master engineman. It was the way he had.

  “Not that he was soft. If you needed disciplining, you got it, but no more than your share. What you got, you deserved, and you knew it. When he was through, he was through. He didn’t keep throwing it at you at odd moments for a week or so. That was the Rancher.

  “Now the Autarch, he’s different. He’s just brains. You can’t get next to him, no matter who you are. For instance. He doesn’t really have a sense of humor. I can’t speak to him the way I’m speaking to you right now. Right now, I’m just talking. I’m relaxed. It’s almost free association. With him, you say exactly what’s on your mind with no spare words. And you use formal phraseology, or he’ll tell you you’re slovenly. But then, the Autarch’s the Autarch, and that’s that.”

  Biron said, “I’ll have to agree with you as far as the Autarch’s brains are concerned. Did you know that he had deduced my presence aboard this ship before he ever got on?”

  “He did? We didn’t know that. Now, there, that’s what I mean. He was going to go aboard the Tyrannian cruiser alone. To us, it seemed suicide. We didn’t like it. But we assumed he knew what he was doing, and he did. He could have told us you were probably aboard ship. He must have known it would be great news that the Rancher’s son had escaped. But it’s typical. He wouldn’t.”

  Artemisia sat on one of the lower bunks in the cabin. She had to bend into an uncomfortable position to avoid having the frame of the second bunk pry into her first thoracic vertebra, but that was a small item to her at the moment.

  Almost automatically, she kept passing the palms of her hands down the side of her dress. She felt frayed and dirty, and very tired.

  She was tired of dabbing at her hands and face with damp napkins. She was tired of wearing the same clothes for a week. She was tired of hair which seemed dank and stringy by now.

  And then she was almost on her feet again, ready to turn about sharply; she wasn’t going to see him; she wouldn’t look at him.

  But it was only Gillbret. She sank down again. “Hello, Uncle Gil.”

  Gillbret sat down opposite her. For a moment his thin face seemed anxious and then it started wrinkling into a smile. “I think a week of this ship is very unamusing too. I was hoping you could cheer me up.”

  But she said, “Now, Uncle Gil, don’t start using psychology on me. If you think you’re going to cajole me into feeling a responsibility for you, you’re wrong. I’m much more likely to hit you.”

  “If it will make you feel better——”

  “I warn you again. If you hold out your arm for me to hit, I’ll do it, and if you say ‘Does that make you feel better?’ I’ll do it again.”

  “In any case, it’s obvious you’ve quarreled with Biron. What about?”

  “I don’t see why there’s any necessity for discussion. Just leave me alone.” Then, after a pause, “He thinks Father did what the Autarch said he did. I hate him for that.”

  “Your father?”

  “No! That stupid, childish, sanctimonious fool!”

  “Presumably Biron. Good. You hate him. You couldn’t put a knife edge between the kind of hate that has you sitting here like this and something that would seem to my own bachelor mind to be a rather ridiculous excess of love.”

  “Uncle Gil,” she said, “could he really have done it?”

  “Biron? Done what?”

  “No! Father. Could Father have done it? Could he have informed against the Rancher?”

  Gillbret looked thoughtful and very sober. “I don’t know.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “You know, he did give Biron up to the Tyranni.”

  “Because he knew it was a trap,” she said vehemently. “And it was. That horrible Autarch meant it as such. He said so. The Tyranni knew who Biron was and sent him to Father on purpose. Father did the only thing he could do. That should be obvious to anybody.”

  “Even if we accept that”—and again that sideways look—“he did try to argue you into a rather unamusing kind of marriage. If Hinrik could bring himself to do that——”

  She interrupted. “He had no way out there, either.”

  “My dear, if you’re going to excuse every act of subservience to the Tyranni as something he had to do, why, then, how do you know he didn’t have to hint something about the Rancher to the Tyranni?”

  “Because I’m sure he wouldn
’t. You don’t know Father the way I do. He hates the Tyranni. He does. I know it. He wouldn’t go out of his way to help them. I admit that he’s afraid of them and doesn’t dare oppose them openly, but if he could avoid it somehow, he would never help them.”

  “How do you know he could avoid it?”

  But she shook her head violently, so that her hair tumbled about and hid her eyes. It hid the tears a bit too.

  Gillbret watched a moment, then spread his hands helplessly and left.

  The trailer was joined to the Remorseless by a wasp-waist corridor attached to the emergency air lock in the rear of the ship. It was several dozen times larger than the Tyranni vessel in capacity, almost humorously outsized.

  The Autarch joined Biron in a last inspection. He said, “Do you find anything lacking?”

  Biron said, “No. I think we’ll be quite comfortable.”

  “Good. And by the way, Rizzett tells me the Lady Artemisia is not well, or at least that she looks unwell. If she requires medical attention, it might be wise to send her to my ship.”

  “She is quite well,” said Biron curtly.

  “If you say so. Would you be ready to leave in twelve hours?”

  “In two hours, if you wish.”

  Biron passed through the connecting corridor (he had to stoop a little) into the Remorseless proper.

  He said with a careful evenness of tone, “You’ve got a private suite back there, Artemisia. I won’t bother you. I’ll stay here most of the time.”

  And she replied coldly, “You don’t bother me, Rancher. It doesn’t matter to me where you are.”

  And then the ships blasted off, and after a single Jump they found themselves at the edge of the Nebula. They waited for a few hours while the final calculations were made on Jonti’s ship. Inside the Nebula it would be almost blind navigation.

  Biron stared glumly at the visiplate. There was nothing there! One entire half of the celestial sphere was taken up with blackness, unrelieved by a spark of light. For the first time, Biron realized how warm and friendly the stars were, how they filled space.