This was a lady of the court, then, perhaps enamored of Herndon, perhaps sent by the Lady Moaris as a test or as a messenger.
Herndon said, “I am here. What do you want?”
“I bring a message from—a noble lady,” came the answering whisper.
Smiling in the darkness, Herndon said. “What does your mistress have to say to me?”
“It cannot be spoken. Hold me in a close embrace as if we were lovers, and I will give you what you need.”
Shrugging, Herndon clasped the go-between in his arms with feigned passion. Their lips met; their bodies pressed tight. Herndon felt the girl’s hand searching for his and slipping something cool, metallic into it. Her lips left his, traveled to his ear, and murmured:
“This is her key. Be there in half an hour.”
They broke apart. Herndon nodded farewell to her and returned his attention to the glories of the viewplate. He did not glance at the object in his hand, but merely stored it in his pocket.
He counted out fifteen minutes in his mind, then left the viewing room and emerged on the main deck. The ball was still in progress, but he learned from a guard on duty that the Lord and Lady Moaris had already left for sleep and that the festivities were soon to end.
Herndon slipped into a washroom and examined the key, for a key it was. It was a radionic opener, and imprinted on it was the number 1160.
His throat felt suddenly dry. The Lady Moaris was inviting him to her room for the night—or was this a trap, and would Moaris and his court be waiting for him to gun him down and provide themselves with some amusement? It was not beyond these nobles to arrange such a thing.
But still—he remembered the clearness of her eyes and the beauty of her face. He could not believe she would be party to such a scheme.
He waited out the remaining fifteen minutes. Then, moving cautiously along the plush corridors, he found his way to Room 1160.
He listened a moment. Silence from within. His heart pounded frantically, irking him; this was his first major test, possibly the gateway to all his hopes, and it irritated him that he felt anxiety.
He touched the tip of the radionic opener to the door. The substance of the door blurred as the energy barricade that composed it was temporarily dissolved. Herndon stepped through quickly. Behind him the door returned to a state of solidity.
The light of the room was dim. The Lady Moaris awaited him, wearing a gauzy dressing gown. She smiled tensely at him; she seemed ill at ease.
“You came, then.”
“Would I do otherwise?”
“I—wasn’t sure. I’m not in the habit of doing things like this.”
Herndon repressed a cynical smile. Such innocence was touching but highly improbable. He said nothing, and she went on: “I was caught by your face—something harsh and terrible about it struck me. I had to send for you to know you better.”
Ironically Herndon said, “I feel honored. I hadn’t expected such an invitation.”
“You won’t—think it’s cheap of me, will you?” she said plaintively. It was hardly the thing Herndon expected from the lips of the noble Lady Moaris. But as he stared at her slim body revealed beneath the filmy robe, he understood that she might not be so noble after all once the gaudy pretense was stripped away. He saw her as perhaps she truly was: a young girl of great loveliness married to a domineering nobleman who valued her only for her use in public display. It might explain this bedchamber summons to a Second Steward.
He took her hand. “This is the height of my ambitions, milady. Beyond this room, where can I go?”
But it was empty flattery he spoke. He darkened the room illumination exultantly. With your conquest, Lady Moaris, he thought, do I begin the conquest of the Seigneur Krellig!
Chapter Four
The voyage to Molleccogg lasted a week, absolute time aboard ship. After their night together, Herndon had occasion to see the Lady Moaris only twice more, and on both occasions she averted her eyes from him, regarding him as if he were not there.
It was understandable. But Herndon held a promise from her that she would see him again in three months’ time when she returned to Borlaam; and she had further promised that she would use her influence with her husband to have Herndon invited to the court of Seigneur.
The Lord Nathiir emerged from nullspace without difficulty and was snared by the landing field of Molleccogg Spacefield. Through the viewing screen on his own deck, Herndon saw the colorful splendor of the pleasure planet on which they were about to land growing larger now that they were in the final spiral.
But he did not intend to remain long on the world of Molleccogg.
He found the Chief Steward and applied for a leave of absence from Lord Moaris’ service without pay.
“But you’ve just joined us,” the Steward protested. “And now you want to leave?”
“Only for a while,” Herndon said. “I’ll be back on Borlaam before any of you are. I have business to attend to on another world in the Rim area, and then I promise to return to Borlaam at my own expense to rejoin the retinue of the Lord Moaris.”
The Chief Steward grumbled and complained, but he could not find anything particularly objectionable in Herndon’s intentions, and so finally he reluctantly granted the spacerogue permission to leave Lord Moaris’ service temporarily. Herndon packed his court costume and clad himself in his old spacerogue garb; when the great liner ultimately put down in Danzibool Harbor on Molleccogg, Herndon was packed and ready, and he slipped off ship and into the thronged confusion of the terminal.
Bollar Benjin and Heitman Oversk had instructed him most carefully on what he was to do now. He pushed his way past a file of vile-smelling lily-faced green Nnobonn and searched for a ticket seller’s window. He found one eventually and produced the prepaid travel vouchers Benjin had given him.
“I want a one-way passage to Vyapore,” he said to the flat-featured, triple-eyed Guzmanno clerk who stared out from back of the wicker screen.
“You need a visa to get to Vyapore,” the clerk said. “These visas are issued at infrequent intervals to certified personages. I don’t see how you—”
“I have a visa,” Herndon snapped, and produced it. The clerk blinked—one-two-three, in sequence—and his pale rose face flushed deep cerise.
“So you do,” he remarked at length. “It seems to be in order. Passage will cost you eleven hundred sixty-five stellors of the realm.”
“I’ll take a third-class ship,” Herndon said. “I have a paid voucher for such a voyage.”
He handed it across. The clerk studied it for a long moment, then said: “You have planned this very well. I accept the voucher. Here.”
Herndon found himself holding one paid passage to Vyapore aboard the freight ship Zalasar.
The Zalasar turned out to be very little like the Lord Nathiir. It was an old-fashioned unitube ship that rattled when it blasted off, shivered when it translated to nullspace, and quivered all the week-long journey from Molleccogg to Vyapore. It was indeed a third-class ship. Its cargo was hardware: seventy-five thousand dry-strainers, eighty thousand pressors, sixty thousand multiple fuse screens, guarded by a supercargo team of eight taciturn Ludvuri. Herndon was the only human aboard. Humans did not often get visas to Vyapore.
They reached Vyapore seven days and a half after setting out from Molleccogg. Ground temperature as they disembarked was well over a hundred. Humidity was overpowering. Herndon knew about Vyapore: It held perhaps five hundred humans, one spaceport, infinite varieties of deadly local life, and several thousand nonhumans of all descriptions, some of them hiding, some of them doing business, some of them searching for starstones.
Herndon had been well briefed. He knew who his contact was, and he set about meeting him.
There was only one settled city on Vyapore, and because it was the only one, it was nameless. Herndon found a room in a cheap boardinghouse run by a swine-eared Dombruun and washed the sweat from his face with the unpleasantly acrid water of the
tap.
Then he went downstairs into the bright noonday heat. The stench of rotting vegetation drifted in from the surrounding jungle on a faint breeze. Herndon said at the desk, “I’m looking for a Vonnimooro named Mardlin. Is he around?”
“Over there,” said the proprietor, pointing.
Mardlin the Vonnimooro was a small, weasely-like creature with the protuberant snout, untrustworthy yellow eyes, and pebbly brown-purple fur of his people. He looked up when Herndon approached. When he spoke, it was in lingua spacia with a whistling, almost obscene inflection.
“You looking for me?”
“It depends,” Herndon said. “Are you Mardlin?”
The jackal-like creature nodded. Herndon lowered himself to a nearby seat and said in a quiet voice, “Bollar Benjin sent me to meet you. Here are my credentials.”
He tossed a milky-white clouded cube on the table between them. Mardlin snatched it up hastily in his leathery claws and nudged the activator. An image of Bollar Benjin appeared in the cloudy depths, and a soft voice said, “Benjin speaking. The bearer of this card is known to me, and I trust him fully in all matters. You are to do the same. He will accompany you to Borlaam with the consignment of goods.”
The voice died away, and the image of Benjin vanished. The jackal scowled. He muttered, “If Benjin sent a man to convey his goods, why must I go?”
Herndon shrugged. “He wants both of us to make the trip, it seems. What do you care? You’re getting paid, aren’t you?”
“And so are you,” snapped Mardlin. “It isn’t like Benjin to pay two men to do the same job. And I don’t like you, Rogue.”
“Mutual,” Herndon responded heartily. He stood up. “My orders say I’m to take the freighter Dawnlight back to Borlaam tomorrow evening. I’ll meet you here one hour before to examine the merchandise.”
He made one other stop that day. It was a visit with Brennt, a jewel monger of Vyapore who served as the funnel between the native starstone miners and Benjin’s courier, Mardlin.
Herndon gave his identifying cube to Brennt and said, once he had satisfactorily proved himself, “I’d like to check your books on the last consignment.”
Brennt glanced up sharply. “We keep no books on starstones, idiot. What do you want to know?”
Herndon frowned. “We suspect our courier of diverting some of our stones to his own pocket. We have no way of checking up on him since we can’t ask for vouchers of any kind in starstone traffic.”
The Vyaporan shrugged. “All couriers steal.”
“Starstones cost us eight thousand stellors apiece,” Herndon said. “We can’t afford to lose any of them at that price. Tell me how many are being sent in the current shipment.”
“I don’t remember,” Brennt said.
Scowling, Herndon said, “You and Mardlin are probably in league. We have to take his word for what he brings us—but always three or four of the stones are defective. We believe he buys, say, forty stones from you, pays the three hundred twenty thousand stellors over to you from the account we provide, and then takes three or four from the batch and replaces them with identical but defective stones worth a hundred stellors or so apiece. The profit to him is better than twenty thousand stellors a voyage.
“Or else,” Herndon went on, “you deliberately sell him defective stones at eight thousand stellors. But Mardlin’s no fool, and neither are we.”
“What do you want to know?” the Vyaporan asked.
“How many functional starstones are included in the current consignment?”
Sweat poured from Brennt’s face. “Thirty-nine,” he said after a long pause.
“And did you also supply Mardlin with some blanks to substitute for any of these thirty-nine?”
“N-no,” Brennt said.
“Very good,” said Herndon. He smiled. “I’m sorry to have seemed so overbearing, but we had to find out this information. Will you accept my apologies and shake?”
He held out his hand. Brennt eyed it uncertainly, then took it. With a quick inward twitch Herndon jabbed a needle into the base of the other’s thumb. The quick-acting truth drug took only seconds to operate.
“Now,” Herndon said, “the preliminaries are over. You understand the details of our earlier conversation. Tell me, now, how many starstones is Mardlin paying you for?”
Brennt’s fleshless lips curled angrily, but he was defenseless against the drug. “Thirty-nine,” he said.
“At what total cost?”
“Three hundred twelve thousand stellors.”
Herndon nodded. “How many of those thirty-nine are actually functional starstones?”
“Thirty-five,” Brennt said reluctantly.
“The other four are duds?”
“Yes.”
“A sweet little racket. Did you supply Mardlin with the duds?”
“Yes. At two hundred stellors each.”
“And what happens to the genuine stones that we pay for but that never arrive on Borlaam?”
Brennt’s eyes rolled despairingly. “Mardlin—Mardlin sells them to someone else and pockets the money. I get five hundred stellors per stone for keeping quiet.”
“You’ve kept very quiet today,” Herndon said. “Thanks very much for the information, Brennt. I really should kill you—but you’re much too valuable to us for that. We’ll let you live, but we’re changing the terms of our agreement. From now on we pay you only for actual functioning starstones, not for an entire consignment. Do you like that setup?”
“No,” Brennt said.
“At least you speak truthfully now. But you’re stuck with it. Mardlin is no longer courier, by the way. We can’t afford a man of his tastes in our organization. I don’t advise you try to make any deals with his successor, whoever he is.”
He turned and walked out of the shop.
Herndon knew that Brennt would probably notify Mardlin that the game was up immediately so the Vonnimooro could attempt to get away. Herndon was not particularly worried about Mardlin’s escaping since he had a weapon that would work on the jackal-creature at any distance whatever.
But he had sworn an oath to safeguard the combine’s interests, and Herndon was a man of his oath. Mardlin was in possession of thirty-nine starstones for which the combine had paid. He did not want the Vonnimooro to take those with him.
He legged it across town hurriedly to the house where the courier lived while at the Vyapore end of his route. It took him fifteen minutes from Brennt’s to Mardlin’s—more than enough time for a warning.
Mardlin’s room was on the second story. Herndon drew his weapon from his pocket and knocked.
“Mardlin?”
There was no answer. Herndon said, “I know you’re in there, jackal. The game’s all over. You might as well open the door and let me in.”
A needle came whistling through the door and embedded itself against the opposite wall after missing Herndon’s head by inches. Herndon stepped out of range and glanced down at the object in his hand.
It was the master control for the neuronic network installed in Mardlin’s body. It was quite carefully gradated; shifting the main switch to six would leave the Vonnimooro in no condition to fire a gun. Thoughtfully Herndon nudged the indicator up through the degrees of pain to six and left it there.
He heard a thud within.
Putting his shoulder to the door, he cracked it open with one quick heave. He stepped inside. Mardlin lay sprawled in the middle of the floor writhing in pain. Near him, but beyond his reach, lay the needier he had dropped.
A suitcase sat open and half-filled on the bed. He had evidently intended an immediate getaway.
“Shut … that … thing … off …” Mardlin muttered through pain-twisted lips.
“First some information,” Herndon said cheerfully. “I just had a talk with Brennt. He says you’ve been doing some highly improper things with our starstones. Is this true?”
Mardlin quivered on the floor but said nothing. Herndon raised the control a q
uarter of a notch, intensifying the pain but not yet bringing it to the killing range.
“Is this true?” he repeated.
“Yes—yes! Damn you, shut it off.”
“At the time you had the network installed in your body, it was with the understanding that you’d be loyal to the combine and so it would never need to be used. But you took advantage of circumstances and cheated us. Where’s the current consignment of stones?”
“… suitcase lining,” Mardlin muttered.
“Good,” Herndon said. He scooped up the needier, pocketed it, and shut off the master control switch. The pain subsided in the Vonnimooro’s body, and he lay slumped, exhausted, too battered to rise.
Efficiently Herndon ripped away the suitcase lining and found the packet of starstones. He opened it. They were wrapped in shielding tissue that protected any accidental viewer. He counted through them; there were thirty-nine, as Brennt had said.
“Are any of these defective?” he asked.
Mardlin looked up from the floor with eyes yellow with pain and hatred. “Look through them and see.”
Instead of answering, Herndon shifted the control switch past six again. Mardlin doubled up, clutching his head with clawlike hands. “Yes! Yes! Six defectives!”
“Which means you sold six good ones for forty-eight thousand stellors, less the three thousand you kicked back to Brennt to keep quiet. So there should be forty-five thousand stellors here that you owe us. Where are they?”
“Dresser drawer … top …”
Herndon found the money neatly stacked. A second time he shut off the control device, and Mardlin relaxed.
“Okay,” Herndon said. “I have the cash and the stones. But there must be thousands of stellors that you’ve previously stolen from us.”
“You can have that, too! Only don’t turn that thing on again, please!”
Shrugging, Herndon said, “There isn’t time for me to hunt down the other money you stole from us. But we can ensure against your doing it again.”
He fulfilled the final part of Benjin’s instructions by turning the control switch to ten, the limit of sentient endurance. Every molecule of Mardlin’s wiry body felt unbearable pain; he screamed and danced on the floor, but only for a moment. Nerve cells unable to handle the overload of pain stimuli short-circuited. In seconds his brain was paralyzed. In less than a minute he was dead, though his tortured limbs still quivered with convulsive postmortuary jerks.