"I don't know much." Turpyn's face was now expressionless. "And a lot is guessing—from things I once heard—"
"Spare us time waste," ordered Yolyos. "Begin with what you do know and let us judge whether it be small or large."
"Mind you—I have only bits and pieces," he still insisted. "But what I have heard is this—that there is a place where, for a price, one could exchange a man for his android double. And that double could be programed to do what the buyer desired, while the real man was kept in storage, to be disposed of later if wished."
"A likely story!" Andas burst out.
"Be not so quick, young man." That was Tsiwon now inside the door. "Never say anything is impossible. And this service"—he advanced to the other side of the desk and leaned across to better meet Turpyn eye to eye—"was run by whom? The Guild?"
Turpyn shook his head. "None of ours. Would I be here if it was?"
Grasty snickered. "You might, if there was a power struggle on. Promotion in the Guild changes often by force."
Turpyn's mouth drew tight, but he neither looked at the councilor nor answered that taunt. "The Mengians were responsible—according to what I heard."
Andas was bewildered. That name was new to him. But he saw the change on three other faces. Grasty speedily lost that malicious grin, and both Tsiwon and Elys looked startled. There was a shadow of what could only have been fear on all three.
"Enlighten us," Yolyos ordered. "Do not complicate matters. Who—or what—are the Mengians?"
"The heirs of the Psychocrats." Tsiwon spoke before Turpyn. "It is not generally known, but those were not totally wiped out when their oligarchy fell. There have always been tales that a handful escaped, withdrew to some hidden place to carry on their experiment, the code name for their headquarters being Mengia. Now and then legends have a remarkable core of reality."
Andas shivered. Psychocrats had not meddled in Dingane's system. But they had heard tales. If their sort still existed, it would be dark knowledge to set at least a quarter of the galaxy having nightmares.
"This—this could be so." Grasty had lost his arrogance. "It is the sort of plan they would make, this introducing rulers of their own. And, by all accounts, their techs had the skills to make undetectable androids. Why, they could reconquer all they had lost, without discovery until too late! Back—I must get back to Thrisk—warn—"
"It may already be far too late," Tsiwon said slowly. "We do not know how long we have been here. Our replicas could well have turned our rulerships into holdings for the Mengians."
That first chill Andas had felt was nothing to the cold encasing him now. If they had been prisoners of some remnant of the Psychocrats, why, then even the weird difference in time they had worked out earlier could also be true! They could have been kept here in some state resembling stass-freeze. And that had been known to last for centuries of planet time!
It was Yolyos who spoke. "You mentioned earlier, Turpyn, that this service was run for sale. Then you speak of it being a Mengian plot to regain their control. Which was it—transactions with those who had good reason to wish us personally out of the way, or a plot aimed at us simply because we held the positions that we did?"
Turpyn shook his head. "That is one of the things I can't answer, and it is 'can't' and not 'won't,' I assure you. I heard of this setup as a straight transaction. On payment, anyone selected would be taken, his android double substituted. Then there was a second rumor that the buyer himself was double-crossed. How true I can't tell."
"But to fashion such an android, implant it with the proper memories—how could they do it?" Elys wondered. "They would have to be almost flawless to deceive those who know us well. Such a process would take time. And if we did not lend ourselves to memory taping, how could they do it?"
"If the Mengians are the Psychocrats and they are responsible," Andas said, though he shrank from what seemed the truth, "then they could do it, somehow. They did stranger things with men's bodies and minds when they ruled."
"All the more reason"—Grasty pushed forward—"for us to get back as quickly as possible and see what has happened, repair the damage—"
He must not have considered time lapse, Andas decided. But to get away from here, yes, that was their first concern. Only how? Yolyos was already on that track.
"You know something of such installations as this." He addressed Turpyn. "How do they get supplies? I do not believe that the food we have just eaten was grown from proto cells."
"Behind you is a ship call, but the setting suggests a robot autocontrol," the Veep answered. "If any supply ship comes, it must also be robot, locked on a single course. In order to use it for escape, we shall have to substitute tapes, and where will you get another? Unless the ship has a collection—which is not always the equipment of a locked course transport."
"What is this room? There are records of some sort stored here." Andas tried to fit his thumb into the release on the nearest cabinet and found it impossible.
"Locked—on some personna lock."
"Since when has such a thing as a personna lock," inquired Grasty, "kept a barrier intact when faced by a Guild tech? You can open these."
"Given time and tools, yes," Turpyn admitted.
"You'll have both," the Salariki promised. "Suppose we start looking for tools now."
Though Turpyn grumbled and swore that he probably could not find the delicate instruments he needed, he went to the smaller section of the outer room where one of the robots, halted like the rest in mid-section, had been engaged in repairing one of its fellows whose outer casing sat to one side. The main parts of its inner works were spread out on a bench.
There the Veep picked and chose until he had a handful of small tools Andas could not identify. They had all trailed along to watch him, as if their united wills could spur him to greater efforts.
With his possible pick-locks he went to the record room and set to work. That he was an artist in his field was clearly to be seen. Andas wondered at his dexterity. If he were a Veep, surely he would not be one of the general workmen of the Guild—unless there were criminal actions that fell to the upper class alone. At any rate, he knew what he was doing.
It took a long time. Tsiwon pleaded fatigue and went back to his cell. Sometime later a drooping Elys followed him, seeming to have lost her fear of being alone.
Grasty had taken the chair before the visa-screen, fitting his flabby bulk into it with difficulty. Andas watched for a while, but was too restless to stay on in that narrow room, choosing to prowl about the larger chamber, moving less warily now among the stalled robots.
Beside the repair alcove was the room into which the food robot had gone, but he could not open that door. However, there was another, which yielded.
A burning hot wind blew into his face. His eyes squinted against a glare as he took one step into the outer world, his hand keeping the door ready for retreat from this heat, light, and smell, for the air had an acrid odor that set him coughing. He feared to remain outside long. He had had time enough to sight the burn-scarred, slag-frosted surface of a landing field. How long had it been since the last ship set down there?
Coughing, he retreated, sealing out that atmosphere. One thing was plain. Without some form of body protection, probably also breathing masks and eye goggles, none of them could last long planet-side here.
There were no other openings. He made the circuit of the walls, returning to the room where Turpyn still worked. And he arrived just in time to see the Veep stand back and give a jerk with a tool he had set point-deep in one of those depressed locks. There was a splintering sound, and the drawer opened.
His guess was right. Orderly rows of taped records faced them. Grasty was still trying to pry himself out of the chair, but Yolyos elbowed Turpyn aside and raked out the nearest tape case.
Where there should have been a title there was only a code—as they might have expected.
"A reader—where is a reader?" Grasty hammered on the desk
top with the puffy palm of his hand as if that would make the necessary device rise out of its surface.
But it seemed that Turpyn knew something more of the room. He snatched the tape from the Salariki, shook it from its case, and snapped it into a slot topping a small bank of controls that took up more than half of the desk surface.
"Out of the way, you tub of sogweed!" He pushed at Grasty, sending the big man away from the desk.
Turpyn paid him no more attention, turning instead to thumb a lever. The visa-screen rippled alive, and a clear picture showed there in tri-dee detail. It was the body of an alien, totally naked.
"Zacathan." Andas did not know he had made that identification aloud until he heard his own voice. But that was speedily drowned out by a precise voice, human in timbre, reciting a series of code sounds that had no meaning. The picture changed from the whole body to sections, each enlarged, and always accompanied by the code.
They watched to the end of the tape, learning nothing more than the exact details of the unknown Zacathan's body. Then both the pictures and the voice were gone.
"I think," Yolyos remarked, "that that was a pattern for the making of an android. Some other unfortunate who was meant to join our company, but he did not. Suppose we try another."
The second tape was poised in his hand to be inserted in the reader when the visa-screen flashed a new image. But now the code symbols running across it meant something to Turpyn.
"Ship planeting," he announced.
At the same time there was a clanking noise from the outer room, and Andas, nearest to the door, moved to look out.
Three of the largest robots, which had been in one line against the far wall, were moving forward as if the arrival of the ship activated them when it was still off-world. They were cargo carriers, and they were rumbling on toward that door through which Andas had looked out into the waste.
-3-
"That is the present situation." Yolyos had their full attention as he stood with one hand resting on the broad back of a carrier robot. "We have managed—or rather Turpyn has—to halt the unloading. And until the ship is emptied, it will remain finned down out there. It is not a passenger ship, but there is a life-unit section in it for emergencies, though we shall find those quarters very crowded if we can retape the ship and take off."
Andas considered all the ifs, ands, and buts that now faced them. It would be easy enough to stow aboard in that life section and allow the ship to transport them back. Only that would land them in the hands of the enemy. They must reset the ship with another trip tape. But so far all the cabinets had offered them were broadcasts of code and series of pictures in detail of men and aliens.
Watching those as they tested tape after tape, Andas wondered if they would turn up those pertaining to any member of their own small company. So far that had not happened. And Turpyn was raiding more compartments than the first he had opened, now choosing samples in a random fashion.
They ate again and, driven by fatigue, slept. And they continued to split into two parties, though Tsiwon at present stayed closer to Andas and his companions. While they kept together, neither Grasty nor the Veep appeared very friendly.
It was on the second day that Turpyn admitted defeat. He stood surrounded by gaping drawers, a full tide of discarded tapes rising almost ankle-deep on the floor.
"Nothing." He announced failure in a flat voice. "Nothing we can use."
Andas spoke up. "We have not tried the ship."
"Getting into her will be the problem," but there was a trace of animation in Turpyn's tone. "I have some tech knowledge, but I am no spacer. What of you?" He swung his head slowly, giving each a searching stare.
Andas's own experience went no farther than that of a passenger. And he believed no one here could say more, unless Turpyn, in spite of his denial, was holding out on them. To their surprise, Elys spoke first.
"I know that the entrance ramps are controlled from within. But certainly this is a problem that must have arisen somewhere, sometime before. Are there no emergency ways to enter a ship?"
It was as if her words turned a key deep in Andas's memory. He had a fleeting picture of a ship finned down on a landing strip, a figure climbing by handholds on the outer edge of the fin itself, something he had seen in passing. He had asked an idle question at the time.
"The service hatch!"
He was not even aware they were all watching him. Surely all ships were general in some points of construction. If so, this one should have the same hatch.
"Above the fins." He cut his explanation. "A repair hatch for techs. There's a chance that might open."
"Any chance is worth taking now." Tsiwon's usual quaver disappeared in an excitement that strengthened his voice.
"At night or at twilight anyway," Yolyos said. When Andas, eager to try to prove his memory right, would have objected, the Salariki pointed out the obvious.
"We have no protective clothing. To go out in the glare of that sun and perhaps have to remain in the open working—"
He was right. To none of them, different in race and species as they were, did this world hold welcome beyond the door of their prison.
And Andas, impatient as he was, was aware of another problem. Once within the repair hatch, if they could find and open that, was there access to the rest of the interior of the ship or only to a confined section for techs? If he, if any one of them, only knew more! The education of an Imperial prince was certainly lacking in survival training. Not that they would speedily die here if they could not find a way out, but perhaps quick death would be better than lingering stagnation.
The party attempting to invade the ship narrowed to three—Andas, Yolyos, and Turpyn, whose tech knowledge was indispensable. After the harsh sun that blistered this unknown world set and its glare was gone, they headed for the field.
Whatever remote controls triggered the landing of the cargo had not functioned. It was as hatch-sealed as if in space. But they wasted no time in heading directly for the fins. Luckily the winds, with their torturing dryness, had died away, though it still hurt to breathe too deeply, and Andas wondered what long exposure to this atmosphere might do to their bodies.
The hand and foot holds were there. Though they did not want to, they must let Turpyn make the first climb, since if the hatch was to be forced, only he could deal with it. Andas swung up close on his heels. He had no trust in the Veep.
Clinging to the holds below Turpyn, whom he heard now and then spitting an oath in a tongue not Basic, Andas tried not to breathe too deeply and to ignore the stinging of his nose and the way his eyes teared.
Turpyn gave a louder grunt and humped up, Andas quick to follow, with Yolyos behind him. As he pulled within the shell of the ship, he found himself in a narrow passage, so narrow that it was difficult to squeeze through. There was a second hatch Turpyn's torch showed, but the Veep had started to climb again, using more handholds to ascend to the upper levels.
So they won through the narrow ways meant only for techs, on major repairs, into the living quarters. After a quick inspection Turpyn gave a sigh of relief.
"This has been in use and not too long ago—perhaps on the last trip of the ship. It can be activated with some work. But we shall have to see about the controls. It will do us no good otherwise."
They followed him up to the control cabin. There were signs that at times this drone did carry a crew, for webbing seats were slung for both pilot and astrogator before the proper controls.
Turpyn pushed past those to stand before the pilot's board, studying the array of buttons and levers. Then he pressed one, and there was an audible click as a trip tape arose from a slot.
"If there is a file of these—" He weighed the useless one in his hand. Andas had already started searching by the astrogator's seat. And his prying and pulling at a snug thumbhole paid off. A compartment opened to show in its well-cushioned interior four more tape casings. He clawed the first out to look at the symbol on its side. But he did no
t recognize it. In fact, they might be entirely off any galactic map he was familiar with. He dropped it to the web seat and picked a second.
Again disappointment. No longer did he expect any luck, but perhaps some other of their company would know more. Only—the third! At first he could not believe the report of his eyes, running his finger back and forth to feel the slight roughness of that raised design, assuring himself that it was there.
"Inyanga—it is Inyanga!"
Yolyos had scooped up the two discarded ones. "And that one—" He pointed to the last in the compartment.
"It does not matter!" The prince treasured his find in his two hands lest someone snatch it from him. He had his key to home. "Don't you understand? This will take us to Inyanga—and from there you can reach your own worlds."
"Still I am interested." Yolyos secured the last one.
"Naul—"
Andas held to his tape with a jealous grip. All right, so there was one for Naul. But they would go first to Inyanga.
"I think"—the Salariki might have been reading his mind—"that you will find some slight opposition to such a plan, Prince. And we do not know where we are, so that Naul may well be the best and safest choice after all."
Yolyos shoved the two unknowns back into the compartment. He kept the one for Naul. But Andas had no intention of surrendering the one he held until he himself dropped it into the right slot and knew the ship was heading for home.
Oddly enough, Turpyn paid little attention to their exchange. He was moving around the control cabin testing this lever, pressing that button, as if to assure himself that the ship could be switched from drone to active status. Finally he spoke.
"It will do. Cramped quarters for all, and no knowing how long a flight. There ought to be E-rations on board. But we had better see to supplies."
They went down into the living space again. As the Veep had pointed out, that section was never meant to house more than four at a time. But to get away from their prison was worth any amount of crowding.
There were stored rations, and the air plant was in action, though if their voyage was too long—Was Naul nearer? Perhaps their best chance lay with one of the strange tapes. Yet why would Naul or Inyanga be stored at all unless they were both within easy cruising distance? Only a First-In Scout or a Patrol cruiser carried tapes on long voyages.