There was the sound of running feet. The darkness and the echoes conspired to prevent me from defining the direction from which the sounds came. But they were close. There was no need for me to dive for the nearest cover. I’d been skulking in deep shadow whenever the opportunity presented itself.
There was a brief pause, while one set of footsteps died away, and then there was a gunshot. In the wake of the staccato echoes, many footsteps started up again. There were obviously several pursuers and several pursued. I crept forward to the nearest corner, intending to take a quick look at the lighted street in the hope of seeing something which might give me an idea what was going on. Then somebody stuck a gun barrel into the small of my back.
I froze, and a hand grabbed the collar of my borrowed overall.
‘Quietly,’ hissed a voice, and the gunman began to pull me backwards. He was fairly gentle, obviously because he wanted me to comply with his wishes and keep it silent.
He backed me up through twenty metres or more of total shadow. He then reversed our positions, and pushed me into the half-light which filtered around the corner from another street.
‘He’s an offworlder,’ said an incredulous whisper. It wasn’t the man who held me but an invisible companion. I had to admire the way they moved in absolute silence. I hadn’t suspected the presence of either one until I was touched, although their initial approach might have been masked by the gunshot and the runners.
‘Who the hell are you?’ whispered a second voice—that of my captor.
‘My name’s Grainger,’ I told him, in a hoarse whisper.
‘What are you doing here?’ he breathed.
‘I escaped from the capital. They had me in prison.’ I saw no logical alternative but to tell the truth. I could hardly claim to be a tourist.
‘I think we’re in the clear,’ said the other voice, this time from the corner.
‘Whose side are you on?’ continued my interrogator.
‘Nobody’s,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to find out what’s going on.’ He released my collar, but kept the gun barrel pressed against my spine.
‘Give it ten minutes,’ he said to the other man.
‘What are you doing on Rhapsody?’ This from the second man, who had moved back from the corner again. He was obviously used to moving about in pitch-blackness with the lightness of a ballet dancer. And whatever he was wearing on his feet, it wasn’t boots like mine.
‘I’m a pilot,’ I explained. ‘My owner heard that there was something up for sale here, and he came to try to buy it. We brought some exiles back with us.’
‘Exiles?’ he hissed. ‘Coming back?’
‘That’s right,’ I said, wondering why he’d reacted.
‘Rion Mavra?’
‘He was one of them.’ Suddenly, I could hear him breathing. Something connected with Mavra or with exiles in general was obviously stirring him up.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘Outcasts,’ he said briefly, as if that explained everything.
‘It doesn’t mean a thing,’ said the first man, talking to his compatriot. ‘Mavra coming back. You know that. We still don’t exist.’
The pressure of the gun eased slightly, and I contemplated trying to grab it. But these men didn’t have anything against me, and I wasn’t in any overt danger of being shot, just so long as I did what they told me. I decided to let things ride.
Then they pushed me up to the corner again. After a moment’s pause, we went out into the street. Here I was able to see them for the first time. One was tall and thin. He walked in front of me in a cat-footed version of the local gait. He looked big and awkward, but he moved confidently and silently. The other—the man behind me, who covered me with his gun—was short and cadaverous. He was older. Both men were as pale as albinos, but they wore black caps to conceal their hair and their faces were discoloured with dirt. Only their hands and eyelids betrayed the real whiteness of their skin.
‘Come on,’ said the short man. ‘Move it. We can’t hang around here.’
‘We’re all right,’ the other assured him. ‘The miners went after the others.’
‘Why don’t we just split, and leave this one behind?’
‘No,’ said the tall man. ‘He might be able to tell us something.’
I should be so lucky.
We moved out of the township and into a corridor. It was lighted in the same perfunctory manner as the one by which I’d gained access to the town, but it didn’t look like the same one. It was narrower and deeper.
‘Look,’ said the short man, to me. ‘The lights give out along here. You put your hand out onto Tob’s shoulder. He’ll lead you. I’ll be right behind you.’
‘I’ve got a flashlight,’ I said.
‘Light! Forget it. You got to get used to the dark some time, kid. This might as well be it. Can’t be afraid of the dark all your life.’
I was tempted to point out that people who did not live out their lives on Rhapsody could, in fact, afford that very luxury, but I refrained. I also refrained from fishing out the flashlight. I put my hand on Tob’s shoulder, as I was instructed, and allowed him to lead me.
‘The gun’s still here,’ the short man reminded me, once we were again entombed by darkness. ‘Don’t think I’ll be shooting blind, neither. I’ll hit you if I have to.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him. ‘At the moment I need a few friends far more than I need a couple more enemies. I’m on your side, at least for now.’
‘Stop talking,’ he said. ‘Keep moving.’
We seemed to go around endless bends, as though we were negotiating a maze. But the tunnels which we used were always a comfortable size. There was no crawling or climbing. The general direction of our journey seemed to be downward, and we were usually heading into slow-moving warm airflow, down arterial passages toward the hotcore. At first, we moved with exaggerated caution, stopping occasionally while one or other of the men satisfied his doubts as to whether it was safe to continue. But as time went on they both relaxed. They didn’t say much nothing relevant, anyhow. They were probably guarding their tongues on my account.
It seemed a long way, but it was all easy. Our destination turned out to be a big cave not unlike the one where the town had been built. But this one hadn’t yet been appropriated by the property developers as a suburb full of desirable family residences. Such buildings as there were had been thrown together, by inexpert hands, and they sat in a miserable huddle surrounded by acres of empty space. It was obviously more than a temporary resting place, but it was certainly not civilisation even by the somewhat elementary standards which applied in the Splinters. The only thing which seemed out of the ordinary about the cave itself was the fact that it provided its own lighting. Its vast dome was sprinkled with patches of luminescent bioplasm. The light was not strong, but compared with the feeble lamps characteristic of Rhapsody it seemed to me to be as glorious as daylight. It occurred to me that the only reason why this cave had not been appropriated for colonisation could well be the presence of the abundant natural illumination.
The people who had moved in here were presumably the outcasts of Rhapsody’s religious society—and so, in fact, the two who had grabbed me had termed themselves. Any society which maintains itself by rigid principles—whether they be laws or beliefs—inevitably has occasion to cast out or otherwise dispose of its misfits. The Splinter culture, being basically non-violent, would naturally choose expulsion. For the privileged, expulsion to Attalus. For the underprivileged, a simple get-lost-and-look-after-yourselves. Which couldn’t be easy, on a planet which lived so close to the survival line.
There were half a dozen other men visible in the ramshackle village as we passed through its streets. If you can call the gaps in between stone tents ‘streets’. The lanky man gently prised my fingers from his shoulder. I’d been so taken up with first impressions of the place that I’d omitted to realise there was no further need of being led.
He then ushered me into one of the largest of the dwellings—one which was more or less centrally placed. It was remarkable in that it was the first building in the warren I had seen which possessed windows. Inside, it was grim and grey, but it seemed more like a real house than the solid boxes of the town and the capital. It had only two rooms, but these were large and furnished adequately, if crudely. The bed was a strung frame like a spaceship bunk; the table was a cunningly balanced edifice of stone. The chairs were strung frames as well, and had apparently been improvised from various sources.
‘Very nice,’ I commented to Tob. ‘Almost palatial, in fact. But a little more light would brighten it up considerably.’
‘You can see, can’t you?’ he replied.
‘After a fashion.’ But he, of course, was used to nothing more. He had never seen a sun.
‘Wait here for Bayon,’ he said.
‘Who’s Bayon?’ I asked.
‘It’s his house. He’s the boss.’
‘A priest?’ I guessed.
He laughed. ‘Ain’t no Churchmen here. They get along without us, we get along without them. Now, you just sit. Bayon won’t be long. And don’t try to run away.’
‘I’m quite well aware of the pointlessness of running away,’ I told him. ‘I’m on your side, remember?’
‘Yeah,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘I remember.’
Then he left; presumably to talk to his friends. I looked out of the window for a while, but nothing of any consequence seemed to be happening. So I went back and sat down.
I was very hungry. It was a considerable time since I’d last eaten, and that had only been gruel. Not that there was liable to be anything better available here. Normal worlds have fake food, and good worlds have real food. But Rhapsody only had converters. Probably obsolescent and inefficient converters at that. I tried to imagine anything more lifeless and unappealing than gruel. I found, somewhat to my surprise, that it was easy. Everyone complains about gruel, but everyone eats it. One could do a lot worse.
My thoughts of hunger were interrupted by the arrival of Bayon. He came in, escorted by Tob and two other men, obviously prepared for a session of interrogation. Their manner was not exactly hostile, but it was determined.
Bayon was a tall man, like Tob, but of thicker build. For a troglodyte, he was something of a giant. But his frame wasn’t fully fleshed out. He could have put on a lot more weight without beginning to look fat. Life must be hard for the refugees. He carried a power rifle—the only one I’d seen in the possession of the outcasts. The other men carried less sophisticated weapons.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘have you decided whether to eat me yourselves or feed me to the crocodiles?’ The allusion was totally wasted.
‘I’m Bayon Alpart,’ said the leader—the man I’d already tagged as the big cheese.
‘My name’s Grainger,’ I told him. ‘I pilot starships. You, I take it, have no particular vocation except staying alive.’
‘We’re outcasts,’ he said.
‘I know’
‘You’d better tell me what you’re doing here,’ he said. ‘The whole story. Don’t leave anything out.’
I sighed, and went over the whole sordid story again. I told it all straight, and I didn’t leave anything out. I suspected that these were people I could work with, people whose interests might be persuaded to coincide with my own. I saw my first real chance of getting the whole mess sorted out, and actually doing something with the pieces.
It was a longer story than I’d anticipated, and it took a long time. My audience seemed totally engrossed and adequately entertained.
I even managed to forget, for a while, that I was on the brink of starvation.