Once upon a time, long before the Javelin ploughed a ditch in the black rock of Lapthorn’s Grave, Lapthorn and I had occasion to set the Fire-Eater down on a world which had pretensions to being a planet of beauty and elegance. The people there thought very highly of themselves and had a generally low opinion of everybody else. As a nut cult, I suppose, they were no less unusual than the worm-like citizens of Rhapsody, but they certainly seemed to have a lot more to be proud of (and conceited about). However, I don’t like cults of any kind, and I probably wouldn’t have liked them any better than I liked the Exclusive Rewardists even if they hadn’t been so consistently nasty to me. They thought that Lapthorn and I were pretty poor specimens, both physically and idealistically, and they lost no opportunity to offer us evidence of our failings.
In the main square of the port where we made landfall stood a monument which carried a proud boast of their ambitions and their philosophy. The statue was corny enough—a stylised athlete in the classical mould. The ancient Greeks had produced hundreds just as good, but because the cultists had plonked theirs a thousand light-years from ancient Greece they had a much higher opinion of themselves. The inscription on the pedestal was the motto of the cult.
It read: MEN LIKE GODS
Lapthorn had studied the statue and the inscription with all due seriousness when we first landed, and I could tell that he was impressed. But he was of asthenic rather than athletic build, and never put on weight no matter how much he ate. It would take a lot more than healthy exercise and clean living to turn him into a reasonable imitation of a superman. This, mercifully, prevented him from becoming involved with the culture and philosophy of the world, and the way that the inhabitants went to great lengths to insult us soon drove out any least vestige of admiration which he might have harboured for them.
Hence, when temptation struck me, as it occasionally did, he was unable to muster sufficient disapproval to counsel caution. One night—the last of our intended stay—I, with Lapthorn as accessory before and after the fact, did wilfully and maliciously deface the sacred statue.
I inserted the word DON’T into the inscription.
I thought it was funny.
So did Lapthorn.
They threw us in jail for ninety days (local). Fortunately, the world turned on its axis faster than most.
Until I landed on Rhapsody, that was the only time I was ever in jail. It may seem peculiar that a career so long and checkered as my own should not have resulted in other periods of incarceration, but it was a fact. My innate cautiousness and honesty had conspired to keep me safe from the versatile arm of the Law of New Rome, and simple diplomacy had sufficed to keep me out of trouble on a purely local scale.
That single episode had instilled into me a healthy regard for the dangers of trespassing on other people’s idiosyncrasies. It also added fuel to my strong dislike for those of definite and exclusive faith.
I actually remembered and rehearsed that incident as I approached Rhapsody, but I make no claim to a prophetic gift. I was as surprised as anyone else when we were jumped as soon as the drive-unit was cooled.
I had taken off the hood, and was relaxing in the cradle with my eyes shut. It hadn’t been a difficult approach and landing at the speed I’d elected to adopt—as evidenced by the fact that I’d been able to reflect on old times—but there are proprieties to be observed. A space pilot should always look as if he’s been through hell and a half to get where he is.
Charlot and Nick had gone down to attend to the passengers, and Eve was disconnecting my electrodes with one hand and preparing my shot with the other. We weren’t in any hurry, and while we exchanged a few innocuous and irrelevant remarks some fifteen or twenty minutes crept by. I would have been moderately content, in fact, to stay on board for the duration. We need our terra firma, of course—as I’ve said—but we prefer it accompanied by air and sky and sunlight.
I heard the inner lock swing shut with an unusually loud thump. I presumed, of course, that somebody was getting out. But a few seconds later, an anonymous figure in a surface-suit scrambled into the cabin with an indecent amount of haste.
He was waving a gun.
At first I thought it was Johnny, because he was the only person I knew who habitually waved guns for no good reason. Then I realised that it wasn’t one of our suits, and I knew we’d been jumped.
I couldn’t see his face because of the black glass visor in his helmet, but I could imagine him watching me like a hawk. All-seeing and predatory.
He pointed the gun at me and said, ‘Get out of the chair.’
Strangely enough, that order made me feel better. No spaceman would refer to the cradle as a ‘chair’. Ergo, I conclusion jumped, he hadn’t come to steal my ship. It was me he wanted.
I disentangled myself from the straps, and stood clear of the cradle.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now, one at a time, get down the ladder. Put your suits on slowly.’
The others were already being shipped through the lock, two at a time. There was another heavy with a gun at the bottom of the ladder. They had already seized such of our armoury as was accessible without grubbing in the hold. Eve and I donned our suits with dramatic care. Remembering what conditions on the world were liable to be like, I took a flashlight and secured it inside the suit. The gunman didn’t object.
I was the last to leave. One gunman went out with Eve, the other with me. There was a third waiting outside, and that was all. They had apparently been given no trouble at all. I was very grateful that Johnny hadn’t been inspired by our numerical superiority to put up a fight. The Hooded Swan wasn’t a big ship, as starships go, and with seven passengers, five crew and three gunmen aboard she was distinctly overcrowded. The consequences of a beam battle in a sardine can are dreadful to contemplate.
We were escorted across the surface of Rhapsody away from the Swan. They didn’t leave anyone on board, and they permitted Nick to secure the lock against potential invaders.
I’d put us down in the twilight zone, at the required latitude, within a couple of hundred yards of the surface-lock which gave access to the principal warren. The pinpoint accuracy was a great compliment to my piloting, but no one expressed gratitude that we didn’t have far to walk. The surface was all dust-drifts and rock-jags, and wasn’t suitable for strolling in the evening, but we had no difficulty in obeying the instructions which our captors sent over the open call circuit. They marched us in Indian file to the vast lock, which gave us access to the capital. I looked around briefly, and caught sight of one other ship—presumably the Star Cross ramrod—a couple of miles away towards daylight.
We were permitted to desuit in the reception area under the lock. I was allowed to retain the flashlight, but not to remove any of the other potentially useful things that were secreted in the suit, under the guise of standard equipment. (Like, for instance, food concentrates and the emergency bleep.)
We were now privileged to clap eyes on our captors for the first time, while they crammed us into a hand-operated hoist.
The heavy mob looks the same the universe over. They have never really escaped the influence of the clichés laid down by the earliest exponents of the art of strong-arming. They always have big shoulders and slack features, and a casual swing to their movements deliberately styled to suggest that they can—and maybe do—bend iron bars between their fingers. Our welcoming committee was trying hard—if subconsciously—to give this overall impression, but they weren’t very good at it. Gangsters may be born or made, but these men had had gangsterism thrust upon them. They looked as if they’d rather be pecking away at a rock face, and that was probably their normal occupation.
‘What the hell goes on?’ asked Nick, while the hoist descended noisily. It was Charlot’s picnic, of course, but Charlot hadn’t bothered to protest or demand to be taken to their leader, so perhaps Nick thought it was up to him to expel some hot air. Mavra and company seemed to take the whole affair very fatalistically.
‘Shut up,’ said one of the gunmen bravely.
‘There’s no need to add insult to injury,’ I remarked.
‘Shut up,’ he said again. He obviously didn’t feel up to explaining the situation. A man of action.
‘As a matter of simple curiosity,’ said Charlot oilily, ‘are you institutionalised or freelance?’
No answer.
I rephrased the question for them. ‘He means, are you the regular cops or did you just take up the habit?’
Still no answer. It’s possible that they still didn’t understand the allusion, but I concluded that it was more likely they weren’t going, to say anything more. I admire a man who can take his own advice.
We didn’t get to see much of the local scenery. They hustled us out of the hoist into a dark corridor, and promptly split us into three groups going three different ways. The men of Mavra’s party were one group, the women of Mavra’s party the second, and the crew of the Hooded Swan the third. They marched us up and down long corridors that were all grimly similar. This was the first time we encountered the full force of Rhapsody’s sporadic lighting system. Some corridors had only one lamp, often not centrally placed. Others had two, and were well-endowed by the local standards. Not one of the bulbs was brighter than a wax candle.
Nick, Eve and Charlot were hustled through a door into a minuscule cell. Johnny and I were taken down the passage a little way and shoved into a similar one. It was just as small and just as crowded.
There was a man lying full-length on the bunk. He looked up at us with the ghost of a smile on his face. He was an offworlder, like us. I presumed that if there were other cells, they must all be full of outworlders. Either that or the cavemen were not in the least concerned about our comfort. The cell was about eight feet by six. The bunk was six by four and a toilet took up at least a sixth of the remaining floor space.
‘Standing room only?’ I remarked, gazing steadily at the man sprawled on the bunk.
He got the hint, but he didn’t move.
‘Nice to see you,’ he said, probably with a certain amount of sincerity. It couldn’t have been much fun on his own. ‘Where did you blow in from?’
‘Attalus,’ said Johnny, giving nothing away.
‘You company men?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
There was a pause.
‘Maybe I’d better introduce myself,’ he said. ‘I’m Matthew Sampson. I....’
‘You drive a ramrod for the Star Cross Company,’ I told him, to show that I knew what was what, and in the fond hope that he might be persuaded to tell us something we didn’t already know. ‘You the captain?’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘I thought so. Nobody but a starship captain would take up all the bunk room while we stand.’
He must have taken a dislike to my attitude, because he didn’t move his big feet.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked, instead. His voice was still level and friendly, as if he were trying hard not to take offence.
‘My name’s Johnny Socoro,’ supplied Johnny.
‘I’m Grainger,’ I added.
‘The guy who reached the Lost Star,’ he said, with sudden apparent enthusiasm. ‘Say, you did us a big favour there. Caradoc hasn’t got its face back on straight yet. It lost four ramrods in the Drift, did you hear?’
‘I was there,’ I told him. I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d actually seen the ramrods blow. I didn’t feel like explaining how it had happened.
‘So you’re from New Alexandria,’ he said pensively. ‘You got that crazy ship here—the Hooded Sun?’
‘Swan,’ I said coldly.
‘It’s here, then,’ he repeated.
‘It’s here.’
‘And you’re after the payload?’
‘Payload?’ I asked with sarcastic innocence.
‘Come on, man,’ he protested. ‘We’re all in the same jail. There’s none of us going to be treasure hunting while the war’s on. We might as well sit down and talk about this thing like civilised people.’
‘How civilised?’ I wanted to know.
‘Look, man,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in either of us being dog-in-the-manger when neither of us has the loot. I mean, why not be friends? When it comes to the crunch and the locals want to make a deal, you hold the cards, remember? You got New Alexandria behind you. I only got a boss who’ll hang pictures with my guts if I don’t do things his way. And your ship has ten times the pace of mine, if it comes to a race. I’m no fool, friend, and neither are you. We can make a deal here and have the whole thing settled by the time they let us out.’
‘You’re sure they’re going to let us out?’
‘Ah, the guys with the guns are only trying to tidy things up and keep all the wheeling and dealing on top of the table. It isn’t a revolution, you know.’
‘It might be by now,’ I said, remembering that we’d just thrown Rion Mavra back into the political maelstrom.
‘No,’ he assured me. ‘That’s not the way they do things around here. It’ll all be settled soon, after a lot of talky-talky. The only change from our point of view is that we’ll be dealing with the whole kit and caboodle instead of just Jad Gimli or any other Sons of the Whitewashed Skeleton operating under their own banner. Say, nobody else is here, are they? It is just you and me?’
‘As far as I know,’ I told him, ‘there are no other parties involved. Nor are there likely to be.’
‘That’s good,’ he said, relieved. ‘Now, how about some honest talk? Spirit of good, healthy competition. Open season on the cavies, huh?’ He sat up on the bunk. ‘Take a seat,’ he invited cordially. I sat down, after carefully brushing the place where I intended to sit with the edge of my hand. Sampson gave me a pain. He was about as genuine as a Nineteenth Century antique spaceship.
‘If, as you say, we have all the advantages, why on Rhapsody should we work out a split with you?’ I asked gently.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘But do you know what the payoff actually consists of?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘and neither do you or you wouldn’t be sitting there making a fool of yourself talking a load of utter garbage.’
‘It was worth a try,’ he said, trying to laugh it off.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘The whole line was a bad joke. You’re also way off beam. I’m not the head man in our outfit. Captain delArco outranks me, and if that isn’t enough, we’ve got the New Alexandrian owner along as well. You haven’t got a cat’s chance of getting anything out of this shebang.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said drily. ‘They really will have my guts, you know.’
‘Think yourself lucky,’ I told him. ‘I remember four company captains who got themselves killed.’
‘Big man, eh?’ he said sourly. ‘Tangle with Grainger and you lose your pants?’
‘It’s not me, son,’ I told him, deliberately patronising. ‘It’s you. This crash bang, fast buck space opera stuff isn’t going to get you anywhere but in trouble. What do the companies do to you guys? I know that everything happens in a flat rush these days, and everybody wants to rule the galaxy, but I just don’t see how giving starships to whizz-kids like you is going to make anybody a fortune. The turnover in ships and men must be horrifying.’
‘We aren’t running the rim for half a loaf and a hunk of cheese,’ he said, ‘I know how you made your reputation, and any tramp out of New York port could have done the same. But things don’t work that way now we can get ships into the sky at any rate we choose. What matters now is pace and guts. That’s what makes fortunes.’
‘Pace you’ve got,’ I said. ‘I’ll grant you that.’
He got angry, but he cooled himself almost immediately.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. There’s no point in sitting here arguing. You don’t think much of me, and we both know that I haven’t much chance of swinging this deal my way. Whatever the bloody deal is. But can we at least talk sense?’
‘What kind of sense?’ I asked quietly.
‘You’re not the boss. You just fly the ship. Great. How much do you want to cut me in?’ He swung his eyes to where Johnny squatted on the floor. ‘That goes for you, too.’
Johnny just looked at me. He knew full well how much I hated Charlot. He also thought enough of the Grainger legend to fall in with whatever I decided. He expected me to agree, because of the twenty thousand which would buy my contract with Charlot.
And I was very tempted.
But also cautious.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said. ‘But I don’t see that either of us is in a position to make deals.’
‘I told you. They’ll let us out’
‘So what? That doesn’t automatically give either of us a bite at whatever cherry they’re hiding down in the caves. We’ve nothing to deal with. Either of us.’
‘My company will back me’
‘You don’t know that! How can you possibly know, when we don’t have the slightest idea what these people have for sale?’
‘You can at least let me know whether you’re interested.’
‘Not until I know what’s going on. Once I find out what all this hassle is about, I’ll be in a position to estimate what can, will and ought to be done with it. Until then, nothing.’
‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ he said. ‘The top man—they call him the Hierarch—is called Akim Krist. He doesn’t talk money, just dogma, by all accounts. The man I tried to deal with was Jad Gimli, who was first in on the find after the guy who originally leaked it. Krist found out what Gimli was doing, and began spreading poison all around the Church. The big men, who run a kind of Church council, split at least two ways, and everybody started howling heretic at each other. Somebody—maybe Krist—armed some of the miners and asked them to keep the peace. The miners shoved me in jail, for convenience, while the council got itself reorganised and began to talk strategy instead of hurling accusations. I guess they must have started by now, but it’ll probably take them an age to get things sorted out. They aren’t much concerned with practicalities, only with getting their damned consciences squared. I haven’t seen Gimli since they shut me up, so I don’t have up-to-date information. All I know is that they have to work out some kind of deal eventually, because the last thing they want is to keep the hot potato in their cellar for all time. All the talk will be about what kind of deal. I can’t see them turning out New Alexandria for Star Cross on any kind of pretext, for all that Gimli’s on my side—and anyone else he can bribe. Your side has the bigger money and the better line in holiness. The only way I can see for me to keep my job is to get the loaf sliced, and to grab some away from you. Sure, I’ll be late getting it back, but when Star Cross finds I’ve got some of the goods it’ll reckon I did all I could. Now, I don’t care who I buy my slice from. I’ve offered an open contract to anyone who’d listen. You can include yourself if you want, or not, as the case may be. Fair enough?’
I considered the content of the diatribe carefully. ‘Seems fair,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember you, if the cards happen to fall that way. But don’t take that as an offer. I’m making no deals until I see the gold at the rainbow’s end. Which may be never while we’re stuck in this place.’
Sometime during Sampson’s speech, Johnny had developed a crick in his back from sitting folded up on the floor. He’d got to his feet and seemed to be occupying his time by staring morosely at the implacable door of our cage. He tested the bars that were set in the window—the sort of standard gesture one associates with prisoners.
He looked back at the pair of us, with a wicked gleam in his eye.
‘Like to bust out?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘They have guns. They might shoot’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Sampson, who was understandably attracted by the idea.
‘I can get us out,’ said Johnny confidently.
‘Sure,’ I agreed. ‘He balances himself on the doorway and when the guard brings in our food, he drops on the poor sucker like the avenging angel. It’s all in the movies. I’ve seen it. Go ahead and try, heroes.’
‘No,’ persisted Johnny. ‘It can be done.’
‘You can pick the lock, I suppose,’ I said.
‘That’s the point,’ he mocked back. ‘We don’t have to pick the lock. This isn’t a real jail cell. It’s a punishment cell—for penitents to work off their sins. It wasn’t designed to prevent a determined escape. It hasn’t got a real lock. Only bolts on the outside. And there’s enough space in the crack for us to work them back with a knife-blade or even a comb. It world only take a couple of minutes, if we took a bolt each.’
Sampson was off the bed like a shot, peering into the crevice between the door and the wall.
‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘A kid could break out in five minutes fiat. And I’ve been here the best part of twenty-four hours.’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘There are still the miners out there, and they still have guns. What the hell are we going to do once we’re out?’
‘Whatever you want,’ supplied Sampson. ‘Maybe there’s nothing we can do. But it’s a chance to find out what goes on here, and it’s better than rotting in here. If all you want is to get away, you can always head for the lock and space out.’
‘You don’t seem to get the point,’ I pressed. ‘There are guys out there with guns. With the exception of my trusty flashlight, we’re completely unarmed.’
Sampson made a noise that was intended to indicate scorn. However, I wondered again, did guys like that get to run starships? Low cunning and brashness, I supposed.
‘He’s right,’ said Johnny. ‘Better be out there than in here. We can get clean away before they realise we’re gone’
‘Clean away to where?’
Common sense was on my side, of course. But Sampson thought he was on to a loser anyway, and desperate measures were needed to put him back into the hunt. He didn’t have the slightest idea what might be done, but he was keen to try it. I could imagine him sending out missiles to plough up a contortive domain in a dark nebula, and blowing himself to bits for his trouble. This breed of spaceman couldn’t last for long, inexhaustible supply of ships or not. Simple natural selection would consign them all to hell.
And there was no arguing with Johnny. He wouldn’t learn to sit still until he was badly burned by playing with too much hot property. This was his idea, and nobody was going to talk him out of it.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ he said, to Sampson. He pulled his penknife out of his pocket, and set to work on the upper bolt.
‘Bugger you,’ I said. ‘Play at Count of Monte Cristo if you want to.’
So they did.
I never really believed in digging tunnels with belt buckles and guards who were carefully dispersed so as not to disturb any potential escape plans. But I had to admire the speed and facility with which those two managed to open that door. It was straight out of the comic books. It had real style. I was suitably impressed.
Sampson went off like a rabbit, but Johnny paused to say, ‘Come on, you fool,’ before he too disappeared.
Well, what could I do? My nerves were still ragged from the rigours of the last four days. I was sick of being manipulated by circumstance. I needed to act, to do something, whether it was constructive or pointless or just plain crazy. And I’d look a real fool when the miners came back and found that one of their pigeons had staunchly decided to play by the rules and not indulge in irresponsible chicanery.
I went.
I glanced at the bolts as I left, and remarked silently that it was a damn silly way to design a door.