From the spaceport gates, exchanging brief greetings with the guards, I
took a last look at the Kharsa. For a minute I toyed with the notion of
just disappearing down one of those streets. It’s not hard to disappear
on Wolf, if you know how. And I knew, or had known once. Loyalty to
Terra? What had Terra given me except a taste of color and adventure,
out there in the Dry-towns, and then taken it away again?
If an Earthman is very lucky and very careful, he lasts about ten years
in Intelligence. I had had two years more than my share. I still knew
enough to leave my Terran identity behind like a worn-out jacket. I
could seek out Rakhal, settle our blood-feud, see Juli again….
How could I see Juli again? As her husband’s murderer? No other way.
Blood-feud on Wolf is a terrible and elaborate ritual of the code
duello. And once I stepped outside the borders of Terran law, sooner or
later Rakhal and I would meet. And one of us would die.
I looked back, just once, at the dark rambling streets away from the
square. Then I turned toward the blue-white lights that hurt my eyes,
and the starship that loomed, huge and hateful, before me.
A steward in white took my fingerprint and led me to a coffin-sized
chamber. He brought me coffee and sandwiches–I hadn’t, after all, eaten
in the spaceport cafe–then got me into the skyhook and strapped me,
deftly and firmly, into the acceleration cushions, tugging at the
Garensen belts until I ached all over. A long needle went into my
arm–the narcotic that would keep me safely drowsy all through the
terrible tug of interstellar acceleration.
Doors clanged, buzzers vibrated lower down in the ship, men tramped the
corridors calling to one another in the language of the spaceports. I
understood one word in four. I shut my eyes, not caring. At the end of
the trip there would be another star, another world, another language.
Another life.
I had spent all my adult life on Wolf. Juli had been a child under the
red star. But it was a pair of wide crimson eyes and black hair combed
into ringlets like spun black glass that went down with me into the
bottomless pit of sleep….
* * * * *
Someone was shaking me.
“Ah, come on, Cargill. Wake up, man. Shake your boots!”
My mouth, foul-tasting and stiff, fumbled at the shapes of words. “Wha’
happened? Wha’ y’ want?” My eyes throbbed. When I got them open I saw
two men in black leathers bending over me. We were still inside gravity.
“Get out of the skyhook. You’re coming with us.”
“Wha’–” Even through the layers of the sedative, that got to me. Only a
criminal, under interstellar law, can be removed from a passage-paid
starship once he has formally checked in on board. I was legally, at
this moment, on my “planet of destination.”
“I haven’t been charged–”
“Did I say you had?” snapped one man.
“Shut up, he’s doped,” the other said hurriedly. “Look,” he continued,
pronouncing every word loudly and distinctly, “get up now, and come with
us. The co-ordinator will hold up blastoff if we don’t get off in three
minutes, and Operations will scream. Come on, please.”
Then I was stumbling along the lighted, empty corridor, swaying between
the two men, foggily realizing the crew must think me a fugitive caught
trying to leave the planet.
The locks dilated. A uniformed spaceman watched us, fussily regarding a
chronometer. He fretted. “The dispatcher’s office–”
“We’re doing the best we can,” the Spaceforce man said. “Can you walk,
Cargill?”
I could, though my feet were a little shaky on the ladders. The violet
moonlight had deepened to mauve, and gusty winds spun tendrils of grit
across my face. The Spaceforce men shepherded me, one on either side, to
the gateway.
“What the hell is all this? Is something wrong with my pass?”
The guard shook his head. “How would I know? Magnusson put out the
order, take it up with him.”
“Believe me,” I muttered, “I will.”
They looked at each other. “Hell,” said one, “he’s not under arrest, we
don’t have to haul him around like a convict. Can you walk all right
now, Cargill? You know where the Secret Service office is, don’t you?
Floor 38. The Chief wants you, and make it fast.”
I knew it made no sense to ask questions, they obviously knew no more
than I did. I asked anyhow.
“Are they holding the ship for me? I’m supposed to be leaving on it.”
“Not that one,” the guard answered, jerking his head toward the
spaceport. I looked back just in time to see the dust-dimmed ship leap
upward, briefly whitened in the field searchlights, and vanish into the
surging clouds above.
My head was clearing fast, and anger speeded up the process. The HQ
building was empty in the chill silence of just before dawn. I had to
rout out a dozing elevator operator, and as the lift swooped upward my
anger rose with it. I wasn’t working for Magnusson any more. What right
had he, or anybody, to grab me off an outbound starship like a criminal?
By the time I barged into his office, I was spoiling for a fight.
