The Long Way Home

19

Langley didn’t exactly smuggle Marin back to his apartment—if she were noticed, it wouldn’t excite much comment—but he did try to be discreet about it. Then he surprised himself by sleeping better than he had done for weeks.

On the following day, he took microcopies of all the library data on the Society, as well as having the robot prepare a summary, and stuck the spool in his purse. It was dismaying to reflect what a series of thin links his hopes depended on. Valti’s character was one; he thought the trader could shake off a lifetime’s conditioning enough to look a few facts and a little reasoning in the face, but was he sure?

Mardos had him in for another interview. The historian was getting eager, as one unknown datum after another emerged. Some of his careful cynicism dropped off: “Think of it! The very dawn of the technological and space-travel era—the most crucial epoch since man invented agriculture—and you lived in it! You know, you’ve already upset a dozen well-established theories. We had no idea that there was so much cultural difference between nations, then, for instance. It explains a good many puzzling features of later history.”

“So you’ll write a book?” asked Langley. He was having a hard time keeping up the act, it was all he could do not to pace the floor and chain-smoke as he waited for evening.

“Oh, yes... yes.” Mardos got a shy look on his face. “And yet... well, I started out with the notion that I might get some small fame and an upgrading out of this. Now I don’t care. It’s only the job itself, the learning, that matters. You ... you’ve shown me a little of what it must have been like in your age, the feeling of discovery. I’ve never known what real happiness was before.”

“Uh—”

“It’ll take years to build up a coherent picture. What you can tell us will have to be correlated with the archeological evidence. No hurry, no need to rush you. Why not come to my place for dinner tonight? We’ll relax, maybe have a few drinks and some music—”

“Uh... no. No, thanks. I’m busy.”

“Tomorrow, then? My wife would like to meet you. Father knows I’ve been talking of nothing else at home.”

“All right.” Langley felt like a skunk. When the interview was over, he had to restrain himself from saying good-bye.

The sun slipped down under the horizon. Langley and Marin ate supper in the apartment without tasting it. Her eyes were thoughtful as they looked across a twilit world.

“Will you miss Earth?” he asked.

She smiled gently. “A little. Now and then. But not too much, with you around.”

He got up and took a gown from the clothes chute for her. With its cowl over her hair, she had an appealing boyish look, a very youthful student. “Let’s go,” he said.

They went out the hall, to the flange and the moving bridgeway. A crowd laughed and chattered around them, gaily dressed, off on a restless hunt for pleasure. The lights were a hectic rainbow haze.

Langley tried to suppress the tension within himself. There was nothing to be gained by this jittering wonder about the forces leagued against him. Relax, breathe deep, savor the night air and the vision of stars and spires. Tomorrow you may be dead.

He couldn’t. He hoped his wire-taut nerves weren’t shown by his face. Walk slowly, gravely, as befits a man of learning. Forget that you have a gun under your arm.

The Twin Moons was a fairly well-known tavern of the slightly shady kind, nestled on the roof above low-level, just under the giant leap of metal which was Interplanetary Enterprises Tower. Walking in, Langley found himself in a Martian atmosphere, deep greenish-blue sky, a modern canal and an ancient fragment of red desert. There was a blur of scented smoke and the minor-key whine of a Martian folk song. Private booths were arranged along one wall with the appearance of caves in a tawny bluff; opposite was a bar and a stage, on which a shapely ecdysiast was going through her contortions in a bored fashion. The timeless hum and clatter of a well-filled inn was low under the music.

Langley elbowed up to the bar. “Two beers,” he said. The robot extended an arm with glasses, pumped them full from the arm itself, and sprouted a metallic hand for the money.

A man with the sun-darkened skin and gangling build of a Martian nodded at him. “Don’t see many professors in a place like this,” he remarked.

“It’s our night out,” said Langley.

“Mine, too, I suppose. Can’t wait to get home again, though. This planet’s too heavy. ’Course, Mars is all shot these days, too. We ran the Solar System once. Those were the good old days. Now we’re just nice obedient children of the Technon, like everybody else—”

A black uniform came up behind. The Martian snapped his mouth shut and tried to look innocent.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the policeman. He tapped Langley’s shoulder. “They’re waiting for you.”

The spaceman’s world buckled—just for a moment, then he recognized the now beardless face under the helmet. This man had pulled a blaster on Brannoch’s agents, down in the slums. It seemed very long ago.

“Of course,” he said, and followed him. Marin trailed behind. They entered a booth.

It was full of uniforms. One bulky shape wore light combat armor; Valti’s tones came through the helmet. “Good evening, captain, my lady. Is everything clear?”

“Yes. All set, I think.”

“This way. I have an understanding with mine host.” Valti pressed his finger to a spot on the decorative design. The rear wall opened, and the first stairs Langley had seen in this age led upward to a tiny room where two uniforms of Ministerial military officers were laid out. “Put them on, please,” said Valti. “I think you can better act an aristocrat than a slave. But let me do the talking, except to Saris.”

“O. K.”

Marin shed her robe and climbed into the tunic with no sign of embarrassment. Hair drawn up under a light steel cap, cloak falling carelessly from her shoulders, she could pass for a teenage Minister who had pulled rank to come along on this mission for a lark.

Valti explained the plan, then led the way down again, out the booth and into the street. The party numbered a score. It seemed very little to throw against all the might of Sol.

Nothing was said as the bridgeways carried them toward the military research center on the western edge of town. Langley wanted to hold Marin’s hand, but that was impossible just now. He sat thinking his own thoughts.

Their destination was a tower jutting up from the sheer clifflike wall of the city; it stood somewhat apart from its neighbors, and there must be guns and armor behind its smooth plastic façade. As Valti’s group got off onto a central flange and walked toward the entrance, three slave guards stepped from an offside niche. They bowed in unison, and one asked their business.

“Special and urgent,” said Valti. The box over his head muffled his accent. “We are to remove a certain object of study secretly to a safer place. Here are our papers.”

One of the guards trundled out a table bearing instruments. The authorization was scanned microscopically; Langley guessed that Technon documents had some invisible code number which was changed daily at random. The retinal patterns of several men were scanned and compared with those recorded on the papers. Then the chief sentry nodded. “Very good, sir. Do you require assistance?”

“Yes,” said Valti. “Bring a police van around for us. We’ll be out soon. And don’t admit anyone else till we’re gone.”

Langley thought of automatic guns hidden in the walls. But the door dilated for him and he followed Valti down a corridor. They went past several pillbox rooms whose personnel did not interfere, then had to stop at a second check point. After that they went on to Saris” prison; the papers told them where it was.

The Holatan lay on a couch behind bars. The rest of the chamber was an enigmatic jumble of laboratory equipment. There were sentries with mechanical as well as energy guns, and a pair of technicians working at a desk. They had to call up their boss for another discussion before they could release their captive.

Langley had gone up to the cell. Saris made no sign of recognition. “Hello,” said the spaceman softly, in English. “Are you all right?”

“Yess. So far they iss only electrical and other measurementss made. But iss hard to be caged.”

“Have you been taught the present language?”

“Yess. Very well, better than English.”

Langley felt weak with relief. His whole precarious plan had depended on this one assumption and on the amazing Holatan linguistic ability.

“I’ve come to get you out,” he said. “But it’ll take some doing; you’ll have to cooperate and risk your neck.”

Bitterness edged the bass purr: “My life? Iss all? That iss not much... now.”

“Marin knows the facts and what my scheme is. Now you’ll have to be told. But it’ll be the three of us against everybody else.” Swiftly, the man sketched out his knowledge and plans.

The golden eyes flared with a quick fierce light, and muscles bunched under the fur. But the voice said only: “Iss well. We will try it thus,” in a careful tone of boredom and hopelessness.

Valti won his point with the supervisor. A long metal box with a few airholes was pushed in on an antigravity sled. Saris was prodded into it from his cell, and the lid locked over him. “Shall we go, my lord?” asked Valti.

“Yes,” said the American. “The arrangements are complete.”

Several men pushed the floating box back down the halls. Even with its weight nullified, the inertia was still considerable, and turning on the propulsion unit might set off automatic alarm. When they came back on the flange, a large black flier hovered waiting for them. Saris” crate was put into the rear compartment, the men piled in with it or into the cab, and Valti started it off for the Centaurian embassy.

Shoving back his helmet for a breath of air, the trader revealed a sweating face. “This is getting more ticklish by the minute,” he complained. “If only we could go direct to my flitter! That superintendent back in the lab will be calling up Chanthavar soon, I’ll bet my nose, and then the grease will be off the griddle!”

Langley debated trying his scheme now, before they took on the next enemy. By-passing Brannoch entirely- No. There wasn’t time. And Saris was almost helpless behind a mechanical lock. He bit his lip and waited.

The van stopped near the ambassadorial tower, of which the League had the upper third for apartments and offices. Valti led half his group toward the entrance. Again he had to produce papers and go through a check; Chanthavar was keeping the place heavily guarded. This time his ostensible orders were to remove certain key Centaurian personnel -he hinted that they were to be taken on a one-way ride, and the chief watchman grinned.

“Fetch the box in,” reminded Langley.

“What?” asked Valti, astonished. “Why, my lord?”

“They may try something desperate. You never know. This will be a shock to them. Best to be prepared.”

“But will the... device... function properly, my lord?”

“It will. I’ve tested it.”

Valti teetered on the edge of decision, and Langley felt sweat start out on his palms. If the trader said no-!

“All right, my lord. It may be a good idea at that.”

The box wavered slowly through an opened portal. There was no one in sight, the lesser fry must be sleeping in their own quarters. Brannoch’s private door was ahead. It opened as they approached, and the Thorian loomed huge in it.

“What’s this?” he asked coldly. His heavy form crouched under the wildly colored pajamas, ready for a final despairing leap at their guns. “I didn’t invite you.”

Valti threw back his helmet. “You may not be sorry for this call, my lord,” he said.

“Oh.. you. And Langley too, and—Come in!” The giant led them to his living room. “What’s this, now?”

Valti explained. The triumph flaring in his face made Brannoch look inhuman.

Langley stood by the floating metal coffin. He couldn’t speak to Saris, couldn’t warn him of anything or tell him, “Now.” The Holatan lay blind in an iron dark, only the senses and powers of his mind to reach forth.

“You hear that, Thrymka?” shouted Brannoch. “Let’s go! I’ll call the men—”

“No!”

Brannoch checked himself in mid-stride. “What’s the matter?”

“Do not call them,” said the artificial voice. “We have expected this. We know what to do. You go with them, alone; we will follow soon on our sled.”

“What in all space—”

“Hurry! There is more at stake than you know. Chanthavar may come any instant, and we have much to do yet.”

Brannoch wavered. Given a moment to think, he would remember Saris” abilities, notice the sudden slight accent of his Thrymans. But he had just been roused from sleep, he was used to obeying their orders—

Valti shoved him. Relief was obvious on the florid countenance. “They’re right, my lord. It’d be devilish hard to get their tank out inconspicuously, and take minutes to collect all your men. Let us be gone!”

Brannoch nodded, kicked his feet into a pair of shoes, and went out the door between his supposed guards. Langley stole a glance at Marin, her face was white with strain. He hoped the crazy thunder of his own heart didn’t show.

So far, so good. Stopping at the embassy had been unavoidable, but the extra opposition picked up there had been kept down to one man—and a man whom Langley’s conscience required should be told the truth.

Saris had not only meant to take control of the Thryman microphones, but to short-out the circuits of their anti-gravity sled, leave them sitting helplessly behind. Had he done that—was he strong enough?

Perhaps!

It would be strange, though, if those shrewd and suspicious intelligences were content with an arrangement which would leave them the prisoners of any accident. There must be means for repairing the apparatus, robot tools controllable from inside the tank. There were surely means of calling up the entire ring of Centaurian spies and saboteurs, throwing them all away just to break through Chanthavar’s men and get into a concealed spaceship and flee.

The Thrymans were going to escape. There was no way of preventing that. They were probably going to pursue. And Chanthavar wouldn’t be peacefully asleep much longer, either. The question was whether Valti’s group could get out of tracer range before one or the other party was in action.

It’ll be interesting to find out, thought Langley.