No Man's World

VII

Well, they hadn’t arrested him.

Not that that meant a great deal. There would be no trouble picking him up. And all the nuclear artillery in this city wouldn’t save him once they opened up. His own little popgun had been left him as a contemptuous matter of indifference.

He was condemned already and as good as executed. Or brain-cleared or whatever type of corrective punishment they favored here. As he was an outworlder they’d probably take the easiest and cheapest way out.

The door chimes went. With a resigned grunt he opened the door and Greg Rawson and Sharon Ogilvie came in. They were not smiling.

“Didn’t waste much time, Mr. Carter, did they?”

“No. They’ll be seeing you next.”

“I expect they will. I understand they work fast here.”

Sharon moved across and put a hand on Caradine’s arm. The hand shook. She stared at him full in the face and her eyes flicked sideways. Caradine caught on. They knew this room was tapped. They wanted to talk and they didn’t want eavesdroppers.

He said evenly, “I was about to go down to dinner.”

“Yes.” Rawson said meaningfully. “A day tramping around museums does make you peckish.”

On the way out Caradine digested that.

It was just one more smell to add to the rest.

And he’d walked right into it like a newborn babe!

They all went out into the open-air patio for a few moments before going in to dinner. Caradine paused by an arch where crimson flowers not unlike a rose bloomed gorgeously.

“You don’t have to spell it out,” he said harshly. “What’s your price?”

“Now, Mr. Carter!” said Sharon, lifting her eyebrows in mock surprise.

Rawson said, “We discussed the designs Horakah have on both Ahansic and Shanstar. You have a visa to go to Alpha—”

“I doubt that that will stay in force now.”

Sharon said, “I believe we can trust your word, Carter. If you promise to help us, we will go along purely on the strength of that.”

“And suppose AHura Koanga also testifies?”

Rawson laughed. “Let her. She can’t get you out of this, Carter. Only Sharon and I can. And even then it’ll be touch and go. We can swing a few heavier weapons than you suspect. If we corroborate your story, then youll go free. And to Alpha. If we merely say that we were in museums this afternoon, and can prove it, you’ll bum.”

“And the wrecked car out there in that field?”

Sharon flashed Rawson a nasty look. He said equably, “Hired in the name of Brown, by a robot agency. And it will be disposed of by this time, anyway. Of course, that cost plenty of Galaxos.”

“So it seems you have me.”

“Yes. You’ll go along with us, Carter, or you’ll bum.”

“I’ve given my word already. You mentioned that just now.

I’ve promised that I won’t spy for anyone on Alpha. So where do we go from here?”

Rawson smiled his ugly smile again.

“You misunderstand me, Carter. We’re not asking you to spy on Alpha for us. Oh, no.”

“What then?”

“You will arrange for us to go with you to Alpha, Carter. Simply that.”

After lunch Caradine had looked forward to an interesting afternoon excursion. Then he was going to pick up his visa and take the next ship out to Alpha.

After dinner he felt that the whole galaxy had fallen in on him.

He had to keep remembering that he had no rights on this world. If Rawson and Sharon denied his story, then he would be condemned out of hand. Oh, sure, there’d be a trial. But it would be robotic, open and shut. There would be no he-detector tests. Why bother? He’d claim an alibi, and that alibi had been proved to be a clumsy He.

He’dfry all right.

Unless by some miracle the Gamma police believed Allura’s story.

He went to find her. How long he had before Rawson wanted his answer he wasn’t sure. The police were bound to pick up the couple from Ahansic as soon as they could, and that perhaps explained why they hadn’t gone in to dinner with Caradine. He had made a good meal. Danger never had bothered his appetite; which was useful. In his previous career had it done so he’d have starved.

His previous career! Hell, that was a laugh. Here he’d thought himself finished with all this sort of nonsense and able to setde down to being an urbane businessman, and he was caught up in trouble to his neck again. Only this time he was on the receiving end. The sensation was most unpleasant.

Allura Koanga wasn’t in the hotel and he didn’t remember seeing her in the dining room. Hsien, her uncle, wasn’t about, either. Caradine strolled out onto the terrace, looking in on the patio on his way. Empty. The patio reminded him vividly of Harriet Lafonde and of the visa that might or might not be awaiting him there.

He rather badly wanted to talk to her before Rawson returned for his answer. Allura might just be able to tip the scales. All these people were so much more than they seemed. Posing as businessmen with nieces and casual acquaintances tagging along, they might fool all but the important five percent of officialdom. At first, they’d certainly fooled him.

It seemed pretty clear that Rawson had fixed the murder. Then with Caradine out of the way on an alibi the key to which was firmly held in Rawson’s hands, he had him just where he wanted him. With his nose in the dirt. Caradine forced his anger down. Temper wouldn’t be the slightest use now.

Maybe Rawson could swing the alibi if he wanted. That he was an Outworlder from Ahansic would normally tell against him and his word; but maybe, just maybe, there were other factors at work. Caradine paced up and down the terrace, smoking a red stogie and trying to think a way through the mess.

If Rawson had stagemanaged the murder, then he had others working for him on Gamma-Horakah. Caradine recalled the man with the dark secretive face and the cleft chin. He’d automatically assumed the man to be a secret policeman working for Gamma-Horakah. Now he wasn’t so sure. It was possible for Rawson to have bribed a Horakah official. That way he’d know about the Beatty one millimeter. The pieces of the puzzle kept jumping about in Caradine’s brain. But the pieces by themselves had only limited importance; the main picture held the threat.

The sky began to darken and a news bulletin broadcast a warning of the weather bureau’s next ten-minute shower for cleansing purposes.

Control of the weather was kid’s stuff compared with trying to control the emotions in men and women.

For a few extra planets, a little more prestige, men would fight and kill and destroy. It didn’t really make sense. It added up to a black question mark against the name of Homo sapiens in the galaxy. Was Man fitted to five in an interstellar civilization? There were plenty of other races of non-humans who lived on their own planets, totally unfit for comfortable human habitation, who managed to five amicably. Fighting, it seemed, having been bred into humanity, took a darn sight longer to be bred out.

Colored lights were going on all along the terrace and were twinkling merrily over the city. The rain had begun to fall, straight glinting lances in the lamplight. Allura and her uncle returned. They stepped from a black car which drove off fast.

Allura’s face was drawn and strained as she came face to face with Caradine.

“So giving you a lift brings all this,” she said bitterly. “Police?”

Hsien Koanga said, “Of course. They took Allura in for questioning. I am surprised to see you still at large, Mr. Carter.”

“They’ve seen me. I’m under surveillance. They know where to pick me up.”

He waited for Allura to tell him. The police had got to her first. Well, that was to be expected.

“They say,” she said, visibly bringing herself under control, “that you shot a boy in an alley this afternoon.”

He inclined his head gravely.

“Well, we know you didn’t. But they don’t believe me.” She was holding the anger, the humiliating, almost hysterical anger, in very well. “That, of course, is because we wouldn’t he to save one of our own people.”

“And there,” Hsien Koanga said with great bitterness, “lies the irony.”

“Irony?”

“Why, yes, Mr. Carter. Or whatever your name is. I received intelligence from Shanstar today. You have bought a ranch on Five. You are well-known there, well-liked, too, I’m told.”

Caradine kept that grave, polite smile on his face. But he was feeling that any more blows under the belt would put him down forever.

“The irony is, Mr. What’s-your-name, that you’re not one of us. You don’t belong to Shanstar at all.”