The Queen of Zamba

II.

While Hasselborg pondered the case on his way to Barcelona, it occurred to him that the fugitive pair might have resorted to some human version of the old shell game, like arranging with another pair of passengers to switch identities after they got to Pluto and then returning to Earth or one of the other inner planets under their assumed names. They might get away with such a dodge, because their prints would not be checked once they had left Barcelona. Having no wish to spend years chasing them through the Galaxy as if they were a pair of rather unholy grails, he looked up the investigating firm of Montejo and Durruti in Barcelona and arranged for them to cover all incoming spaceships until further notice.

Then he sent a last-minute post card to Alexandra—not exactly a professional thing to do, he told himself, but he might be dead before he returned—and boarded the Coronado for Pluto.

There were nine passengers besides Victor Hasselborg, who found himself bunking with one Chuen Liao-dz. They were all squeezed into the little honeycomb of passenger compartments in the nose, below the control compartments and above the cargo and the vast mass of fuel and machinery that occupied nine-tenths of the craft.

After an ineffective effort to unpack his belongings at the same time that Chuen unpacked his—without disclosing the professional equipment—Hasselborg said: "Look here, chum, suppose I lie on the bunk while you unpack; then we trade off?"

"Thank you," said Chuen, a short, thick, dish-faced man with coarse black hair turning gray. "You turn crank on the end of your bunk, and the end comes up like a hospital bed. What's your line, Mr. Hassel-borg?"

"Insurance investigator. What's yours?"

"Ah—I'm economic official to the Chinese government. A very dull person, I assure you. First trip?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then—ah—I suppose you know your instructions for takeoff?"

"Sure. Lie down when I hear the warning bell, et cetera."

"That's right. You'll find exercise compartment down the passageway to the right. Better sign up for one hour out of every twenty-four, subjective time. It'll keep you from going mad from boredom."

That proved no overstatement. With every cubic centimeter accounted for, there were no ports to look out of and no deck space for strolling. Even the minute passenger list ate in two shifts in the tiny compartment that served as lounge the rest of the time for whichever half of the passengers had been lucky enough to preempt the available seats.

When the ship had risen above the plane of the ecliptic and had cut its acceleration back to 1.25 G, Hasselborg played cards, pulled on weights in the exercise room—-just big enough to let him do so without barking his knuckles—and pried into the lives of his fellow passengers. Some proved garrulous and transparent; others opaque and taciturn. He found his roommate, oddly enough, to be loquacious and opaque at the same time. When Chuen was asked what official business he was on, he would reply, vaguely:

"Ah—just looking into possibilities of high-grade imports and exports. No, nothing definite; I shall have to decide on the ground. Only goods of highest quality for a given mass can be handled, you know—"

Hasselborg decided, more in fun than in earnest, that Chuen was really a plain-clothes agent either of China or of the W.F. If such were the case, however, it would do no good to say: "See here, old man, aren't you a cop?" One of the more dismal facts about the profession was that you had to spend so much time playing dumb.

This monotonous half-life, bounded by bare bulkheads and punctuated by bells that reminded the sluggish appetite that the time had come for another meal, continued for days until the warning bell told him they were nearing Pluto. Hours later the pressure of deceleration let up and the loud-speaker in the wall said: "Passageiros sai, por favor!"

Suitcase in hand, Hasselborg followed Chuen down the inclosed ramp that had been attached to the ship's side. As usual there was nothing to see; space travel was no game for a claustrophobe. The ramp moved slightly with the weight of the people walking down it.

An air lock shut behind him, and a young man sat at a desk checking off names on a register. Hasselborg handed over his passport, saying:

"Tenha a bondade, senhor, to let me speak to the head passenger fiscal."

Then, while the inspector went through his bag, Hasselborg identified himself to the head passenger agent, a Brazzy like most of the Viagens people. Hasselborg reflected that, public and internationally-owned corporation though the Viagens was supposed to be, with all jobs strictly civil service, somehow the citizens of the world's leading power always got a disproportionate share of them.

The agent politely insisted on speaking English to Hasselborg, who, not to be outdone, insisted on speaking the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways to the agent. Hasselborg, giving up the contest first, asked:

"I believe two passengers named Fallon and Bat-runi came in on the Jurud, didn't they?"

"Let me think—I can check the register. Was not the Batruni that beautiful girl with the dark hair?"

Hasselborg showed a photograph to the agent, who said: "Ah, yes, that is her. O Gloria-Pdtri, such a woman! What did you wish with her?"

Hasselborg grinned. "Not what you're thinking, Senhor Jorge. Is she still here?"

"No."

"Thought not. Where'd she go?"

The agent looked wary. "Perhaps if yqu could tell me of the circumstances—"

Hasselborg cleared his throat. "Well, Miss Batruni has a father who's anxious to get her back, and Mr. Fallon has a wife who's perhaps less anxious but who is still interested in knowing where he went. And obviously they didn't come all the way out here just to admire the view of the Solar System. Follow me?"

"But—but Miss Batruni is of age; she can go where she likes."

"That's not the point. If she can go where she likes, I can also follow her. Where'd she go?"

"I prefer not to tell you."

"You'll have to, chum. It's public information, and I can raise a stink—"

The agent sighed. "I suppose you can. But it goes against all the traditions of romance. Will you promise me that when you find them you will not spoil this so-beautiful intrigue?"

"I won't promise anything of the sort. I won't put gyves on the girl's wrists and drag her back to Earth at gun point, if that's what you mean. Now, where—"

"They went to Krishna," said the agent.

Hasselborg whistled. As he remembered it, of all the hundreds of known inhabited planets, Krishna had natives the most like human bekigs. That was to Hasselborg's disadvantage, since the elopers could take off from the landing station without oxygen masks or other special equipment and lose themselves among the natives.

Aloud he said: "Obrigado. When does the next ship leave for Krishna?"

The agent glanced at the compound clock on the bulkhead. "In two hours fourteen minutes."

"And when's the next after that?"

Senhor Jorge glanced at the blackboard. "Forty-six days."

"And when does it arrive at Krishna?"

"You mean the ship-time or the Solar-System time?"

Hasselborg shook his head. "I always get confused on that one. Both, let's say."

"Ship-time—that is, subjective time—you arrive in twenty-nine days. Solar-System or objective time, one thousand four hundred ninety-seven days."

"Then Fallon and Miss Batruni will have arrived—how many days ahead of me?"

"Krishna time, about a hundred days."

"Yipe! You mean they take off sixteen days ahead of me; I take twenty-nine days following them; and I arrive a hundred days after they do? But you can't do that!"

"I am sorry, but with the Fitzgerald effect you can. You see they went in the Maranhao, one of the new mail-ships with tub acceleration."

Hasselborg shuddered. "Some day somebody's going to make a round trip on one of your ships and arrive back home before he left."

Meanwhile he thought: to invade an unfamiliar planet required more preparation than he could manage in a couple of hours. On the other hand, he could imagine Batruni's reaction if he arrived back on Earth to spend a month boning up. The magnate would resemble not merely an elephant but a bull elephant in must. Still, for such a fee a chance was worth taking. He asked:

"Is there a bunk available on the one that's leaving now?"

"I will see." The agent buzzed the clerk in the next compartment and held a brief nasal conversation with him. "Yes," he said, "there are two."

"If you'll visa me, I'll take one of them. Have you got a library with information on Krishna?"

Senhor Jorge shrugged. "Not a very good one. We have the Astronaut's Guide and an encyclopedia on microfilm. Some of the men have their own books, but it would take time to round them up. You wish to see what we have?"

"Lead on. I'd also like a look at the register of the Maranhdo, to compare signatures." The real reason was that he wouldn't put it past this superannuated Cupid to give him a bum steer in order to protect the so-beautiful intrigue.

However, the register checked with the agent's statements. Moreover, the library was not very informative. Hasselborg learned that the surface gravity on Krishna was 0.92 G, the atmospheric pressure 1.34 A. the partial pressure of O₂ 1.10 times that of Earth—with a high partial pressure of helium. The people were endoskeletal, bisexual, oviparous, bipedal organisms enough like human beings so that one could pass himself off as the other with a little skillful disguise. In fact there had even been marriages between persons of the two species, although without issue. They had a pre-mechanical culture characterized by such archaisms as war, national sovereignty, epidemics, hereditary status, and private ownership of natural resources. The planet itself was a little larger than Earth but with a lower density and a higher proportion of land to water, so that the total Krishnan land area was nearly three times that of the Earth.

Senhor Jorge opened the door. "You had better come, Mr. Hasselborg; you have only twenty minutes. Here is your passport."

"Just a minute," said Hasselborg, looking up from the viewer and reaching for his pen. He dashed off three short letters to be photographed down and go back to Earth by the next ship: one to Montejo and Durruti calling them off their job, and one each to

Yussuf Batruni and Alexandra Fallon stating briefly whither he was going and why.

When he boarded the ship, he found that space was even more limited than on the first lap of the trip. He had as roommates not only Chuen Liao-dz but also a middle-aged lady from Boston who found the idea most repugnant. He thought, if I were Fallon, now, she'd really have something to worry about.

They arrived.

In contrast to Pluto, the ramp was open to the mild, moist air of Krishna. Great masses of clouds swept in stately procession across the greenish sky, often cutting off the big yellow sun. Even the vegetation was mostly green, with flecks of other hues. Walking down the ramp, Hasselborg could see, stretching like a gray string across the rolling plain, the high wall that marked the boundary of Novorecife.

The next contrast to Pluto was less pleasant. An official person in a fancy uniform said:

"Faqa o favor, passengers going on to Ganesha and Vishnu, into this room. Those stopping off at Krishna in here, please. Now, line up, please. Place your baggage on the floor, open, please."

Hasselborg noticed what looked like a full-length X-ray fluoroscope at one side of the room. More uniforms appeared and began going through the baggage and clothes with microscopic care, while others herded the passengers one by one into the space between the X-ray machine and the fluoroscope to look at their insides. Some of the passengers made heavy weather, especially the lady from Boston, who was plainly unused to Viagens ways.

However, the guard assigned to Hasselborg's pile had barely begun his job when he jumped up as if he had been jabbed from behind with a sharp instru-men. "Alb! What is this?" He had turned over the top layer of clothes and come upon the professional equipment.

Two guards rushed Hasselborg down the hall, while two others followed, one carrying his baggage. They ushered him into an office in which a fat man sat at a desk, and all four talked so fast that Hasselborg, despite a fair command of the language, could hardly follow. One of the guards went through Has-selborg's pockets, making excited noises as he came upon the pistol, the camera, and other items.

The fat man, whose name according to the sign on his desk was Cristovao Abreu, Security Officer, leaned back in his swivel chair and said: "What are you trying to get away with, senhor?"

Hasselborg said loudly: "Not a thing, Senhor Cristovao. What am I supposed to do, click my heels together and salute? What are you trying to get away with? Why are your men hauling me around in this undignified condition? Why do you treat incoming passengers like a bunch of steers arriving at the abattoir? What—"

"Quiet yourself, my friend. Don't bluster at me; it will not excuse your crime."

"What crime?"

"You should know."

"Sorry, chum, but I don't. My papers are in order, and I'm on legitimate—"

"It is not that, but this!" The fat man indicated the wire recorder and other apparatus as if they had been the parts of a dismembered corpse.

"What's wrong with them?"

"Don't you know they're contraband?"

"Mao do Deus! Of course I didn't know. Why are they?"

"Don't you know that the Interplanetary Council has forbidden bringing machinery or inventions into Krishna? Don't tell me anybody can be so ignorant!"

"I can be." Hasselborg gave a short account of the hurried departure that had brought him to Krishna without proper briefing. "And why are these gadgets forbidden?"

Abreu shrugged. "I merely enforce the regulations;

I don't make them. I believe there is some social reason for this policy—to keep the Krishnans from killing each other off too fast before their culture is more advanced in law and government. And here you come with enough inventions to revolutionize their whole existence! I must say— Well, I know my duty. Mauriceu, have you searched this one thoroughly? Then take him to the office of Gois for further examination." And Abreu went back to his papers with the air of having swatted one more noxious insect.

Julio Gois, assistant security officer, turned out to be a good-looking young man with a beaming smile. "I'm sorry you have had this trouble, Mr. Hasselborg, but you gave the Old Man a terrible turn with your apparatus. He was on duty here ten years ago when some visitor introduced the custom of kissing to Krishna, and the excitement from that hasn't died down yet. So he's sensitive on the subject. Now, if you will answer some questions—"

After an hour's interrogation, Gois said: "Your papers are as you say in order, and I'm inclined to agree that if you hadn't been honestly ignorant, you wouldn't have tried to bring your devices in openly. So I'll release you. However, first we'll sequester the things in that pile. You may keep the little club, the knuckle-duster, the notebook, the pen, the knife— No, not the pencil, which is a complicated mechanical device. Take an ordinary wooden pencil instead. No, the breastplate is one of those wonderful new alloys. That's all I can allow you." He switched to English: " 'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."

"Huh," said Hasselborg, "how do I catch these people without the tools of my trade?"

Gois shrugged. "You'll have to use the brain, I think."

Hasselborg rubbed his forehead as if to arouse that organ. "That puts me in a spot. Do you know where

Fallon and Miss Batruni took off for when they left Novorecife?"

"They were headed for Rosid, in the principality of Rüz, which is a dependency of the Kingdom of Gozashtand. Here's a map—" Gois ran a fingernail north from the green spot that symbolized Novorecife, the Viagens outpost.

"Were they traveling under aliases?"

"I don't know. They didn't confide in me."

"What does one need to travel around Krishna?"

"Some native clothes, weapons, and means of transportation. Our barber can give you the antennae and dye your hair. What will you go as?"

"How do you mean?" asked Hasselborg.

"You can't run around without means of support, you can't say you're a Terran spy for fear they'd kill you, and you have to use the disguise. Most nearby rulers are friendly to us, but the common people are ignorant and excitable, and there's no extraterritoriality. Once you leave Novorecife, we wash our hands of you, unless you disobey the regulation about inventions."

"What do you suggest for a cover? I can be an insurance salesman, or a telelog repairman, or—"

"Os santos, no! There's no insurance or radio here. You'd have to go as something that exists, like a palmer—"

"A what?"

"A religious pilgrim. However, that might get you into religious arguments. What's your church?"

"Reformed Atheist."

"Just so. Some of the Terran cults are established here, you know; missionaries got in before the ban went into effect. How about a troubadour?"

"That's out. When I sing, strong men pale, women faint, and children run screaming."

"I have it, a portrait painter!"

"Huh?" Hasselborg sat up with a jerk. He was about to say that he hated all painters, but that would involve explanations to the effect that his former wife had run off with one to live in a shack on the California coast. Instead he said: "I haven't painted anything but roofs for years." (He had been trained in sketching when he was entering the Division of Investigation but chose not to admit it.)

"Oh, you needn't be good. Krishnan art is mostly geometric, and their portraits are so bad by our standards that you'll be a sensation."

"Wouldn't they recognize my technique as exotic?"

"That's all right too; the Terran technique is a fad in Gozashtand. The Council hasn't tried to keep Earth's fine arts out of Krishna. Take a few days to practice your painting and learn Gozashtandou while you have your new equipment made. I see by your letter of credit that you can afford the best. I'll give you an introduction to the Dasht of Ruz—"

"The who of what?"

"I suppose you'd say a baron. He's Jam bad-Kone, a feudal underling of the Dour of Gozashtand."

"Look," said Hasselborg, "at least let me take my pills. I have to keep my health, and nobody'll know what's in them. Do you follow me?"

Gois smiled. "Perhaps we can allow the pills."

When Hasselborg reached the barber shop, he found his shipmate Chuen in the chair ahead of him. The barber had already dyed the man's hair a poisonous green and was affixing a pair of artificial antennae to his forehead by means of little sponge-rubber disks, which merged with the skin so that it was almost impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. The barber said:

"Those should stay for at least a month, but I'll sell you a kit to glue them back on if they should work loose. Remember to let your hair grow longer in back—"

Hasselborg also noted that the barber had glued artificial points to Chuen's ears, so that altogether the man now looked something like an overfed leprechaun. "Hello, Chuen; going out among the aborigines, too?"

"Indeed so. Which direction you taking?"

"They tell me my subjects have gone north. How about you?"

"I don't know yet. You know, I am afraid green hair doesn't become me."

"Better be glad they don't wear those haystack wigs they wore on Earth back in the time of James the Second. Aroint thee, scurvy knave!" Hasselborg made fencing motions.

Gozashtandou proved an easy language for a man who already spoke a dozen. Mornings Hasselborg spent posting solemnly around the bridle path on the back of an aya, while a member of the Viagens staff trotted with him and told him over and over to keep his elbows in, heels down, et cetera. These beasts had an unpleasantly jarring trot, especially since the saddle was right over the middle pair of legs. When he learned that his particular aya had also been trained to draw a carriage, he eagerly bought a light four-wheeled vehicle with a single seat for two. Two or three hundred years before on Earth, he recalled, men had driven a variety of these contraptions and called them by a multitude of special names: buggy, brougham, gig, surrey—something only an antiquarian would know about. At least, one aya and a carriage should in the long run be as cheap and convenient as, and more comfortable than, an aya to ride and a second to carry his gear.

Afternoons he put in an hour or two with another staffer who flourished a dummy sword and yelled: "No, no, always you wave the blade too wide!"

"That's how they do it in the movies."

"Do they try to kill people in the movies? No, they try to give the audience a thrill, which is different—"

With Chuen he practiced Krishnan conversation and table manners. The main tools were a pair of little spears to be held like chopsticks. Chuen, of course, had a great advantage here. Gois, watching Hasselborg's fumbles, turned beet-red containing his mirth.

"Go ahead and laugh," said Hasselborg. "I should think the Council would at least let us show 'em knives and forks."

Gois shrugged. "The Council has been very strict since the tobacco habit invaded the planet, amigo meu. Some consider the Council unreasonable for saying that by letting these people have knives and forks we'd be inviting an interplanetary war, but—"

"Are the Krishnans as dangerous as that?"

"Not so much dangerous as backward. The Council reasons that it will be time enough letting them have an industrial revolution when they have more civilized ideas about politics and the like. I don't think they know what they want; the policy changes from year to year. And some say the stupid Council will always find reasons to stop progress on Krishna. Progress— Ah, my friends, I must get back to Earth before I'm too old to see its wonders."

At this outburst Hasselborg exchanged a quick glance with Chuen, who said: "What's your opinion of the regulation, Senhor Julio?"

"Me?" said Gois in English. "I am but a poor, infirm, weak, and despised young man. I have no opinions." And he changed the subject in a marked manner.

Hasselborg stayed on a week after Chuen left, working on his orientation. Since the authorities would not let him take along the photographs of Jul-nar and Fallon, he practiced copying them with pencil and brush until he achieved recognizable likeness. He balked at Gois's suggestion that he load himself down with a complete suit of armor but finally compromised on a shirt of fine chain mail. He also bought a sword, a dagger with a fancy guard, a big leather wallet like an Earth woman's handbag with a shoulder-strap and many compartments, and a native dictionary of Gozashtandou-Portuguese and Portuguese-Gozashtandou, like all Krishnan books printed on a long strip of paper folded zigzag between a pair of wooden covers.

Then one morning before sunrise, while two of Krishna's three moons still bathed the landscape, he set out from the north gate. He felt a little foolish in fancy hat and monkey jacket but philosophically told himself he had lived through worse things. Gois had been adamant about letting him take his rubbers. Hasselborg, much as he dreaded wet feet, had to admit that rubbers over the soft-leather high Krishnan boots would have looked a little bizarre.

That young man was there to see him off. Hasselborg said: "Have you got that letter of introduction?" He half expected a negative, since Gois had been putting off writing the thing on one excuse or another.

"Sim, here… here it is."

Hasselborg frowned. "What's the matter? Sit up all night writing it?" For Gois had a nervous, distracted look.

"Not quite. I had to choose the right wording. Be sure not to break the seals, or the dasht will get suspicious. And whatever happens, remember that Julio Gois esteems you."

A funny sort of farewell, thought Hasselborg; but he simply said: "Ate a vista!" and tickled his aya's rump with his whip until it went into a brisk trot on the road to Rosid.