Planet of trechery, p.7
Planet Of Trechery, page 7
Perhaps that formula explained Zolotin's longevity in a world of cutthroat politics, which was the state of things on Gastonia if Jules read his remarks correctly. The d'Alemberts were not here to play things safe, however; if this Tshombase were in any position of power, he would probably be involved in the conspiracy they'd come to investigate. They would be tangling with the man sooner or later-but first it was wisest to learn the ground rules of this new world they were forced to inhabit.
"Where do we find a place to stay?" Vonnie asked. "The guards didn't tell us much at all."
"I'll take you to the Central Registry," Zolotin said. "They'll assign you quarters and a job. You both together?"
"We're married, yes."
Zolotin gave Vonnie a knowing leer. "A young, good-looking woman can earn big money fast. Sex ratio here's better than three-to-two male."
"I'm not that desperate, thank you!" Vonnie exclaimed. The driver shrugged. "Suit yourself. But your value is higher now than it will be later. Hard work on Gastonia lowers your desirability and your price. In a couple of months, maybe nobody'll want you."
Yvonne spent the remainder of the ride in angry silence, leaving the rest of the interrogation to her husband. Zolotin was an infuriatingly taciturn man, seldom volunteering any information; Jules practically had to use a crowbar to pry loose any useful data. The yagi's slow pace, though, gave him plenty of time to ask questions and build up a picture of the society in which they would be living.
There were more than twenty thousand people living in "the village," as the local settlement was called. Most people worked at menial jobs-hunting wild animals, growing crops, working at crafts, tanning hides and constructing buildings being the chief occupations. The village was ruled by a mayor and his lieutenants, who achieved their positions of power by sheer brute force. The job of mayor was subject to change without notice. This was, after all, a planet populated by ambitious, scheming, violent people; little wonder the political situation was so volatile.
After a ride of almost an hour over a "road" that was merely an accumulation of tracks in the snow, the sleigh topped a hill and the d'Alemberts had their first glimpse of the village. It was much larger than they had expected. The Empire provided the inhabitants with some prefabricated dwellings, a basic minimum for survival, but the people themselves had enlarged on that by using native trees as timber and adding constructions of their own. Houses were laid out in irregular streets that wound narrowly up and around a group of low hills. Larger buildings, Zolotin told them, were bars, barracks, storehouses, and homes of the more affluent citizens-that is, the mayor and his gang.
Zolotin dropped them off in front of the Central Registry, where they would be required to check in and arrange for their future jobs and housing. The driver then rode off without a word of farewell, and they made no effort to thank him-he, had made no move of friendship or courtesy, and they felt required to give none in return. He had taught them the first lesson of Gastonia: don't get involved with other people.
The d'Alemberts entered the Registry, and found the indoors scarcely warmer than the frigid climate outside. They were greeted by a sour-faced bearded man behind the counter who regarded them as an intrusion on his privacy. After taking their names, he informed them brusquely that they could have a but of their own for four hundred slugs a month or they could live in the barracks for a hundred slugs apiece. Since they needed some privacy to talk out their ideas together, they opted for the hut.
"Cash in advance," the clerk said. Jules counted out four hundred slugs from their assembled change and handed it across the counter. "Not enough," the clerk said, looking at it with slight disdain.
"What do you mean?" Jules counted it again, aloud. "There's one hundred, two hundred, two-fifty, three, three-fifty, four hundred."
For the first time, the clerk smiled. "Zolotin taught you that, didn't he?"
Jules was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Yes, why?"
"He does that to all the warmies," the clerk said, working hard now to suppress his laughter. "He taught you wrong probably took about 150 slugs from you, if I know him." The clerk showed them the right way to figure the change, and he was right-Zolotin had taken 150 slugs apiece. Figured the new way, each of them had started with only 350-and now they had only enough money to pay their first month's rent in advance.
Zolotin had also taught them the second lesson of Gastonia: never trust anybody.
"What'll we do about food until we get our first pay?" Vonnie asked.
"You can apply for a loan," the clerk said, slipping back to his previous sour expression now that the joke was over. "Interest rate is twenty percent, compounded daily."
"I see," Jules said, and he did. They were rapidly learning the third lesson of Gastonia: money is everything. "We'll both need jobs, though, before we could pay back the loan. What have you got available?"
The clerk looked Jules up and down. "Have you ever done much hunting?"
Jules remembered his last hunting trip. It was on Ansegria, as part of Princess Edna's Progress-quite a different situation from the present one. "Yes," he said. "I'm pretty good."
The clerk sneered. "With a spear?"
Jules refused to be daunted. "I've never tried it that way, but I'll bet I'd still be smooth."
"Let's try you and see." The clerk led Jules out back to a yard where the outline of a small quadrupedal animal had been crudely chalked on a wall. The two men stood twenty meters away and the clerk handed Jules a long spear. The shaft was of a lightweight wood, the point of chipped stone held onto the haft by leather thongs. Jules suddenly realized how primitive the conditions on Gastonia were.
He hefted the weapon for a few seconds, allowing himself to become accustomed-to its weight and balance, then suddenly hurled it-with the strength of a DesPlainian and the accuracy of a skilled aerialist-directly toward the target. The stone tip, dulled from repeated usage, did not stick in the target-but it did hit close to dead center before bouncing off. Jules looked at the clerk. "Khorosho, how's that?"
If the man was impressed by the newcomer's ability, he managed not to show it. "Head shots are best," was all he said. "Gut shots can spoil the meat."
"Sorry. Let me try again." Jules's second attempt did hit the target's head, though was not as well-placed as he would have liked. He knew his cousin Jean, the Circus's knife thrower, would have been able to split the creature's eye five times out of five.
His performance, though, was good enough to convince the clerk that he could handle a hunter's job, and the man assigned him to the lowest-grade hunting position with a team scheduled to go out on a two-day hunt the next morning. Apparently good hunters were hard to find; even the lowest position as a hunter paid better than other professions-and since pay was based in part on how much he caught, Jules stood a chance to make good money indeed.
Vonnie would have liked to get a hunting job, too; it sounded much more interesting than any of the work available in town. But she knew that she and Jules should cover as wide a cross section of Gastonian society as possible in order to find out what they needed to know, so she ended up taking a menial job in one of the village's tanneries. Their combined salaries would be small, but they calculated that it would at least be enough to pay for their food and rent, with a little left over to repay the loan quickly, before it mounted out of all proportion. They straightened out all the financial arrangements and the clerk directed them to their new home.
After half an hour of wandering through the narrow, twisting streets they finally located the but that was theirs. It turned out to be a prefabricated, one-room hovel, crude and lacking anything in the way of furniture. The "bed" was a pile of moldy furs thrown in one corner of the floor; all cooking would have to be done in the fireplace-but they had no kettle, no pots, no implements and no firewood. All would have to be purchased out of the small and dwindling supply of money they had borrowed-money they had thought would be needed only for food. As for personal hygiene, it soon became clear that they would have to share the communal lavatory facilities with their other neighbors along this street.
A lesser pair might have broken into tears at the turn their fortunes had taken. Instead, the d'Alemberts merely stood for several silent minutes in the center of their hut, gazing around themselves at the sorry conditions they would have to endure.
"Cherie," Jules said at last, "if I ever decide to commit treason for real, do me a favor-talk me out of it."
Chapter 6
The Gastonian Way
They found a food stall that was open and bought a few staples to see themselves through the night. They were learning to survive on Gastonia, though; they dickered over the price instead of merely paying what the seller asked, saving themselves more than half of the initial demand. They also had to buy firewood, since Jules had no axe with which to chop his own; he did find a couple of long sticks, though, on which they could roast their vegetables over the fire. It was not a connoisseur's meal, but they were both too ravenously hungry to care. The strain of this first day on Gastonia had taken its toll on even their superhuman bodies, and they went to bed immediately after dinner, making no attempt to explore the village further. It was cold inside their but despite the fire, and they huddled together under the furs for warmth; that part, at least, was far from objectionable.
Jules was up at dawn the next morning to report for work with his hunting team. There would be half a dozen other men on this particular expedition, all under the supervision of their group leader, a man named Dusabi. All the others had been on many hunts before and knew each other well-although it was clear from some of the interchanges that they didn't all like one another. Jules braced himself for the inevitable kidding he would take; a new man on a tough job was usually the butt of practical jokes, delivered in a spirit that could sometimes be cruel. Jules, as the warmest of all possible "warmies," was fair game.
Each man was given his own spear, with a different number of notches on the haft for identification; that way, they could tell which man had been responsible for which kill, and judge his pay accordingly. Then the group started out on foot away from the village and into the forest beyond. Some of the men sang as they marched, others chose not to.
Jules struck up a conversation with one man, a fellow named Bagheddes. Though the other man was reluctant to talk much with this brash newcomer, Jules did manage to pry some useful information out of him. This was a small hunting party, as such things went; that was because they would be staying near the village and hunting only small game-wolflike animals called sleekars that traveled in packs. It was not uncommon for some of the hunting parties to take as many as thirty men and be gone from the village for a week or more. The larger groups hunted bigger game, and usually took a sleigh and yagi with them to bring back their catch. The bigger parties were considered the choice assignments; pay and working conditions were much better there than in a small group like this. The men in this particular party either were not very good hunters or else were out of favor with the mayor and his gang.
They reached the forest after a two-hour walk, and spread out for the hunt. Group leader Dusabi stayed close by Jules, explaining the procedures of the hunt. The sleekars were animals about the size of large dogs with shaggy gray-brown fur, flat muzzles and sharp, rending claws. They traveled mostly in packs through the trees and were slightly out of their element on the ground-although with their sharp claws they could be fierce opponents if cornered. They had been known to drop out of trees and attack humans, though such attacks were rare; their usual prey was the small tree-dwelling rodents that lived all through the forest.
They'd been hunting for more than an hour without success before a cry from one of their fellow hunters drew their attention off to the right. Dusabi broke into a run in that direction, and Jules was right at his heels. Even before they reached the man who'd made the sighting, they spotted the pack of sleekars rushing through the treetops straight toward them. Jules was frankly astounded at how fast such large creatures could bound from branch to branch; the herd was almost upon him before he could stop and take hold of his spear, preparing to throw.
Beside him, Dusabi planted his feet, took careful aim and hurled his stone-tipped spear at his chosen target. The missile lodged cleanly in the beast's neck, and was thrown with such force that its tip went cleanly through the tissue and came out on the other side. The sleekar gave a brief scream that was abruptly cut off in a gurgle, and fell from its branch to land on the ground a few meters away from the men.
Jules's throw was no less accurate. As he was taking aim his quarry seemed to sense his intention. It turned suddenly and snarled at him, baring a mouthful of vicious fangs and leaping down directly toward him. Jules hurled his spear instinctively with all his DesPlainian strength-and the missile went straight into the beast's gaping mouth and completely through the back of the throat. The sleekar fell dead at his feet, while his spear lodged into a tree branch high above.
The pack continued its panicked stampede through the branches overhead, and within less than two minutes the entire confrontation between hunters and sleekars was over. Jules, after checking that the treetops were now safe once again, climbed up into the tree to retrieve his spear while Dusabi took count of this particular hunt. As Jules was climbing down again, the group leader announced the results. "Four kills: one for Ashai, one for Jeddman and two for me."
Jules stared at him, unbelieving. "You only killed one. That other one is mine."
"Your spear stuck in the tree," Dusabi said calmly. "You just finished getting it out."
"Sure it stuck in the tree-after it went clean through the throat. You were right beside me. You saw me kill it." "Did I.?"
Jules d'Alembert was normally a man of very even temper. An agent of his caliber could seldom afford to let his emotions control his actions because his life depended on every move be made. But he had suffered nothing but humiliation at the hands of these scum for the past two days, and he was tired of being pushed around. If the law of the jungle was all that applied here, he'd show these people he could roar with the loudest. It was time he earned a little respect.
Taking his spear, he walked over to where Dusabi was standing next to Jules's kill and, with full DesPlainian strength, jammed his spear through the dead sleekar's head. In the forest silence, the crunching of the skull carried to the ears of each hunter; brains and blood splattered on the ground and across the top of Jules's boots. Jules ignored that. He let go of the spear and it stood upright, while he focused his entire attention on Dusabi.
"My spear is in it now," Jules said in a cold fury, enunciating each syllable. "I claim the kill."
The other men in the party gathered in a circle around Jules and Dusabi as the duel of wills flared. For an instant it seemed the very air between the two would ionize from the charge of personality flowing back and forth. Finally, without taking his eyes from Jules's face, Dusabi took a step away. "Four kills," he repeated in an even tone. "One for Ashai, one for Jeddman, one for Brecht and one for me."
From that point onward, Jules was accepted as art equal in the party. People didn't necessarily like him any better--no one seemed very friendly to anyone else on Gastonia--but he was at least treated with the respect they gave someone who could hold his own in their company.
The four dead sleekars were lashed together with leather thongs and hung from a tree branch, to be gathered up tomorrow on their way back to the village. Dusabi sprinkled a greenish powder over the bodies, and at Jules's inquiry explained that it was a peppery substance that kept the local scavengers from becoming too interested in the hunters' catch.
They left that location well-marked and traveled onward. As Jules surmised, they would have to travel quite a distance before they could hope to find another pack of sleekars; such large carnivores needed a wide hunting area themselves to support their numbers, and the territories of various packs would not overlap. They stopped for a short midday meal; Jules had not known to bring his own food, but managed to get small portions from each of his colleagues with a promise to pay them back at the end of the hunt.
There was one more hunt later that day, and Jules again bagged a sleekar, one of the five killed in this encounter. He heard assorted mumblings of "beginner's luck," but paid them no attention. A worse problem to the group was a loud argument between Bagheddes and another man, Pajjar, over which of them had actually killed a given sleekar. By the time Dusabi and the rest of the men arrived at the scene, both hunters' spears were lodged in the carcass and each man was accusing the other of trying to steal credit for his kill. Dusabi examined the evidence and awarded the kill to Bagheddes, saying that Bagheddes's spear looked to be in the beast at a more believable angle, and that Pajjar's spear could have been stuck in afterward. This decision stopped the argument but did little to quell the animosity that raged between the two men. For the rest of the day there was a barrage of verbal sniping back and forth. Some of the men took sides in the dispute, others chose to remain completely neutral; discretion prompted Jules toward the latter path.
They camped that night in a small clearing and gathered branches for a fire. Dusabi assured Jules that there were nocturnal carnivores larger and more dangerous than the sleekars roaming the forest, and that a guard would be maintained at all times. As low man on the totem pole, Jules drew first watch, and accepted the responsibility silently. Several times during his turn he was startled by some loud, mysterious noises in the darkness nearby, but nothing came close enough to the circle of light to be identifiable. When Jules was relieved he was so worn out that he fell into a deep sleep until awakened at dawn for the next day's activities.
All morning they searched unsuccessfully for signs of more sleekar packs. Their lack of success, coupled with the continuing insult battle between Bagheddes and Pajjar, served to make the entire party edgy. Finally in midafternoon, just as Dusabi was ready to give the order to turn back and collect the previous day's catch, they found signs of sleekar activity in the area. They spread out once more in a hunting pattern, and this time Jules was confident enough to go off on his own.
