Demon princes 01 05 the.., p.80
Demon Princes 01-05 The Star Ki, page 80
“Very well then. I’ll be there.” She looked over her shoulder. “Now I must go.” Again she looked over her shoulder. “Quick.” She stepped close to him and raised her face; they embraced. Gersen kissed her once, twice; then, breathless and half-laughing, she pulled away. “Until tomorrow noon!” She went quickly off after her party.
Gersen, turning, met the shocked and unfriendly gaze of Lully Inkelstaff, just emerging from the passage leading to the ladies’ rest room. Wordlessly she swept off to the table she had shared with Gersen, snatched up handbag and cloak, and marched away to join her friends.
Gersen gave a rueful shrug. “At the very least, I’ve avoided tomorrow’s dancing lesson.”
16
Gersen paid off the score and departed the Black Barn. To one side a half dozen cabs awaited passengers. The cab first in line carried a faded white stripe along the skirt. Gersen casually turned away, and stood as if awaiting someone from within. How had he been tracked to the Black Barn? Had he been tagged with a tracer? Perhaps a daub of stuff which, in response to a search ray, returned a signal? ... Tonight he would scrupulously bathe and change all his clothes.
Tonight—if he arrived at his hotel alive. Most definitely he would use none of the cabs along the rank. Gersen sauntered slowly back and forth with an air of a man preoccupied; arriving at an area where he could no longer see the cabs, he ran off down the road to Twanish.
The night was clear and dark. Constellations strange to Gersen hung in the sky and showed the road as a pale ribbon with dark fields to either side. As Gersen ran his body seemed to come alive; his whole soul expanded. This was the existence he was meant for and where he felt easy: running through the night across a strange world, with danger behind and himself the very embodiment of retaliatory danger. His vapors and dreary misgivings were gone; he felt the Gersen of old .... Against the sky loomed a tall copse of trees. Gersen stopped short to listen. From the Black Barn, now almost a quarter mile distant, he heard the whisper of music, and saw the lights of a cab. Gersen looked to the side of the road opposite the trees. He saw a shallow ditch and, beyond, a clump of weeds. He jumped the ditch and flung himself flat behind the weeds.
The cab came at speed, lights blazing along the road. Coming abreast of the trees, the cab stopped abruptly, almost beside Gersen. But the attention of the driver and occupants was fixed upon the trees, not the clump of weeds which barely concealed Gersen.
The driver spoke in a soft voice “He’s not down the road. He couldn’t have come much farther.”
From the compartment stepped three men; Gersen could see only their silhouettes in the glow reflected back from the headlights.
The driver spoke again: “He’s hiding in the trees, unless he took to the fields.”
One of the passengers, a short squat man, spoke in a plangent bass. “Turn so the lights shine into the trees.”
The driver did so, backing the cab almost into the ditch.
The short squat man said, “Ang, around to the right. Dotty, around to the left. Keep out of the light, get him alive That’s important. Bird wants him alive.”
Gersen rose up from behind the weeds. Soundlessly he jumped the ditch. Climbing the two steps to the control booth, he thrust his adder-tongue stiletto into the nape of the driver’s neck. Pincers cut the vertebral nerve, inducing instant death. Gersen lowered the corpse into the foot-space, and seated himself at the controls. The short man stood in the road to the left of the cab: a man with whom Gersen wanted earnest and candid conversation.
Three minutes passed. Gersen sat with his silver pistol in hand, waiting. Ang and Dofty emerged from the trees. They walked forward into light from the cab: Ang, a crooked angular young man with a long high-bridged nose and a short black beard; Dotty, burly and baby-faced with eyes peering through slits Gersen had often met their like Beyond, in disreputable backstreet taverns or working at their trade, as now.
The short squat man took an impatient step forward. “Nothing?”
“He’s not there,” said Ang.
Gersen waited until the two were close in front of the cab; then, with neither qualm nor compunction, he discharged his weapon once, twice, driving splinters of explosive glass through the foreheads of Ang and Dotty, and once again at the short man’s elbow as he spun around. The short man’s gun dropped upon the road.
Gersen jumped down from the driver’s seat. “I’m the man you’re looking for.”
The short man said nothing, but stared at Gersen, his face contorted in pain.
Gersen spoke in the most casual of voices “Have you ever seen a man die by cluthe? No? Yes? You can choose cluthe, or I’ll shoot you in the head. Which?”
“Shoot,” whispered the short man.
“Then answer my questions. If you had caught me, what were you to do with me?”
“Bind you with tape and take you to a shed.”
“Then what?”
“I would call for instructions.”
“Who gives you instructions?”
The short man merely stared. Gersen stepped forward, his hand in a glove. He raised his hand, extended his arm. “Quick!”
“The Bird.”
“Lens Larque?”
“You said the name.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. I take my orders by radio.”
From the direction of the Black Barn came new lights. The short man lunged toward Gersen, who shot him accurately in the forehead. Gersen carefully replaced the fearful glove in its socket, then turning away, saw in the reflected light a weathered white stripe around the base of the cab. He ran oft down the road toward Twanish.
The cab from the Black Barn, finding its way obstructed, halted. Gersen, pausing to look back over his shoulder, saw the driver and occupants alight, to stare in horror at the corpses.
At the Capricorn Cafe, overlooking Redemption Park, halfway between the Commercial Hotel and Skohune Tower, Gersen sat with a pot of tea assessing the events of the evening. His mood, he was pleased to note, had become less troubled. Activity had flushed the stagnant channels of his mind. The four killings? He regretted only that he had teased so little information from the short man. He thought of Jerdian and felt a warm excitement, he thought of Lully and laughed aloud ... Under Lully’s desk at Jarkow Engineering reposed the recording apparatus he had installed so short a time before. Directed into the Kotzash office it now served no purpose. Much more advantageous if it could record conversations at Jarkow’s office.
Gersen looked toward Skohune Tower, which at this hour showed only the dim illumination of night bulbs.
Gersen finished his tea. He went to the hotel, picked up his bag of equipment, returned to the street, and sauntered across the park to Skohune Tower. The lobby was empty. He rode the ascensor to the third floor and using his key to room 308, entered the offices of Jarkow Engineering.
Just inside the door he halted to listen. No sound, no indication of human presence. He stepped into Lully’s cubicle, where he found and detached the recorder unit. Optimally, so he decided, the sound probe should be located in Jarkow’s office.
Gersen installed the microphone under Jarkow’s desk, where he discovered a set of implements which startled him. Gersen recalled an old aphorism—”He who sups with the devil should use a long spoon.” Jarkow, working as he did with Lens Larque, had installed several versions of the “long spoon” where it could help him most.
Gersen worked quickly and efficiently, and in half an hour arranged the system to his satisfaction, with the recorder attached to the Kotzash telephone and microphones at vantage places around the room. He packed his tools, and started to leave, but at the draftsman’s office stopped short. He opened the door and looked in, to find the usual paraphernalia: plotting machines, superficial integrators, automatic scribers, a pattern library. Work in process lay spread out on a table page after page of charts, columns, and rows of figures. Each page carried a notation Section 1A, Section 1B, with the last page labeled Section 20F. Under the table Gersen saw a pair of peculiar objects—the first an irregular mass of chalky substance about a foot in diameter. The surface had been marked off into approximately one hundred areas, each labeled in black ink, after the same scheme as the pages had been labeled. The second object was an expanded replica of the first, made of a light transparent substance, and similarly limned into small areas Under the surface ran a myriad scarlet threads, curving, bending, twisting, humping, in no obvious order or pattern.
Most odd, thought Gersen. He picked up the object, looked at it this way and that. Most odd. Most curious .... Gersen gave a sudden cry of uncontrollable laughter.
Was such remarkable and magnificent foolishness possible? He thought back across the months, and a hundred items of information suddenly ranged themselves into coherent order.
Gersen replaced the transparent object. He took his case and left the offices of Jarkow Engineering. He had achieved his purpose. Conversations to be recorded in Jarkow’s office could not fail but be interesting.
Without incident Gersen returned to the hotel. The tattletale he had arranged on the door to his room was in place and undisturbed. Gersen entered, closed and locked the door, bathed, and went to bed.
Gersen spent a restless night. Faces floated through his mind Lens Larque the caricatures, drawings, and blurred photograph. Poor broken Tintle and his spouse, Daswell Tippin, Ottile Panshaw, Bel Ruk, Lully Inkelstaff, Jerdian Chanseth.
In the morning Gersen ordered breakfast up to his room, then, assailed by doubts, ate none of it. Dressing with care, he descended to the ground floor, slipped out upon the Mall, went to the Capricorn Cafe, and there took his breakfast Today was to be an important day. At noon to Moss Alrune and Jerdian. Later—who knows? Possibly a meeting with Lens Larque. He returned to the hotel and went up to his room. The tattletale had been disturbed. Putting his ear to the door Gersen heard a set of odd sounds With the most exaggerated delicacy he slid the door ajar, to find a chambermaid setting his room to rights.
He entered, bade her good morning, a few minutes later she withdrew Gersen immediately went to the telephone. He called the Kotzash office and activated the recording device. To his ear came those four conversations which had been recorded that morning. First, a call from Zerus Belsaint of Stellar Fortress Security Association, requesting conversation with Mr. Jarkow.
“Sorry,” said Lully in a pert voice “Mr. Jarkow is not present.”
“When do you expect him?”
“I don’t know, sir. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Please mention that I called, and I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Very well, sir”
Next to be heard was a call from Jarkow inquiring for Ottile Panshaw.
“He hasn’t been in, sir.”
“What?” Jarkow’s tone was sharp. “Has he left a message?”
“Not a word! No one’s called but a Mr. Zerus Belsaint who wants to consult you.”
“A Mr. Zerus who?”
“Mr. Zerus Belsaint of the Stellar Fortress Security Association. May I tell him when you’ll be able to see him?”
“I’ll be in this afternoon late, but I won’t talk with Belsaint. He’ll have to wait. If Panshaw calls, have him come to the office and don’t let him leave.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gersen next listened to Lully’s private conversation with a friend, where he learned more than he cared to know. Lully described her previous evening’s adventures, using images and metaphors which Gersen found unflattering. “And with a Methlen girl, would you believe it?” Lully’s voice was pitched in tones of outrage. “I can’t imagine what sort of a man he is! I gave him a most awful look, simply withered him! Then I went off with Nary. We danced three suites and a great gallop. And that’s not all! On the way home, we came upon a frightful murder—in fact, four murders, of a cabdriver and three passengers. They lay around the road like so many dog carcasses. I’ve had a night I won’t forget!”
“Who was the Methlen girl?”
“That giddy Chanseth bit. You see her everywhere.”
“Yes, I know of her.”
The conversation ended, and the final call came through: from Motry, Jarkow’s works superintendent. “Mr. Jarkow, please.”
“He’s not here yet. He’ll be in later today.”
“I’m just down from Shanitra. I called in to report final checkout. He can pass the word on to his principals. Will you give him the message?”
“Certainly, Mr. Motry.”
“Don’t forget now!”
“Naturally I won’t forget! In fact, I’ll put a note on his desk this minute.”
“That’s the system! Quite proper, my girl! I’ll look into the office tomorrow morning.”
“Very good, Mr. Motry. I’ll tell Mr. Jarkow.”
Thereafter the line was dead. Gersen sat back in the chair and reflected. Today must be the day. He looked out the window. The weather was cool, with Cora-light slanting down from an autumnal sky. The uplands of Llalarkno showed indistinct through haze; the town, the park, the entire landscape seemed suffused with a melancholy serenity, which Gersen found consonant with his own mood. Problems had been solved; mysteries had revealed themselves to an effect so ludicrous, cruel, and wild that Gersen’s mind veered away.
Gersen considered the conversations he had overheard. Jarkow expected important visitors during the afternoon: who could they be? ... His thoughts shifted to Jerdian Chanseth, and brought him a twinge of hollow uncertainty. What would she be thinking? Now, this very instant? Gersen, so astute, crafty, and resourceful, found himself besieged by doubts and anxieties. He saw her as he had seen her first, in her dark green frock and dark green stockings, the dark hair curling over her ears and across her forehead. Her only notice of him had been a haughty glance; how different now their relationship! Gersen’s heart melted within him .... He checked the time: less than an hour to noon, not too early to set out for Moss Alrune.
Gersen considered the cabs waiting near-the hotel. Unlikely that any of these could be considered threats; nevertheless, he crossed the park and flagged down a cab cruising the street. As always, he discovered resistance, and the driver consented to the journey only when Gersen agreed to sit far back in the shadow of the interior where he could not be seen.
In the road by Moss Alrune Gersen alighted and paid the fare; the driver wasted no time in departing.
Gersen walked back along the road to the entrance arch. Great trees of a type unknown to him overhung the stone wall and cast a dapple shade; the air was still and silent. To right and left of the arch, stone pillars supported the busts of nymphs cast in bronze; their eyes looked unseeingly down at him.
He passed under the arch and into the grounds. The driveway curved up to a broad portico; beyond, a path led off around the house into the gardens, where Gersen so far had not explored. He walked among confections of flowering shrubs and carefully groomed trees, and presently came to a low stone wall. On the other side spread the grounds of Oldenwood. Gersen looked out across the lawn, now occupied by a pair of small dark-haired girls, naked except for white skimmer hats decorated with flowers. They saw Gersen and paused to stare. Their frolicking became more sedate. Presently they ran off to a more secluded area.
Gersen turned back the way he had come, wondering if ever his own children would run so blissfully across the lawns of Moss Alrune .... He went around to the front of the house. On the steps sat Jerdian, looking pensively across the water. She rose to her feet; he put his arms gently around her and kissed her; she acquiesced, without fervor.
For a few minutes they stood; then Gersen said: “Have you spoken of me to your family?”
Jerdian laughed sadly. “My father does not think well of you.”
“He hardly knows me. Shall I go talk to him?”
“Oh no! He’d be frigid .... I really don’t know what to say. All last night I thought about you and myself, and all this morning .... I’m still confused.”
“I’ve been thinking too. I see three possible courses. We can take leave of each other, finally and forever. Or you can come away with me—now, if you like. Tomorrow we’ll leave Methel and go off across space.”
Jerdian sighed and gave her head a slow dismal shake. “You don’t know what it is to be Methlen. I’m a part of Llalarkno, just as if I had grown here, like a tree. I’d be forever lonely away from my home, no matter how much I loved you.”
“Or I could stay here on Methel and make my home here, with you.
Jerdian looked at him dubiously. “Would you really do that for me?”
“I have no other home. Llalarkno appeals to me; why shouldn’t I live here?”
Jerdian smiled ruefully. “It’s not all that simple. Outworlders aren’t often made welcome, if ever. We’re very exclusive, as I’m sure you know.”
“I’ve already arranged that part of it. We already own a home.”
“Here? On Methel?”
Gersen nodded. “Moss Alrune. I bought it yesterday.”
Jerdian looked at him in amazement. “The price was a million SVTJ! I thought you, well, a poor adventurer—a spaceman!”
“So I am, after a fashion. But hardly poor. I could buy a dozen Moss Alrunes and not even notice it.”
“I’m bewildered.”
“I hope you don’t think the worse of me for not being poor.”
“No. Not really. You’re more of a mystery than ever. Why did you risk your life fighting that great Darsh at hadaul?”
“Because it had to be done.”
“But why?”
“Tomorrow I’ll tell you everything. Today—the time isn’t quite right.”
She looked at him searchingly. “You’re not a criminal? Or a pirate?”
“I’m not even a banker.”
Jerdian, looking past Gersen, became rigid. A furious voice called out: “Hoy there, fellow! What are you doing here? Jerdian! Whatever is this?” Without waiting for an answer Adario Chanseth signaled to a pair of burly footmen. “Take this fellow and pitch him into the street.”
The footmen advanced confidently. A moment later one lay facedown in a flower bed, the other sat nearby numbly holding his bleeding face. Gersen said: “You threw me out of your bank, Mr. Chanseth, but this is my properly and I don’t care to be molested.”
