The Planet Killers Read online

  On the twenty-second day, the last of the lifeship food supplies ran out. But by that time nearly half the castaways’ diets consisted of native fruits anyway; the fertile jungle yielded dozens of edible fruits, which were tested by the only method possible, the empirical one. The only casualty was Sadhig, who had a day’s indigestion after sampling honey-colored berries from a creeping vine. On the twenty-fourth day Catton shot a gentle-eyed, bluish-skinned creature the size of a fawn, and that night they feasted on local venison with no serious digestive consequences.

  A broad river blocked their northward route on the thirtieth day. Their boat was gone, and swimming the river was out of the question; instead, they sidetracked to the east for two days until the river became narrow and shallow enough to ford on foot. Royce slipped during the crossing, ruining one of the blasters but causing no damage to himself.

  By now the troupe was a bedraggled one indeed. Clothing had long since rotted away to a bare minimum; Catton had sprouted a bushy, startlingly red beard, and Royce a straggly gray one. Sadhig and the Morilaru male, both coming from races which were not afflicted with facial hair, had no such adornments. The women, too, looked seedy and unkempt. They had no nudity taboo, but they were unhappy about the appearance of their uncoiled hair, and so wrapped the remnants of their clothing about their heads to conceal the lack of proper Morilaru hair grooming.

  On the thirty-ninth day, Catton announced that they had covered the estimated five hundred miles, and that the beacon should be not too far. They set out to patrol the area. Sadhig built a detector out of equipment that had been taken from the ship, and a day later they came to the rescue beacon, a tower a hundred fifty feet high topped by a subspace communicator antenna whose spokes poked skyward for eighty feet more.

  Instructions were posted plainly on the side of the beacon tower in several dozen tongues—not including Terran, of course, since the beacon had been erected long before Terra’s entry into interstellar life. Catton read the Morilaru instructions. They were absurdly simple; all he need to do was trip a lever, and an instant-communication beam would go out to the Morilaru space-rescue service. It would be only a day or so before a pickup ship would arrive.

  Catton prepared to trip the signal. He heard a sudden shout from Royce and one of the Morilaru women simultaneously, and turned to see what was happening.

  Sadhig, a hundred yards away, was casually training his blaster on his temple. The Skorg was smiling. Catton took two steps forward, but there was no time to interrupt the act. Sadhig squeezed the trigger.

  They held another funeral that night, while waiting for the rescue ship to arrive. Sadhig had kept faith; he had served well on the long trek to the beacon. But he had forfeited his right to live, in his own eyes, the moment he had entered the lifeship on the doomed Silver Spear . Now, with rescue in sight, he had paid his forfeit.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Morilaru ship picked the five survivors up early the next morning. Royce and Catton both decided to continue on to Skorg; the others elected to return to Morilar, where they intended to bring legal action against the spaceliner’s owners for negligence. All five were taken to a relay point, a Morilaru-colonized planet called Thyrinn, where Catton and Royce boarded a small passenger vessel bound for Skorg. The trip, which lasted nine days, was uneventful. It was pleasant to sleep in an air-conditioned cabin again, to shave, to eat regular meals.

  Catton had managed to retain his passport and identification through all the vicissitudes of the jungle trek. He presented them now to the authorities at the vast spaceport at Skorgaar, capital city of the Skorg Confederation. The immigration officer, a wiry, basilisk-faced Skorg, examined Catton’s papers and returned them with a dour smile.

  “According to these you left Morilar more than a month ago. It must have been a slow trip.”

  “I came via the Silver Spear ,” Catton said.

  The Skorg’s eyes widened in surprise. “But—”

  Catton nodded. “Yes. I spent forty days wandering around on some jungle planet five hundred light-years from Morilar. But I’m here, finally. My three Morilaru attaches—there’s a notation about them on the visa, over here—didn’t make it. Two died in the wreck, I imagine, unless they got away in time. The third died in the jungle.”

  “How long do you plan to stay on this world?”

  “The visa won’t expire for a year. I don’t have any definite plans,” Catton said.

  A cab took him to the heart of Skorgaar, and he checked in at a large metropolitan hotel that catered to aliens. Skorgaar was a city of some twelve million people; there were always visitors from other worlds here on commercial trips. Skorg was a large, low-density planet; the gravity, 1.4 Earthnorm, was a bit strong for Catton’s comfort, but the climate was cooler than that of Morilar, for which he was grateful. The worlds were generally similar culturally; it was a favorite Morilaru theory that the Skorgs were descended from a pioneer ship of Morilaru spacefarers, thousands of years in the past, and certainly there were enough biological evidences to support the notion. Skorgs were gray in color, in contrast to the Morilaru purple, and their bodies were more elongated, their flesh more sparse. Terran biologists suspected that they were the same common stock—perhaps both descended from some ancient race long since extinct, which had colonized the area in the unimaginable past.

  Catton’s first official stop on Skorg was at the office of the Terran Ambassador. He was a lean, short, hardbitten little professional diplomat named Bryan, who whooped with surprise when Catton presented his identification.

  “They announced that you were lost on the Silver Spear !” Bryan exclaimed. “I got the cable from Morilar weeks ago, from Seeman.”

  Catton shrugged. “I got away in a lifeship, but I was missing until ten days ago. How many died in the wreck?”

  “I think there were about forty survivors, not counting any who may have escaped with you. Three lifeships got away before the ship blew. Four, altogether. Including the crew, close to nine hundred died.”

  “Nine hundred,” Catton repeated softly. Pouin Beryaal had been willing to kill nine hundred people in order to dispose of one Earthman. If they were that anxious to kill him, Catton realized, he was going to have to get about his business swiftly and efficiently.

  “I’ve come to Skorg for official reasons,” Catton said. “I’m investigating the hypnojewel traffic as a member of the Interworld Commission on Crime.”

  “You think you’ll find anything here?”

  “I don’t know,” Catton said. “There’ve been some hints. I mean to look. But I’ve got another motive for coming here, besides the official one. You know about Ambassador Seeman’s daughter, of course?”

  “The bulletin was spread through the entire galaxy,” Bryan replied. “The Skorg police have been cooperating to some extent, but there’s not much you can do by way of finding one girl in a galaxy of umpteen trillion people. Or even of finding her on a single world.”

  “I have an idea she may have come to Skorg,” Catton said.

  “To Skorg? I told you, we’ve checked. But with nineteen billion people here, it’s hard to accomplish much. She could be right under our noses and we wouldn’t necessarily find her.”

  “Maybe I’ll be lucky,” Catton said.

  “Why are you so interested? It’s nothing personal, is it? I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  Chuckling, Catton said, “It’s nothing romantic, if that’s what you mean. But I think her disappearance has something to do with the hypnojewel business. That’s why I’m looking for her.”

  The next few days were fruitless ones for Catton. He had Bryan arrange interviews for him with the chiefs of the Skorg police authorities, but they told him nothing about the hypnojewel trade that he had not already learned by consulting the Commission’s files. And, of course, no one knew anything about the whereabouts of the girl. They had searched; but Skorg was a crowded world. Catton got the impression they were not particularly interested in finding her.
They seemed to scoff at the idea that she might be on Skorg at all, and suggested that she had fled back to Earth, where she could melt into the billions and never be found.

  Catton chafed impatiently. He was getting nowhere. And, he suspected, time was running out.

  He was sure that Doveril had abducted her. And Doveril was deeply involved in the hypnojewel trade. Find the girl, find Doveril. But how? Where?

  And then there was the business blurted by the dying Morilaru in the jungle. If it were true, if it had not been merely a fever dream, then Earth lay in imminent danger. A few matter duplicators, parachuted down from the skies at random, could crumble a civilization in days. First money, then all material goods would cease to have value. A world might bring order out of the chaos eventually, but in how many centuries?

  And Pouin Beryaal was at the heart of the plot, if truth had been told. That was very neat indeed, thought Catton. Pouin was a figure of major importance on Morilar. Merikh eMerikh was an influential Skorg noble. Whether Uruod, the Arenaddin, knew about the scheme or not hardly mattered. Enough strength was mustered against Earth as it was.

  Where would they get matter duplicators? No one within the bounds of the accepted galaxy would manufacture them. But perhaps there was some other source, beyond the humanoid worlds. Where, Catton wondered? He needed an opening. Only luck would give it to him.

  Luck did.

  It was his sixth night in Skorgaar. He had been to see the local head of the Crime Commission that day, to find out if anything significant had been uncovered that might give him a wedge toward solution of the hypnojewel problem. No help was forthcoming. Catton found himself far across Skorgaar, in a strange part of the city; it was dinner time, and he chose a restaurant at random.

  It was a plush establishment. The waiters were not Skorgs but Chennirids, slim green humanoids from a world subservient to Skorg. The patrons of the restaurant seemed to be largely outworlders on expense accounts—about half Morilaru, with the rest chiefly Arenaddin and Dargonid.

  Few native Skorgs were to be seen on the premises. And the menu, when it came, proved to be an exotic one, specializing in Morilaru cookery. Morilaru food ran to the salty side; Catton ordered a vegetable dish of Arenadd instead, and got a respectful bow from the Chennirid waiter.

  While he waited for the food he looked around. The decor was Morilaru. Most of the patrons were. And there was even Morilaru music playing—tinkling, graceful music played on that instrument Estil Seeman had been playing that day in the Embassy. What was its name? Ah, yes—the gondran. He saw now that the player was seated at the far end of the restaurant, behind him, on a small dais. With some surprise he noticed that she was an Earthwoman. Then he gasped in shock and half rose out of his seat, nearly knocking a tray of soup from the waiter’s hand.

  The waiter apologized humbly for his clumsiness. Catton wasn’t listening. Currents of amazement pounded in his mind. Talk about needles in haystacks, he thought! What luck! What blind luck!

  He took a note pad and stylus from his pocket and printed a note in Morilaru characters, inviting the gondran player to his table when her stint was finished. He called the waiter over, handed him the folded note, and said in Skorg, “Take this to the girl playing in the back. I’d like the pleasure of her company.” He gave the man a tip and watched him cross the room to the girl.

  She played for ten minutes more, having read his note without breaking the thread of her improvisation. After the final cadence she rose, nodded gracefully in acknowledgment of the polite applause, and came to Catton’s table.

  It was Estil, all right.

  But she was no longer the demure, blushing eighteen-year-old of a few months ago. Catton saw that the moment he saw her eyes. They were woman’s eyes. She looked as though she had found out what misery meant.

  It was her turn to gasp as she recognized Catton. “You—the Crime Commission man!”

  He rose, pulled out a chair for her. “Hello, Estil. I didn’t expect to find you so easily.”

  She sat, staring at him wordlessly. She seemed unable to speak. Catton said after a moment, “Shall I order something for you?”

  “No—no. Please. I ate before I went on.”

  “You played very well.”

  “I have to play very well. It’s my livelihood.”

  Catton raised an eyebrow. “Doveril sends you out to work?”

  “I’m—not with Doveril any more,” she said in a barely audible voice.

  Catton let the point go for a moment. He said, “You’ve caused quite a stir by your disappearance. There’s been a galaxy-wide hunt for you. And you’re sitting out in the open for anyone who has eyes to see!”

  “They—they haven’t seemed to be looking for me for weeks. The first few weeks we were here, Doveril made me stay out of sight. But now it doesn’t seem to matter. The Skorg police have forgotten all about me.”

  Catton said, “You ran away quite suddenly. As I remember, you asked me to get you some information—about Doveril. Then, before I had a chance to see you again, you were gone.”

  Her eyes did not meet his. “Doveril found out what I had asked you to do. He came to me that night, late, and asked if I trusted him. He said he had two tickets for Skorg for a flight two hours after midnight. He—insisted I go with him.”

  “And you went.”

  “Yes,” she said bitterly. “I went. I suppose you found out about Doveril?”

  He nodded. “We rounded up a bunch of his accomplices in the hypnojewel business not long after you left. But Doveril was the kingpin, and Doveril was gone. You say you left him?”

  She shook her head sadly. “No. He left me. Three weeks after we arrived on Skorg.”

  “He left you? ”

  “He lost interest, I guess,” she said with a pale smile. “We were really strangers to each other, after all, despite everything. I found a note from him one morning when I woke. I haven’t seen him since. But I know where he is.”

  “He isn’t on Skorg any more?”

  “He’s—somewhere else. I don’t want to talk about it here.”

  “Where are you living?”

  “There’s a hotel, not far from here. I’m registered under another name.”

  “And how long have you been working at this place?”

  “Since Doveril left. It’s a Morilaru-owned restaurant. Doveril took me here a couple of times. I asked for a job, and they gave it to me. Playing the gondran is about the only useful trade I picked up, being an ambassador’s daughter. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good at waiting on tables, or something like that.” She smiled again—a pale, wan smile. She looked exhausted. “They don’t pay me much, but it’s enough to keep my rent up to date, and I get most of my meals here.”

  “Why don’t you just notify the authorities? You don’t need to work in a restaurant,” Catton said. “You could be on your way back to Morilar tonight, if you let someone know you were here.”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid to go back. I don’t dare face my father, after what I did. Running away, giving myself to an alien—” She tightened her jaws, fighting back tears. “So I’ve been staying here, frightened of returning, frightened of living on a strange world all alone. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been hoping someone would find me and turn me in—I don’t have the strength to do it myself. And I know things. About the hypnojewels, about worse. Doveril talked. But I don’t dare tell anyone the things I know.”

  She looked pitiful, Catton thought. Cast away by her sly lover, afraid to return home, probably living in fear every minute here on Skorg—it was not a pretty picture for a girl who had been raised in the splendor of an ambassadorial mansion.

  He looked down at the food on his plate. He was not hungry any more.

  “How much longer do you have to stay here tonight?” he asked.

  “I have to do one more turn. I’ll be through in about an hour.”

  “Do you trust me, Estil?”

  “I—I think so,” she said
faintly. “It isn’t easy to trust anyone, after—after—”

  “Believe me, I’ll help you. I’ll wait for you to finish your stint here. Then I want you to leave here with me and tell me all the things you’re afraid to tell me. Nothing’s going to happen to you. The worst is over. Will you believe that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good. Get up there and earn your pay, then. I’ll be waiting for you back here.”

  She returned to the dais. There was a scattered trickle of applause. Catton watched her carefully. She adjusted the height of the seat and, back straight, fingers arched over the keyboard, began to play as if for all the world she were back in the Embassy drawing-room, with her tutor looking on and beaming with pride.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The hotel where Estil Seeman was living was almost incredibly dingy. Sputtering argon tubes gave the only illumination in the halls. Her room was nothing more than a cubicle with a bed, a dresser, and a mirror in it. There was a common lavatory at the end of the hall. The rank Skorg odor was everywhere.

  Catton quelled his disgust. “How much do you pay for this place?”

  “Five normits a week.”

  The Earthman scowled. His own room, halfway across the city, cost more than that by the day. “How much does the restaurant pay you?”

  “Twelve normits a week, plus food at cost,” she said tiredly. “I haven’t been able to save very much since I’ve been here.”

  “I imagine you haven’t,” Catton said, sitting down in a creaky, deflated pneumochair. He swung around to face her. “All right, Estil. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about Doveril.”

  “If you want to.”

  “The night of your father’s ball, when you spoke to me, you said you suspected Doveril was mixed up in hypnojewel trading. How soon was it before you found out definitely that he was?”