The Chalice of Death Read online

  Mantell understood the strange lesson he had been just taught. Thurdan had arranged this whole thing as a demonstration of the way the code of Starhaven worked; he wanted Mantell to see it in action.

  It was perfectly all right for a pickpocket to practice his trade in public, if he wanted to—but he ran the risk of trouble if he happened to get himself caught by his intended victim. As for pulling the gun on Mantell, that was well within the Starhaven ethical code, too, You gave the same kind of treatment as you expected from others. In that sort of framework, a man could be as brave or as weak as he chose.

  On Starhaven it was healthier to be brave and quick-triggered. They came out better on the percentages, in the long run.

  It all made a crazy sort of sense, Mantell thought. A world run this way might be able to hang together—if it had someone like Thurdan backing up its code.

  “This Pleasure Dome,” Mantell said, after the little pickpocket had faded back into the crowd. “Just what kind of place is it?”

  “Everything is here, every sort of entertainment a man might want. You can eat and drink and see shows, live and tri-dis and sensostims. There’s gambling on the tenth level. There’s a dance hall on the twentieth. They’re very obliging here.”

  “And why did you bring me here?”

  “For a meal, mostly,” the girl said. “You’ve had a hard pull and you can stand some relaxation. We can dance a little, after the drinks and food, if you feel like it.”

  “And after the meal and the drinks and the dancing?” Mantell asked. “Won’t it be too early to call it an evening?”

  “Well—we’ll see about that,” she said.

  Mantell looked at her strangely. For just a moment he wished he were a telepath—just for that moment. He wanted to know what was going on behind those radiant eyes. He wanted to know where he stood with her. And how deeply—if at all—she was involved with Thurdan.

  But he wasn’t a telepath, and wishing wouldn’t make him one. However, maybe the meal and some wine would get him some information.

  He extended his arm to her. She took it, laughing gaily, and suddenly all the long weary years of beach-combing on Mulciber dropped away from him. He was through scrabbling for meals and cadging drinks, through fishing around in the mud at low tide to find shells to peddle to over-bloated tourists. All those things were behind him now. He was on Starhaven, and there was a pretty girl clinging to his arm.

  He could hold up his head again. After seven years, he was Somebody again.

  Chapter Five

  A gleaming slidewalk took them up twenty feet to a handsome mezzanine where a bank of liftshafts stood waiting. Mantell let the girl enter a shaft first, and followed her in. She dialed for Level Nine.

  “The ninth-level dining hall is the best one,” she explained. “Also the most expensive. Wait till you see it.”

  They zipped upward, passing the seven intermediate floors in one long dizzying swoop, and the lift tube came to a halt. A sheet of blank metal faced them—shining, highly polished, mirror-reflective. Myra reached out a hand and touched her ornate signet ring to the surface of the barrier. The door crumpled inward instantly. They went in.

  A bland robot waited just inside, a sleek little machine with a single staring wide-perspective eye set in the middle of its otherwise blank face. It came rolling up as if greeting an old friend and said to the girl, “Good evening, Miss Butler. Your usual table?”

  “Of course. This is John Mantell, by the way. My escort for the evening.”

  The robot’s photonic register focused on Mantell for a moment. He heard an instant humming sound and knew that he had been photographed and permanently pigeonholed for future reference.

  “Come this way, please,” the robot invited.

  The place was sheer luxury. Heavy red synthetic velvet draperies helped to muffle the sound. There were faint traces of aromatic scent in the air, and soft music from an invisible orchestra could be heard, all tingling violins and shimmering cellos. After his seven years on Mulciber, Mantell felt utterly out of place. But the robot glided along in front of them, leading them to their table, and Myra at his side moved with a gliding grace that seemed almost too perfect to be natural, yet had a life and a smoothness that no robot known could match.

  They stopped at a freeform table set close against the curving silver wall. A little oval window, crystal-clear, looked out on the city below. It was a city of parks and greenish-blue lakes and soaring buildings. Ben Thurdan had built an incredible fairy garden of a world here on Starhaven, Mantell thought.

  And dedicated it to crime. Mantell scowled at that, until he reminded himself that he himself was nothing but a criminal, a—a killer, no matter what he remembered of the incident. He had no right to pass judgment on Ben Thurdan. He was here and safe, and he had to be grateful for that fact.

  The robot drew out Myra’s chair, then his. He lowered himself to its plastic-covered seat. It clung to his body; sitting in the ingenious suspension-foam chair was like drifting in zero grav.

  The violins in the background seemed to underscore the moment. Mantell sat quietly, looking at her. Those marvelous strange blue eyes held him—but that was far from all of her there was to see. It was impossible to fault Thurdan on his taste here. Myra was wide-shouldered, with flawless lips and a delicate thin-bridged nose. Her eyes flashed like gems when she spoke. Her voice was soft and well-modulated and just a little on the throaty side.

  Mantell said, “Tell me something—does every newcomer to Starhaven get this sort of treatment? Violins and fancy meals, and all?”

  “No.”

  The muscles around his jaws tightened. He sensed that he was being teased, and he didn’t care for it.

  “Why am I being singled out, then? I’m sure Thurdan doesn’t send his—secretary out to dinner with every stray beachcomber who comes to Starhaven.”

  “He doesn’t,” she said sharply. Changing the subject clearly and emphatically she asked, “What would you like to drink?”

  Mantell considered for a moment and finally ordered a double kiraj; she had vraffa, very dry. The wine steward was a robot, too, who murmured obsequiously and vanished to return with their drinks in a few seconds, bowed, and scuttled away.

  Mantell sipped thoughtfully. After a moment he said. “You changed the subject on me pretty quickly. You’re being mysterious, Miss Butler.”

  “My name is Myra.”

  “As you wish. But you changed the subject again. You’re still being mysterious.”

  She laughed, reached across the table, took his hand. “Don’t ask too many questions too soon, Johnny. It’s a dangerous thing to do on Starhaven at any time—but don’t ask questions so soon. You’ll learn everything you want to know in time. Maybe.”

  “Okay,” he said, shrugging.

  He wasn’t that anxious to pry, after all. Seven years of roaming the bleak shore line on Mulciber had left him detached, indifferent about many things. He had become experienced in the art of drifting along passively on the tide of events, letting things happen as they wanted to happen.

  This girl had taken some special interest in him, it seemed. He decided to accept that on face value, for the moment, and let the explanations go till later.

  “Starhaven’s a little different from Mulciber, isn’t it?” she asked suddenly, breaking into his reverie.

  “Very different,” he said.

  “You spent seven years on Mulciber.”

  “You saw my psychprobe charts, didn’t you? You don’t need to get a verbal verification from me.” He felt obscurely annoyed. They were fencing, dancing around a conversation rather than engaging in one. And it was very much like dancing at arm’s length. He felt uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to rake up old wounds. Ben built this place so people like you could come here … and forget. Mulciber’s nothing but a bad dream now, Johnny.”

  “I wish it were. But I spent seven years begging for nickels there. I
killed a man there. You don’t blot out a memory like that the way you do a bad dream.” He spoke toughly, and she reacted as if he had slapped her across the face. The liquor was getting to him too fast, he thought.

  “Let’s forget it, shall we?” she said with forced lightheartedness. She lifted her glass. “Here’s to Ben Thurdan and the world he built. Here’s to Starhaven!”

  “Here’s to Starhaven,” Mantell echoed.

  They drank, draining their glasses, and then they ordered another from the wine steward. Mantell’s head was beginning to swim a little, but it was a pleasant sensation. He was aware that somewhere during the third drink Myra ordered dinner, and not much later a couple of robots laden with trays came shuffling up and began to unload. Truffles, baked pheasant, white and red wines, Vengilani crabs on shell as a side dish. He stared at the array, aghast.

  She said, “Is something the matter, Johnny? You don’t look so well.”

  “This is a fifty-credit—fifty-chip dinner. That’s a little out of my orbit.”

  She smiled. “Don’t be silly, Johnny. This is Ben’s treat. I have a pass that takes care of things like this. Dig in and don’t worry about the check!”

  He dug in. He hadn’t eaten that well in his life—and certainly not since August 11, 2793, a day he remembered vividly. That was the day Klingsan Defense Screens of Terra, Incorporated, had decided it could do without his scientific services.

  As he ate, he thought about the events of that day. He remembered, wincing involuntarily, reporting to work two hours late and a good three sheets to the wind, and finding the pink discharge slip on his desk. He had snorted angrily and gone storming down to the executive level to see Old Man Klingsan himself. He had burst into the office of the company head, demanding to know why he was being fired.

  Klingsan had told him. Then Mantell had told Klingsan three or five things that had been on his mind for a while, and by the time he was through talking he had succeeded in getting himself blacklisted from Rim to Core; there wasn’t a world in the galaxy that would give him employment now.

  A well-meaning friend had lined up a cheap job for him on Mulciber, far from Earth. He had shot his last ninety credits getting there from Viltuun, just in time to learn that his reputation had preceded him and he wasn’t wanted on Mulciber.

  But he couldn’t leave without fare money. And for seven solid years he had never managed to accumulate enough cash in one chunk to pay for his transportation off that lazy, enervating semi-tropical world. Not until the day the Space Patrol came after him on a murder charge, and he’d had to get off.

  “You’re brooding about something, Johnny,” Myra said suddenly. “I told you not to think of Mulciber any more. Try to forget it.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Mulciber,” he lied. “I was thinking—thinking that it’s perfectly permissible for me to skip out of here without paying the check. I mean, the restaurant owners don’t have any legal recourse. They can’t. There’s no specific law against it.”

  “That’s true enough. But you won’t have any recourse, either, if they catch you and slice you up for steak. Or—if you like this place and ever want to come back—they’ll simply refuse you admittance. Or they could slip you some slow poison the next time you come in here to cadge a meal.”

  He thought that over for a moment or two. Then a new and startling conclusion struck him. “You know something? I almost think an upside-down free-flying setup like this works out better than one based on a complex system of laws based on high moral precepts and obsolete customs. Here, the crimes cancel each other out into zeros!”

  She nodded. “That’s Ben’s big idea. If you take a group of people, none of whom are cluttered up by morals, and enforce this kind of code on them, their collective rascality will all even out into a pretty regular, practical kind of law-observance. It’s only when you start throwing virtuous people into the system that it falls apart.”

  Mantell frowned. He had the feeling that there was an inconsistency somewhere in her glib argument, but at the moment he was not interested in finding it.

  He grinned at her. “You know, I think I’m going to like this place,” he said.

  Chapter Six

  There were a few stray threads of conversation after that, but they petered out quickly and they finished eating in silence. Against the backdrop of the singing violins (not violins really, he knew, but merely tones produced by an electronic musical synthesizer somewhere in the giant building) Mantell thought, This is quite a woman! He was trying to imagine—without success—what thing she could have done that would have forced her to take refuge here on Starhaven from the galactic police system.

  It was hard to figure what crime lay in the girl’s past. She seemed too clean, too pure. Mantell was well aware that she was no angel; but even so, she gave the appearance of innocence, making it seem as if she always acted out of the highest motives.

  Mantell didn’t regard himself as a hardened criminal, either. He kept telling himself he was just a victim of circumstances. The breaks of life could as easily have gone the other way for him, and instead of becoming a desperate wanderer on a tourist planet like Mulciber, he could have remained a skilled armaments technician back on Earth.

  He scowled. He was still an armaments technician, he told himself. Only not on Earth but here on Starhaven, where nobody would plague him with cheap moralizing.

  And where there was Myra.

  He wondered, as he sat staring at her, how he was going to get away with it.

  Obviously she was Thurdan’s girl. That was an obstacle that would stop most men right away. On a planet like this, a man doesn’t try to walk away with the absolute tyrant’s girl if he intends to enjoy a long life. Of course, there was always the possibility that Thurdan might tire of her.…

  Who are you kidding? he asked himself. Sure, Thurdan would tire of her. Any minute now, he thought bitterly. Who could ever tire of her?

  Mantell’s mood darkened. He told himself he would have to forget any intentions he might have in regard to Myra Butler. Otherwise he would be up to his ears in deep trouble, and he had been on Starhaven less than a day.

  The robot servitors appeared and cleared away the remnants of the meal. There was still half a bottle of wine left, but Mantell had neither the desire nor the room for it now. He watched the robot clear the wine away with the rest of the things, and grinned.

  “I never thought I’d last long enough to pass up a half-full bottle of wine,” he said.

  He leaned back. He felt warm and well-fed, with the taste of rare wine still on his lips.

  “Where to now?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Do you dance?”

  “More or less. I’m a little out of practice.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Come. The ballroom’s three levels above.”

  Mantell felt little desire to dance just now. But she continued pleadingly, “I love to dance, Johnny. And Ben won’t ever dance with me. He never will. He hates dancing of any kind.”

  Mantell shrugged agreeably. “Anything to oblige a lady, I always say. If you want to dance, let’s go.”

  Together they drifted out of the dining hall and into the waiting lift tube, and up three levels to the ballroom. Mantell realized in astonishment that ninety per cent of the Pleasure Dome was still above them, even here on the twelfth level.

  The ballroom was a huge arching room, magnificently decorated. Music throbbed out of a hundred concealed speakers. Glowing dabs of soft living light, red and blue and gentle violet, swung and bobbed mistily in the air just above the dancers. It was a stunning sight, a scene out of a picture book.

  “For a man who doesn’t like to dance, Thurdan built quite a dance hall,” Mantell observed.

  “That’s one of Ben’s specialties—catering to other people’s likes. It keeps the people loyal to him.”

  “Ben’s a shrewd man,” Mantell said.

  “The shrewdest there ever was,” agreed Myra.

  They stepped
out onto the dance floor. Myra glided into his arms. They began to dance.

  It had been years since the last time Mantell had been on a dance floor. On Mulciber he simply hadn’t thought in terms of luxuries like dancing; the struggle for life was too intense. And on Earth, he had always been too busy with less frivolous things.

  But here, on this pleasure planet, he could make up for lost time.

  There was a modified antigravity shield mounted beneath the gleaming dark luciphrine plastic of the dance floor. The field was on lowest modulation, not strong enough to lift the dancers from the surface of the floor but mustering enough power to cut down their weight somewhere between thirty and forty per cent, Mantell estimated.

  It was more like floating than dancing. Feet glided, skimming over the floor.

  Mantell felt Myra lightly against him, clinging; the bobbing swirls of living light in the air circled playfully around them, giving Myra’s face sharply accented multicolored highlights of curious effect. The music beat beneath them, swelling and surging deeply. Mantell found himself moving with a grace he had never known he possessed.

  It was half due to the antigrav shield, he thought, and half to Myra, feather-light in his arms.

  One thing struck him as incongruous. Around him in the crowded pavilion danced the people of Starhaven, each one carrying locked within his mind the burden of some crime, each a hunted man now safe forever from the hunters.

  They laughed, joked, clung to each other, just like ordinary people. Just like those who lived everyday lives within the law. Men and women having a good time, but outlaws all.

  Mantell and Myra danced on. An hour, two hours perhaps, slipped by. Under the low gravity, time seemed to speed imperceptibly. Mantell hardly cared. He let the hours move past.

  Finally, as the music died for the hundredth time and the couples left the floor for a short breather between numbers, Myra said, “Had enough?”

  Mantell grinned at her. “Hardly.”

  “But I think we’d better leave now, Johnny. It’s getting late.”