Into the Slave Nebula (12 page)

“But it must cost a fortune for every single one, to raise them and train them!” Dize exploded. “Androids arrive here as youths, not children—I don’t know how old you are, but you’re obviously over twenty, and even so I wouldn’t have remarked on you specially for your age because I’ve quite often seen high-quality androids go through who were out of their teens. Though most, of course, are around twelve to fifteen, near as I can judge. Either way, it must cost a hell of a lot to—to keep ’em in store so long!”

“Pennies,” Horn grunted. “I’ve been in among them, I’ve talked to them, and I
know
. This was one of the things they started to build towards directly it became obvious they were involved in a long-term operation. The more completely an android is trained—to handle a complicated job like Dordy’s, for example—the better the price is proportionately. You can feed and train one of these kids on the lonely outworlds where nothing costs anything except going out and getting it for, well, I’d say a few per cent of what it would cost on a properly settled world. Those kids are conditioned out of expecting anything better than what they get! Android staple is all they’re given to eat, and that’s just an alga fortified with cheap additives; they’re raised like the ancient red
Indians not to be cold when they’re naked in a temperate climate; and all the time their future employment is held up before them like a vision of paradise. If it hadn’t been for Lars Talibrand’s extraordinary birth—”

“What about it? What was so extraordinary?”

Horn explained, and Dize nodded very slowly several times. “Now that explains something I’ve never understood,” he muttered. “Sometimes we’ve had androids aboard who’d already been in employment and lived in regular android barracks and so on—like for example learning a special trade before being passed on to Earth. That’s another reason why I’d not have marked you out, of course, if you hadn’t spoken up.

“There’s a sort of mythology circulating among them. I guess they must know about Talibrand. Because these more experienced ones tell the others they may turn out to have been human-born, and if they work well and patiently and don’t get into trouble, then maybe one day Talibrand will show up—at least, I guess that’s who they mean, but I never heard his name mentioned. And when he does they’ll be able to wash in some special liquid that takes away the blue and turn into regular human beings. …”

He shrugged. “I always imagined it was some story a bright guy started simply to keep androids in line. Never paid it any mind.”

“It fits,” Horn said somberly. “I don’t know about washing off the blue, because from what I can gather it’s something that permeates the whole system and can’t be got rid of once it’s circulating. But the rest of it—
ach!
It makes me sick, you know? To think that Talibrand’s work was actually being turned against him! They’re clever devils to have exploited the news that way!”

There was a pause. At length Dize said, “Well, what are you going to do now—stick around and try to move those blockheaded officials, hm?”

Horn shook his head.

“Well, I don’t see you have much choice,” Dize objected. “I mean, blued up like you are, even if I come along and swear to your identity, who’s going to sell you passage to Creew ’n Dith? Androids aren’t allowed to buy starflight ticket! And—and come to think of it, I guess you haven’t any money or ID or …” He spread both hands helplessly.

“Shembo,” Horn said. “He’ll recognize me, same as you did. All I need do is hide for a while, see if I can avoid the same fate as Lars Talibrand. When I get to Creew ’n Dith, Braithwin will believe me okay.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Dize admitted. “Okay, I’ll get you home with me and go find out when Shembo’s next due to land. Say, by the way!”

“Yes?”

“Did you find out who actually killed Talibrand?”

“No, and I don’t care. Because I know it was his brother Jan who sold him out.”

M
AJ
-B
RITH
was astonished to see her husband returning so soon after she had seen him off to the port on another voyage to Earth, but the moment he had a chance to explain to her how Horn had been kidnapped and blued, she was fierce in her praise of what he had done—thinking, perhaps, of her own two boys currently out at school.

“All I’ve done so far,” Horn corrected her dispiritedly, “is trip over things that were lying in front of me and fall with my nose in a pile of dirty facts! Right this very moment Captain Larrow is probably loading the androids I was with down at the port, and I don’t stand a chance of preventing him. Here’s this vast evil network spreading among the stars like the mycelium of a fungus, and I can’t even chop off a few of its tendrils!”

“You haven’t done so badly so far,” Dize grunted. “You’ve cost them a key man on Earth—I mean, Coolin must have been pretty important, mustn’t he? Someone infiltrated into the lawforce is bound to be useful whichever planet he’s working on.”

“But he can’t have been the only one of his kind,” Horn sighed. “I mean, it stretches belief that they should have been able to maneuver Talibrand to one particular hotel in one particular city where he was bound to run foul of Coolin. Poor devil! Talibrand, I mean. I only just thought how frustrating it must have been for him, knowing he was being pursued, to discover that of all times of the year he’d picked the eve of carnival week to arrive on Earth. Nothing gets done during carnival!”

“Stop blaming yourself for not being superhuman!”
Dize rapped. “Coolin wasn’t the only one—there were the two dealers right here on Newholme that you came close to exposing, and if only Kyer hadn’t beaten a quick retreat we’d have had him, too. Here, have a drink and relax for a bit”

“I can see why Mr. Horn is so upset,” Maj-Brith said, as she offered them a trayful of glasses. “I mean, the moment people were told that these alleged androids were actually enslaved human children, you’d expect them to be so—so
revolted
…!”

“I expected that myself,” Horn admitted. “I must have been delirious, I guess. Because, you see, the key to this whole nasty business lies on Earth, not on any of the outworlds. I recall Braithwin telling me that when Lars Talibrand first proved to them that at least one child had been stolen away and disguised as an android they were so furious they came near to banning the trade from Creewndithian spaceports, but they were talked out of it by Jan Talibrand—for reasons which are now pretty obvious. I recall you yourself, Dize, telling me that androids are so expensive right here on Newholme that virtually no one owns any, and they all get shipped straight on to Earth. No, if even Lars Talibrand with the full authority of a citizen of the galaxy couldn’t break a crucial link in the android trade-routes, that must be because it’s not worth spending the energy. If Creew ’n Dith bans the trade, it goes via Vernier; if Vernier bans it, then they simply go to a longer way around, through Lygos maybe. Earth is the whole and sole support for the trade.

“And down there androids are so much a part of people’s lives it’s going to take a nova-sized outburst of publicity to break the habit of accepting them the same way one accepts robots!” He hesitated. “Know why I quit arguing with that fool of a lawforce commissioner?”

Dize shook his head.

“Something hit me all of a sudden, and I had to get out before it occurred to him, too. Look, here I am, the grandson of Earth’s biggest producer of sophisticated robots! How long is it going to be before the android traders start the rumor going to say, ‘Ah! This means that Horn & Horn are all set to produce a new model robot competitive with androids and they’re trying to scare people off!’ ”

Dize’s jaw dropped. “Hey! That’s terrible—but you’re quite right. I’d have fallen for an argument like that, and probably sweated like hell to keep the trade going. It’s my livelihood, after all.”

“Right. And it wouldn’t make any difference that I can truthfully say I was more or less raised by an android. Our family’s butler Rowl was a sort of extra parent to me, because my father’s spent his whole life under grandad’s shadow and takes out his resentment on my mother and … ah, skip it” He dew a deep breath. “But they weren’t celebrating carnival together when I left, and it wasn’t the first time that had happened.”

“But there must be something you could do,” Maj-Brith insisted doggedly. “Can’t you—well, why not take people out to this place where you were taken, and let them see for themselves how the children are being processed?”

“How do I find my way? How do I tell which of a hundred suns it goes around? I saw maybe a couple of square miles of the surface—I can’t even guess whether it’s an uninhabited world or just some lonely corner of a colonized one.”

“Well then …” Her determination was wilting. “Can’t you tell the androids themselves the truth?”

‘Wouldn’t work. The deeper they became involved, the more the android traders must have covered themselves against the risk of their victims catching on. I thought for a while that the disappearance of female
androids was due to accidents like the conception of Lars Talibrand; now I’m inclined to feel it was more of an extra precaution taken on general grounds. The process of human reproduction requires bisexuality. By not only conditioning the androids against the sexual urge, but also reducing them to wholly masculine company, they made the story of their artificial origin more credible on the subconscious level. Besides which, most androids don’t
want
to think of themselves as human—at least, not until they’ve been long enough in work to relax and start thinking for themselves, like Dordy. Why should anyone want to be like the dealers and spacemen whose hands the androids pass through? All respect to you, Dize. But on the way here I was—ah—exposed to people who made Larrow and Shembo look like pure white angels!”

“I believe you,” Dize muttered, staring down into his glass. “I’ve seen the condition of some of their cargoes when they got to Newholme—legs and arms broken, skin eruptions, bowel trouble. …” He tossed back the remainder of his drink and rose.

“Well, I’ll get along to the port, find out when Shembo’s next due to stop over here. It’s not likely to be more than a few days from now—he’s been working the Newholme-Creew ’n Dith route regularly for several years.”

“But be discreet,” Horn warned. “If one word of my presence leaks out, there’ll be all hell to pay.”

It couldn’t have been due to Dize talking too freely, nor to his sons—who were overjoyed to find their family involved in a “real adventure”—boasting among their school friends: Horn would have wagered his life on that. The boys were too sensible and Dize was too wary. So it must have been due to Kyer, who had managed to elude the lawforce.

A bomb was thrown at Dize’s house two days later.

Miraculously, it fell into the channel of the heating conduits which drew down air from the front of the building to be conditioned in the basement. It exploded ten feet below the floor and spent its force on inanimate machinery; none of the occupants sustained worse than the cut across the head which Horn suffered because he was standing alongside one of the warm-air outlets and the blast knocked a picture down on him.

When the lawforce turned up to investigate, he kept well in the background, knowing what effect his blue skin was likely to have on their attitude towards him, and when Dize had finished talking to the visitors and came to report, he knew his caution had not been misplaced. The spaceman was fuming.

“We could have been killed!” he raged. “As it is, the house is a wreck—they’ll have to dig out the whole ground floor before they can repair the heatingl Blazes, I’m glad it’s not midwinter with snow on the ground! I never had a serious brush with the lawforce before, but if this is how they act nowadays I’m surprised it’s safe for a man to walk on a city street!”

Horn shrugged. I’m getting kind of tolerant about the failings of a modern lawforce. Really serious crimes are so rare on a world like Earth or Newholme they probably don’t know the proper reactions. When I first came here I recall your being very proud of how quiet and comfortable this planet had become.”

‘Yes, but now I know what price we paid for our comfort!” Dize snorted. “Anyway, at least I have one good piece of news for you—Shembo makes his next planetfall tomorrow morning, and I’ve left a message for him to call here directly he’s free.”

It was an unusually quiet Shembo who listened to Horn’s story, sipping meantime at the liquor Maj-Brith had poured for him.

“This make many strange things plain,” he said at last.

“Such as what?” Horn leaned forward.

“Like … well, you know biggest port on Creew ’n Dith, my home port, belong on land of Talibrand family. Much excitement there about where you gone to, Mr. Hornl Jan Talibrand say you insult him, abuse friendship, so he order you out. Not so many people believe, hm? But he a hereditary councillor and call him liar is kind of insulting to self, hm? Bad for all people of Creew ’n Dith! So then gossip say this story you asked for because you leave secret to go look for missing boy like Lars Talibrand did, want to cover tracks and distract people. I not believed that neither. Still, not knowing truth, what to do?

“Then just lately things happen, like every time androids come in port Talibrand men come look at them. All my crew, all human spacecrew, have hands washed to see if they hide blue skin. All ships the same!” Shembo drained his glass and beamed at Maj-Brith for offering him a refill.

“All plain now. Talibrand looking for you. Looking damn hard. Talibrand
scared!”

“Good,” said Horn unsympathetically. “But how the devil am I going to make a landing on Creew ’n Dith if Talibrand is keeping such a keen watch for me? I had thought of putting some kind of cosmetic on to cover my skin, but if he’s alive to that notion …” He shook his head, staring at the blue backs of his hands.

“We think of a way,” Shembo said comfortably. “I fix.”

There was a pause. At length Horn said, “Look, Captain Shembo, there’s something I … well, let me put it this way. I really do appreciate your helping me, but if I succeed in what I’m trying to do, won’t that mean that I’ve taken away your livelihood?”

Shembo shrugged. “This bad, androids turn out to be human kids. This make me sick to stomach. I not go on with any more than I help, hm? I got contract to fill, and I guess it take weeks, months maybe, before news comes right down
here.”
He laid his hand on his belly. “But is not going take away my living, Mr. Horn! I’m spaceman, carry whatever people say I ought. Is been long time since outworlds
so
poor they only can sell to Earth androids. Is now factories, is people with real natural animal hides, furs, spices, is all kinds of luxury things from primitive worlds which Earth too clean and tidy to have. Maybe not so good pay as androids, but still good things to make trade.”

‘What he says is quite true,” Dize confirmed. “These last few days I’ve been wondering what would become of me if the android-robot trade dried up, and I reached pretty much the same conclusion. In fact, I told Maj-Brith last night I thought it might be sensible if I started looking out for a master’s post now instead of waiting till Larrow retires. I could be one of the people who got into the new kind of trade ahead of the rush.”

“You do that,” Maj-Brith said firmly. “I don’t want you to make a single trip more with androids aboard.”

“That’s a load off my mind,” Horn murmured. “And what’s more, that would bring real benefits to the outworlds, too. Instead of just collecting a commission on the transshipment of android cargoes, they could offer their own products … Although frankly right now I couldn’t care less if the withdrawal of the androids brought the whole structure of galactic trade crashing down on our heads. It might even be good for us—teach us a lesson we wouldn’t forget in a hurry!”

There was renewed silence. At length he became aware that Shembo was nodding his head slowly back and forth. “I have idea,” said the Creewndithian. “I guess maybe I know how we get you safe to Braithwin.”

The key to Shembo’s plan was the timing of their planetfall. The ship dropped through the night towards the spaceport on the Talibrand estate an hour and a half before local dawn, in the dead part of the night when men’s minds are sluggish and their bodies weary—the part of the night, too, when Jan Talibrand was least likely to come out as he occasionally did and personally supervise the inspection of incoming spacecrew.

He was not only worried about android cargoes, Shembo said, although clearly the best and most anonymous way for Horn to make his return to Creew ’n Dith was hidden among a group of androids; that, however, would have implied arranging transit out beyond Creew ’n Dith and transfer there to a vessel bound inwards towards Earth. Consequently any stranger arriving on the planet was instantly suspect.

Horn smiled grimly at the information. Even if he wasn’t called to account for his crimes, it sounded as though Jan Talibrand was likely to go the same way as his father Barg and die insane.

Which would be a very appropriate fate for him.

The ship touched down, and port guards—roused from sleep and grumbling to each other—came out to put the crew through the newly instituted checks and searches and to probe the crated robots that composed the majority of the cargo with portable sonic projectors in case there were a man hidden among them.

Between the inner and outer doors of one of the cargo locks, Horn waited tensely as the inspectors approached. They were almost upon him when what he had been expecting took place, and a commotion broke out on the far side of the ship. Voices yelled orders in Creewndithian; lights sprang up and swept that part of the field. The guards who had been so close to Horn hurried to see what the trouble was, drawing guns as they ran.
The moment they were out of the way, Horn dropped to the ground and ran for dear life.

By the time they discovered one of Shembo’s crewmen, acting drunk and laughing his head off at the success of the “pracical joke” he had played on the guards, Horn was safely concealed among two high stacks of stored goods near the exit from the port.