Into the Slave Nebula (8 page)

H
ORN FELT LIKE
the hero of one of the fairy-tales he remembered from his childhood, who had come into possession of a charm that opened any door. He had foreseen all sorts of difficulties when he tried to cope on his own after reaching Newholme. Thanks to Talibrand’s certificate and Dize’s generosity, he found himself being helped at every turn and warned of problems he had never suspected might exist.

Studying the certificate, he noticed something he had previously overlooked, which meant that a long stay on Newholme would be a waste of time under any circumstances even if he had not already decided to move on to Creew ’n Dith as soon as possible. Newholme was unique—apart from Earth, of course—among the many worlds which Talibrand had visited: he had been to it only once. It followed logically that his regular business, whatever that was, had never brought him this way. His most frequent calls had been made on his home planet, on Vernier, Lygos and Arthworld.

What could he have been on the trail of? Well, perhaps the answer could be found on Creew ’n Dith.

According to a map of the occupied galaxy which he borrowed from Dize, that was the world just beyond the regular liner routes. If he had wanted to go to a nearer system, he could have done so on comparatively luxurious vessels; there were plenty of travelers to support scheduled passenger services, mainly sales representatives and import-export agents, plus a few exceptionally wealthy tourists and a trickle of diplomats and other officials.

But when Dize had finished his check at the spaceport, he returned home to report that the only ship going straight from here to Creew ’n Dith in the next month or more was a freighter carrying another consignment of robots, a good few of which were actually products of Horn & Horn. There was no other flight scheduled on that route at all.

“Hmmm!” Horn combed his new beard with his fingers, cogitating over the map. He had just been struck by the fact that there was a fringe of uncertainty fifty or sixty systems off, where the names of worlds were spelled phonetically and followed by a query, or entered in brackets against more than one star because it was not known exactly which they circled. That, more than anything else, brought it home to him that when human beings referred to “the galaxy” they were actually talking about a very small portion of it comparatively close to Earth.

“This freighter carrying robots to Creew ’n Dith, now,” he mused aloud. “Would it also be bringing androids in the opposite direction?”

“Very likely,” Dize shrugged. “You can fit three androids in the space you need for eight crated robots, which must about correspond to their relative costs, because that’s the way it’s been since before I entered the space service. Economically it’s a hell of a stable trade, and a good one for the people who work in it.”

Horn raised his eyes from contemplation of the map, and whistled. In that case Rowl, the
imported
android, must already have been one among many when he was bought by the Horn family. If Larrow’s ship alone was delivering nearly ten thousand annually over the last leg of their voyage to Earth, androids from the outworlds must be absolutely pouring in!

“Well, that suggests an explanation for Talibrand confiding
his precious certificate to an android, I guess,” he said at length. “If Dordy was imported, maybe he’d learned on his way to Earth how important a galactic citizen’s work was, whereas hardly anyone else on the planet would have heard of such people. Interesting! But never mind that.”

He leaned forward. “Now you said this ship bound for Creew ’n Dith was carrying some of our robots?”

“A fair slice of the cargo we ourselves brought out last trip,” Dize nodded. “Plus a bunch of others made here on Newholme.”

“Cheaper?”

“Sure, a lot cheaper.”

“And from what you’ve told me about Creewndithians”—Horn had had a number of long talks with Dize about the people of the various outworlds since his arrival here—“I don’t imagine they’d cooperate by agreeing to let me work a passage with them.”

Dize chuckled. “Not in a million years!”

“So I guess I’d better come out from behind my anonymity and start exploiting grandad’s dislike of letting our family rows be noised around. As far as anyone here can tell, it would be perfectly reasonable for a scion of Horn & Horn Robots to make a tour of the worlds that import our products and get firsthand knowledge of the uses they’re put to. We’ll go down to the port tomorrow and set it up.”

Dressed in the height of Earthly fashion, affecting a lazy disinterest which matched his ostensible role of a grandson and heir apparent rather unwillingly learning the family business, he lounged examining his fingernails in the office of the agency which had chartered the Creewndithian ship due to leave the following day, while various alternative proposals were put to him.

Go via some other nearer system, so that you need only transship at the last moment from a nice comfortable passenger liner?

“No,” Horn said firmly. “That would involve delay. I’d rather spend the least possible time away from Earth.
I
don’t mind shipping on a cargo tub if I can get there and back a good deal quicker.”

Wait for the biennial visit of the
Regulus
, which was available for diversion to Creew ’n Dith on payment of a surcharge which no doubt the resources of Horn & Horn could meet without noticing?

“I said I want to get there quickly!” Horn said, betraying a hint of annoyance.

And so on, and so on, until finally they parted with the information that there was, actually, a freighter under a certain Captain Shembo, scheduled to lift tomorrow on the direct route, which ordinarily didn’t accept passengers but which in view of the exceptional circumstances …

“Ask how much they want,” Horn said boredly, and gave the gap-toothed woman in charge of the office a sight of the thick wad of Earthside currency he was carrying. She beamed and went into action as though afraid the money might evaporate if left exposed to the air.

“Yes, sir! I’ll attend to your comfort aboard the ship myself. I’ll have the captain’s cabin put at your disposal—”

“You must be out of your mind,” Horn cut in. “It’ll put the captain in a filthy temper, and he’s liable to take it out on his crew. I’d prefer my trip to be made in a more pleasant atmosphere. Turn out one of the second mates, perhaps.” He gave the gap-toothed woman a sunny smile. “When my grandfather, the president of Horn & Horn, gets a touch of dyspepsia, production suffers for two days following. I’ve seen it happen.”

The remark was something of a libel on his grand-father,
but it had the desired effect, and he left the woman bubbling with her impression of his charm, good sense and breeding.

Considering it was such a long flight, the fare he’d been asked was lower than he’d imagined. As Dize had explained to him, the purchasing power of Earthside money went up, broadly speaking, in ratio to the distance from Earth, although naturally the available range of goods you could buy with it grew rapidly smaller. So he had no compunction about spending the rest of his Newholmer money on a sight-seeing trip for the Dize family; it seemed like a good way to mark his—and incidentally also Dize’s own—impending departure.

Next morning he and Dize went to the spaceport together. Larrow’s ship was due to lift at sunset, but Dize had to be on hand early to supervise the loading of their android cargo.

This, they discovered, was already on the port. A light drizzle was falling from the overcast sky and a chilly wind was blowing. In a compound adjacent to the freight warehouses, hundreds of blue-skinned men stood or sat huddled together, with only their issue ponchos for protection. Dize clapped his hand to his forehead in dismay.

“Damn these fools of port officials!” he exclaimed. “Why haven’t they rigged the awnings yet? We’re liable to have half the batch go down with pneumonia if they’re put aboard soaking wet! Excuse me—I’m going to go raise some hell.”

He vanished with a vague promise to come back and see Horn off, and the latter, with many backward glances at the miserable androids, made his way slowly to the port authority office.

Here Captain Shembo was waiting to greet him: a wiry man with disproportionately long arms who spoke thickly and with many hesitations. This at first irritated Horn,
by making him feel he was dealing with a person of subnormal intelligence; abruptly he realized that a starship commander couldn’t
be
that stupid, and remembered that, being Creewndithian, Shembo was struggling with a foreign language. The reality of any mode of communication other than the Anglic Terrestrial to which he had been born had never penetrated Horn’s awareness before. He made up his mind to pick up at least a snatch of Creewndithian during the trip.

It rapidly became clear that Shembo was anxious to be on good terms with his unexpected but important passenger, and when the formalities of port control were over he undertook to escort him personally to the ship. Doubtless this was intended as a compliment; however—perhaps, Horn guessed, because such conveniences were rare on Creew ’n Dith—it didn’t seem to occur to the captain to signal for a groundcar, and they trudged together across the concrete of the landing-ground under a bombardment of icy drizzle.

By now, Dize’s complaints had paid dividends, and the androids were struggling to erect big awnings on poles, which flapped like the wings of a dying bird. Seeing the direction of his companion’s gaze, Shembo gave a wide smile.

“Good cargo, huh? We brung in many this trip!”

“That’s the bunch you just brought in? They’re from Creew ’n Dith, then?”

“Oh no! Androids come from far out. Long far. Maybe twice so far—I not know. We get from other ships on Creew ’n Dith four cargoes. I buy best of each at—at … How do you say what is, when each makes his biggest price?”

“Auction?” Horn suggested after a moment’s reflection. Shembo ringed his thumb and forefinger in a gesture of agreement.

“Oction, is right. I very good buyer for androids, I get best ones and treat well. Lose few lives! Other traders not so good, pay low prices, get bad stock, give bad food, not keep warm, lose many, try get more price than worth after. Best do business with
good
androids.”

So these androids came from even further out than Creew ’n Dith, did they? Horn raised his eyebrows in surprise. Offhand he would have been inclined to doubt that anywhere less advanced than, say, Newholme could support the complex technology of artificial life manufacture. Why, though, should he assume it was all that complicated? Once you’d programmed your basic germ plasm correctly, and set up whatever kind of womb-surrogate you needed to nourish the developing embryo, you could no doubt reduce the process to a series of rote tasks. The raw materials were plentiful enough, that was certain. And once the infants had been decanted, or whatever the technical term was, doubtless they could be raised in pretty much the same fashion as human children until they were old enough for conditioning and training. Indeed, it might make very good sense for a remote and underdeveloped outworld to invest in an android plant, knowing that this above all was a product in demand on Earth and exchangeable for otherwise prohibitively expensive robots.

He had just been distracted from that line of thought by Shembo’s proud indication of his ship, lying third in line of those waiting at the loading-berths, when a sharp voice hailed them from behind. They turned to discover one of the silent Newholmer groundcars, occupied by a driver and a passenger, both men; the latter was stepping down as the car halted.

“Mr. Horn? Sorry to trouble you,” he said affably. “Could you come back to the port authority office for a moment? We overlooked a document you were supposed
to sign—a pure formality, of course. You have to give an undertaking that you don’t intend to set up permanently in business on Creew ’n Dith.”

He added a faintly weary shrug, as though to imply, “You know what these regulations are like!”

Horn cursed silently, but aloud said only, “Sorry, Captain Shembo. I guess I’ll have to do as he says. I’ll get back as quickly as I can.”

He took a pace forward, and was instantly dragged back. Astonished, he realized that Shembo had clamped one powerful hand on his arm, and with the other had conjured an ugly but efficient-looking projectile weapon from the folds of his uniform tunic.

“You not going anywhere, Mr. Horn!” he said between clenched teeth. “Is no such certificate for visitors to Creew ’n Dith! I guess maybe you very rich man. I guess these”—a word Horn didn’t catch, presumably a Creewndithian obscenity—“try kidnap you for ransom. You get into ship. You
run!”

S
UCH WAS THE TONE
of authority Shembo used that—even though his mind was frozen with shock—Horn found his feet beginning to obey the order to head for the ship. He checked himself the moment he could think clearly again.

Kidnapping for ransom? That was something out of a historical melodrama! And yet the idea must be a very real one to Shembo for him to act so promptly upon it. Maybe among the outworlds such things did still go on. …

But he couldn’t believe that it was so simple. Far more likely, in his view, was the alternative explanation. Yesterday he had emerged from anonymity when he went to book his passage aboard Shembo’s ship. If Dize’s guess was the right one, then the “someone” who had disposed of Lars Talibrand might very well have taken notice of his presence on Newholme.

He drew a deep breath. “Thank you very much, Captain Shembo! But I don’t believe they want to kidnap me. I think it’s far more likely that they want me killed!”

Hearing himself say that, knowing that it was true even though he was mainly uttering the words for effect, sent a shiver down his spine, but he managed to keep his eyes on the faces of the two men in the groundcar, and was pleased and dismayed at the same time to see their expressions of alarm.

“You serious, Mr. Horn?” Shembo demanded, aghast. But he kept both gaze and gun trained on the two strangers.

“Somebody’s already tried it once, back home on Earth.”

“In that case I guess maybe we call lawforce pretty damn quick! You go to ship—”

“It was a lawforce superintendent who tried to kill me,” Horn cut in.

“Hey! Things
really
bad down there on Earth now! So best they come to the ship, huh? My crew is good fellows. Soon beat plenty of truth out of ’em!”

He beckoned with the muzzle of his gun. “You! Come on out that car! You come get your feet wet same like us!”

For a moment Horn thought the strangers were about to comply. Then, suddenly and simultaneously, each of them made a curious sideways movement of the jaw, and keeled over: the passenger against the side of the car, the driver with his head on the windshield.

“Poison?” Shembo breathed. “Or faking?” He advanced cautiously, touched the arm of the passenger; when there was no reaction, he felt down the forearm for a pulse. After a moment he straightened and put away his gun.

“Is dead the both of them,” he said in somber tones.

“Dead!” Horn darted forward. “Are you sure?”

“Certain sure, Mr. Horn. So all we can get out of them is maybe who they are.” With brisk and practiced movements he rifled the pockets of both men, discovering wallets which he handed over to Horn. Accepting them in bewilderment, the latter started to voice a question.

“You talk later, Mr. Horn!” Shembo ordered. “Right now you come fast to ship. We lift right away, earlier than regular time! Put lots of distance behind you!”

“Behind me? But—”

“You talk later,” Shembo repeated. “Mr. Dize, he told me you carry certificate of Lars Talibrand, citizen of galaxy! You not want be delayed by arguments with lawforce, hm? So
move!
”

An hour later, in Shembo’s own cabin—its walls, floor and ceiling shivering to the continual hammer-hammer of the interstellar engines, which were less well maintained than those of Larrow’s ship, or perhaps just less well designed to avoid wasting power on surplus noise and vibration—the captain poured two tots from a bottle of some strong-smelling and fiery liquor. Raising his own glass, he favoured Horn with a mirthless grin.

“Sorry, Mr. Horn! When Dize first tell me you have Talibrand certificate, I say, ‘Watch out! Is many first-rate tricksters come up from Earth!’ Not till I see for self is someone trying to kidnap you can I believe what Dize say to me!” He tossed back his drink and reached for a refill.

Horn imitated the gesture, choked, spluttered and felt his eyes filling with tears. Shembo chuckled.

“Sorry again! Is good strong Creewndithian brandy—maybe you like better with little juice, hm?”

“No, never mind,” Horn forced out, recovering. “Ah … I didn’t realize you knew Dize!”

“Oh, sure. I do business many years with Captain Larrow and his crew. I bring androids, take away robots; they bring robots, take away androids. Is commercial acquaintance, yes? Not much friendly, but hello how are you sort of thing. So when he tell me is you who discovered dead body of Talibrand, I do like he asked me.
Hael!
” A second shot of the brandy went to join the first one.

Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he went on, “And did be useful to you the wallets of the two men?”

“Yes and no,” Horn said, producing them and laying them on the table between them. Drawing out the contents, which he had already inspected, he added in a low tone, “I get the feeling I’m carrying a plague! Until the other night on Earth, the first night of carnival, I’d never seen a dead body except once when someone was being
carried out of a dueling-hall. And now they seem to be dropping dead all around me!”

“Is shame,” Shembo declared. “Is too few people and too big galaxy for wasted deaths like that!”

“What—what did they die of, those two at the spaceport? Do you know?”

“Oh, sure!” Shembo looked surprised. “Poison in tooth—bite down and break hidden …” He snapped his fingers. “Captule? Cap-
sule!
Is very old trick, use centuries ago.”

“So someone is very anxious indeed to keep something a secret,” Horn muttered. “It must take expensive conditioning to make your agents willing to kill themselves when they’re unmasked.”

“Oh, sure! But people in business where they need to kill citizen of galaxy sure are very bad and very rich. Who was they, the two who dead?”

“Well, according to the ID they were carrying, their names were Hyam Udd and Pedro Cavelgrune, and they were both export-import agents from Maxplan. That’s not far from Newholme, is it?”

“No. I was there two-three times. Is not good world for humans. Is too hot. Not much goods to trade. Like steam-bath and mudpack!”

“So export-import agents can’t have their business filling their entire working time, hm? Apparently they specialized as agents for android cargoes, anyway. There are letters here in Cavelgrune’s wallet which mention two or three consignments, and instruct him to employ the ‘usual procedure.’ But it doesn’t say who sent them, I’m afraid.”

“Anything else?” Shembo peered into one of the empty wallets.

“Nothing that makes sense to me,” Horn muttered.

“Is something!” Shembo declared. He raised the wallet to his ear and bent it back and forth. “Is something stiff
in there—is heavy paper, maybe. We look again, hm?” He produced a wicked-looking knife and prised apart the edge of the wallet, revealing a concealed compartment. From it he delicately withdrew another letter.

“I read Anglic handwriting pretty slow,” he said, and handed it to Horn.

“We learn that a boy called—” Horn began aloud, and had to check and look again before continuing. “A boy called Derry Horn claiming to be the grandson of Horn the robot manufacturer intends to leave Newholme aboard a Creewndithian ship at 1200 on 4/4/008. Since the Creewndithian problem would have been solved on Earth without trouble but for the interference of a person of the same name, he is to be taken in charge, evaluated and if necessary”—his voice cracked on the last word—“eliminated!”

“Now,” Shembo said solmnly, “I
really
believe what Dize tell me!”

Horn stared at the letter in horror. The signature was simply “Kyer,” and there was no address but the scribbled name of the city on Newholme which they had just lifted from.

“You very pale, Mr. Horn,” Shembo said with sympathy. “You drink little more brandy, you soon feel okay.”

Horn complied, and somewhat to his surprise found the potent liquor calming him, as Shembo had promised. For a long while he sat in silence, cogitating.

What link was there between Coolin on Earth and Cavelgrune on Newholme? What link, in fact—apart from Talibrand’s own travels—was there between all these various outworlds and Horn’s own narrow escape on Earth? Only one factor kept recurring and recurring.

Androids.

Talibrand had confided his certificate to an android. That same android had been an acute enough judge of
character to guess that Horn might be prodded into leaving Earth on Talibrand’s trail—something androids were barred by law from doing, though having met Dordy Horn could hardly doubt they were capable of doing it. And now, once more, androids were the specialty of Udd and Cavelgrune’s export-import agency. It was the
only
common factor!

He had a momentary vision of some vast android organization spanning the stars, passing information by a subterranean channel few humans ever guessed at, for use in blackmail. Could that be it, a huge interstellar criminal confederacy? Could that be the thing Lars Talibrand had stumbled on? Dordy had pointed out that no android could be better off than any human, even one of the Dispossessed. Could he there have been voicing a jealousy which might lead to the passing on of rumor, scandal, slanderous lies—anything to make androids feel in some vague fashion superior to humans?

No, it didn’t fit. It was ridiculous. He had to believe Dordy’s assertion that Talibrand had voluntarily confided his certificate to him. If he had stolen it, he would never have handed it on to another human being and risked punishment for what he had done.

Waiting for him to finish thinking, Shembo had struck a smokehale and vanished into the first dense cloud of its vapor. He spoke out of the middle of it.

“You not what I think, Mr. Horn! When Dize tell me, I think first, ‘Oh, I carry spoiled rich boy! I carry some big fool who make nuisance all time and complain, complain because my ship is not luxury liner!’ Is good to find young man from Earth who not caves in like burst balloon when someone tries kill him!”

If you could only read my mind …” Horn said wryly and tucked the incredible letter ordering his death back into the concealed compartment of the late Pedro Cavelgrune’s wallet.

Shembo exposed all his shiny teeth in a grin of comprehension and disappeared again in a cloud of smoke.

“Sure, is sensible! Is more worth keeping life of person who not want kill other people than keep life of person who
does
want kill other people! So you get little bit scared, hm? Never you mind, Mr. Horn! Is safe here on this ship of mine! Is all good reliable crew, work with me long time.”

“In the android trade,” Horn muttered to himself. “Captain, I guess I ought to ask you something about this business you’re in. I know practically nothing about it. I remember when I was a kid—oh, twelve or fourteen years ago—my grandfather was talking about buying himself a piece of it, as a diversification of his robot interests. But I don’t recall anything coming of it.”

Shembo chuckled. “He not manage to buy in,” he said flatly.

“I guess he didn’t. But how can you be so positive?”

The captain extended a hand with two fingers folded, two crossed. “Android trade tight like
that,”
he said. “All so tight it not leak liquid helium!”

So it was a monopoly, and jealously guarded. Okay, if someone had had the bright idea of transporting an entire android factory to an underdeveloped outworld where his raw materials cost him literally nothing, he might be expected to want to hold on to his advantage as long as possible. Fair enough. Monopoly-breaking was hardly the kind of job to attract Lars Talibrand, was it? It was more the business of regular government authorities. Anyway, as for benefiting entire planetary populations, Dize had indicated that Earth was the chief consumer of androids, and Earth didn’t recognize citizens of the galaxy.

“Do you have many androids on Creew ’n Dith, Captain Shembo?” he demanded.

“Few. Go to big houses, rich families. Sometimes when
rich man drop by at port, he bid in oction to get specially good one. But not many, no.”

“You have more use for robots, hm?”

“Sure. Androids pretty much same as people except not so onery. Robots good and useful—very strong, but tame!”

“So your cargo will all be bought up on Creew ’n Dith?”

“All? No, not all—is not very rich world, mine. Beautiful, exciting, yes, but not so rich. So sell some to dealers from further out, exchange for more androids.”

Horn’s brow corrugated with concentration. “Between Earth and Newholme the ratio seems to be eight robots to three androids. Is that the same on this leg of the route?”

“Hell, no! For eight robots I get six, maybe so many as ten androids when I sell on Creew ’n Dith! Robots worth more androids further you get from Earth, see? Earthside robots the very best, Newholmer nearly so good, what we make on Creew ’n Dith not much worth exporting, see?”

That sounded reasonable, Horn decided. If the bulk of the androids traveling by this route to Earth originated out Arthworld way, or even perhaps somewhere still further from the solar system, this variation in their price was perfectly logical. Doubtless the losses Dize had referred to when he saw his next cargo exposed to the rain and wind—from pneumonia and similar causes—also affected their value, as must transportation costs …

Shembo had gone off into a highly technical account of price fluctuations in the android trade, which his command of Anglic was not really adequate for. Horn listened with only half an ear. After all, he might have come to an entirely false conclusion, and his next stop was the place where he was likeliest to be told about Talibrand’s
secret, by the authorities who had nominated him for galactic citizenship. He ought to stop guessing from flimsy evidence and wait until he was given something concrete to act upon.