Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (310 page)

* * * *

T
he captain felt a little bewildered.

There was something peculiar about this! He was getting out of it much too cheaply. Since the Empire had quit its wars of expansion, young slaves in good health were a high-priced article. Furthermore, he was practically positive that Bruth the Baker had been willing to sell for a tenth of what he actually had to pay!

Well, he wouldn’t complain. Rapidly, he signed, sealed, and thumbprinted various papers shoved at him by a helpful clerk; and made out a check.

“I guess,” he told Maleen of Karres, “we’d better get along to the ship.”

And now what was he going to do with the kid, he pondered, as he padded along the unlighted streets with his slave trotting quietly behind him. If he showed up with a pretty girl-slave on Nikkeldepain, even a small one, various good friends there would toss him into ten years or so of penal servitude—immediately after Illyla had personally collected his scalp. They were a moral lot.

Karres—?

“How far off is Karres, Maleen?” he asked into the dark.

“It takes about two weeks,” Maleen said tearfully.

Two weeks! The captain’s heart sank again.

“What are you blubbering about?” he inquired uncomfortably.

Maleen choked, sniffed, and began sobbing openly.

“I have two little sisters!” she cried.

“Well, well,” the captain said encouragingly. “That’s nice—you’ll be seeing them again soon. I’m taking you home, you know!”

Great Patham—now he’d said it! But after all—

However, this piece of good news seemed to have the wrong effect on his slave. Her sobbing grew much more violent.

“No, I won’t,” she wailed. “They’re here!”

“Huh?” said the captain. He stopped short. “Where?”

“And the people they’re with are mean to them, too!” wept Maleen.

The captain’s heart dropped clean through his boots. Standing there in the dark, he helplessly watched it coming:

“You could buy them awfully cheap!” she said.

II.

I
n times of stress the young life of Karres appeared to take to the heights. It might be a mountainous place.

The Leewit sat on the top shelf on the back wall of the crockery and antiques store, strategically flanked by two expensive-looking vases. She was a doll-sized edition of Maleen; but her eyes were cold and gray instead of blue and tearful. About five or six, the captain vaguely estimated. He wasn’t very good at estimating them around that age.

“Good evening,” he said as he came in through the door. The Crockery and Antiques Shop had been easy to find. Like Bruth the Baker’s, it was the one spot in the neighborhood that was all lit up.

“Good evening, sir!” said what was presumably the store owner, without looking around. He sat with his back to the door, in a chair approximately at the center of the store and facing the Leewit at a distance of about twenty feet.

“…and there you can stay without food or drink till the Holy Man comes in the morning!” he continued immediately, in the taut voice of a man who has gone through hysteria and is sane again. The captain realized he was addressing the Leewit.

“Your other Holy Man didn’t stay very long!” the diminutive creature piped, also ignoring the captain. Apparently she had not yet discovered Maleen behind him.

“This is a stronger denomination—much stronger!” the store owner replied, in a shaking voice but with a sort of relish. “
He’ll
exorcise you, all right, little demon—you’ll whistle no buttons off him! Your time is up! Go on and whistle all you want! Bust every vase in the place—”

The Leewit blinked her gray eyes thoughtfully at him.

“Might!” she said.

“But if you try to climb down from there,” the store owner went on, on a rising note, “I’ll chop you into bits—into little, little bits!”

He raised his arm as he spoke and weakly brandished what the captain recognized with a start of horror as a highly ornamented but probably still useful antique battle-ax.

“Ha!” said the Leewit.

“Beg your pardon, sir!” the captain said, clearing his throat.

“Good evening, sir!” the store owner repeated, without looking around. “What can I do for you?”

“I came to inquire,” the captain said hesitantly, “about that child.”

The store owner shifted about in his chair and squinted at the captain with red-rimmed eyes.

“You’re not a Holy Man!” he said.

“Hello, Maleen!” the Leewit said suddenly. “That him?”

“We’ve come to buy you,” Maleen said. “Shut up!”

“Good!” said the Leewit.

“Buy it? Are you mocking me, sir?” the store owner inquired.

“Shut up, Moonell!” A thin, dark, determined-looking woman had appeared in the doorway which led through the back wall of the store. She moved out a step under the shelves; and the Leewit leaned down from the top shelf and hissed. The woman moved hurriedly back into the doorway.

“Maybe he means it,” she said in a more subdued voice.

“I can’t sell to a citizen of the Empire,” the store owner said defeatedly.

“I’m not a citizen,” the captain said shortly. This time he wasn’t going to name it.

“No, he’s from Nikkel—” Maleen began.

“Shut up, Maleen!” the captain said helplessly in turn.

“I never heard of Nikkel,” the store owner muttered doubtfully.

“Maleen!” the woman called shrilly. “That’s the name of one of the others—Bruth the Baker got her. He means it, all right! He’s buying them—”

“A hundred and fifty maels!” the captain said craftily, remembering Bruth the Baker. “In cash.”

The store owner looked dazed.

“Not enough, Moonell!” the woman called. “Look at all it’s broken! Five hundred maels!”

There was a sound then, so thin the captain could hardly hear it. It pierced at his eardrums like two jabs of a delicate needle. To right and left of him, two highly glazed little jugs went
clink-clink!
, showed a sudden veining of cracks, and collapsed.

A brief silence settled on the store. And now that he looked around more closely, the captain could spot here and there other little piles of shattered crockery—and places where similar ruins apparently had been swept up, leaving only traces of colored dust.

The store owner laid the ax carefully down beside his chair, stood up, swaying a little, and came towards the captain.

“You offered me a hundred and fifty maels!” he said rapidly as he approached. “I accept it here, now, see—before witnesses!” He grabbed the captain’s right hand in both of his and pumped it up and down vigorously. “Sold!” he yelled.

Then he wheeled around in a leap and pointed a shaking hand at the Leewit.

“And NOW,” he howled, “break something! Break anything! You’re his! I’ll sue him for every mael he ever made and ever will!”

“Oh, do come help me down, Maleen!” the Leewit pleaded prettily.

F
or a change the store of Wansing, the jeweler, was dimly lit and very quiet. It was a sleek, fashionable place in a fashionable shopping block near the spaceport. The front door was unlocked and Wansing was in.

The three of them entered quietly, and the door sighed quietly shut behind them. Beyond a great crystal display counter Wansing was moving about among a number of opened shelves, talking softly to himself. Under the crystal of the counter and in close-packed rows on the satin-covered shelves reposed a many-colored gleaming and glittering and shining. Wansing was no piker.

“Good evening, sir!” the captain said across the counter.

“It’s morning!” the Leewit remarked from the other side of Maleen.

“Maleen!” said the captain.

“We’re keeping out of this!” Maleen said to the Leewit.

“All right,” said the Leewit.

Wansing had come around jerkily at the captain’s greeting but had made no other move. Like all the slave owners the captain had met on Porlumma so far, Wansing seemed unhappy. Otherwise he was a large, dark, sleek man with jewels in his ears and a smell of expensive oils and perfumes about him.

“This place is under constant visual guard, of course,” he told the captain gently. “Nothing could possibly happen to me here. Why am I so frightened?”

“Not of me, I’m sure!” the captain said with an uncomfortable attempt at geniality. “I’m glad your store’s still open,” he went on briskly. “I’m here on business—”

“Oh, yes, it’s still open, of course,” Wansing said. He gave the captain a slow smile and turned back to his shelves. “I’m taking inventory, that’s why. I’ve been taking inventory since early yesterday morning. I’ve counted them all seven times.”

“You’re very thorough,” the captain said.

“Very, very thorough!” Wansing nodded to the shelves. “The last time I found I had made a million maels. But twice before that I had lost approximately the same amount. I shall have to count them again, I suppose.” He closed a drawer softly. “I’m sure I counted those before. But they move about constantly. Constantly! It’s horrible.”

“You have a slave here called Goth,” the captain said, driving to the point.

“Yes, I do,” Wansing said, nodding. “And I’m sure she understands by now I meant no harm. I do, at any rate. It was perhaps a little—but I’m sure she understands now, or will soon.”

“Where is she?” the captain inquired, a trifle uneasily.

“In her room perhaps,” Wansing suggested. “It’s not so bad when she’s there in her room with the door closed. But often she sits in the dark and looks at you as you go past—” He opened another drawer, peered into it, closed it quietly again. “Yes, they do move!” he whispered, as if confirming an earlier suspicion. “Constantly—”

“Look, Wansing,” the captain said in a loud, firm voice. “I’m not a citizen of the Empire. I want to buy this Goth. I’ll pay you a hundred and fifty maels, cash.”

Wansing turned around completely again and looked at the captain. “Oh, you do?” he said. “You’re not a citizen?” He walked a few steps to the side of the counter, sat down at a small desk and turned a light on over it. Then he put his face in his hands for a moment.

“I’m a wealthy man,” he muttered. “An influential man! The name of Wansing counts for a great deal on Porlumma. When the Empire suggests you buy, you buy, of course—but it need not have been I who bought her! I thought she would be useful in the business—and then even I could not sell her again within the Empire. She has been here a week!”

He looked up at the captain and smiled. “One hundred and fifty maels,” he said. “Sold! There are records to be made out—” He reached into a drawer and took out some printed forms. He began to write rapidly. The captain produced identifications.

Maleen said suddenly, “Goth?”

“Right here,” a voice murmured. Wansing’s hand made a convulsive jerk, but he did not look up. He kept on writing.

Something small and lean and bonelessly supple, dressed in a dark jacket and leggings, came across the thick carpets of Wansing’s store and stood behind the captain. This one might be about nine or ten.

“I’ll take your check, captain,” Wansing said politely. “You must be an honest man. Besides, I want to frame it.”

“And now,” the captain heard himself say in the remote voice of one who moves through a strange dream, “I suppose we could go to the ship.”

The sky was gray and cloudy, and the streets were lightening. Goth, he noticed, didn’t resemble her sisters. She had brown hair cut short a few inches below her ears, and brown eyes with long, black lashes. Her nose was short and her chin was pointed. She made him think of some thin, carnivorous creature, like a weasel.

She looked up at him briefly, grinned and said, “Thanks!”

“What was wrong with
him?
” chirped the Leewit, walking backwards for a last view of Wansing’s store.

“Tough crook,” muttered Goth. The Leewit giggled.

“You premoted this just dandy, Maleen!” she stated next.

“Shut up,” said Maleen.

“All right,” said the Leewit. She glanced up at the captain’s face. “You been fighting!” she said virtuously. “Did you win?”