Ports of Call Page 16

  The girl rose to her feet. “Thank you.” She went to the chest and dropped the money into the top drawer. She turned to face Myron, half-smiling. She held out her hands. “You must not be nervous! Look carefully, please. Do you see a knife?”

  Myron looked down. The hands were empty. “No.”

  “That is not enough! You must make sure of me!” When Myron hesitated, she said, “Don’t be shy! Am I not what you would wish me to be?”

  “Perhaps you think me foolish,” said Myron miserably, “but fears were put into my head by the boy with his flaying knife, and by my shipmates, and they won’t go away.”

  “Search me, if you like,” said the girl. “Explore my whole person. Search! Are you timid?”

  “Yes, in a way. At Salou Sain it is not considered polite to search the other person before love-making.” He went on, a trifle lamely. “Of course, cases are different.”

  The girl turned away from him, her face quite still. “Do whatever you like; only make sure that I carry neither skene, nor daggeret, nor flaying knife.”

  Myron stepped behind her and gingerly ran his hands over her body, sparing nowhere a knife might be concealed. At last, breathlessly, he stood back, his hands tingling. He said, “I have explored carefully, but found only a warm girl. The feel of you is superb; my teeth are grating together, I suppose from sheer lust.”

  The girl turned about. “So then? Why are you standing there like a thing of wax?”

  “I will be candid with you,” said Myron. “I am sweating with passion, but I still can’t forget that this is Sholo Town.”

  The girl sighed, but made no comment as Myron went to the bed. He looked under the pillow, but found no knife or other weapon. The coverlet was taut and concealed not even a dangerous length of cord.

  Myron stood back, feeling both foolish and frustrated. He had discovered nothing sinister: no reek of blood, nothing to suggest the cutting of throats. There was, in fact, nothing to trouble him except the girl herself. She continued to watch him, with no other expression than a half-smile, conveying, at least in part, amusement. Why was she not disgusted with him? Certainly he was being tiresome! Somewhere something was out of balance. The girl was far too tolerant! There should have been jeers at his pusillanimity and orders to clear out of her room. The girl’s mood never altered; she was passive, rather than indifferent. Perhaps she was innocent and puzzled by his conduct. In this case, he would win ten sols from Schwatzendale, which, of course, was all to the good.

  The girl gave a small shrug of resignation. She went to the table and sat in one of the chairs. Reaching to a shelf she brought down a box, a bottle and a tall fluted goblet of heavy black glass. She poured from the bottle into the goblet, raised the lid of the box, reached in and brought out a glazed wafer from among the contents. She nibbled at the wafer, sipped at the goblet. Looking sidelong toward Myron, she said, “You may join me, if you like.”

  Myron went to sit at the table. The girl sipped once more of the dark liquor, then said, “If you wish to drink, you must use this goblet, since I have no other.”

  Myron took up the goblet. The dark liquid smelled of pungent essences he could not identify. He grimaced and replaced the goblet. “I don’t think that this is to my taste.”

  “You should not be so fearful!” The girl raised the goblet to her lips and sipped. “It is called ‘Safrinet’, and tastes better than it smells. It is considered our best.”

  “No doubt,” said Myron, “but I am not adventurous.”

  The girl lifted the lid to the box. “Try one of these wafers! They are baked from sweet seeds and the oil of marmarella. No? You should at least taste! The flavor is pleasant.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t care much for sweet cakes.”

  The girl thoughtfully reached into the box and brought out a sweet wafer and ate it. “The refreshments have come and gone,” she told Myron. “It is time to begin.” She rose and stood facing him. “I am ready.”

  Myron slowly stood erect. Imminence hung in the air. His pulse throbbed. The girl turned her back. “Unclasp my white gown.”

  With clumsy fingers Myron slid aside the clasp at the nape of her neck; the white gown slid to the floor, revealing her body, naked save for a wisp of underwear at her hips. She turned and looked at him with glowing eyes. “Now I will help you from your clothes.” She came a step forward, lifted her hands. “First, your tunic. You may touch me, if you like.” She reached toward the clasp at the top of his tunic. By the merest flicker of a glimpse, Myron chanced to notice that the middle finger of her right hand was bent inward at an awkward angle. Before she could touch his throat, he seized her right wrist, clamping it so tightly that she cried out. Slowly, Myron turned over her hand. A sac adhered to the first joint of her middle finger. The sac was distended with liquid. From a small round gasket on the outer face of the sac a short needle protruded.

  Myron looked into the girl’s face. She stared back at him, eyes luminous but without expression. The girl had attached the sac to her finger when she had last reached into the box of nutcakes. In a husky voice Myron said, “I was timid to good purpose.”

  The girl answered in a whisper. “It amounts to nothing. You have won. Take me and use me as you like.”

  A slow fury began to well up inside Myron’s brain. Had he been only a trifle less vigilant or — more accurately — a trifle less lucky, he would now be dying, so that this girl might make free with his yellow-haired pelt.

  The girl, watching his face, became frightened. She cried out: “You are hurting me.” She jerked her arm, and tried to pull away. Myron held her tight. Squirming and twisting, she broke his hold and with palm rigid, struck at his face. Myron caught her arm, bent her elbow and diverted its impetus, guiding it upward, so that she struck her own neck. Without conscious purpose, Myron pressed and the needle entered her flesh. She felt the sting and gave a wild cry of utter desolation. Her arm relaxed; her hand went limp; Myron saw that the sac had gone flaccid.

  The girl said in an incredulous voice: “You have killed me! I am dying!”

  “It may be so. You should know better than I.”

  The girl whimpered. “I don’t want to stare forever from a picture hanging on a wall!”

  “That is what you wanted for me. I feel no pity; you have cost me ten sols.”

  “No, no, no! I took no money from you!”

  “The effect is the same.”

  The girl’s knees began to buckle. She wailed in terror: an eerie sound which thrilled along Myron’s nerves.

  The door swung open; Schwatzendale jerked sidewise into the room, head tilted, hand on his gun. He watched, grimly amused, as Myron carried the staggering girl to the bed, where she sprawled upon her back, staring at the ceiling.

  “I came to save your life,” said Schwatzendale.

  “You are too late,” said Myron. “I saved it for myself.”

  The two went to look down at the girl’s lax body. She spoke in a half-whisper: “I am frightened! What will happen to me?”

  “I think that you are about to die,” said Schwatzendale.

  The girl’s eyes closed. She grimaced, then her face relaxed.

  “The upshot of all this is that you owe me ten sols,” said Schwatzendale.

  Myron nodded, slowly. “It is a debt I cannot evade.” He looked to the chest of drawers, then crossed the room and opened the top drawer. From a tray he took the five sols he had given the girl, then took another ten sols from the tray, which he tendered to Schwatzendale. “This will cover the account, so I believe.”

  “Yes, why not? Money is money.”

  Myron spread a coverlet over the girl’s body, then the two men left the room. They found Wingo sitting placidly at the table, occupied with his third tankard of ale. Schwatzendale asked him, “Are you ready to go?”

  “Whenever you say. The ale is not particularly good.”

  Wingo rose to his feet and the three left the Glad Song Tavern.

  On the way back t
o the ship Myron asked Wingo, “Did you record any of your ‘mood impressions’ tonight?”

  “Of course! There is a distinctive character to the place. I think that I have captured at least an inkling of the atmosphere.”

  “What of the serving girl? Did you photograph her?”

  “Yes, of course! Pretty girls add a numinous quality to any photograph. That is a truism of the trade.”

  Myron said no more, and the three walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter VII

  1

  At dawn the Glicca departed from Sholo spaceport. It floated up the face of the scarp and landed beside the warehouse at Mel, to take on cargo; then it lifted again into the upper air. Myron, standing by the pilot-house window, looked down on Sholo Town, at the base of the scarp. He located the irregular roof of the Glad Song Tavern. Beneath that roof lay the body of the girl whose conduct even now seemed unreal. The episode, thought Myron, only went to reaffirm the principle that a pretty face often hides secret purposes.

  Myron watched until Sholo Town dwindled and disappeared. The escarpment lay across the steppe like a welt, then became lost in orange-gray murk.

  The Glicca slanted away into space. Terce became a coarse gray ball. The orange sun receded astern and presently disappeared into the galactic background.

  The Glicca moved across space toward the world Fiametta, where it would put into two ports of call: first Girandole, then Sweetfleur.

  The affairs of the ship resumed their routine. The pilgrims, ever more impatient, soothed themselves with endless games of double-moko, pounding the table with their fists and pulling at their beards when their scumbles went awry, and their gallant rambles-from-hell were ambushed and sent reeling. Schwatzendale watched from the side, and as before offered comments on the play, pointing out errors and praising sound strategies. Finally he allowed himself to be drawn into the game. By trifling increments he began to win — small sums, as if by blunder, or by happy surprise. Then he lost several goodly pots and appeared to become confused. He muttered and cursed his luck. The pilgrims, who were laughing and joking with each other, commiserated with Schwatzendale and once or twice took the trouble to explain the niceties of the game. They analyzed Schwatzendale’s errors and pointed out where his tactics could be improved. Still, the general consensus was that Schwatzendale should master the finer points of the game before trying to match himself against the experts. But Schwatzendale was stubborn and insisted that all was well and that he would learn by doing. In this next phase, so he declared with dogged determination, he would play with proper caution so as to avoid the flagrant mistakes of past games.

  “Just as you like!” said the pilgrims. “Don’t say we haven’t warned you! So long as you put your money on the table we will gladly sweep it away!”

  Emboldened and jovial, the pilgrims were encouraged to try for large winnings. But now Schwatzendale’s luck had returned, as if by magic. He struck lightning-like blows; his scumbles wrought devastation and presently he had won all the pilgrims’ cash. The game came to a halt, to the pilgrims’ glum dissatisfaction. For want of better occupation, they began to play a game which involved a flourish of the hand, then a display of one or more fingers, with the winner smiting the back of the loser’s head with the flat of his hand. Even this game, for all its liveliness, eventually palled, and the pilgrims sat in surly groups, nursing their sore heads and criticizing Wingo’s cuisine.

  Meanwhile the world Fiametta grew large and bright in the light of the sun Kaneel Verd: the so-called ‘Green Star’. Three moons circled Fiametta, creating dramatic nightscapes and inexhaustible resources for the soothsayers, mystics, priests and seers of the backlands.

  The Glicca slid through the orbits of the three hurtling moons and drifted down toward Girandole, the first port of call. Horizons receded, revealing a landscape of rolling hills, wide valleys, rivers and marshes, a tumble of mountains and rocky crags. Much of the land was under cultivation; much more appeared to be empty range, marked both by dark forest and by single trees standing in splendid isolation. Girandole appeared below: a town of moderate size surrounding a central marketplace. Weeping-willow trees shaded bungalows built of dark timber, each with its verandah, second floor gallery and high-peaked roof: all built to the terms of a picturesque architecture derived, if tradition could be believed, from the illustration in an ancient book of fairy tales.

  At Girandole the Glicca would discharge a cargo of agricultural chemicals, and probably pick up parcels awaiting transshipment, since Girandole functioned as a minor junction port where freight and travelers might transfer from long-range packets to sector shipping. At Sweetfleur, halfway around the planet, cargoes of fabric, unctuous slabs of green jade, exquisite blue-green porcelain bowls thrown and fired in the Mulravy Mountains, might be awaiting export.

  The Glicca landed near the main cargo warehouse among several other spaceships: a Black Stripe passenger packet, a splendid space-yacht, the Fontenoy, from Coiry Beach on the world Alcydon, and the Herlemar, another freight carrier, even more scarred and worn than the Glicca.

  Almost immediately the crew of the Glicca discovered that the warehouses and workshops were quiet, by reason of a weeklong festival, during which all workers were on holiday.

  Captain Maloof accepted the situation philosophically. The circumstances could not be considered unique, or even unusual; warehousemen and cargo handlers were notoriously capricious. Perhaps a skeleton work-force might be assembled on the morrow. If not, the crew of the Glicca would work the cargo themselves: no great hardship. In any case the delay troubled no one except the pilgrims, who instantly set up a clamor. They refused to venture off the ship, purportedly out of fear of thieves who might depredate the costly stuffs they carried in their ornate cases. The real reason was more poignant: Schwatzendale had won all their spare cash at double-moko. Sullenly they watched the four members of the crew leave the ship, then started a new game, using hairs plucked from their beards to serve as wagers.

  As the four passed the space-yacht Fontenoy, they were hailed by a handsome middle-aged gentleman, with a voice and manner defining him as a person of high status. He called out, “Hoy there! Hold up a moment!”

  The four from the Glicca halted and waited while the gentleman jumped down from the Fontenoy’s entry port and approached. He was tall, loose-limbed, urbane; both his clothes and his carriage were casual. Locks of gray hair dangled over his forehead; eyebrows arched whimsically high, as if in amused surprise for the paradoxes of human existence.

  “Joss Garwig here, master of the Fontenoy!” he said heartily.

  Captain Maloof introduced his crew: “This is Chief Steward Wingo, then Supercargo Myron Tany, and over here, lost in one of his enigmatic day-dreams, is Chief Engineer Fay Schwatzendale. I am Captain Adair Maloof.”

  “A pleasure to meet you!” declared Garwig. “But let me state from the start that my motives are not altogether selfless. My engine is giving me a problem which I hope your engineer can fix. My own man is baffled and the local mechanics are all on holiday. It is a most tiresome situation.”

  “Describe the problem,” said Maloof. “We will listen, at the very least. I will make no larger commitment.”

  “Naturally not!” declared Garwig. “The problem is this: at the Ettenheim Spaceyards the mechanics installed a new-type nine-mode malleator which was guaranteed to keep the entire anathrodetic mesh in synchrony. But this doesn’t happen. When we put down to a landing the ship bounces, bumps and jerks like a crazy thing, and causes no end of anxiety. My engineer is without a clue and, for a fact, I suspect him of incompetence. Conceivably your engineer can advise us how best to abate this nuisance.”

  Maloof turned to Schwatzendale. “What about it, Fay?”

  Schwatzendale tilted his head. “There are three possibilities. Number one: the tremble-rods are out of phase with the new unit. Number two: you have installed an undersized version of the device. Number three: the unit was improperly inst
alled, which is most likely, since technical equipment is usually dependable.”

  Garwig asked dubiously, “Is this good news or bad?”

  Schwatzendale hesitated the tenth part of a second, then said, “I’ll have a look at it, though I guarantee nothing.”

  “All favors gratefully accepted!” cried Garwig heartily. “Come aboard! I’ll see to some refreshments. My wife Vermyra concocts an excellent Pink-eye Punch, not to mention an almost infamous Saskadoodle!”

  Garwig led the way into Fontenoy’s saloon, where he introduced his family. First, his wife Vermyra, a stylish, if somewhat buxom, lady with a beautiful pink and white complexion, large amiable features, honey-gold hair teased into a cloud of frivolous ringlets. Next came the son Mirl, who was thin and diffident, with none of the affable ease of his father. Finally, in response to Garwig’s call, his daughter Tibbet sauntered into the saloon, yawning, stretching, hitching the pajama trousers more snugly up around her rump, and going so far as to scratch the same rump with indolent fingers. She was three or four years younger than Myron, pretty, with a reckless mop of dark hair and a smoulder at the back of her eyes. She looked Schwatzendale over, after which she surveyed Myron. Then, with a rather ambiguous shrug, she turned away and thoughtfully studied her fingernails. In a voice of hushed urgency Vermyra recommended that Tibbet return to her cabin and dress herself properly.

  Tibbet carelessly retreated from the saloon, returned a few moments later wearing what were popularly known as ‘picaroon’ pants, tight around her hips and upper thighs, flaring loosely, only to be caught in at the ankle: a style which set off her figure to advantage. Myron decided that, all in all, she was quite attractive, if somewhat stagy. Not his type, at any rate, which was all to the good, in view of her careful disinterest.

  Mirl, watching from the side, chuckled. “Don’t be offended! Tibbet has just given you what we call the Wilmer treatment.”