The Five Gold Bands Page 9

  Paddy grimaced. "I keep seeing a picture of us hanging by our heels from a post or kicking inside a nerve-suit." He wiped his forehead, ran his hand through his blond bristles. "It gives a man the value of his existence, this life of the hare and the hound. And never a priest to help you into the blessed life to come."

  "Pish," said Fay. "Confess to me if you want to."

  "Very well and why not? It's the intent that swashes a man's soul free of guilt. Now then, sister," and Paddy studied the bulkhead, "there was a sin which occurred on the planet Maeve but it's to be supposed I was sorely tempted.

  "Ah, there's a green garden there at Meran-a terrace where men sit under plane trees and drink the soft mouth-filling beer of the place. Then those soft-eyed girls come swinging by with their shoulders and their long brown legs bare.

  "They wear pearls in their navels and emeralds in their ears and when they look those long slow looks there's honey in a river between you and all the will for a decent Christian life flits away like gulls down the Bloody Foreland. Now then-"

  Fay's face twisted in rage and disgust. "A confession? Pah! You're boasting!" She marched across the cabin. "The Shauls are right. Earther savages think of nothing but their glands."

  "Now, now, my dear-"

  "I'm not your dear! I'm an Earth Agent, worse luck, and if this weren't the most important thing in my life I'd turn around and head for Earth and put you as far out of my sight and mind as I possibly could!"

  "Now, now, now. You don't know how lovely you look with your little face all pink with rage."

  Fay laughed bitterly. "Rage? Not on your life!" She strode to the galley and poured herself a bowl of soup, which she ate with crackers in moody silence.

  Still turned away from Paddy she said, "We'll be landing in an hour or two."

  Paddy interpreted the statement as an invitation to join her. Sitting down he chewed reflectively on one of her crackers.

  "It's a sad responsibility for a pair of fallible humans… Now had we old Father O'Toole with us he'd go forth, take the data, hide all in his cassock, come back to the ship and none would dare to interfere."

  "Father O'Toole is far away," Fay pointed out acidly. "We must cope with this problem ourselves. Though I wish he were here and you were back in Skibbereen… We've got a problem which you insist on ignoring. Shaul won't be like Loristan. They've got the brains of the system, the Shauls, and they're oversuspicious."

  "Hmm." Paddy frowned, drummed the table with his fingers. "If we were journalists when we set down we'd be allowed more freedom with our camera."

  Fay said grudgingly, "You may be a lecher and a thief but you come up with an idea now and then."

  They sat a moment in silence. Fay looked suddenly at Paddy with wide eyes. "We'll have to land on the central field, because there's no other… We'll have to go through all that uncertainty again, only the Shauls are more careful and thorough. Suppose they take your psychograph?"

  "Suppose they do?" said Paddy lightly. "Don't you know that I'm three different men? I'm Paddy Blackthorn, the Rapparee, and I'm Patrick Blackthorn, the pride of St. Luke's Seminary, who'll talk you the Greek and the Romish and the Gaelic till your ear shivers for the joy of it, and I'm Patrick Delorcy Blackthorn of Skibbereen, the gentleman farmer and horse-raiser."

  "There's also Paddy Blackthorn the great lover," suggested Fay.

  "Right," assented Paddy. "There's four of me and a different psychograph for ' em all. So you see, I've three chances in four to confuse the suspicious devils."

  "If you do you'll be the first. You can change your fingerprints but you can't change your brain strenuata."

  The Shauls had sheared off and leveled the peak of an old volcano to make Aevelye's space-field. When Paddy and Fay brought their boat down they found themselves overlooking a vast panorama of badlands, a chopped and hacked region of red, yellow and green-gray rock.

  Directly below, a tremendous rift rent the planet, a chasm miles across and miles deep. Down one side, on a series of ledges, sat the city Aevelye-white buildings pressed against the walls of the gorge, facing out across the awesome valley.

  As Almach sank, the light played on wisps of mist hanging in the valley on a level with the rim and the colors were like fantastic music-greens and lavenders, oranges, unbelievable pastels from the reflected and refracted light.

  The boat came to rest on Aevelye Field-bare and quiet compared to the fields at Badau and Loristan. Fay shivered. "We can't help but be noticed."

  Paddy looked out the dome. "Here they come-the Cossacks!" He patted Fay's shoulder. "The bold front, now, lass."

  Four Shaul guards drove up to the ship in a jeep, jumped out. They wore tight sheaths of blue metallic cloth and three carried carbines slung over their shoulders. Their hoods of skin, which they held rigid and stiff, were stained red and painted with indications of rank. The officer, wearing a black star on his hood, climbed up the ladder, rapped smartly on the door.

  Paddy opened for him without pumping clear the entrance lock and coughed at the acrid dust that followed the Shaul into the cabin.

  The officer was a young man, very terse and exact. He pulled out a pad of printed forms. "Your papers, please."

  Fay handed him the ship's license. The officer bent to look.

  "Albuquerque Field, Earth." He looked up, turned to Paddy, scrutinized him up and down. "Name, please?"

  "Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith."

  "Your business here on Shaul?"

  "Business and pleasure," Paddy replied jocularly. "We're tourists and journalists at the same time. We've been wanting to make the Big Line, and when we caught the news of the assassination we thought maybe we'd take some pictures around the planet."

  The officer said without emotion, "Earthers are not in good reputation around the Five Planets."

  Paddy protested, "Ah now, we're just working people and we've our living to make, whether there's births or deaths or war or peace. And if you'd say a good word for us we'd sure appreciate it"

  The officer swept the interior of the craft with his eyes. "We don't have too many Earth journalists setting down at Aevelye in these small boats."

  "Listen now!" said Paddy eagerly. "Then we're the first? There's been none from the Fax Syndicate-that's our competitor?"

  "No," said the officer coolly. "You're the first." He returned to his printed form. "How long do you plan to stay?"

  "Oh, maybe a week or until we accomplish our business. Then maybe we'll be on to Loristan or Koto for more."

  "Ghouls," said the officer under his breath. He handed them an ink-pad. "Your thumbprints please."

  Gingerly they pressed their identities on his sheet.

  "Now"-he wrote a moment-"here's a receipt and I'll have to take your power-arm and keys. Your boat is impounded. When you want to leave apply to Room Twelve, Terminal Hall, for a permit."

  "Here now," protested Paddy. "Isn't this high-handed? Suppose we want to tour across the planet?"

  "Sorry," said the officer. "There's a state of emergency, and we're bound to take precautions until things are normal again."

  "Now then," Fay said nervously, "we don't mind a little inconvenience if we get what we want."

  The officer was copying information from the ship's papers. At last he looked up, produced a pair of small flat boxes.

  "Here are temporary respirators, which will serve until you buy permanent breathers. Now, please, if you will come with me there's a formality required of all Earthers."

  "And what's that?" demanded Paddy truculently. "A return to the old closed-space system? I'll have you know I'm a citizen of Earth and Ireland too and-"

  "I'm sorry," said the officer. "I merely obey orders, which are to pass all Earthers, no matter how innocent, through the psychograph. If you are not a criminal then you need not worry. If you are, then you will be accorded justice."

  "The psychograph is not an instrument for innocent people," said Paddy. "Why, the indignity of it! I'll leave the planet first and
spend my money on Loristan."

  "Not now," said the officer. "I regret that these are emergency conditions and that certain hardships must be endured. Please follow me."

  Paddy shrugged. "As you wish. I'll have you know, however, that I protest bitterly."

  The officer did not reply but stood watching as Paddy and Fay donned their respirators. Fay's mouth drooped, her eyes were moist when they fell on Paddy. Paddy moved with sullen deliberation.

  The officer gave them seats in the jeep, trundled them to a ramp leading to a hall under the field.

  "Into Room B, please."

  In Boom B, they found three other Earthers, two angry old women and a sixteen-year-old boy waiting for their psycho-graphs. One by one they were taken into an inner room to emerge a minute or so later.

  At last the Shaul nurse beckoned to Fay. "You first, please."

  She rose, patted Patty's cheek. "I'm sorry it had to end like this," she said softly and disappeared.

  A moment later the attendant motioned for Paddy.

  Paddy entered a room, bare except for a desk, a chair and the psychographer. A doctor stood waiting while an orderly in blue metallic military uniform sat by a desk watching a screen with a psychgraph pattern pinned to a board beside it.

  The doctor looked at Paddy once, then again searchingly. He turned to the orderly. "This one fits the physical data. The face is different, the hair and eyes are different but of course… Into the chair, please," he said to Paddy.

  "Just a minute," said Paddy. "Am I a common criminal then?"

  "That's what we are about to find out," the doctor told him quizzically. "In any event this is merely a routine check."

  "What's all this?" Paddy motioned to the screen and the psychograph pinned up beside it-a pattern of lines like a weather chart superimposed on a relief map of the Himalayas.

  "That, my friend," said the doctor imperturbably, "is the psychic pattern of Patrick Blackthorn-and if I may say so it's the oddest pattern I've ever seen. It's unmistakable.

  "There's little chance of doing anyone injustice. Now if you'll take this seat and let me fit these pick-ups on your head…"

  "I'll fit 'em," growled Paddy, taking a seat. He jammed the contacts down across his scalp. "Go ahead now and be damned to your bureaucratic nonsense."

  The doctor snapped a switch. Paddy felt a slight tingling, a momentary drowsiness.

  "That's all," said the doctor, glancing across to the orderly.

  "Strange," muttered the orderly. "Come here, doctor…"

  The doctor stared curiously at Paddy's pattern, shook his head "Strange."

  "What's strange?" asked Paddy.

  "Your-ah, pattern. It's hardly typical. You can go. Thank you."

  Paddy returned to the anteroom, found Fay pacing the floor nervously. She gave a small squeak. "Paddy!"

  The attendant looked up sharply and Paddy's knees wobbled. Fay's eyes grew large and moist. She blushed red. Taking Paddy's arm she pulled him out into the big echoing lobby.

  "Paddy," she whispered. "How did you get away? I was waiting with my heart in my mouth, waiting for the shouting and banging-"

  "Shh," said Paddy. "Not so loud, and I'll tell you a great joke. I was once in a battle and they lifted my scalp. The doctors sewed me up again with a big platinum plate across my sconce. I can laugh at those psychographs, because the metal shorts them all out and they never read the same on me."

  Fay bristled like a porcupine-fish.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Paddy shrugged. "I didn't want to worry you."

  "Worry-Hah! I'm only worried because now I'll have to live with you another couple of months."

  "Now, now, my dear," said Paddy abstractedly. He took her arm. "And here is where we get our breathers."

  X

  Coming out of the terminal, they found themselves on a balcony hanging over Aevelye like an eagle's aerie. They stood in a bath of canary-yellow light and the sky over them had taken on an odd amber hue. Paddy and Fay crossed the balcony, stepped aboard an escalator which dropped them down, down, down to the white-columned city below.

  They passed great residences perched on ledges, airy white houses set among the strangest vegetation of their experience. Stalks like stacks of tetrahedrons supported a foliage of crystalline spines or groups of olive-green slabs reticulated with slabs of red glass or flowers that were like an instantaneous photograph of an exploding opal-fragments held out from a center by invisible tendrils.

  The buildings became of a more commercial character-shops displaying the richest wares of the universe, and presently Fay spied a sign reading, traveler's haven. They stepped off the escalator, walked along a trestle overhanging a thousand feet of clear space to a tall edifice of concrete waxy-green serpentine polished granite.

  They entered, crossed to the desk. "We'd like lodgings," Paddy told the Shaul clerk.

  The clerk flipped his hood casually, gestured to a small sign-Earther trade not solicited.

  Paddy tightened his lips, narrowed his eyes. "You skin-headed little runt," he began. Fay clutched his arm. "Come, Paddy."

  The clerk said, "The Earther hotel is down the slope." Outside Paddy snapped, "Don't call me Paddy. I'm Joe Smith. Do you want them jumping on my neck?"

  "I'm sorry," said Fay.

  The Earther hotel was a gray block in the lower part of the city between two. heaps of slag from a zinc refinery on the level above. The clerk was a wrinkled black-eyed Canope, crouching behind his desk as if he feared his guests.

  "We want two rooms," said Paddy.

  "Two?" The clerk looked from one to the other.

  "My wife snores," explained Paddy. "I want to get a good night's sleep somewhere along the trip."

  Fay snarled under her breath. The clerk shrugged. "Just as you like." He eyed Fay speculatively, handed them a pair of keys. "The rooms are dark and turned away from the view but it's the best I can do for you at the moment. Rent's a day in advance, please."

  Paddy paid him. "Now we'd like some information. We're journalists from Earth, you see, and we're to take some pictures and we find our special lamp has come apart. Where can we have one made to our order?"

  The clerk turned, punched a button, spoke into a mesh. "Is Mr. Dane there? Send him across, please. I've got some business for him."

  He turned back to his guests. This is an old electrician that's down on his luck and he'll do for you. Is that all?"

  "Where and what is Corescens?" asked Fay.

  "Corescens?" The clerk's mouth opened a little. He blinked uncomfortably. "You'll find it hard seeing Coresscens-especially as you're Earthers. It's the dead Son's private residence out across the Fumighast Ventrole."

  Dane hobbled in, a one-eyed skinny old man with a crooked neck, a long bent nose. "Yes, and what might ye be wantin'?"

  Paddy said, "We need a special ultra-violet light source for our camera. It must have four separate units with variable frequency-controls for each unit over the range six hundred to three thousand one hundred angstroms. Can you make it up?"

  Dane scratched his pate. "I'll see if I've got the proper valves. I think I can do it." He cocked a bright glance at Fay. "It'll cost you dear, though. Three hundred marks."

  Paddy drew back in indignation. "Faith, now. I'll use my flashlight first. Three hundred marks for a few bits of wire and junk?"

  There's my labor, lad, and my training. Long years now I've studied."

  Two hundred fifty marks was the figure finally reached, delivery to be made in two days.

  Darkness filled the valley outside like pale ink in a vast basin and the slope above was hung with a thousand colored lights-red, green, blue, yellow, all soft and vague as if their purpose were less to illuminate than to decorate.

  On the terrace outside the hotel Paddy said to Fay, "Do you know, I can feel something of what the first Son loved in this planet Shaul. It's as violent and queer as a madman's whims but the color and now the softness of the night are wonderful. And out t
here across the valley there's another settlement and the lights glow across to us like fireflies."

  Fay said softly, "Is it nicer than Skibbereen, Paddy?"

  "Ah!" sighed Paddy. "And now you've touched me, my dear. When I think of the turf-smoke that they still burn after all these ages and how it comes reeking in from the bog and the old pub around from where I was raised and the River Ilen-yes, I'll be glad to get home."

  "Then there's always the terrace at Meran," suggested Fay, "with the beer and the women."

  "Ah!" cried Paddy. "The beer, it's like the nectar of paradise and the girls with their soft hands! If you catch the pearl in their navels with your teeth, then they must do your bidding for as long as you will-that's the custom of Maeve-and some of them wear pearls as big as plums."

  "If you'll excuse me," said Fay coolly, "I'm going to buy a map and find Corescens. I'll leave you to your reminiscences."

  "Here now," cried Paddy. "Faith, I was but teasing. And you started me out on it!" But she had disappeared.

  Next morning they took possession of a rough-steering old sightseeing platform-the proprietor of the rental yard had been reluctant to trust Earthers with anything better-and loading the camera aboard they shoved off and out across the hazy valley.

  Paddy said, "And now where's Corescens that you studied on last night?"

  "We've got to find Fumighast Ventrole," said Fay. "It's supposed to be twenty miles north, a dead crater."

  They rose out of the valley into the blaze of Almach's light and the complex face of Shaul spread out to all sides.

  Fay pointed. "See that smoke rising? That's the volcano Aureo and just beyond is Corescens."

  Fumighast Ventrole was another vast chasm in the planet, nearly circular in cross-section and so deep that its bottom could not be distinguished through the haze. The sides glistened and glittered, rays of light flashing and darting in a thousand directions like glass spears-back and forth, reflecting in sprays of pure primitive color, flickering, dazzling as the boat sank on snoring old jets.