Calvin M. Knox (16 page)

"No.
He's out of the system, on some filthy business of Beryaal's."

"You know where he has
gone? Tell mel"

"It doesn't concern
you," Catton said.

"Anything about Doveril concerns
mel
Tell mel 111 go there with you, help you capture
him—1"

"Hold
onl" Catton said. "I'm going to turn you over to Skorg authorities
before I leave."

"Nol Let
me
go
with you!"

"After
you tried to murder me downstairs? You think I'm going to give you another
chance?"

"I
have no interest in killing you," she said. "Beryaal ordered me to
come here and attempt it, and I obeyed him. But Beryaal means nothing to me.
I'm interested only in engineering Doveril's downfall. Let me go to this world
with you. Well arrange a trap for him. Doveril may still trust me; 111 lure him
to you."

"You'd sell anyone out. How can I trust
you?"

'Trust
me on faith. I want revenge on Doveril. Nothing else matters to me." She
smiled craftily. "Ill make a deal with you, Catton. Take me to wherever
Doveril is—and when we find him, I'll tell you where the hypnojewels come
from!"

"You know?"

"Doveril
once let it slip. I've been saving the information until I could put it to good
use. And now I can. Take me to Doveril, let me help capture him—and 111 give
you the name of the world where the hypnojewels are made. Is it a deal?"

Catton
was silent a long while. The girl was of shifty loyalties; no doubt about
that. But how sincere was she now?

She
had sold out friends, attempted to murder him,
lied
and betrayed. By accepting the offer of her help, he might be clutching a viper
to his bosom. But, on the other hand, catching the wily Doveril on Vyom might
not be easy. Using Nuuri as bait, it would be much simpler for him. And there
was the additional handy factor of her offer to give him the hypnojewel
information—unless, of course, she was bluffing there.

He
decided to risk it. Her hatred for Doveril seemed unfeigned. She was an
uncertain ally, but he would take his chances with her.

"All
right," he said. "I'm going to Vyom in three days. Can you leave
then?"

"Of course."

"Well
travel together.
111
include you on my papers as a secretary.
There shouldn't be any trouble."

Catton had his doubts about joining forces
with a woman who had spied on him and attempted to murder him. But at this
stage of the conflict he needed any ally he could get, even a risky one. He did
not have much more time, now that Pouin Beryaal knew that he lived.

He
phoned down to the travel agency and arranged for a second set of reservations,
in Nuuri's name, along with accommodations—separate ones—for her during the
stopovers.

That
night he visited the restaurant where Estil Seeman played, and told the girl he
was leaving soon for Vyom, to apprehend Doveril, and that if he met with
success he would stop off and pick her up on his return trip, to take her back
to Morilar. He did not mention his meeting with Nuuri to Estil; it might only
fan her jealousy.

During
the next three days Catton remained in the hotel. He realized that Beryaal
might easily have sent more than one agent to dispose of him. Since he had
accomplished all he needed to on Skorg, there was no point needlessly exposing
himself
now. On the third day he and Nuuri journeyed to the
spaceport outside Skorgaar, had their papers validated for emigration, and
boarded a small 180-passenger ship of the Skorg Line, bound out non-stop to
Tharrimar, fifth world of the Tharrim system.

The
ten-day voyage dragged hopelessly. The small ship lacked the awesome splendor
of the
Silver Spear,
and Catton spent his time reading, gaming in
the lounge, or sleeping. Nuuri was poor company. Her only topic of conversation
was the fierce hatred she bore for Doveril, and Catton soon tired of that.

Tharrimar
was a medium-sized world populated by loose-skinned red humanoids governed by a
Skorg administrator. The meager city near the spaceport held few attractions,
and Catton was bothered by the heavy gravitational pull, nearly twice that of
Earth. He was not sad when the two-day stopover ended and the ship for Dirlak
blasted off.

This
ship was even less imposing than the last—half passenger, half freight. But,
blessedly, it was only a five-day journey to Dirlak, a bleak place two billion
miles from its sun. The temperature never rose above zero on Dirlak. Frozen
winds howled all the time, for the twenty Galactic hours Catton and Nuuri were
compelled to wait before their ship to Hennim left. Dirlak was a trading
outpost of the Skorg Confederation, thinly populated,
rarely
visited except by transient travelers.

Three days aboard a slow-moving transport
ship got them to Hennim, sister world of Vyom. Hennim was an oxygen world, not
much larger than Earth but cursed by a fiercely capricious climate. Torrential
rain was falling as Catton landed at the spaceport; within an hour, a searing
blast of solar radiation was baking the mud that the fields had become.

The
natives of Hennim were humanoids, squat and sturdy, who peered quizzically at
Catton from
oval
eyes the color of litde silver
buttons. It developed that most of them had never seen a Terran before. A Skorg
interpreter informed Catton that less than a hundred Earthmen had ever visited
this system; it was too remote to attract Terran industry, and the tourist
trade was put off by the difficulties in getting there from any major world of
the galactic lens. Of course, there were no diplomatic relations between Earth
and any world of this system. When Catton replied that he was going to Vyorn,
exclamations of surprises were audible on all sides. No more than a handful of
Terran travelers had ever gone to Vyom.

The shuttle left Hennim the next day. Catton
and Nuuri were in the oxygen-breathers' section of the vessel, along with
several dozen Hennimese and a few Skorgs. Behind a partition, Catton learned,
eight Vyomi were traveling, breathing their peculiarly poisonous chlorine
atmosphere.

The
trip took six hours. Near its conclusion, a Hennimese in crew uniform appeared
in the passenger cabin to announce—first in his own language, then in
Skorg—that landing would shortly take place. "All oxygen-breathing
entities are required to wear breathing-suits for their own protection. Those
who are without suits may rent them from the purser."

Catton and Nuuri rented suits, standard medium-size hu-
manoid type, for small sums payable in Skorg currency. Cat-
ton adjusted his to the familiar chemical makeup of Earth's
atmosphere; it was the first time he had breathed it since
the assignment began.
                                                        
_B

Not
long after, the planet they sought came into view. It was vaguely circular,
swathed in a thick green shroud of chlorine. The shuttle-ship landed with minor
difficulties. After the last jolt, the Hennimese purser reappeared to convey
the oxygen-breathing passengers through the airlock to the waiting spaceport
coach.

Outside,
Catton got his first look at Vyorn. Flat, barren land stretched outward to the
horizon. The greenish murk hung low overhead. The scenery was utterly alien,
totally strange. Within his protective suit, he was comfortable enough—but the
temperature outside, he knew, was no more than 250 degrees above Absolute. It
was a cold, ugly, forbidding world, alien in every respect.

And here, Catton thought, are produced the
matter duplicators designed for the destruction of Terran civilization.

XV.

Three
of Carton's allotted five days on Vyom
slipped by before he got his first inkling of Doveril's whereabouts.

The
Vyomi were of ho help. They refused to give any information. They were remote,
unpleasant creatures: the size of a Terran, but unhumanoid in form, with six
jointed arms and three legs; their bodies were dead white, waxy in appearance,
and their eyes glowered beadily out of protruding triangular sockets. Better
than 90 percent of the life-bearing worlds of the universe produced
oxygen-breathing creatures; Vyorn was different. Its inhabitants breathed an
atmosphere of chlorine and gave off carbon tetrachloride as respiratory waste.
The
Vyomi plant life broke
the
carbon
tet
down into chlorine and complex hydrocarbons, and
so the cycle of respiration went on. In every way these beings were different
from all others in the galaxy.

The
difference was psychological as well as physiological. The Vyomi seemed
cosmically indifferent to the ways of the oxygen-breathers who came to their
world. There was no organized government on Vyom, nor any legal system. All
Vyomi were free to do as they pleased, so long as they brought no harm to a
fellow Vyomi.

Catton, via a Skorg interpreter, spoke with
the Vyorni who was in charge of the residence compound for oxygen-breathing
beings. "Tell him I'm here to find a Morilaru named Doveril Halligon. That
it's important for the security and peace of the galaxy that I find him."

The interpreter reeled off a string of harsh,
clicking, consonant-heavy words. After a moment the Vyorni replied: three
clucking syllables.

The Skorg translated. "He says he
doesn't care."

"Tell him it's vital—that I'll pay him
for information."

Once again the Skorg spoke, and once again
the Vyorni replied—this time with one snapped grunt.

"Well?" Catton
said.

"He doesn't want to be paid. He just
isn't interested in helping you."

"Tell him I'm a crime-prevention
officer! I'm a member of the Interworld Commission."

Shrugging,
the Skorg translated. The answer was curt. "This is Vyom," he says.
"Oxygen-breathers' law is no good here."

Catton sighed. "Okay. I see I'm not
going to get anywhere with him. Maybe you can help me, then. Is there some
central registry of immigrants here?
Or a Morilaru consulate
where I could ask about my man?"

"There's
no central registry of
any
kind here.
Nor any consulates.
Vyom doesn't enter into diplomatic relations with oxygen-breathing
worlds."

Further
investigation later got him more of the same. The Vyorni were not interested in
cooperating. If oxygen-breathers wanted to come here to do business, they were
welcome, but they would not necessarily be treated with warmth. Cat-ton began
to understand how this race could so casually manufacture things like matter
duplicators. The Vyomi were not motivated by profit or any other typical
oxygen-breather motivation. But they derived some sort of satisfaction from
seeing their products go forth and harass and confuse the oxygen-breathers who
occupied most of the universe's worlds.

Catton
began asking questions. He went about it with care, for he did not want word to
reach Doveril—if Doveril were still on Vyom—that an Earthman was here, asking
questions about him. Catton let Nuuri do most of the actual questioning. There
were about twenty Morilaru in the compound, engaged in trade with the Vyorni.
She approached them one by one, subdy leading the discussion around to Doveril.

On the third day they got some concrete
information at last. Nuuri was talking to an abnormally plump Morilaru named
Gudwan Quinak, who ostensibly was on Vyom to deal in furs, but who, Catton
privately suspected, was involved with some sort of drug trade. Catton had
Nuuri approach him slyly, wheedlingly, and within ten minutes she had him
talking.

"He's
a drug man, all right," she reported later to Catton. "And he knows
Doveril pretty well. He's at another Vyomi city, about two hundred miles from
here. According to Quinak, Doveril landed here about a month ago, and let drop
a couple of hints that he was involved in something
big.
Doveril could never resist boasting."

"How do we get to him?"

"Well
have to rent a jetsled. There's no public transport between here and there.
Vyorni don't travel much, it seems."