Captive of the Centaurianess (2 page)

He yelped and got it back not quite crushed. "You're one of the Centaurians, then," he said feebly.

"Yes, so you call us."

He found himself regarding her with some pleasure, overwhelming though her presence was. Hitherto he had only seen her kind on television.

Except for the pointed ears, which her braids concealed, she looked human enough externally, albeit not of any stock which had ever evolved on Earth. The similarities extended to all the most interesting areas, he knew. Memories came back to him of scientific arguments he had read as to whether this was mere coincidence or whether form had to follow function that closely on every globe of a given type. There were plenty of internal differences, of course, among them being bone and flesh which were considerably harder and denser than his. Alpha Centauri A III—or Varann, as its most advanced nation had decided to name it after learning from the first Solar expedition that it was a planet—had, among other striking non-resemblances to his world, half again the surface gravity.

Her size reminded him of alienness which went deeper than appearance. Men of her race were smaller and weaker than women. In every known culture, they stayed home and did the housework while their wives conducted public business. In warlike Kathantuma and its neighbor lands, public business usually meant raids on somebody else with the objective of stealing everything that wasn't bolted down.

Nevertheless, this . . . Dyann Korlas . . . was well worth staring at. She was built like a statuesque tigress. Her skin was smooth and golden-hued. Bronze hair coiled heavy around a face which would have inspired an ancient Hellenic sculptor; but exotic touches, such as a slight tilt to the big, storm-gray eyes, made it look not only Classical but sexy. Her outfit consisted of a knee-length tunic, sandals, a form-fitting steel cuirass with twin demonic visages sculptured on the bust, a round helmet decorated with bat-like bronze wings, a belt upholding purse and sheath knife, and a sword which Lancelot might have reckoned just a trifle too heavy.

Ray found his voice: "Are you sure I belong in this cabin? Hasn't somebody made a mistake?"

She grinned. "Oh, you are safe."

He recalled that the titles of aristocrats in her home country translated into expressions like "chief," "district ruler," "warrior," and the like. A few males had accompanied the Centaurian ladies to the Solar System. Arrogantly indifferent to details of ethnology, the Jovians must have assumed from her honorific, whatever it was —doubtless written down on her behalf by some Extraterrestrial Secretariat underling told off to assist these visitors—that she was among those males.

Well, why should Ray Tallantyre disabuse the ship's officers? The overworked third-class steward wasn't likely to care, or perhaps even notice. Not that the Earthling expected any action with his cabin mate, especially in Urushkidan's presence. Indeed, the idea was somewhat terrifying. However, from time to time the view in here ought to get quite nice. They had no nudity taboo in Kathantuma.

Reminded of the Martian and his manners, Ray glanced toward the upper berth. Urushkidan was morosely stuffing a big-bowled pipe. Tobacco-smoking was a vice on which his race had eagerly seized; they didn't exactly breathe, but by the bellows-and-membrane organ which they also used to form human speech, they could keep the fire going. They usually described the sensation as "tinglesome."

"Uh, sir, I'd like to say I know of your work," the human ventured. "In fact, since I am—was—a nucleonic engineer, I can appreciate what it means."

The Martian inflated his body, his way of smiling or preening. "Doubtless you habe grasped it quite well," he replied graciously. "As well as any Eartling could, which is, of course, saying bery little."

"But if I may ask, uh, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I habe a lecture series arranged at te jobian Academy of Sciences. Tey are quite commendably aware of my importance. I will be glad to get off Eart. Te air pressure, te grabity, pfui!"

"But a ... a person ... of your distinction, traveling third class—"

"Naturally, tey gabe me a first-class ticket. I turned it in, bought a tird-class, and banked te difference." He glowered at Dyann Korlas.

"To' if I am treated like tis—" He shrugged. A Martian shrugging is quite a sight. "No real matter. We of Uttu—Mars, as you insist on calling it—are so incomparably far adbanced in te philosophic birtues of serenity, generosity, and modesty tat I can accept barbaric mistreatment wit te scorn tat it deserbes."

"Oh," said Ray. To the Centaurianess: "And may I ask why you are bound for Jupiter, Ms.—Ms?—Korlas?"

"You may," she allowed. "And let us use first names, no? That is sveet. . . . vell, I vish to see Yupiter, though I do not think it vill be as glamorous as Earth." She sighed. "You live in a fable! Your beastless carriages, your flyin machines, your auto—auto-
matic
kitchens, your clocks, your colorful clothes, your qvaint customs—
haa
, it vas vorth the long travel yust to see such things."

Long, for certain; fantastically powerful though they were, the exploratory ships needed ten years to cross the interstellar gulf, and there had only been three expeditions to date. Dyann had arrived with the latest, part of a delegation and inquiry group dispatched by her queen. Ray had heard that the crew had quite a time with that turbulent score until everybody settled down in suspended animation. The visitors had now spent about a year on Earth and Luna, endlessly curious, especially as to what their hosts did to pass the time since the World Union had arisen to terminate the practice of war. By and large, they'd caused remarkably little trouble. A couple of times tempers had flared and Terrestrial bones gotten broken, but the Varannians were always apologetic afterward. To be sure, once one of them had been scheduled to address a women's club.. . .

"Tell me this I am not clear about," Dyann requested. "The Yovians, they did begin on your planet?"

Ray nodded. "Yes. They colonized the moons partly for economic reasons, partly because they didn't like the way Europe was becoming homogenized, Asian and African immigrants were getting numerous, and so on. About sixty years ago, they declared their independence. After a lot of debate, the leaders of Earth decided the issue wasn't worth fighting about. That may have been a mistake."

"Vy?"

"M-m-m . . .well, it's true they had certain economic grievances, after the heroic work their pioneers had done—and they themselves are still doing, I must admit. Nevertheless, they live under a dictatorship that keeps telling them they're the destined masters of the Solar System. Last year they occupied and claimed the Saturnian moon colonies. Their pretext was almighty thin, but the Union was too chicken-livered to do more than squawk. Not that it has much of a navy compared to theirs."

Dyann beamed. "Ha, you might really have a var vile I am here to see? Lovely, lovely!" She clapped her hands.

A knock on the door interrupted, and the steward bore in the luggage marked "Wanted on Voyage." When he was gone, the cabin occupants got busy unpacking and stowing. Dyann changed into a fur-trimmed robe, confirming Ray's guess that the scenery was gorgeous. Urushkidan slithered to the deck, extracted from his trunk several books, papers, penstyls, and a humidor, and appropriated the dresser top for these.

Unease touched Ray. "You know, sir," he said, "apart from the honor of meeting you, I wish you weren't aboard."

"Why not?" demanded the Martian huffily.

"U-u-uh-h ... it was your formulation of general relativity that showed it's possible to travel faster than light."

"Among many oter tings, yes," said Urushkidan through malodorous clouds.

"I can't believe the Jovians are interested in your work for its own sake. I suspect they hope to get your guidance in developing that kind of ship. Then we'd all better beware."

"Not I. A Martian is not concerned wit te squabbles of te lower animals. Noting personal, you understand."

Dyann took forth a small wooden image and placed it on the shelf above her bunk. It was gaudily painted and fiercely tusked; each of its arms held a weapon, one being a Terrestrial tommy gun. "Qviet, please," she said, raising an arm. "I am about to pray to Ormun the Terrible."

"An appropriate god for the likes of you," sneered Urushkidan.

She stuffed a pillow from the bunk into his mouth. "Qviet, please, I said," she reproached him with a gentle smile, and prostrated herself before the idol.

After a while, during which she had chanted a prayer full of snarling noises, she got up. Urushkidan was still speechless, with rage. Dyann turned to Ray. "Do you know if this ship has any live animals for sale?" she asked. "I vould like to make a sacrifice too."

II

After the
Jovian Queen
got under weigh, her captain announced that, given the present planetary configuration, she would complete her passage, at a steady one Terrestrial gee of positive and negative acceleration, in six standard days, 43 minutes, and 12 ± 10 seconds. That might be braggadocio, though Ray Tallantyre would not have been surprised to learn it was sober truth. He soon started wishing the time would prove overestimated. His roommates wore on his nerves. Urushkidan filled the place with smoke, sat up till all hours covering paper with mathematical symbols, and screamed if anybody spoke above a whisper. Dyann meant well, but limited vocabulary soon caused her conversation to pall; besides, she was mostly off in the gymnasium, working out. When she wasn't, her forcefulness often reminded him of Katrina Vanbrugh, occasioning shudders.

On the second day out, he slouched moodily into the bar and ordered a martini he could ill afford. The ship's food was so wholesome that he wasn't sure he could choke any more down otherwise. The chamber was quiet except for Wagnerian music in the background, discreetly enough lit that the murals of pioneers and soldiers weren't too conspicuous, and not very full. At one table sat the colonel who had accompanied Ray aloft, still clutching his briefcase but talking with quite human animation to a red-headed female tourist from Earth. Her shape, in a skin-tight StarGlo gown, left small doubt as to his objective. The purity of the Jovian race, "hardened in the fire and ice of the outer deeps, tempered by adversity to form the new and dominant mankind," had been set aside for a while in favor of international relations.

She didn't look as fascinated as she might have.
If I had some money
, sighed within Ray,
I bet I could pry her loose from him
.

For lack of that possibility, he fell into conversation with the bartender. The latter informed him, in awed tones, that yonder he beheld Colonel Ivan Hosea Domenico Roshevsky-Feldkamp, late military attache of the Confederation's Terrestrial embassy, an officer who had served with distinction in suppressing the Ionian revolt and in asserting his nation's rightful claims to Saturn.

Things got livelier when a couple of fellows entered from second class. North Americans like Ray, they were quick to make his acquaintance and ready to stand him drinks. After an hour or two, they suggested a friendly game of poker.

Oh, ho!
thought the engineer, who was less naive than he often appeared. "Sure," he agreed. "How about right after dinner?"

Joined by a third of their kind, they met him in a proper stateroom and play commenced. It went on for most of the following two days and evenings. Fortune went back and forth in a way that would have impressed the average person as genuine. Ray kept track, and made occasional bets that ought to have proven disastrous, and when he was alone ran off statistical analyses on his calculator. He was winning entirely too much, and the rate of it was increasing on far too steep a curve. These genial chaps were setting him up for disaster.

When he was a couple of thousand Union credits to the good, he let febrile cupidity glitter from him and said, "Look, boys, you know I'm traveling on the cheap, but I do have money at home and this game is too good for kiddie antes. Suppose I lase my bank to transfer some credit to the purser's office here, and tomorrow we can play for real stakes."

"Sure, Ray, if you want," said the lead shark, delighted to have the suggestion made for him. "You're a sport, you are."

At the appointed hour, he and his companions met again around the table, lit anticipatory cigars, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Ray had found the redhead remarkably easy to pry loose from the colonel.

She thought it would be
great fun to go slumming and join him in the third-class dining room for the captain's dinner. First class was too stuffy, she said. He escorted her down a corridor, thinking wistfully, and a trifle wearily, that soon the trip would end and he'd disembark in Wotanopolis as broke as ever. She'd made him free of the luxury and spaciousness of her section, but since he avoided the bar—and possible embarrassing confrontations therein—she tacitly assumed that he would pay for refreshments ordered from the staff. Besides, she liked to gamble, and the ship's casino was not rigged.

The sight of Urushkidan distracted him from his generally pleasant recollections. Awkward under Earth weight, the Martian was creeping along toward the saloon reserved for his species; the choice between mealtime segregation and decorum by either standard had been made long ago. He condescended to give the human a greeting: "Well, tere you are. I hope you habe not been found obnoxious."