Masters of Everon (7 page)

"...See Mikey? If you can get your claws under the bottom edge of the door when I lift it. Here, let me have your paw. Like this—no, I don't want to play—"

Mikey had flopped down on his side, when Jef had taken one of his paws and gently tried to turn it over.

"All right, then lie there. And when I lift the door, you slide your claws—and your whole paw, if you can, underneath the door and lift. Try it, now, Mikey."

Jef tried lifting the door several times. Mikey lay watching him, obviously puzzled. The maolot was extremely perceptive and very bright; but he had never shown an ability to respond to words directly, the way a dog or some trained Earth animal might. Eventually, he usually achieved a remarkable understanding of what Jef would try to tell him; but he managed this by some method, or in some terms, that Jef had never been able to identify certainly, although emotion and empathy clearly had a great deal to do with what way he did. In this case the maolot seemed aware, after the first moment, that Jef was not playing at all but engaged in some serious attempt. Clearly, however, Mikey was having difficulty understanding exactly what was wanted.

Jef went on talking and trying to lift the door. He was conscious of being studied—but he had gotten used to Mikey's doing that. The studying process was not something anyone else would have been able to recognize, but Jef had learned to read the almost invisible signals from the maolot that announced it. He continued, therefore; and after a few minutes he was rewarded.

Mikey reached out with one paw, as Jef lifted the door for the fifth time, and placed the pads of that paw, not into the crack Jef had produced, but flat against the panel of the door. Friction alone was the bond between his paw and the door-panel, but with the powerful muscles of his foreleg behind it, he managed to hold the door up.

"Good!" said Jef energetically. He reached down, hooked his own fingers into the space between the door's bottom edge and the floor, which Mikey's pressure was keeping open, and lifted. With a small squeak, followed by a click of the latch-bar coming free from its socket, the door was unlocked.

"All right, Mikey, let it down."

Mikey took his paw away and Jef himself let go. The door dropped back down on to the carpeting beneath it, that ran from the hallway into Martin's room. Jef opened the door and a second later was inside himself, followed by Mikey.

Martin was evidently a light traveler. The sitting room of the suite showed nothing of his. The bedroom held a single piece of luggage, a reinforced suitcase with a few pieces of all-purpose clothing and a toiletries bag. Jef was beginning to reclose the luggage, preparatory to leaving the room, when Mikey's head pushed past his elbow and nosed the inside front cover of the suitcase top.

"What is it, Mikey?" Jef's fingers probed the corner but could feel nothing there but the hard plate anchoring the suitcase's reinforcing metal inner frame. Mikey's paw unexpectedly pushed in beside his fingers and a claw hooked on the covering fabric.

"Look out, Mikey. You'll tear—" But the fabric was not tearing so much as peeling back from an invisible line dividing the fabric at the point where the back of the lid met the edge at a ninety-degree angle. Revealed was the dull metal of the plate—with something of a dark red color showing beneath it.

Jef took hold of the edge of dark red and pulled. An identification folder slid out.

"That's his papers, Mikey," said Jef. "But I thought the Constable took them, along with the papers of all the rest of us who were red-flagged. Maybe Armage gave them back?"

Jef pulled the papers out of the folder. They were not the papers of a John Smith of the Ecolog Corps. They showed a picture of Martin, but identified him as Martin Curragh, a mining engineer on loan from an Earth-based corporation, to Seagirt—a newly planted world of a solar system ten light years from this one containing Comofors. Jef stared at the pages in his hands. If Martin was indeed a John Smith, it stood to reason that he would have a number of cover identifications. But while the John Smith papers Jef had seen Martin hand over to Armage had been spuriously new and clean, these identification papers had obviously been unfolded, refolded, and handled a number of times.

Jef stood there, holding the Martin Curragh identification. All identifications were readily checkable within a few weeks, merely by sending a query back to the identifying authority on Earth who had issued them, since all such papers originated on Earth. In fact the time for the query to make the round trip by spaceship was the smaller part of the time necessary to check an identification. The delay, if any, came from the bureaucratic process of comparing it with the records back on Earth.

False identification was therefore a waste of time; it was so easily checkable, and any identification was checked frequently. In the normal course of things any papers, except perhaps those of a John Smith, would be checked. But who could imagine anyone brazen enough to pretend to be a John Smith?

Possibly just such a strange and verbally quick character as Martin.

It was all conjecture on his part, Jef thought, standing there and weighing the Martin Curragh identification in his hand. But in spite of that self-caution, he was aware of a sinking feeling that Martin was indeed Martin Curragh, only, and no John Smith at all.

Unfortunately, his strange liking for the man still persisted. He could have wished to turn up any evidence but this, which showed Martin to be at least an impostor, and almost certainly involved in some deeper illegality. All at once, like the single added piece of a jigsaw puzzle that suddenly reveals the whole pattern of the puzzle, Martin's motives in aiding Mikey and himself fitted all too well with another set of observations and deductions.

Something rotten was clearly operating undercover here on Everon. That much was obvious in the unusual actions of the Constable, in the gathering downstairs where everyone was flaunting the latest Earth fashions, and in the construction as well as the appearance of this house. The whole situation reeked of special interests and the possibility of corruption in the governing areas of this newly planted world. If Martin was himself on the wrong side of the law it made only too good sense that he should be here to cut himself a slice of whatever unorthodox profits were available.

Seen from that angle, his help to Jef and Mikey made an entirely different sort of sense. It could well be that it was not a case of his seeing that they needed him, but of his needing them to help establish his position. Jef's papers were beyond question. Martin's establishing himself as a defender of the someone who was carrying such papers would support the authenticity of the John Smith image in no small way. What better method for Martin to put his authority beyond question, than to act as if it was wide enough to protect others beside himself?

And, indeed, what in fact had Martin done for Mikey and himself? Nothing, really, but use that quick tongue of his to recommend caution and moderation to those who seemed to threaten Jef and the maolot. In no sense, at any time, had he actually invoked the powers that would have been his as a John Smith to aid them directly.

If all these things were added to his exceedingly slippery response to every question Jef had asked him, and above all, to his very unlikeliness as a John Smith—it would take a very stupid or trusting person indeed to go on believing in him. Jef did not consider himself either stupid or particularly trusting.

Carefully he tucked the identification papers back where he had found them and pressed the lining of the suitcase back into place. The hole Mikey's claw had made was small and hardly noticeable. With luck, Jef could count on Martin not noticing it, at least, not for some time. On the other hand, when he did discover it, Jef was prepared to tell the other bluntly why he had investigated, what he had found, and what the certainty of his suspicions were.

He closed the suitcase now and led Mikey out of the bedroom. But at the door of the suite, he found his conscience troubling him. He hesitated. After a second, however, he went on out, setting the latch so it would lock behind him, stepping through the door with Mikey and closing it quietly but firmly behind him. The latch clicked into place.

Still he hesitated. No matter what else Martin was, no matter what his motives of self-gain or self-protection might have been in speaking up, the fact remained he had done both the maolot and Jef a great favor by doing so. And, damn it, Jef could not dislike him, in any case. It nagged at Jef that, clever as his deductions might be, they might also be somewhat lacking in charity to someone who had at least acted as a friend.

After a moment, on impulse, Jef went back into his own room, got a notepad and wrote a brief note to Martin.

Dear Martin:

Mikey and I are indebted to you for what you've done for us. We'll be leaving for the upcountry and the mountains early tomorrow. But I wanted you to know that if there's anything in our power to do to help you in your turn, or repay you, let me know.

Sincerely,

Jef Aram Robini

He took the note out and pushed it under the door to the suite. Coming back to his own room, he felt the peace of a settled mind. If Martin was actually involved in something either illegal or unconscionable—or both—he had been offered what help Jef could give to get him out of it. The note was not specific on the point of the help to be given; but Jef could be plain about what he would or would not do if Martin came to him for help. And if Martin never did—well, the offer had been made. Jef could now, in his conscience, stop worrying about what might happen to the other.

Jef sat down on the bed. What he should do right now was start to sort out what he would take with him in his backpack tomorrow when he headed upcountry. His heavier supplies and equipment, as well as the excess of the luggage brought from the ship, would have to follow him by supply truck, on one of the monthly vehicle runs to the upcountry supply posts. Jef himself had no wish to wait around for several weeks just in order to ride, rather than walk, part way to his destination; and, more important, he was eager to introduce Mikey to his native environment and begin the study he had come here to do.

Just at the moment, however, the events of a day full of alarms, tensions, and unlikely adventures had gotten to him. He was suddenly aware of being numb with tiredness. He kicked off his boots and stretched out on the bed and, reaching out to the table controls, turned off the room light.

Half an hour's nap, then he would get up and pack...

He woke, abruptly, in darkness. He lay still, with the lingering impression that something, some sound, had wakened him; but as he lay there listening, he heard nothing. The door was locked and Mikey would certainly not be lying still himself if anyone had tried to get in.

Jef continued to lie still, half-awake, trying to remember just what time of day or night it was, and what he had been doing when he fell asleep. Apparently he had dropped off instantly on lying down; and his fogged brain was now being slow to respond.

Gradually events began to come back to him, including the note he had pushed under the door for Martin. Remembered now by a slowed mind in a slumber-chilled body, his leaving of the note did not seem such a reasonable move as it had when he had done it. It was true that what he had written did not commit Mikey and himself to anything; but it did set up a moral obligation to someone who might be up to his ears in some criminal activity. At the very least, it left the door wide open for Martin to make demands upon him at some unspecified time in the future, when such demands might be anything from inconvenient to downright dangerous. In short, Jef found himself regretting the note.

He tried to talk himself out of that regret; but it would not go. His mind kept offering unwanted images of Martin on the run from the authorities, asking for shelter; of Martin engaged in some falling-out with other criminal elements, wanting Jef's—and Mikey's—assistance in the struggle. This went on for some minutes in the dark, Jef's imagination presenting pictures of what might happen that were more and more wild—until finally, with a grunt of disgust, he threw off the covers and sat up.

When you make a mistake, he told himself, admit it.

He put his boots back on, got up and unlocked the door to his room. He went out, followed curiously by Mikey, to have a look at the situation. Maybe he could fish the note back from under the door...

But as he reached the door of Martin's suite, he stopped. A murmur of voices was coming from within the room. Too late.

For a few seconds that was all he could think of. Then his ears identified the voices. There were two. One was Martin's and the other, the deeper, softer voice of Armage.

Unconsciously Jef moved closer to the door, bringing his ear almost against the upper part of its panel. He thought he had heard Martin's voice saying something that sounded like "...Robini…"

He could not be sure. Even with his ear closer to the door now, and straining to hear, he could not make out anything that the Constable was saying; and only now and then did the sharper tones of Martin become intelligible.

"...not at all, my dear Avery. Not at all..."

"...otherwise, I'd not give much for the chance..."

"...upcountry, of course..."

"...because it's my choice not to, that's why..."

The voices broke off suddenly. For a split second more Jef strained to hear, then it burst on him that perhaps something had aroused the suspicions of the two men inside and one or both were even now coming to open the door and look out.

Swiftly, he stepped away, backing into his own room, pulling Mikey with him and closing his door as quietly as possible. Standing inside his closed door, he listened intently for several minutes more. But if the door to the suite was opened, it was done so quietly he could not hear it.

In any case, he told himself, there was nothing more to be gained by his continuing to eavesdrop. Whatever was going on between Martin and Armage—and it was suspicious that Martin had been using the other's first name, when he had always been so careful to address Jef formally—it would have to wait for events to bring it to light, if they ever did. In any case, things were out of Jef's hands now. There was nothing to be said or done until Martin came to him. Then he could lay the whole matter out squarely between them and demand some answers.