S.T.A.R. FLIGHT (17 page)

Bernard King reached out and pressed him back into his chair. “There’s no need for us to be excited,” he said. “This thing wants thinking out.”

“Go right ahead,” said Raleigh. “What’s stopping you? Just sit there and think it all out. And then what? I’ll tell you,” he shouted. “We can all forget staying alive. Our names will be at the head of the blacklist. Damn it, Oldsworth. You’ve killed us all!”

“Shut up!” snapped Hilda Thorenson. “Stop being so selfish. You’re blaming Oldsworth for doing exactly what you’re doing now,” she pointed out. “You’re thinking of your own skin. Well, so is he.”

She drew at the cigarlet and blew a thin plume of smoke. “You can’t do it. It doesn’t matter how many of their people you snatch, you still can’t force them to give you what you want. Think about it,” she urged. “And you’ll see why.”

“The longevity treatment,” said Raleigh. He had calmed down a little and was using his brains instead of his mouth. “It only lasts ten years. What happens then? More snatches? How long do you think they’d put up with it?”

“Score ten out of ten,” said Hilda Thorenson. “Oh, they’d agree right enough,” she said to Oldsworth. “They’d make a deal. They’d take you in and give you something. Poison,” she said. “A slow-acting poison. Or they’d feed you a synthetic drug, one of the instant-addictives, or a malignant implant that will slowly eat away your nervous system. The one thing they won’t do is to play square. They daren’t. It would set a precedent.”

“I’ll keep him,” said Oldsworth. “Hold him until I’m checked out clear.”

The woman sucked at her cigarlet. “Eldon is a gamma,” she said. “Not an alpha. Not even a beta. Just a lousy gamma. Do you think the Kaltich will waste tears over him?”

“All right,” said Oldsworth, forgetting to cough in his rage. “So I made a mistake. I’m going to pay. Well,” he said, “if I am then so is that damned alien. I’ll give him the treatment and send him back in a parcel. A small parcel.”

“No!” Raleigh was shocked. “You can’t do that! The retaliation —”

“We could maybe cover,” suggested King. “Put the blame on the gangsters who did the job. STAR could even get the credit for rescuing him. The gangsters wouldn’t talk,” he added. “We could see to that.”

“That’s a good idea,” admitted Hilda Thorenson. “But I’ve got a better.” She crushed out her cigarlet and watched the ascending smoke. “We’ll keep him as a hostage,” she said. “To help Martin Preston. Or have you all forgotten that he’s out there somewhere working for us?”

Cherry Lee carefully finished applying the paint to her face and examined the result in a mirror. Ghastly, she thought, looking at her reflection. It scowled back at her, a demonic mask like a Maori’s nightmare. The greased strands of her hair hung over her shoulders. She pouted at the mirror before turning away. She felt subdued, depressed, uninterested in what she had to do, ashamed of what she had not done.

I’ve failed, she thought. Chung Hoo trusted me to get close to Preston and I didn’t do it. I waited too long. That doctor-bitch got him first, she told herself. Now he’s in trouble and there’s nothing anyone can do to help him out of it.

Trouble, she thought. The world contained nothing but trouble. She picked up the phone and punched a number. It was a visiphone. The screen showed a face as thickly painted as her own. The hair was roached in a high crest. “Hi,” said the youth. “Big Chief Quickfoot um ready to go on um warpath with big, fine squaw.”

“Be serious,” she said.

“I am serious.”

“Then act your age.” She added quickly, “We’ve a special job on for tonight.” She told him what it was and he whistled.

“Search parties?”

“Unofficial,” she pointed out. “Get the zanies to run over the neighbourhood. Have them check every cellar and
basement. Clear the garages. I know it won’t be easy,” she admitted. “But we can do it without giving the alarm. We don’t have to be vicious. Not this time.”

He scowled, thinking. “Doesn’t sound much fun,” he commented. “How do we work it?”

“Make it an alien-hunt,” she advised. “Get them steamed up about the Kaltich. Pass the word that some may be hiding out and grab all you can find. Don’t hurt them but run them back to the Gate.” Scare them to hell, she thought. Make them think twice about coming back into the city.

“I’ll need some stuff,” he said. “Something to fire the boilers.”

“Pick it up at the usual place. See you.”

She hung up the phone. Going to a drawer she took out a phial and swallowed a tablet. The euphoria was immediate but a low intensity. To the inside of her naked thigh she taped a thin, needle-pointed knife. A radio hung between her breasts. Carefully she sharpened and painted the fingernails of both hands with a solution containing a strong anaesthetic.

She felt restless despite the euphoriac, ill at ease.

Where is Preston? she wondered. What is he doing now? Why had STAR thrown another man to the Kaltich? Why the hell couldn’t they see sense? Be reasonable, she thought, do it my way. Well, UNO knew the right way. If they didn’t, who did?

The phone rang as she reached the door. Snatching it up, she saw the face of Chung Hoo.

“Hello, my dear,” he said in his gentle voice. “Were you about to go out?”

“Yes,” she said. “On duty.”

He nodded. “I understand. But tonight your friends must do without you. I have other work for you,” he explained. “Passage has been booked on the ICPM leaving Kennedy field within the hour. You will have to hurry.”

“Where am I going?”

“To Sheffield,” he said. “A town in England. Martin Preston is there.”

At the library Preston was becoming something of a mystery. The woman in charge of the reference section, a romantic spinster who had waited too long for the right man, had her own theory. “He’s a student,” she said firmly. “Brushing up before an exam.”

Her assistant, younger but more world-wise, shook her head. “He’s no student,” she said with equal firmness. “Not in the way you mean. But he could be doing research,” she admitted. “Perhaps he’s an author?”

Oblivious of the exchange Preston sat and glowered at his books. They were all the library contained dealing with hypnotic techniques, forced tuition and compressed learning. None of them had helped. The information locked in his skull needed a key before it could be released. He had been trying to discover the shape of that key.

I’m wasting my time, he thought. I’ll need drugs and the knowledge of how to use them. Relaxants and hypnotics so as to dig down deep. STAR will know exactly what to do. They’ll get the experts and technical skill. He closed the book and leaned back in his chair. Around him the usual habitués of the reference section stirred and shifted on their hard seats. Old men seeking somewhere quiet to sit and dream. Young men hoping to gain affluence by study. A backwater in which strangers caused no comment.

His hotel was much the same. A small place but not so small that a stranger would stick out like a sore thumb and
not so large that a stranger would be unnoticeable. Preston had taken time to select the right place. He halted at the desk. “Any mail for me?”

“No, Mr Preston.” The receptionist was apologetic. “No mail or messages.” She hesitated. “There was someone asking about you,” she said. “A man. I thought you would like to know.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Did he ask after me by name?”

“Yes, sir. He said not to say anything. That he wanted to surprise you. But you are a guest of the hotel and I thought that you should know.”

“Thank you,” he said again. “I appreciate you telling me.”

From STAR, he thought, walking from the desk. Or someone from the local police. They would have cause. He had left dead men lying in a London alley. He had stolen clothes, money, a suitcase, other things before catching the first monorail from the terminal. It had carried him to Sheffield. For two days now he had waited for STAR to get in contact.

Too long, he thought. Someone should have come sooner or at least sent him money. Now a man was asking for him. Asking about him, rather. An odd way for a friend to behave.

He slowed up going to his room, primitive instincts warning him of danger. His door was closed, locked, no light showing beneath the panel or through the keyhole. Cautiously Preston inserted his key into the lock and twisted. The latch moved back and the door eased open. Taking out his key, he moved three steps down the corridor to the switch controlling the overhead lights. He turned it, plunging the passage into darkness. Softly he returned to his door.

Dropping to his knees he pushed it open. Nothing. Eel-like he slithered into the room. His right hand was tight around his gun he had taken from the null. A voice whispered from one corner.

“No need for all this caution, Preston. I’m from STAR.”

Preston didn’t answer.

“I’m going to show my face,” said the voice easily. “Just do me a favour and relax. I’m alone,” the man added. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.” A cigarlet lighter spurted flame. A face covered with thin red lines of burst capillaries looked from beyond the flame. “Daler,” said the man. “Sam Daler. We’ve met before.”

“Yes,” said Preston. His hand moved, tucking the gun into his waistband, the butt hidden by his jacket.

“At STAR special rendezvous in New York,” said Daler. “I was on lookout. You remember?”

“Yes,” said Preston again. His eyes searched the room. Daler was alone. He rose, snapped on the light, looked again. Stepping out into the passage he switched the overhead lights back on and returned to his room. Daler hadn’t moved.

“Did you get it?”

Preston looked at the man. “Get what?”

“What you went after.” Daler laughed without making a sound. “I’m no wino,” he said. “These lines—” he gestured to his face—“were caused by too-fast decompression when I worked the Maracot Deep. You went after something,” he said “Did you get it?”

Preston ignored the question. “Who sent you?”

“STAR. Who else? That’s how I knew where to find you. King told me.” Daler lit a cigarlet number five size. “What the devil made you come out in London?” he said. “Why didn’t you use the New York Gate?”

“I thought I was,” said Preston. “The operator must have tricked me. I didn’t specify,” he admitted. “I just told him to connect. For a while I thought he’d sent me to the wrong world. It was a bad time.”

“The New York Gate was probably engaged,” Daler said casually. “It can happen. Get your things together,” he suggested, “and we’ll be on our way.”

“To where?”

“New York. I’ve got the flight times of the ICPMs from
London. Three hours and we can be there.” Daler lifted his hand to his inner pocket. “I think we can make it,” he said casually. “I’ll just check on the times.”

“You do that,” said Preston.

And reached for his gun.

Chung Hoo walked in his garden and indulged himself in the enjoyment of his flowers. It wasn’t a large garden and the plants were confined to those which would grow in pots and narrow boxes. In fact it was the balcony of his living room, beyond which Cherry Lee could see the towering spires of skyscrapers, the dingy canyons between.

“So you missed him,” said Chung Hoo softly. “That was most unfortunate.

“I failed,” she corrected him, “again.”

“No one can be infallible,” he said gently. “The blame is mine. I received the information too late. You did your best, my dear,” he soothed. “You could have done no more than what you did. Preston,” he mused. “A resourceful young man. He has shown an amazing ability to stay alive. Two shots, you say?”

“Yes. I had reached the hotel,” she said. “I was that close. I was asking for him at the desk when I heard the firing. Two shots. I managed to be among the first to enter the room. The man Daler was lying dead. Preston had made his escape.”

“The police?”

“Did what they could but what did they have to work on? A stranger killed for no apparent reason.” She hesitated. “Could Preston have gone … I mean …?”

“Crazy?” Chung Hoo picked up a geranium and sniffed at the blood-red blosom. “No, my dear. I think that there is a much simpler explanation. You traced his activities?”

“He’d been using the local library. Reading all sorts of odd books. Technical books. I didn’t take him for a scientist,” she said, frowning. “Yet he’d been reading books only a scientist could understand.”

“There is an affinity between understanding and wanting
to understand,” commented Chung Hoo. He delicately plucked a leaf from a marigold. “Information is of no value unless it can be understood.” He moved to a snapdragon. “Look at this,” he invited. “See?” He demonstrated again. “When you press the bloom, so, the petals gape open like a mouth,” and because the thought was constantly with him he added, “a hungry mouth. Why did Preston kill?”

She knew the question to be rhetorical.

“Why does any man kill? For reasons of fear? Of hate? Of personal gain?” Chung Hoo sniffed a sweet pea. “Daler,” he mused. “An apparent drunkard attached to STAR. Or so we thought, but obviously we were wrong. An assassin perhaps? What did Preston discover which forced him to kill the man? Was he armed? Daler, I mean.”

“No,” she admitted. “There was no obvious weapon, but what does that mean?” Flexing her fingers, she studied her nails. “I could paint these with curare. A scratch would kill. Would I be carrying an obvious weapon? There was a stylo by his hand,” she said. “A thick one. It could have been a projectile weapon of some kind.”

“It was,” he said blandly. “I have received the report of the local police. But how did Preston know that Daler threatened his life? Know enough to draw his gun and shoot without hesitation?”

“And why should Daler want to kill him in the first place?” asked Cherry Lee.

Chung Hoo caressed a petunia.

“Reason,” said Cherry Lee. She realised that her employer was permitting her to work out something for herself. “There has to be a reason. A man does not kill for fun. Not a man like Preston, at least. He could have been afraid,” she suggested. “Shot in self-defence. But even so he must have suspected that Daler was after him. Wanted to kill him. But why?”

“Preston had recently returned through a Gate,” pointed out Chung Hoo. “We can only guess what dangers he faced, what hardships he underwent while with the Kaltich.
Violence must have been a part of his adventure. We know that he had to run for his life when he left the London Gate. But we speculate to no purpose. Preston himself could tell us all we wish to know.”