S.T.A.R. FLIGHT (9 page)

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to know me now?”

“Leave him alone.” Another player leaned over and said something in a low voice.

The first man shrugged. “All right. I didn’t know. But how long’s it going to be before he gets over it?” And then, to Preston, “Sorry, Leon. Some other time, uh?”

Outside he paused, thinking. The Gate itself must lie in the centre of the complex; that seemed the most logical place for it to be. The living accommodation and offices must be built around it, both for protection and for quick access. That meant a passage must lead to where he wanted to go. He began to search for it, using both Tonach’s information and his own instinct. Both let him down. He found a promising door but it was firmly locked. The alternative was obvious.

Quickly he retraced his steps back to the central opening, the ramp and unloading bays. The conveyor belt must lead directly to the Gate. He followed it until it ran into a tunnel. Back again he looked thoughtfully at the ramp. Trucks, he thought, could be driven along it. It was obvious that those same trucks must go somewhere and, if it was ever decided to move heavy equipment, it would have to travel by truck. The reasoning was excellent — but the ramp was sealed further in by heavy doors.

And to go by the tunnel was to pass through the death trap.

There was only one thing left to do.

The null was easy, relaxed, standing a routine honour guard. He looked at Preston as he approached, automatically stiffening into a position of respect. “Sir?”

“Medical.”

“A moment, sir. Your name, please?” Preston told him, waiting as the man did things with a wall-communicator.
“Very good, sir. You may pass.”

Tight, thought Preston as he walked past the guard. They don’t like the lesser ranks walking about in certain areas. The epsilons, he knew, were housed in subterranean apartments. The nulls had their own barracks. Only the higher command, apparently, had direct access to the Gate.

They made a mistake, he thought. STAR didn’t think this thing through far enough. I should have taken the place of a gamma at least. But no, he told himself. That wouldn’t have worked either. There aren’t enough of them. Or perhaps they couldn’t find one who looked enough like me. He was speculating, a waste of time. Now he needed all his concentration.

The medical room was ahead. He had to enter it. He was expected and to fail to show up would be to start an alarm. The doctor was a gamma-alpha. He looked at Preston as an assistant took down details.

“The trouble, sir?”

“My back.” It was a genuine excuse. “It’s hurting and I wondered —”

“You are the man who was punished?” The doctor was curt.

Preston nodded. “That’s right, sir. Leon Tonach.”

“You must know that the after-effects of the whipping are an integral part of your discipline. I shall report you for having wasted our time.”

“Yes, sir.” Well, thought Preston, that was soon over. He turned left as he left the medical room, walking in the opposite direction to which he had came. Quickly he ran down stairs, along a passage, pushed open a door. It led to another a few feet away. He opened it and stared at the Gate.

It could be nothing else.

But it was like nothing he had expected.

It was a double arch, rounded, fifteen feet from stem to stem and twenty high. A gigantic letter
m
. One half of it was blank, the entire arch filled with nothing but a dead,
flat black surface which hurt his eyes as he looked at it. The other was clear, aside from a peculiar shivering as of air disturbed by rising currents of heat. He looked through it and saw the ramp, the walls leading to the central opening. The tilt of the ramp prevented him from seeing outside. Penetrating it in an unbroken line, the length of the conveyor-belt tunnel marred the symmetry of the arch.

A man walked through the black surface.

He came as if walking through mist, stepping from the arch as a man would step from one room into another, casual, doing a thing to which he was long accustomed. He wore red, an alpha. He halted as he saw Preston.

“You! What are you doing here?”

Preston bowed, gesturing towards the door through which he had come.

“I asked you a question!” The alpha let his hand fall to his whip. The lash made a thin, vicious sound as it cut through the air. “Answer me!”

“I was about to pass through the Gate, sir.”

“Alone?” The man glanced at the other arch. “There is something wrong,” he decided. “You will turn and walk before me.” The whip almost touched Preston’s cheek. “Move!”

Preston hit him in the stomach.

The man was soft, flabby; his stomach felt like dough. He doubled, gasping and Preston slammed the stiffened edge of his palm hard against the nape of his neck. The alpha fell, turning a little so that the outflung whip fell against the blackness of the arch.

Preston ripped at his clothes.

Camouflage, he thought. I’ve got to take the chance. A delta’s nothing in this setup. I need more weight, more authority. Luck, he told himself. You’ve had the luck of the devil so far. Let’s hope that it lasts just a little longer. Long enough for me to change clothes with this character and get away from here.

The red uniform was a little too large but the belt took up
most of the slack. He picked up the man’s whip then paused, looking at it. The tip had been severed as though with a knife, the metal bright and perfectly flat. He frowned at it, then at the blackness of the arch. Cautiously he reached out with the whip and touched the surface. He felt a slight resistance and pressed harder. The metal of the whip dissolved as he watched. He shoved and looked at the stump in his hand. At his feet the dead man stared at him as if guessing what was in his mind.

Thirty seconds later Preston stepped boldly through the clear archway. He felt a momentary tingle and that was all. Turning, he saw blackness, while now the other arch was clear. He swallowed, forcing himself to look, but didn’t see what he’d expected. No limp body in delta blue. No head and upper torso, hands and shoulder in red and vanished ruin.

He shook his head, impatient with himself. This was war. The alpha had been an enemy and had died as Lassiter had died. The fact that he couldn’t be seen was something to worry about in the future. Now he had to make good his escape.

He walked from the Gate, past bowing nulls, past working epsilons, striding from the building and out into the clean, unsullied air.

Unsullied because there was no mass of sprawling buildings, no snarling traffic, no stench of fumes and dirt and too many people in too small a space. Instead there were slender pyramidical structures, tall and graceful in the bright sunshine. The green of grass and trees, the bright touches of colour from massed flowers.

By God, he thought with rising excitement. I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I’m the first Earthman to set foot on another world!

A low musical note sounded from behind. Preston turned. A hover-truck, the rear stacked high with crates, came sighing down the ramp. It slowed as it drew level as if the driver expected a signal then, as Preston continued walking, it passed him to vanish behind some trees. Ten minutes later, when he was wishing he’d flagged a lift, he came to the first of the pyramidical structures.

They were tents, a whole village of tepees, tall, sheeted plastic drawn over thin aluminium tubes and daubed with primitive designs to glaring colour. The people he saw grouped about the tents or walking the unpaved ground between had a strange familiarity. Zanies, he thought, then corrected himself. Not zanies but those the kids tried to emulate. Indians. Red Indians from the old North American west.

Slowly he walked through the village. There was an absence of smells generally associated with such a place. The few dogs were well-fed and well-behaved. The children were restrained. He halted beside a man and examined his equipment. The bow was of steel, the arrows feathered with nylon. The knife and hatchet were of polished metal. The clothes, fringed and painted, had the appearance of synthetic fibre. He looked into a tent. A woman, wide-eyed, held back a small child. The floor was covered with rugs and blankets. Pieces of equipment hung from the walls.

Preston looked at the man. “What world is this?”

“Sire?” The Galactic was thick guttural, but perfectly understandable.

“This world — what is its name?”

“Sire, forgive me, but I do not understand.”

Dumb, thought Preston. He looked at the stolid brown face, the dull eyes. Unconsciously his hand fell to the whip dangling from his wrist. His own whip — that belonging to the alpha had been destroyed. The man cringed.

“Forget it,” said Preston, and walked on through the village.

The tents were clustered to either side, leaving a broad central avenue. Midway along stood a group of solid buildings made of unpeeled logs. One looked as if it might be a grain store. Another was obviously a blacksmith’s. A third looked like a livery stable. Facing it was a long, low cabin with unwindowed extensions at the rear. A hitching rail faced it and a water trough stood to one side. The place had a wide veranda on which stood tables and chairs. It was an uneasy blend of an old western trading post and a French sidewalk cafe. Kaltich were at the tables, eating, drinking or just sitting engaged in conversation. Native women moved between them carrying drinks and plates of food. The sight woke Preston’s hunger.

He climbed on the veranda, sat at a table, gestured to a waitress. “Food,” he demanded. “And something to drink.”

“Yes, sire.” The girl was pretty in a swarthy kind of way. She wore a fringed garment, belted around her waist, coming to just above the knee. A rope of cut-glass beads hung around her neck. “We have steak, sire. Would that be satisfactory?”

Preston nodded.

“And wine, sire? Or would you prefer tiswin?”

“Wine,” decided Preston. “Red. And something to smoke,” he added. “Cigarlets. Number one size.” What the hell, he thought, let’s make the most of this while we can.

The food was delicious: steak, french fried potatoes, peas, tomatoes and mushrooms, sweet corn. The dessert was deep-dish apple pie spiced with cloves and cinnamon. The wine was French, chateau bottled. The cigarlets bore a familiar brand name.

Preston smoked, brooding, wishing that it were night so he could see alien constellations. He felt deflated. This place was too much like Earth. The gravity, the food and wine, the same plants even as far as he could tell. And the natives! Quiet, hygienic, dressed in leatherette and beads.

And yet was it so strange? A similar world would surely have a similar development. The chemical combination of aminoacids and DNA would combine to produce much the same sort of life. The local conditions would serve to mould it into familiar shapes. And the Kaltich would hardly bother with planets unsuitable to their kind of life.

This was a primitive world, he decided, much the same as Earth was a couple of hundred years ago. The Kaltich had discovered it, set up their Gates and engaged in trade. That was why so many things were familiar. They came from Earth. The Gate had come directly from Washington to here and so had the crates he had seen, the boxes of supplies.

Satisfied, he relaxed in his chair. The natives would only have a Stone Age culture. They couldn’t make anything worth having and so could only exchange their services for essential items. A vacation planet, he thought. Something like the schloss but much larger. A world wide camping place where the Kaltich can pretend to rough it and, perhaps, do a little hunting.

Preston crushed out the cigarlet and lit another. A group of deltas further down the veranda rose and walked toward the livery stable. They made no attempt to pay and no one seemed to bother. Why should they? thought Preston. Does a soldier pay for his food? That’s true wealth, he told himself, the ability to take whatever you want when you want it. If nothing else the Kaltich were incredibly wealthy. On planets like this money was something they simply didn’t bother to use.

But, on planets like this, he would never find the things for which he was searching.

He drew thoughtfully at his cigarlet, stiffening as a hand
fell on his shoulder. He turned, looking upwards. The hand belonged to an alpha.

“Well,” he said, looking down at Preston. “This is a stroke of luck. Mind if I join you?”

Preston gestured to an empty chair. “Help yourself.”

“It’s not often a man meets one of his own class in a place like this,” said the alpha sitting down. “Name’s Maddule.”

“Tulan,” said Preston. “Jay Tulan.”

“Jay?” Maddox beamed. “That puts us both in the upper half. I’m a Dee myself.”

“That’s right.” They shook hands. Maddule was a man of comfortable middle-age. He wore the silver disc of a civilian and smelt a little of brandy. “You’re young,” he said looking at Preston. “On your first tour of duty?”

Preston nodded.

Maddule sighed. “I remember when I was about your age,” he said. “Every time we put the Gate through I had to take a look. Must have been a hundred different places in that first tour alone. But we all do it,” he added. “Like a kid with a new toy. The thrill wears off after a while.”

“I expect so,” said Preston cautiously.

“That’s why I was surprised to see you,” continued Maddule. “There’s not much here to attract a young man. Not for another week or two at least. The buffalo will be along then,” he explained. “They go south in the winter and back up north in the summer. Millions of them.”

“Buffalo?”

“That’s right. Big ugly beasts. The natives have fun in killing them. It’s quite a spectacle in its way. They use horses to cut off a few and kill them with arrows and spears. Sometimes you’ll get a young buck jump on one and kill it with a knife. That makes him popular with the women,” said Maddule dryly. “Fortunately we don’t need to prove ourselves in that way. You fond of shooting?”

“I’ve done a little,” said Preston.

“You could have some fun here in that case.” Maddule turned, waved at a waitress. “Let’s have a drink. You like
brandy?”

“Yes,” said Preston. Luck, he thought, was still with him. Maddule was obviously a shade under the influence, loquacious and eager for company. The more he drank the more talkative he would become and the more Preston would learn. “You come here often?”