A World Divided (5 page)

Heartened by these expeditions into the city, Larry gradually grew bolder. Now and again he ventured out of the familiar spaceport district, exploring an unusually alluring side street, walking through an unfamiliar court or square.

One afternoon he stood for an hour near the door of a forge, watching a blacksmith shoeing one of the small, sturdy Darkovan horses with light strong metal shoes. You didn’t see things like that on Earth, not in this day and age. Horses were rare animals, kept in zoos and museums.

He was aware, now and then, of curious or hostile glances following him. Terrans were not overly popular in the city. But he had been brought up on Earth, a quiet and well-policed world, and hardly knew what fear was. Certainly, he thought, he was safe on the public streets during the day light hours!

 

It was a few days after he had watched the blacksmith at work. He had gone back to that quarter, fascinated by the sight; and then, lured by a street lined with gardens of strange, low-hanging trees and flowers, he had walked down court after court. After a time, he began to realize that he had taken little heed of his bearings; the street had turned and twisted several times, and he was no longer very sure which way he had come. He looked around, but the high houses nearby concealed the beacons of the spaceport, and he was not sure which way to go.

Larry did not panic. He felt sure that he need only retrace his steps a little way to come back into familiar ground; or, perhaps, to go on a little further, and he would come out into a part of the city that he knew.

He went on a little way. The garden street suddenly ran out, and he found himself in a part of the city where he had never been before. It was so unlike anything he had seen so far that he seriously began to wonder if he had strayed into a nonhuman district. The sun was low in the sky, and Larry began to worry a little about it. Could he, after all, find his way?

He looked around, trying to orient himself in the dimming light. The streets were irregular here, and twisting; the houses close together, made of thatch and chinked pebbles daubed with what looked like coarse cement, windowless and dark. The street seemed empty; and yet, as he stopped and looked around, Larry had the disconcerting notion that someone was watching him.

“Come on,” he said aloud, “don’t start imagining things.”

He started seriously to take stock of his position. The spaceport lay to the east of the town, so that he should put his back to the sun, and keep on going that way.

He turned around slowly, getting his bearings. He ought to turn this way, into this street, and keep on eastward, then he couldn’t possibly miss the spaceport. It might be a long walk, but before long he ought to get into some familiar district.
Before dark, I hope.
He looked back, nervously, as he turned into the narrow street. Was that a step behind him?

He ordered himself to stop imagining things.
People live here. They have a right to walk down the street, so what if there is somebody behind you? Anyway, there’s nobody there.

Abruptly the street turned a blind corner, ran into a small open square, and dead-ended in a low stone wall and the blank rear entrances of a couple of houses. Larry scowled, and felt like swearing. He’d have to try again, damn it! And if the sun went down and he had to start wandering around in the dark, he’d be in fine shape! He turned to retrace his steps, and stopped dead.

Across the square, several indistinct forms were coming toward him. In the lowering light, purple-edged, they seemed big and looming, and they seemed to advance on Larry with steady purpose. He started to walk on, then hesitated ; they were moving—yes, they had cut off his return from the way he had come.

He could see them clearly now. They were boys and young men, six or eight of them, about his own age or a little younger, shabbily dressed in Darkovan clothes; their rough-cut hair was lying on their shoulders, and one and all, they had a look of jeering malice. They looked rough, rowdy, and not at all friendly, and Larry felt a touch of panic. But he told himself, sternly,
They’re just a batch of kids. Most of them look younger than I am. Why should I assume they’re after me—or that they have any interest in me at all? For all I know, they might be the local chowder and marching society out for an evening on the town!

He nodded politely, and began to walk toward them, confident that they would part and let him through. Instead, the ranks suddenly closed, and Larry had to stop to keep from bumping headlong into the leader—a big, burly boy of sixteen or so.

Larry said politely, in Darkovan, “Will you let me pass, please?”

“Why, he talks our lingo!” The burly boy’s dialect was so rough that Larry could hardly make out the words. “And what’s a
Terranan
from behind the walls doing out here in the city?”

“What you want here anyway?” one of the young men asked.

Larry braced himself hard, trying not to show fear, and spoke with careful courtesy. “I was walking in the city, and lost myself. If one of you would tell me which way I should take to find the spaceport, I would be grateful.”

The polite speech, however, was greeted with guffaws of shrill laughter.

“Hey, he’s lost!”

“Ain’t that too bad!”

“Hey,
chiyu
, you expect the big boss of the spaceport to come looking for you with a lamp?”

“Poor little fellow, out alone after dark!”

“And not even big enough to carry a knife! Does your mammy know you’re out walking, little boy?”

Larry made no answer. He was beginning to be dreadfully afraid. They might simply take it out in rough language—but they might not. These Darkovan street urchins might be just children—but they carried wicked long knives, and they were evidently toughs. He began to measure the leader with his eyes, wondering if he would stand up to them if it came to a fight. He might—the big bully looked fat and out of condition—but he certainly couldn’t handle the whole gang of them at once.

Just the same, he knew that if he showed fear once, he was lost. If they were simply baiting him, a bold manner might bluff them away. He clenched his fists, trying with the gesture to hold his voice tight, and stepped up to the bully.

“Get out of my way.”

“Suppose you
knock
me out of it, Terran!”

“Okay,” said Larry between his teeth, “you asked for it, fat guy.”

Quickly, with one hard punch, he drove his fist into the big boy’s chin. The youngster let out a surprised “Ugh!” of pain, but his own fists came up, driving a low, foul blow into Larry’s stomach. Larry, shocked as well as hurt, was taken aback. He staggered to recover his balance, gasping for breath.

The big boy kicked him. Then, in a rush, the whole gang was on him shoving and jostling him rudely, yelling words Larry did not understand. They shouldered him back, hustling him, forming a circle around him, pushing him off balance every time he recovered it, closing in to shove and jeer. Larry’s breath came in sobs of rage.

“
One
of you fight me, you cowards, and you’ll see—”

A kick landed in his shins; someone drove an elbow into his stomach. He slid to his knees. A fist jammed into his face, and he felt blood break from his lip. Cold terror suddenly gripped through him as he realized that no one in the Terran Zone so much as knew where he was; that he could be not only mauled but killed.

“Get away from him, you filthy gutter rabbits!”

It was a new voice, clear and contemptuous, striking through the rude jeers and yells. With little gulps and gasps of consternation, the street urchins jostled back, and Larry, coming up slowly to his knees, wiping at his bloody face in the respite, blinked in the sudden light of torches.

Two tall men, green-clad, stood there carrying lights; but the lights, and all eyes, were focused on the young man who stood between the torches.

He was tall and red-haired, dressed in an embroidered leather jacket and a short fur cloak; his hand was on the hilt of a knife. His eyes, cold gray, were blazing as he whipped them with stinging words.

“Nine—ten against one, and he was still giving a good account of himself to you! So this proves that Terrans are cowards, eh?”

His eyes swung to Larry, and he gestured. “Get up.”

The fat bully-boy was literally shaking. He bowed his head, whining, “Lord Alton—”

The newcomer silenced him with a gesture. The smaller roughnecks looked sullen or overawed. The youngster in the fur cloak took a step toward Larry, and a cold, bleak smile touched his lips.

“I might have known it would be you,” he said. “Well, we’re under bond to keep peace in the city, but it seems to me you were asking for trouble. What were you doing here?”

“Walking,” Larry said. “I got lost.” Suddenly he resented the cool, arrogant air of authority in the newcomer’s voice. He flung his head back, set his chin and looked the strange boy straight in the eye. “Is that a crime?”

The fur-cloaked boy laughed briefly, and suddenly Larry recognized the laugh and the face. It was the same insolent redhead he had seen his first day on Darkover; the youngster who’d spoken to him at the spaceport gate.

The Darkovan boy looked around at the little knot of roughs, who had drawn back and were shouldering one another restlessly. “Not so brave now, eh? Don’t worry, I didn’t come to stop your fight,” he said, and his voice was contemptuous and clear. “But you might as well make it mean something.” He looked back at Larry, then back to the gang. “Pick out someone of your number—someone his own size—and
one
of you take him on.” His eyes raked Larry’s and he added consideringly, “Unless you’re afraid to fight, Terran? Then I can send you home with my bodyguards.”

Larry bristled at the suggestion. “I’ll fight any five of them, if they fight fair,” he said angrily, and the Darkovan threw back his head with a sharp laugh.

“One’s plenty. All right, you bully boys,” he snarled suddenly at the gang, “pick out your champion. Or isn’t any one of you willing to stand up to a Terran without the whole rat-pack behind you?”

The street boys crowded together, looking warily at Larry, and the two looming guards, at the young Darkovan aristocrat. There was a long moment of silence. The Darkovan laughed, very softly.

Finally one of the gang, a long lean young man almost six feet tall, with a broken tooth and a rangy, yellowed, evil face, spat on the cobblestones.

“I’ll fight the—” Larry did not understand the epithet. “I’m not afraid of any Terran from ’ere to the Hellers!”

Larry clenched his fists, sizing up his new opponent. He supposed the street boy was a year or so older than himself. Tall and stringy, with huge fists, he looked a nasty customer. This wasn’t going to be easy either.

Suddenly the boy rushed him, landing a pounding succession of blows before Larry could counter a single punch. Larry was forced backward. One fist smashed into his eye; a second landed on his chin. He struggled to stay upright, hearing the street toughs yelling encouragement to their mate. The sound suddenly made Larry angry. He rushed forward, head down, and brought up his fist in a hard, rocking blow to the roughneck’s chin; followed it up with a fast punch to the nose. The street boy’s nose began to trickle blood. He struck out at Larry, furiously, but Larry, his rage finally roused, easily countered the wildly flailing blows. He realized that in spite of the street boy’s longer reach, he didn’t have the advantage of knowing what he was doing. The ruffian got in one or two low body punches, but Larry, carefully mustering his knowledge of boxing, slowly forced him back and back, stepping on his toes, keeping him off balance, driving punch after punch at the boy’s nose and chin. Head down, the roughneck tried to clinch; grabbed Larry around the waist and grappled with him, struggling to bring his knee up; but Larry knocked his elbow across the boy’s face, managed to pry him loose, and drove up one single, hard punch in the eye.

The street boy reeled back, swayed, stumbled and crashed down full length on the cobblestones.

“Come on,” said Larry, standing over him in a rage. “Get up and fight!”

The tough stirred. He struggled halfway to his knees, swayed again, and collapsed in a heap.

Larry drew a long breath. His mouth was split and tasted of blood, his eye hurt, and his ribs were bruised; and his fists, knuckles skinned raw, felt as if he’d been banging on a brick wall with them.

The Darkovan aristocrat motioned to one of his bodyguards, who bent to look at the unconscious street boy.

“Now, the rest of you rough fellows—make yourselves scarce!” His voice held stinging contempt. One by one, the gang melted away into the lowering mists of darkness.

Larry stood with his knuckles throbbing, until no one was left in the square but himself, the Darkovan boy, and the two silent guards.

“Thanks,” he said, at last.

“No need to thank me,” the Darkovan lad said brusquely. “You handled yourself well. I wanted to see how you’d come off.” Suddenly, he smiled. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve earned the freedom of the city. You’ve done something to deserve it. I’ve had an eye on you for several days, you know.”

Larry stared. “What?”

“Do you think a redheaded Terran can walk in places where no other Terran ever dared to go, without half the city knowing it? And things come to the ears of the
Comyn
.”

Comyn
... Larry didn’t know the word.

The boy went on, “I was sure it was only a matter of time until you got into trouble, and I wanted to see whether you’d handle it like the typical Terran”—again there was a trace of contempt in his voice—“and try to scare off your attackers with cowards’ weapons, like your guards with their guns, or shout for the police to come and help you out of your troubles. No Terran ever settles his own affairs.” Then he grinned. “But you did.”