Delay in Transit

 

 

Muscles tense," said Dimanche. Neural index 1.76, unusually high.
Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you.
Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."

 

 

"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible
to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on
the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the
habitat hotel and sit tight."

 

 

"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe
for a stranger to walk through the city?"

 

 

"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around
apprehensively. "Where is he?"

 

 

"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise
display."

 

 

A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was
accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple
bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers
were crazy.

 

 

Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It
would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he *could*
walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?

 

 

A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was
peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was
at a definite disadvantage.

 

 

"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."

 

 

"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look
unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and
stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside,
he might find safety for a time.

 

 

Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude
him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the
streets would be brightly lighted -- for native eyes. A human would
consider it dim.

 

 

"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something
he hopes to gain."

 

 

"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At
short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret
physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what
a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding
out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to
the godawful police."

 

 

"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.

 

 

That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the
police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons,
many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche
out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say,
floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper
approach, either.

 

 

"Weapons?"

 

 

"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife,
a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."

 

 

Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in
semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could
die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of
protection himself.

 

 

"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on
tenuous evidence."

 

 

"Let's have it anyway."

 

 

"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For
some reason you can't get off this planet."

 

 

That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand
star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.

 

 

Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer
point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth,
he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected
a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar
schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.

 

 

Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay?
According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or
did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?

 

 

 

 

Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He
was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his
instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of
these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the
first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney see a
man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed
him, and possibly not even to them. The thug trailing him wouldn't be
interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one,
nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's
analysis was right. What did the thug want?

 

 

Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too
well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone
this far away to have learned about it.

 

 

And yet tim thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as
dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't
involve too much risk.

 

 

"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."

 

 

Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of
that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually
was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives
like rain.

 

 

He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the
rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it
unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility
and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the
near amphibians who created it.

 

 

A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport
tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made
life dangerous for a human -- Venice revised, brought up to date in a
faster-than-light age.

 

 

Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely
flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at a break-neck speed, the
ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout
the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and
noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human -- Cassal shivered. If he
were found drowned, if would be considered an accident. No investigation
would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the
right place.

 

 

The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal
was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What
she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.

 

 

"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. 'We've got to investigate our man at
closer range."

 

 

 

 

Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an
anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her
element, though.

 

 

The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced
his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite
capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though,
was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It
didn't fit with murder.

 

 

"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I
could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt,
of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife
definite."

 

 

Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal
stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.

 

 

"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on
this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection
and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."

 

 

The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said
Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting
back to the hotel?" "I'm curious. Turn here."

 

 

"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that
intersection, he turned there.

 

 

It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily
slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on
the other.

 

 

He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all
very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was
also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an
electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.

 

 

"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking
fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."

 

 

"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm
pleased. Not just now."

 

 

"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism
concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like
this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This
is critical."

 

 

"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He
clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness
assumed an even more sinister quality.

 

 

"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."

 

 

"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask
me for a light."

 

 

"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I
hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine.'"

 

 

"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't
there any' clue?"

 

 

"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn
around."

 

 

 

 

Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him
feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.

 

 

A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the
alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant
shot by.

 

 

"Hey!" shouted Cassal.

 

 

Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that
no one was going to come to his assistance.

 

 

"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why
he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."

 

 

"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.'

 

 

"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."

 

 

Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few
seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected
stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical
instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its
function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.