In the Beginning (27 page)

He nudged the switch and the dangling solitary illuminator glowed luminously. Brannon sprawled down on an overstuffed pneumochair that had long since lost its buoyancy, and gestured for his visitor to take a chair.

“Okay,” Brannon said finally. “What’s the deal?”

***

Murdoch waited a long moment before speaking. A gray cloud of cigarette smoke crept about his face, softening the harsh angularity of his features. At length he said, “I have been told that a race calling themselves the Nurillins lives on this planet. You know anything about them?”

Brannon flinched, even though his extra sense had warned him this was coming. His eyes slitted. “The Nurillins are out of my line. I only hunt animals.”

Sighing, Murdoch said, “The Extraterrestrial Life Treaty of 2977 specifically designates one hundred eighty-six life forms as intelligent species and therefore not to be hunted, on pain of punishment. The Treaty Supplement of 3011 lists sixty-one additional life forms which are prohibited to game hunters. I have both those lists with me. You won’t find the Nurillins of Cutwold named anywhere on either.”

Brannon shoved away the two brown paper-covered documents Murdoch held out to him. “I don’t want to see the list. I know the Nurillins aren’t on them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t people. They ran away into the interior of the forests when humans settled on Cutwold. When the survey team made up the lists, they didn’t have any Nurillins to judge by. Naturally they weren’t included.”

Murdoch nodded. “And thus they are free game to any hunters. I’ve brought a party of nine to Cutwold, Brannon. They’re interested in hunting Nurillins. They say you’re the only man on Cutwold who knows where the Nurillins are.” Murdoch drew a thick bankroll from his pouch and held it by the tips of finger and thumb. “Ever see this much money before, Brannon?”

“Ten thousand? Not all in one lump. But it’s too much. All you need to offer is thirty pieces of silver.”

Murdoch whitened. “If that’s the way you feel about this job, you—”

“The Nurillins are human beings,” Brannon said tiredly. Sweat streamed down his body. “I happened to stumble over their hiding-place one day. I’ve gone back there a few times. They’re my friends. Am I supposed to sell them for ten thousand units—or ten million?”

“Yes,” Murdoch said. He extended the bankroll. “Until the Galactic Government declares them otherwise, they’re fit and legitimate quarry for hunting parties, without fear of legal trouble. Well, my clients want to hunt them. And I happen to know both that you’re the only man who can find them for us, and that you don’t have a cent. What do you say?”

“No.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Brannon. I’ve brought nine people to Cutwold at my own expense. I don’t get a cent back unless I deliver the goods. I could make it hard for you if you keep on refusing.”

“I keep on refusing.”

Murdoch shook his head and ran lean strong fingers through the blue-died matting of close-cropped hair that covered it. He looked peeved, more than angry. He jammed the bankroll into Brannon’s uneager hand. “I want nine Nurillin heads—no more, no less. You’re the man who can lead us to them. But let me warn you, Brannon: if we have to go out into that jungle ourselves, without you, and if we happen to come across your precious Nurillins ourselves, we’re not just going to settle for nine heads. We’ll wipe out the whole damned tribe of them. You know what a thermoton bomb can do to animals in a jungle?”

Brannon’s mind had already pictured the fierce white brightness of the all-consuming flash. “I know,” he said hoarsely. His eyes met Murdoch’s: metal against metal. After a long silence Brannon said, “Okay. You win. Get your party together and I’ll lead them.”

News travelled fast on Cutwold. It was noon by the time Brannon reached the main settlement, noon by the time he had rid his mind of the jangling discord of Murdoch’s stony presence.

He came down the lonely road into the Terran settlement alone, and blankfaced men turned to look at him and looked away again, knowing he carried a hundred hundred-unit bills tucked carelessly in his hip pocket, and hating him for it. The road at noon was sunbaked and hot: squat diamond-backed reptiles with swollen heads hopped across the path, inches from Brannon’s feet.

There were perhaps fifty thousand Terrans on Cutwold, located in six settlements scattered over the face of the planet. It was a warm and fertile planet, good mostly for farming and hunting, weak on minerals. Once there had been a few thousand Nurillins living where the Terrans now lived; remnants of a dying race, they had fled silently into the darkly warm depths of the forest when the first brawling Earthman arrived.

Kly Brannon had discovered the Nurillins. Everyone knew that. Whether it had been through some trick of his extra sense or by sheer blind luck, no one knew. But now everyone also knew that Brannon had sold the Nurillins out to a hard-faced man named Murdoch for a roll of bills. They could see it in Brannon’s eyes, as he came down out of the lonely glade where he had built his shack.

He was supposed to meet Murdoch and his nine nimrods at two-thirty. That left Brannon a couple of hours and a half yet to soak the bitterness out of himself. He stopped in at a shingled hut labelled VUORNIK’S BAR.

Vuornik himself was tending bar, a sour-faced Terran with the pasty puffy flesh of a man who spent his time indoors. Seven or eight settlers were in the bar. They turned as Brannon kicked open the door, and swivelled their heads away again as they saw who it was.

“Morning, Vuornik. Long time no see.”

The barkeep swabbed a clean place at the bar for Brannon and rumbled, “Nothing on the cuff today, Brannon. You know the rules here. I can’t stretch your credit any.”

“I didn’t say a word about credit. Here, Vuornik. Suppose you give me a double khalla, straight, and honest change for this bill.”

With elegant precision Brannon peeled a hundred off the roll Murdoch had given him, and laid it in the outstretched, grasping, fleshy palm of the barkeep. Vuornik stared at the bill strangely, rubbing it between the folds of flesh at the base of his thumb. After a moment he poured Brannon a drink. Then he went to the till, drew forth a fifty, two twenties, a five, and four singles, shuffled them into a neat stack, and handed them to Brannon.

“You ain’t got anything smaller than hundreds?” Vuornik asked.

“All I have is hundreds,” said Brannon. “Ninety-nine of them plus change.”

“So you took the job, then,” Vuornik said.

Brannon shrugged. “You told me no more drinks on the cuff. A man gets thirsty without money, Vuornik.”

He raised the mug and sipped some of the thin greenish liquor. It had a hard cutting edge to it that stung his throat and slammed into his stomach solidly. He winced, then drank again. The raw drink eased some of the
other
pain—the pain of betrayal.

He thought of the gentle golden-skinned people of the forest, and wondered which nine of them would die beneath the blazing fury of hunters guns.

A hand touched his shoulder. Brannon had anticipated it, but he hadn’t moved. He turned, quite calmly, not at all surprised to find a knife six inches from his throat.

***

Barney Karris stood there, eyes bleared, face covered by two days’ stubble. He looked wobbly, all of him but the hand that held the knife. That was straight, without a tremor.

“Hello, Barney,” Brannon said evenly, staring at the knife. “How’s the hunting been doing?”

“It’s been doing lousy, and you know it. I know where you got all that cash from.”

From behind the bar, Vuornik said, “Put that sticker away, Barney.”

Karris ignored that. He said, “You sold out the Nurillins, didn’t you? Murdoch was around; he talked to me. He got your address from me. But I didn’t think you’d—”

Vuornik said, “Barney, I don’t want any trouble in my bar. You want to fight with Brannon, you get the hell outside to do it. Put that knife out of sight or so help me I’ll blast you down where you stand.”

“Take it easy,” Brannon murmured quietly. “There won’t be any trouble.” To Karris he said, “You want my money, Barney? That why you pulled the knife?”

“I wouldn’t touch that filthy money! Judas! Judas!” Karris’ redrimmed eyes glared wildly. “You’d sell us all out! Aren’t you human, Brannon?”

“Yes,” Brannon said. “I am. That’s why I took the money. If you were in my place you’d have taken it, too, Barney.”

Karris scowled and feinted with the knife, but Brannon’s extra sense gave him ample warning. He ducked beneath the feint, pinwheeled, and shot his right arm up, nailing Karris in the armpit just where the fleshy part of the arm joined the body. Knuckles smashed into nerves; a current of numbness coursed down Karris’ arm and the knife dropped clatteringly to the floor.

Karris brought his left arm around in a wild desperate swipe. Brannon met the attack, edged off to the side, caught the arm, twisted it. Karris screamed. Brannon let go of him, spun him around, hit him along the cheekbone with the side of his hand. Karris started to sag. Brannon cracked another edgewise blow into the side of Karris’ throat and he toppled. He landed heavily, like a vegetable sack.

Stooping, Brannon picked up the knife and jammed it three inches into the wood of the bar. He finished his drink in two big searing gulps.

The bar was very quiet. Vuornik was staring at him in terror, his pasty face dead white. The other eight men sat frozen where they were. Karris lay on the floor, not getting up, breathing harshly, stertorously, half-sobbing.

“Get this and get it straight,” Brannon said, breaking the frigid silence. “I took Murdoch’s job because I
had
to. You don’t have to love me for it. But just keep your mouths shut when I’m around.”

No one spoke. Brannon set his mug down with exaggerated care on the bar, stepped over the prostrate Karris, and headed for the door. As he started to push it open, Karris half-rose.

“You bastard,” he said bitterly. “You Judas.”

Brannon shrugged. “You heard what I said, Barney. Keep your mouth shut, and keep out of my way.”

He shoved the door open and stepped outside. It was only twelve-thirty. He had two hours to kill yet before his appointment with Murdoch.

***

He spent two hours sitting on a windswept rock overlooking the wild valley of the Chalba River, letting the east wind rip warmly over his face, blowing with it the fertile smell of rotting vegetation and dead reptiles lying belly-upmost in tidal pools of the distant sea.

Finally he rose and made his way back toward civilization, back toward the built-up end of the settlement near the spaceport, where Murdoch was waiting for him.

When Brannon entered the hotel room, it was Murdoch’s face he saw first. Then he saw the other nine. They were grouped in a loose semicircle staring toward the door, staring at Brannon as if he were some sort of wild alien form of life that had just burst into the room.

Murdoch said, “I want you all to meet Kly Brannon. He’s going to be our guide. He’s spent eleven years hunting on Cutwold—really knows the place. Brannon, let me introduce you to the clients.”

Brannon was introduced. He eyed each of them in turn.

There were four couples, one single man. All were Terrans. All looked wealthy, all looked bored. Typical tourist-type hunters, Brannon thought in weary contempt.

At the far left was Leopold Damon and his wife. Damon was fat and bald and looked to be on his second or third rejuvenation; his wife was about his age, puffy-eyed, ugly. They were probably tougher than they looked.

Next to them sat the Saul Marshalls. Marshall was a thin dried-out man with glittering eyes and a hooked ascetic nose. His wife was warmer-looking, a smiling brunette of thirty or so.

At their right was Clyde Llewellyn and his wife. Llewellyn was mild, diffident-looking, a slim redhaired man who seemed about as fierce as a bank clerk. His wife—Brannon blinked—his wife was a long, luxurious, cat-like creature with wide bare shoulders, long black hair, and magnificent breasts concealed only by sprayon patches the size of a one-unit coin.

The fourth couple consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Fredrik Rhawn, two sleek socialites, flawless of face and form, who seemed to have been turned out on a machine lathe. Next to them sat the loner, Rod Napoli, a burly, immensely broad man with thick features and gigantic hands.

“Mr. Napoli lost his wife on our previous tour,” Murdoch said discreetly. “It—ah—explains the uneven number we have.”

“I see,” Brannon said. Napoli didn’t look particularly bereaved. He sat inhaling huge gulps of air at each breath, looking like a highly efficient killing machine and nothing else.

“Well, now you’ve met everyone,” said Murdoch. “I want you to know that this group is experienced in the ways of hunting, and that you’re not just guiding a group of silly amateurs.” His eyes narrowed. “Our goal, as you know, is the Nurillin.”

“I know,” Brannon returned acidly. “That’s already been made clear.”

“When would you like to start?” Murdoch asked.

“Now,” said Brannon.

“Now?”

“Now?” said Fredrik Rhawn, half-rising. “So soon? But we just had lunch. I mean, couldn’t we hold this thing over till tomorrow?”

“I’d like to get started,” Brannon said stubbornly. He added silently,
the quicker the better. I want to get this thing over with.

Rhawn’s wife murmured something to him, and he said, “All right. It’s foolish of me to hold everyone back, isn’t it? We’re ready to go any time.”

“Good,” Murdoch said. He glanced at Brannon. “Our equipment is packed and ready. We’re at your disposal.”

“Let’s go, then,” Brannon said.

***

Brannon estimated privately that the trip would take two days of solid march. He had found the Nurillins after only little more than a day’s journey out of the settlement, but that was when he was alone and moving at a good pace.

They left the settlement single file at three-thirty that afternoon, Brannon in the lead, followed by Napoli, who lugged along the handtruck carrying their supplies and provisions, and then, in order, the Rhawns, the Damons, the Marshalls, and the Llewellyns, with Murdoch last of all, just back of radiant Marya Llewellyn.