The Avengers of Carrig (15 page)

To the southland city of Dayomar, winter came bringing not storm and snow, like Carrig’s winter, but a succession of miserable drizzles and fogs. If snow did fall, it was barely more than sleet and instead of whitening over the dirty streets and the dull, interchangeable houses it merely made the puddles deeper and the people wetter.

Galactic Agent Slee had been based in Dayomar since the start of his tour of duty, the best part of eight years ago. He had expected to adjust to the climate along with everything else, but he still kept falling victim to the midwinter depression he had felt the first time he saw the city roofed by dank dripping clouds and walled in by thin gray mists.

That apart, he had adjusted well to his role, and it was rare for him to daydream of other, more civilized worlds. He enjoyed all the luxuries that his adopted homeland could afford … and after all, his tenure would not last forever.

Lately, however, his comfortable, undemanding, even pleasant existence had been shattered by a succession of rude intrusions beyond his control. Northward at Carrig, in particular, he was certain something had gone badly amiss, but he had no news he could trust, and would get no more until the winter snows were melted from the mountain passes and caravans could once more get through. If there were going to be any caravans next summer. Since this mysterious Belfeor took over, merchant after merchant who ordinarily conducted profitable trade with the northern city had come back red with fury at the arrogance of the new rulers and swearing to turn elsewhere.

On top of that, there was the problem of the disappearance of the cruiser supposed to be bringing him a substitute agent, the girl Maddalena Santos. It wasn’t unknown for a ship to vanish without trace—an overoptimistic pilot, for instance, might return to real space too deep inside the planet’s atmosphere, causing overheating and possibly explosion—but that had been Gus Langenschmidt’s cruiser, and Gus didn’t
allow
mistakes like that!

Still, it could have been accident. Failing evidence to the contrary, it was accident; no stretch of the imagination could encompass the idea of the natives detecting a Patrol cruiser, let alone shooting it down. However that might be, he was still left without the help he’d asked for. Commandant Brzeska had been regretful, but firm. He positively could not spare another operative. Maddalena Santos had only been available because he was thinking of dismissing her back to Earth, and now he was deprived not only of her services but of a complete cruiser-crew into the bargain, including his most experienced Patrol Major. Until someone had been found to take over Langenschmidt’s beat—covering a dozen systems—and another cruiser had been requisitioned from Earth, Slee was just going to have to manage with local resources.

Except that he didn’t
have
any resources.

And from every side throughout the summer new fragmarts
had come to him to be added to the picture he was compiling of events in Carrig. The usurper Belfeor and his gang of bandits—at least, people said they behaved like bandits rather than civilized folk, and it was no news that there were gangs of nomad outlaws at large on the eastern plains of this continent—Belfeor’s men, whoever they were, were changing things left, right, and center. It was reported that the citizens of Carrig were being forced to work some kind of diggings among the Smoking Hills, and this fitted all too well with Slee’s theory concerning the discovery of gunpowder. Hence, in another year or two at most, one could look for Carrig to launch wars of aggression against its neighboring city-states and probably establish supremacy on the western side of the continent It was one thing to have recognized the eventual probability of such a process, as predicted by experts in social geography, but something else altogether to find yourself living squarely on the likeliest line of march.

Additionally, there was the risk that if Belfeor really did treat his subordinates so abominably, one of them might defect and sell the secret of explosives to his opponents, which would make the wars much bloodier and far less conclusive.

The prospect, in general, was even gloomier than a winter’s day in this depressing city.

He was pondering the situation for the uncountableth time one afternoon as he plodded down a broad but muddy and rutted street on the way back front a meeting with a wealthy merchant who wanted to purchase the contract of one of Slee’s best hetairas and set her up in a house of her own. The negotiations had been lengthy and led nowhere, and he was not in the best of tempers as he marched homeward on his platform-soled wooden shoes, six inches high. They had to be so thick because the puddles were deceptively deep. On either side of him walked an attendant holding the poles of a sort of awning that served instead of an umbrella. Being servant-class, the attendants had no shoes, and their bare feet squelched through the mud with irregular sucking noises.

They were passing the porch-sheltered doorway of an empty house when a voice called out “Slee!”

Startled, he halted and spun round. Out of the shadows
jumped a sturdy beggar—a common sight in Dayomar—clad in filthy, wet rags smeared with mud, but with fine white teeth gleaming in an obsequious smile. Putting out his alms bowl, the beggar began to bow and cringe, uttering singsong cries in the traditional beggar’s manner.

“Most noble and exalted, the fortune that smiles on me today is as though the sun had shone at midnight and swept away a great darkness! Your honor will remember without doubt, for his memory is as all his other attributes, most wonderful and perfect, that this humble beggar’s sister Melisma, daughter of Yull and Mazia, was in his service. Will your honor take pity on a man who does not prosper in the beggar’s trade, who would acquire some new skill and serve loyally in the household of a generous master?”

One of Slee’s attendants made to beat the beggar out of the way with the pole of the awning. Slee stopped him with a curt gesture.

“Melisma’s brother, are you?” he said. “Follow, then, and I’ll find some place for you—in the kitchen, perhaps.”

“Your honor is the kindest of men!” the beggar yelped, and fell in behind, cavorting with joy like a dancer in ecstasy.

“And what the hell are
you
doing disguised as a beggar on the streets of Dayomar?” Slee demanded, falling into a soft chair. “Don’t worry about being overheard; these are my personal quarters and any servants who prowl around know they’re earning a whipping, so they keep away.”

“Hmm!” Langenschmidt scowled through the steam rising from the hot bowl of chay he had been given. “Sounds as though you’ve adapted almost too thoroughly to the local customs! Never mind that, though. Well, I’ve had the devil of a time getting here—it took me almost two months, and more than once I was sure I wasn’t going to make it. First off, do you know there’s a ship in orbit around this planet, and possibly more than one?”

Slee jerked forward in his chair.

“That’s right. The moment my cruiser emerged from subspace they shot us down … just in case you were wondering what had happened to us. Fortunately I was
already in the landing-craft we were dropping to put down Maddalena Santos, and I was able to jet clear before the cruiser blew up. They tried a second shot and gashed the hull of the landing-craft—probably thought they’d disabled it—but I managed to duck into atmosphere, with the tail-edge of the gash blowing off so much red-hot metal I guess it looked as though we were on fire. At any rate they didn’t shoot again. Maddalena baled out somewhere in the Arctic; she might conceivably have made it to a village somewhere, but even if she did she must be snowed in for the winter, and I’m afraid the chances are all against it, because that’s such a sparsely populated region. It’s a terrible waste; I don’t know what impression you got of the girl from Pavel Brzeska, but under her conceited facade I think there was the raw material for a competent Corps agent.

“Anyhow, I dropped the landing-craft in the Western Ocean. I baled out myself as I was crossing the coast. It was night, luckily, and I don’t think anyone would have taken the ship for more than a very bright meteorite. I stole some native clothing and destroyed my own gear, and ever since then I’ve been begging my way to Dayomar to link up with you. I got here this morning. They put me in jail once on the way, and whipped me out of town once, and I’m hungry and I’m bone-weary and a couple of times I’ve been very sick, not having any medicines with me … Sorry. I’m rambling. Thanks for catching on so quickly when I spoke to you.”

“Well, you did call me Slee, didn’t you? And nobody in Dayomar knows me by that name. But this ship in orbit that shot you down! That means—”

“That means your clever theory about someone inventing gunpowder is so much comet-dust. Belfeor who wields the lightning is a man from off the planet with an energy gun. And more than likely we’ve got another Slaveworld case on our hands, with the population of Carrig being exploited to mine the deposits of radioactives in the Smoking Hills. Right?”

Slee got to his feet. “Communicator!” he said.

It was local night on the airless world of the Corps base, but Commandant Brzeska came to answer, sleepy-eyed.
His instant reaction cm recognizing Langenschmidt was amazed delight, but it took only the baldest outline of the major’s story to start him looking grave.

When he had heard Langenschmidt out, and Slee had added some details, which had seemed insignificant but took on a different complexion once they’d assumed Belfeor came from another planet, Brzeska nodded thoughtfully.

“We can take action on this, all right,” he said. “And no bones about legality or illegality either. Shooting down a Patrol cruiser—that’s cooked them properly. Gus, I’ll take this straight to be computed, of course, but in the meantime do you have any suggestions where they might hail from?”

“Most likely from a world that’s seriously short of radioactive elements, and not wealthy enough to turn over to fusion reactors instead of fission. Somewhere like Cyclops, for example.”

“I’ll follow that up,” Brzeska nodded. “If you found one ship in orbit, the chances are good that they have a second one as well and take turns in ferrying out the ore. I’ll have all the subspace trace records checked and see if we can establish a line-of-flight for them. It’s bound to take a while to fix their origin beyond doubt, but from now on this gets five-star priority. Slee, they’ve had a year and a half to dig in—How bad a mess have they made of the local culture?”

Slee hunched forward. “Well, my latest news dates back to before Gus’s arrival, of course; just about the same time the hill passes were snowed up and the caravans quit for the season. Up till then I think they’d been moderately careful. Probably they bribed as much as they coerced. But once they realized they’d wrecked a Patrol ship they may very well have thrown caution to the winds and decided to ship as much ore out as they could, regardless of how brutal they had to be to get it.”

“You mean they’d be tempted to overreach themselves because they’re under pressure. Very likely. In which case the locality should be absolutely resonating with subspace drive-traces. All right then—unless there’s anything else very urgent, I’ll start the wheels turning at once, and you’d better get busy drafting a plan to ease Belfeor off the
planet with minimum disturbance for the natives. It won’t be simple, but we must avoid a spectacular show of force at all costs. Gus, how about you? Want me to have you picked up?”

Langenschmidt shook his head tiredly. “My crew’s gone,” he said after a pause. “I shan’t feel up to going back on the beat with a new team—there’d be too much heartbreak in it I’ll stay here. I don’t doubt Slee can use all the help that’s available. And when the affair in Carrig is straightened out, I’ll claim my pay and retire. I’m well overdue, as you know.”

“As you like,” Brzeska said neutrally. “And—good hick.”

It was twenty-seven eternal days before he called back, but when he did the news he had was excellent.

“Your inspired guess was right Gus!” he exclaimed. They’re from Cyclops. It’s a predatory sort of world, Just the kind of place where a scheme like this might be hatched. Over the past year and a half someone has been shipping in high-grade radioactives, claiming that they’d made a strike in an uninhabited system. So far six cargoes have found their way on to the market. It looks as though they’re deliberately keeping the price up by releasing a little at a time. But they’ve been making so many flights from Fourteen that the neighborhood practically has ruts in its subspace continuum. We’ve monitored two flights in the past three weeks. This implies that they’re caching the stuff somewhere nearer to Cyclops. Perhaps they’re planning to pull out some time soon and just continue to let a flow from the cache trickle through whenever they need more money.”

“Who are they?” Langenschmidt demanded. “Is there anyone—uh—immovable behind them?”

“Good point,” Brzeska nodded. “The way things are set up on Cyclops, I wouldn’t have been surprized to find they had high-level government connivance. Luckily, though, they appear to be a gang of adventurers in business on their own account. About a hundred of them, as far as we’ve been able to establish up to now.”

“That fits with the reports I’ve had,” Slee confirmed. “Have you any idea how they found out about this planet?
We don’t exactly publicize the resources of ZRP’s.”

“We’re not certain yet, but we’re on the track of a failed Corps probationer called Meard, who dropped out of sight at just about the right time. There’s no record of his death or of his having emigrated, but he hasn’t been seen by anyone for the best part of two years, and the last sighting of him we’ve been able to confirm was in the company of a man who answers the description of Belfeor.” Brzeska turned over some notes in front of him. “Ah! Here’s the answer to something you’ve probably been wondering about. Do you know how they’re getting the radioactives off the planet?”

“We had been arguing about that,” Slee agreed. “They’d hardly dare to set down ships in plain sight. Are they using Carrig gliders, by any chance?”