Fugitive of the Stars

with dark concerned eyes. “Are you all right?'

Horne clawed his way up the young man's arm, looking around for Vinson.

'Vinson,” he said. He stood up, hanging on to the stranger. He shouted, “Vinson!'

'There's no one here, no one but you.

'Vinson!” Horne shouted again, and went staggering away.

The young man caught him. “Hush! Listen.'

Horne listened, his head clearing, his body still cold and wooden, a kernel of nausea growing from a pain that seemed to be centered just behind his left ear. He heard the sounds then, the quiet, vicious sounds of men savaging a victim, the grunts of effort and the guttural, excited breathing. They came from somewhere… Where?

'In there,” said the young man, pointing to a narrow alley so shadowed by the buildings that it had escaped Horne's notice. The young man began to run and Horne ran after him, stiffly, stumbling over the curbstones.

As he went, the young man whistled, a sharp, shrill, long-carrying note.

The men who were in the alley, busy in the darkness with particular intense business, heard the whistle and froze, startled in various attitudes above the light-colored heap that lay quietly moaning under their feet.

A tremendous anger came over Horne so that he forgot the pain in his head, and the cold woodenness was burned out of him. His eyesight became strangely acute. He saw the young man running close ahead of him and noticed for the first time that he wore spaceman's garb. He saw the men who were standing above Vinson come loose from their startlement and begin to move again. He saw the stranger plow into them and then he was plowing in too, his fists hammering hard against flesh, hard with a simple desire to destroy. At the same time, in the street behind him, he heard sounds of voices and running feet.

The young stranger fought beside him, shoulder to shoulder, standing over Vinson's moaning.

The two of them would not have stood long, no longer than he and Vinson had stood before against the great outnumbering of men that faced them. But the whistle had brought other men, men in spaceman's boots and caps. They shouted, and the young man shouted back, “In here!” They came boiling down the alley full of blood-lusting exuberance, and in a few minutes there was nobody left there but Horne and Vinson and the young stranger and the newcomers with the spaceman's caps. The others had all run away.

The young man told somebody to call an ambulance. Then he kneeled down beside Horne who was holding Vinson's head in his lap.

Vinson said, “I think I made a mistake. I shouldn't have hit him.'

'It wouldn't have mattered,” Horne said. “How bad is it?'

'I don't really know,” said Vinson and fainted. Horne looked across at the young man.

'Thanks,” he said.

'I'm sorry I didn't happen along earlier. My name's Ardric.'

'Jim Horne.'

They shook hands over Vinson's heavily-breathing body.

'I'm sorry,” said Ardric. “I'm ashamed for my people, for Skereth. There's a lot of feeling about this business of joining the Federation. Some of it's bitter to the point of being fanatical.'

'I gathered that.'

'They think it means giving up sovereignty and independence, having to take orders from a bunch of strangers who are light-years away. They're afraid of their jobs, afraid of change. But this kind of thing… It makes me sick and ashamed.'

'Where were the Nightbirds while all this was going on?” Horne asked, remembering the complete desertion of the street.

'They only work here,” Ardric said, “and eat, and sleep. Otherwise they don't get involved.'

'They might at least have called the police,” Horne. grumbled.

'Not they,” said Ardic. “Unless it was one of their own in trouble. Then they can get involved fast enough.'

The ambulance came. Horne said thanks to the other spacemen while Vinson was being loaded in.

'May I ride with you?” Ardric asked. “I'd like to know how he is.'

They rode together to the hospital with Vinson.

Horne called Port Authority and had a message sent to Captain Wasek, and then accepted treatment for his own cuts and bruises. After that he sat with Ardric, glad of the company.

Wasek came, angry and upset. Horne told him the story and Wasek shook hands with Ardric.

'I'm grateful,” he said. He looked at the collar tabs on Ardric's tunic. “I'm not familiar with all the insignia, I'm afraid. You're Skereth merchant fleet, I know, but…'

'Assistant Pilot,” Ardric said. “What you would call a Second.'

'Well, now,” said Wasek. “Well! That's very fitting. So is Vinson a Second. What ship?'

'None,” said Ardric, “right now.'

'Out of a berth, eh? Stay around then… because we may be out of a Second.'

They were.

'Fractured left tibia, and a moderate concussion, with multiple contusions and abrasions,” the doctor said, “and lucky it wasn't worse. But he won't pilot any ships for a while.'

Horne was sorry. He had come to like young Vinson. Still, it was better than it might have been. Vinson, and quite possibly he too, might have been dead if Ardric hadn't come along.

Wasek was looking at Ardric. “We can't take off without a Second. How about it? Are you qualified, and would you like the berth?'

'Would I?” said Ardric, and began pulling papers from his tunic pocket. “Here's my ticket, flight record, health card.'

He was qualified. When the Vega Queen lifted off, Ardric was sitting in Vinson's chair, and Horne was glad that they had been able to repay Ardric in this way for the considerable service he had done them. Even Vinson had been glad of that, though he regretted being left behind.

When the time came to set the course after lift-off, Horne simply said, “Arcturus III,” and let Ardric punch the tapes and feed them into the computers. He let Ardric set up the results on the board. Only then did he check the coordinates out and find them to be correct. He nodded, and Ardric grinned.

'First hurdle,” he said, and leaned back in his chair like someone relaxing from a long run. Horne noticed that his eyes were very dark blue, as the boy Mica's had been, and it crossed his mind that there was something upsetting about blue eyes being as opaque as black ones. But they looked eagerly at the view-screen windows, at the stars, and Ardric said, “I never thought I'd get as far as Vega, except when Skereth joined the Federation, and I could be an old man by then.'

Horne had explained about Mica and Durin before, and how he and Vinson had happened to come into the Nightbirds’ quarter. “The two boys seemed pretty certain that Morivenn would swing it, in spite of the opposition.'

'If anybody can do it,” Ardric said, “he can.'

Horne would have liked to meet, or at least see, Morivenn, whose voyage to Vega had caused him so much trouble. But Morivenn and the three other men of his delegation kept to their cabins even at mealtimes.

'Other passengers came aboard at Skereth too, you know,” said Ardric. “They're wise to be afraid. One fanatic with a weapon can end things very quickly.'

His dark-blue eyes, it seemed to Horne, were always on the stars and for a long time he thought that Ardric was looking at space the way Vinson had looked at it, with a boy's excitement. Then he began to feel that there was something else in Ardric's attitude, something more calculating than excitement, or perhaps it was not the stars that excited him at all, but something else.

But that was silly. After all, Horne thought, Vinson was of Earth stock even if he was Vega-born, and he and I have a common denominator of feeling. Ardric is of a different world, different stock, different culture. How do I know how a man of Skereth looks when he is expressing excitement, or any other emotion for that matter? And if there are times when his mouth seems to lose that friendly smile and becomes thin-lipped and rather too harsh, that too may simply be because people of his stock normally have thin lips which give an impression of harshness.

He was competent, anyway. Highly competent. And, except for the occasional periods of withdrawal when it seemed to Horne that he might be thinking flinty thoughts, he was good company during the watches they