Doomstar

shape of strong red-braided men filled all the house and all the town around him. If he were not unaware, Kettrick envied him his iron nerve.

'I have heard a rumor,' Sekma said, 'that Johnny Kettrick is back in the Cluster.' Now his blue gaze flashed like lightning from Boker to Flay.

'Johnny Kettrick?' said Boker.

'Johnny?' said Flay. 'Is he indeed? I should like to see him again. He can hunt and he can drink, he leaves my women alone, and he gives me the best barter of any trader. Boker is all right, Boker is good, but there was never another one like Johnny. You should not have driven him away.'

'Ah huh,' said Sekma. 'I have heard that tune sung before. Of course, then, you haven't seen him?'

'Not I,' said Flay, 'Not here.'

'And you, Boker? Not here, of course, but say, at Ree Darva? There was word that he had been seen there, in the Out-Quarter.'

'That may be,' said Boker, 'but it must have been after I left.'

Sekma pinned him with that sharp gaze. 'Why do you say it must have been? Do you know that he's back?'

Of course, thought Kettrick, Sekma couldn't be sure that he had ever reached Tananaru. He might have gone anywhere from Aldebaran. He might have died there from sickness, or been killed by some squalid idiot with a share-the-wealth plan, or perished of an accident.

Boker said, 'You know we shipped together, you know we were friends. He'd have come to see me. That's why I say he must have come after I left, if he came at all, and that I can't tell. This is the first I've heard of it.'

Admirable liar, Boker. Convincing liar. Kettrick knew how he must be suffering. He found himself starting to laugh hysterically, and pulled hard on the bottle to stop it. Here for the first time in their lives he and Boker wanted to level with Sekma, and they couldn't. All because the Doomstar was true.

He crouched in the close bed, peering through the chink and shivering with cold and frustration, until the men left. Before they did they had eaten a great deal, and drunk a good bit, and some of Flay's many sons had joined in, and somewhere along the line Flay asked Sekma where he had come from, and Sekma said, 'Kirnanoc.'

'Ah,' said Flay. 'Then you will go south across the Cluster?'

Sekma nodded. 'To Gurra. That was another of Kettrick's favorite haunts. They may have heard of him there.'

'There was no word of him on Pellin,' Boker said. 'If there had been, I'd have heard it. Everyone remembers that we were friends.'

'It is possible,' said Flay carelessly, 'that your rumor about Johnny is like most rumors, mere wind blowing from one empty space to another.'

They went away, leaving the room dark and silent. Leaving Kettrick, on the other side of the wall, to lie and think. To pray that Boker or Hurth or Gievan might find a time when he could speak to Sekma alone. Surely such a time would come…it only needed a moment. During the inspection of the ship, perhaps…

But Flay's sons would be there. They did not speak Darvan, and it would be easy for Boker to talk to Sekma in a language they could not understand. Except that a name is a name in any language, and so is a word like Doomstar. And in any case, the Firgals were no fools. Even if Boker were actually only telling Sekma the latest dirty story, they would be instantly suspicious, wondering what was being said that the speaker wished to hide from them. The fate of their world hung on it. If they had to make a mistake, it would be at the expense of the outworlders, not their own.

He hoped that Boker and the others would think of that.

Unable to lie any longer in the stifling bed, Kettrick rose and stood looking out the tiny window into the freezing night, with the snow drifting gently down in the lee of the house. The confinement of the little room was almost more than he could bear.

14

He bore it for two days, largely with the help of the clay bottles that the broad girl kept him supplied with. Even so it was not easy. He waited with leaping nerves for the sound of feet on the stairs, the sudden angry crashing of the door.

Each night in the next room Sekma and Boker and Flay and such of Flay's sons as were not on duty elsewhere ate and drank and danced delicately around the truth, while Kettrick listened with what finally became impatience for the one inevitable wrong word. Sometimes he was tempted to shout it out himself, just to get the thing over with.

Other times he slept uneasily, passing from the first blank slumber induced by the bottle to a succession of bad dreams wherein he strove endlessly to catch up with Seri and was endlessly balked. The number and variety of frustration dreams his mind could produce on this subject were simply astounding.

Again, he paced the floor in a rage of impatience. Grellah would be ready now. They ought to be taking off. How long was Sekma going to stay? Was Flay going to try and hold him here 'until it was over,' as he thought he was holding Kettrick?

Several times he heard Flay, in his shrewd manner, question Sekma about his route. Each time it was the same. Out of Kirnanoc, bound for Gurra.

Kettrick wondered how Sekma, who must have left Tananaru after Grellah did, had managed to get to Kirnanoc so far ahead of them. He supposed it could be done. A long jump ship could certainly do it, by going clear out of the Cluster and then in again; the longest way, but the quickest. Or a relay of the fast I–C ships, taking a more direct route than Grellah's and wasting no time on stopovers.

Why would he bother? Mere accident? Or had Sekma seen the posting of Grellah's itinerary and decided to intercept her in the hope of catching the missing Kettrick?

Maybe. Only then why hadn't Sekma challenged Boker's assertion that he had come by way of Pellin?

Kettrick's head ached, and from more than the fumes of the whiskey. And he felt like weeping when he thought how close Sekma must have come to meeting Seri at Kirnanoc, all unaware.

I am the hell and all of a spaceman, Kettrick thought, a great success as a trader, and loved by all with fur, skin, or feathers. But as a man entrusted with a vital mission which all these qualities uniquely fit him to perform, I am a Cluster-wide disaster.

Sekma must know that by now. Then why was he looking for Kettrick when the Doomstar was so much more, so infinitely more, important?

Perhaps he wasn't, really…

Kettrick held and nursed this little flicker of hope, afraid to blow on it and let it grow, afraid to let it die. Because if he were wrong and Sekma really was looking for him, there could only be one reason; it was too late to keep the Doomstar from shining, and Sekma desired to give his thanks to the man who had failed him so abysmally.

He would not blame Sekma one little bit.

Just before dawn of the third day he was brought up out of a thin sleep by the thunder of a ship's rockets firing for liftoff. He rushed to the window and saw a streak of flame vanishing across the sky beyond the hills. And he had a moment of sheer panic, wondering if Boker had decided to sacrifice him to the common good.

A short time after that Flay came in and said, 'They're gone, Johnny, those busy I–C men. Gone to pester the Gurrans, looking for you.' He pushed Kettrick jovially toward the door. 'Come out, breathe the air. Your friend looks as though she would enjoy a run. Let us hunt today.'

Kettrick went down the steep stairs carefully because his legs were shaky. 'Hadn't we better get on with the trading, Flay?'

'There's no hurry. The bar is not done yet, and we can trade when the weather's bad. Today is a good day for hunting.'

'All right,' said Kettrick. 'Fine. We'll ask Boker to go with us.' He looked down at himself and scratched his stubbled jaw. 'I've got to get clean clothes, and a shave. You can wait that long?'