Exiles of the Stars

Chapter Five

KRIP VORLUND

'Men who go looking for trouble never have far to walk.' Lidj leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his middle. He was not gazing at me, but rather at the wall over my head. In another man his tone might have been one of resignation. But Juhel Lidj was not one to be resigned or lacking in enterprise in any situation, or so it had been so far during our association.

'And we have been looking for trouble?' I dared to prod when he did not add to that statement.

'Perhaps we have, Krip, perhaps we have.' Still he watched the wall as if somewhere on it were scrawled or taped the answer to our puzzle. 'I don't believe in curses—not unless they are my own. But neither do I know that that priest back on Thoth did not know exactly what he was doing. And, to my belief, he was playing some hand of his own. When the news comes that we are missing, then his credit will go up. The efficiency of his communication with their god will be proven.'

'Temple politics?' I thought I followed him. 'Then you believe that that is at the bottom of it, that we don't have to be worried about being jumped while here?'

Now he did glance at me. 'Don't put words in my mouth, Krip Vorlund. Perhaps my suggestion is just another logical deduction. I'm not a theurgist of Manical, to draw lines on my palm with a sacred crayon, pour a spot of purple wine in the middle, and then read the fate of the ship pictured therein. To my mind there is the smell of temple intrigue in this, that is all. The question which is most important is, how do we get out of their trap?'

That brought back what was uppermost in our minds, the disappearance, if not from the sky of Sekhmet, at least from our visa-screen, of the flitter. This was, judging by the terrain immediately about us, a harsh world, and forced down on such, Hunold and Sharvan would be faced by a desperate choice— if they still lived. Would they struggle on, trying to reach the beacon, or were they already attempting to fight their way back to theLydis ? Perhaps it all depended upon how far they judged themselves to be from either goal.

The Traders stand by their own. Such is bred in us, as much as the need for space, the impatience and uneasiness which grips us when we have been too long planetside. It was only the knowledge that without any guides, we ourselves might wander fruitlessly and to no useful purpose, which kept us chained to theLydis and not out searching for our lost shipmates.

'Korde can do it, if it can be done. There is a Patrol asteroid station between here and Thoth. If he can beam a signal strong enough to reach either that or some cruise ship of theirs, then we're set.'

Patrol? Well, the Patrol is necessary. There must be some law and order even in space. And their men are always under orders to render assistance to any ship in distress. But it grated on our Free Trader pride to have to call for such help. We were far too used to our independence. I spun the case of a report tape between thumb and forefinger, guessing just how much this galled our captain.

'One thing on the credit side,' Lidj continued. 'That find which your furred friend turned up out there. If thereis a treasure cache here, the priests cannot claim it. But we can.'

He was once more staring at the wall. I did not have to mind-probe to know what occupied his thoughts. Such a find would not only render theLydis famous, but perhaps lift us all to the status of contract men, with enough credits behind us to think of our own ships. Even more so since the find was made on a planet where exploration was not restricted, where more than one such could be turned up.

I had been thinking ever since Maelen had drawn my attention to those cliff-wall carvings. And I had done some research among my own store of tapes.

A Free Trader's success depends on many things, luck being well to the fore among those. So luck had been with us here, good as well as bad. But the firm base of any Trader's efficiency is knowledge, not specialized as a tech, must have, but wide—ranging from the legends of desert rovers on one planet to the habits of ocean plants on another. We listened, we kept records, we went with open minds and very open ears wherever we planeted, or when we exchanged news with others of our kind.

'When Korde is through with this com hookup, do you suppose he could rig something else?' I knew what I wanted, but the technical know-how to make it was beyond my skill.

'Just what, and for what purpose?'

'A periscope drill.' The term might not be the right one, but that was the closest I could come to describing what I had read about in the tapes. 'They used such, rigged with an impulse scanner, on Sattra II where the Zacathans were prospecting for the Ganqus tombs. With something like that we might be able to get an idea of what is back in the cliff. It saves the labor of digging in where there may be nothing worth hunting. As on Jason, where the tombs of the Three-eyes had already been looted—'

'You have information on this?'

'Just what it does, not the mechanics of it.' I shook my head. 'You'd have to have a tech work it out.'

'Maybe we can—if we have the time. Bring me that note tape.'

When I returned to my cabin to get that, Maelen raised her head from the cushion of her forepaws, her gold eyes agleam. Though I saw a glassia, yet when her thoughts met mine it was no animal sharing my small quarters. In my mind she was as I first saw her, slender in her gray-and-red garments, the soft fur of her jacket as bright in its red-gold luxuriance as the silver-and-ruby jewel set between the winging lift of her fair silver brows, her hair piled formally high with ruby-headed pins to hold it. And that picture I held closer because somehow, though she had never brought it into words between us, she found comfort in the knowledge that I saw her as the Thassa Moon Singer who saved my life when I was hunted through the hills of Yiktor.

'There is news?'

'Not yet.' I pulled down one of the seats which snapped up to the wall when not in use. 'You cannot contact them?'

But I need not have asked that. Had she been able, we would have known it. Her gifts, so much the less compared to what they had once been, were always at our service.

'No. Perhaps they have gone too far—or perhaps I am too limited now. But it is not altogether concern for