The Five Gold Bands

four dial-settings.'

He paused, blinked. A picture came into his mind from a past that seemed remote as ancient Egypt. It was the interior of the manifolding shop on Akhabats, where the five Sons came to curl power into the tungsten cylinders. Five panels, each with three dials.

'Fay,' said Paddy, 'I'm not fit to live.'

She looked at him in alarm. 'What's the matter?'

Paddy said slowly, 'I see it all now and I see it clear. We've been abysmal fools. I've been the worse one. Now on these sheets'-he leaned to her ear-'remember the duplications?'

'Oh, Paddy!'

He said, 'When I broke into that shop on Akhabats I saw a curling machine. There were fifteen control knobs. Those data sheets show six readings to a sheet-thirty in all. Does that mean anything?'

She nodded. 'There are duplicates of the numbers too. Paddy-we had it all!'

'All of it,' said Paddy. 'We didn't need to come to Koto any closer than the Southern Cross.'

Fay winced.

'We've got to get away,' said Paddy with great energy.

'Somehow. Because in that little cap of yours you've got space-drive.'

Fay shook her head sadly. 'They won't let us go, Paddy. Even if we tell everything we know they'd still kill us.'

'Not till we'd blown the fuses in all their nerve-suits.'

'Oh Paddy! Let's think-think!'

They thought. Paddy said, 'He's hot after us, that Zhri Khainga, he's got the wind up. But why? Maybe word has got out to the other planets that he's caught us and all the spies and agents and secret services are going into action and he doesn't want to chance our holding out till the others get to see us.'

There was a moment of silence. 'Think,' muttered Fay.

'Listen here,' said Paddy. 'We'll tell him that you'll go out to get the sheets and I'll stay as a hostage. Then you go to Earth and we'll spring the news that we know all there is to know about space-drive. Then you buy me back for twenty space-drives more or less.'

'At the going rate,' said Fay dryly, 'that's twenty million marks. Are you worth that much?'

'That's the best I can think up,' said Paddy. 'There's no other way of getting us both out alive and the drive to Earth.'

'Zhri Khainga won't like it,' said Fay. 'He'll want us to trust him. After he gets the sheets-then he turns us loose.'

'I wonder,' said Paddy. 'What?'

'Could it be that he'd agree to all of us going? We'd take him to you-know-where alone-and there we'd switch.'

Fay said breathlessly, 'It would be fair that way and he'd be getting the quick action he seems to want. Let's ask.'

Stepping gingerly past the ranked crew members, conscious of the oyster-colored gaze, Paddy and Fay entered the familiar cabin which had taken them so far.

Zhri Khainga followed them, the port was slammed shut, they were cast adrift from the mother ship. Paddy and Fay stood stiffly, silently by the control deck; Zhri Khainga took a seat back in the cabin and leaned back at his ease.

'Now,' he said, 'I have complied exactly with your conditions. Here is your space-boat-we are alone. Take me to the hiding place of the data, I will call my own vessel, you may leave me and go your way in friendship. I have done my part. See to it that you keep good faith.'

Paddy looked at Fay, rubbed his nose uneasily. 'Well, now, to tell the truth, we'd like to look the ship over. Some of your men-by mistake, I'm saying might be asleep in the bilges or checking stores in the forward locker.'

Zhri Khainga nodded. 'By all means satisfy yourselves. In the meantime,' he turned to Fay, 'perhaps you will put your ship on course.'

Wordlessly Fay climbed up into the seat, threw the boat into space-drive and the vessel which had brought them from Koto twinkled an enormous distance astern.

Paddy came back. 'Nothing,' he grumbled. 'Not hair nor hide.'

Zhri Khainga nodded his head sardonically. 'It troubles you that I keep to the terms of the bargain?'

Paddy muttered under his breath. Fay sat looking into the blank outside the port. Suddenly she pulled back the space-drive arm. The boat surged and sang into normal continuum once more.

'Look outside, Paddy,' she said. 'Around the hull.'

'That's it,' said Paddy. He pulled an air-suit from the rack, stepped in, zipped up the seam, set the bubble on his head while Zhri Khainga watched without words.

Paddy vanished outside the lock and Fay waited beside the controls, covertly eyeing the Koton, trying to fathom the weft of plot and plan below the dome of the shaven pate.

'I am thinking,' said Zhri Khainga, 'of great deeds. The wealth of any imagining shall be mine. I will give a quadrant of the planet to the plain of Arma-Geth-it shall be extended.

'Mountains will be leveled, the plain will be floored with black glass. So shall the statues dwell in the opulent silence and there will be my magnificent entity among them. I shall be magnified a thousand times. For all eternity will I tower-mine will be the life-loved pivot of history.'

Fay turned, looked out through the port. Where was Sol? That faint star? Perhaps.

Paddy entered the ship. Another figure followed him. In the bubble Fay saw the great-eyed head of a Koton.

'This is what I find strapped to the hull. Do you call that subscribing to our proposals?'

Zhri Khainga sat upright. 'Quiet now, little man! Who are you to challenge my wishes? You should be glorying in your fortune, that you give freely what otherwise could be wrung from your lips.' He sat back in his chair. 'But now- we are committed.'

The Koton who had entered the ship with Paddy had not moved from his first position. Zhri Khainga waved his fingers. 'Out. Fly through space with your hands. You are not needed.'

The Koton hesitated, looked up at Fay, back at the Son of Langtry, slowly turned, let himself out the lock. They saw him push himself away from the ship and drift off alone and hopeless.

'Now,' said Zhri Khainga, 'are you satisfied? We are alone. To the hiding place. Please be swift. There is much of importance awaiting my pleasure throughout the universe. Note that my gun is at hand, that I shall be alert.'

Paddy slowly joined Fay on the control deck. 'Go on, Fay. Set the course.'

Delta Trianguli shone far and cold to the left. The dull black planet bulked below. Zhri Khainga, at the port, said, 'Delta Trianguli Two; am I right?'

'You are,' said Paddy shortly.

'And now where?'

'You'll see in due course.'

Zhri Khainga wordlessly seated himself once more.

Paddy went to the transmitter, sent out a call on the frequency used in the air-suit head-sets. 'Hello, hello.'

They listened. Faintly came, 'Hello, hello,' out of the receiver.

Zhri Khainga moved uneasily. 'There are others here?'

'No,' said Paddy. 'None but us. Did you get the line, Fay?'

'Yes.'

The dead face of the planet passed below-plains flat and dull as black velvet, the pocked mesh of mountains, which looked as if they had been dug by monstrous moles. Dead ahead rose an enormous peak.

'There's Angry Dragon,' said Fay.

She set the ship down on the plain of black sand. The hum of the generator died, the ship was still.

Paddy said to the still-seated Son of Langtry, 'Now listen close and don't think to trick us, for sure you'll never