The patchwork of recent memories began to fit into a real pattern. He lay with closed eyes and forced himself to make those memories whole. The warehouse – and the three who met there – Stowar! Nik’s suddenly tensing muscles hurt. He had been caught listening to some private plan of Stowar’s!
Now he tried to make his ears serve to inform him on his present surroundings. He was lying on a hard surface – that much he already knew – but before he opened his eyes and so perhaps gave away his return to consciousness, he wanted to learn everything else he could.
There was a sound – a murmur that might be the rise and fall of voices from a distance. Now that he had himself in hand, Nik could use his nose, too. The faintly sweet smell – that was only one thing, Canbia wine. Just one inhabitant of the Dipple could afford Canbia – Stowar – so he was now in Stowar’s quarters.
Nik dared to open his eyes and looked up into complete darkness. With great effort, he lifted a limp hand. A fraction of an inch from his side, it struck against a solid surface. The left hand discovered a similar obstruction on the other side.
He could see light now – a faint outline over him, enough to tell him he was in a box. In a moment of raw panic, he struggled to sit up, only to discover the effort beyond his powers. Then all the patience and self-control he had so painfully learned went into action. So – he was in a box. But he was still alive, and if they had wanted to erase him, they would not have gone to the trouble of carting him here. Stowar wanted no trouble in his own quarters.
Nik puzzled over his fragmentary memories of those last moments when he had been so strangely lifted out of hiding and delivered, helpless, into the hands of the enemy. The method of attack did not concern him now; the reason for his being here did. What had the stranger said – that he was the right age and size and that his face was not important. Not important.
The sound of boot heels on the floor outside his prison made Nik strive once more to move. His hands – he could pull them up a little. The rest of him seemed frozen still.
Then the cover over him banged back, and he was looking up into the face of a stranger. The skin was browned in the deep coloring of a spaceman, so that the single topknot of hair above the almost totally shaven skull looked like a white plume in contrasting fairness. The regular features were handsome, though the eyes were so heavily droop-lidded that Nik had no idea of their coloring.
And now there was a quirk of a smile about the stranger’s lips, giving a certain relaxation to his expression. Nik found himself losing the first sharp edge of his apprehension.
A bronze hand swooped down and caught at the front of Nik’s jacket. He was drawn up in that hold as if his own weight were feather-light as far as the other was concerned. Then an arm about his shoulders steadied him on his feet, and he was standing.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to blast in a minute.”
Under the stranger’s guidance, Nik regained enough power to step out of the box and take a stumbling step or two. He was lowered onto a stool, his back against the wall of the room. The other sat down, facing him.
The stranger wore space leather and ship boots. The triple star of a captain winked from the throat latch of his tunic. He leaned forward, his fists on his knees, to survey Nik. For the first time in years, Nik Kolherne made no attempt to mask his ruined face with his hand. There was a kind of defiance in his desire for the other to see every scar.
“I was right!” The white-hair plume rippled as the stranger nodded briskly. “You are our probability.”
Chapter II
NIK’S HEAD and shoulders were propped against the wall, and as the stranger leaned forward, their eyes were much on a level. He matched the searching stare. And now he said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Not needful that you do – yet. How long have you had that face?
“Ten years, more or less. I was fished out of a wreck during the war.”
“Nobody tried to patch it up for you?”
Nik willed his hand to remain on his knee, willed himself to face that frank appraisal without an outward tremor. There was no disgust, no shrinking, only real bewilderment in the other’s expression. And seeing that, Nik replied with the truth.
“Why didn’t they fix my face? Well, they tried. But it seemed I couldn’t adapt to growth flesh – it sloughed off after some months. And other experiments, they cost too much. No one had the credits to spend on Dipple trash.”
That had been the worst of his burden in the years behind him, knowing that right here in Korwar were cosmetic surgeons who might have been able to give him a human face again. Yet the costly experimentation needed by a patient who could not provide natural rooting for growth flesh was far out of his reach.
“Something could be done even now.”
Nik refused to rise to the bait. “I’m not the son of a First Circle family,” he replied evenly. “And if growth flesh fails, there’s little they can do, anyway.”
“Don’t be so sure.” The stranger got to his feet. “Don’t discount luck.”
“Luck?” queried Nik.
“Yes, luck! Listen, boy. I’m on a winning streak now. The comets are all hitting stars on my table! And you’re a part of it. What would you do for a new face – the face you should have had?”
Nik’s stare was set. Plainly this was meant in all seriousness. Well, what would he give, do, for a face – a real face again? He didn’t have to hesitate over that answer.
“Anything!” It would be worth it, any pain or sacrifice on his part, any effort, no matter how severe or prolonged.
“All right. Well see. Stowar – !” At the space officer’s call, the Dipple man came to the door of the room. “I’m standing for Kolherne.”
Stowar’s flat, emotionless eyes slid over the boy. He was frowning a little. “The choice is yours – now,” he returned, but not as if he agreed. “When do you take him, Leeds?”
“Right away. Now, Kolherne” – the other swung to face Nik once more.”it’s up to you. If you want that face, you have to be prepared to earn it, understand?”
Nik nodded. Sure he understood. Anything you wanted you had to earn, or take – if you were strong enough and well armed enough to make the grab practical. He did not doubt that Leeds was either one of the Guild or the Brethren, operating well on the cold side of any planetary or space law. But that did not bother him. Within the Dipple, one learned that the warmth of the law was for the free, not for the dispossessed and helpless. He was willing to walk the outlaw’s road; that was no choice at all with the promised award ahead.
“This is the story – you’re the son of a spaceman, my former first officer. I found you here, will sign bond for you. That will release you from the Dipple. The guard won’t do much checking. They’re glad to get anyone off the roster legally. Got anything you want to collect from a lock box, Nik?
What did he have to call his own? A tape reader and a packet of tapes. Nothing he really needed. And those belonged to the Kolherne who had no hope at all – save through their temporary means of escape. Now something as wild as anger or fear was boiling inside Nik; he could hardly keep it bottled down. He did not recognize it as hope.
“No – ” His voice seemed so little under his control that he did not say more than that one word.
“Then, let’s go!” Again that strong grasp bringing him up to his feet, steadying him. He stumbled across the room, out into Stowar’s business quarters, hardly noting Moke Varn there. Moke was of no importance any more. This was one of Nik’s dreams taking on the solid reality of flesh in the hand guiding him ahead, in the surprised expression on Moke’s flat face, in the bubbling and churning in Nik’s middle. He was drunk with hope and the excitement Leeds had fired in him.
“Now pay attention.” Leeds’ tone sharpened as they emerged into a mist that had followed the rain. “My name is Strode Leeds. I’m master of the Free Trader Serpent. Got that?”