That made sense to Nik. On the lower levels, the Thieves’ Guild might deal in ways that had given it its title, but in the upper strata, there were services such a band of outlaws could offer the heads of governments, sector lords, who would pay very well indeed.
“We’ve such a ploy on now, but it’s been hanging fire because we needed a front for the first move.”
“That’s me?” Nik asked.
“That may be you,” Leeds corrected. “And this is the truth.” He still wore the half smile, but his eyes held no humor at all. “There will be no out once you begin.”
“I guessed that.”
“All right – then here’s the full course. A year ago a warlord of one of the Nebula worlds sent his only son here to Korwar, just so pressure couldn’t be brought on him through the boy. He picked one of the High Security villas, and that was that.”
An HS villa was one that no unauthorized person could enter and that held its inhabitants safe as if they had been sealed in a double-illumi plate.
“Two months ago,” Leeds continued, “the warlord ceased to be of any concern.”
“Dead?” Nik was not surprised at Leeds’ nod. “Now the boy is no longer important as a hostage, but he is important for what he controls. Locked in his mind is the answer to a time-secure device that only he and his father knew. And behind the device are tapes that have information – of no value to the boy but of vast importance to two different parties. The one in power at present chooses to keep him under wraps – maybe for life. The other.”
“Wants him out,” Nik finished.
“Yes. But they can’t get him except by coming to us.”
“And the Guild can crack an HS?”
“They could have cracked it any time within the past year. That doesn’t mean they could get the boy out. His father took every precaution. He has been blocked against any stranger, even one altered physically into a copy of a friend. He also has a circuit set in his brain. Force him or frighten him, and the information we need is totally wiped out.”
“Then how?.” Nik was intrigued.
A small tri-dee scene, vividly real in spite of its size, glowed there. The landscape of the background was none that Nik had ever seen before. Rugged black heights were stark against a yellowish sky, and black sand lay level at their foot. Milky liquid flowed there in a crooked course. At the edge of that flood, the same dark-haired figure Nik had been shown by Gyna was down on one knee, engaged in skinning some reptilian creature.
The yellow light made a dazzling sparkle of parts of his clothing where metal overlays were fastened to a form of space uniform, but his head was bare and noticeable. Standing watching him was a much younger boy wearing a similar uniform. His hair was also black, and his hands grasped a weapon, a small edition of a blaster. His attitude was of one standing guard in dangerous territory. Leeds switched off the beam, and Nik waited for an explanation.
“Children cut off from normal friendships and lonely,” the captain observed, “have a habit of imagining companions. Vandy Naudhin i’Akrama is no exception.”
“Imagined companions,” Nik repeated. “But that tri-dee showed two people”
“What you saw was the fantasy Vandy has built up in his mind. He and his imagined companion-hero are not in the garden of the HS at all. They are on another world – I believe Vandy calls it Veever. Over a period of two years, he has been building up an elaborate fantasy existence that is most real to him now. And he lives in it for hours at a time.”
“But how – ?”
“How do we know this? How did we get this tape?” Leeds shrugged. “Don’t expect an explanation of the mechanics from me. The Guild has its resources. There are certain snooper-machines that have never been marketed, that are unknown to the public. None of the secrets men have sought to keep remain undiscovered. The Guild has the power to bid for such discoveries or take them. It remains that there is such a device, one that has snooped on Vandy’s dream world for months and built up a complete file on his activities in that fantasy for our use.”
“How?” Nik accepted Vandy’s fantasy easily enough because of his own, but he still could not quite see how Leeds or the Guild proposed to use such a discovery for their purposes.
“Vandy has been blocked against all contact except through five people, two of whom are now dead,” Leeds explained. “As far those who prepared him for this exile-protection know, there is no one now who dares to approach him without triggering the circuit that will erase instantly the knowledge we need. However, suppose Vandy was to meet, say in that particular portion of the HS garden where he feels most free from interruption, Hacon.”
“And Hacon is – ?”
“You have just seen him, skinning a monster Vandy recognizes as an enemy on Veever. You will see him again as soon as possible, we all hope, in any mirror you care to glance into.”
“So I meet Vandy as Hacon, and he tells me.” Nik began. The impossible was beginning to seem merely improbable.
But Leeds shook his head. “No, you meet Vandy and suggest an expedition.”
“Outside? Where?”
Leeds smiled lazily. “As to that, I can’t give you any information. Since you are not an astro-navigator, anything I would tell you would make no sense. But you’ll have an LB locked on a certain course. Once aboard, you and Vandy will go into stass. When you come out of that, you’ll be where we want you.”
“Off-world?”
“Off-world. In a place where we won’t have to fear any chase. There you’ll have time to consolidate your position with Vandy and get the information we need.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards, Vandy will be sent back here. You’ll be a member in good standing in the Guild, with a face and a future. Nobody gets hurt except some politicos who’ve tried to gobble up more than they can safely swallow. In fact, Vandy will also have the satisfaction of tripping up a couple of those, who helped to erase his father.”
“But why off-world?”
“Because we can crack the HS, yes, but we can’t preserve that crack for any length of time. You wouldn’t have a chance to talk Vandy into any more than going with you. And we’ll get you both off-world in a shielded LB because Vandy can be trailed by com-cast anywhere on Korwar. I told you his father took every precaution when he planted him here.”
It made sense, and it could work, providing Gyna was able to turn Nik into Hacon. He thought of that smooth brown face, of Leeds’ promise that that was what he might see in any mirror he cared to use. The price was a small one, and the reward – Nik drew a deep breath of wonder – the reward was out of one of his own cherished dreams.
“When do we start?” he asked eagerly.
Leeds hoisted his body off the divan and tucked his box of pills into his tunic. “Right now, Nik, right now.”
Part of what followed Nik was to remember in sections that were hazier than his cherished fantasies. Most he was never to recall at all. And time had no meaning during this metamorphosis of Nik Kolherne into Hacon.
But there came an hour when he stood staring with incredulous wonder at a figure not on the wall this time but in a mirror, as Leeds had promised. And he was Hacon! A wild exhilaration filled him, and he found himself laughing with a laughter that was close to chest-tearing sobs.
Leeds, who had brought him this miracle, stood there laughing, too, but more gently, before he nodded to Gyna.
“Well done, Gentle Fem.” Leeds found words; Nik had none at all. But when he turned away from the mirror to face her, a little of his ecstasy was dampened by a vague apprehension because he could read no satisfaction in her expression.
She did not meet his gaze but glanced at Leeds, her soberness somehow a warning. And then she turned abruptly and left the room. Nik, puzzled, looked to the captain for enlightenment.
“What – ?” And this time it was the other who would not meet Nik eye to eye.
He went back to the mirror, drew one hand down its glistening surface, and saw those fingertips meet the ones in the mirror reflection. So, that was he – no trickery there. But still something was wrong. His hand sought his face, not to mask it this time but to reassure himself by touch as well as by sight that there was firm brown skin there, flesh unscarred, bone no longer missing. He could see, he could feel –