“My fault,” I groaned. “My fault! But don’t be afraid, Milady. I’ll find you. They think I’m dead, but I’ll trick them; I won’t die. I’ll stay alive, and find them and take you home. . . .”
9
The next time I was aware of what was going on, the cat was gone and the sun was directly overhead and I was dying of thirst. By turning my head, I could see the vines along the edge of the ravine. There was shade there, and water. I got myself turned over on my stomach and started crawling. It was a long trip—nearly a hundred yards—and I passed out so many times I lost count. But I reached the vines and got myself a drink and then it was dark. That meant it had been about seventy-two hours since the slug-people had done such a sloppy job of killing me. I must have slept for a long time, then. When I woke up, Eureka was back, with a nice fresh flea for me.
“Thanks, boy,” I said when he dropped the gift on my chest and nudged me with his nose. “It’s nice to know somebody cares.”
“You’re not dead yet,” he said, and his voice sounded like Orfeo’s. I called to him, but he was gone, down into the darkness. I followed him, along a trail of twisted vines, but the light always glimmered just ahead, and I was cold and wet and then the fleas came swarming out on the empty eyes of a giant skull and swarmed over me and I felt them eating me alive and I woke up, and I was still there, under the vines, and my wounds were hurting now and Eureka was gone and the flea with him.
I got myself up on all fours to have another drink from the water vine, and noticed a young bean pod sprouting nearby. I was hungry and I tore it open and ate the beans. And the next time I woke up, I was stronger.
For five long Garish days I stayed under the vines; then I made the trek to the caves. After that, on a diet of concentrates, I gained strength faster. I spent my time exercising my wounds so they wouldn’t stiffen up too much as they healed, and talking to the cat. He didn’t answer me anymore, so I judged I was getting better. No infections set in; the delousing Sir Orfeo had given me probably had something to do with that, plus the absence of microbes on Gar 28.
Finally a day came when it was time to get out and start seeing the world again. I slung my crater-rifle, not without difficulty, since my right arm didn’t want to cooperate, and made a hike around the far side of the ravine, with half a dozen rest stops. I was halfway back to the hut and the drink of water I’d promised myself as a reward, when the second ship came.
CHAPTER FIVE
This one was smaller, something like Lord Orfeo’s yacht, but with less of a polish. I hid behind the vines with my gun aimed until I saw what were undoubtedly Men emerge. Then I went up to meet them.
They were small, yellow-skinned, with round, bald heads. The captain was named Ancu-Uriru and he spoke a little Zeridajhi. He frowned at my scars, which were pretty spectacular, and wanted to know where the rest of the ship’s complement were. I told him there was just me. That made him frown worse than ever. It seemed he had picked up our signal and answered it in the hope of collecting a nice reward from somebody, along with a little salvage. I told him about the ship in the ravine, and he sent a couple of men down who came back shaking their heads. They showed every sign of being ready to leave then.
“What about me?” I asked Ancu-Uriru.
“We leave you in peace,” he said in an offhand way.
“There’s such a thing as too much peace,” I told him. “I want to go with you. I’ll work my way.”
“I have no need of you; space is limited aboard my small vessel. And I fear your wounds render you somewhat less than capable to perform useful labor. Here you are more comfortable. Stay, with my blessing.”
“Suppose I told you where there was another ship, a luxury model, in perfect shape—if you can get the doors open?”
That idea seemed to strike a spark. We dickered for a while, and there were hints that a little torture might squeeze the answers out of me with no need for favors in return. But in the end we struck a deal: My passage to a civilized port in return for Lord Desroy’s yacht.
It took them most of a Garish day to tickle her locks open. Ancu-Uriru looked her over, then ordered his personal effects moved into the owner’s suite. I was assigned to ride on his old tub along with a skeleton crew. Just before boarding time, Eureka came bounding across the flats toward me. One of the men had a gun in his hand, and I jumped in front of him just in time.
“This is my cat,” I told him. “He saved my life. We used to have long talks, while I was sick.”
The men all seemed to be cat-lovers; they gathered around and admired him.
“Bring the beast along,” Ancu-Uriru said. We went aboard then, and an hour later the ship lifted off Gar 28, as nearly as I could calculate, one year after I had landed.
2
It wasn’t a luxury cruise. The man Ancu-Uriru had assigned to captain the tub—In-Ruhic, by name—believed in every man’s working his way, in spite of the generous fare I’d paid. Even aboard as sophisticated a machine as a spaceship, there was plenty of coolie labor, as I well remembered from my apprenticeship under Sir Orfeo. The standards he’d taught me carried over here; after my assigned chores were done, I spent long hours chipping and scraping and cleaning and polishing, trying single-handed to clear away grime that had been accumulating since the days of the Vikings—or longer. According to In-Ruhic, the old ship had been built on a world called Urhaz, an unknown number of millenia ago.
At first, my wounds caused me a lot of pain, until In-Ruhic stopped me one day and told me my groans were interfering with his inward peace. He had me stretch out on a table while he rubbed some vile-smelling grease into the scars.
“How you survived, untended, is a matter of wonder,” he said. “I think you lost a pound of flesh and bone here, where the pellet tore through your shoulder. And you’ve broken ribs, healed crookedly. And your throat! Man, under the web of scar tissue, I can see the pulse in the great vein each time you lift your chin!” But his hands were as gentle as any girl’s could have been; he gave me a treatment every day for a few weeks. The glop he used must have had some healing effect because the skin toughened up over the scars and the pain gradually faded.
I told In-Ruhic and the others about the wasp-waisted ship and the armored midgets that had taken the Lady Raire; but they’d never seen or heard of their kind. They wagged their heads and grunted in vicarious admiration when I described her to them.
“But these are matters best forgotten, Biridanju—” that was as close as In-Ruhic seemed to be able to get to my name. “I’ve heard of the world called Zeridajh; distant it is, and inhabited by men as rich as emperors. Doubtless these evil-doers you tell of have long since sold her there for ransom.”
By the time the world where Ancu-Uriru planned to drop me was visible in the view-screen on the bridge where I was pulling watches as a sort of assistant instrument reader, I was almost a full-fledged member of the crew. Just before we started our landing maneuvers, which were more complicated for an old tub like In-Ruhic’s command than they had been for Lord Desroy’s ultramodern yacht, In-Ruhic took me aside and asked me what my plans were.
“If there’s a Zeridajhi Embassy, I’ll go there and tell them about the Lady Raire. Or maybe I can send some kind of message through. If not . . . well, I’ll figure out something.”
He shook his head and looked sad and wise. “You nurture a hopeless passion for this high-born lady,” he started.
“Nothing like that,” I cut him off short. “She was in my care. I’m responsible.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Biridanju, you’ve shown yourself a willing worker, and quick to learn. Stay on with me. I offer you a regular berth aboard this vessel.”
“Thanks, In-Ruhic. But I have another job to do.”
“Think well, Biridanju. For a foreigner, work is not easy to find; and to shore folk, who know not the cruel ways of space, your little decorations may prove unsightly, an added incubus.”