My right eye.
4
They were skillful surgeons. They took the eye out without anesthetic, other than a stiff drink of what tasted like refrigerant fluid. Humekoy stood by and watched with every indication of deep interest. As for me, I had already learned about pain: the body is capable of registering only a certain amount of it; about what you’d get from laying your palm on a hot plate. After that, it’s all the same. I yelled and screamed a little, and kicked around a bit, but it was over very quickly. They packed the empty socket with something cold and wet that numbed it in a few seconds. In half an hour I was back on my feet, feeling dizzy and with a sort of gauzy veil between my remaining eye and the world.
They took me to the port and my crew were there ahead of me, handcuffed and looking pale green around the ears. And the consul was there, too, with his hands clamped up as tight as the rest.
“It has been a fair exchange, Captain Danger,” Humekoy told me after the others were aboard. “These paid cheats have garnered their petty harvest of data on industrial and port facilities, volume of shipping and sophistication of equipment, on which to base estimates of Rish assault capability. And in return, the Hierarch has gained valuable information for proper assessment of you humans. Had we acted on the basis of impressions gained by study of the persons so-cleverly trained to delude us heretofore, we might have made a serious blunder.”
We parted on that note, not as pals, exactly, but with what might be described as a mutual wary respect. At the last minute a rampcar pulled up and a pair of Rish guards dumped poor Srat out.
“The creature aided, indirectly, in our rapprochement,” Humekoy said. “His payment is his freedom. Perhaps you, too, may have an account to settle.”
“Put him aboard,” I said. “He and I will have a lot of things to talk over before I get back to Ahax.”
5
By the time the fifty-seven-day voyage was over, I knew as much about H’eeaq as poor Srat could tell me.
“Why these mistaken kin of mine may have stolen a lady of Master’s kind, I can’t say,” he insisted. But as to where—he had a few ideas on that.
“There are worlds, Master, where long ago H’eeaq established markets for the complex molecules so abundantly available to her in those days. Our vessels call there still, and out of regard for past ties perhaps, the in-dwellers supply our needs for stores. And in return, we give them what we can.”
He gave me the details of a few of these old marketplaces—worlds far out in Fringe Space, where few questions were asked, and a human was a rare freak.
“We’ll go take a look,” I said. “As soon as I collect my pay.”
At Ahax, Traffic Control allotted me a slot at the remotest corner of the port. We docked and my four cheery crewmen were gone in a rampcar before I finished securing the command deck. I told Srat to follow me, and started off to walk the two miles to the nearest power way. A rampcar went past in a hurry in the next lane over, headed out toward where my tub was parked. I thought about hailing it, but even with the chill wind blowing, walking felt good after the weeks in space.
Inside the long terminal building, a P.A. voice was droning something. Srat made a gobbling noise and said, “Master, they speak of you!” I looked where he pointed with one flipper and saw my face looking down from a public screen.
” . . . distinguishing scar on the right side of the neck and jaw,” the voice was saying. “It is the duty of any person seeing this man to detain him and notify Central Authority at once!”
6
Nobody seemed to be looking my way. I was wearing a plain gray shipsuit and a light windbreaker with the collar turned up far enough to cover the scar; I didn’t look much different than a lot of other space-burned crew types. Poor Srat was crouching and quivering; they hadn’t put him on the air, but he would attract attention with his whimpering. We had to get to cover, fast. I turned and headed for the nearest ramp exit and as I reached the vestibule a woman’s voice called my name. I spun and saw a familiar face: Nacy, the little tech operator I’d left Eureka with.
“I was in Ops Three when your clearance request came, four hours ago,” she said in a fast whisper. She saw the patch over my eye and her voice faltered and went on: “I thought . . . after all, no one expected you to come back . . . it would be nice to come down and meet you.
“Then . . . I heard the announcement. . . .”
“What’s it all about, Nacy?”
She shook her head. She was a pert little girl with a turned-up nose and very white, even teeth. “I don’t know, Billy. Someone said you’d gone against your orders, turned back early—”
“Yeah. There’s something in that. But you don’t want to be seen talking to me—”
“Billy—maybe if you went to them voluntarily . . .”
“I have a funny feeling near the back of my neck that says that would be a wrong play.”
Her face looked tight; she nodded. “I think I understand.” She took a bite of her lip. “Come with me.” She turned and started across the lobby. Srat plucked at my sleeve.
“You’ll do better on your own,” I said, and followed her.
She led me through a door marked for private use, along a plain corridor with lots of doors, out through a small personnel entry onto a parking lot full of ramp vehicles.
“Good thinking, girl,” I said. “You’d better fade out fast now—”
“Just a minute.” She ducked back inside. I went to a small mail-carrier, found the controls unlocked. I started it up and backed it around by the door as it swung open and a sleek pepper and salt and tan animal stalked through, looking relaxed, as always.
“Eureka!” I called, and the old boy stopped and looked my way, then reached the car in one bound and was in beside me. I looked up and Nacy was watching from the door.
“Thanks for everything,” I said. “I don’t know why you took the chance, but thanks.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re what’s known as a romantic figure,” she said and whirled and was gone before I could ask her what that meant.
I pulled the car out and into a lane across the ramp, keeping it at an easy speed. There was a small click from over my head and a voice said, “Seven-eight-nine-o, where do you think you’re going?”
“Fuel check,” I mumbled.
“Little late, aren’t you? You heard the clear ramp order.”
“Yeah, what’s it all about?”
“Pickup order out on some smuggler that gave Control the slip a few minutes ago. Now get off the ramp!” He clicked off. I angled right as if I were headed for the maintenance bay at the end of the line, but at the last second I veered left and headed out toward where I’d parked Jongo. I could see rampcars buzzing back and forth, off to my left; I passed two uniformed men, on foot. One of them stared at me and I kept my chin down in my collar and waved to him. A hundred yards from the tub, I saw the cordon of cars around it. So much for my chances of a slick takeoff under their noses. I pulled the car offside between a massive freighter that looked as if it hadn’t been moved for a couple of hundred years, and a racy yacht that reminded me of Lord Desroy’s, and tried to make my brain think. It didn’t seem to want to. My eyes kept wandering back to the fancy enamel-inlaid trim around the entry lock of the yacht. The port was open and I could see the gleam of hand-rubbed finishes inside. . . .
I was out of the car and across to the yacht before I realized I’d made a decision. Eureka went in ahead of me, as if he owned the boat. Just as I got a foot on the carpeted four-step ladder, one of the pedestrian cops came into sight around the side of the old freighter. He saw me and broke into a run, fumbling with a holster at his side in a way that said he had orders to shoot. I unfroze and started up, knowing I wouldn’t make it, and heard a scuffling sound and a heavy thud and a crash of fire that cracked and scorched the inlay by the door. I looked back and he was spread out on the pavement, out cold, and poor Srat was untangling himself from his legs. He scrambled in behind me and I tripped the port-secure lever and ran for the flight deck. I slammed the main drive lever to full emergency lift-off position and felt my back teeth shake as the yacht screamed off the ramp, splitting the atmosphere of Ahax like a meteorite outward-bound.