“So—something new here. A nice greenie out to make his fortune or die on the field of glory. What’s your name and condition, greenie?”
There was no bite of sarcasm in that demand and the speaker did not outrank Kana very far in either years or service.
“Kana Karr, S-Three—”
“Mic Hamet, S-Three—that clay-clawer resting his sore feet over there is Rey Nalassie, also of our lowly rank. First assignment?”
Kana nodded. Mic Hamet’s dark red hair was roached in the scalp ridge, but his unusually fair skin was reddened rather than tanned by exposure and there was a spattering of freckles across his somewhat flat nose. His friend uncoiled long legs and rose to a gangling six-foot-two, his lantern-jawed face solemn, though his sleepy gray eyes displayed humor and interest.
“They scraped us out of a rotation depot. We had bad luck a while back. Rey got bit by a bug during our last stretch and we had to default out of Oosterbeg’s Horde four months short. So we were flat enough in the purse to sign on here when the assign officer looked at us as if we were slightly better than muck worms.”
“You doubled yet, Karr?” asked Nalassie in a husky voice.
“No, I was delayed in leaving Training. And all the fellows who shipped out of Prime with me were vets—”
Mic lost his half grin. “That’s tough luck. Most of us Threes are paired already and you wouldn’t want to double with either Krosof or the rest—”
“Heard tell that if you come in solo, Yorke puts you with a vet,” Rey volunteered. “Got a theory youth should be tamed by age—or something of the sort.”
“And that’s worse than tough,” broke in his partner. “You shouldn’t team up with anyone until you know him. I’d play it single as long as I could, if I were you, Karr. You might be lucky enough to find some good fella who’s lost his partner. Stick with us until you do double if you want to—”
“And a very good way to stay out of trouble with the jeweled ones”—Rey nodded toward the rankers’ side of the hall—“is to get out of here.” He put on his helmet and buckled the chin strap. “They aren’t going to muster until morning, we can still have a night on the town. And, fella, you haven’t seen excitement until you’ve seen the leave section of Secundus.”
Kana was enthusiastic until he thought of the leanness of his purse. Four credits wouldn’t even pay for a meal in a base town—he was sure of that. But, as he shook his head, Mic’s fingers closed on his arm.
“No quibbling, fella. We’ll be a long time in the back country and we aren’t comfortable, shipping out with credits sticking to our fingers. We’ll stand you—then when you get your first star, you can repay in kind—that’s fair enough. Now, quick about it, before someone gets the idea of putting the younger generation to labor for the good of their souls!”
Beyond the walls of the Combat area a typical leave town had grown up. Taverns, cafes, gambling establishments catered for all ranks and purses, from Bladermasters and Mechmasters to recruits. It was certainly no place to visit with only four credits, Kana thought again as he blinked at the light of the gaudy signs lining the street before them.
And, to his discomfort, the ideas of his guides were not modest. They steered him by the cafes he would have chosen and dragged him through a wide door where Terran gold-leaf was overlaid with the sea-green shimmer of Trafian scale lac. Their boots pressed flat the four-inch pile of carpets which could only have been woven on Caq, and the walls were cloaked with the tapestries of Sansifar. Kana balked.
“This is strictly a glitter boy’s shop,” he protested. But Mic’s hold on him did not relax and Rey chuckled.
“No rank off field,” Mic reminded him sardonically. “S-Threes and Blademasters—we’re all the same in our skins. Only civilians worry about artificial distinctions—”
“Sure. In Combat you go where you please. And we please to come here.” Rey sniffed the scented air which stirred the shining arras, shaking the figures on them to quivering life. “By the Forked Tail of Blamand, what I wouldn’t give to be in on the sacking of this! And here comes mine host’s assistant.”
The figure loping toward them was one of the skeleton-lean, big-headed natives of Lupa. He greeted them with a professional smile, disclosing the double row of fangs which tended to make Terrans slightly nervous, and inquired their pleasure in a series of ear-taxing growls.
“Nothing big,” Mic returned. “We have muster tomorrow. Suppose you let us trot around by ourselves, Feenhalt. We won’t get into trouble—”
The Lupan’s pointed grin widened as he waved them on. When they passed through a slit in the curtain to the next room Kana commented:
“I take it you’re known here?”
“Yes. We got Feenhalt out of a hole once. He isn’t a bad old Lupan. Now—let’s mess.”
They escorted Kana through a series of rooms, each exotic in its furnishings, each bizarrely different, until they came to a chamber which brought a surprised exclamation out of him. For they might have stepped into a section of jungle. Gigantic fern-trees forested the walls and looped long fronds over their heads, but did not exclude a golden light which revealed cushioned benches and curving tables. Among the greenery swooped and fluttered streaks of flaming color which could only be the legendary Krotands of Cephas’ inner sea islands. Kana, meeting such travelers’ tales in truth, bemusedly allowed his companions to push him down on a bench.
“Krotands? But how—?”
Mic’s knuckles rapped and drew a metallic answer from the bole of the fern tree immediately behind them. Kana reached out to find that his fingers slid over a solid surface instead of rough bark. They were in a clever illusion.
“All done with mirrors,” Mic assured him solemnly. “Not that it isn’t one of the best bits of projecting Slanal ever designed. Feenhalt’s got the business head—but it’s his boss who thought up this sort of thing. Ha—food.”
Plates arose out of the table top. Warily Kana tasted and then settled down to hearty stoking.
“It’ll be a long time before we get another feed like this,” Rey observed. “I heard Fronn’s no pleasure planet.”
“Cold to our notion—and the native culture is feudal,” Kana supplied.
“ ‘Police action,’ ” mused Mic. “Police action doesn’t match a feudal government. What is the set-up—kings? Emperors?”
“Kings—they call them ‘Gatanus’—ruling small nations. But their heirship is reckoned through the female line. A Gatanu is succeeded by his eldest sister’s son, not his own. He is considered closer kin to his mother and sisters than to his father or brothers.”
“You must have studied up on this—”
“I used a record pak at Prime.”
Rey looked pleased. “You’re going to be an asset. Mic, we’ve got to keep our paws on this one.”
Mic swallowed a heroic bite. “We sure have. Somehow I am visited by a feeling that this jump is not going to be foam-pad riding, and the more we know, the better for us.”
Kana glanced from one to the other, catching the shadow glimpse of trouble. “What’s up?”
Mic shook his head and Rey shrugged. “Blasted if we know. But—well, when you’ve trotted around the back of beyond and poked into places where a ‘man’ is a mighty weird animal, you get a feeling about things. And we have a feeling about this—”
“Yorke?”
The morale of any Horde depended upon the character of its Blademaster. If Yorke could not inspire confidence in those who followed him—
Mic frowned. “No, it’s not Fitch Yorke. By all accounts he’s a master to latch to. There have been a lot of the glitter boys beside Hansu to sign up for this jump—you can always tell by that how a Blademaster stacks. It’s a feeling—you get it sometimes—a sort of crawling—inside you—”
“Somebody kicking at your grave mark,” Rey contributed.
Mic’s big mouth twisted in a grin aimed at himself. “Regular mist wizards, aren’t we? Step right up—read your future for a credit! Fronn isn’t going to be any worse than a lot of other places I know. Through? Then let’s show our greenie Feenhalt’s private rake-off. Only time the old Lupan showed any imagination—And, flame bats, does it ever pay off!”
Feenhalt’s flight of imagination turned out to be a gambling device which enthralled a large selection of Combatants. A pool sunk in the floor of a room was partitioned into sections around a central arena. In each of the small water-filled pens sported a fish about five inches long, two-thirds of that length was mouth lined with needle teeth. Each fish bore a small colored tag imbedded in its tail fin and swam about its prison in ferocious fury. The players gathered about the pool studying the captives. When two or more had chosen their champions, credit chips were inserted in the slots on the rim and the pen doors opened, freeing the fish to move into the arena. What followed was a wild orgy of battle until only one warrior remained alive. Whereupon the bettor who had selected that fish collected from those who had sponsored the dead.