The nova guns let go together. Reaching for the ship rushing towards them and falling far short of it, their charge shattered space into shuddering blue sheets of fire.
It was an impressive display, but the Megair ship kept coming. Something hot and primitive, surprisingly pleasurable, began to roil in the captain as he counted off thirty seconds, pressed the firing stud again. Blue sheet lightning shivered and crashed. The scuttling thing beyond held its course. Answering fire suddenly speckled space with a cluster of red and black explosions.
“Aa-aa-ah!” breathed the captain, head thrust forwards, eyes riveted on the sighting screen. Something about those explosions….
Why, he thought joyfully, we’ve got the range on them!
He slapped the nova guns on automatic, locked on target, rode the Venture’s thunder in a dead straight line ahead in the wake of the guns’ trail of blue lightning. Red and black fire appeared suddenly on this side of the lightning, roiling towards them….
Then it vanished.
There was something like the high-pitched yowl of a small jungle cat in the captain’s ears. A firm young fist pounded his shoulder delightedly. “They’re running! They’re running!”
He cut the guns. The sighting screen was empty. His eyes followed Goth’s pointing finger to another screen. Far under their present course, turning away on a steep escape curve, went the Megair Cannibals’ ship, scuttling its best, dipping, weaving, dwindling….
As they drew closer to Udune, other ships appeared with increasing frequency in the Venture’s detection range. But these evidently were going about their own business and inclined to keep out of the path of strange spacecraft. None came close enough to be picked up in the viewscreens.
While still half a day away from the one-time pirate planet, the Venture’s communicators signaled a pickup. They switched on the instruments and found themselves listening to a general broadcast from Uldune, addressed to all ships entering this area of space.
If they were headed for Uldune on business, they were invited to shift to a frequency which would put them in contact with a landing station off-planet. Uldune was anxious to see to it that their visit was made as pleasant and profitable as possible and would facilitate matters to that end in every way. Detailed information would be made available by direct-beam contact from the landing station.
It was the most cordial reception ever extended to the captain on a planetary approach. They switched in the station, were welcomed warmly to Uldune. Business arrangements then began immediately. Before another hour was up Uldune knew in general what they wanted and what they had to offer, had provided a list of qualified shipbuilders, scheduled immediate appointments with identity specialists, official assessors who would place a minimum value on their cargo, and a representative of the Daal’s Bank, who would assist them in deciding what other steps to take to achieve their goals to best effect on Uldune.
Helpful as the pirate planet was to its clients, it was also clear that it took no unnecessary chances with them. Visitors arriving with their own spacecraft had the choice of leaving them berthed at the landing stations and using a shuttle to have themselves and their goods transported down to a spaceport, or of allowing foolproof seals to be attached to offensive armament for the duration of the ship’s stay on Uldune. A brief, but presumably quite effective, contamination check of the interior of the ship and of its cargo was also carried out at the landing station. Otherwise, aside from an evident but no-comment interest aroused by the nova guns in the armament specialists engaged in securing them, the Daal’s officials at the station displayed a careful lack of curiosity about the Venture, her crew,, her cargo, and her origin. An escort boat presently guided them down to a spaceport and their interview at the adjoining Office of Identities.
FOUR
CAPTAIN ARON, of the extremely remote world of Mulm, and his young niece Dani took up residence late that evening in a rented house in an old quarter of Uldune’s port city of Zergandol. It had been a strenuous though satisfactory day for both of them. Much business had begun to roll.
Goth, visibly struggling for the past half hour to keep her eyelids open wide enough to be able to look out, muttered good-night to the captain as soon as they’d located two bedrooms on the third floor of the house, and closed the door to one of them behind her. The captain felt bone-weary himself but his brain still buzzed with the events of the day and he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while. He brewed a pot of coffee in the kitchen and took it up to a dark, narrow fourth-story balcony which encircled the house, where he sipped it from a mug, looking around at the sprawling, inadequately lit city.
Zergandol, from what he had seen of it, was a rather dilapidated town, though it had one neatly modern district. One might have called it quaint, but most of the streets and buildings were worn, cracked, and rather grimy; and the architecture seemed a centuries-old mixture of conflicting styles. The house they were in looked like a weathered layer cake, four round sections containing two rooms each, placed on top of one another, connected by a narrow circular stairway. Inside and out, it was old. But the rent was moderate-he wasn’t sure yet where they would stand financially by the time they were done with Uldune and Uldune was done with them; and the house was less than a mile up a winding street from the edge of the spaceport and the shipyards of the firm of Sunnat, Bazim & Filish where, during the following weeks, the Venture would be rebuilt.
The extent to which the ship would be rebuilt wasn’t settled yet. So far there’d been time for only a brief preliminary discussion with the partners. And the day had brought an unexpected development which would make it possible to go a great deal farther with that than they’d planned. It was one of the things the captain was debating now. The Daals’ appraiser, with whom they’d gotten together immediately after being equipped with new identities, hadn’t seemed quite able to believe in the Karres cargo:
“Wintenberry jelly and Lepti liquor?” he’d repeated, lifting his eyebrows, when the captain named the first two of the items the witches had loaded on the Venture. “These are, uh, the genuine article?”
Surprised, the captain glanced at Goth, who nodded. “That’s right,” he said.
“Most unusual!” declared the appraiser interestedly. “What quantity of them do you have?”
The captain told him and got a startled look from the official. “Something wrong?” he asked, puzzled. The appraiser shook his head. “Oh, no! Not, not at all.” He cleared his throat. “You’re certain … well, you must be, of course!” He made some notes, cleared his throat again. “Now, you’ve indicated you also have peltries to sell-“
“Yes, we do,” said the captain. “Very fine stuff!”
“Hundred and twenty-five tozzami,” Goth put in from her end of the table. She sounded as if she were enjoying herself. “Fifty gold-tipped lelaundel, all prime adults.”
The appraiser looked at her, then at the captain.
“That is correct, sir?” he asked expressionlessly.
The captain assured him it was. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask Goth about the names of the creatures that had grown the magnificent furs in the storage; but “tozzami” and “gold-tipped lelaundel” evidently were familiar terms to this expert. His reactions had indicated he also knew about the green Lepti liquor and the jellies. Possibly Karres exported such articles as a regular thing.
“That perfume I put down,” the captain went on. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Kell Peak essences-“ The appraiser bared his teeth in a strained smile.
“Indeed, I have, sir!” he said softly. “Indeed, I have!” He looked down at his list. “Eight thousand three hundred and twenty-three half-pints of Kell Peak essences…. In my twenty-two years of professional experience, Captain Aron, I have never had the opportunity to evaluate an incoming cargo of this nature. I don’t know what you’ve done, but allow me to congratulate you.”
He left with samples of the cargo to have their genuineness and his appraisal notations confirmed by other specialists. The captain and Goth went off to have lunch in one of the spaceport restaurants. “What was he so excited about?” the captain asked, intrigued.
Goth shrugged. “He figures we stole it all.”
“Why?”
“Hard stuff to just buy!”
She explained while they ate. Tozzamis and lelaundels were indigenous to Karres, part of its mountain fauna; but very few people knew where the furs came from. They had high value, not only because of their quality, but because they were rarely available. From time to time, when the witches wanted money, they’d make up a shipment and distribute it quietly through various contacts.