For the full three weeks while Hans Rebka sat naked in a rusty iron chair, Louis Nenda had lived the good life. Thirteen hundred lightyears away from Candela, he sat now in lordly ease and surveyed the arid surface of Xerarchos.
True, the planet beyond his ship's ports was not most people's idea of a garden world. The dust storms came every season and raged worldwide for months on end. The air was thin and dry and tasted like powdered iron. If you went outside without a suit, fine grit worked its way into your teeth and eyes and every body cavity. Water was so scarce on the scoured surface that no gemstone or precious metal could match it in value, ounce for ounce. The natives were warlike and bloodthirsty. An honest man was defined as one who stayed bought for more than a day or two.
But now you had to look on the good side. Louis Nenda had come here voluntarily, knowing that his ship was well-armed and if it came to a fight he could kick the ass of any native group. He did not have to breathe Xerarchos air, or eat food grown on Xerarchos. Best of all, the water generators on board the Have-It-All made him the richest being on the planet. The locals would die to learn their secret. And if that's what it took to keep control, Nenda was quite willing to let them do it.
He placed his boots on the lip of the rounded observation port, leaned back, and scratched his hairy rib cage. He yawned. A few more weeks, to squeeze out the limited best that Xerarchos had to offer, then the Have-It-All would lift off and seek another source of commercial advantage. The local arm of the galaxy was full of them. There was a new sucker-world born every century.
Pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a faint sound from behind. He jerked around, and confronted a nightmare. The creature stood on one pair of its six dark-brown legs, rearing twice the height of a man. The segmented underside was dark-red, rising to a short neck banded by scarlet-and-white ruffles. Above that sat a white, eyeless head, twice the size of Nenda's own. A thin proboscis grew out from the middle of the sightless face and curled down to tuck into a pouch on the bottom of the pleated chin. Yellow horns in the middle of the broad head constantly scanned whatever stood before them. A pair of light-brown antennas, long even in comparison with that great head, were unfurled to form two meter-long fans that quivered delicately in the ship's warm, moist air.
"For God's sake, At, I wish you wouldn't come crawling in quiet like that." Nenda swung his boots to the deck, stood, and turned. "You give a man the creeps. It shouldn't be too hard to let me know you're on the way."
"I did exactly that." Atvar H'sial's message wafted across to Nenda as a complex interplay of pheromonal molecules. They carried more subtle information than any human language ever could—mild irritation, admonition, amusement, and a hint of something else. "You were too busy daydreaming and gloating to take notice."
What was that other message? A touch of alarm, maybe? Nenda concentrated. The Karelian augment on his chest was a dark array of pits and nodules, sufficient to permit him to understand and to speak the Cecropian language natural to Atvar H'sial. However, no augment could ever provide the fine distinctions of meaning available to Cecropians, or to their Lo'tfian slaves and interpreters.
"What's up, At? We got trouble?" He spoke both pheromonally and using human speech.
"Not on Xerarchos. Everything here is quiet, and payments to us were made this morning. But this came to the ship's message center a few minutes ago."
Atvar H'sial held a brown flimsy in one bristled paw. The fine pattern on it was designed for ultrasonic scan by a Cecropian reader.
"You know I can't read that stuff, At. What's it say?"
"It is the highest level of command from the Cecropia Federation's Central Council, an order I cannot disobey. I am told to report to Miranda, in the Fourth Alliance, with all possible speed."
Nenda took the output and stared at it. "You sure you're reading this right? I thought all charges against us were dropped after the Builder artifacts disappeared, and we helped everybody get out of Labyrinth."
"They were dropped. This is not an accusation of criminal actions. It appears to involve some entirely new matter."
"And you feel you have to go?"
"I must, for reasons I will not specify. More than that, Louis Nenda, I suspect that there may be similar orders waiting for you. When this directive arrived, a separate message came to the ship's communications center in human output format. At the time, Glenna Omar was giving me another lesson in human speech, which she interrupted in order to take the message. She read it, gasped, and hurried off aft. She carried the message with her, and I suspect that she was seeking you."
"Heading in the wrong direction. Why didn't you tell her?"
"I did. I told her exactly where you could be found. However, I continued to employ human speech, which may have been a mistake. I spoke this." The Cecropian folded its proboscis into the pleated region on its chin and inflated the thin tube. After a wheezing like a leaky bellows, sounds emerged: " 'lusnnda 'sn 'sfrd k-kbn.' "
" 'Louis Nenda is in the forward cabin'? Yeah, that's very good, At. But with all due respect, those sounds could just as well have come out of either end of you. I better go see what's happening."
Nenda marched off along the corridor. Somehow he felt more resigned than surprised. Things had been going far too well for far too long. Just when you thought you had the universe by the tail, it turned round and bit you on the ass.
He came on Glenna drifting back in his direction. If he hadn't known that Atvar H'sial was female, and that the Cecropian found all humans repulsive in appearance, he might have wondered what kind of lessons Glenna had been providing. It was not yet midday, but her make-up was perfect. Her pale blue negligee showed off her long, graceful neck and upswept blond hair. As usual, the very sight of her made him gulp.
They were by the entrance to one of the Have-It-All's comfortable observation lounges. Glenna moved into it and sank onto a long, soft bench. She gave Nenda a worried smile and waved the paper that she was holding. "This came for you, sweetheart, from somebody called Julian Graves. He says he's a Council member for the Fourth Alliance."
"I know him. He's part of the Ethical Council."
"But just look at this." She pointed to the sheet. "He says he's ordering you to travel as quickly as possible to Miranda. He can't make you do that, can he?"
"I don't think so. Let me take a look."
Nenda ran his eye down the sheet. A group of words close to the bottom of the page sprang out at him. . . . to reach Miranda in at most twelve days. Otherwise, I will re-open the old investigation into the plundering of a medical-supply capsule en route to Lascia Four. . . .
"Julian Graves can. Order me, I mean. The son of a bitch. I'll have to go."
"But what does he want you for?"
"I've no idea. Nothing pleasant, you can bet on that. Something dangerous and dirty and desperate. We'd better get on our way as soon as we can."
"We?"
"Yeah. Atvar H'sial got the same sort of message, though she didn't give details. And of course, J'merlia and Kallik wouldn't let us go without them, even if we wanted to."
"But J'merlia and Kallik are your slaves. They're supposed to do whatever you tell them to."
"I know. It never seems to work out that way. So I guess we'll all be going to Miranda."
Glenna motioned to Nenda and patted the bench at her side. Her negligee had opened at the bottom, to reveal an inordinate length of smooth white leg.
"Louis, you don't mean all, do you? You know I'm no good at dangerous things. I'd just get in the way."
"You mean you'd rather stay on Xerarchos?"
She patted his arm. "Silly man. Of course I won't stay here. This is an awful place."
"I've seen worse."
"Not with me you haven't. Now, you say you must go to Miranda. And Miranda is just one Bose transition away from Sentinel Gate. You can drop me off on the way."
"But what will you do on Sentinel Gate?"
"I'll take my old job. I was a Senior Information Specialist."
"You told me you hated it."
"Oh, it wasn't all that bad, just a bit boring. It will only be until you come back, you know. And there was the occasional diversion."
Occasional diversion. A male visitor to Sentinel Gate, where Glenna's challenge was to hustle the stranger into bed before he left the planet. Apparently it didn't matter what he looked like, or how badly he behaved, provided that he was an off-worlder.
Nenda knew all this. Glenna had once explained it to him, and anyway, he could be thought of as a beneficiary of her policy.
He nodded. He didn't resent the proposal that she should not go with him to Miranda. A woman with real nerve was something to be admired.
He thought of asking, "We'll wait for each other, won't we?", then changed his mind. There were some things so stupid, you ought not even to think them. Instead he said, "That's it, then. Sentinel Gate for you, and the two of us will have a good time on the way. An' after that, At and me will see what Miranda has to offer."
"Maybe fame and fortune, Louis. When I was growing up, my house-uncle always told me that every trouble could be thought of as an opportunity."
An opportunity, in Nenda's experience, to find even more trouble. But negative thinking never got you far.
He slipped his arm through Glenna's and they stood up together. Miranda was well-known as one of the richest worlds in the spiral arm. Maybe he and Atvar H'sial would find a chance to skim a little off the top.