III

Djana was hard to shock. But when the apartment door had closed behind her and she saw what waited, her "No!" broke free as a near scream.

"Do not be alarmed," said the squatting shape. A vocalizer converted the buzzes and whistles from its lower beak into recognizable Anglic syllables. "You have nothing to fear and much to gain."

"You—a man called me—"

"A dummy. It is not desirable that Ammon know you have met me in private, and surely he has put a monitor onto you."

Djana felt surreptitiously behind her. As expected, the door did not respond; it had been set to lock itself. She clutched her large ornamental purse. A stun pistol lay inside. Her past had seen contingencies.

Bracing herself and wetting her lips, she said, "I don't. Not with xenos—" and in haste, fearing offense might be taken, "I mean nonhuman sophonts. It isn't right."

"I suspect a large enough sum would change your mind," the other said. "You have a reputation for avarice. However, I plan a different kind of proposition." It moved slowly closer, a lumpy gray body on four thin legs which brought the head at its middle about level with her waist. One tentacle sent the single loose garment swirling about in a sinuous gesture. Another clutched the vocalizer in boneless fingers. The instrument was being used with considerable skill; it actually achieved an ingratiating note. "You must know about me in your turn. I am only Rax, harmless old Rax, the solitary representative of my species on this world. I assure you my reproductive pattern is sufficiently unlike yours that I find your assumption comical."

Djana eased a bit. She had in fact noticed the creature during the three years she herself had been on Irumclaw. A casual inquiry and answer crossed her recollection, yes, Rax was a dealer in drugs, legal or illegal, from … where was it? Nobody knew or cared. The planet had some or other unpronounceable name and orbited in distant parts. Probably Rax had had to make a hurried departure for reasons of health, and had drifted about until it stranded at last on this tolerant shore. Such cases were tiresomely common.

And who could remember all the races in the Terran Empire? Nobody: not when its bounds, unclear though they were, defined a rough globe 400 light-years across. That volume contained an estimated four million suns, most with attendants. Maybe half had been visited once or more, by ships which might have picked up incidental native recruits. And the hundred thousand or so worlds which enjoyed a degree of repeated contact with men—often sporadic—and owed a degree of allegiance to the Imperium—often purely nominal—were too many for a brain to keep track of.

Djana's eyes flickered. The apartment was furnished for a human, in abominable taste. He must be the one who had called her. Now he was gone. Though an inner door stood closed, she never doubted she was alone with Rax. Silence pressed on her, no more relieved by dull traffic sounds from outside than the gloom in the windows was by a few street lights. She grew conscious of her own perfume. Too damn sweet, she thought.

"Do be seated." Rax edged closer yet, with an awkwardness that suggested weight on its original planet was significantly lower than Irumclaw's 0.96 g. Did it keep a field generator at home … if it had any concept akin to "home"?

She drew a long breath, tossed her head so the tresses flew back over her shoulders, and donned a cocky grin. "I've a living to make," she said.

"Yes, yes." Rax's lower left tentacle groped ropily in a pouch and stretched forth holding a bill. "Here.

Twice your regular hourly recompense, I am told. You need but listen, and what you hear should point the way to earning very much more."

"We-e-ell … " She slipped the money into her purse, found a chair, drew forth a cigarette and inhaled it into lighting. Her visceral sensations she identified as part fear—this must be a scheme against Ammon, who played rough—and part excitement—a chance to make some real credit? Maybe enough to quit this wretched hustle for good?

Rax placed itself before her. She had no way of reading expressions on that face.

"I will tell you what information is possessed by those whom I represent," the vocalizer said. The spoken language, constructed with pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar in a one-one relationship to Anglic, rose and fell eerily behind the little transponder. "A junior lieutenant, Dominic Flandry, was observed speaking several times in private with Leon Ammon."

Now why should that interest them especially? she wondered, then lost her thought in her concentration on the words.

"Investigation revealed Ammon's people had come upon something in the course of excavating in this vicinity. Its nature is known just to him and a few trusted confidants. We suspect that others who saw were paid to undergo memory erasure anent the matter, except for one presumably stubborn person whose corpse was found in Mother Chickenfoot's Lane. Subsequently you too have been closeted with Ammon and, later, with Flandry."

"Well," Djana said, "he—"

"Pure coincidence is implausible," Rax declared, "especially when he could ill afford you on a junior lieutenant's pay. It is also known that Ammon has quietly purchased certain spacecraft supplies and engaged a disreputable interplanetary ferrier to take them to the outermost member of this system and leave them there at a specific place, in a cave marked by a small radio beacon that will self-activate when a vessel passes near."

Suddenly Djana realized why Skipper Orsini had sought her out and been lavish shortly after his return. Rax's outfit had bribed him.

"I can't imagine what you're getting at," she said. A draft of smoke swirled and bit in her lungs.

"You can," Rax retorted. "Dominic Flandry is a scout-boat pilot. He will soon depart on his next scheduled mission. Ammon must have engaged him to do something extra in the course of it. Since the cargo delivered to Planet Eight included impellers and similar gear, the job evidently involves study of a world somewhere in the wilderness. Ammon's discovery was therefore, in all probability, an old record of its existence and possible high value. You are to be his observer. Knowing Flandry's predilections, one is not surprised that he should insist on a companion like you. It follows that you two have been getting acquainted, to make certain you can endure being cooped together for weeks in a small boat.

"Orsini will flit you to Eight. Flandry will surreptitiously land there, pick up you and the supplies, and proceed into interstellar space. Returning, you two will reverse the whole process, and meet in Ammon's office to report."

Djana sat still.

"You give away nothing by affirming this," Rax stated. "My organization knows. Where is the lost planet? What is its nature?"

"Who are you working for?" Djana asked mutedly.

"That does not concern you." Rax's tone was mild and Djana took no umbrage. The gang lords of Irumclaw were a murderous lot. "You owe Ammon no allegiance," Rax urged. "Rather, you owe him a disfavor. Since you prefer to operate independently, and thus compete with the houses, you must pay him for his 'protection.' "

Djana sighed. "If it weren't him, it'd be somebody else."

Rax drew forth a sheaf of bills and riffled them with a fine crisp sound. She estimated—holy saints!—ten thousand credits. "This for answering my questions," it said. "Most likely a mere beginning for you."

She thought, while she inhaled raggedly, If the business looks too dangerous, I can go tell Leon right away and explain I was playing along— of course, this bunch might learn I'd talked and I'd have to skip—A flick of white fury: I shouldn't have to skip! Not ever again!

She built her sentences with care. "Nobody's told me much. You understand they wouldn't, till the last minute. Your ideas are right, but they're about as far along as my own information goes."

"Has Flandry said nothing to you?"

She plunged. "All right. Yes. Give me that packet." Having taken the money, she described what the pilot had been able to reveal to her after she had lowered his guard for him. (An oddly sweet pair of nights; but best not think about that.) "He doesn't know the coordinates yet, you realize," she finished.

"Not even what kind of sun it is, except for the metals. It must be somewhere not too far off his assigned route. But he says that leaves thousands of possibilities."

"Or more." Rax forgot to control intonation. Was the sawing rhythm that came out of the speaker an equivalent of its equivalent of an awed whisper? "So many, many stars … a hundred billion in this one lost lonely dustmote of a galaxy … and we on the edge, remote in a spiral arm where they thin toward emptiness … what do we know, what can we master?"

The voice became flat and businesslike again. "This could be a prize worth contending for. We would pay well for a report from you. Under certain circumstances, a million."

What Nicky said he was getting! And Leon's paying me a bare hundred thousand—Djana shook her head. "I'll be watched for quite a while, Rax, if Wayland turns out to be any use. What good is a fortune after you've been blasted?" She shivered. "Or they might be angry enough to brain-channel me and—" The cigarette scorched her fingers. She ground it into a disposer and reached for a new one. A million credits, she thought wildly. A million packs of smokes. But no, that's not it. What you do is bank it and live off the interest. No huge income, but you'd be comfortable on it, and safe, and free, free—

"You would require disappearance, certainly," Rax said. "That is part of the plan."

"Do you mean we … our boat … would never come back?"

"Correct. The Navy will mount a search, with no result. Ammon will not soon be able to obtain another scout, and in the interim he can be diverted from his purpose or done away with. You can be taken to a suitably distant point, to Terra itself if you wish."

Djana started her cigarette. The taste was wrong. "What about, well, him?"

"Junior Lieutenant Flandry? No great harm need come if the matter is handled efficiently. For the sums involved, one can afford to hire technicians and equipment able to remove recent memories from him without damage to the rest of his personality. He can be left where he will soon be found. The natural assumption will be that he was captured by Merseians and hypnoprobed in a random-pattern search for information."

Rax hunched forward. "Let me make the proposition quite specific," it continued. "If Wayland turns out to be worthless, you simply report to Ammon as ordered. When it is safe, you seek me and tell me the details. I want especially to know as much about Flandry as you can extract from him. For example, has he anything more in mind concerning this mission than earning his bribe? You see, my organization may well have uses of its own for a buyable Navy officer. Since this puts you to no special effort or hazard, your compensation will be one hundred thousand credits."

Plus what I've already got in my purse, she exulted, plus Leon's payment!

"And if the moon is valuable?" she murmured.

"Then you must capture the boat. That should not be difficult. Flandry will be unsuspicious.

Furthermore, our agents will have seen to it that the crates supposed to contain impellers do not. That presents no problem; the storage cave is unguarded."

Djana frowned. "Huh? What for? How can he check out the place if he can't flit around in his spacesuit?"

"It will not be considered your fault if his judgment proves erroneous, for this or any other cause. But he should be able to do well enough; it is not as if this were a xenological expedition or the like. The reason for thus restricting his mobility is that he—young and reckless—will thereby be less likely to undertake things which could expose you, our contact, to danger."

"Well!" Djana chuckled. "Nice of you."

"After Flandry is your prisoner, you will steer the boat through a volume whose coordinates will be given you," Rax finished. "This will bring you within detection range of a ship belonging to us, which will make rendezvous and take you aboard. Your reward will go to a million credits."

"Um-m-m … " Check every angle, girl. The one you don't check is sure to be the one with a steel trap in it. Djana flinched, recalling when certain jaws had punished her for disobedience to an influential person. Rallying, she asked: "Why not just trail the scout?"

"The space vibrations created by an operating hyper-drive are detectable, instantaneously, to a distance of about one light-year," Rax said, patient with her ignorance of technology. "That is what limits communications over any greater reach to physical objects such as letters or couriers. If our vessel can detect where Flandry's is, his can do likewise and he may be expected to take countermeasures."

"I see." Djana sat a while longer, thinking her way forward. At last she looked up and said: "By Jesus, you do tempt me. But I'll be honest, I'm scared. I know damn well I'm being watched, ever since I agreed to do this job, and Leon might take it into his head to give me a narcoquiz. You know?"

"This has also been provided for," Rax pointed. "Behind yonder door is a hypnoprobe with amnesiagenic attachments. I am expert in its use. If you agree to help us for the compensation mentioned, you will be shown the rendezvous coordinates and memorize them. Thereafter your recollection of this night will be driven from your consciousness."

"What?" It was as if a hand closed around Djana's heart. She sagged back into her chair. The cigarette dropped from cold fingers.

"Have no fears," the goblin said. "Do not confuse this with zombie-making. There will be no implanted compulsions, unless you count a posthypnotic suggestion making you want to explore Flandry's mind and persuade him to show you how to operate the boat. You will simply awaken tomorrow in a somewhat disorganized state, which will soon pass except that you cannot remember what happened after you arrived here. The suggestion will indicate a night involving drugs, and the money in your purse will indicate the night was not wasted. I doubt you will worry long about the matter, especially since you are soon heading into space."

"I—well—I don't touch the heavy drugs, Rax—"

"Perhaps your client spiked a drink. To continue: Your latent memories will be buried past the reach of any mere narcoquiz. Two alternative situations will restimulate them. One will be an interview where Flandry has told Ammon Wayland is worthless. The other will be his telling you, on the scene, that it is valuable. In either case, full knowledge will return to your awareness and you can take appropriate action."

Djana shook her head. "I've been … brain-channeled … brain-burned—no," she choked. Every detail in the room, a checkerboard pattern on a lounger, a moving wrinkle on Rax's face, the panels of the inner door, stood before her with nightmare sharpness. "No, I won't."

"I do not speak of slave conditioning," the other said. "That would make you too inflexible. Besides, it takes longer than the hour or so we dare spend. I speak of a voluntary bargain with us which includes your submitting to a harmless cue-recall amnesia."

Djana rose. The knees shook beneath her. "You, you, you could make a mistake. No. I'm going. Let me out." She reached into her purse.

She was too late. The slugthrower had appeared. She stared down its muzzle, "If you do not cooperate tonight," Rax told her, "you are dead. Therefore, why not give yourself a chance to win a million credits? They can buy you liberation from what you are."