Robert Silverberg - The Planet Killers

Puffing for breath, Gardner turned back to face the visi-screen. Leopold, who had watched the entire encounter, peered out of the screen, eyes wide in the puzzled oval face.

“That was Archer, wasn’t it?” Leopold asked. “What in blazes is happening?”

“I don’t know,” said Gardner, nursing bruised knuckles. He glanced at the unconscious Archer. “But he made me take the doorseal down, and then he maneuvered me into dictating what amounted to a full confession of… of the Company’s trade secrets. And then when yo.u called he tried a quick getaway. I’m going to look through his suitcase. Suppose you call me back in about ten minutes, eh?”

Gardner,broke the contact. He didn’t think it would be very wise to have the contents of Archer’s suitcase sent out over public beam.

Archer was still unconscious. Good, Gardner thought, Working hastily, he slit the suitcase open with a penknife and looked inside.

Much clothing. A small package containing the sonic generator. And…

Gardner dragged a little device out from where it nestled between two layers of shirts, and peered grimly at it. A pocket recorder! One of those devilish little subminiaturized devices that could record for an hour on a single reel, one that picked up a good clear signal even when hidden in a suitcase.

Gardner depressed a stud and heard a tinny simulacrum of his own voice say, “ Okay. Here’s your summary: we’ve been sent here as a team of five with the assignment of destroying Lurion. It takes five of us to do it, each equipped with a sonic generator that…”

Smiling coldly, he set the tape back to its beginning and

pressed the erase stud. Checking again, he found that the tape was now blank. He tossed the little recorder down on the bed.

Then he drew a glass of cold water and tossed it in Archer’s face. The man on the floor shook his head, sputtered, coughed, and opened his eyes.

Gardner knelt next to him. “I’ve just played back that tape you made,” he said. “Who are you working for, Archer?”

Archer looked dazed. His head lolled to one side. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gardner.”

“Don’t bluster your way clear. It won’t do you any good. Who paid you to wiggle a confession out of me?”

“Don’t be crazy. First you attack me like a wild man, then you insinuate—”

Gardner slapped him. The big man’s eyes blazed. “I suppose you were making that tape for yourself as a souvenir of this mission!”

Archer made no reply. After a moment’s silence, Gardner said, “If you’re really a Security man, you know that we don’t draw the line at torture if we think the means is justified by the end. I’d hate to have to act uncivilized, Archer, but—”

Archer grinned confidently. “You wouldn’t torture me. I’ve seen your psych report. You’re soft inside, Gardner. You try to talk tough, but your mind is just a mass of doubts and contradictions and softbellied evasions—”

Gardner slapped him again, to shut him up. “Who’s paying you?”

“No one, yet,” Archer said quietly. “But I imagine the Confederacy of Rim Stars will be interested in the way Earth lives up to its high ethical pronouncements. Don’t you think so?”

And Archer rose abruptly from his sitting position. His foot lashed out at the squatting Gardner. The heavy boot caught Gardner square in the chest and he toppled over, more stunned with surprise than injured. The attack had been wholly unexpected.

As Gardner came dizzily to a half-sitting position, he saw

the other man open the door—this time Archer had no trouble with the latch—and race out into the hallway. Gardner gasped for breath, feeling a dull throbbing under his breastbone where Archer had kicked him. He forced himself up.

Gardner made his way into the corridor, pausing only to lock his door. Even in emergency, it was’wrong to leave the room open to any plunderer who might choose this moment to come along.

By the time Gardner had finished locking up, Archer had disappeared into the lift-shaft. Cursing, Gardner streaked down the hallway just in time to see the lift begin to lower itself groundward. Gardner pounded impotently on the door, to no avail.

Other residents of the hotel, their early-evening slumbers disturbed by the fighting and chasing about, now began to open their doors and give vent to their complaints, loudly and in a variety of languages. Gardner ignored their protests. There was still a chance he might catch the fugitive Archer, after all.

Remembering how slowly the lift-shaft operated, Gardner made for the stairs. The staircase was poorly lit, a deepening spiral illuminated only by a sputtering glowlamp near each landing. Gripping the bannister tightly, Gardner sprang down_ two and three steps at a bound, half expecting to come fetching up against the curved Lurioni blade of some lurking looter crouching spiderlike on the staircase, waiting for just such an occurrence.

But he reached the lobby unhindered. The desk clerk looked up, blinking.

“Did an Earthman just leave the lift-shaft?” Gardner demanded.

“Why… yes… that is…”

Gardner did not pause for details. Negotiating the steps of the hotel in one sprawling leap, he landed upright on the street and looked around.

It was late, only an hour till midnight, and the streets were far from crowded. That made it that much harder for

Archer to escape. Gardner caught sight of the fleeing spy, half a block away, and gave pursuit.

Archer moved swiftly, but Gardner had the benefit of the same kind of training, and kept pace. That was all, though; the half-block gap between them remained constant, and no expense of effort on Gardner’s part seemed to close it. Archer turned down a twisting side street; Gardner followed. But at any moment the fugitive might think to duck into one of the numerous doorways, and then he could lose himself forever.

Obviously Archer was panicking, or he would have evaded Gardner minutes ago. Gardner pressed forward dodging round the few passersby.

But there seemed no hope of catching him—unless there were help.

On a sudden impulse, Gardner shouted, “That man’s a thief! Stop him! Stop that thief!”

A massive Lurioni, rounding the corner in front of Archer, heard the outcry and looked quizzically at the approaching man. Gardner waved frantically and called, “Yes, that’s himl Catch the thief!”

The Lurioni extended one broad hand and Archer ran squarely into it. The Earthman rebounded, turned, saw Gardner gaining on him.

Gardner watched Archer fumble in his pocket, as if hoping to bluff the Lurioni with a weapon. The alien’s reaction was swift and decisive. Producing the short, wickedly curved Lurioni blade that no free citizen seemed to be without, the tall being stepped forward, passed the knife with blinding rapidity from one hand to the other several times, and deftly plunged it into Archer’s breast.

Gardner stopped short, ten feet away, panting for breath. The Lurioni was smiling benignly.

“The thief has been stopped.”

“You killed him!”

“What better way to stop a thief?”

Archer was on his knees, now, writhing in his last agonies. His face was a blank mask of pain; his hands clutched at the hilt of the blade, but his efforts to remove it only drove it in deeper. He had been slashed from belly to breastbone. Great gouts of blood welled out, trickling across the pavement into the gutter. Already, smelling the blood, inquisitive dog-like creatures were beginning to gather.

The dying man muttered something incoherent, stretched his limbs taut, held the spreadeagle for a moment, and went limp.

“He is dead,” the Lurioni said calmly. “I have undertaken blood-guilt for you, Earthman.”