Robert Silverberg - Starhaven

“Thanks,” Mantell said abstractedly. He took the package and made his way to the lift tube. The package was bound in a plain plastic wrapper; it was about the size of a book. He frowned, wondering who might be sending him books.

Upstairs he threw the package on the bed, depolarized the window, stared out at Starhaven, stared up at the synthetic sky and at the synthetic sun, and at the synthetic clouds circling under the metal skin.

Starhaven, he thought. Property of Ben Thurdan, Esq., lord and master of a world of fugitives. And Mantell was the hope he had to avoid death.

Mantell tried to picture Starhaven without Thurdan. The entire planet revolved around his whims; he was an absolute monarch, even though an enlightened one. The social system he had evolved here worked— though whether or not it would work with any other man at its helm was a highly debatable point.

And what would happen if Thurdan died? Probably the whole delicate fabric of the Starhaven system would come tumbling in chaotically on itself, ending a unique experiment in political theory. It was easy to foresee a mad scramble for power; the man who grabbed possession of the control tower would rule unchallenged— until another assassin struck him down.

Suddenly Mantell went cold all over. If anybody were to gain control of that tower, it would be John Mantell! His research laboratory was close to the central control room, and it was safe to consider that he would become a close associate of Thurdan during the course of his work.

New, strange ideas occurred to him.

After a while he turned away from the window and glanced at the package lying forgotten on his bed. He snatched it up and held it to his ear. There was no sound of a mechanism within. Cautiously, he opened it.

It had felt like a book, and it was a book—the old-fashioned bound land, not a tape. Inscribed in dark letters on its jacket was its title: A Study of Hydrogen —Breathing Life in the Spica System.

Some land of joke? he wondered. He opened the book to the title page.

A folded slip of paper lay nestling between the flyleaf and the title page. Mantell frowned and drew it out, unfolded it, read it.

A moment later the slip flared heatlessly in his hand, became an ash, and was gone, drawn quickly into the circulating system of the room along with all other molecule-sized fragments of debris that happened to be in the air.

It had been a very interesting message, printed in square anonymous vocotype capitals, standard model. It said:

TO JOHN MANTELL—

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN DISCUSSING THURDAN, VISIT THE CASINO OF MASKS IN THE PLEASURE DOME DURING THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS, BETWEEN THE HOURS OF NINE AND TEN IN THE EVENING. NO DANGER TO YOU.

Three days later, Mantell paid a visit to the Casino of Masks.

The decision cost him three days of agonizing inner conflict. His first reaction to the anonymous note had been one of immediate anger; he did not want any part of any conspiracy against the life of Thurdan, at least not yet.

But then he recalled Myra’s strange words that first night, and started to think of the various possibilities Thurdan’s death might hold for him. He began to consider the idea more seriously.

The book contained no further clues. He made a detailed examination of it and concluded it had simply been a dummy, a vehicle for the message, and he destroyed it rather than risk getting into a situation where he would be forced to explain what he was doing possessing so unlikely a volume. He had no hint of the sender. The wrapping had been utterly anonymous.

He had a week to make up his mind about going to the Casino of Masks.

During the first two days he spent most of his time in his newly outfitted lab, putting himself through an intensified refresher course in defense-screen logistics. It was astonishing how readily the old knowledge sprang brightly into the front of his mind again after so many years. He sketched out a few speculative preliminary functions toward the possible design of Thurdan’s personal defense screen.

Mantell’s sketches were simply trial hypotheses, wild shots in the dark, but it seemed to him that he saw a few stray glimmers of light ahead. It might take months or years of work before anything useful eventuated, but he could perceive a possible line of attack, and that was a big chunk of the battle already won.

During those first days in the laboratory Mantell had little contact with Thurdan and none at all with Myra Butler. When he thought of her it was only as a girl of a dead romance, of a moment’s affair. There was a brief sad ache, nothing more. He hadn’t known her long enough for anything more, and in any event, he had become well conditioned to disappointment in his life.

He buried himself in his work; it was an exciting experience to rediscover techniques and patterns of thought he believed he had forever lost. He met his fellow armament technicians; Harrell, Bryson, Voriloinen, and six or seven others. Most of them were brilliant and wayward eccentrics who had fallen afoul of the law in one fashion or another, and who had fled to Starhaven, where by Thurdan’s wisdom, technicians of all kinds were given a warm and eager welcome.

The technician named Bryson gave Mantell an uneasy moment one day. Bryson was a small man with rounded shoulders and fingers stained permanent ochre by nicotine; he walked with a kind of shuffle. He was in Mantell’s laboratory one morning observing and helping out, and it occurred to Mantell to ask, by way of conversation, where Bryson had acquired his impressive skill in electronics.

Bryson smiled and said, “Why, I used to work at Kling-san Defense Screens, on Earth. Before my trouble, that is, I mean.”

Mantell was holding a packet of junction transistors.

He started violently, dropping them. They scattered everywhere. “ Klingsan, you said?”

Bryson nodded. “You’ve heard of them?”

“I worked there once, too,” Mantell said. “From ’89 to ’93. Then they sacked me.”

“That’s odd,” Bryson said in a curious voice. “I was there from ’91 to ’96, and I thought I knew everyone in the armaments department. I should have known you, then. But I don’t. I don’t remember any Mantell there, not at all. And you don’t look familiar, either. Did you go under the name of Mantell while you were there?”

“Yes.” Puzzled, Mantell shrugged and said, “Hell, that was more than seven years ago. Nobody’s memory is perfect. Anyway, maybe we worked in different departments.”

“Maybe,” Bryson agreed vaguely.

But Mantell felt troubled. He tried to remember a Bryson at Klingsan, and couldn’t. Neither anyone of that name, nor anyone who resembled the little man with the stained fingers. That was odd, because if they had been there at overlapping times they would most certainly have worked in the same department, since they had the same skills.

Something, Mantell thought, is very wrong.

But he pushed it to the back of his mind, storing it back with his fife on Mulciber and his brief few days with Myra and all the other things he wasn’t particularly anxious to think about, and returned to his waiting workbench.

He lost himself once again in his work. Another problem had to be settled. He wrestled with it for a while, and by late afternoon his decision was made. He had to find out. . . .

That night he went to the Casino of Masks.

There were eight separate gambling casinos on the tenth level of the Pleasure Dome, each with its own individual name and its own circle of regular clientele. The casino Myra had taken him to was known as the Crystal Casino, largest and most popular of the group, the casino of widest appeal. Others, farther along the gleaming onyx hallway, were smaller; in some, the stakes ran dangerously high, highly dangerous.