Poul Anderson - The Long Way Home

A score of men, black-clad, armed, and silent, surrounded them. Chanthavar cast about the main exit. There was something of the questing hound over him—the aesthete, the hedonist, the casual philosopher, were blotted up in the hunter of men. A light glowed on the machine. “A trail, all right,” he muttered. “If only it doesn’t get cold too fast-Damn it, why must they ventilate the lowers so well?” He set off at a rapid jog trot, his men keeping an easy pace. The milling crowds shrank away.

Langley was too bewildered to think. This was happening faster than he could follow, and the drugs of Dreamhouse were still in his blood, making the world unreal. Bob, Jim, now the great darkness had snatched them too, and would he ever see them again?

Why?

Down a drop-shaft, falling like autumn leaves, Chanthavar testing each exit as he passed it. The unceasing roar of machines grew louder, more frantic. Langley shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to master himself. It was like a dream, he was carried wildlessly along between phantoms in black, and—

He had to get away. He had to get off by himself, think in peace; it was an obsession now, driving everything else out of his head, he was in a nightmare and he wanted to wake up. Sweat was clammy on his skin.

The light flashed, feebly. “This way!” Chanthavar swung out of a portal. “Trail’s weakening, but maybe—”

The guards pressed after him. Langley hung back, dropped farther, and stepped out at the next level down.

It was an evil section, dim-lit and dingy, the streets almost deserted. Closed doors lined the walls, litter blew about under his feet, the stamping and grinding of machines filled his universe. He walked fast, turning several corners, trying to hide.

Slowly, his brain cleared. An old man in dirty garments sat cross-legged beside a door, watching him out of filmy eyes. A small group of grimed children played some game under the white glare of a fluorolamp in the street ceiling. A sleazy woman slunk close to him, flashing bad teeth in a mechanical smile, and fell behind. A tall young man, ragged and unshaven, leaned against the wall and followed his movements with listless eyes. This was the slum, the oldest section, poor and neglected, last refuge of failure; this was where those whom the fierce life of the upper tiers had broken fled, to drag out lives of no importance to the Technon. Under the noise of mills and furnaces, it was very quiet.

Langley stopped, breathing hard. A furtive hand groped from a narrow passage, feeling after the purse at his belt. He slapped, and the child’s bare feet pattered away into darkness.

Fool thing to do, he thought. I could be murdered for my cash. Let’s find us a cop and get out of here, son .

He walked on down the street. A legless beggar whined at him, but he didn’t dare show his money. New legs could have been grown, but that was a costly thing. Well behind, a tattered pair followed him. Where was a policeman? Didn’t anyone care what happened down here?

A huge shape came around a corner. It had four legs, a torso with arms, a nonhuman head. Langley hailed it. “Which is the way out? Where’s the nearest shaft going up? I’m lost.”

The alien looked blankly at him and went on. No spikka da Inglees . Etie Town, the section reserved for visitors of other races, was somewhere around here. That might be safe, though most of the compartments would be sealed off, their interiors poisonous to him. Langley went the way the stranger had come. His followers shortened the distance between.

Music thumped and wailed from an open door. There was a bar, a crowd, but not the sort where he could look for help. As the final drug-mists cleared, Langley realized that he might be in a very tight fix.

Two men stepped out of a passage. They were husky, well dressed for Commoners. One of them bowed. “Can I do you a service, sir?”

Langley halted, feeling the coldness of his own sweat. “Yes,” he said thickly. “Yes, thanks. How do I get out of this section?”

“A stranger, sir?” They fell in, one on either side. “We’ll conduct you. Right this way.”

Too obliging! “What are you doing down here?” snapped Langley.

“Just looking around, sir.”

The speech was too cultivated, too polite. These aren’t Commoners any more than I am! “Never mind. I... I don’t want to bother you. Just point me right.”

“Oh, no, sir. That would be dangerous. This is not a good area to be alone in.” A large hand fell on his arm.

“No!” Langley stopped dead.

“We must insist, I’m afraid.” An expert shove, and he was being half dragged. “You’ll be all right, sir, just relax, no harm.”

The tall shape of a slave policeman hove into view.

Langley’s breath rattled in his throat. “Let me go,” he said. “Let me go, or—”

Fingers closed on his neck, quite unobtrusively, but he gasped with the pain. When he had recovered himself, the policeman was out of sight again.

Numbly, he followed. The portal of a grav-shaft loomed before him. They tracked me, he thought bitterly. Of course they did. I don’t know how stupid a man can get, but I’ve been trying hard tonight. And the price of this stupidity is apt to be total!

Three men appeared, almost out of nowhere. They wore the gray robes of the Society. “Ah,” said one, “you found him. Thank you.”

“What’s this?” Langley’s companions recoiled. “Who’re you? What d’you want?”

“We wish to see the good captain home,” answered one of the newcomers. His neatly bearded face smiled, a gun jumped into his hand.

“That’s illegal... that weapon—”

“Possibly. But you’ll be very dead if you don’t- That’s better. Just come with us, captain, if you please.”

Langley entered the shaft between his new captors. There didn’t seem to be much choice.

The strangers did not speak, but hurried him along. They seemed to know all the empty byways, their progress upwards was roundabout but fast and hardly another face was seen en route. Langley tried to relax, feeling himself swept along a dark and resistless tide.

Upper town again, shining pinnacles and loops of diamond light against the stars. The air was warm and sweet in his lungs, he wondered how much longer he would breathe it. Not far from the shaft exit, a massive octagonal tower reared out of the general complex, its architecture foreign to the slim soaring exuberance which was Technate work. A nimbus of radiance hung over its peak, with letters of flame running through it to spell out COMMERCIAL SOCIETY. Stepping onto a bridgeway, the four were borne up toward a flange near its middle.

As they got off onto the ledge, a small black aircraft landed noiselessly beside them. A voice came from it, amplified till it boomed through the humming quiet: “Do not move farther. This is the police.”

Police! Langley’s knees felt suddenly watery. He might have known—Chanthavar would not leave this place unwatched, he had sent an alarm when the spaceman was found missing, the organization was efficient, and now he was saved!

The three traders stood immobile, their faces like wood.—A door dilated, and another man stepped from the building as five black-clad slaves and one Ministerial officer got out of the boat. It was Goltan Valti. He waited with the others, rubbing his hands together in a nervous washing motion.

The officer bowed slightly. “Good evening, sir. I am pleased to see you have found the captain. You are to be commended.”

“Thank you, my lord,” bowed Valti. His voice was shrill, almost piping, and he blew out his fat cheeks and bobbed his shaggy head obsequiously. “It is kind of you to come, but your assistance is not required.”