Andre Norton - Derelict For Trade

Rip was immediately completely lost, for the accesses bent and twisted at odd angles. Someone knew where they were going, though.

Finally they came to a halt, and again the scouts used a tiny peek-through to ascertain when the hallway just beyond their hatch was empty. This was in null-gravity territory, which meant people came and went at all hours, which summed up Kanddoyd life. The Shver followed simulated sun cycles when they could, but the Kanddoyds had bred the diurnal rhythms out of their life cycles uncounted generations ago.

When the corridor the scouts had chosen was empty, two of the klinti came forward. Rip saw that they had donned the plain gray coveralls of maintenance personnel. As they slipped out the hole, a third carefully handed them a canister. Puzzled, Rip pushed himself forward; then alarm thumped in his chest when he recognized the glowing hooked orange trigram indicating biohazardous contents.

Tooe closed the hatch almost all the way. From the darkness beyond, the rest of the group crowded around to watch. The two workers stood waiting quietly, one with his clawed fingers on the latch of the biohazard container.

Noises sounded; a group of chattering Kanddoyds appeared around a corner. Rip, peering down at an awkward angle, just barely glimpsed them before one of the workers pushed against the other, let out a yell, and next thing they knew the canister was open and zillions of tiny shapes swarmed out, spiraling into the corridor.

The Kanddoyds screeched like overtuned strings, clacking and whistling in supersonic ranges that brought up goose bumps on Rip’s neck.

One of the workers hooted something in High Kanddoyd, to which the beings responded with total panic.

Soon shrieks echoed back, one of them human: "EVACUATE! APYUI VAMPIRE FLIES!"

Apyui vampire flies? Rip backed away in horror lest any of the black shapes still darting about in the hallway slip through the service hatch still cracked open. Everyone knew about Apyui vampire flies, an insect harmless to the Fifftocs but deadly to every other race. Every space farer knew the terrible story of the Plague of Athero. Just a couple of the flies had gotten aboard a Trader that stopped in Fifftoc space and were inadvertently carried to a human system, where they rapidly bred by feeding through soft human skin. They didn’t just suck blood, they paralyzed their victims first with a potent chemical that spread through the nervous system, making the victim think he was dying by fire. Most victims died by suicide in their efforts to stop the pain; the few who lived were paralyzed for life.

"We’d better—" Rip started nervously.

Tooe’s webbed fingers grabbed his shoulder in a surprisingly strong grip. "Move not! Not Apyui flies. Ekko-tree mites. No harm."

Rip realized what had happened, and drew a shaky breath. "That’s brilliant," he muttered.

"Sneaky, but brilliant," Johan said wryly.

Dane grinned, then tabbed the hatch open and motioned them out. "Building has to be empty by now. Let’s get to it."

"Won’t they seal and gas the place?" Rip asked as they bounded down a hall passing doors above, below, to the sides, always squarely in the middle of walls.

"Gas won’t harm anyone but Jharzhakiu there," Dane said, pointing to a being with two sets of arms, one that ended in claws and the other in tentacles. The claw arms were busy pulling a breathing apparatus over a very weird face. "All we’ll smell is cinnamon," Dane added.

"Here," Tooe said. "Move back."

As she opened the hatch she tossed through it an automated doll with something strapped to its back. Dane sensed a flicker of response. Moving with feral grace, a boneless tentacle of gleaming metal lashed down from above the door and transfixed the doll as it scuttled frantically into the room, adhesive glands holding it firmly to the deck. As Rip watched, there was a bluish electric flash, and he saw a pulse zap back up the tentacle. A moment later a weird hum he hadn’t previously been aware of ceased.

Moving with practiced efficiency, several klinti moved in, teasing out the other traps and stings.

Dane said, "How would Flindyk have time to activate that stuff? The entire building must have been evacuated in half a minute."

"Remote activation," Rip said. "Easy enough to rig, if you’ve plenty of money and power."

At last the klinti indicated it was safe to move. Inside they found the mute evidence of hasty evacuation. Flimsies lay everywhere, chips had been dropped; here and three were floating bubbles from drink tubes that had gotten smashed somehow in the general exodus. There were four live consoles, each with projects suspended. Rip watched Nunku float from each to each, studying the keypads as though there were something to be read there.

He knew he was supposed to be backup muscle in case they were discovered, but he was a navigator by trade, which meant among other things learning computer tech, and he couldn’t take his attention away from her.

Signing to Dane, who was gently guiding wobbling fluid spheres out of their way, he said, "Yell if you need me. I want to watch."

Dane nodded and returned to his chore.

Stotz took up position by the main door, stationing himself just inside at an angle where he could see out but not be immediately seen. Mura made his way to another door and waited there, watching with blank face as the klinti moved about the room picking up chips and flimsies.

No one touched the consoles.

Nunku gestured toward a door cleverly hidden in a fabulous mosaic, and two of the klinti sprang to it. This time they tossed a diaphanous veil

of teased-out Rackney silk, triggering an apparently solid image from its fluorescent fibers with a juiced-up toy holobeamer. The response was more subtle: Dane saw a flicker of motion and the image sheered sideways and disappeared as something snatched the silk from the air. Different klinti moved in; this time clearing it took longer.

Inside was the garden room, just as Rael had described to the crew. Rip gave an appreciative glance at the wealth that had gone into the office’s design. Could a Trade official earn enough to afford this stuff—even a fellow saving for a hundred years?

He shook his head and turned to watch Nunku.

Meanwhile, she had been moving cautiously behind her boobytrap scouts toward a touch console inset into a desk. There were very few keytabs but those were extremely costly porcelain, gold-painted.

Nunku cast a quick glance at Rip, gave him a surprisingly shy smile.

She altered her posture so he could see better as she removed a chip from her tattered clothing and dropped it into a slot. The screen lit up, but only swirled in a fractal chaos that parodied the beauty spinning overhead.

"Mine chip hath released a nofratu," she said in a soft, sibilant voice. "Very dangerous, quite forbidden. There are no inherent constraints on its reproduction."

That voice, the odd accent, like his grandmother’s almost, and her childish moon face above the long stick body made him feel curiously adrift, as if reality had turned inside out and left him stranded in a dreamscape. "There is very little it cannot dissolve," she said as the movement of the patterns onscreen accelerated.

He realized she was happy to explain, that this odd, pitiful person was a born teacher.

Abruptly, the screen cleared to a maze of symbols and glyphs.

"What is that?" he asked, his finger drawn to a particularly complex ideograph.

She grabbed his wrist in a surprisingly strong grasp; he noticed for the first time how large her knuckles and wrist were in proportion to her

fingers and arms. "It is something the varlet Flindyk would most straitly desire thee to touch," she said without heat.

She released him as he pulled his hand back. With an attenuated finger, she touched the screen gently. The pattern folded in on itself, swallowing ranks of data. Rip had the sense of something focusing and wondered how Nunku saw it.