Andre Norton - Derelict For Trade

Ali had begun to laugh, but he stopped, a strange look in his eyes.

No one spoke for a time. When the silence began to seem protracted the captain’s quiet voice was heard. "Ali?"

"I have to admit, I had everything figured out except what kind of weapon Dane might take," Ali admitted. "But I think. I have it."

"We can’t get our hands on any illegal weapons now," Steen said, his impatience making him sarcastic. "The duel is in less than an hour!"

"Won’t have to, if I’m right," Ali said.

Van Ryke frowned. "This isn’t a game, my young friend," he murmured. "Dane has to go out there and face whatever weapon this fellow brings. He’ll be in heavy grav against someone who is bigger, stronger, and masses three times what he does, and has been trained in fighting since birth. I’d say he’s facing a terrible risk."

"He faces that risk no matter what," Ali said. "We’ve been forced into that much of a situation. But think of this: that Shver is not a Golm, has never been near us before. He caused the duel in the most neutral manner he could—"

"He has to face Dane armed with something deadly, or he’s declared a coward and an outcast," Rip said.

Ali nodded. "Right. So Dane has a choice. Either he’s more deadly, or." He looked up. "Steen—you and Dane and I need to have a talk."

A piercing whistle on five distinct notes echoed through the dim tunnels of the Spin Axis.

The sound had become very familiar to Rael Cofort. She looked over at Jasper Weeks, who was already packing up their gear.

Rael’s heart thumped warningly but her hands stayed still as she used her thin immune-probe to restimulate the ill-healed muscle tissue of the

man lying against the wall before her.

As soon as she was done Jasper dropped a healpak over the reddened flesh, now responding again to the memory, deep in bone and sinew, of the original injury. Healing would go to completion. The patient twisted slightly and pushed off with his feet; moments later he was gone, diving through a narrow crack in an old lock.

"Come! Come!" Tooe shrilled, grabbing the gear from Jasper’s hands.

They could hear the sounds of the Monitors clearly now; Rael’s heart was pounding as she rebounded after Tooe, shooting through a maze of abandoned air ducts in which ghostly fronds of ancient dust fluttered lazily.

When they were safely away, Jasper veered close to Rael. "Fifth one," he muttered. "I wish I knew what was going on."

"What’s going on is easy," Rael replied as they reached a dim chamber full of immense, flaccid sacks on the walls, dim and bulky in the reddish light—Rael was irresistibly reminded of enormous fungus. In this case, she thought, fungus marked with the sigil of chemhazard. Whatever had leaked out of them was long dissipated.

Then they dived down into what seemed to be a dark well. Blackness closed around them and Rael flew along with her hands out. They bumped into a corner, another, and then saw light—and her orientation snapped into a new alignment: now she was ascending toward the light. "The Monitors are out in full force," she continued, now that she could see Jasper. "What we don’t know is why."

They stopped at a nexus obviously well known to Tooe, and waited until, ever so faintly, a signal was heard. Tooe whistled back. After a long space of two or three mintues another whistle came, equally faint.

Rael did not know the meaning of these particular signals, but that one five-note sequence would probably feature in nightmares to come, she thought grimly as once again they started off. Flee! Monitors coming !

The signals being sent back and forth now were most likely the regroup points. Tooe led them on a wild flight through the endless ducts and abandoned chambers; Rael knew she could have been led through the

same area again and again and not notice, the whole was so alien to her.

But at last they stopped, this time in a long, thin room with what looked like a threshing machine at one end. Rael looked at it, and at the bare walls leading to it, and was glad that no one could turn on the grav and force them into it.

Then she forgot it as, once again, patients of all ages and races began drifting in. She and Jasper unpacked their kit with practiced speed, and with no words wasted motioned the first person to come forward.

Before, they had gotten well through at least a few patients before the alarm came. This time, though, Rael was just about to activate her scanner when the first two high notes sounded, faint and far off, but no less frightening for that: all around them people stiffened, alert, then bounced off the nearest surface and zoomed away through an opening.

The alarm came again, clearer, now the room was empty; it was a five-note series, but different.

Tooe turned glowing yellow eyes to Rael. "Deathguard!" Her voice was shrill with strain. She whirled about, then froze again, her crest flat and quivering.

Another high note sounded, so high Rael knew what she had suspected before, that the Spinner people communicated in the ultrasonic range.

"Truce," Tooe said. "Conference—"

"What does that mean?" Rael asked, as Jasper once again began packing the gear.

"Tooe not know, me. All those Monitors—Deathguard blame us, maybe. Monitors look for us, Monitors look for them, who knows? Maybe they know."

"Do we have to go to this conference?"

Tooe’s pupils went wide and black. "Oh yes." She nodded vigorously enough to make herself bob gently against the wall at her back. "Or they come to us."

Rael felt the cold grip of fear at the back of her neck. Jasper was looking at her, plainly waiting for her to decide.

"Let’s go," was all she could think of to say.

A long, crazy journey later, Rael Cofort floated, hands loose at her sides, behind Tooe and Momo. Jasper was just above her, one hand hovering near the sleeprod at his belt, though his pale face was mild and polite as always.

The neutral place was brightly lit and bare, affording nowhere to hide for those with treachery in mind. The air was warm and redolent of a faint metallic tang, and Rael felt more than heard a deep, ambient hum.

Positioned around the circumference of the chamber were four clumps of people, all poised near a flat surface in wary readiness for action.

Rael half-listened to the steady rise and fall of voices. Nunku and two other Spinner gang leaders spoke a strange melange of languages that she couldn’t make out at all. They all three faced the black shrouded figures against one wall; as yet none of these had spoken.

The followers of the Spinner gangs kept absolute silence, including Tooe and Momo, so Rael and Jasper were also quiet.

She was just as glad of the chance to watch, to reassess. She moved slightly, partly to get a clearer view and partly to ease her aching neck—and saw one of the sinister dark-clad beings across the room flick a glance at her from inimical-seeming eyes. She kept her hands wide, palms out, in the universal gesture of goodwill.

Working in null gee was just as tiring as laboring in gravity, she realized as she watched the conversation, for one had to constantly brace oneself against the reaction of one’s efforts; one couldn’t rely on weight to absorb the energy of push and press—and one’s mass had very different meaning here.

Despite all those interruptions a greater crowd than the first time had appeared, causing her a strange emotional response midway between exhilaration and despair, the latter because she knew she could not help them all. Her supplies would give out, or she would.

A change in the speakers’ postures broke her thoughts. The three facing the black-shrouded figure were stiff, still, wary; a tense silence fell, and then a deep Shver voice growled something from inside the black cowl.