Edgar Burroughs - Beyond The Farthest Star

"What do you want?" he demanded gruffly.

"I am Morga Sagra," replied my companion, "and this is Korvan Don."

"Come in," said the man; "I've been expecting you. Let me see your credentials."

Sagra handed him a perfectly blank piece of paper. I was standing near the man, and when he opened it up, I saw that there was nothing on it.

"Sit down," said the man, and then he went to a desk; and, seating himself there, took what appeared to be a pocket flashlight from one of the drawers and shone its light upon the paper.

The light must have made writing on the paper visible for I could see him passing it back and forth and that his eyes followed it. Presently he got up and handed the paper back to Sagra.

"You will remain here," he said, "while I go and complete arrangements." Then he left us.

"Do you know that fellow's name?" I asked Sagra.

"Yes," she said.

"What is it? Why didn't you introduce me?"

"His name is none of your business," said Sagra. "You must learn not to ask questions, Korvan Don; however, just to satisfy your curiosity, I don't mind telling you that his name is Gompth."

"What a beautiful name," I said, "but as far as I am concerned you needn't have told me what it was. His name doesn't interest me any more than his face."

"Don't say things like that," snapped Sagra. "He is a very important person, and it is not wise to make unpleasant remarks about important persons. Now be sure not to let him know that you know his name, for that is not the name that he goes by here."

I was getting my introduction to the fear and suspicion which hangs like a pall over everything Kaparan. I had said that I did not care whether I knew this man's name or not, for how could I know that one day I should be very glad that I did know it.

In about an hour, Gompth returned. He had brought with him civilian clothing such as is worn by the inhabitants of Karis, and after we had changed into it, he drove us out into the country, where he turned an old Karisan plane over to us.

It was not until Sagra and I were in the plane that he gave us our final instructions, and handed us credentials. He directed us to fly to a city called Pud, on the continent of Auris, and report to a man with the poetic name of Frink.

"What will become of my plane?" I asked him.

"What difference does it make to you?" he demanded.

"It makes a great deal of difference to me," I snapped, for I was getting fed up with all this rudeness and secrecy. "I expect that, unquestionably, I shall be sent on missions to Unis; and if I am, I shall need my plane and my uniform."

He eyed me suspiciously before he replied. "How could you ever return to Unis without being destroyed as a traitor?" he asked.

"Because I used my head before I left Orvis," I replied; "I arranged to be sent out on reconnaissance flight, and I can think of a hundred excuses to explain even a long absence."

"If you ever need your plane or your uniform," he said, "they will be here when you return."

I breathed more freely when we rose into the clear air and left Mr. Gompth behind. His was a most depressing personality. His conversation gave the impression that he was snapping at you like an ill-natured dog, and not once while we were with him had he smiled. I wondered if all the Kapars were like that.

In Pud we found Frink by the same devious means that we had arrived at the house of Gompth, only here there was a slight difference; we were allowed to call Frink by name, because Frink was not his name.

We stayed overnight in Pud; and in the morning, Frink gave us Kapar clothes, and later furnished us with a Kapar plane, a very excellent plane too; and for that I was glad, as I had not been very happy crossing the Voldan Ocean from Karis to Auris in the ancient crate that Gompth had furnished us. Before us lay a flight of some two thousand miles across the Mandan Ocean from Auris to Kapara.

The crossing was monotonous and uneventful, but after we got over Kapara, and were winging toward Ergos, we sighted a squadron of Unisan planes that were doubtless on reconnaissance. I tuned away in an effort to avoid them, but they took after us.

The ship I was piloting was a very swift scouting plane lightly armed. There was a bow gun which I could operate and one gun in an after cockpit, which Morga Sagra could not have operated even had I wished her to. I had no intention of firing on an Unisan plane under any circumstances, and so I turned and ran.

They chased me out across the Mandan Ocean for nearly a thousand miles before they gave up and turned back. I followed, keeping just within sight of them, until they bore to the south with the evident intention of passing around the southern end of the continent of Epris; then I opened the throttle wide and streaked for Ergos.

When we ran down a ramp into the city, we were immediately surrounded by men in green uniforms; and an officer gruffly demanded our credentials. I told him that our instructions were to hand them to Gurrul and then he bundled us into a car, and we were driven off, surrounded by green-clad members of the Zabo, the secret police of Kapara.

Ergos is a large city, sprawling around deep underground. We passed first through a considerable district in which there were indications of the direst poverty.

The buildings were principally flimsy shelters and sometimes only holes in the ground, into which people scurried when they saw the green uniforms of the Zabo. But presently we came to more substantial buildings, which were all identical except in the matter of size. There was not the slightest indication of ornamentation on any of them. The ride was most uninteresting, just one monotonous mile after another until we approached the centre of the city where the buildings suddenly became rococo in their ornateness.

The car stopped before one of the more hideous these buildings, a multi-coloured atrocity, the facade of which was covered with carved figures and designs.

We were hustled out of the car and into the building, and a moment later we were ushered into the office of Gurrul, Chief of the Zabo, the most feared man in all Kapara.

GURRUL WAS A GROSS MAN with a cruel mouth and close-set eyes. He scrutinized us in silence for a full minute, as though he were trying to read our in-most thoughts. He was really fixing in his mind every detail of our appearance, and he would know us again whenever or wherever he saw us and only the cleverest of disguises could deceive him. It is said of him that Gurrul knows a million people thus, but that seems to me like an exaggeration.

He took our credentials and examined them carefully; then he asked for the military secrets I had brought from Orvis, and when I turned them over to him he glanced through them hurriedly, giving no indication of any great interest in them.

"You flew for the enemy?" he demanded of me.

"Yes," I replied.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I knew no other country than Unis," I explained.

"Why did you turn against the country of your birth?" he asked.

"Unis is not the country of my birth."

"Where were you born?"

"On another planet in another solar system millions of miles from here."

He scowled at me fiercely and pounded his desk until everything on it danced. "You dare stand there and tell me such a lie, you fool!" he cried; "you, a filthy Unisan, dare insult my intelligence thus. Possibly you have never heard of Gurrul, you idiot. If you had, you would have cut your own throat before you came to him with such a story."

"Most high," said Morga Sagra timidly, "I believe that he speaks the truth-everyone in Orvis believes him."

He wheeled on her angrily. "Who told you to speak?" he snapped.

"Forgive me, most high," she said. She was trembling all over, and I was afraid that her knees were going to give away beneath her.