Jack Vance - The Five Gold Bands

Paddy heaved a great sigh, rumpled his black hair. "No, no-it's no good. You go off, wait for me in the ship. I'm going now to find that hulking big Badau and I'll take that book away from him. I'll get it, and no mistake.

"But you be off, so they won't catch both of us. Besides," and he looked narrowly toward the stage manager, "I don't think they're planning anything good for you this night."

"Paddy," said Fay, "we'll both go. And the Badau will find nothing in the book. I got there first and I got the Son's memorandum. It's in my shoe right now. The sooner we're back on our ship the better."

Paddy awoke from deep sleep to find the ship floating free. He peered out a bull's-eye. Space surrounded them like a vast pool of clear water. Astem glittered Scheat, to one side hung yellow Alpheratz, and ahead down a foreshortened line ran the stars of Andromeda's body-Adhil the train. Mirach the loins, Almach the shoulder.

Paddy unzipped the elastic sheet, clambered out, stepped into the shower, stripped, turned on the mist. The foam searched his pores, slushed out oil, dust, perspiration. A blast of warm air dried him.

He dressed, stepped up to the bridge deck, where he found Fay bending over the chart table, her dark hair tousled, the line of her profile as clean and delicate as a mathematical curve.

Paddy scowled. Fay was wearing her white blouse, dark green slacks and sandals and seemed very calm and matter-of-fact. To his mind's eye came the picture of the near-naked dancer in the fantastic gilt headdress. He saw the motion of her cream-colored body. The clench of muscles, the abandoned tilt of her head. And this was the same girl.

Fay looked up into his eyes and, as if divining his thoughts, smiled faintly, maddeningly.

Paddy maintained an injured silence, as if somehow Fay had cheated him. Fay, for motives of her own, did nothing to soothe him but turned back to the sheet of metal she had taken from the Badau book. After a minute she leaned back, handed it to Paddy.

It was minutely engraved in the Badaic block. The first paragraph described the space-drive tube, giving optimum dimensions, composition, the tri-axial equations for its inner and outer surfaces.

The second paragraph specified the type of field-coils found to be most efficient. Then followed two columns of five-digit numbers, three to a column, which Paddy-remembering the secret room at Akhabats he had broken into-knew to be field-strength settings.

Fay said, "I opened the Pherasic can, looked into it also. It had a metal sheet something like that one-describing the tube-but instead of detailing the coils it prescribed their spacing."

Paddy nodded. "Duplication of information."

"We've got two of these things, said Fay seriously, "and it's uncomfortable carrying them around with us."

"I've been thinking the same thing," said Paddy. "And since we can't get in to Earth- Well, let's see. Delta Frianguli is pretty handy and there's an uninhabited planet."

The planet was dead and dull as a clinker, showing a reticulated surface of black plains and random flows of cratered scoria three miles high, ten miles wide.

Paddy made an abrupt gesture. "The problem is not so much hiding our loot as finding it again ourselves."

"It's a big planet," said Fay dubiously. "One spot looks like another."

"It's a misfit among planets," declared Paddy. "A dirty outcast, shunned by polite society-all ragged and grimy and patched. Sure, I'd hate to be afoot down there in the waste."

"There," said Fay. "There's a landmark-that pillar or volcanic neck or whatever it is."

They settled to the black sand of the plain and it creaked harshly under the ship. The pillar rose high above them.

"Look at the face it makes." Paddy pointed out fancied features in the rock.

"Like an angry dragon or a gorgon."

" Angry Dragon Peak -that's its name," said Paddy. "And now there must be a cubbyhole somewhere near."

In their space-suits they crossed the level space, the black sand crunching and squeaking underfoot, climbed the tumble of rock and found a fissure at the base of the monolith.

"Now," said Fay, "somehow we've got to locate Angry Dragon Peak on the planet. We could cruise months around these badlands looking for it."

"Here's how we'll find it," said Paddy. "We'll take a head bubble from one of the spare space-suits, and leave it here- with the ear-phone pressed up against the mouthpiece, and the switch on 'Converse.' Next time we come we'll send out a message and the receiver will pick it up and bounce it back to us, and… We'll go down along the direction."

Behind them lay the dead planet of Delta Trianguli. Paddy looked out ahead. "Adhil's next, then Loristan."

He picked up the key, scrutinized the letters on it. RXBM NON LANG SON.

He chewed his lip. "Now this is a different problem. On Alpheratz A and on Badau we at least knew which she been to buy at. But this time we have a key, and there's a million doors on Loristan, not to mention boxes, drawers, lockers, padlocks, jam cupboards-"

Fay said without raising her head, "It's not that difficult"

"No? And why not, pray?"

"Loristan is banker, broker, financier to the Langtry worlds. The Loristan Bank regulates currency for the entire galaxy and there's nothing like its deposit boxes for safety. They're so safe that not even the Sons of Langtry themselves could break into a box. And that's what that key is-a safe-deposit key."

"And why is this safe-deposit system so safe?" asked Paddy.

Fay leaned back against the bench. "First the central vault is encased in eight inches of durible and guarded by explosive mines. Then comes a layer of molten iron, then more durible and more insulation, then the vault. Second, the goods are banked mechanically, without human handling or knowledge.

"You go to the bank, buy a box, put in your valuables, take the key. Then you code the box with whatever arrangement of letters you wish and drop it in a chute. The machine carries it away, stacks it, and nobody knows where it is or which or whose is whose. The only records are in a big gelatine brain.

"To get your box, you go to any branch, punch your code on the buttons, insert your key and the combination brings you your box. Neither the key alone nor the code alone have any effect. The box holder is doubly protected against theft.

"If he loses his key or forgets the code then he must wait for the ten-year clearing, when all boxes which have laid undisturbed for ten years are automatically ejected."

"So," said Paddy, "all we do is drop down to Loristan, use the key and take off again?"

"That's all," said Fay. "Unless-"

"Unless what?"

"Listen." She turned on the spacewave. A voice spoke in the Shaul dialect. "All citizens of the cluster be on the lookout for Paddy Blackthorn and the young woman accompanying him, both Earthers. They are desperate criminals. Reward for their apprehension alive is a million marks a year for life, perpetual amnesty for all crimes, the freedom of the universe and the rank of Langtry Lord."

"They really want us," said Fay.

"Shh- listen!" And they heard the Shaul describe them in precise detail.

Another voice began to repeat the same message in Koton. Fay turned off the set.

"We're being hunted as Grover O'Leary hunted the white-eyed stag-with tooth, nail and all odd angles."

Fay said, "I tried to make contact with Earth but there's still interference. No doubt the blockade is tighter than ever."

Paddy grunted, "And how about your Earth Agency then, that you train so exhaustively for and evidently serve with your every resource?"

Fay put on her faint smile. "Paddy, do you know I trust only three people in the world? Myself, the chief of the Agency and you? After all the Agents are human. That reward would turn almost anyone's head. And all for a very small whisper."