Jack Vance - The Five Gold Bands

"And is it accurate" Paddy asked skeptically.

"Accurate?" cried Dane. "It's as accurate as the Inter-world Standard that I calibrated it by! Three times I checked each one of the circuits and there's never an offbeat!"

"Good enough and here's your money with a bit of a bonus."

During the afternoon a messenger delivered the prints to the pictures they had made the previous day. None was missing nor were there any deletions.

Evening came with its violent flare of color. Paddy and Fay stacked their equipment on the dilapidated old air-boat, rose over Aevelye, took off for Fumighast Ventrole.

Over the mouth of the hole the guard ship pulled up alongside.

The same corporal saluted them, glancing at their makeshift equipment with contemptuous amusement.

"What is it now? More pictures? It's dark."

"We'd like to get some night shots," said Fay. "To get the effect of the lighting and the fluorescence of the rocks. We've brought along an ultra-violet projector."

"So that's why you had that thing built!" said the corporal. He shrugged. "Go to it."

They dropped away from him into the chasm. " 'So that's why you had that thing built,' " Paddy mimicked in a girlish falsetto. "Strange he didn't ask when our wedding was to be-they seem so interested in all our doings."

They landed on the terrace in front of the house and the darkness, faintly luminescent, was like the fog of dreams.

Fay sighed. "If I weren't so scared and nervous I'd be in love with the place."

"Maybe we'll come here on our honeymoon," said Paddy. She peered at him through the darkness to see whether or not he was serious.

A voice at their elbow said, "Good evening." It was the Shaul major-domo. "More pictures?"

"More pictures is right," said Paddy. "We'd like some shots of you making the beds and maybe dumping the garbage down the chute or maybe putting away the famous silver."

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that is impossible."

"In that case, with your permission we'll just infest the outer grounds."

"My permission has not been sought," replied the major-domo with a soft silken edge to his voice. "The orders to throw the grounds open to anyone who chose to drop in came from Aevelye."

Paddy grinned. "You and I now-we'd made a good pair on the stage."

The major-domo's cowl vibrated rapidly. He turned and walked off.

For an hour they took pictures of the villa and the silent garden, using a variety of ultra-violet frequencies. At last they worked their way around to the back terrace.

Paddy turned the projector against the back wall. It fluoresced beautifully in striking patterns of red, fiery yellow, gold, lemon-white. He played frequencies at random over the wall while Fay took pictures.

"Now, Paddy," whispered Fay. "The four."

Paddy set the dials. "Got the number of your films?"

"Yes. Three hundred six through three hundred nine, inclusive."

For a flickering instant Paddy pressed all four switches at once and in that instant the random glowings, lines and loops in the significant square coalesced to form lines of legible characters. They even showed the same pattern as had the other data sheets-two preliminary paragraphs and two columns of figures.

"That's it," said Paddy. "Now-one at a time."

Using each frequency separately, they made four photographs.

"We'll make a few more," said Fay, "and then we'll go."

"Wonder of wonders," said Paddy. "I think we've got it."

When at last they rose above Fumighast Ventrole the guardship as before pulled up alongside and the captain requested the camera, the film pack and the ultra-violet projector.

"If the censor finds nothing wrong," he told them, "you'll have everything back tomorrow." Paddy and Fay flew back to their ship.

Again during the morning Fay noted information regarding the dead Shaul Son while Paddy, under the pretext of sealing a leak in the waterline, sought through the ship for spy cells without success.

During the early afternoon a messenger brought them their prints. Fay fanned them out swiftly-306-307-308 309. All there, clean and distinct. When superimposed they would spell out the Shaul fifth of the space-drive engineering.

"I'm off to Room Twelve," said Paddy. Trotting across the field to the Terminal Building he found Room 12 and recovered their power-arm and keys.

They filled watertanks, shipped two new energy cartridges. As Almach was dropping for its bath in the flaming evening vapors they took off. Presently Shaul was half of a bright orange globe below.

Paddy sighed. "Fay, I've lost ten pounds. I've-"

"Shhh," said Fay. "We'd better check the ship for buttons and spy cells." In an hour, while Paddy encouraged her, she found two audio buttons disguised as rivets and a spy cell on the knob of a high locker.

"Now," she breathed. "Maybe we can talk-though I still feel jumpy."

Paddy rose to his feet. "And maybe there's time for a little kiss or two."

Fay sighed. "Oh, all right… Now stop it," she gasped. "Stop it, Paddy Blackthorne! You'd never marry a fallen woman and I intend to marry you honest and legal and make you squirm the rest of your life, so you behave yourself- until it's legal."

The boat drifted quietly in the great dark emptiness, as remote from the worlds of life as a soul after death. Paddy and Fay sat at the chart table in the observation dome, watching the far stars.

"It's only now," said Paddy, "with four-fifths of it behind us, that I'm getting the jitters."

Fay smiled wanly. She looked tired. Her eyes glowed with an unhealthy brightness, her skin was transparent, her fingers thin, nervous. "That's the way of anything, Paddy. If you're desperate any gain looks good. But now-"

"When I was chained on that little asteroid," said Paddy, "I could think of nothing finer than making off in that beautiful big-domed boat. Sure, I'd take any risk for it. There was nothing for me to lose. Now it's different. I want to live.

I've something to live for." He looked at her with a glance that was like stroking her hair.

For several minutes they sat in silence. The boat drifted through space at an unknown speed. Perhaps it hung motionless. There was no way of knowing.

Padding stirred. "See it out there-Mirach. It's staring back at us, daring us to come closer."

Fay's hand trembled. She laughed uncertainly. "It does have a funny look. Like one of the Koton eyes."

Paddy said, "Of all the Langtry races I hate only the Kotons."

"Probably because they've deviated the most."

Paddy shrugged. "I wonder. The Kotons and the Shauls resemble normal men the most of any. The Shauls have their skin cowls. The Kotons their saucer eyes."

"It's something beyond their mere appearance. It's their psychology. The Shauls are not too far removed from men. Earthers can understand most of their motives. But the Kotons-they're far far away from any Earthers comprehension. It's as if they were stuff of their own twilight world.

"To speak to one you'd say here was the strangest most unique individual possible-a creature that might take to the wilderness to be alone with his own peculiarities. And then when you see them at one of their shoutings-"

"Or at a public torturing, like the time I was oiler on the Christobel Rocket."

Fay winced. "-then they're all the same and you can think of nothing but the rows and rows and rows of big saucer eyes. That's all you see. Acres of eyes as big as clam-shells. And then you know that they're all the same in their oddness."

"Like a race of crazy people. But no," mused Paddy, "I'd hardly call them mad-"

"It would mean little if you did. They have so few sensibilities in common with the root stock."

"Few? There's not any."

"Oh-there are a few. Curiosity-anger-pride."