Jack Vance: The Five Gold Bands

"Now," he said, "I have complied exactly with your conditions. Here is your space-boat-we are alone. Take me to the hiding place of the data, I will call my own vessel, you may leave me and go your way in friendship. I have done my part. See to it that you keep good faith."

Paddy looked at Fay, rubbed his nose uneasily. "Well, now, to tell the truth, we'd like to look the ship over. Some of your men-by mistake, I'm saying might be asleep in the bilges or checking stores in the forward locker."

Zhri Khainga nodded. "By all means satisfy yourselves. In the meantime," he turned to Fay, "perhaps you will put your ship on course."

Wordlessly Fay climbed up into the seat, threw the boat into space-drive and the vessel which had brought them from Koto twinkled an enormous distance astern.

Paddy came back. "Nothing," he grumbled. "Not hair nor hide."

Zhri Khainga nodded his head sardonically. "It troubles you that I keep to the terms of the bargain?"

Paddy muttered under his breath. Fay sat looking into the blank outside the port. Suddenly she pulled back the space-drive arm. The boat surged and sang into normal continuum once more.

"Look outside, Paddy," she said. "Around the hull."

"That's it," said Paddy. He pulled an air-suit from the rack, stepped in, zipped up the seam, set the bubble on his head while Zhri Khainga watched without words.

Paddy vanished outside the lock and Fay waited beside the controls, covertly eyeing the Koton, trying to fathom the weft of plot and plan below the dome of the shaven pate.

"I am thinking," said Zhri Khainga, "of great deeds. The wealth of any imagining shall be mine. I will give a quadrant of the planet to the plain of Arma-Geth-it shall be extended.

"Mountains will be leveled, the plain will be floored with black glass. So shall the statues dwell in the opulent silence and there will be my magnificent entity among them. I shall be magnified a thousand times. For all eternity will I tower-mine will be the life-loved pivot of history."

Fay turned, looked out through the port. Where was Sol? That faint star? Perhaps.

Paddy entered the ship. Another figure followed him. In the bubble Fay saw the great-eyed head of a Koton.

"This is what I find strapped to the hull. Do you call that subscribing to our proposals?"

Zhri Khainga sat upright. "Quiet now, little man! Who are you to challenge my wishes? You should be glorying in your fortune, that you give freely what otherwise could be wrung from your lips." He sat back in his chair. "But now- we are committed."

The Koton who had entered the ship with Paddy had not moved from his first position. Zhri Khainga waved his fingers. "Out. Fly through space with your hands. You are not needed."

The Koton hesitated, looked up at Fay, back at the Son of Langtry, slowly turned, let himself out the lock. They saw him push himself away from the ship and drift off alone and hopeless.

"Now," said Zhri Khainga, "are you satisfied? We are alone. To the hiding place. Please be swift. There is much of importance awaiting my pleasure throughout the universe. Note that my gun is at hand, that I shall be alert."

Paddy slowly joined Fay on the control deck. "Go on, Fay. Set the course."

Delta Trianguli shone far and cold to the left. The dull black planet bulked below. Zhri Khainga, at the port, said, "Delta Trianguli Two; am I right?"

"You are," said Paddy shortly.

"And now where?"

"You'll see in due course."

Zhri Khainga wordlessly seated himself once more.

Paddy went to the transmitter, sent out a call on the frequency used in the air-suit head-sets. "Hello, hello."

They listened. Faintly came, "Hello, hello," out of the receiver.

Zhri Khainga moved uneasily. "There are others here?"

"No," said Paddy. "None but us. Did you get the line, Fay?"

"Yes."

The dead face of the planet passed below-plains flat and dull as black velvet, the pocked mesh of mountains, which looked as if they had been dug by monstrous moles. Dead ahead rose an enormous peak.

"There's Angry Dragon," said Fay.

She set the ship down on the plain of black sand. The hum of the generator died, the ship was still.

Paddy said to the still-seated Son of Langtry, "Now listen close and don't think to trick us, for sure you'll never win by it. You might get our lives but you'd never hold the four sheets for your own."

The Koton stared unblinking.

Paddy continued. "I'm going out there, and I'm going for the sheets. They're well hid. You'd never find them."

"I could have a hundred thousand slaves on this spot next week," observed the Koton tonelessly.

Paddy ignored him. "I'll get the sheets. I'll lay them on that bit of black rock out there. Fay will stay here in the ship. When I set them down you'll call your ship, tell them where to come for you, where to pick you up.

"Then you'll get in your air-suit and come toward me and I'll leave the sheets and go to the ship. When we pass each other you'll put down your gun and go on. I'll continue toward the ship and so we'll take our leave. You'll get the sheets and in a day or so your ship will be here to take you home. Is that agreeable?"

Zhri Khuinga said, "You allow me little scope for tricking you. You are strong and muscular. When I put down the gun what is to prevent you from attacking me?"

Paddy laughed. "That little poison ball-whip you carry along your arm. That's what I'm afraid of. What's to keep you from attacking me?"

"The fact that you can outdistance me by running, and thus regain your boat. But how will I know that you are not giving me bogus data sheets?"

"You have binoculars," said Paddy. "I'll hold the sheets up for your inspection and you can watch me put them down. They're unmistakable-and with those binoculars you can read every bit of the text."

"Very well," said the Koton. "I agree to your conditions."

Paddy slipped into his air-suit. Before setting the bubble over his head he turned to the still seated Koton. "Now this is my last word. By no means try to trick us or catch us off guard.

"I know you Kotons are devils for your revenges and your tortures and that you love nothing better than blackhanded treachery-so I'm warning you, take care or it will go ill with you and all your hopes."

"What is your specific meaning?" inquired the Koton.

"Never mind," said Paddy. "And now I'm going."

He left the ship. Fay and the Koton could see him through the dome, marching across the black sand toward the peak. He disappeared into the tumble around the base.

Minutes passed. He reappeared and Fay saw the glint of the golden sheets.

Paddy stood by the black rock, held the sheets up, face toward the space-boat. Zhri Khainga seized his binoculars, clamped the funnel-shaped eye-pieces over his eyes, stared eagerly.

He put down the binoculars.

"Satisfied?" asked Fay brittlely.

"Yes," said the Koton. "I'm satisfied."

"Then call your ship."

Zhri Khainga slowly went to the space-wave transmitter, snapped the switch, spoke a few short sentences in a language Fay could not understand.

"Now, get out," said Fay in a voice she could hardly recognize as her own. "You keep your part of the bargain, we'll keep ours."

"There is much yet unsaid," the Koton murmured. "The tale of your insolences, your detestable audacities."

Fay's body surprised even herself. Without conscious volition she sprang at Zhri Khainga, snatched the gun. It was hers. Clumsy now, juggling it, fingers shaking, she jumped back. Zhri Khainga gasped, leaned forward, flung out his arm. Poison-filled balls on elastic strips swished an inch from Fay's face.

"Ahhh!" she cried. "Get out, now-get out! Or I'll kill you and gladly!"

Zhri Khainga, his face a strange pasty lavender color, assumed his air-suit. Menaced by his own gun, he backed out of the boat.