Jack Vance: The Five Gold Bands

"Your first reason is sufficient," said the Koton. "Perhaps the present system is the best."

"The mutual duplication of data protects us against loss of any one set," the Loristanese pointed out, "and the splitting of the secret guarantees a continuance of our mutual dependence."

The Shaul said abruptly, "Now as to the allocation for the five commercial units, eight hundred boat installations…"

One by one the Sons announced the needs of their worlds, and the total moved the Koton to grumble, "We shall be occupied three weeks on Akhabats activating the tubes."

"That is the function of our office," the Loristanese remarked.

"We'll be a week building a new manifold," said the Koton. "Some rascal of an Earther actually tunneled up into the ship, mark you. The fool threw the power switch and Akhabats is safe only because the main gang-bar had been removed for replating."

The Loristanes shrugged, and his fat yellow jowls bounced. "Naturally the dials had been twisted. What could the idiot hope to achieve?"

The Eagle said, "The way of an Earthers mind is past conjecture."

The Shaul made an impatient motion. "Is there any further question as to schedules? If not-"

"We have completed our business," stated the Badau heavily. "Let us make the exchange and depart." He unstrapped a think band from his wrist, passed ft to the Eagle on his left, who in turn handed a similar band to the Shaul, who gave his to the Loristanese, who passed his to the Koton, who passed a band to the Badau.

The Badau grunted in satisfaction. "We are finished for another year, save for the month of toil on Akhabats."

Paddy made himself as inconspicuous as is possible for a man chained to the middle of a brightly-lit stone platform. They might be so engrossed in their talk as to leave him alone on the little world-which in any case would be equivalent to death, he thought glumly.

If the gravity unit were turned off, the air would puff off into the vacuum of space and he would strangle, blow up with the bends. No such luck, in any event. He felt the Koton's saucer eyes upon him as the five arose. The Koton motioned to the guards.

The Koton said, "Remove the prisoner from the platform, execute him."

Paddy said quizzically, "Would you like that translated, my Lord Koton?"

The Koton ignored him. Paddy watched the Kudthus approaching, purple-skinned giants in black leather uniforms. Either one would make three of him. Here came his death, thought Paddy. How would it be? By bullet-by the heavy Kudthu knives hanging at their belts-by the mere wringing of his neck in the big slab hands?

They towered over him with no more malice or hostility than a farmer selecting a chicken for the pot. One stooped with a key, fumbled at his chains, while the other took a grip on Paddy's shoulder. Paddy's heart was thudding, his throat was thick with sour-tasking fear. It was sad to die at the hands of strange careless things so far from Mother Earth.

His leg was free. Paddy in a desperate spasm sank to his knees, bit at the big Kudthu hand, grabbed the knife from the belt of the kneeling Kudthu, hacked at the other's legs. The grip loosened. Paddy broke free, sprang like a rabbit down from the platform. The Shaul brought forth a small hand-weapon, sighted, fired. Paddy veered and the shaft of flickering blue ions cut past his ear.

The Kudthus came lumbering after him. big faces without expression. Another shaft of radiation sizzled past him and he dodged frantically. His mind ran wild. He'd run and run and run to the end of the world. The end of the world was close. Where then? The spaceboat? No, the Shaul stood near with hit weapon. Where to go? Around the other side? They'd hunt him down.

The concrete casement yawned at his feet, a dim-lit gap. There it was, a bolthole, where at least he could put his back to the wall, where they would not turn their guns for fear of disrupting the gravity…

The gravity! Off with the gravity! Death to himself, death to all! Would it possibly be unguarded, vulnerable?

He flung down the steps four at a time, pulled by the increasingly strong gravitational field. He came to a little concrete-walled room. A black box ten feet long was mounted on skids with heavy leads running to a power bank. Paddy took a deep breath, plodded across the room, pulled the switch.

The power stopped, the field whisked off into nothingness. Paddy was weightless. Air puffed off into space at eleven hundred feet a second. A tremendous force pushed out Paddy's chest as if by an explosion inside him. Breath gushed up his throat, spewed out his mouth and he felt a quick distension in his legs, his arms, felt his ears pounding, his eyes bulging.

He tottered to the switch, threw it back to full gravity. He was master on this little world, lord of life and death. Too late, he thought numbly-useless. The air had departed at the speed of sound and faster. It would return only at gravitational acceleration.

The vacuum would he nearly complete for an hour yet, while all on the little world died. But no-he felt the tingling at his skin slowly diminish, the throb of his throat lessen. He opened his mouth, gasped. Air-air in the little room at least, very rare yet, seepage from cracks, a film held by molecular attraction and the gravity of the asteroid itself, now concentrated around the gravity unit.

Paddy dragged himself up the stairs against the gravity, augmented as it was by his nearness to the unit. As he climbed he felt the atmosphere rapidly thinning. His head pounded in a near-vacuum as he peered over the casement.

The Kudthus lay sprawled twenty feet distant in the dark pool of their hemorrhages. The five Sons of Langtry lay dead in a little clump around the boat. Paddy blinked, taken aback.

The most appalling crime in the history of space had been committed. Genocide, defilement of holy places, treachery against the entire universe-no sin could rival his deed. The Five Sons dead by his hand!

Paddy licked his puffed lips. It seemed a great to-do for the mere pulling of a switch. They would have killed him without glancing to see whether his way was to kick or to twitch. He looked across the platform at the boat, stared past the luminous tubing at the five ships.

They lay in a quiet parallel rank. Ha, could not the fools sense the horror? Or their telescopes must tell them something was amiss. Of course they might be under orders to keep eyes away from instruments for fear that there might be lip-reading.

Paddy looked back to the boat with the longing of a lover. His sight was blurring pink, blood was running from his nose. The hundred feet to the boat was like a thousand miles. Two feet above the concrete casement meant strangulation. He backed down the shaft to breathe and gather his wits.

He considered. How would the gravity unit be turned off? By someone in a pressure suit, to escape his own doom. Would there be such a garment left at hand for the purpose? He found it hanging in the shadows behind the powerbank, and was into it with what speed he could provoke from his trembling fingers.

He fitted the dome over his head, turned on the air. Ah-h-h, what a blessed thing was the pure thick air with a taste like the finest water.

But no time to savor his air. Up-if he wished to escape the nerve-suit. He sprang up the steps, darted across the dead world. At the corpses of the five Sons of Langtry he stopped short. Around the Shaul's thin forearm be found a glint of gold, unclasped the band. Then to the Koton, the leathery Badau, the Eagle and the butter-yellow Loristanese.

Jingling the five bands Paddy ran to the ship. Inside the port, throw home the dogs, to the pilot's seat. He groped among the controls until he found the lift-valve. Inching it open he raised the ship a trifle above the surface, slewed it slowly around to the opposite side of the world.