Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

Nert was beginning to turn blue. His oversensitive nerves could smell things other than mittlebran now. If he’d known their names he could have told Dr. Billingsley every drug in the medicine cabinet Dr. Billingsley himself gave off a strong armpit odor that smelled to Nert much too much like boiled greeb. He pirouetted three-legged around the room working off his excess energy, and Dr. Billingsley said, ‘‘Will you stop that, please?”

“Sorry.” Nert stood in one place clicking his claws. “What do you think?”

“It could be serious. I think I’d better go take a look.”

Nert spun leg-by-leg toward the door saying, “Good. Let’s go.”

“That’ll be twenty-five credits. For the house call. In advance.”

Nert fumbled through his pouch with overeager claws and handed Dr. Billingsley a twenty-five-credit note, which he took and locked in a desk drawer. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” Nert ran for the door again. “Let’s go.”

Dr. Billingsley led Nert through the dark labyrinth of the city with the same easy grace Arvin had displayed. They rounded a corner, and to Nert’s surprise, the Galactica Hotel stood not more than half a block away. “How’d we get here so fast?” Nert said.

“I know a shortcut.”

“I thought Arvin knew the city as well as anyone.”

Dr. Billingsley said, “He knows it well enough, but the instincts of a con man aren’t sufficient for a complete knowledge of anything. You have to have intelligence, too.”

They walked through the early morning crowd. There were not as many beings as there had been when Nert had first gone out. Nert and the doctor entered the Hotel Galactica and crossed the blue-fluff-and-chrome lobby. Creatures dressed in the height of fashion—draped moss for the lizards of Ancheschloss II, dangling plastic baubles for the low, stocky creatures from Slix, hundreds of variations of fabric, light, shimmer, smoke and skin—haughtily watched the Droshi and the Terran, neither of whom were dressed in the height of any fashion whatsoever, cross the lobby to the lift-shaft and fall upward.

Nert tried not to scream at the roar of the passing air as they ascended, and his body remembered sharp objects thrown at it by the wind on his home world.

The gravity flux dribbled off and held constant at the one hundred fifty-third floor. They got out of the shaft, and the plush-padded hallway seemed very quiet Nert said, “You mean Arvin does everything by instinct?”

The doctor nodded. “You should see Arvin’s home world. There are creatures there with just enough intelligence to be fooled by a smooth talker, and vine highways whose destinations it takes instinct to remember because their weavings and criss-crossings are too complex for a rational mind to follow.”

“You mean Arvin is crazy?”

“Just a little. Compared to the rest of his race he’s probably as reasonable as a Granoshian.”

Nert thought about Arvin leading him through the dark, bewildering city and was amazed that he’d come out with his carapace intact. He wondered if he’d do it again.

They came to the room where Nert had left Herbie. Nert said, “Right in here.” He put his claw into a small recess near the door and allowed the lock to scan it The light flashed green and he pushed the “Open” button.

Dr. Billingsley followed Nert into the room and nearly ran into him. They stood transfixed. It took Nert a moment to comprehend what was happening; then suddenly it was clear. A strange creature that looked a lot like Herbie, but had a much lighter color and a shiny skin stretched tightly over its cytoplasm, was in the pool engulfing the last of Herbie with a bloated pseudopod. Even as they watched, the swelling thing finished sucking Herbie in, and when its pseudopod had relaxed back into its body it sat motionless in the center of the pool like a great implacable scoop of dirty glass.

Nert ran toward it screaming, but reeled back when he was a few feet away, suddenly feeling nauseous; a fire ignited in all his muscles. He staggered back to where Dr. Billingsley stood, and the pain went away.

“What is it?” Dr. Billingsley whispered hoarsely.

“It got Herbie,” Nert whimpered. “I knew if I went away something horrible would happen. It got Herbie!” The last word was a whoop such as members of Nert’s race make when a situation is almost hopeless and the only choice left is to throw themselves in a rage at their enemy. Nert ran toward the pool, claws raised and snapping frantically. When he began to feel the nausea and the fire, he leaped forward, hoping to do some damage before he was forced to retreat. He splashed into the pool claws first, and immediately curled up in agony as cramps gripped and twisted his insides.

“Help!”

“I—” Dr. Billingsley didn’t move.

“Help me, dammit!”

The doctor ran forward and dragged Nert back to the door, clutching his own stomach. They lay on the floor panting; Dr. Billingsley took great mouthfuls of air, while the breathing slits on Nert’s chest flapped madly.

“What was that?” Dr. Billingsley asked.

“Frooth knows. You’re the doctor.” Nert crawled forward until he just began to feel the ill effects of Herbie’s murderer and stared at it as he rocked up and back.

“I can’t examine it if I can’t get close to it.”

“It’s too late for that,” Nert cried. “Don’t you understand? Herbie’s dead. He’s . . .” Nert’s eyes flattened until they looked like two saucers embedded in his head. More quietly, he added, “Thank you for coming. You can keep the money. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He never took his eyes off the thing in the pool.

Dr. Billingsley was at the door when Nert said, “Please don’t report this to the police.”

The doctor turned. “Why not?”

“Herbie...“ Nert swallowed. “Herbie told me that sometimes a policeman who’s used to rich beings will give a spacer a bad time just for the fun of it. But even if there’s no trouble they’ll want me to stay until they’re done with the investigation. I want to get away from here as soon as possible. Besides, I want to take care of this in my own way.”

Dr. Billingsley said, “Murder is permissible for some creatures, but even then it must be reported.” He sat down on one of the all-purpose benches and crossed his legs casually. “Not reporting a murder can mean a lot of trouble, especially for a doctor.”

“It can’t keep up that barrage forever. When it stops I’ll be sitting here ready for it. If you tell the police, they’ll get in the way.”

“There is a way to keep them from finding out.”

Nert turned to look at the doctor. “What’s that?”

“For a small extra fee, I might be persuaded to keep this to myself.”

Nert turned back to the creature in the pool and said, “And if there is an investigation, the numbies might possibly find out a thing or two about you.”

The Terran stiffened. “Oh? What’s that?”

“You stink of mittlebran.”

“Oh, that.” He smiled. “How did you find out?” He paused and said, “No matter. You’ll have to do better than that. There are any of a dozen ways I could fight a possession charge.”

Nert took a long time answering. “How much?”

“One thousand credits, even.”

Nert thought it over. A thousand credits was almost all the money he had set aside for his gerbis farm. Even so, it was worth any amount to be able to pay the creature back for Herbie’s death. He wondered, though, if Dr. Billingsley’s unconcern about the police was real. Though he’d learned a great deal about the city that evening, he knew nothing about the corruptibility of its police. But he did know from his childhood that it was almost impossible for anyone, sometimes even another Terran, to tell when a Terran was lying. Nert didn’t want to take a chance of guessing wrong.