Poul Anderson - The Star Fox

Gunnar Heim halted in midstride. He stood a while, turning his head in search of the voice that had risen out of the dark.

It was some distance off, almost lost in the background of machine rumble to landward of the docks. But only one man was likely to be making his mock with that sinister old ballad, in San Francisco on this night.

Heim started after the sound. He could still move fast and softly when he wanted to. In a moment his ears picked up the ring and snarl of a guitar played in anger.

Warehouses bulked black on his right. At this hour not very long before dawn, the city had dimmed; there was only a reddish haze above the roofs, and the remote luminous leap of the palace towers on Nob Hill. To the left a cargo submarine lay like a sleek moon-scaled dragon, but no longshore robots or men were at work around it. The bay was ebony and a shimmer of glade.

Kilometers distant, the hills on the eastern shore made a wall besprinkled with artificial stars. The real stars were wan, and so was the defense satellite that climbed rapidly into view—as if all suns had withdrawn from a planet gone strengthless. Luna stood at half phase near the zenith. He could not see the light-spot of Apollo City on the dark side, through the damp autumn air.

Heim rounded a shed by the pier and saw the minstrel. He sat on a bollard, looking out across the water, a man more small and shabby than expected. His fingers leaped across the twelve strings as if attacking an enemy, and the moon gleamed off tears on his face.

Heim paused in the shadow of the wall. He ought not to interrupt. They had related, in the Spaceman’s Rest, that the buck was drunk and wild. “And when he’d spent his last millo, he wanted to sing for booze,” the bartender said. “I told him we didn’t want none of that here. He said he’d sung his way through a dozen planets and what was wrong with Earth that nobody wanted to listen to him. I said the strip show was coming on the 3V in a minute and that’s what the customers wanted, not any of his foreign stuff. So he yelled about singing to the stars or some such pothead notion. I told him go ahead, get out before I threw him out. And out he went. That was about an hour ago. Friend of yours?”

“Maybe,” Heim said.

“Uh, you might go look for him then. He could get into trouble. Somebody might go for an expensive gutbucket like he was hauling.”

Heim nodded and tossed off his beer. The Welfare section of any large city was bad to be alone in after nightfall. Even the police of Western countries made little effort to control those whom the machines had displaced before birth. They settled for containing that fury and futility in its own district, well away from the homes of people who had skills the world needed. On his walk-abouts through the subculture of the irrelevant men, Heim carried a stun pistol. He had had use for it on occasion.

They knew him locally, though. He had told them he was a retired spaceman—anything nearer the truth would have been unwise—and before long he was accepted as a genial drinking or gambling companion, less odd than many of the floaters who drifted in and out of their indifferent purview. He waved at several acquaintances, some feral and some surrendered to hopelessness, and left the bar.

Since the minstrel had probably headed for the Embarcadero, Heim did too. His stride lengthened as he went. At first there had been no sense of mission about finding the fellow. It had merely been an excuse to go on yet another slumming trip. But the implications grew in his mind.

And now that his search was ended, the song caught at him and he felt his pulse accelerate.

This stranger might indeed have the truth about that which had happened among yonder constellations.

As the older tale, also of tyranny, treachery, and death, crashed to its end, Heim reached a decision.

Silence followed, except for the lapping of water and the ceaseless throb of that engine which was the city. Heim trod forth.

“Good evening,” he said.

The minstrel jerked where he sat, drew a ragged breath, and twisted about. Heim spread his hands, smiling. “I’m harmless,” he said. “Was just admiring your performance. Mind if I join you?”

The other wiped at his eyes, furiously. Then the thin sharp face steadied into a considering look. Gunnar Heim was not one you met unperturbed, in such an area. He was nigh two meters tall, with breadth to match. His features were blunt and plain, an old scar zigzagging across the brow, under reddish-brown hair that in this forty-sixth year of his age was peppered with gray.

But he was decently clad, in the high-collared tunic and the trousers tucked into soft half-boots that were the current mode. The hood of his cloak was thrown back. His weapon did not show.

“Well—” The minstrel made a spastic shrug. “This is a public place.” His English was fluent, but bore a heavier accent than his French.

Heim took a flat bottle of whisky from his pocket. “Will you drink with me, sir?”

The minstrel snatched it. After the first swallow he gusted, “Ahhh!” Presently: “Forgive my bad manners. I needed that.” He raised the flask. “ Isten éltesse,” he toasted, drank again, and passed it back.

“Skål.” Heim took a gulp and settled himself on the wharf next to the bollard. What he had already drunk buzzed in him, together with a rising excitement. It was an effort to stay relaxed.

The minstrel came down to sit beside him. “You are not American, then?” he asked. His tone wavered a bit; he was obviously trying to make unemotional conversation while the tears dried on his high cheekbones.

“I am, by naturalization,” Heim said. “My parents were Norwegian. But I was born on Gea, Tau Ceti II.”

“What?” The hoped—for eagerness sprang into the singer’s countenance. He sat up straight.

“You are a spaceman?”

“Navy, till about fifteen years ago. Gunnar Heim is my name.”

“I… Endre Vadász.” The agile fingers disappeared in Heim’s handshake. “Hungarian, but I have spent the last decade off Earth.”

“Yes, I know,” Heim said with care. “I saw you on a news program recently.”

Vadász’s lips writhed. He spat off the dock.

“You didn’t get a chance to say much during the interview,” Heim angled.

“No. They were cautious to mute me. ‘So you are a musician, Mr. Vadász. You have worked your way by any means that came to hand, from star to star, bearing the songs of Mother Earth to the colonists and the non-humans. Isn’t that interesting!’ ” The guitar cried out under a stroke.