Man Who Used the Universe (15 page)

"It is not for me to say," she replied. "I am only following the orders given me." She gestured slightly with the nasty little gun. "I hope you will come with us quietly." She indicated the non-lovers and imitation workers surrounding them. "There are some very fine shots out there. They are under orders to shoot to wound only, not to kill. We're to bring you by force if necessary, but my employer fervently hopes that won't prove necessary."

"You know," he said conversationally, "I'm very quick. I know that fragmentation pistol," and he indicated the weapon she held, "fires what's supposed to be an impenetrable spray. What's supposed to be. Since you know so much about my personal habits, you probably also know about the innersheath armor I'm wearing under this suit."

She tensed slightly, answering his question.

"That would make my face and bare hands the only parts vulnerable to your frags," he continued. "If I were to charge you, turn my back for a second by spinning as you fired, I think I'd have at least a fifty-fifty chance of knocking you down before you could aim a second shot. If I got you down, you wouldn't get up again, no matter how accurate your sharpshooters in the trees are."

She took a less than confident step away from him and glanced anxiously to left and right. He enjoyed her discomfiture. Loo-Macklin could see the gardeners on one side and the lovers on the other tense as their poses cracked and they readied themselves to wield disguised weapons.

"What you do to me is of no consequence. You can't possibly escape," she said slowly. Some of her iron self-assurance was giving way. "My people have orders to shoot through me if necessary to get to you. You'll attend this meeting if you have to be carried there."

"I have no intention of being carried anywhere," he told her. "For one thing, I'm tired. For another, I'd like to meet whoever's gone to all this trouble just to see me. And for the last, you're much too beautiful to be damaged, though I can see that others may have thought otherwise at one time." His gaze rose.

Her free hand went reflexively to the artificial ear and her expression tightened. "That was a couple of years ago. The other woman involved came out rather worse."

"I'll bet," murmured Loo-Macklin. "I'm a rational person. I won't cause you any trouble. Let's go." He started toward the tube entrance.

"Not that way." She stepped around in front of him, gestured. A small free transport appeared. It was individually powered, as was necessary outside the tubes. There were no marcars here in the parks, since there were no magneticrepulsion-carrying rails.

The production of free transports had only become necessary subsequent to the washout of the atmosphere and the cleaning out of all the pollution, when a number of citizens moved into the newly scrubbed countryside.

The transport rose with the twin moons. The sun had set by now and Loo-Macklin could look down upon the massive, parallel ranks of tubes that formed the metropolis of Cluria. Lights winked on within the multiple metal fingers.

The two moons had shifted across the sky and the clouds were beginning to break up, streaking the land below, farms and newly planted forest alike, with soft silver, by the time the transport reached their destination.

It was a large structure clinging to the landscaped flank of a mountain. A country retreat for some wealthy executive or operator. Such homes were among the newest status symbols of the well-to-do.

It commanded a sweeping view of the Clurian Vale. The twin moons gleamed off the meandering thread of the river Eblen below. Off to the northwest could be seen the humpbacked tubes of Treasury, Cluria's sister city.

The building itself was constructed entirely of white formastone. Rooms and walkways looped themselves around the native rock like frozen sugar syrup.

"Whom do you work for, Selousa?" he asked her again as the transport settled gently to the landing pad.

"You're persistent. I said that I can't give you that information."

"You work for yourself, don't you? These others," and he indicated the men and women who filled the cab of the transport, no longer pretending to be lovers or forestry workers, "all work for you. You're an independent, operating outside the recognized syndicates. That takes guts."

"I'm a twenty-third-class illegal," she told him proudly.

"Impressive." He nodded slowly. "So someone hired you and your party to bring me here, probably going through you because they wanted to retain as much of their anonymity as possible. Or maybe . . . because no one else would try what they wanted? Or maybe because no one else among the formal syndicates would work for them?"

"Maybe," she replied unsmilingly. They were walking through a dimly lit hallway now and she seemed uneasy, glancing toward openings in the walls, toward closed doors, unprofessionally letting her attention wander from her prisoner.

"I'm sure I wasn't the first whixgang leader they contacted."

"Why wouldn't anyone else take on the job?"

"I said that I don't know if that's the reason. Be quiet. We're almost through with this."

"The sooner the better as far as you're concerned, huh?" She didn't reply.

They entered a room. There were several couches, a lounge chair, the ubiquitous computer-video screen and console, which glared nakedly into the room. The usual concealing artwork was missing. The lighting was subdued, as it had been in the hallways. It was almost dark. One of Selousa's people coughed and there were several hushed, angry words at the unexpected noise. Somewhere a humidifier hummed strongly. It was tropical in the room, the atmosphere cloying and thick. Selousa shifted about uncomfortably.

"Our host has respiratory problems?" he inquired.

By way of reply she gestured nervously with the gun. He shrugged, stepped farther out into the middle of the room. There were several shelves full of books protected from the dampness by glass. Real books, he noted, made of paper. They looked quite old. Valuable antiques. But then, the location and design of the house hinted at the presence of money. That was merely a fact Loo-Macklin noted and filed for future reference. The trappings of wealth had long since ceased to impress him.

The furniture was protected by transparent, woven plastic. In addition to the couches and lounge chair there were several other pieces of furniture concealed beneath opaque cloth. Their shape was peculiar.

"I just think he likes the climate this way," said Selousa. She was whispering, and he wondered why.

He turned to face her again. Only two of the fourteen who'd guarded him during the flight to this place remained with her in the room. They held their short, stubby rifles tightly and their attention was no longer on him. Everyone was frightened of something, and he didn't think it was him. Not now.

He commented on the disappearance of the rest of his escort.

"They're outside now," she told him, gesturing with her head. "There's only the one entrance to this room, so there's no way you could break past them even if you could get past Dom, Tarquez, and myself."

"Suppose I don't try to break past you," he said, testing her. "Suppose I managed to incapacitate you three." He used the word delicately. "Suppose I just locked the four of us in here." He gestured toward the blank computer screen. "If that goes outside, and I'd think it would, I would have my own people here inside an hour."

"I wish you would not do that," said a new voice. It sounded as though it was rising from the bottom of an old stone well, intensely vibrant, guttural, echoing.

Loo-Macklin turned to his left, noticing as he did so that Dom, one of Selousa's backups, was edging toward the doorway. He was a big man, young and competent. Now he was sweating profusely, and he wore an expression of extreme unease and disgust.

One of the darkly draped pieces of furniture lifted the material from itself and tossed it to the floor.

Chapter 8

Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was rarely taken by surprise. This time he was.

"I was hoping that," the gurgling voice continued, "we might have a conversation." A tentacle, gray and damp with mucus, gestured toward the nervous figure of Selousa. "Hence the need to bring you here quickly and in ignorance, lest you refuse the invitation or insist on having others accompany you."

"This wasn't necessary, but I understand the reasons for your actions. Not many people would agree willingly to such a meeting."

"But you it troubles not?" the voice asked.

"No," Loo-Macklin replied softly, "not in the least."

A rich burbling sound that might have been a sigh came from the speaker. Enormous, bulging eyes flicked in opposite directions, gold flecks sparkling around slitted pupils.

"Parum met mel noma," the alien rumbled. "I had hoped this might prove so. Thus far it appears."

The representative of that exceptionally ugly race known as the Nuel turned on thick cilia and used a tentacle to pull another protective covering from a strange, horseshoe-shaped piece of furniture. It settled its gross body into the wedge thus proffered.

The Nuel ruled an unknown number of worlds farther out on the galactic disk than the eighty-three human worlds of the UTW. They had been pressing against the UTW's borders for several hundred years, probing and testing, seeking weak points and withdrawing when none were found, instigating incidents and in general attempting to gain influence over the UTW's citizens in any and all ways possible. They were aggressive yet cautious, paranoid yet willing to take chances.

Much of their drive derived from their shape, which was no less than repulsive to every other civilized race. The Nuel had therefore resolved, back when they first began to explore the stars around them, that they could insure their own safety only by taking control of everyone else. This end they had been pursuing for some time now with considerable success . . . until they came up against the powerful federation of peoples that formed the UTW. Their advance slowed and their paranoia increased proportionately.

They had reached the point where they were willing to try anything to gain a tentaclehold within UTW commercial or government circles. As they became desperate they grew more inventive.

Where confrontation had failed, perhaps a meeting might succeed.

The Nuel shifted in its peculiar chair. Slime dripped from the edges of the cupseat. One of Selousa's assistants made a strangled sound, choking back the gorge rising in his throat.

The Nuel extended two of its four tentacles.

"A custom you have of shaking hands. Would you make the supreme sacrifice for a human and touch flesh with mine?"

Loo-Macklin strode over to the cupouch, studying the alien with intense interest, and unhesitatingly extended a hand. As his fingers were wrapped in a pair of slimy tentacle tips, the bullywot named Tarquez put his hand to his mouth and burst out the only door. Dom watched him retreat, then glanced anxiously at his boss.

Even the tall, self-assured Selousa appeared ready to break as the tentacles slipped away from Loo-Macklin's fingers. Delicately, he wiped the residual ooze clean on one leg of his coveralls.

The two oversized eyes moved in that lumpy, silver-gray head. The supporting cilia were wrapped around the central pole that rose from the center of the cupouch seat and the tentacles spraddled loosely around the body. There were no visible ears or nostrils, only the serrated beak protruding from between the great, curving eyes.

"You may depart, Selousa-female," the Nuel told her. She hesitated, glancing empathetically at her former captive. Loo-Macklin ignored her stare, fascinated by the sight of the Nuel. He could feel her relief, however, as she and her remaining assistant fled the room.

Turning, he searched until he settled on a chair fashioned of spiderweb steel, pulled it over, and sat down deliberately close to the alien. The Nuel regarded his action approvingly.

"Thus far comes the night, bringing with it everything we had hoped you might prove to be, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin," said the alien in that reverberating voice.

"How can you know this?" He shifted in the comfortable seat. "I haven't done anything yet."

"You touched flesh with me," said the Nuel. "Few, oh few humans can do that. Fewer still without forming on their faces expressions of extreme displeasure, to mention not the reactions that overcome their physical functions. As did happen with that one male," and a tentacle pointed toward the door.

"I don't consider that I've reacted in any way remarkable," Loo-Macklin told him honestly.

"All the more remarkable for that," the alien replied. "You sit across from me, almost close enough for touch, and exhibit no evidence of distress. Can it be that unlike the majority of your kind you do not find the Nuel repulsive to look upon beyond imagining?"

"Now that's an interesting thought," Loo-Macklin informed him, for a him he thought it was. "You see, most human beings," and he ran a hand down his Neanderthaloid body, "find me unpleasant to look upon."

"Had not thought, had not hoped," murmured the Nuel, "to find a physiological as well as psychological analog for facilitating communication between the two of us. You surpass my wildest expectation, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin."

"And I'm curious to know what those expectations are," he told the alien. "Obviously you have high ones or you wouldn't have gone to all this difficulty and expense. Not only that required to bring me here, but that required to slip yourself surreptitiously onto an intolerant human world like Evenwaith."

The Nuel made a gesture with its tentacles, which Loo-Macklin hopefully read as a sign of agreement.

"We are not at war, human and Nuel. Not today, anyway. Tomorrow, perhaps." It was watching Loo-Macklin closely for any hint of reaction to this pronouncement. When none was forthcoming, it continued.

"It is difficult but not impossible to arrange such things. Even a single world is a vast place. This one is a planet of large cities and many open spaces, easier to penetrate than most. By the way, I am called Naras Sharaf. Your calling I know already."

"What is it you want of me, Naras Sharaf?" asked Loo-Macklin. "More than a casual early morning's conversation and polite discussion of our mutual ugliness, I'm sure."