Masters of the Galaxy Read online

  “I’m looking for a Gromite and a Man,” I said. “They would have arrived this morning.”

  He stared at me without speaking.

  “They were traveling with a carnival.” Silence. “Have you seen them?”

  “They are not here.”

  “That wasn’t my question. Have you seen them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Who does?”

  “No one in this burrow knows. When they heard that you had entered the Quarter, they left. We asked them not to tell us their destination, so that you cannot torture it out of us.”

  “I don’t torture people.”

  “Then you are a most unusual Man.” He paused. “Go back where you belong, Jake Masters.”

  They’d been there, all right. No one else in the Quarter knew my name. And if they had friends watching me, they were going to be able to stay one step ahead of me in the Alien Quarter. There was no sense wasting any more time there, so I retraced my steps, and an hour later I checked into the Regal Arms, which wasn’t regal and didn’t have any arms, but it was where the carny’s human contingent was staying.

  I hung around the bar, and bought half a dozen of them drinks at various points in the evening. I didn’t get the resentment here that I did when I spoke to the aliens, but I didn’t get any information either. When money couldn’t pry any answers loose, I tried invoking Hatchet Ben Jeffries’ name. He was looking for his son, I explained, and he could get pretty deadly when he didn’t get what he wanted. It didn’t help. Maybe they knew where Andy was, maybe they didn’t, but carnies have this code, and they don’t break it.

  I have a code, too. It has to do with earning my pay, and I wasn’t going to let a wall of silence get in the way. I went up to my room a couple of hours after midnight, slept in until noon, and wandered down to the hotel’s restaurant for some breakfast. The whole meal was composed of soya products, but they were well disguised and it wasn’t too difficult to pretend I was eating eggs from Silverblue or Prateep VI and coffee imported from Earth itself.

  I’d learned the night before that because of some city ordinance the carny’s games couldn’t open until dusk, and since there was no sense drawing a crowd if they couldn’t be bilked, the entertainment wouldn’t start for another hour or so after that.

  I showed up while they were still setting up, and found out where the performers’ dressing rooms were located. The aliens were segregated, so I figured I wouldn’t find the kid there. I went to the human dressing rooms and checked out their occupants, but there was no one who matched the holo I was carrying around.

  I walked up and down the games and booths, checking out the barkers, the shills, everyone who might be remotely connected to the carnival. No luck. I entered the main auditorium, studied all the ushers and candy butchers. Nothing.

  I finally decided that my best bet was just to keep an eye on Crunchtime. Sooner or later he had to make contact with Andy Vanderwycke, had to let his guard down, and I planned to be there when he did.

  I grabbed a seat in the front row and settled back to wait for the Gromite. As the crowd filed in, a trio of clowns, two human, one Lodinite, began doing some ancient routines and pratfalls to warm them up. The kids loved it; after all, it wasn’t ancient to them.

  Then came the wire walker, and the intricate flight patterns of the winged aliens from far Shibati, and the dinosaur trainer (or the whatever-the-hell-it-was trainer), and the magician, and some tumblers, and finally Crunchtime and the other two jugglers entered the ring. I waited until his performance was over, then followed him out.

  A young woman approached him and handed him something, I couldn’t see what. He studied it for a moment and gave it back to her, and then she walked away. I followed her, made a mental note of the office she entered, and then returned to Crunchtime.

  “Feel like talking yet?” I asked.

  “You came looking for me in the Alien Quarter,” he said. “That was very unwise.”

  “I like sightseeing.”

  “You are wasting your time, Mr. Masters.”

  “I’m being paid for it,” I told him. “And I plan to follow you night and day until I find Andy or you tell me where he is.”

  “That is your right,” he replied. “And it is my right not to tell you.”

  “A Mexican standoff.”

  “What is a Mexican?”

  “Beats me,” I admitted. “It’s an ancient expression.”

  “I am going into my dressing room now,” he said. “Unless you have an insatiable curiosity to observe how a Gromite passes the food he has digested, you will not accompany me.”

  With that, he turned on what passed for his heel and entered the room, and I went over to the woman’s office. The concrete floor could have used a carpet, the whitewashed walls could have used some paintings or holographs, and the coffee pot could have used some coffee. She was sitting in a chair that was probably a decade older than she was, studying holos cast by her computer. I know she heard me come in, but she didn’t bother to look up.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Jake Masters. I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “You haven’t heard the question.”

  “I don’t have to. You’re Jake Masters, and you’re harassing Crozchziim. Go away and leave him alone.”

  “Word gets around pretty fast.”

  “This is a carnival,” she said as if that explained everything.

  “I admire your loyalty, but I’m not here for the Gromite. I just need some information.”

  “Read an encyclopedia.”

  “I talked to one last night,” I said wryly. “It didn’t help.”

  “Life is full of disappointments.”

  “Just show me what you showed the Gromite.”

  “It’s been atomized.”

  “I don’t believe you. Let me take a look and I’m out of here.”

  She finally looked up at me. “Go, stay, what you do doesn’t interest me.”

  I decided to take a different tack. “The games are crooked, and the carny has broken maybe thirty laws already tonight,” I said. “I could tell the authorities.”

  She actually smiled. “Go ahead. Do you think you can pay them more than we already did?”

  I smiled back. “Okay, lady, you win this round. But I’m going to find the young man I’m looking for.”

  “Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but you’re not going to do it with my help.” She went back to staring at her computer’s array of images, and I finally left the office.

  I went up and down the rows of games and attractions again, trying to spot a tall nineteen-year-old who looked anything like the holo of Andy Vanderwycke, but with no luck. I went through the lighting booth, the prop room, the performers’ cafeteria, all the backstage rooms, got a pleasant eyeful in the ladies’ dressing room, but couldn’t see any sign of the kid.

  It was driving me crazy. He had to be there. Crunchtime had as much as admitted it. So had the alien in the burrow. So had the lady with the computer. It wasn’t that damned big a carnival—so why couldn’t I spot him?

  It was time for the next show, and I went back into the main auditorium, trying to figure out what I was overlooking. The crowd began getting restless, and the clowns came out to amuse them again—and suddenly I knew where Andy Vanderwycke was hiding. I watched the whole damned show again, then walked out the performers’ exit. Crunchtime went past me and seemed surprised that I didn’t stop him to ask more questions. I stepped aside as the dinosaur lumbered past, smiled at a couple of good-looking girls in tights, and finally the person I was waiting for appeared.

  “Hi, Andy,” I said.

  He stopped cold and stared at me.

  “Nice disguise,” I said.

  He took off his red bulbous nose and green fright wig. “I thought so until now.”

  “Really, it is,” I said. “Who’d
ever look twice at Bonzo the Clown?”

  “How did you spot me?” he asked.

  “Mostly it was a process of elimination.”

  I handed him my card.

  “What happens now?” said Andy. “You’re not going to kill me in front of all these people. And if I yell for help, my friends will tear you apart no matter what you do to me.”

  “I’m not here to kill you,” I said, surprised. “I was hired to take you back to Odysseus.”

  “Same thing,” he said.

  “Your mother’s very worried about you.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I’ll just bet she is.”

  “One way or another you’re coming back to Odysseus,” I said, “so why not do it peacefully?”

  “Oh, I’ll go back to Odysseus,” he replied. “But I’m not ready yet.”

  It was the same thing Crunchtime had said, and I offered the same response. “Ready for what?”

  He stared long and hard at me, as if trying to make up his mind. Finally he shrugged. “What the hell. I might as well tell you. If you’re lying and you’re here to kill me, you’re going to do it anyway. If you’re telling the truth, maybe what I say will make a difference—though my guess is that my mother paid you so much that it won’t matter.”

  “You talk, I’ll listen.”

  “Let’s find Crozchziim first,” said Andy.

  “What do you need him for?”

  “We’re due to leave the planet in a couple of hours, and he knows the ticket codes.”

  So now I knew what the girl had shown Crunchtime—the codes he’d need to get them aboard the ship.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Your pal can come or go as he pleases, but you’re not running away.”

  “I’m not running away,” he said. “I’m running to something.”

  “To what?”

  “When we find Crozchziim.” He paused. “He can corroborate everything I’m going to tell you.”

  We walked to Crunchtime’s dressing room. Andy was about to enter it when I grabbed his arm.

  “Have someone else tell him to come out,” I said. “You’re staying with me.”

  He spoke to a Canphorite who was walking by. The Canphorite entered the room, and a moment later Crunchtime emerged.

  “So you found him,” he said tonelessly.

  “Yeah, I found him,” I answered. “I told you I would.”

  “And this time you will kill him.”

  “This time?” I repeated, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “It is time to drop all the pretenses, Mr. Masters—if that is your real name,” said Crunchtime. “You have been stalking Andy for six days. You came close to killing him on Brookmandor II. Now you have changed your tactics and are impersonating a detective, trying to enlist the help of others, but you are still a killer.”

  “I’m a detective,” I said firmly. “I work out of Odysseus, and I was hired five days ago by Beatrice Vanderwycke. The first time I ever saw either of you was when I arrived on Aristides yesterday. If someone’s stalking the kid, it isn’t me.”

  They exchanged looks, and finally Andy spoke up. “All right, Mr. Masters. I believe you. Now let’s go somewhere private and see if you can return the favor.”

  “Lead the way,” I said. “And don’t run.”

  He led me to a deserted office. “Benzagari’s working out of this room while we’re here. He’s checking the take on the midway, and then he’s got to pay off the police, so he won’t be back for at least half an hour.”

  I sat down on a sofa. “All right, I’m listening,” I said. Andy sat on the edge of a desk, and Crunchtime, who wasn’t built to fit in or on any human furniture, stood near Andy. “Start with why I shouldn’t believe you bought passage off Aristides tonight expressly to get away from me.”

  “Because it’s true,” he said. “I have to go to Port Samarkand.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s about seventy light-years from here.”

  “What’s on Port Samarkand?”

  “Duristan.”

  “What’s Duristan?” I said.

  “Duristan is a who, not a what…and my life depends on my reaching him.”

  I looked from one to the other. “Keep talking.”

  “What, exactly, did my mother tell you about me?”

  “That you ran away and she wants you back.”

  “What did she say about me?” he repeated. “You can tell me. I won’t take offense.”

  “That you were emotionally unstable and had been in therapy. I saw your father too. He confirmed that you’ve been troubled since you were a child.”

  “He’s right,” said Andy. “Something happened when I was six, something that made me lose almost a whole year of my life. They tell me I was catatonic and it took them almost a year to snap me out of it. Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “Did he tell you anything about my mother?”

  “He doesn’t think too much of her.”

  “You’re being coy, Mr. Masters, and we have no time for that. My ship leaves in a couple of hours, and I have to be on it. What did he tell you about her?”

  “He said she was an extremely dangerous woman.”

  “He’s right.” He paused. “I’m legally of age, Mr. Masters. I’ve been living on Crozchziim’s savings until I get my first paycheck. I didn’t take a single credit with me when I left, and I’ve asked nothing of her, indeed had no contact with her, since then. Why do you think she wants me back?”

  “Why should I play guessing games when you’re going to tell me?” I said.

  “During the two months before I left home I had increasingly violent nightmares,” said Andy. “Terrible images of blood and carnage.”

  “Lots of people do,” I said, though most of my dreams were about ripe naked women I was never going to have and bill collectors I was never going to avoid.

  “This was different. It was the same dream every night. I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening, but it was terrifying.” He paused. “Do you know what I think?”

  “Probably, but why don’t you tell me anyway?”

  “I think she did something when I was six years old, something I wasn’t supposed to see, something so terrible that after I saw it I couldn’t face the truth of it and became catatonic for a year. When I came back to my senses, I couldn’t remember anything. I still can’t.” He paused. ”I don’t know if this recurring nightmare is what I saw when I saw six, trying to burst into my consciousness—but she thinks it is. When I mentioned that I kept having this dream night after night, things began happening. I got what seemed like ptomaine poisoning from spoiled food—but she ate the same meal and was fine. I found a pill that didn’t belong among my prescriptions. And every day she would ask about my dreams. I knew if I stayed there she’d find a way kill me, so I took off.”

  “I had remained in Mrs. Vanderwycke’s service only because of Andy,” added Crunchtime, “and when he explained the situation, I agreed that he could not remain on Odysseus. As it is, there has already been an attempt on his life on Brookmandor II, just before we joined the carnival.”

  “It’s not that hard to spot a tall skinny kid and a Gromite traveling together,” I said. “I came in cold, and it only took me two days, even with his make-up. What ever gave you the idea that you could hide out in a carnival? Hell, you didn’t even change your name, and Hatchet Ben Jeffries knew you’d been a juggler.”

  “Benzagari is an old friend,” replied Crunchtime. “And we had to perform here to get our bona fides before traveling to Port Samarkand.”

  “You were making sense right up until now,” I said.

  “We must make contact with Duristan.”

  “This is where I came in,” I said. “Who is Duristan?”

  “He’s a Rabolian,” said Andy.

  I frowned. “I know something about Rabolians, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it
is.”

  “They’re mentalists.”

  “That’s right,” I said, as it suddenly came back to me. “They’re one of the few telepathic races.”

  “They’re more than telepaths,” said Andy. “A telepath can just read what I’m thinking. A true mentalist, a Rabolian, can dig out things I didn’t even know were in my mind.”

  “And you think he’s going to be able to tell you what you saw?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’ll be my insurance policy. I’ll write up the details, swear to it, store it in half a dozen locations, and let her know that if anything happens to me it’ll be made public.” He paused. “You look dubious, Mr. Masters.”

  “Call me Jake. And I am dubious.”

  “You think I’m lying to you, Jake?”

  “Nobody could think up a lie like that,” I said. “No, I believe you.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Maybe your mother had nothing to do with what you saw. Maybe you went a little haywire and dissected your pet puppy. Maybe you saw a couple of kids making whoopee and were scared by all the forbidden activity and noise. There are aliens whose appearance would give anyone nightmares; maybe you bumped into one. Or maybe it was something else.”

  “It was her!” he snapped. “Why else would she be trying to kill me?”

  “I don’t know that she is trying to kill you,” I said. “But even if you’re right, are you sure you want to go through with this? When we bury things so deep it takes a Rabolian to dig them out, they’re probably better left alone.”

  “I’ve got to do it. It’s the only way I’ll ever get her to leave me alone. And…”

  “And?”

  “I’ve got to know.”

  “Okay, I’ve got another question. Why are you pretending to be carnies?

  “Duristan works for a carnival,” explained Crunchtime. “Mrs. Vanderwycke is no fool. She knows Andy’s best defense against her is the knowledge of what he saw all those years ago, and she knows that the most likely person to unlock that information is a Rabolian.”

  “All I’ve heard so far is that Duristan works for a carnival,” I said. “Why not just walk up and pay him to do whatever it is that he does?”