Halting within the chamber Gartok introduced himself adding, "Have I fought with any here? Against them? No?"
"Once I think," said a man at the far end of the table. "Were you on Lisyen about five years ago? With Donlenck's Destroyers?"
"And if I was?"
"I served with Voronech."
"And lost as I remember." Gartok looked at the man. "Any grudges?"
"Hell, no. I doubt if we ever even met. It was all long-range stuff, right?"
Gartok nodded and, as the girl arrived with his order, slammed the flagon on the table.
"Right. Now have a drink and fill me in on what's happening. Glasses, girl, and hurry!"
The flagon vanished, was replaced with another, more. Wine and conversation flowed and old battles were refought and old engagements remembered. Here, in this room, paid enemies faced each other and future foes sat and toasted each other in wine.
Gartok mentioned Craig.
"A bad world," said Chue Tung, his yellow skin gleaming like oiled leather in the dancing firelight. "Years ago now, six, seven, eight, maybe?"
"Does it matter?" A man a little more drunk than the rest, snapped his impatience. "Get on with it, man."
"Please," said another, quickly. "Eight years, you think?"
"Eight." Chue Tung looked at the one who had interrupted. One day they would meet and then revenge would be sweet. For now he would act the congenial spinner of reminiscences. "It was a small engagement, like yours, Kars, or so it started out to be. A simple police-job. I landed with a couple of hundred men and within a month we had the area pacified. All nice and neat-then the women took a hand. We lost fifteen men in three days and I'm not going to tell you how they died. We had a pretty tough commander at the time, Elque Imballa, anyone know him?" Pausing he looked at his listeners. "No? Well, he'd dead now but you could have served under worse. At least he took care of his own. Fifteen men had died so he took thirty locals and shot them. After that he took steps to end the danger."
Gartok was interested. "How?"
"The women were the trouble-you know how soldiers are when there's no prospect of action. Looting, raping, they do it all the time. There was nothing to loot so only one thing was left. Imballa had the entire area swept and all females assembled. Then he got the armorers to make some special undergarments for them to wear. Pants of wire mesh fitted with a friction bomb. They were safe until someone tried to jerk them off then-bang!" He made an expressive gesture.
"And?"
"A couple of fools tried it and ended up as mincemeat. After they had been buried the others learned the lesson. The women too. Try to get near them and they'd scream and go for your eyes. It wasn't much fun for anyone but it solved the problem. In his own way Elque Imballa was a pretty shrewd man."
For a long moment there was silence then a man said, dryly, "I'm not calling you a liar, Chue, but if anyone else had told me a story like that I'd be tempted to doubt his word."
"I'm glad that you're not calling me a liar, Amil," said Chue Tung softly. "I'd hate to kill you without getting paid for it."
Gartok, recognizing the undercurrent of hostility, said, "Talking of paying who is due to order the next flagon of wine?"
The talk moved on, took direction, revealed why each was present. Work was scarce and expenses high. The mines were waiting to swallow any who couldn't meet his debts. Times were hard for free-lance mercenaries.
"We need a good war," said one. "Something on a rich world with little fighting and guaranteed pay. That or a takeover. A bloodless victory with a long-term contract."
"I almost had it." The man was small, thin, his face gaunt, his eyes darting like restless birds. "The best prospect a man could ever hope to get. A friend passed me the word. He'd got a job training some retainers in the use of arms and from what he told me it was gravy all the way. Not much in the way of pay but the opportunity was there and the prospects were superb. I'd have been set for life."
"Talk," said a dour-faced man who sat in a corner. "We've heard it all before, Relldo."
"Maybe, but this time it's the truth. I told you the man was a friend. Well, to cut it short, I got to where he was working and found I'd arrived too late. Gnais was dead and so was the man who'd employed him. He was Lord Gydapen Prabang. His retainers were to start a war and conquer the entire damned planet. There would be no opposition. We'd all get rich. Then something happened and he got himself killed."
"How?" Gartok helped himself to more wine. "Accident?"
"Idiocy." Relldo scowled at his wine. "There was trouble between Gydapen and a woman, the Lady Lavinia Del Belamosk. She'd won the aide of a stranger-a man called Dumarest. He was a traveler, I think, a tall man who wore grey and carried a knife in his boot. He could be dead now but I doubt it. His sort are hard to kill."
"And?"
"He became involved and took a hand. He hit Gydapen with the woman and a few others in an attempt to steal the guns. At least I think that's the way it was. I wasn't there at the time, remember, but I learned what happened from a retainer who saw it all. Anyway, Gydapen gained the upper hand and then threw away his advantage. That's why I called him an idiot. He was tricked into allowing Dumarest to get a knife in his hands." Pausing Relldo added, slowly, "Could you believe that one man could kill another with a thrown knife when the victim had a laser in his hand aimed and ready to fire?"
"Is that what happened?"
"My informant saw it done."
"Fast," said Chue Tung before Gartok could comment. "A man who could do that would have to be fast."
"Damned fast," agreed Relldo. "And from what I was told Dumarest is all of that. When he moved it was like a blur, a flash of steel, a thud and Gydapen was falling with a knife in his throat. The next thing bullets were flying and that was the end of the war. My usual kind of luck- all of it bad. I was near stranded and had to travel Low."
He looked it; the loss of body-fat was a characteristic sign, tissue lost while he had lain doped, frozen and ninety per cent dead in a casket designed for the transportation of animals. Risking the fifteen percent death rate for the sake of cheap travel.
Chue Tung said, thoughtfully, "Maybe you left too soon. Something could have been arranged, perhaps. Where is this place?"
"A world on the edge of the Rift." Relldo scowled as he finished his wine. "But I would not have stayed even if Gnais had been alive. Not for long, anyway. Not once I'd seen the planet."
"Why not?"
"Because when I kill a man I like to know that he's dead. On Zakym that doesn't happen. The damned place is rotten with ghosts."
Chapter Two
The woman standing against the parapet couldn't be real for Dumarest had seen her lying dead on a world far distant in time and space and yet, as he watched, she smiled at him and extended her hands and took a step closer while the soft tones of her voice caressed his ears.
"Earl, it has been so long. Why must I continue to wait? We should be together always. Have you forgotten how close we were? How much in love? I was your wife, my darling. Your wife!"
A ship-liaison, good only for as long as both wanted it, a common practice among free traders especially those risking the dangers of clouded space. For such men pleasures were things to be taken and cherished and used while the opportunity existed.
Yet it had been more than that. There had been love and care and a tender regard.
"Earl!" Lallia lifted her hands and stepped toward him. Against the sky her hair was a mass of shimmering ebon, her skin smooth and firm over muscle and bone, her body a remembered delight. "Earl?"
And then she was gone and, again, he was alone.
Leaning back in his chair Dumarest looked at the sky. The twin suns filled the heavens of Zakym with violet and magenta, the light merged now, the orbs close and low in the azure bowl. Soon it would be night and darkness would seal the land, but now the air held an oddly metallic taint and was still as though at the approach of a storm.
There would be no storm. There would be nothing but the darkness and another day would have passed as so many had passed before it. And, in the meantime, the dead reigned.
Delusia-the time when the dead walked and talked and communed with the living.