"Your name ith Jathon Ramthey?" the Port Security Officer lisped
politely.
Jason Ramsey, who wore the uniform of Interstellar Transfer Service and
was the only Earthman in the Service here on Irwadi, smiled and said:
"Take three guesses. You know darn well I'm Ramsey." He was a big man
even by Earth standards, which meant he towered over the Irwadian's
green, scaly head. He was fair of skin and had hair the color of copper.
It was rumored on Irwadi and elsewhere that he couldn't return to Earth
because of some crime he had committed.
"Alwayth the chip on the shoulder," the Port Security Officer said.
"Won't you Earthmen ever learn?" The splay-tongued reptile-humanoids of
Irwadi always spoke Interstellar _Coine_ with a pronounced lisp which
Ramsey found annoying, especially since it went so well with the
officious and underhanded behavior for which the Irwadians were famous
the galaxy over.
"Get to the point," Ramsey said harshly. "I have a ship to take through
hyper-space."
"No. You have no ship."
"No? Then what's this?" His irritation mounting, Ramsey pulled out the
Interstellar Transfer Service authorization form and showed it to the
Security Officer. "A tip-sheet for the weightless races at Fomalhaut
VI?"
The Security Officer said: "Ha, ha, ha." He could not laugh; he merely
uttered the phonetic equivalent of laughter. On harsh Irwadi, laughter
would have been a cultural anomaly. "You make joketh. Well,
nevertheleth, you have no ship." He expanded his scaly green barrel
chest and declaimed: "At 0400 hours thith morning, the government of
Irwadi hath planetarithed the Irwadi Tranthfer Thervith."
* * * * *
"Planetarized the Transfer Service!" gasped Ramsey in surprise. He knew
the Irwadians had been contemplating the move in theory for many years,
but he also knew that transferring a starship from normal space through
hyper-space back to normal space again was a tremendously difficult and
technical task. He doubted if half a dozen Irwadians had mastered it,
yet the Irwadi branch of Interstellar Transfer Service was made up of
seventy-five hyper-space pilots of divers planetalities.
"Ecthactly," said the Security Officer, as amused as an Irwadian could
be by the amazement in Ramsey's frank green eyes. "Tho if you will
kindly thurrender your permit?"
"Let's see it in writing, huh?"
The Security Officer complied. Ramsey read the official document,
scowled, and handed over his Irwadi pilot license. "What about the
_Polaris_?" he wanted to know. The _Polaris_ was a Centaurian ship he'd
been scheduled to take through hyper-space on the run from Irwadi to
Centauri III.
"Temporarily grounded, captain. Or should I thay, ecth-captain?"
"Temporarily my foot," said Ramsey. "It'll be months before you
Irwadians can get even a fraction of the ships into hyper. You must be
out of your minds."
"Our problem, captain. Not yourth."
That was true enough. Ramsey shrugged.
"Your problem," the Security Officer went on blandly, "will be to find a
meanth of thelf-thupport until you and all other ecthra-planetarieth can
be removed from Irwadi. We owe you ecthra-planetarieth nothing. Ethpect
no charity from uth."
Ramsey shrugged. Like all extra-planetaries on a bleak, friendless world
like Irwadi, he'd regularly gambled away and drank away his monthly
paycheck in the interstellar settlement which the Irwadians had
established in the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. But last month he'd
managed to come out even at the gaming tables, so he had a few hundred
credits to his name. That would be enough, he told himself, to tide him
over until Interstellar Transfer Service came to the rescue of its
stranded pilots.
Ramsey went up the gangway and got his gear from the _Polaris_. When he
returned down the gangway, the late afternoon wind was blowing across
the spacefield tarmac, a wet, bone-chilling wind which only the
reptile-humanoid Irwadians didn't seem to mind.
Ramsey fastened the toggles of his cold-weather cape, put his head down
and hunched his shoulders, and walked into the teeth of the wind. He did
not look back at the _Polaris_, marooned indefinitely on Irwadi despite
anything the Centaurian owners or anyone else for that matter could do
about it.
* * * * *
The Irwadi Security Officer, whose name was Chind Ramar, walked up the
gangway and ordered the ship's Centaurian first officer to assemble his
crew and passengers. Chind Ramar allowed himself the rare luxury of a
fleeting smile. He could imagine this scene being duplicated on fifty
ships here on his native planet today, fifty outworld ships which had no
business at all on Irwadi. Of course, Irwadi was an important
planet-of-call in the Galactic Federation because the vital metal
titanium was found as abundantly in Irwadian soil as aluminum is found
in the soil of an Earth-style planet. Titanium, in alloy with steel and
manganese, was the only element which could withstand the tremendous
heat generated in the drive-chambers of interstellar ships during
transfer. In the future, Chind Ramar told himself with a kind of cold
pride, only Irwadian pilots, piloting Irwadian ships through
hyper-space, would bring titanium to the waiting galaxy. At Irwadi
prices.
With great relish, Chind Ramar announced the facts of planetarization
and told the Centaurians and their passengers that they would be
stranded for an indefinite period on Irwadi. Amazement, anger, bluster,
debate, and finally resignation--the reactions were the expected ones,
in the expected order. It was easy, Chind Ramar thought, with all but
the interstellar soldiers of fortune like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey, of
course, would need watching. As for these others....
One of the others, an Earthgirl whose beauty was entirely missed by
Chind Ramar, left the _Polaris_ in a hurry. She either had no luggage or
left her luggage aboard. Jason Ramsey, she thought. She had read Chind
Ramar's mind; a feat growing less rare although by no means common yet
among the offspring of those who had spent a great deal of time
bombarded by cosmic radiation between the stars. She hurried through the
chilling wind toward the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. Panic, she thought.
You've got to avoid panic. If you panic, you're finished....
* * * * *
"So that's about the size of it," Ramsey finished.
Stu Englander nodded. Like Ramsey he was a hyper-space pilot, but
although he had an Earth-style name and had been born of Earth parents,
he was not an Earthman. He had been born on Capella VII, and had spent
most of his life on that tropical planet. The result was not an uncommon
one for outworlders who spent any amount of time on Irwadi: Stu
Englander had a nagging bronchial condition which had kept him off the
pilot-bridge for some months now.
Englander nodded again, dourly. He was a short, very slender man a few
years older than Ramsey, who was thirty-one. He said: "That ties it. And
I mean ties it, brother. You're looking at the brokest Capellan-earthman
who ever got himself stuck on an outworld."
"You mean it?"
"Dead broke, Jase."
"What about Sally and the kids?"
Englander had an Arcturan-earthian wife and twin boys four years old. "I
don't know what about Sally and the kids," he told Ramsey glumly. "I
guess I'll go over to the New Quarter and try to get some kind of a
job."
"They wouldn't hire an outworlder to shine their shoes with his own
spit, Stu. They have got the planetarization bug, and they've got it
bad."
Sally Englander called from the kitchen of the small flat: "Will Jase be
staying for supper?"
Englander stared at Ramsey, who shook his head. "Not today, Sally,"
Englander said, looking at Ramsey gratefully.
"Listen," Ramsey lied, "I've been lucky as all get out the last couple
of months."
"You old pro!" grinned Englander.
"So I've got a few hundred credits just burning a hole in my pocket,"
Ramsey went on. "How's about taking them?"
"But I haven't the slightest idea when I could pay back."
"I didn't say anything about paying me back."
"I couldn't accept charity, Jase."
"O.K. Pay me back when you get a chance. There are plenty of hyper-space
jobs waiting for us all over the galaxy, you know that."
"Yeah, all we have to do is get off Irwadi and go after them. But the
Irwadians are keeping us right here."
"Sure, but it won't last. Not when the folks back in Capella and Deneb
and Sol System hear about it."
"Six months," said Englander bleakly. "It'll take at least that long."
"Six months I can wait. What d'you say?"
Englander coughed wrackingly, his eyes watering. He got off the bed and
shook Ramsey's hand solemnly. Ramsey gave him three hundred and
seventy-five credits and said: "Just see you make that go a long way
supporting Sally and the kids. I don't want to see you dropping any of
it at the gaming tables. I'll knock your block off if I see you there."
"I'll knock my own block off if I see me there. Jase, I don't know how
to thank--"
"Don't is right. Forget it."
"Do you have enough--"
"Me? Plenty. Don't worry about old Jase." Ramsey went to the door.
"Well, see you."
Englander walked quickly to him and shook his hand again. On the way
out, Ramsey played for a moment or two with the twins, who were rolling
a couple of toy spaceships marked hyper-one and hyper-two across the
floor and making anachronistic machine-gun noises with their lips. Sally
Englander, a plump, young-home-maker type, beamed at Ramsey from the
kitchen. Then he went out into the gathering dusk.
* * * * *
As usual on Irwadi, and particularly with the coming of night, it was
bitterly cold. Sucker, Ramsey told himself. But he grinned. He felt good
about what he'd done. With Stu sick, and with Sally and the kids, he'd
done the only thing he could do. He still had almost twenty-five credits
left. Maybe he really would have a lucky night at the tables. Maybe ...
heck, he'd been down-and-out before. A fugitive from Earth didn't have
much choice sometimes....
"Red sixteen," the croupier said indifferently. He was a short,
heavy-set Sirian with a shock of scarlet hair, albino skin, and red
eyes.
Ramsey watched his money being raked across the table. It wasn't his
night, he told himself with a grim smile. He had only three credits
left. If he risked them now, there wouldn't even be the temporary
physical relief and release of a bottle of Irwadian brandy before
hitting the sack.
Which was another thing, Ramsey thought. Hitting the sack. Ah yes, you
filthy outworlder capitalist, hitting the sack. You owe that fish-eyed,
scale-skinned Irwadian landlady the rent money, so you'd better wait
until later, until much later, before sneaking back to your room.
* * * * *
He watched the gambling for another hour or so without risking his few
remaining credits. After a while a well-dressed Irwadian, drunk and
obviously slumming here in the Old Quarter, made his way over to the
table. His body scales were a glossy dark green and he wore glittering,
be-jeweled straps across his chest and an equally glittering, be-jeweled
weapons belt. Aside from these, in the approved Irwadian fashion, he was
quite naked. An anthropologist friend had once told Ramsey that once the
Irwadians had worn clothing, but since the coming in great number of the
outworlders they had stripped down, as though to prove how tough they
were in being able to withstand the freezing climate of their native
world. Actually, the Irwadian body-scales were superb insulation,
whether from heat or from cold.
"... Earthman watching me," the Irwadian in the be-jeweled straps said
arrogantly, placing a fat roll of credits on the table.
"I'm sorry," Ramsey said. "Were you talking to me?"
"I thertainly wath," lisped the Irwadian, his eyes blazing with drunken
hatred. "I thaid I won't have any Earthman thnooping over my thoulder
while I gamble, not unleth he'th gambling too."
"Better tell that to your Security Police," Ramsey said coldly but not
angrily. "I'm out of a job, so I don't have money to throw around. Go
ahead and tell me--" with a little smile--"you think it was my idea."
The Irwadian looked up haughtily. Evidently he was looking for trouble,
or could not hold his liquor, or both. The frenzy of planetarization,
Ramsey knew from bitter experience on other worlds, made irrational
behavior like this typical. He studied the drunken Irwadian carefully.
In all the time he'd spent on Irwadi, he'd never been able to tell a
native's age by his green, scale-skinned, fish-eyed poker-face. But the
glossy green scales covering face and body told Ramsey, along with the
sturdy muscles revealed by the lack of clothing, that the Irwadian was
in his prime, shorter than Ramsey by far, but wider across the shoulders
and thicker through the barrel chest.
"You outworlderth have been deprething the thandard of living on Irwadi
ever thince you came here," the Irwadian said. "All you ever brought
wath poverty and your ditheath germth and more trouble than you could
handle. I don't want your thtink near me. I'm trying to enjoy mythelf.
Get out of here."
* * * * *
It was abruptly silent in the little gambling hall. Since the
establishment catered to outworlders and was full of them, the silence,
Ramsey thought, should have been both ominous and in his favor. He
looked around. Outworlders, yes. But not another Earthman present. He
wondered if he was in for a fight. He shrugged, hardly caring. Maybe a
fight was just what he needed, the way he felt.
"Get out of here," the Irwadian repeated. "You thtink."
Just then a Vegan girl, blue-skinned and fantastically wasp-waisted like
all her kind, drifted over to Ramsey. He'd seen her around. He thought
he recognized her. Maybe he'd even danced with her in the unit-a-dance
halls reserved for humanoid outworlders.
"Are you nuts?" she said, hissing the words through her teeth and
grabbing Ramsey's elbow. "Don't you know who that guy is?"
"No. Who?"
"He's Garr Symm, that's who."
Ramsey smiled at her without mirth. "Do I bow down in awe or run from
here screaming? I never heard of Garr Symm."
"Oh you fool!" she whispered furiously. "Garr Symm is the brand new
number one man of the Irwadi Security Police. Don't you read the
'casts?"
Before Ramsey could answer or adjust to his surprise, the Irwadian
repeated:
"I'm telling you for the third time. Get out."
Ostentatiously, Ramsey reached into his cloak-pocket for a single credit
bill and tossed it on the table.
"The denomination is not sufficient, sir," the albino Sirian croupier
said indifferently. Ramsey had known it was not.
Garr Symm's face turned a darker green. The Vegan girl retreated from
Ramsey's side in fright. Symm raised his hand and an Irwadian waiter
brought over a drink in a purple stem glass with a filigree pattern of
titanium, bowing obsequiously. Symm lurched with the glass toward
Ramsey. "I'm telling you to go," he said in a loud voice.
Ramsey picked up his credit note but stood there. With a little sigh of
drunken contentment, Garr Symm sloshed the contents of his stem glass in
Ramsey's face.
The liquor stung Ramsey's eyes. Many of the other outworlders, neither
Irwadian nor Earthmen, laughed nervously.
Ramsey wiped his eyes but otherwise did not move. He was in a rough spot
and he knew it. The fact that their new Security Chief went out drunk at
night with a chip on his shoulder was the Irwadian government's affair,
not Ramsey's. He'd been insulted before. An Earthman in the outworlds,
particularly an Earthman fugitive who knew he dared not get into the
kind of trouble that could bring the Earth consul to investigate, was
used to insults. For Earth was the leading economic and military power
of the galaxy, and the fact that Earth really tried to deal fairly with
its galactic neighbors meant nothing. Earth, being top dog, was
resented.
The thing which got Ramsey, though, was this Garr Symm. He had never
heard of Garr Symm, and he thought he knew most of the big shots in the
Irwadian Security Police by name. But there must have been a reason for
his appointment. A government throwing off outworld influence had a
reason for everything. So, why Garr Symm?
* * * * *
"You, Mith Vegan!" Garr Symm called suddenly. "You whithpered to the
Earthman. What did you tell him?"
"Not to look for trouble," the Vegan girl said in a frightened voice.
"But what elth?"
"Honest, that's all."
"Come here, pleath."
Her blue skin all at once very pale, the Vegan girl walked back toward
Garr Symm. He leered at her quite drunkenly and took hold of her slender
arm. "What did you tell him? For the latht time."