Part 39 (1/2)

With a vicious movement, Kelexel twisted the manipulator's controls beneath his tunic. The pressure, building up abruptly, jerked Ruth backward into her chair, stiffened her body then relaxed it. She slumped into unconsciousness.

17.

Fraffin swept onto the landing platform with long, angry strides, his cloak whipping about his bowed legs. The sea shone like dark green crystals beyond the spider lines of the enclosing field. A file of ten flitters stood ready along the gray ramp, prepared to debark on his orders, checking the status of their ”lovely little war.” Perhaps it could still be saved. There was a biting smell of damp ozone in the air. It made the guardian layers of Fraffin's skin crawl in a protective reflex.

He could sense the planet flowering for him up there, spewing forth story after story in such a profusion as it had never done before. But if the report on Kelexel were true . . . It couldn't be true. Logic said it couldn't be true.

Fraffin slowed his stride as he approached traffic control, the yellow bubble eye with Lutt, his Master-of-Craft, personally in charge. The squat, solid body of the crewman imparted a feeling of rea.s.surance to Fraffin. Lutt's square face was bent over the yellow eye.

There was a crafty look to Lutt, though, and Fraffin suddenly remembered Cato saying: ”Fear kings whose slaves are crafty.” Ah, there'd been a native to admire -- Cato. And Fraffin recalled Cato's Carthaginian enemies, the two kings looking down from Citadel-Byrsa onto the inner harbor of Corthon. ”Proper sacrifice, right thinking, the best G.o.ds -- those bring victory.” Cato had said that, too.

But Cato was dead, his life whirled up in the crazy time-blur that was a Chem's memory. He was dead and the two kings were dead.

Surely the report on Kelexel is wrong, Fraffin thought.

A waiting flitter crewman signaled Lutt. The Master-of-Craft straightened, turned to face Fraffin. An alert air of caution in the man destroyed all illusion of rea.s.surance.

He looks a little like Cato, Fraffin thought as he stopped three paces from Lutt. The same sort of bone structure in the face. Ah, we've bred much of ourselves into this place. Fraffin pulled his cloak around him, aware of a sudden chill in the air.

”Honored director,” Lutt said. How warily he spoke!

”I've just heard a disturbing report about the Investigator,” Fraffin said.

”The Investigator?”

”Kelexel, you oaf!”

Lutt's tongue darted out and across his lips. He glanced left, right, returned his attention to Fraffin. ”He . . . he said he had your permission to . . . he had the native female with him in a tagalong floater . . . she . . . what is wrong?”

Fraffin took a moment to compose himself. There was a slackdrum throbbing through every micro-instant that lay immersed in his being. This planet and its creatures! The erection/detumescence of each instant he'd shared with them lay on his awareness with scalding pressure. He felt like a bivalve at the tide-edge of the universe. History was collapsing within him and he could only remember the ages of his crime.

”The Investigator is gone then?” Fraffin asked, and he was proud of how calmly his voice emerged.

”Just a short trip,” Lutt whispered. ”He said just a short trip.” Lutt nodded, a swift, jerking motion full of nervousness. ”I . . . everyone said the Investigator'd been snared. He had the female with him. She was unconscious!” Lutt pounced on this revelation as though it were a most important discovery. ”The native female was unconscious in the flitter!” A sly smile twitched Lutt's mouth. ”The better to control her, he said.”

Fraffin spoke through a dry mouth: ”Did he say where?”

”Planetside,” Lutt hooked a thumb upward.

Fraffin's eyes followed the motion, noting the warty skin, his mind filled with wonder that such a casual gesture could carry such a weight of terrifying possibilities.

”In the needles.h.i.+p?” Fraffin asked.

”He said he was more familiar with its controls,” Lutt said.

There was a veil of fear over Lutt's eyes now. The Director's bland voice and appearance couldn't conceal the slas.h.i.+ng purpose of these questions -- and there'd already been one flash of anger.

”He a.s.sured me he had your approval,” Lutt rasped. ”He said it was part of his training when he gets his own . . .” The glare in Fraffin's eyes stopped him, then: ”He said the female would enjoy it.”