“Not to him,” Kilgarin said. “For him.” He explained what he’d seen during the expedition of some days earlier, finishing with, ’There’s something the Captain doesn’t want anyone to know, and whatever it is, he has to hide it so thoroughly no Sensitive can reach it—not even his Cork. He needs a mindblock, but he’s a Physical, he can’t make one himself; it has to be done for him. Who’s the one man on the ship who’s known the Captain longest, who’s closest to him, and whom the Captain allows in his mind during a survey? Wells. Our Engineer. He’s the only one to have gotten past that block as far as I know. He has to be the man behind it.”

  “You might have something there, Kilgarin.” the Centaurian said, setting his mug down on the counter with a click. “But so what? What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me,” Kilgarin answered. “It means Fra close to learning why the Captain killed my brother.”

  “Killed?” Raymond said the word softly. He was sweating, and under his ragged black hair his face was pale, his forehead wrinkled in a deep frown.

  “What else would you call it?”

  “But killed—” Raymond shook bis head. “I suppose you know what you’re saying, Kilgarin. But why are you saying it to us?”

  “I may need a little help,” Kilgarin said.

  “You’re thinking we can find out things for you, about Wells and the Captain, and that Wells won’t think of probing our minds. Is that it7” Ty’ger smiled. His eyes glistened in the dim light.

  “Essentially,” Kilgarin said. “I can block off any probing from Wells or anyone else, but doing that limits me. I don’t really think I’ll need either of you in a pinch, but it will make things simpler to have you around.”

  The two other men glanced at each other. Ty’ger’s gaze went back to Kilgarin first. “I’ll do what I can, Kilgarin. It may not be much.”

  “Me too,” Raymond added. “Like I said before: I owe you.”

  Kilgarin nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get another round of beer.”

  Approaching them, the colonist seemed smaller than he was: his body moved in a shuffle, one shoulder dipping, rising, the other repeating the motion, both hands stuffed shyly into the large pockets on the front of his dusty suit, tousled hair falling over a grainy face. He stopped a short distance from the three shipmates and looked them over, tilting bis head back to free his eyes from his ragged bangs. He let his gaze linger on Raymond. Then he looked at Kilgarin, catching the Sensitive’s eye. “You two from the ship? One that just landed?”

  “We all are,” Kilgarin said. The colonist nodded and frowned down at his hands.

  “First ship in six months,” he said. “First Company ship.”

  “There weren’t many people to meet us at the port.” Kilgarin said. He waited for the colonist to comment, then went on, explaining. “Usually in small ports like this, people come to see the crew down. To hear the news. That sort of thing.”

  “Bluff isn’t ’that sort of world, mister. We’ve been a little cold around here, past six months. Past six years, actually.”

  “But you’re here,” Raymond pointed out. “You’re interested.”

  The colonist ignored him. “Staying long?” he asked KILGARIN.

  “Another two or three hours.”

  “Better leave now.”

  “Why?” Kilgarin asked. Ty’ger touched the Cork’s elbow, but Kilgarin shrugged away. He watched the colonist’s eyes, which were still fixed on his hands.

  “Because you’re Company, mister. And Company isn’t welcome around here much, anymore.”

  Raymond coughed. Kilgarin paid no attention to the Physical’s nervous hint; he continued to face the colonist, coldly. “You’ve got something against the Company, Fellow—?” He paused, waiting for the small man to supply a name. He noticed that the room around them had grown quiet, and that all eyes were aimed in their direction. Feet shifted almost inaudibly. A burly man in brown overalls cleared his throat noisily. The tension in the room deepened.

  “My name’s none of your concern, mister,” the colonist said. “And I’m no Company Fellow, either. Told you Company isn’t welcome around here. That was a friendly warning, one human to another. Told myself I’d do that much, I don’t have to do much more.” The vague looked vanished from the colonist’s face. His hand came up and brushed the hair back from his eyes. Lean, hard features; the thin slash of a mouth, the black of squinting eyes.

  “We didn’t come here for trouble,” Kilgarin said.

  “Then get out now,” the man said, “and take your friend.”

  Raymond’s mouth worked, but before the young Physical could speak, Ty’ger cut in. “What’s wrong with our friend that’s not wrong with us?”

  The colonist’s facial muscles jerked into an expression that mixed distaste and pity. “You were born like you are, mister, can’t help being the way you’re being. But him, he can, and he’s sifting with you, drinking with you. He knows what he’s doing is wrong.”

  “What’s he doing?” Kilgarin asked. Beside him, Raymond began to speak, but was stopped by Ty’ger. The three of them stared at the colonist, who leaned over to Spit between the Physical’s legs.

  “Being with you,” the small man said.

  Ty’ger grunted. “Are you going to wait on this one, too?” he asked Kilgarin. The Cork shook his head. Both he and the Centaurian moved forward in a single motion. The colonist went back over the bar, into the far shelf of bottles and glasses, sending them flying in a dozen directions. With a cry, the other colonists lunged forward, and it began.

  Within moments Kilgarin found himself at the center of a twisted bundle of arms and legs. He snapped his knee up, heard someone on top of him cry out in agony, and slipped through the path the injured colonist’s form provided when it collapsed out of the way. Across from him Ty’ger was dodging the wild swings of a middle-aged farmer in faded overalls; the older man held the arm of a chair in his fist, and was brandishing it at the Centaurian with no attempt at aiming. Several times the end of a swing connected with one of the colonist’s colleagues, but the man seemed unaware of the effect his blows were having. The room was in an uproar. Two of the lanterns fell from their niches, and half of the bar was swallowed in darkness. Kilgarin searched for Raymond, but was unable to find the Physical visually. One particular tangle of colonists looked promising, and he plunged toward it, opening his mind to draw in the young man’s thoughts.

  Panic. Pure, hysterical fear.

  Reacting as a Cork, Kilgarin slipped into Raymond’s mind, made an attempt to soothe the young man’s fears, to help Raymond gain control of himself. Instead, he discovered himself slipping into a mindlock, as he had with Marka several days before. There was something different about this mindlock, however; where the link with Marka had paralyzed him, this one freed him in some way. Where before he’d found himself enveloped by emotions he didn’t understand, he now felt balanced on the end of a lever mentally attached to Raymond. It was a true mindlock symbiosis. He was in control. Raymond was in control. The two of them thought with the same mind.

  Now, Raymond! Bring your leg up, twist it around his knee. Hard, now…now, now, now! Hard!

  There was a crack that was audible across the room. The tangle of bodies broke apart suddenly, exposing Raymond, lying half across and half under a man whose leg was twisted at an impossible angle. Raymond’s face was white with terror, hut there was also a quiet awareness in his eyes. He pushed the broken man off him, thrust himself to his feet, whirled in time to avoid the fist of a gaunt man with bulging eyes, ducked and grabbed the man by the arm, jerked him over his shoulder and slung him into three men who were rushing Ty’ger. All four went down with a simultaneous grunt.

  To your left, Kilgarin. leaning aside. Kiigarin felt a form diving past him. A crash thundered to his right, chairs splintering as the colonist completed his dive by landing in their midst.

  The fight ended quickly. Once Raymond and Kilgarin linked the colonists had no defense against the two of them, or against Ty’ger, who fought like a madman. Less than ten minutes after it started, the brawl was over. Kilgarin and his two shipmates found themselves alone in the pub, surrounded by the remains of wooden chairs and tables. The bartender was gone; most of the lanterns were out: the place was in ruins.

  “Want a drink?” Kilgarin asked. He went behind the bar and fetched a bottle for each of them. They drank somberly. After several seconds Ty’ger set his bottle down with a muttered curse.

  “They weren’t really fighting us. They were fighting the Company. And we had to hurt them. Damn.” He looked up at Kilgarin and Raymond, who were still working on their bottles. “What happened to you two back there? One moment we were fighting as a team, the next—” He paused. Then: “Mindlink? You two?”

  Kilgarin nodded. Ty’ger raised his eyebrows. “Fine.” he said. He took another pull on his absinthe, set it down a minute later. “Are we still together on this Wells thing? Yes?” Kilgarin said they were, and Ty’ger shrugged. He seemed colder than he’d been earlier, more distant. Finishing off the last of his drink, he tossed the bottle over his shoulder. It shattered on the floor, glass scattering in a rough circle around a pool of dark liquid. “Fine,” he said again. “I’ll see you back at the ship.”

  Kilgarin and Raymond watched him leave. Then Kilgarin took a credit slip out of his pocket—a standard chit for several hundred Company credits—and placed it on the counter where it would be found. Two more bottles disappeared from under the bar. Skirting the wreckage, the shipmates left through the wide-open door.

  On their way back to the ship much later that evening, they met the Cook. He was returning from the market section of town, which Raymond and Kilgarin had bypassed during their wanderings because of its lights and activity, and he was pushing a cart that was filled with brown-and-green vegetables and several kegs of a sweet-smelling liquid he called milk. Kilgarin and Raymond took turns helping him push the cart until they reached the ship.

  At midnight the Charter lifted for the planet Elysson; all hands were aboard.

  Chapter Six

  Ninth month, second day, anno Domini 3146

  In his quarters during the last few hours before they would reach the planet, the Captain briefed his officers on the situation they would encounter on Elysson. Apparently the colony was in active rebellion, the colonists seizing much of the main port area, a few of the Company holdings in the central city, Krysta, and were in the process of attacking the planet’s Company Administrative Office as the Charter approached. Ryork, the Communications agent, had received this information earlier in the day, as well as certain instructions, which the Captain now relayed. The Charter was to land at the Krysta port, and its officers were to make every effort to rescue the Company agent held there under siege. The agent’s name was Gunyon. More than this, the Captain didn’t think his officers needed to know. They were dismissed.

  In the corridor outside the Captain’s quarters, Kilgarin approached Ryork for further information. Her pet eyed him with luminous orbs as Ryork turned and blinked at him; Kilgarin was surprised to discover she was crying. She brushed a hand over her face, blinked again, calming herself. “1 left Elysson fifteen years ago, Kilgarin,” she told him. “It used to be my home once, but I don’t know what it’s like now. I always thought we Elyssonians were a quiet tribe, frankly. I don’t know what to make of all this.”

  “Is your family down there7” Kilgarin asked. He gestured a greeting at the Cook, who was passing them, and the other man lifted a hand, went on, leaving Kilgarin walking with Ryork and Wells, who didn’t seem to notice them in front of him.

  “A sister. I don’t think she’s still there, though.”

  “What’s the planet itself like, Ryork? I like to know that sort of thing.”

  “An easy planet, Kilgarin, for those who understand it. Good soil, better than Endrim, better than earth. I’ve never felt soil like it anywhere. The winters are long, but the years are almost half again as long as Standard; there’s time for a big harvest, warm summers. It’s a nice world, Kilgarin.”

  “And the people?”

  “Fifteen years; I don’t know them anymore. But when I was there, they were a hard lot. It was odd,” Ryork said, turning her head to gaze at him through the graying bangs of her hair; her pet stared at him also. “An easy planet, but the hardest people I’ve ever known. The Company made them that way. We would draw in several tons of Shak—it’s a wheat that grows in stalks, close to the ground—and the Company would take most of it in interest payment on the land, the tools, and the transportation to the planet. Second-generation Elvssonians were still paying off their parents’ emigration fees. Paying for the privilege of being a Company slave.”

  Her anger touched Kilgarin’s mind. He closed it off. “Sounds as though you haven’t changed much in fifteen years.”

  “I have,” she said. “Yes. I used to hate the Company a great deal more. But I learned something every Elyssonian knows in his own way. If you want to survive, you have to play the Company game.”

  She left him. Kilgarin watched her turn a bend in the corridor and disappear. The last he saw of her was her pet, leaning off her shoulder to peer at Kilgarin until she carried him from view.

  “Ready for another game, Kilgarin?” Wells asked him. The Engineer slipped in beside the Cork, matching his long stride to Kilgarin’s. When Kilgarin said no, Wells laughed. “Pity.” he said. “I enjoyed beating you. Captain’s the only other worthwhile player aboard, and he can’t leave his Set when the ship’s in Drive. Pity you won’t play.”

  They fell silent, continuing to stroll down the main corridor toward the lounge. Kilgarin paced the lumbering Engineer. letting his mind relax until external sensations were dim shadows just lightly touching his brain. Inside, his mind opened, the portion of it which acted as a Cork maintaining its efforts as another portion separated and drifted in a gentle probe toward Wells. Kilgarin felt the fringe of the Engineer’s mind, the anxieties naturally present in any ship officer, combined with the less natural disorder derived from Wells’s position as Engineer, the irregularities of personality shifting on this inner sea. He probed deeper, past the level he usually touched as Cork—and found resistance to his probe.

  Quickly he backed off. Something had touched him when he’d tried to slip past Wells’s conscious level. Kilgarin paused, thinking. Another mindblock? It was possible, but—

  He tried again, extending a probe around the area of his initial attack. He met the same resistance he’d encountered before. It was a mindblock, and an efficient one at that. Most of Wells’s subconscious was cut off to Kilgarin’s probing, and it was done in such a way that Wells’s consciousness was not aware of the barrier within his brain. Which meant the block had been erected by the Engineer’s subconscious, or by a conscious order that had been consumed in the mindblock’s creation. Complicated, but effective. There was no way for an outside mind to discover what Wells was trying to hide.

  Warily, Kilgarin withdrew his probe. He glanced at the Engineer, but the man gave no sign of having noticed either the Cork’s probe or its removal. He can’t know what’s been happening. Kilgarin thought. He can’t be responsible for the Captain’s block. …Yet there it was. the Engineer’s own psychic barrier: why did it exist, if not to conceal Wells’s culpability in fixing the Captain’s mindblock? It had to be Wells’s defense against Kilgarin; when he’d realized what the Cork planned, the Engineer must have sought a way to protect himself—and his own mind-block was the result What else could it be? Kilgarin wondered.

  “Maybe a game later,” he said quietly. Wells brightened, looking up from his feet, which he’d been studying as he’d walked. “Good,” he said. “I’d enjoy that.”

  Leaving Wells outside the recreation room. Kilgarin tucked his hands into the loops of his shipboard jump suit and went on down the corridor toward the Library. He was barely aware of the rumblings of the ship around him; the sounds seemed removed, and he knew it was because he’d sectioned his mind in order to probe Wells. He didn’t mind the resulting alienation from the physical world: in a way, it was relaxing. The pressures on board the Charier were beginning to get to him, and he was glad for whatever relief he could find. It made his load as a Cork easier to bear.

  He stepped through a hatchway and stopped. J’kar stood before him. blocking his path.

  Gradually Kilgarin realized that the Centaurian was speaking to him; it took the Cork a moment to tune back to awareness, and he did so regretfully. “Talk, please talk now?” J'kar was saying. He was clearly agitated; his face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and wide, his hands moving toward Kilgarin’s jump suit and away, as though he couldn’t decide whether to force himself on the Cork or not.

  “I can’t,” Kilgarin told the burly Centaurian. “I’ve got something I have to do.”

  “Please, you can tell him, tell him please. Wants to kill me. Raymond says you stop him. please stop him. Killy, don’t want hurt, no more, please?” J’kar head bobbed on his reddened neck. He was close to total panic, Kilgarin saw. He laid a hand on the Centaurian’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

  “Everything will be all right,” he told him. “I just can’t talk to you now. Later.”

  “No, no,” J’kar said. His voice seemed to jerk out of him. “Don’t understand, you. Thinks I told soldiers about him, his brothers, sisters, parents, thinks I told. All years thinks I killed them. But wasn’t me, Kilgarin, tell him that. My father, he told the soldiers, I didn’t, wouldn’t—tell Ty’ger that, Killy, my father, not me—tell him—” The Centaurian’s mouth worked and his arm twisted out of Kilgarin’s grasp. His eyes squeezed shut in pain, his face turning red. Kilgarin grabbed J’kar’s hand quickly and snapped the big man around, spinning him so he struck the far wall, For a moment J’kar didn’t move. He leaned against the corridor wall, breathing heavily through his nose, his body calming and coming under his control. Finally his eyes opened and he stared past Kilgarin. slowly focusing and shifting his gaze until it touched the Cork. His breathing became more regular.

 

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