"No thank you," the Medic responded coolly.

"You don't drink. Doctor?" he asked smoothly.

"Not in dives like this!"

"Shannon, then, since you don't feel adventurous."

Ali smiled to himself, pleased to have been able to penetrate Cofort's armor sufficiently to get a rise out of her. No one appreciated a person's right to create defenses more than he did, or the right to keep quiet about the reasons for doing so, but Rael Cofort's were so good that finding a few c.h.i.n.ks in them was a sort of a relief, as if it confirmed her basic humanity.

Dane felt sorry he had suggested coming inside as soon as he stepped through the door. The Red Garnet was just another bar where people came to do serious drinking. It was not particularly attractive, and it presented no features of special interest. Even the bustle of life and talk that would enliven the single big room later were absent now.

The set-up process was well under way, and tables were being maneuvered back into place on the freshly scrubbed floor by a half-dozen burly men. The chairs were still stacked along the walls one atop the other in groups of six.

At that point, the bartender looked up from arranging his gla.s.ses and spotted the Free Traders. "We're open, s.p.a.ce hounds. What'll it be?"

"A couple of beers for the children, here," Ali responded lightly, seeing the man's close-set eyes begin to narrow at their apparent hesitation, "then we'll really have to stop playing and get back to the ship, or we'll be spending the rest of our time on-world scrubbing tubes."

That last had been addressed to his two male comrades.

Rip recognized his move to ease potential tension and answered him appropriately, then he and Thorson stepped up to the bar to confirm the order.

They were served quickly. Shannon sipped the golden liquid. "This is good," he averred.

The Canuchean made a sarcastic bow to acknowledge the surprised compliment. "A local brew," he informed them. "We export a lot of it. You might mention the fact to some of your pals around the s.p.a.ceport. We'd all like to see a few more off-world faces in Happy City."

He collected their credits and went back to his previous occupation with the gla.s.ses, but the s.p.a.cers could see that he did not take his small, sharp eyes off them.

Neither did any of the roustabouts, or whatever their real occupation might be. "If this were an adventure tape," Rip whispered to the Cargo-apprentice, "we'd all be shanghaied before this scene was played out."

"I know," Dane responded glumly. "This wasn't one of my better ideas."

Shanghaied. The term had come with Terrans into s.p.a.ce and was recognized throughout the starlanes although it was so old that its origin had long since been forgotten, Except possibly by Van Rycke. The Cargo-Master was a storehouse of odd lore.

That might not be so far from their hosts' minds, either, he thought darkly, even if they did not quite dare to act on it. Both Cofort and Kamil were coming in for more of the same kind of study they had received on the street but far more openly and more intently. No legitimate erotic house would touch such captives with a long-range tractor, but doubtless there were a number of less scrupulous operations in the district. Maybe the wide staircase to his right led not only to the gambling rooms but to an unlicensed facility of that nature as well.

If so, and the on-worlders moved successfully, he and Rip would wind up on the bottom of the bay . . .

He glanced at Kamil. If the black-haired apprentice was worried, he gave no sign of it. Thorson did his best to imitate the engineer's air of ease. He knew he was probably just building trouble out of nothing but his nerves, but it would be best not to reveal any unease or weakness. That in itself could provoke an incident. They were outnumbered, and it might not be easy to fight their way out of here.

Rael Cofort remained standing close beside Ali. She had quickly lost interest in the scene at the bar. She did not like the Red Garnet and wanted nothing better in that moment than to get out of the big room as quickly as possible. - Would those two never swallow their beers?

Her hand closed convulsively around her throat. She felt as if she were choking.

Her medical training kicked in when she felt the race of her pulse through the arteries. Spirit of s.p.a.ce, what was wrong? Her body, driven by some subconscious warning, was terrified. What was triggering this panic?

She fought to master herself but could not drive off the horrible eagerness filling her, a hunger, as if the room itself were a great maw seeking to devour them all.

Her left hand gripped her companion's arm. "Ali, let's get out of here. Now. Please!"

Cofort's nerve broke with that, and she bolted for the door.

Her flight galvanized the Canucheans. They straightened and began to move in on the off-worlders.

Thorson instinctively drew closer to his remaining comrades and braced himself. Two to one. Bad odds in themselves, and a couple of their opponents had drawn knives, long, thin a.s.sa.s.sin's blades that could readily slip between a victim's ribs or thrust into his back to sever the spinal cord. All three Traders were unarmed . . .

Not quite, he saw suddenly. Kamil had unhooked a length of chain from his belt. Attached to one end of it was a broad double ring padded to provide a secure grip and act as a shield for the wielder's own hand. The other ended in three wickedly curved claws.

Ali smiled coldly as he swung the chain before him with practiced ease. The on-worlders gave ground. That devilish weapon was as readily recognized in the back alleys of the ultrasystem as were their own knives, and it was a light year more feared.

Dane swallowed hard. The Engineer-apprentice had survived the Crater War and its aftermath. He never discussed those dark years, but he had just shown them one of the means by which he had managed to do it.

With Kamil acting as rear guard, the off-worlders quickly made their retreat to the street and fell back in the direction from which they had come until they reached the alley once more. Rael Cofort was waiting for them there, and the three glared furiously at her.

"Hold up," Ali ordered. "They won't follow us now that we're on the street."

"What's to stop them?" Shannon inquired in a tight whisper.

"They'll stay put," he a.s.sured him. "As it stands, it's our word against theirs. They never verbally threatened us, and both sides pulled equally illegal weapons. To cap it off, there's a Canuchean police station halfway up the block. We raise a ruckus, and the law will swarm all over the lot of us."

"They could call ahead, arrange to have us back-alleyed someplace."

"Precisely why we don't want them to see which way we went. They'll never imagine we'd be so stupid as to linger around then- own back door." He believed and fervently hoped.

As he spoke, Kamil casually, or seemingly casually, rehooked the deadly chain to his belt. Dane shivered in his heart. The older apprentice had worn the thing so naturally that neither of his shipmates had even noticed it, though he supposed any of the senior officers probably would have done so and confiscated it. Traders, Free or Company, went armed only in situations of open peril and only at the command of their officers, and Canuche of Halio was supposed to be a highly respectable planet.

He turned his attention to other matters, to one specific matter. His eyes fixed on the Medic.

Ali beat his comrades to challenging her. "What in all the h.e.l.ls did you think you were doing?" he demanded.

"Do you know what you caused in there?"

"I'm sorry," she said in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible.

"That doesn't quite pull it," he told her bluntly.

Cofort's mouth tightened. He was ent.i.tled to an explanation. All three of them were. "Something was really wrong in there. I don't know what the danger was or how immediate it was to us, but it was all around us." Her eyes closed.

"By all I revere, it was there . . ."

Dane spat out Van Rycke's favorite expletive, but the Engineer-apprentice silenced him with a sharp wave of his hand. Kamil gave the woman a strange look. "If you'd told me that, Doctor," he said, "I'd have lit my burners and gotten us out a lot sooner with a lot less trouble."

Rip looked at him in surprise but kept out of the discussion. Whatever had sparked Cofort's flight, she had not lied about her fear. That was still with her, or some part of it was. She appeared normal at first glance, but the pupils of her eyes were fully dilated, huge and round like those of a cat in mortal terror. Almost despite himself, he felt sorry for her.

He looked about the alley for some distraction to draw his shipmates' attention away from her for a few moments.

"They actually do take pains to wash the place down occasionally," he ventured in the end since he could find nothing better to say. "At least, that step nearest us and part of the surface around it have been scrubbed."

The Medic's hand flew to her mouth. "Spirit of s.p.a.ce!" she whispered. "Sweet Spirit ruling s.p.a.ce!"

The others stared at her as if she had suddenly started a conversation with the Whisperers.

"What's the matter now?" Thorson demanded testily.

Something definitely was. Rael's eyes, already too large, looked enormous, and her face had drained completely of color.

"No one washes a step and three feet to one side of it. You do the whole thing, or you don't start the job at all."

She was trembling slightly, but she made herself peer even more closely at the place where her eyes were already riveted.

Something white seemed to be jammed into the crack where the single step met the pavement. "Look! They must've missed that." Her back straightened. "We'll need it if I'm in the right starlane."

Dane's eyes narrowed. Despite her terror of a moment before and her distaste for the place, Cofort obviously intended to fetch the little sc.r.a.p. "Stay put. I'll get it." He felt like a d.a.m.ned fool trying to play the hero out of some ridiculous adventure tape, but Rael had been scared and probably still was, even if she was hiding it now. It would not be right to force her to go in there when he had no qualms at all about doing so.

Her fingers closed on his arm with vise-tight urgency.

"Dane, no! We're not even armed!"

She forced the panic out of her voice. "I'm probably just being Whisperers' bait, but it's my idea . . ."

"What's going on here?"

The four s.p.a.cers whirled about. Absorbed as they had been, they had failed to notice the nearly silent approach of the flier now parked on the walkway behind them. Two men wearing the black and silver of the Stellar Patrol were standing beside it.

"The Patrol!" Rael exclaimed in patent relief. "Praise whatever G.o.ds rule Canuche! I'd rather have you lads take this than the locals. There's no knowing how they stand with the owners of this place."

The pair were unimpressed. "Just what are you four doing back here?" the agent who had challenged them, a Sergeant, demanded even more sharply.

"I believe that white object over there's a pretty d.a.m.ning piece of evidence. We were going to collect it and bring it to you people before it disappeared. It'll be gone for sure by this time tomorrow, if not a whole lot sooner."

"Right," he said unsympathetically. "How about telling us what sort of crime it's supposed to betray?"

"Murder. Brutal, particularly horrible, multiple murder."

9.

All five men stared at the Medic. "Murder?" There was a new sharpness in the Patrol-Sergeant's voice.

Rael shook her head. She had herself well in hand now.

With the responsibility that rested on her, she could not afford a show of panic that would weaken and in all probability annihilate her hope of convincing the necessary authorities to take her bizarre and very repugnant theory seriously. "I want to talk to your commander. This could be a big operation with some fairly important people involved."

The agent nodded. "We'll play it your way, s.p.a.ce hound, but if this is some sort of joke, trust that you won't be laughing when our old lady gets through with you."

"Do I look particularly amused, Sergeant?"

"No," he admitted. "That you do not. - Keil, collect our 'evidence,' and let's light our burners back to headquarters."

Dane saw Cofort stiffen and felt his own stomach tighten, but the Yeoman was back again in a matter of seconds without mishap. Once more, he felt foolish, and he shot the woman a quick, sharp look. What in s.p.a.ce or beyond it was she thinking, and, more to the point, in what kind of stellar mess had she involved them all?

"Hats!" Patrol-Colonel Ursula Cohn's blue-gray eyes fixed the younger woman in no friendly fashion. "That's some tale you expect us to believe, Doctor Cofort."

"I hope I'm wrong, Colonel, for the sake of the unknown number of men and maybe women who I think died in that wretched place," Rael replied evenly, "but I don't think I am. The evidence is circ.u.mstantial, but it's there,"

"And you're the only one who happened to spot it, just picked right up on it, a stranger to Canuche of Halio and her ways?"

"My comrades can attest to the fact that my sense of smell is very acute. I'd been near heavy concentrations of port rats before and knew the odor, but I'd never come across anything so perceptible as that at a distance in the open air. There simply wasn't a mundane explanation to account for it. If the beasts were present in sufficient number to create a pack nest of the necessary size, they'd be all over the city, to the point that they'd represent a severe and immediate threat to human survival. Commercial starships would certainly be warned off until they could be exterminated. Since none of that was the case, I could only deduce that a vast number of rodents were being purposely kept confined close by under anything but the cleanest conditions. There're no industries or legitimate laboratories in Happy City as far as I knew to require the creatures, nor could I imagine any experimenting on that scale. I was completely baffled." Her mouth hardened. "Until Rip mentioned the clean-up."

"Clean-up?"

"Your agents saw it. n.o.body washes a step and a ragged patch beside it."

"You or I wouldn't," the other corrected. "Navy-standard cleanliness is not a characteristic of those alleys.

Mostly, the worst mess is just sc.r.a.ped away to satisfy the basic sanitary code."

"There would be more than one nasty patch, wouldn't there, after any normal night? There weren't any more scrubbed spots and no untouched messes that I saw, or any older residue, either. To judge by that absence and the pattern of frame stains, it looked like that whole section of the alley had been cleaned, really gone over, in odd patches at one time or another over a considerable stretch of time."

"So you came up with a scenario to explain all the anomalies?"

The tawny-haired s.p.a.cer nodded. "The motive I don't know, but I can picture the events all too clearly. Some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d meeting the criteria for a victim is gotten very drunk and maybe drugged to render him, or her, helpless or sick and is pushed or flung out back the moment the police or Patrol have made a swing by the alley. The rats are either waiting or are immediately released. They've obviously been accustomed to their work, and they're great enough in number not to need much time to complete it.

After a few minutes, they're recalled, maybe fed again as a reward to ensure their speedy return, and the few remaining sc.r.a.ps are swept up. There isn't even much blood left, and the pavement doesn't absorb the stain, at least not if it's mopped up quickly enough."

"Yeoman Roberts went into the place and returned without trouble," Cohn pointed out. "Naturally, though I was terrified for him at the time. The things couldn't be always on the loose. Besides, they have to be well fed to be kept under control and at the necessary concentration. They wouldn't feel the need to be out foraging in the daylight."

"It's a bit odd that none of the neighbors has noticed anything amiss if this has been going on for some time as you suggest, isn't it?"

Rael fixed her gaze on her tightly clasped hands. "A single incident wouldn't take long. The thud of the victim falling probably triggers the rodents. - It can't be the opening of the door itself since that happens all the time. - There might be a m.u.f.fled scream if the poor wretch was conscious, some thrashing, maybe, but little more than that. They'd work fast."

Her eyes glittered with a hard anger as cold as the depths of interstellar s.p.a.ce. "However, I do agree that total longterm concealment would be impossible. Those running the swill joint across from it have to be involved and probably the staffs of the next one in from each of them as well. The third and fourth buildings on either side could be clean. They're erotic houses. There wouldn't be much activity out back from them, and the windows're either painted over or shuttered. As for pa.s.sersby or patrons inside, with the general clamor, a bit more just wouldn't be noticed, or questioned if it were. It wouldn't be loud enough or last long enough to make that much of an impression."

"You've got all the answers, don't you?" The Colonel's face was a mask, her eyes hard, almost unblinking as they bore into the Free Trader.

"No, unfortunately. As I said before, I can't supply the motive, though I suppose it has to be greed. The involvement of several establishments rules out psychosis or vengeance unless they're all owned by one person. Even then, he couldn't do it without the knowledge and active a.s.sistance of a good number of others."

"Who are you proposing for the victims?"

Rael shook her head. "No one definite, not without knowing the why. They're probably more or less alone, people whose presence wouldn't really be noticed in a busy pleasure house and without friends, or powerful friends, to cause a stir about their disappearance, but the very opposite might be true, at least in one or two instances. - I just don't know!"

The emotion she had been holding in check had momentarily gotten away from her, but the woman gripped herself again in the next instant. "That's about it, Colonel. I've told you everything I can visualize that might be useful."

A knock caused her to glance back over her shoulder.