Masters of the Lamp, page 1
part #1 of Shamryke Odell Series
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Msters of the Lamp by Robert Lory
CHAPTER ONE
I was worried.
I tossed off the rest of my glass of gruul—the clear, neutral-tasting alcohol native to Hawk II—and surveyed the dimly lit interior of Nur's Rest for the third time within the space of a half hour.
The electronic apparatus that had been a part of me for the past fifteen years gave me the same readings as before. Radiation and magnetic impulses showed me who in the long room concealed the numerous laser pistols, maser knives and other less effective weapons. Situation normal for a place like Nur's Rest, an unpretentious just-off-port drinking and meeting place on a Free Zone planet. Psych-probe indicated the same high level of hostility throughout the room, also normal among a collection of twenty-one individuals of some five separate species of which the most numerous species, the human one, was represented by four variant strains.
The girl sitting across the scarred table thought there were five variants.
"Odell," she said, adding the tinkle of little bells to pronunciation of my name. "It has the ring of a New Earthan but, apart from your light skin, you look like a Rim Worlder."
Her deduction was sound, as far as it went. Apart from my skin, which was sunbrowned but still much lighter than the brown-black color of the Rim Worlders, only my six feet two, one hundred ninety pound stat-ure differed from that people's much smaller average build. In common, however, was the complete lack of hair on my head except for eyebrows and lashes. A more knowledgeable observer would have noticed that and excluded the possibility that I was a Rim Worlder. He would have no way of knowing that both brows and lashes were false.
"I was born on New Earth," I told her truthfully. In the Free Zone you supposedly could tell the truth. The hot white sun and its four planets were declared nonviolable. No matter what your crime, regardless of your line of endeavor, in the Free Zone you were safe. Supposedly.
In actual case, you were simply safer. Anyone attempting to do you in here would have to be very careful. Every step would have to be planned thoroughly, especially an escape without identification which, if unsuccessful, would result in far-reaching reprisals not only to himself but to any government agency, trade guild or religious sect with which he was identified. And since potential victims who came to Hawk II or other Free Zone planets were not the type to act with precise predictability, a would-be assassin would find his planning tough.
Which still didn't leave me any less worried.
"Buy us another?" she asked.
I looked at her curiously.
She tapped my empty glass with a well-manicured nail. "Another drink. What's the matter? You're supposed to be relaxing."
"Nerves, I guess."
Which was right. Something other than part of my artificial apparatus had flashed a warning deep inside me. It had been just a minute voice and it registered for just an instant. Its source defied tracing, but in my business you don't disregard a warning, regardless of its source. You can wind up very dead if you do.
I kept my eyes on the girl. My lips curled into a pleasant controlled smile as one hand beckoned to the waiter, the other moving across the table to stroke her shoulder-length fiery-red hair. She laughed brightly, beautifully, sincerely. She checked out as sincerely happy. Indices thirteen and fourteen—which approximate harmful intent and guile, respectively—were dim to the point of zero. Further, she carried no weapon of any kind. No, not her, I decided. But who, then?
Of the twenty-odd beings in the room, only five minds registered as close to murderous, but none of them—and that included Square Deal Nur himself behind the bar—directed their hate toward any specific individual. Like Nur, they hated Them—some authority or other who they felt they owed malice.
I had been in Nur's place on other occasions. Once he banged his yellow hairy claw on his bar and screwed up his three tiny eyes at me in pure disgust.
"There ought to be a limitation on exile," he complained. "Just because the crud whose throat I tore out was an Imperial officer… You, Odell, you've killed, yet you're as free as a sailfish to wander where you will. Me, I've been in this star-forsaken Free Zone for fifty-two of your years and am doomed for still another twenty. Fifty-two years. Tomorrow to the day."
"Happy Anniversary," I'd told him. His rage had reached the boiling point. It boiled, and he laughed so hard his yellow frame shuddered uncontrollably.
We'd gotten on well since then. At least I thought so. But who—or what—was I being warned against?
"Dirt and plants," said the flame-haired girl. She raised her fresh drink.
"And air to breathe," I answered, completing the old space explorers' toast. We touched glasses.
"Sham Odelll As I live and writhe!" boomed a voice to my rear.
I almost knocked over my glass as I spun off the chair. But even before my eyes saw the owner of the voice, my memory recalled its tone. Instead of the fist I was primed to use, my open hand shot out to grasp one of the six silver-gloved tentacles extending from the heavy black mass.
"Datchet, you old son-of-a-squid! What are you doing here?"
Datchet's long brow wrinkled. "Son of a squid, indeed," he laughed roughly. "The last time we met, you'd not have called me that. In answer to your question, I live here. I've retired from the business."
He was right about the last time we met. It was the only time we met. In the capitol city of the state of Ponce on the planet Myrtle's Ear, I was lodging in a very unpleasant dungeon from which Datchet broke me out. For reasons of his own—or those of his employers—he wanted the prisons emptied. Out of gratitude, and for reasons of my employer who wanted the governor of Ponce eliminated, I joined with Datchet and we took the city by storm: Datchet, myself, and the prisoners who were supposedly behind the popular uprising which took over the state and hung up the decapitated governor by his heels from the top of the citadel over our prison.
"Retired?" I said. "You never retire from this business."
His two large eyes teared, a sign in Datchet's species of satisfaction. "The good old days were far too good. A person can have his fill of adventure. You will come to it, Odell. Meanwhile, who is your lady friend?"
My eyebrows raised. I'd forgotten about her.
AAASTERS OF THE LAMP
"Join us in a drink?" she asked Datchet, at the same time sliding my glass closer to me.
"Gruul," Datchet sneered. "Can't stand the stuff." .
"Well, I can. You don't mind?" I asked as I grasped the stem of my glass.
"It's your poison," Datchet's deep voice rumbled.
It's my poison.
I looked over her head. "Is that a Romboid over there?"
"A what?" she asked.
"Over there, talking to Nur. He looks like either a Romboid or one of the Collectivites."
She turned to face the bar. When she turned back her hand returned to her glass. "Of course it's a Romboid. Male, about forty man-years old."
Those were the last words I heard her say.
"What?" Datchet said, staring as her head thudded to the table. He looked at me accusingly. "You switched glasses."
"You were right," I said through my teeth. "It was my poison."
My crashing exit through the door of Nur's Rest was to the tune of a police whistle. Behind me, Datchet flung three tables at the lone Security man in the room. The whistle was silent when he joined me.
"My place is near. Thank the stars," he puffed, keeping up with my pace. "I'm too old for this kind of thing."
"No good," I said back.
"Damn right it's not. You're known here."
"I don't mean that. It's no good going to your place. You're known here."
"I have more than one place. Turn here, sharp right."
A short time later I was sitting before the viewer in a comfortable four-room flat some five blocks from Nur's.
I sipped the gruul Datchet poured for me. He came back into the room and began gulping tankards full of a sour fruit-beer I'd never learned to like.
"Anything on the viewer?" he asked.
"Folk music from somehere. No interruptions yet."
"Who knew you in Nur's?"
"Just Nur. And the girl."
"Nur," he mused. "They'll question him. How's he regard you?"
"Somewhat higher than any official authority," I said. "But he won't stand up under truthing methods."
"Which maybe are being applied right now. We'd better get you out of here as soon as we can."
"Out?" I refilled my glass. "Not until I find out why I was targeted for a kill.**
Datchet shrugged. "Your mission, perhaps?"
"I'm on leave. Resting."
He smiled. "The ways of the business are too much for an old badger like me anymore. Have it as you will. You're on leave."
"Datchet," I said carefully, "did you ever meet two New Earthans named Haskins and Lari-Tane? They were men of my organization."
"Where was it I would have met them? I've been here for the past three Hawk II years. Did they travel together?"
"They traveled separately, and I have reason to believe they entered the Free Zone. It would have been within the past three years."
His many-furrowed brow furrowed deeper. "The names are not familiar, but names mean nothing. However, one gets to know the ways of others in the same line of work, and we get very few New Earthans here on Hawk II. No, I can't
"I might have, had I not been distracted by—"
"The girl," he finished. "And there perhaps is your motive?
I thought about it. "No, killing me would have been a mistake."
It would have been, I was certain. Had whoever wanted me dead known my mission was to find out what really happened to Haskins and Lari-Tane, and had the two men actually spent time on Hawk II or another Free Zone planet, killing me in the Free Zone would pinpoint where they were done in. Because, unlike them, I was not on leave and therefore was filing reports on a prearranged schedule. If my last message were sent from here, here would be where the finger would be directed regardless of where my remains subsequently were found. Whoever my opposition was, they would at least be cognizant of the possibility.
"Killing me here just wouldn't have been smart," I said, fust as a red light under the televiewer screen flashed.
Datchet turned a knob which killed the concert and the round pink face of a Romboid focused on the screen. "About the trouble you were in tonight," the Romboid said. "You and the human—"
"Odell is safe here with me," Datchet informed the Romboid. "Make your report."
The Romboid nodded. "The girl is not dead, so Odell is free to come and go as he likes."
"No charges against him?"
"None. Security force questioners are still trying to learn from her the details of her passing out, but are getting nowhere. The girl claims she just suddenly got sick."
Datchet frowned. "But analysis of what she drank— haven't they thought of that?"
"Certainly," responded the Romboid. "But she's stick-ing to her story anyway. Security is perplexed as to what they should do next."
Datchet nodded. To me he said, "And they will remain perplexed. They would like nothing better than to close the books on this episode but cannot if there remains anything unexplained. That's the law. The girl's story being what it is, doesn't give them much of an out, even though they'd grasp at anything to—"
He stopped abruptly and his eyebrows contracted. He spoke to the Romboid. "Do we know a physician or a pharmacologist we can trust? Or, failing that, one whose services we can buy?"
The Romboid named two.
"Good. Get one of them to police headquarters as quickly as possible. Have him say that the drug the girl took was prescribed for her ailment, but that obviously she took somewhat more than the amount specified."
Datchet smiled when the screen went blank. "That should take care of it. The law here on Hawk II can be a friend if one knows how to work within it."
"Work?" I asked. "I thought you said you'd retired."
Datchet's grin widened. "As you yourself said, one never completely retires from the business. I like to keep my hand in, in a small nonexhausting way, of course. More of the vile liquid you like so much?"
"Just a little—to celebrate," I responded as the kitchen door closed behind his exit.
Datchet's voice shouted cheerfully from the other room. "It always seems to me you humans turn to celebration too quickly. Who knows what the moments of the future "will bring?"
I was nodding silent agreement when a loud crash sounded from inside the kitchen.
"Such as a dropped bottle of gruul?" I suggested.
There was no answer.
"Datchet?"
I rose without a sound and moved swiftly to the swinging door leading into the next room. My sensors were moving messages of urgency through my nervous system when I heard the groan of pain. I shot into the room, hands ready for anything.
The sight of Datchet heaped on the floor registered for just an instant. Then from somewhere a stun gun blotted out the universe.
CHAPTER TWO
My name is Odell. At birth I was given the first name of Shamryke to go with it. Shamryke, I'm told, being the name of a mythological plant of good fortune on Old Earth. My close acquaintances use the name Sham. My friends would too, if I had friends. In the business you don't have friends.
There are many names for the business. Intelligence, espionage, or just plain spying, depending upon the attitude of the person who is doing the describing and the particular circumstances involved. The business are the words used by most of us who do the leg-work— the operatives.
The business is simple or complex, again depending upon your viewpoint. To the operative, who is at the lowest level of the system, it is quite simple. Your control gives you an assignment. You attempt to do it. You are either successful or unsuccessful. In my kinds of assignments, that mostly means you are either alive or dead. That part of the business is fairly uncomplicated.
The complexity affects the operative only in the manner in which he must do his job. Early in the game you learn three very important words, "Trust no one." That includes persons with whom you may feel you've established long-term relationships. Relationships can change as fast as the directions from your control-again a result of the complexity of the business.
Probably from the dawn of recorded time, the business has been uncertain. Changes of allegiance or affiliation occurring at higher levels often would make the past enemy a friend and vice versa. But in my time, when each national entity, each intraplanetary and interplanetary federation or group had its own working intelligence and undercover system, and each merchant guild and religious establishment by their reckoning of necessity also had their own agencies independent of the strictly political alliances, the complexities in working relations seemed at times, to the higher-ups whose job it was to juggle them, to outnumber the number of stars in the galaxy.
"That's understatement, really," my first control told me. "Take the number of stars in the galaxy and multiply that figure by the number of grains of sand on all the beaches in the universe and you arrive at a more approximate and meaningful number."
A control had to be concerned with such matters, since he had higher levels external to our organization to whom he reported through the Head. The Head and those higher levels had to be even more concerned with the complexities of the business.
But the operative's main task, regardless of the complexities that directed him to it, was simple: accomplish the mission and stay as whole as possible.
It was my third time out when I suffered the only permanent mishap of my career. The pirates weren't after me when they hit the yacht I was cruising on, but that didn't save my face. By careful rebuilding, it now approximated its former look… without hair, however.
My missions were accomplished in the name of the Intelligence Arm of the Federated Nations of New Earth, which not only included the political entities on that one planet, but some forty colonies on half as many worlds. We were reputed to be one of the largest intelligence agencies in the galaxy, not counting temporary affiliations with other groups.
My mission, this time—as always—was simple. Find out who murdered two FIA (Federation Intelligence Arm) agents and, if possible, why. I was to take no retributive action.
"Your job is to find out the facts," Gand told me. "Nothing more."
"Why me?" I countered from the seat across my control's wide desk. It was not disrespect on my part; an operative does what he's told, and is paid well to do it. But after fifteen years in the Arm, Shamryke Odell was surprised to be selected for a job like this one.
"You feel it's beneath you?" Gand asked. He leaned forward. He was a small man, half my size in 'most every physical proportion. But I did not underestimate his value to the Arm. He'd been my control for the past six years, and he wouldn't have lasted that long if he'd had too many shortcomings.
"I'd put it differently," I said. "A waste of resources. TKis is the kind of thing you'd send a new man on."
Gand drummed his fingers on the top of his desk. I'd come to recognize it as a sign of humorous patience. It was his only sign of humor. He never smiled, never at least in my presence.
"You think so? Let me tell you something about the background of this assignment." He held his hand up to cut off my words.
"Normally, you don't need to be backgrounded very much, but this time it's a little different. The Head is concerned." The Head. In the Cybernetic Age, machines based on electronic impulses grew, first smaller and more compact, then larger as they took on more functions. Few grew larger than the Head, however, which was housed in the top three stories of the FIA headquarters building, protected by an impassable shield. But the Head was not a machine. The Head was totally organic. It—or he, as the Head was personalized—was a brain, constructed or grown under carefully controlled conditions but when completed took over for itself the operation of its own life-sustaining functions. Fed constant streams of information by FIA controls, the Head absorbed all, and issued its orders unbidden. Taking in its data in chemical and electronic impulse form, it issued its commands in the same way; the commands then translated into codes specific for each control.
