She must keep her wits, she must! Charis sat on
the backless bench, her shoulders braced against the log wall, and
thought furiously. Tolskegg was there and Bagroof, Sidders, Mazz.
She surveyed what now must be the ruling court of the colony. And
then, the trader. Her attention kept going back to the man at the
end of the table who sat there, nursing a mug of quaffa, eyeing the
assembly with a spark of amusement behind the drooping lids of his
very bright and wary eyes.
Charis had known some Free Traders. In fact, among that class of
explorer-adventurer-merchant her father had had some good friends,
men who carried with them a strong desire for knowledge, who had
added immeasurably to the information concerning unknown worlds.
But those were the aristocrats of their calling. There were others
who were scavengers, pirates on occasion, raiders who took instead
of bargained when the native traders of an alien race were too weak
to stand against superior off-world weapons.
“It is simple, my friend.” The trader’s
insolent tone to Tolskegg must have cut the colonist raw, yet he
took it because he must. “You need labor. Your fields are not
going to plow, plant, and reap themselves. All right, in freeze I
have labor—good hands all of them. I had my pick; not one
can’t pull his weight, I promise you. There was a flare on
Gonwall’s sun, they had to evacuate to Sallam, and Sallam
couldn’t absorb the excess population. So we were allowed to
recruit in the refugee camp. My cargo’s prime
males—sturdy, young, and all under indefinite contracts. The
only trouble is, friend, what do you have to offer in return?
Oh—” his hand went up to silence the beginning rumble
from Tolskegg. “I beg of you, do not let us have again this
talk of furs. Yes, I have seen them, enough to pay for perhaps
three of my cargo. Your wood does not interest me in the
least. I want small things, of less bulk, a money cargo for a fast
turnover elsewhere. Your furs for three laborers—unless you
have something else to offer.”
So that was it! Charis drew a deep breath and knew there was no
use in appealing to this captain. If he had shipped desperate men
on indefinite labor contracts, he was no better than a slaver, even
though there was a small shadow of legality to his business. And
his present offer was sheer torment to Tolskegg.
“No native treasures—gems or such?” the
captain continued. “Sad that your new world has so few
resources to aid you now, friend.”
Mazz was pulling at his leader’s grimed sleeve, hissing
into Tolskegg’s ear. The frown on the other’s face
lightened a little.
“Give us a moment to do some reckoning, captain. We may
have something else.”
The trader nodded. “All the time you wish, friend. I
thought that might move your memories.”
Charis tried to think what Mazz had in mind. There was nothing
of immediate value to trade, she was sure, save the bundle of pelts
the ranger had gathered as specimens. Those had been cured to send
off-world as scientific material.
The buzz of whispers among the colonists came to an end and
Tolskegg faced about. “You trade in labor. What if we offer
you labor in return?”
For the first time, the captain displayed a faint trace of
surprise—deliberately, Charis decided. He was too old a hand
at any bargaining to show any emotion unless for a purpose.
“Labor? But you are poor in labor. Do you wish to strip
yourselves of what few assets you possess?”
“You deal in labor,” Tolskegg growled. “And
there is more than one kind of labor. Is that not so? We need
strong backs, men for our fields. But there are other worlds where
they may need women.”
Charis stiffened. For the first time she saw more than one
reason for her having been dumped here. She had thought it was
merely to impress upon her the folly of hoping for any rescue. But
this—
“Women?” The captain’s surprise grew more
open. “You would trade your women?”
Mazz was grinning, a twisted and vicious grin centered on
Charis. Mazz still smarted from Ander Nordholm’s interference
when he had wanted to beat his wife and daughter into the
fields.
“Some women,” Mazz said.
“Her—”
Charis had been aware that the trader had pointedly ignored her
from his entrance into the cabin. To interfere in the internal
affairs of any colony was against trading policy. To the captain, a
girl with her arms tied behind her back, her feet pinioned, was a
matter involving the settlement and not his concern. But now he
accepted Mazz’s statement as an excuse for giving her a
measuring stare. Then he laughed.
“And of what possible value is this one? A child, a reed
to break if you set her to any useful labor.”
“She is older than she looks and has the learning of
books,” Tolskegg retorted. “She was a teacher of
useless knowledge, and speaks more than one tongue. On some worlds
such are useful or deemed so by the fools that live
there.”
“Who are you, then?” The captain spoke to her
directly.
Was this a chance? Could she persuade him to take her, hoping to
contact authority off-world and so obtain her freedom?
“Charis Nordholm. My father was education officer
here.”
“So? Oh, daughter of a learned one, what has chanced in
this place?” He had slipped from Basic into the sibilant
Zacathan tongue. She answered him readily in the same language.
“First, winged one, a sickness, and then the blight of
ignorance.”
Tolskegg’s great fist struck the table with a drum thud.
“Speak words we can understand!”
The captain smiled. “You have claimed for this child
knowledge. I have the right to decide whether that knowledge makes
her worth my buying. In the water of the north there are splinters
of ice.” Again he used one of the Five Tongues—that of
Danther.
“But the winds of the south melt them swiftly.”
Charis replied to that code address almost mechanically.
“I say—speak what a man can understand. She has
learning, this one. She is useless to us here. But to you she is
worth at least another laborer!”
“How say you, Gentle Fem?” The trader addressed
Charis. “Do you deem yourself worth a man?”
For the first time the girl allowed herself a thrust in return.
“I am worth several of some!”
The captain laughed. “Well said. And if I take you, will
you sign an indefinite contract?”
For a long moment Charis stared at him, her small spark of hope
crushed before it had time to warm her. As her eyes met his, she
knew the truth—he was not really an escape at all. This man
would not take her from Demeter to someone in authority. Any
bargain would be made on his terms, and those terms would bind her
on almost every planet he would visit. With a labor cargo he would
set down only on those worlds where such a shipment would be
welcome and legal. With an indefinite contract to bind her, she
could not appeal for freedom.
“That is slavery,” she said.
“Not so.” But his smile held almost as much malice
as Mazz’s grin. “To every contract there comes an end
in time. Of course, you need not sign, Gentle Fem. You may remain
here—if that is your wish.”
“We trade her!” Tolskegg had followed this exchange
with growing exasperation. “She is not one of us, nor our
kind. We trade her!”
The captain’s smile grew broader. “It would seem,
Gentle Fem, that you have little choice. I do not think that this
world will be very kind to you under the circumstances if you
remain.”
Charis knew he was right. Left to Tolskegg and the rest, their
hatred of her the hotter for losing out on what they thought was a
bargain, she would be truly lost. She drew a ragged breath; the
choice was already made.
“I’ll sign,” she said dully.
The captain nodded. “I thought you would. You are in full
possession of your senses. You—” he pointed to Mazz,
“loose the Gentle Fem!”
“Already once she has run to the woods,” Tolskegg
objected. “Let her remain bound if you wish to control her.
She is a demon’s daughter and full of sin.”
“I do not think she will run. And since she is about to
become marketable property, I have a voice in this matter. Loose
her now!”
Charis sat rubbing her wrists after the cords were cut. The
captain was right—her strength and energy were gone; she
could not make a break for freedom now. Since the trader had tested
her education to a small degree, it was possible that learning
was a marketable commodity for which he already foresaw
profit. And to be off-world, away from Demeter, would be a small
measure of freedom in itself.
“You present a problem.” The captain spoke to her
again. “There is no processing station here, and we cannot
ship you out in freeze—”
Charis shivered. Most labor ships stacked their cargo in the
freeze of suspended animation, thus saving room, supplies, all the
needs of regular passengers. Space on board a trader ship was
strictly limited.
“Since we lift without much cargo,” he continued,
“you’ll bunk in the strong room. And
now—what’s the matter—are you sick?”
She had striven to rise, only to have the room whirl about her
with a sickening lurch of floor and ceiling.
“Hungry.” Charis clutched at the nearest hold, the
arm the captain had put out involuntarily when she swayed.
“Well, that can be remedied easily enough.”
Charis remembered little of how she got to the spacer. She was
most aware of a cup pushed into her hands, warm to her cold palms,
and the odor which rose from it. Somehow she managed to get the
container to her lips and drink. It was a thick soup, savory,
though she could not identify any of its contents. When she had
finished, she settled back on the bunk and looked about the
room.
Each Free Trader had a cabin with extra security devices
intended to house particularly rich, small cargo. The series of
cupboards and drawers about her were plainly marked with thumbprint
locks which only the captain and his most trusted officers could
open. And the bunk on which she sat was for a port-side guard when
such were needed.
So she, Charis Nordholm, was no longer a person but valuable
cargo. But she was tired, too tired to worry, to even think, about
the future. She was tired—
The vibration of the walls, the bunk under her, were a part of
her body, too. She tried to move and could not; panic caught at her
until she saw that the webbing of the take-off belts laced her in.
Thankful, Charis touched the release button and sat up. They were
off-planet, headed toward what new port of call? She almost did not
want to know.
Since there was no recording of time in the treasure cabin,
Charis could portion hours, days, only by the clicking of the tray
which brought her food through a hatch at intervals—long
intervals, for the food was mostly the low-bulk, high-energy
tablets of emergency rations. She saw no one and the door did not
open. She might have been imprisoned in an empty ship.
At first Charis welcomed the privacy, feeling secure in it. She
slept a lot, slowly regaining the strength which had been drained
from her during those last weeks on Demeter. Then she became bored
and restless. The drawers and cupboards attracted her, but those
she could open were empty. At the fifth meal-period there was a
small packet beside her rations, and Charis opened it eagerly to
find a reader with a tape threaded through it.
Surprisingly enough, the tape proved to be one of the long epic
poems of the sea world of Kraken. She read it often enough to
commit long passages to heart, but it spurred her imagination to
spin fantasies of her own which broke up the dull apathy induced by
her surroundings. And always she could speculate about the future
and what it might hold.
The captain—odd that she had never heard his
name—had hers now, along with her thumbprint, on his
contract. She was signed and sealed to a future someone else would
direct. But always she could hope that chance would take her where
she could appeal for aid and freedom. And Charis was very sure now
that a future off-world would be better than any on Demeter.
She was reciting aloud her favorite passage from the saga when a
loud clang, resounding from the walls of the cabin, sent her flat
on the bunk, snapping the webbing in place. The spacer was setting
down. Was this the end of the trip for her or just a way stop? She
endured the pressure of planeting and lay waiting for the
answer.
Though the ship must be in port, no one came to free her, and as
the moments passed she grew impatient, pacing back and forth in the
cabin, listening for any sound. But, save that the vibration had
ceased, they could as well have been in space.
Charis wanted to pound the door, scream her desire to be out of
what was now not a place of security but a cage. By stern effort
she controlled that impulse. Where were they now? What was
happening? How long would this continue—this being sealed
away? Lacing her fingers tightly together, she went back to the
bunk, willed herself to sit there with an outward semblance of
patience. She might be able to communicate through the ration hatch
if this went on.
She was still sitting when the door opened. The captain stood
there with a bundle under his arm which he tossed to the bunk
beside her.
“Get into this.” He nodded curtly at the bundle.
“Then come!”
Charis pulled at the fastening of the bundle to unroll a
coverall uniform, the kind worn by spacemen off duty. It was clean
and close enough to her size to fit if she rolled up the sleeves
and pants legs. She changed in the pocket-sized refresher of the
cabin, glad to discard her soiled and torn Demeter clothing. But
she had to keep her scuffed and worn boots. Her hair was
shoulder-length now, its light brown strands fair against her
tanned skin, curling up a little at the ends. Charis drew it back
to tie with a strip of cloth, forming a bobbing tail at the back of
her head. There was no need to consult any mirror; she was no
beauty by the standards of her race and never had been. Her mouth
was too wide, her cheekbones too clearly defined, and her
eyes—a pale gray—too colorless. She was of Terran
stock, of middle height which made her taller than some of the
mutated males, and altogether undistinguished.
But she was feminine enough to devote several seconds making
sure the coverall fitted as well as she could manage and that she
made the best appearance possible under the circumstances. Then, a
little warily, she tried the door, found it open, and stepped out
onto the level landing.
The captain was already on the ladder; only his head and
shoulders were in sight. He beckoned impatiently to her. She
followed him down for three levels until they came to the open
hatch from which sprang the door ramp.
Outside was a glare of sunlight which made Charis blink and
raise her hands to shield her eyes. The captain caught her elbow
and steered her ahead into a harsh warmth, desert-like in its
baking heat. And as her eyes adjusted she saw that they had indeed
set down in a wasteland.
Sand, which was a uniform red outside the glassy slag left by
the thruster blast, lapped out to the foot of a range of small
hills, the outline of which shimmered in heat waves. There was no
sign of any building, no look of a port, save for the countless
slag scars which pecked and pitted the surface of the desert sand,
evidence of many landings and take-offs.
There were ships—two, three, a fourth farther away. And
all of them, Charis saw, were of the same type as the one she had
just left, second- and third-class traders. This seemed to be a
rendezvous for fringe merchants.
The captain’s hold on her arm left Charis no time to
examine her surroundings more closely; he was pulling rather than
guiding her to the next ship, a twin to his own. And a man, with an
officer’s winged cap but no uniform except nondescript
coveralls, stood waiting for them at the foot of the ramp.
He stared at Charis intently as she and the captain approached.
But the stare was impersonal, as if she were not a woman or even a
human being at all, but a new tool of which the stranger was not
quite sure.
“Here she is.” The captain brought Charis to a stop
before the strange officer.
His stare held for a moment and then he nodded and turned to go
up the ramp. The other two followed. Once inside the ship, Charis,
sandwiched between the two men, climbed the core ladder up to the
level of the commander’s cabin. There he signaled for her to
sit at a swing-down desk, pushed a reader before her.
What followed was, Charis discovered, an examination into her
ability to keep accounts, her knowledge of X-tee contact
procedures, and the like. In some fields she was very ignorant, but
in others she appeared to satisfy her questioner.
“She’ll do.” The stranger was very sparing of
words.
Do for what? The question was on the tip of Charis’s
tongue when the stranger saw fit to enlighten her.
“I’m Jagan, Free Trader, and I’ve a temporary
permit for a world named Warlock. Heard of it?”
Charis shook her head. There were too many worlds; one could
never keep up with their listing.
“Probably not—back of beyond,” Jagan had
already added. “Well, the natives have an unusual system.
Their females rule, make all off-world contacts; and they
don’t like to deal with males, even strangers like us. So we
have to have a woman to palaver with them. You know some X-tee
stuff and you’ve enough education to keep the books.
We’ll put you at the post, and then they’ll trade.
I’m buying your contract, and that’s that. Got it,
girl?”
He did not wait for her to answer, but waved her away from the
desk. She backed against the cabin wall and watched him thumbprint
the document which transferred her future into his keeping.
Warlock—another world—unsettled by human beings
except at a trading post. Charis considered the situation. Such
trading posts were visited at intervals by officials. She might
have a chance to plead her case before such an inspector.
Warlock— She began to wonder about that planet and what
might await her there.
She must keep her wits, she must! Charis sat on
the backless bench, her shoulders braced against the log wall, and
thought furiously. Tolskegg was there and Bagroof, Sidders, Mazz.
She surveyed what now must be the ruling court of the colony. And
then, the trader. Her attention kept going back to the man at the
end of the table who sat there, nursing a mug of quaffa, eyeing the
assembly with a spark of amusement behind the drooping lids of his
very bright and wary eyes.
Charis had known some Free Traders. In fact, among that class of
explorer-adventurer-merchant her father had had some good friends,
men who carried with them a strong desire for knowledge, who had
added immeasurably to the information concerning unknown worlds.
But those were the aristocrats of their calling. There were others
who were scavengers, pirates on occasion, raiders who took instead
of bargained when the native traders of an alien race were too weak
to stand against superior off-world weapons.
“It is simple, my friend.” The trader’s
insolent tone to Tolskegg must have cut the colonist raw, yet he
took it because he must. “You need labor. Your fields are not
going to plow, plant, and reap themselves. All right, in freeze I
have labor—good hands all of them. I had my pick; not one
can’t pull his weight, I promise you. There was a flare on
Gonwall’s sun, they had to evacuate to Sallam, and Sallam
couldn’t absorb the excess population. So we were allowed to
recruit in the refugee camp. My cargo’s prime
males—sturdy, young, and all under indefinite contracts. The
only trouble is, friend, what do you have to offer in return?
Oh—” his hand went up to silence the beginning rumble
from Tolskegg. “I beg of you, do not let us have again this
talk of furs. Yes, I have seen them, enough to pay for perhaps
three of my cargo. Your wood does not interest me in the
least. I want small things, of less bulk, a money cargo for a fast
turnover elsewhere. Your furs for three laborers—unless you
have something else to offer.”
So that was it! Charis drew a deep breath and knew there was no
use in appealing to this captain. If he had shipped desperate men
on indefinite labor contracts, he was no better than a slaver, even
though there was a small shadow of legality to his business. And
his present offer was sheer torment to Tolskegg.
“No native treasures—gems or such?” the
captain continued. “Sad that your new world has so few
resources to aid you now, friend.”
Mazz was pulling at his leader’s grimed sleeve, hissing
into Tolskegg’s ear. The frown on the other’s face
lightened a little.
“Give us a moment to do some reckoning, captain. We may
have something else.”
The trader nodded. “All the time you wish, friend. I
thought that might move your memories.”
Charis tried to think what Mazz had in mind. There was nothing
of immediate value to trade, she was sure, save the bundle of pelts
the ranger had gathered as specimens. Those had been cured to send
off-world as scientific material.
The buzz of whispers among the colonists came to an end and
Tolskegg faced about. “You trade in labor. What if we offer
you labor in return?”
For the first time, the captain displayed a faint trace of
surprise—deliberately, Charis decided. He was too old a hand
at any bargaining to show any emotion unless for a purpose.
“Labor? But you are poor in labor. Do you wish to strip
yourselves of what few assets you possess?”
“You deal in labor,” Tolskegg growled. “And
there is more than one kind of labor. Is that not so? We need
strong backs, men for our fields. But there are other worlds where
they may need women.”
Charis stiffened. For the first time she saw more than one
reason for her having been dumped here. She had thought it was
merely to impress upon her the folly of hoping for any rescue. But
this—
“Women?” The captain’s surprise grew more
open. “You would trade your women?”
Mazz was grinning, a twisted and vicious grin centered on
Charis. Mazz still smarted from Ander Nordholm’s interference
when he had wanted to beat his wife and daughter into the
fields.
“Some women,” Mazz said.
“Her—”
Charis had been aware that the trader had pointedly ignored her
from his entrance into the cabin. To interfere in the internal
affairs of any colony was against trading policy. To the captain, a
girl with her arms tied behind her back, her feet pinioned, was a
matter involving the settlement and not his concern. But now he
accepted Mazz’s statement as an excuse for giving her a
measuring stare. Then he laughed.
“And of what possible value is this one? A child, a reed
to break if you set her to any useful labor.”
“She is older than she looks and has the learning of
books,” Tolskegg retorted. “She was a teacher of
useless knowledge, and speaks more than one tongue. On some worlds
such are useful or deemed so by the fools that live
there.”
“Who are you, then?” The captain spoke to her
directly.
Was this a chance? Could she persuade him to take her, hoping to
contact authority off-world and so obtain her freedom?
“Charis Nordholm. My father was education officer
here.”
“So? Oh, daughter of a learned one, what has chanced in
this place?” He had slipped from Basic into the sibilant
Zacathan tongue. She answered him readily in the same language.
“First, winged one, a sickness, and then the blight of
ignorance.”
Tolskegg’s great fist struck the table with a drum thud.
“Speak words we can understand!”
The captain smiled. “You have claimed for this child
knowledge. I have the right to decide whether that knowledge makes
her worth my buying. In the water of the north there are splinters
of ice.” Again he used one of the Five Tongues—that of
Danther.
“But the winds of the south melt them swiftly.”
Charis replied to that code address almost mechanically.
“I say—speak what a man can understand. She has
learning, this one. She is useless to us here. But to you she is
worth at least another laborer!”
“How say you, Gentle Fem?” The trader addressed
Charis. “Do you deem yourself worth a man?”
For the first time the girl allowed herself a thrust in return.
“I am worth several of some!”
The captain laughed. “Well said. And if I take you, will
you sign an indefinite contract?”
For a long moment Charis stared at him, her small spark of hope
crushed before it had time to warm her. As her eyes met his, she
knew the truth—he was not really an escape at all. This man
would not take her from Demeter to someone in authority. Any
bargain would be made on his terms, and those terms would bind her
on almost every planet he would visit. With a labor cargo he would
set down only on those worlds where such a shipment would be
welcome and legal. With an indefinite contract to bind her, she
could not appeal for freedom.
“That is slavery,” she said.
“Not so.” But his smile held almost as much malice
as Mazz’s grin. “To every contract there comes an end
in time. Of course, you need not sign, Gentle Fem. You may remain
here—if that is your wish.”
“We trade her!” Tolskegg had followed this exchange
with growing exasperation. “She is not one of us, nor our
kind. We trade her!”
The captain’s smile grew broader. “It would seem,
Gentle Fem, that you have little choice. I do not think that this
world will be very kind to you under the circumstances if you
remain.”
Charis knew he was right. Left to Tolskegg and the rest, their
hatred of her the hotter for losing out on what they thought was a
bargain, she would be truly lost. She drew a ragged breath; the
choice was already made.
“I’ll sign,” she said dully.
The captain nodded. “I thought you would. You are in full
possession of your senses. You—” he pointed to Mazz,
“loose the Gentle Fem!”
“Already once she has run to the woods,” Tolskegg
objected. “Let her remain bound if you wish to control her.
She is a demon’s daughter and full of sin.”
“I do not think she will run. And since she is about to
become marketable property, I have a voice in this matter. Loose
her now!”
Charis sat rubbing her wrists after the cords were cut. The
captain was right—her strength and energy were gone; she
could not make a break for freedom now. Since the trader had tested
her education to a small degree, it was possible that learning
was a marketable commodity for which he already foresaw
profit. And to be off-world, away from Demeter, would be a small
measure of freedom in itself.
“You present a problem.” The captain spoke to her
again. “There is no processing station here, and we cannot
ship you out in freeze—”
Charis shivered. Most labor ships stacked their cargo in the
freeze of suspended animation, thus saving room, supplies, all the
needs of regular passengers. Space on board a trader ship was
strictly limited.
“Since we lift without much cargo,” he continued,
“you’ll bunk in the strong room. And
now—what’s the matter—are you sick?”
She had striven to rise, only to have the room whirl about her
with a sickening lurch of floor and ceiling.
“Hungry.” Charis clutched at the nearest hold, the
arm the captain had put out involuntarily when she swayed.
“Well, that can be remedied easily enough.”
Charis remembered little of how she got to the spacer. She was
most aware of a cup pushed into her hands, warm to her cold palms,
and the odor which rose from it. Somehow she managed to get the
container to her lips and drink. It was a thick soup, savory,
though she could not identify any of its contents. When she had
finished, she settled back on the bunk and looked about the
room.
Each Free Trader had a cabin with extra security devices
intended to house particularly rich, small cargo. The series of
cupboards and drawers about her were plainly marked with thumbprint
locks which only the captain and his most trusted officers could
open. And the bunk on which she sat was for a port-side guard when
such were needed.
So she, Charis Nordholm, was no longer a person but valuable
cargo. But she was tired, too tired to worry, to even think, about
the future. She was tired—
The vibration of the walls, the bunk under her, were a part of
her body, too. She tried to move and could not; panic caught at her
until she saw that the webbing of the take-off belts laced her in.
Thankful, Charis touched the release button and sat up. They were
off-planet, headed toward what new port of call? She almost did not
want to know.
Since there was no recording of time in the treasure cabin,
Charis could portion hours, days, only by the clicking of the tray
which brought her food through a hatch at intervals—long
intervals, for the food was mostly the low-bulk, high-energy
tablets of emergency rations. She saw no one and the door did not
open. She might have been imprisoned in an empty ship.
At first Charis welcomed the privacy, feeling secure in it. She
slept a lot, slowly regaining the strength which had been drained
from her during those last weeks on Demeter. Then she became bored
and restless. The drawers and cupboards attracted her, but those
she could open were empty. At the fifth meal-period there was a
small packet beside her rations, and Charis opened it eagerly to
find a reader with a tape threaded through it.
Surprisingly enough, the tape proved to be one of the long epic
poems of the sea world of Kraken. She read it often enough to
commit long passages to heart, but it spurred her imagination to
spin fantasies of her own which broke up the dull apathy induced by
her surroundings. And always she could speculate about the future
and what it might hold.
The captain—odd that she had never heard his
name—had hers now, along with her thumbprint, on his
contract. She was signed and sealed to a future someone else would
direct. But always she could hope that chance would take her where
she could appeal for aid and freedom. And Charis was very sure now
that a future off-world would be better than any on Demeter.
She was reciting aloud her favorite passage from the saga when a
loud clang, resounding from the walls of the cabin, sent her flat
on the bunk, snapping the webbing in place. The spacer was setting
down. Was this the end of the trip for her or just a way stop? She
endured the pressure of planeting and lay waiting for the
answer.
Though the ship must be in port, no one came to free her, and as
the moments passed she grew impatient, pacing back and forth in the
cabin, listening for any sound. But, save that the vibration had
ceased, they could as well have been in space.
Charis wanted to pound the door, scream her desire to be out of
what was now not a place of security but a cage. By stern effort
she controlled that impulse. Where were they now? What was
happening? How long would this continue—this being sealed
away? Lacing her fingers tightly together, she went back to the
bunk, willed herself to sit there with an outward semblance of
patience. She might be able to communicate through the ration hatch
if this went on.
She was still sitting when the door opened. The captain stood
there with a bundle under his arm which he tossed to the bunk
beside her.
“Get into this.” He nodded curtly at the bundle.
“Then come!”
Charis pulled at the fastening of the bundle to unroll a
coverall uniform, the kind worn by spacemen off duty. It was clean
and close enough to her size to fit if she rolled up the sleeves
and pants legs. She changed in the pocket-sized refresher of the
cabin, glad to discard her soiled and torn Demeter clothing. But
she had to keep her scuffed and worn boots. Her hair was
shoulder-length now, its light brown strands fair against her
tanned skin, curling up a little at the ends. Charis drew it back
to tie with a strip of cloth, forming a bobbing tail at the back of
her head. There was no need to consult any mirror; she was no
beauty by the standards of her race and never had been. Her mouth
was too wide, her cheekbones too clearly defined, and her
eyes—a pale gray—too colorless. She was of Terran
stock, of middle height which made her taller than some of the
mutated males, and altogether undistinguished.
But she was feminine enough to devote several seconds making
sure the coverall fitted as well as she could manage and that she
made the best appearance possible under the circumstances. Then, a
little warily, she tried the door, found it open, and stepped out
onto the level landing.
The captain was already on the ladder; only his head and
shoulders were in sight. He beckoned impatiently to her. She
followed him down for three levels until they came to the open
hatch from which sprang the door ramp.
Outside was a glare of sunlight which made Charis blink and
raise her hands to shield her eyes. The captain caught her elbow
and steered her ahead into a harsh warmth, desert-like in its
baking heat. And as her eyes adjusted she saw that they had indeed
set down in a wasteland.
Sand, which was a uniform red outside the glassy slag left by
the thruster blast, lapped out to the foot of a range of small
hills, the outline of which shimmered in heat waves. There was no
sign of any building, no look of a port, save for the countless
slag scars which pecked and pitted the surface of the desert sand,
evidence of many landings and take-offs.
There were ships—two, three, a fourth farther away. And
all of them, Charis saw, were of the same type as the one she had
just left, second- and third-class traders. This seemed to be a
rendezvous for fringe merchants.
The captain’s hold on her arm left Charis no time to
examine her surroundings more closely; he was pulling rather than
guiding her to the next ship, a twin to his own. And a man, with an
officer’s winged cap but no uniform except nondescript
coveralls, stood waiting for them at the foot of the ramp.
He stared at Charis intently as she and the captain approached.
But the stare was impersonal, as if she were not a woman or even a
human being at all, but a new tool of which the stranger was not
quite sure.
“Here she is.” The captain brought Charis to a stop
before the strange officer.
His stare held for a moment and then he nodded and turned to go
up the ramp. The other two followed. Once inside the ship, Charis,
sandwiched between the two men, climbed the core ladder up to the
level of the commander’s cabin. There he signaled for her to
sit at a swing-down desk, pushed a reader before her.
What followed was, Charis discovered, an examination into her
ability to keep accounts, her knowledge of X-tee contact
procedures, and the like. In some fields she was very ignorant, but
in others she appeared to satisfy her questioner.
“She’ll do.” The stranger was very sparing of
words.
Do for what? The question was on the tip of Charis’s
tongue when the stranger saw fit to enlighten her.
“I’m Jagan, Free Trader, and I’ve a temporary
permit for a world named Warlock. Heard of it?”
Charis shook her head. There were too many worlds; one could
never keep up with their listing.
“Probably not—back of beyond,” Jagan had
already added. “Well, the natives have an unusual system.
Their females rule, make all off-world contacts; and they
don’t like to deal with males, even strangers like us. So we
have to have a woman to palaver with them. You know some X-tee
stuff and you’ve enough education to keep the books.
We’ll put you at the post, and then they’ll trade.
I’m buying your contract, and that’s that. Got it,
girl?”
He did not wait for her to answer, but waved her away from the
desk. She backed against the cabin wall and watched him thumbprint
the document which transferred her future into his keeping.
Warlock—another world—unsettled by human beings
except at a trading post. Charis considered the situation. Such
trading posts were visited at intervals by officials. She might
have a chance to plead her case before such an inspector.
Warlock— She began to wonder about that planet and what
might await her there.