E.C Tubb - Eye of the Zodiac

He said, casually, "When did they book?"

"We got them from the agent, some could have been waiting for weeks. But you? What made you join the Golquin?"

"I needed the job."

"Don't we all?" Dinok scowled, a man caught in a trap of his own making. Drink or drugs, or an alliance with the wrong woman at the wrong time. Something had sent him on the downward path which, as yet, hadn't ended. That would come when he grew careless about his appearance, casual as to his duties. Then, he would be kicked out to rot on some lonely world. "Well, Earl, I'll leave you to it. Watch out for the entrepreneur-I don't trust his type."

* * * * *

Ren Dhal was smooth, skilled, deft with the dice and clever with the cards. A man who had established a small business on Tradum, selling out when the opposition grew too strong. Moving on now to seek fresh opportunities.

"They're everywhere," he said as he sat at the table. "But it takes a smart brain to recognize them. On Heiglet, for example, I noticed that three taverns were competing. I arranged a merger, raised the prices and took a nice profit. All it required was some fast talking."

Dumarest dealt the cards, playing without real interest, merely doing a part of his job. As always on any journey, life had settled into a routine. Play and talk passed the time. Work a little more when, the quicktime in his blood neutralized, he attended to what had to be done.

The cabins searched, baggage checked, looking for any signs that the passengers were not exactly what they claimed to be. He had found nothing suspicious.

"Time to eat," he announced, and went to draw the rations of basic. Elementary food, a liquid thick with protein, sickly with glucose, laced with vitamins and essential elements. A cup would provide enough energy for a day.

The trader grunted as he accepted his ration. A dour man who spent long hours studying lists of figures, computing his margins of profit. He rarely spoke and seemed to hold a grievance against the grizzled engineer who had formed an attachment with one of the women, careless as to her past.

"Food." Chi pulled a face. "Is that what you call it? Hilma, we could be making a mistake. On Tradum, at least we had something decent to eat."

"And will again." Hilma glanced at the engineer. He was old, but he had money and was as good as she could hope to get. Smiling she said, "To the future, Gramon, may it be pleasant."

"I'll drink to that." He sipped, beaming. "It'll be good to settle down. I've had enough of traveling and I've breathed in all the rock dust my lungs will take. Say, Chi, I've a friend who might be interested in you. A farmer-you got objections to living on a farm?"

The nearest thing to hell she could imagine, but a man could be changed and, if he owned land, he was worth looking at.

"His own farm?"

"Of course. Warsh and me grew up together. His wife died a decade ago and I figure it's time he got another. Tell you what, I'll fix it up as soon as we land. Have dinner together and talk things over. Agreed?"

They were talking too much, ignoring the table, and Dumarest riffled the cards.

"What'll it be, friends? Starsmash, olkay, nine-nap, spectrum?" They weren't interested, not that it mattered. Dumarest could take Shwarb's disappointment. And, soon now, the journey would be over.

They landed at dawn, when the terminator was bisecting the field, early mist blurring outlines, a thin fog which had not yet burned away. Dumarest stood at the head of the ramp as was expected. Dinok had been right, there were no tips.

"With a bunch like that you're lucky to get a smile," scowled Arishall. "How did you make out at the table?"

"Poor."

"Bad news for the captain." Arishall shrugged. "Well, he can't grumble. In this game you have to take it as it comes. Earl, I need your help."

Dumarest glanced at the field, the mist. It was a good time to leave.

"It won't take long," said the engineer. "A dump-job down in the hold. Some poor devil didn't make it."

He looked very small as he lay in the casket designed for the transportation of beasts, but in which men could ride, doped, frozen and ninety-percent dead. Riding Low, risking the fifteen-percent death rate for the sake of cheap travel. A gamble which he had taken once too often.

"A kid," said Arishall. "I didn't want to take him, but Shwarb insisted."

Dumarest made no comment, looking at the ceiling where someone with a touch of imagination had painted a smiling face. A woman's face with liquid eyes and a softly inviting mouth, hair which was wreathed in a mass of golden curls over a smooth brow. Her throat accentuated the slope of the shoulders, the upper curves of barely portrayed breasts which vanished into a depicted cloud, a mass of vapor which framed the portrait with a milky fleece. The last thing Leon Harvey had seen.

"A kid," said Arishall again. "I guessed he wouldn't make it. He was too thin, too puny. He should have waited, fattened himself up-well, to hell with it. It's all a part of the job."

"Something wrong?" Dinok entered the hold and frowned as he looked at the dead boy. "Hell, I know him."

"From where?" Dumarest was sharp. "Nerth?"

"Nerth? No, Shajok. It was his first trip."

"Are you sure about that?"

Dinok shrugged. "I'd gamble on it, Earl. You know how it is with first-timers. No matter how they try to cover it up, it shows. The kid was green. He didn't know enough to argue about the price when Shwarb cheated him. He was in a sweat, eager to get away. Knowing Shajok, I can't blame him."

"Arishall?"

"I remember Shajok, but not the boy," said the engineer. "Urian handled it. I was busy getting a replacement part for the engine. They had him sealed by the time I got back."

"And when he left?"

"Arishall wouldn't remember that, Earl," said the navigator dryly. "He'd taken a little too much of his medicine. We first dropped the boy on Aestellia and he must have moved on to Tradum. I guess he recognized the Golquin and felt at home. Now he's dead. A pity, but that's the way it goes." He stooped, felt under the casket, rose holding the cheap fabric bag Leon had carried in his hand. "Let's see if he left anything worth having."

His clothes, a cheap ring with a chipped stone, a folding knife with a worn blade, a rasp, a thin book, something wrapped in a cloth, a few coins.

Dinok set them aside as he unwrapped the bundle. It contained a slab of gray material six inches long, four wide, three thick; a block of artificial stone which had been roughly carved into the shape of an idol.

"Rubbish." Dinok wasn't disappointed, those who traveled Low carried little else. "A hobby, I guess. It looks as if he'd worked on it. Want it, Arishall?"

"No, nor this junk either." The engineer tossed aside the book. "It's all yours if you want it, Earl. You take the gear and we'll split the coins. A deal?"

"I can use the bag." Dumarest lifted it, filled it with the idol, the book and other items. "I'll dump the rest."

"Talking about dumping, we'd better get on with the job. You'd better lift him, Earl, while I-"

"I've quit," said Dumarest. "Dinok can give you a hand."

* * * * *

The mist was slow in clearing. While it held, traffic would be scanty. A cafe beyond the gate sold a variety of cheap food and drink. Dumarest bought a mug of coffee and sat nursing it, looking at the few others the establishment contained. It was early yet. Later it would fill with workers, transients, crews assembling and killing a little time, agents on the lookout for cheap labor. All potential sources of information. Now there was time for thought.

Leon was dead and his knowledge had died with him. He must have awoken back at the hotel, finding himself alone, rejected, searching town and field for the man he had believed to be a friend, finding the familiar vessel and booking the only passage he could afford.

A boy who had lied as to the planet of his origin. Shajok, not Nerth, and yet under the primitive truth drug he had stuck to that name.

The name-so tantalizingly similar. And the creed of the Original People, that strange cult which believed in a common world of origin for all the diverse races of mankind. A hidden, secret group who sought no converts but who could, perhaps, hold information of value.

Two scraps of succulent bait for anyone setting a trap-and Dumarest had sensed a trap. But the boy was dead and, by his death, he had proved his innocence.

Dumarest sipped at his coffee and then examined the items he had taken. The clothing was exactly what it appeared to be, cheap materials, the seams welded, unbroken. He ran fingers over every inch, finding nothing hidden there. The ring was a tawdry adornment, probably bought to use as a primitive knuckleduster. Dumarest held it up to the light, turning it as he examined the stone, the interior of the band. Holding the metal he struck the stone forcefully against the surface of the table, checking it as it vibrated from the impact. Nothing.

The worn knife, the rasp and bag were what they appeared to be. The block of artificial stone from which the idol was carved was dense, the surface yielding reluctantly to the touch of the rasp. Dumarest examined it, found the surface uncracked, the mass obviously solid. Setting it down, he picked up the book.

It was a thin publication with plastic covers, the pages crammed with a mass of condensed information. A variety of facts and figures, mathematical formulae, chemical compounds, astronomical data, the coordinates of a thousand worlds, a list of survival techniques to be followed in hostile environments. A book which would be the pride of any adventurous youngster. A thing which a new traveler might think of as essential.

Dumarest flexed the covers, narrowed his eyes as he felt an inconsistency. He lifted the knife from his boot and carefully slid the razor-sharp edge along the interior binding. The point slipped into a narrow opening, lifted it to reveal what had been tucked into the pocket thus made.

A photograph. One showing a smiling woman with a strongly boned face, deep-set eyes of a peculiar amber, pale blonde hair drawn back from her face and held with a metal fillet. Her garb was masculine, pants and tunic of dull green. An elder sister, perhaps, or a relative of some kind. But it wasn't the woman who held Dumarest's interest.

She had been shown standing before a wall topped with a peaked roof, a house or repository of some kind. On it, visible against the dull stone, rested a peculiar design.

Dumarest stared at it, narrowing his eyes, following the lines which joined nodules of brightness, as if fragments of broken glass had been joined and incorporated into a symbolic representation.

A fish. Bright points glinting by reflected light, so that the design gained an added impact.

The fish with shining scales!

Dumarest lowered the photograph, leaning back, barely conscious of the increased activity within the cafe. A coincidence, it had to be, one more to set beside the rest-and yet coincidences happened. Leon could have belonged to the Original People-that strange, hidden, quasi-religious cult. They could know of the exact whereabouts of Earth. The design could be a visual part of a mnemonic which had once been told to him on a distant world.

The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins, and next the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin, and the Scales. The

Scorpion, the Archer, the Goat, the Water Bearer, and the Fish with shining scales.

The signs of the zodiac. Twelve symbols, each representing a portion of the sky running in a complete circle. Once he found a world surrounded by those signs, he would have found Earth.

A stellar analogue could do it, patterns set up by a computer, constellations arranged as seen from any viewpoint. Once he could feed in the patterns of stars comprising the zodiac the thing would be done, the long search over.