Pasiki became an exclusive haven for the very cream of the aristocracy of crime. There was no law. There was no check upon anything any man chose to do. The Pasiki had lost the spirit to revolt. They abased themselves before any human, obeyed any order in blindly terrified haste.
Sometimes there were as many as forty or fifty retired criminals on the planet, living in infinite self-indulgence. But the death-rate was high. No man who was never crossed by any slave would submit to being crossed by his fellows. And the men were ruthless to begin with.
They killed each other in quarrels. They assassinated each other for fancied slights. They carried on insane, lethal, personal feuds. But none ever left the planet on the one seedy space-vessel which sometimes stopped by either to bring another fugitive or to bring second grade merchandise to exchange for the dhassa nuts and other produce still worth shipping, which the Pasiki gathered for their masters.
The girl Jan Casin told this to Stannard, keeping her hand close to the blaster he had returned to her after she'd failed to kill him. She listened intently as she talked, but she was not so much afraid of Stannard now. Among the retired criminals on Pasik there was one named Brent. He'd heard of her presence as a child of course.
The Pasiki had an uncanny intelligence system akin to telepathy, and everything that went on anywhere was known everywhere at once. They told Brent of Jan, then merely a child. He went to see her, playing with dolls, and told her father amusedly that he would claim her when she grew old enough.
"And he had Pasiki watching," said Jan, uneasily. "When the Foundation ship came with supplies for us he knew it first. He lured us away from home with a message and he met the ship and told them that he was a planter and that I'd died six months after landing and Father a little later. So the ship went away and never came back again."
She stopped and listened.
"I think someone's coming, judging by the way the Pasiki sound talking to each other. Mr. Brent killed my father when I was sixteen. He meant to take me but I managed to get away. I made the Pasiki help me, of course, but they wouldn't keep a secret from any human who ordered them to talk."
"That made things difficult," commented Stannard. He listened too.
"It did," said Jan briefly. She looked at Stannard with level eyes. "But I managed! Pasiki are the slaves of any human being who gives them commands. So I used them. I had bearers. I had food. I even had watchmen to warn me. And they'll never harm a human, so I was safe from them.
"They wouldn't try to catch me for their masters, because I could always order them to let me go. I could only be caught by a human being in person and they—well, they get soft with slaves to wait on them all the time."
"I see," said Stannard.
"But I got tired of running away!" said the girl fiercely. "And I had no more books to read. I came back to my father's house to get books. Then my Pasiki warned me that you had come. They said a man master was coming after me. I decided to come to you first. I rather expected to kill you. I was tired of running away!"
"Natural enough," said Stannard. He cocked his ear, and thoughtfully drew one of two blasters. He made a fine adjustment at its muzzle. He put it on the table before him. The girl watched, and he went on in a natural voice, "I think I know something about a criminal named Brent. Quite a spectacular case, nine or ten years ago. Piracy."
They were quite alone in the dining hall. It was a huge space, thirty feet by sixty or more, with huge windows and decorative molded pilasters and an ornate ceiling. It would have made a good setting for a visiphone record production.
Outside there was the murmuring of Pasiki voices. They had an extraordinary range, as was to be expected from the fact that they were produced by vibrating diaphragms instead of vocal chords.
Jan said in a low tone, "He's here. I can tell by the Pasiki."
Stannard nodded. Without lowering his voice he said, "It seems to me that I remember the affair. He'd a trading ship and somehow he got arms for it. A tramp ship carried a colony to Verus and he laid aboard an hour after the landing. He beamed the men, carried off the women and, as I recall it, sold the tramp ship to a missionary society in the next star cluster. His picture's on the refresher reel every spaceport guard has to watch all over again every month."
Under his breath he said, "Talk naturally. If he hears conversation—"
But that was unnecessary. A bulky swaggering figure stepped inside the far door. Behind it came a smaller shape carrying a cloak. The manner of the smaller form was abject, like that of all Pasiki servants in foam suits.
Stannard nodded detachedly:
"Brent, eh? How do you do? You know Miss Casin?"
The bulky figure deliberately drew a blaster.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," said Stannard. "I've something I'd like to say before the shooting starts. After all, Miss Casin—"
The bulky figure raised the blaster. There was a sudden spouting of steam from the heaped-up piles of fruit on the table before Stannard. But there was no corresponding purplish flare from the blaster the bloated figure held. Instead, flame and smoke billowed out from the cloak on the arm of the smaller figure. There was a crackling explosion and the smaller figure cast down a smoking blaster and cursed horribly.
"You," said Stannard coldly to the bulky form, "drop that blaster and get out of that servant-suit."
The huge form said obsequiously, "Much gladness, master."
The larger figure split improbably down the back and a skinny shining black shape came out of the limpness which collapsed to the floor.
"Get out!" snapped Stannard. The insect-like stickman fled. Stannard turned cold eyes upon the rows of unhuman heads that again peered eagerly in the window. They vanished a second time. He turned back to the cursing man who was nursing a scorched hand and arm.
"Amusing, eh?" said Stannard coldly. "You send a Pasiki on before you in a foam suit. He makes a threatening gesture. The man you intend to kill watches him and goes for his gun. And you blast him! Highly diverting! The trouble here was that I knew your name and something of what you looked like. Elementary, eh? Would you mind telling me why you intended to kill me?"
The swearing figure watched him with eyes that rage and pain made beastly.
"Her!" he snarled.
Stannard considered a moment. Small tendrils of steam still rose from the mound of fruit before him on the table. He'd adjusted his blaster to a pencil-beam for accuracy and fired through the fruit which had hidden his hand as he aimed the blaster and fired. Now he thoughtfully readjusted the muzzle to utility-size blast. It would lessen the range a little but fine shooting is not usually called for when a blaster comes into play.
"Hmmmm," said Stannard detachedly. "You've had her in your mind a long time. She's the only woman on the planet. But why the haste to murder me?" Then he nodded. "I see! Pasiki telepathy. Everybody else knows she came back to her father's house too. Are they making plans?"
"Blast 'em!" snarled the wizened figure of Brent. "They're all on the way here!"
"So you thought you'd get rid of me as a possible rival first," agreed Stannard. "Hm . . . There should be some interesting fighting if we stayed here. Rather messy though. I think I'll urge Miss Casin to return to a wandering life. But you—"
He turned his eyes to Jan.
"He murdered your father," he commented dryly, "and you more or less intended to kill me just because I was a man. Now's your chance. Why don't you blow his head off?"