The dying man muttered something incoherent, stretched his limbs taut, held the spreadeagle for a moment, and went limp.
“He is dead,” the Lurioni said calmly. “I have undertaken blood-guilt for you, Earthman.”
“I didn’t ask you to kill him, only to stop him from getting away.”
“You said he was a thief. A thief’s life is forfeit, is it not? I have saved the government money.”
On this planet all lives are forfeit, Gardner thought. He stared down at the grotesquely twisted form lying sprawled on the pavement. Several strollers had paused on the far side of the street to watch. There was no sign of a Lurioni policeman anywhere.
The killer stooped and casually wrenched his blade free from the body. Looking down at Gardner from his enormous height, the Lurioni said, “This was no affair of mine. You must buy me free of it.”
“How much do you want?”
“A thousand Units,” the Lurioni replied immediately. “It* is the usual price.”
Gardner scowled, wondering if he ought to try to haggle. He decided against it. The money meant nothing to him, and the sooner he extricated himself from this nightmarish incident, the better. He took out his wallet and surrendered ten hundred-unit notes.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“You must pronounce the formula. Say, ‘I take upon myself the blood-guilt for the man slain at my request by Binnachar dur Sliquein.’ ”
“I take upon myself the blood-guilt for the man slain at my request by Binnachar dur Sliquein,” Gardner repeated. “Is that all?”
“That is all. I am absolved.”
“What about me, though? What happens to the body, now?”
Binnachar shrugged elaborately. “What concern is that of yours or mine? The man was a thief; you said so yourself. Since he is an Earther, he probably will not have relatives here to seek for his body. Leave him for the Carrion-pickers.”
“But the police?”
“The death of thieves does not interest the police.” Binnachar knelt again and wiped his blade clean on Archer’s jacket after which he replaced the knife in his own tunic. “I am grateful to have been of service to you, ser Earthman. A pleasant night to you.”
Gardner remained where he was for a moment, still shaken by the swiftness, the brutality of the incident.
And no one seemed to care. Perhaps that was the worst of it. The knot of watchers was gone; Binnachar dur Sliquein, having received his blood-fee and having been absolved of blood-guilt, had probably already begun to forget the incident; the police had never even shown up on the scene. The only ones at all interested were the animals that clustered in the gutter, sipping the warm blood that runneled from the gash in Archer’s breast. No doubt when they tired of drinking the blood, they would devour the body. Gardner shuddered.
The longer he remained here, he knew, the greater was his chance of finding trouble. Turning, leaving the body where it lay, he retraced his steps until he reached the hotel.
The desk clerk woke once again from his slumber to ask, “Did you find him?”
“Yes,” Gardner said.
He rode upstairs.
To his relief, he saw that no one had attempted to enter his room during his brief absence. He sank down wearily on the bed, bitterly regretting the fact that he had thrown away the khall bottle. He needed a drink badly. He was shaken to his core.
The computer had failed again, he thought. And this time it had failed in a way that threw doubt on the validity of any of its predictions. Somehow it had managed to send out one who was rotten within, who had chosen to betray Earth instead of work for Earth’s safety. How could such a thing happen? Security agents went through fine screening. Those chosen for this particular assignment were screened even more thoroughly. And yet Archer had passed through the net, a traitor.
The computer, Gardner thought, is only a machine. It takes the facts as given to it, weaves in a dollop of random variables, and produces a prediction. But it can’t see into the human brain. It had proved unable to peer behind the bland exterior of Damon Archer and detect the traitor lurking within. Archer had fooled the computer; or, rather, the computer had failed to predict his behavior accurately. It had similarly bungled the first expedition to Lurion.
There was no escaping the fact now, Gardner thought. The computer’s judgment could not be trusted. It had failed on a short-range prediction, the reliability of one man; how could its word be accepted for such a mighty extrapolation as the coming galactic war?
Gardner realized dully that he was on the edge of turning traitor himself: traitor to Security, traitor to Earth, traitor to the computer; all this, but, perhaps, not a traitor to himself.
Very carefully, Gardner took the dead man’s recorder and touched the playback stud. The reel had been completely erased. But there were ways, he had heard, of compelling an erased tape to yield some of its secrets. Just to be absolutely certain, Gardner opened the mechanism, worried out the tiny reel of tape, and shredded it between thumb and forefinger. Then he stuffed it thoughtfully in the disposal chute, following it a moment later with the crushed casing of the recorder itself.
So much for Archer’s spying, he thought.
The visi-screen bleeped. It was Leopold, calling back, no doubt. Gardner still felt shaky. He was on the threshold of an imDortaif decision, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone till the decision was complete. But he couldn’t very well ignore the screen.
Gardner activated the set. Yes, it was Leopold. The bearded man looked agitated. “What happened?”
“He was making a tape of our conversation,” Gardner said. “I guess he was planning to peddle it to some third party after the project was complete.”
“The little worm,” Leopold muttered. “Where did he go?”
“He woke up, knocked me over, and made a break for it. About three blocks from here he ran into a Lurioni with a long knife.”
“Dead?”
Gardner nodded. “I left him in the street. He won’t be making any little deals.”
“But what about—?”
“The project?” Gardner’s face darkened. “I don’t know. I don’t know at all, right now. Just stay in touch with me, and I’ll keep you posted on the developments.”
“Will do.”
The screen went blank. Gardner pounded one fist into the palm of his other hand.
Assuming he still wanted to go through with the project, there would have to be a replacement for Archer. And perhaps a second replacement would be needed. Smee, cracking slowly under the psychological strain of the assignment, was obviously on the verge of a complete burnout. He might not last out the time it would take to get Archer’s replacement to Lurion.
Gardner put his head in his hands. Killing a planet was no matter for weak men.
He wondered about Archer. No doubt Archer had had some grand idea of collecting damning and unchallengeable evidence and peddling it. “The Confederacy of Rim Stars,” Archer had said. Yes, that loose linkage of second-rate worlds would pay well for anything that might tear down Earth’s interstellar prestige.
But Archer had panicked guiltily, and now he would do no betraying. His act might yet save a world, Gardner thought.
Weary, his head throbbing, Gardner rose and pushed Archer’s suitcase into the closet, slapping the seal on the closet door. They’d have to rip up the walls before they found it.
What to do now? Send back to Earth for replacements? Continue as scheduled? No, Gardner thought.
He remembered Steeves and his two earnest young Lurioni “philosophers.” He had to have another talk with Steeves. Then, perhaps, he could frame his decision. Meanwhile, he would have to stall off Smee, Leopold, and Weegan on the matter of asking for a replacement for Archer.