“Captain Aron,” replied the captain. “May I come in, Mr. Yango?”
“Certainly, sir… One moment, please. I believe the door is locked.”
Footsteps crossed the stateroom again, approaching the door. Yango hadn’t sounded in the least like a man who had something to hide. Those thumps? Thoughtfully, the captain moved back a little, slid a hand into his gun pocket, left it there.
The door swung open, showing enough of the stateroom to make it immediately clear that no large, strange beast stood waiting inside. The trader smiled a small, cold smile at him from beyond the door. “Come in, sir. Come in!”
The captain went in, drew the door shut behind him. A light was on over a table against the wall on the left; various papers lay about the table. The big packing crate rather crowded the far end of the room, but nothing approaching the bulk of a horse could possibly have been concealed in that. “I trust I’m not disturbing you,” the captain said.
“Not at all, Captain Aron.” Laes Yango, nodded at the table, smiled deprecatingly. “Paper work!… It seems a businessman never quite catches up with that. What was on your mind, sir?”
“A matter of ship security,” the captain told him, casually drawing the gun from his pocket, holding it pointed at the floor between them. The trader’s gaze shifted to the gun, then up to the captain’s face. He looked mildly puzzled, perhaps a little startled.
“Ship security?” he repeated.
“Yes,” said the captain. He lifted the gun muzzle an inch or two. “Would you hand me your gun, Mr. Yango? Carefully, please!”
The trader stared at him a moment. Then his smile returned. “Ah, well,” he said softly. “You have the advantage of me, sir! The gun — of course, if you feel that’s necessary!” His hand went slowly under his jacket, slowly brought out a gun, barrel held between thumb and finger, extended it to the captain. “Here you are, sir!”
The captain placed the gun in his left coat pocket.
“Thank you,” he said. He indicated the packing crate. “You told me, I believe, Mr. Yango, that you had some very valuable and delicate hyperelectronic equipment in that box.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“I see you have it locked,” said the captain. “I’ll have to take a look inside. Would you unlock it, please?”
Laes Yango chewed his lip thoughtfully.
“You insist on that?” he inquired.
“I’m afraid I do,” said the captain.
“Very well, sir. I know the law — on a risk run any question of ship security overrides all other considerations, at the captain’s discretion. I shall open the lock, though not without protest against this invasion of my business privacy.”
“I’m sorry,” said the captain. “Open it, please.”
He waited while the trader produced two sizable keys, inserted them in turn into a lock on the case, twisted them back and forth in a practiced series of motions and withdrew them. Then Yango stepped back from the case. Its top section was swinging slowly open, snapped into position, leaving the interior of the case exposed. The captain moved up, half his attention on the trader, until he could glance into it…
It looked like a big, folded robe made of animal fur — long, coarse brown fur, streaked here and there with black tiger markings. The captain reached cautiously into the case, poked the fur, then grasped the hide through it and lifted. It came up with a kind of heavy, resilient looseness. He let it down again. The whole box might be filled with the stuff.
“This,” he asked Yango, “is valuable hyperelectronic equipment?”
Yango nodded. “Indeed it is, sir! Indeed, it is! Extremely valuable — almost priceless. Very old and in perfect condition. A disassembled Sheem robot… The great artist who created it died over three hundred years ago.”
“A disassembled Sheem robot,” said the captain. “I see… Have you had it assembled recently, Mr. Yango?”
“That is possible,” Yango said stiffly.
The captain took hold of one end of the thick fold of furred material, drew it back -
The head lay just beneath it, bedded in more brown fur.
It didn’t appear to be a head so much as the flattened-out bristly mask of one. But the eyes looked alive. Hulik do Eldel had described them accurately — a row of five smallish, round eyes of fiery yellow. They stared up out of the case at the ceiling of the stateroom. Near the other end of the head was a wide dark mouth-slit. A double pair of curved black tusks was thrust out at the sides of the mouth. It was a big head — big enough to go with a horse-sized body. And a thoroughly hideous one.
The captain pulled the folded fur back across it again.
“The Sheem Spider!” Laes Yango said. “A unique item, Captain Aron. The Sheem Robots were modeled after living animals of various worlds, and the Spider is considered to have been the most perfect creation of them all. This is the last specimen still in existence. You asked whether I had assembled it recently… Yes, I have. It’s a most simple process. With your permission—”
The captain swung the gun up, pointed it at Yango’s chest.
“What are you hiding in your left hand?” he asked.
“Why, the activating mechanism.” Yango frowned puzzledly. “I understood you wished to see it assembled. You see, the Sheem Robots assemble themselves when the signal to do it is registered by them.”
The captain glanced aside into the case. The folded fur in there was shifting, sliding aside, beginning to heave up towards the top of the case.
“You have,” he said, his voice fairly steady, “two seconds to deactivate it again! Then I’ll shoot — and not for the shoulder.”
There was the faintest of clicks from Laes Yango’s closed left fist. The stirring mass in the case settled slowly back down into it, lay quiet. “It is deactivated, sir!” Yango said, eyeing the gun.
“Then I’ll take that device,” the captain told him. “And after you’ve locked up the case, I’ll take the keys… And then perhaps you’ll let me know what this Sheem Robot is for, where you’re taking it — and why you had it assembled and walking around on this ship without warning anybody about it.”
Yango’s expression had become surly but he offered no further protest. He relocked the case, turned over the keys and the activating mechanism. He’d been commissioned, he said, to obtain the Sheem Robot for the prince consort of Swancee, a world to Galactic North of Emris. Wuesselen was the possessor of a fabulous mechanical menagerie, and the standing price he’d offered for a Sheem Spider was fabulous in keeping. How or where Yango had obtained the robot he declined to say; that was a business secret. Above and beyond the price, he’d been promised a bonus if he could deliver it in time to have it exhibited by Wuesselen at the next summer festivals of northern Swancee; and the bonus was large enough to have made it seem worthwhile to take his chances with the Chaladoor passage.
“For obvious reasons,” he said, “I have not wanted any of this to become known. I do not intend to have my throat cut before I can reach Swancee with the Spider!”
“Why did you assemble it here on the ship?” asked the captain.
“I’ve guaranteed to deliver it in good operating condition. These Robots must be tested — exercised, you might say — at least every few weeks to prevent deterioration. I regret very much that my action caused an alarm on board, but I didn’t wish to reveal the facts of the matter. And no one was in danger. The Sheem Robots are perfectly harmless. They are simply enormously expensive toys!”
The captain grunted. “How can you get as big a thing as that into your case when it’s disassembled?”
Yango looked at him. “Because these robots are hyperelectronic, sir! Assembled, they consist in considerable part of an interacting pattern of energy fields, many of which manifest as solid matter. As they disassemble, those fields collapse. The remaining material sections take up relatively little space.”