The Solar Queen had held a contract on Sargol for the taking of Koros gems—her captain had even fought a Salarik duel with an I-S man to claim and hold their rights. It was the I-S who had had the Queen proclaimed a plague ship when the mysterious pest they had unwittingly brought aboard with cargo had knocked out most of the crew. And only grit, determination, and an appeal made over the law, but effectively, to Terra at large, broadcast from a port by the junior members, who had not succumbed to the pest, had saved their ship and their lives.
And it had again been an I-S representative whose poaching trade they had broken on Khatka when Captain Jellico, Medic Tau, and Dane had visited there at the Chief Ranger’s request during what might have been a disastrous planet leave.
So the I-S people certainly had no love for the Queen, and her crew would be inclined to think first of their meddling in any trouble. Dane drew a deep breath. This could be I-S! They would have the means, the facilities to set up such a plan. There had not been any I-S ship planeting on Xecho while the Queen was there—it was Combine territory—but that meant nothing. They could have shipped in their man on a neutral shuttle from another system. But if this was part of an I-S plot— “Could be,” Jellico returned. “But I doubt it. In the first place, they may not look upon us with any warmth of feeling—or at least a warmth of feeling we would relish. But to them we are very small fry. If they saw a chance to fuse our tubes without difficulty, they’d probably do it. But to set up some elaborate plan—no. We’re carrying mail, and any trouble would bring a Patrol investigation. I won’t cut out I-S, but they are not my first choice. Combine reported no political trouble on Trewsworld, so what—”
“There is one way of learning something.” Tau drummed absently on the edge of a swing shelf with his fingertip, and Dane caught himself watching that. Craig Tau’s hobby was magic, or rather those unexplainable powers and talents that the primitive (and sometimes not so primitive) men on half a thousand worlds used to gain their ends. He had used his knowledge of such things to bring them safely out of danger on Khatka, and in that particular action a drum had had a great deal to do with the building up of whatever force he had drawn upon to break the will of a feared witch doctor. Only Dane had beat the drum then, to Tau’s orders.
Now it was almost as if some suggestion reached from the medic’s mind to his. Though Dane had no claim to esper talents, Tau had admitted that was in fact why he had made a good foil on Khatka.
“You can’t remember what happened between your leaving the ship and your awaking in the inn, consciously,” the medic continued. Dane lost interest in that drumming finger and guessed.
“Deep probe?”
“Will it work?” Jellico demanded.
“You can’t tell until you try. Dane has a block against some hypo techniques. How deep that goes, we can’t tell. But the dead man was wearing his tunic, which means they might have met. If he’s willing to try, deep probe might give us some answers.”
Dane wanted to shout “no” with all the force the illness had left in him. Deep probe was used on criminals by court order. If a man were susceptible enough, it would wring every incident of his life out of him back to the first childhood memories. But they would not be after that, just the immediate past. Dane could see the sense in Tau’s suggestion. It was just that to accept it meant facing up to something from which he shrank with every fiber of his being.
“We can set it only for the time you left the ship.” Tau appeared to understand the cause of his reservation. “And it may not work—you’re not a good subject—plus the fact we have no idea what alteration of body chemistry the poison may have worked. In one way, such a testing might be to your advantage, for then we can judge any change that dose may have caused.”
Dane felt a return of that same chill that had struck him when he had fought for strength in the inn. Did Tau believe that he had taken mental damage? But he had remembered the stowage, and the tapes had confirmed the accuracy of his memory. There was only the period of time that Tau wanted to research that eluded him. He wavered—the distaste for the probe’s revelations, together with a feeling he did not want to know if the drug had affected him, combined to make him hesitate. Only, if he did not agree, then in days to come his ignorance might be worse to face than certain knowledge.
“All right,” he said, and then, for a second or two, wished he had refused.
Since the ship was in hyper and needed only a standby watch on the bridge, Rip was set that duty, and both the Captain and Wilcox were present as Tau made ready to activate a probe. Dane was not quite certain how it worked, though that it was able to turn a man inside out as far as his past was concerned was a known fact.
Jellico made ready to tape what Dane would report, and Tau gave him the shot to send him under. He heard a dwindling murmur and then—
He was going down the ramp, a little worried and resentful of this last-minute call to pick up a security package. Luckily there was a field scooter parked not too far away. He scrambled in, fed in his ident disk, and gave it the order for the gate.
“The Deneb.” He repeated aloud his destination, having a vague idea it was an eating place not too far from the field. At least that much was in his favor. And he had the receipt tape to hand, needing only the voice and thumb record of the shipper to make it legal.
The scooter delivered him at the gate, and he looked down the offport street for some sign of the cafe he wanted. Xecho was a crosslane planet, a port of call for ships switching from one sector to another. Thus it did have an off-port section of inns, eating places, and amusement holes for space crews, but it was relatively small and tame compared to such sections ringing the ports of other worlds, consisting of a single street of closely packed one-story buildings.
As usual, the heat of late afternoon was intense. Dane was wearing full uniform tunic and breeches, which added to his discomfort. He must make this excursion as short as possible. He searched for any identifying sign of the establishment he wanted. Those bright lights that would be visible at night were missing now, and it took him several moments of survey to find it—a small place sandwiched in between a hock-lock and an inn he remembered having eaten in the day before.
There were not many on the street—the heat kept most planetside dwellers inside. He passed only two crewmen as he made the best speed the sultry day heat would allow to his goal, and he did not look closely at either.
To step inside the Deneb was to step from a furnace into cool dusk and relief against the punishment of Xecho’s day. It was not a restaurant, rather a drinking place, and he was uneasy. For someone with a package needing security insurance, to be waiting here was not normal—but then this was his first mail run, and how could he gauge what was normal procedure. If he got voice and thumb records, then the Queen was only responsible for the safe transportation of the article in question, and if he had continued doubts, he need only step into the security office at the port on his way back and make an additional recording for the complete coverage of the Queen’s part in an affair that might be on the shady side.
There was a line of booths against the far wall with dials for drinks and various legal smokes. But knowing off-ports, Dane wondered if some illegal stimulants could not also be ordered if one knew the proper code. The place was very quiet. A crewman was in a drunken doze in the farthest booth, an empty glass before him, his fingers still curled protectingly about it.
There was no sign of any proprietor, and the small booth beside the door was empty. Dane waited impatiently for a moment or two. Surely the drunk in the corner had not sent for him. At last he rapped on the surface of the pay-booth grill, the noise carrying more loudly through the room than he expected.