Barrington J. Bayley
THE STAR VIRUS
I
Suddenly Rodrone understood why the scene before his eyes held such fascination for him, and why he returned again and again to worlds like this one. Lurid, offbeat and infernal, it offered the exaggerated symbolism of a painting rendered by a schizophrenic; and so drew him to that attractive realm of mental aberration where thoughts and actions could all be bizarre without feelings of shame…
The landscape had the combination of sharpness and gloom that typified an airless planet, and the grotesquely large ruby-colored sun gave it a gory glow in every shade from dark wine to cherry red. Except, that is, for the river of molten ore that slithered down the side of a nearby mountain like a writhing white-hot snake, lighting up the gloom for miles around.
The mining technique was crude but effective. A beaten-up space freighter, centuries old, hovered on its tail low over the mountain, using its main engines to direct a blast of nuclear heat that smelted the metal directly out of the lode.
Men in white spacesuits moved slowly along the banks of the metal river, gesticulating to one another. From his vantage point on the observation ledge of his spaceship, the Stond, they seemed like malicious little imps, eager to hurl one another into the deadly current to be swept along to where it cooled to a glowering red in the collecting bowl that had been blown out of the ground earlier.
A mile away stood the third ship of his expedition, the Revealer. Rodrone lifted a space helmet he carried and placed it over his head; not because he needed its protection—the ledge where he stood was covered with a shimmering transparent film that clung to the hull of the ship like a soap bubble—but because of the communications set it contained. Faintly through the tuned-down speaker, he could hear the men on the ground laughing and daring one another to edge closer to the white-hot stream and take a chance on its suddenly changing course.
He pressed a stud, putting him through to Kulthol down by the collecting bowl. By turning his head slightly, he could see the tiny screen inside the helmet; at the same time Kulthol’s sandy-haired, stubbled face sprang on to the plate.
“Anything?” Rodrone asked.
“Not an atom. We’re wasting our time.”
The molten stream was iron; but it was not iron they were looking for. Occasionally there occurred in ores of this type, on planets of this type circling suns of this type, silicon diamonds: denser and harder than ordinary diamonds and therefore useful industrially. With difficulty, they could be synthesized, but there was a steady market for the natural variety and Rodrone, against the judgment of his fellows, had decided to make a try. Kulthol was vainly sifting the molten metal through a detector grid for signs of the gems, and this was the third location in the past few hours.
“The iron’s good,” Kulthol remarked. “Maybe we could do business in that.”
“Forget it.” Iron was the commonest metal in the universe, and though there were rare times when its price in the metal exchanges made it just worthwhile to make deliveries, this was not one of them. “Pack up the gear,” he ordered. “We’ve done enough.”
The huge ungainly freighter, shaped like two squat towers locked together, swung away from the mountain and settled its creaking bulk on the plain. Rodrone turned his back on the scene, which a moment ago had almost sent him into a psychedelic trance, and entered the hull of the Stond. The ledge withdrew after him, and as the port closed, the air-containing bubble—which was in fact composed of liquid and maintained by pressure—collapsed and vanished.
He laid the space helmet down in an alcove and was confronted for a moment by a full-length mirror. Like many men whose uncertain temperament hid a secret vanity, he could not resist a second or two of self-contemplation. The image facing him was of a tall, spare man with dark skin and thick brown hair. A fringe beard framed a mournful countenance and made his sensitive, almost negroid lips and liquid brown eyes even more brooding, volatile, dangerous. It was the face of a vacillating dreamer, a wastrel and an adventurer. Even in space he wore a short black cloak and thigh-length boots to match the rich brown cloth of his other garments, and a small golden handgun was clamped to the front of his left thigh.
“No dice, eh?”
His revery was interrupted by a young baritone voice, and he turned to the figure who had entered the corridor from the other end.
“No dice,” he answered. The other laughed slyly.
Clave Theory was about twenty-five years old and in appearance seemed to be made of chalk. His flaxen, almost colorless hair was combed back to spread carelessly over his shoulders. His bony frame was clad in loose-fitting, puce-colored clothing, and his broad face was so pale as to seem consumptive, a deathly impression exacerbated by its expression: the eyes had a staring, glassy quality and the lips were habitually drawn back in a half-grin of sinister amusement.
But the deathly quality was belied by Clave’s easy, quick movements and his obvious health and liveliness. He would take an interest in anything and dare anything, the more outlandish the better. Rodrone liked him immensely, partly because despite Clave’s own picture of himself as an unwavering cynic he was in fact utterly ingenuous.
“We’ll probably have trouble from the bondsmen,” Rodrone said, following Clave into the roomy compartment at the end of the corridor.
“Well, I guess you can handle it.”
The trouble was not long coming. The chamber was one of several distributed through the Stond, sandwiched between the control room and engine and storage spaces. Egg-shaped and about thirty feet on the long axis, it was well furnished but suffered from the chronic untidiness of men living casually. Rodrone sat down and helped himself from a dish of bread and assorted meats, half-aware of voices and the clumps of heavy boots from below.
A door opened. A dozen men crowded through, some still wearing spacesuits, minus helmets. Others wore, on the breasts of tunics of coarse fabric, the insignia of the Merchant House of Karness.
They were led by a burly black-haired man with a look of sullen anger on his face.
“Don’t you know enough to leave your suits downstairs?” Rodrone said mildly. “What kind of house-training did they give you in Karness’s barracks?”
The man flushed. “Enough of that, Rodrone. We want a reckoning!”
“We don’t have a complaints department,” Rodrone said.
“When we joined up with you we expected a better deal,” another told him, struggling to get out of his suit. “After three months we’ve got nothing to show for it”
“Oh no? I observed that you seemed to be enjoying yourselves down on the ground. Like a bunch of damned kids.”
“Now look here,” the big man put in, his tone softening slightly, “there’s plenty of material to be picked up in this cluster. Titanium, gold and beryllium just lying there for the taking. Then there are the organics. It all fetches a decent price, and it only takes a little hard work and application.”
“Oh, so it’s work you’re looking for,” Rodrone sighed mockingly.
“It all fetches a decent price!” the other repeated, his voice rising. “But no, we go chasing off to planets not worth a damn. Ferr told you there would be no gems here”—he gestured to one of their number—“and so did your own man, Harver. So why in hell did we come here?”
“I like it here,” Rodrone replied in a maddeningly bored, affected tone. “Pleasant spot for a vacation.”
They glanced at one another with looks of disgust, then seemed to stiffen as Kulthol entered with one or two of Rodrone’s regular men. Kulthol cast a ferrety glance around the room, then walked across it to place himself strategically near one wall, from where he looked on with evident interest.