E.C Tubb - Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun

"I don't blame you, Earl," she said quickly. "You did your best. No one could have done better. Let's look at the others."

Two held scraps of pottery and fragments of ceramic, another mouldering reports and carefully bound books which Dumarest checked then put aside. Had they been early navigational tables they would have held interest; as it was they were ancient histories of the first settlers, valuable only to those concerned.

Dephine drew in her breath as she dug into another crate.

"Earl!"

Beneath a layer of faded clothing rested small packets of opaque material. One, opened, rested in her hands, the sparkle of gems reflected in her eyes. A cache of jewels, carefully hidden, placed among items of small value for added concealment.

"Check the others." Dumarest watched as more gems came into view: a tiara, necklaces, pendant earrings, bracelets. All were of delicate workmanship, all old, all of high value. As Dephine slipped rings on her fingers, extending her hands to admire them, he said, "See what else that box contains."

"What do you think they are worth, Earl?"

"Our lives." He was grim. "If the others spot what we have how long do you think they would let us keep it?"

"The captain?"

"He and the others of the crew. They are little better than pirates." Replacing the lids they had removed Dumarest shifted the checked boxes to reach others lower down. "Hide those gems, Dephine. Find a place in your cabin for now and I'll look for a better one later on."

"We'll have to leave something, Earl. Remille would never believe that we had escaped with a load of rubbish."

A good point and one he had thought of, but the other crates might provide the answer. Items of value but too bulky to be easily hidden. Things it would take a specialist to sell, such as the antique guns, the mouldering books, the plaques of intricate workmanship valuable more for their designs than for the basic material.

They could be shown to the captain and shared with him. The portable loot he would keep.

Stooping he moved a crate to one side, cleared the lid of the one below, set his fingers at the edge and heaved. It resisted his tug and he leaned forward to study it. It seemed more sturdy than the others they had checked, thick wood fastened with heavy screws. The end held a red daub the others lacked. Others, similarly marked, rested at the bottom of the heap.

"Earl?"

"These are different," he said. "The soldiers must have mixed the consignment or just took those nearest to hand. I had no time to check."

"We'll need tools to open this." Dephine tugged at the lid. "Something of real value must rest inside and there are more than one. Earl! This could be it!"

The fortune everyone yearned for, hoped to obtain, dreamed of during the long, lonely hours. The magic which would turn a hell into a paradise-or so they thought. Too often sudden wealth ruined what was barely flawed, accentuated traits which would have been innocuous if left unstimulated.

He said, patiently. "Dephine, we have money. The gems."

"There could be more!" She tore at the lid, her nails scratching the wood, making ugly, tearing sounds. "Get some tools, Earl! Hurry!"

He fetched them from the engine room where the engineer sat facing the handler, a chess board between them, the bent fingers of the officer hovering over a pawn. It was a fraction of an inch away when Dumarest entered to select the tools. It had barely touched by the time he left. The move itself could take minutes of normal time.

Back in the hold Dumarest set to work. The screws yielded as he strained on the tool, lifting to be thrown aside. A dozen screws, a score, and the lid was free to be lifted. It made a dull thud as it hit the deck.

"Earl!" Dephine's voice held incredulous amazement. "Earl, what-"

The crate held a corpse.

* * * * *

The body was that of a girl, young, once attractive, but now ugly with the blotches which marked her face and shoulders, the arms crossed on the chest, her hands. Small blotches of an ebon darkness, rimmed with scarlet, looking like velvet patches stuck on with a ruby glue, each the size of the tip of a finger.

Dephine said, shakily, "She's dead, Earl. Dead. But why put her into a box?"

Not a box, a coffin, her presence had turned a container into something special, but Dumarest didn't correct the woman. He leaned close, studying the lines of the dead face, the hollows of the cheeks and shoulders. The body was wrapped in plain white fabric from beneath the armpits to a little above the knees. The feet, long and sum, were bare, blotched as were the shins, the thighs.

"Earl?"

Dumarest moved, seeing the play of refracted light on the hair, silver strands which shimmered beneath the plastic envelope into which the body had been placed.

"For God's sake, Earl! Answer me! What's all this about?"

Dumarest said, slowly, "I'm not sure. Let's open another crate. One with the same markings."

Like the other it contained death, this time an elderly man, his face seamed, the brows tufted, the knuckles of his blunt-fingered hands scarred. Like the girl his body was marked with blotches. Like her he had been sealed in a plastic bag.

"Another." Dephine stared at the rest of the marked crates. "They're all coffins. I don't understand. Why stack them in a warehouse?" Her voice rose to hover on the edge of hysteria. "Earl, we've stolen a load of dead meat. A bunch of corpses. How the hell are they going to make us rich?"

"Stop it!" His hand landed on her cheek, red welts marking the impact of his fingers. "You aren't a child. You've seen dead men before, women too, so why be stupid?"

"You're right." She rubbed at her cheek. "It was just that I didn't expect to see corpses in those crates. They must have been packed away for later cremation or burial. But why do that?"

"The war."

"People die in war."

"Dephine-it depends what they died of."

"Earl?" She frowned, not understanding then said sharply, as he attacked the rest of the boxes, "No! If they contain more dead I don't want to see them. Leave it, Earl. Let the captain open them if he wants to."

Dumarest ignored the suggestion. The first two contained the bodies of a man and a woman, both middle-aged. The third held the shape of a slender man with a roached and dyed beard. The backs of his arms were heavily tattooed. Among the lurid designs was a name.

"The Varden." Dumarest sat back on his heels. "This must be the missing steward."

"Dead and sealed in a crate?" said Dephine blankly, then, as she realised the implication, added, "No, Earl! My God, not that!"

It couldn't be anything else. Dumarest remembered the stacked crates, the soldiers on duty, the Lieutenant's suspicions. And the gunfire he had thought a distraction which had come too late.

"Plague," he said. "It was in the city. Maybe the steward carried it or maybe he picked it up, either way he fell sick and died. The dead needed to be disposed of but with the city at war that wasn't too easy. A soldier could have seen something, put two and two together, and there would have been a riot. As it was the news must have leaked out."

"How can you say that?"

"I forget, you couldn't know. The officer at the warehouse, Lieutenant Frieze, fell sick and had to be taken from his post. I thought he was Lofoten's man, then I didn't, but he must have had the disease. The police summoned his superior to a conference. Maybe they wanted soldiers to ring the field. If the populace grew panic-stricken they would have rushed for transport away from Hoghan. The gunfire we heard was to beat them back, men firing into the air-it doesn't matter."

"Lofoten-the bastard!"

"I don't think he knew until the end."

"He wanted to come with us, Earl. To escape."

Perhaps, but he could have had another reason. And no sane man would willingly have placed himself in the position they were now in. It took a few moments for the woman to realise it.

"Earl! If the steward contracted the disease?"

"He died of it."

"But where? Here in the ship? Even if he didn't actually die in the vessel he could have brought it into the Varden with him. He slept here. And Remille. He didn't want to stay. He wouldn't even answer the radio-summons. He must have guessed that the authorities on Hoghan intended to seize the ship and place it in quarantine. And we thought they were, worried about a little loot. A mess." She looked at her hands, they were trembling, little shimmers darting from her nails. "And you, Earl. You were in the warehouse where that officer fell sick. You could have touched what he did. Even now-"

"Yes," said Dumarest. "It's possible."

"My God, Earl! What should we do?"

"Get the captain. Let him see what we've found then dump the crates into space."

"And?"

"Wait," he said grimly. "And, if you've a mind to, pray."

Chapter Five

Allia Mertrony did the praying, kneeling before a disc of polished brass, the bright orb wreathed in plumes of fuming incense. Her voice was a high, keening ululating chant, echoing from the bulkheads, scratching at the nerves.

"Listen to her!" Charl Tao scowled as he faced Dumarest in the corridor. "Can't you put a stop to it, Earl? Praying's one thing but this howling is getting me down."

"It's her way."

"Maybe, but it isn't mine." Chart rubbed the backs of his hands, a common gesture now, as was the quick glance he gave them. "A pity she had to know."

Dumarest said, flatly, "She had the right."

"And she would have found out anyway." Charl shook his head as the sound rose to grate at the ears. "Who would have thought an old crone like that had such powerful lungs? It comes with practice, I suppose, Earl?"

"Nothing."

"As yet." Charl rubbed his hands again, halting the gesture with an obvious effort. "To hell with it. If it gets me, it gets me. Come to my cabin later, I've a special bottle we might as well share while we can enjoy it."

"Later," said Dumarest.

He walked through the ship, stood in the hold, totally empty now aside from the caskets used to transport beasts and which, more often than not, held men. Those traveling Low, doped, frozen and ninety per cent dead, risking the fifteen per cent death rate for the sake of cheap travel. He had ridden that way too often, watching the lid close firmly over his face, sinking into oblivion and thinking as blackness closed around him, "this time… ?"

A gamble he had won so far, but no luck could last forever.

Aside from the lack of crates nothing seemed to have changed. The same, blue-white light streamed down from the bulbs and threw the stained paint and shabby furnishings into sharp relief.

As familiar a scene as were the cabins, the salon, the corridors and appointments of the ship. As was the faint vibration of the Erhaft field which sent the vessel hurtling through space. He had traveled on a hundred such ships and worked on many of them. They were a form of home, a pattern into which he could fit. But the Varden was different now. Something had been added. Something small, invisible, unknown.

The threat of the final illness.

Each had met it in their own way.

To Allia Mertrony it was a time for prayer. God was good and would help, but first God had to be aroused and informed of her need. Lars would see to that. Ten years dead now he would be waiting. Drifting in a state akin to sleep, until she should join him, so that together they could continue their journey into the infinite. A mating for life and eternity, so her sect was convinced, and two-thirds of her life had been spent making certain she had found the right man. The cap she wore to hide the temptation of her hair was a public announcement that she was sworn to another.