Read Ebook: Spacerogue by Silverberg Robert Emshwiller Ed Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 455 lines and 17370 words, and 10 pages

Herndon eyed the foul-smelling Agozlid and said, "I'm the one who bought the proteus. Who gets my money?"

"I do," croaked the auctioneer. "Nine hundred stellors gold, plus thirty stellors fee, and the beast's yours."

Herndon touched the money-plate at his belt and a coil of hundred-stellor links came popping forth. He counted off nine of them, broke the link, and laid them on the desk before the Agozlid. Then he drew six five-stellor pieces from his pocket and casually dropped them on the desk.

"Let's have your name for the registry," said the auctioneer after counting out the money and testing it with a soliscope.

"Barr Herndon."

"Home-world?"

Herndon paused a moment. "Borlaam."

The Agozlid looked up. "You don't seem much like a Borlaamese to me. Pure-bred?"

"Does it matter to you? I am. I'm from the River Country of Zonnigog, and my money's good."

Painstakingly the Agozlid inscribed his name in the registry. Then he glanced up insolently and said, "Very well, Barr Herndon of Zonnigog. You now own a proteus. You'll be pleased to know that it's already indoctrinated and enslaved."

"This pleases me very much," said Herndon flatly.

The Agozlid handed Herndon a bright planchet of burnished copper with a nine-digit number inscribed on it. "This is the code key. In case you lose your slave, take this to Borlaam Central and they'll trace it for you." He took from his pocket a tiny projector and slid it across the desk. "And here's your resonator. It's tuned to a mesh network installed in the proteus on the submolecular level--it can't change to affect it. You don't like the way the beast behaves, just twitch the resonator. It's essential for proper discipline of slaves."

Herndon accepted the resonator. He said, "The proteus probably knows enough of pain without this instrument. But I'll take it."

The auctioneer seized the proteus and scooped it down from the auction-stand, dropping it next to Herndon. "Here you are, friend. All yours now."

The marketplace had cleared somewhat; a crowd had gathered at the opposite end, where some sort of jewel auction was going on, but as Herndon looked around he saw he had a clear path over the cobbled square to the quay beyond.

He walked a few steps away from the auctioneer's booth. The auctioneer was getting ready for the next segment of his sale, and Herndon caught a glimpse of three frightened-looking naked Villidon girls behind the curtain being readied for display.

He stared seaward. Two hundred yards away was the quay, rimmed by the low sea-wall, and beyond it was the bright green expanse of the Shining Ocean. For an instant his eyes roved beyond the ocean even, to the far continent of Zonnigog where he had been born. Then he looked at the terrified little proteus, halfway through yet another change of shape.

Nine hundred thirty-five stellors, altogether, for this proteus. Herndon scowled bitterly. It was a tremendous sum of money, far more than he could easily have afforded to throw away in one morning--particularly his first day back on Borlaam after his sojourn on the outplanets.

But there had been no help for it. He had allowed himself to be drawn into a situation, and he refused to back off halfway. Not any more, he said to himself, thinking of the burned and gutted Zonnigog village plundered by the gay looters of Seigneur Krellig's army.

"Walk toward the sea-wall," he ordered the proteus.

A half-formed mouth said blurredly, "M-master?"

"You understand me, don't you? Then walk toward the sea-wall. Keep going and don't turn around."

He waited. The proteus formed feet and moved off in an uncertain shuffle over the well-worn cobbles. Nine hundred thirty-five stellors, he thought bitterly.

He drew his needler.

The proteus continued walking, through the marketplace and toward the sea. Someone yelled, "Hey, that thing's going to fall in! We better stop it!"

"I own it," Herndon called coolly. "Keep away from it, if you value your own lives."

He received several puzzled glances, but no one moved. The proteus had almost reached the edge of the sea-wall now, and paused indecisively. Not even the lowest of life-forms will welcome its own self-destruction, no matter what surcease from pain can be attained thereby.

"Mount the wall," Herndon called to it.

Blindly, the proteus obeyed. Herndon's finger caressed the firing-knob of the needler. He watched the proteus atop the low wall, staring down into the murky harbor water, and counted to three.

On the third count he fired. The slim needle-projectile sped brightly across the marketplace and buried itself in the back of the proteus' body. Death must have been instantaneous; the needle contained a nerve-poison that was effective on all known forms of life.

The creature stood frozen on the wall an instant, caught midway between changes, and toppled forward into the water. Herndon nodded and holstered his weapon. He saw people's heads nodding. He heard a murmured comment: "Just paid almost a thousand for it, and first thing he does is shoot it."

It had been a costly morning. Herndon turned as if to walk on, but he found his way blocked by a small wrinkle-faced man who had come out of the jewelry-auction crowd across the way.

"My name is Bollar Benjin," the little prune of a man said. His voice was a harsh croak. His body seemed withered and skimpy. He wore a tight gray tunic of shabby appearance. "I saw what you just did."

"What of it? It's not illegal to dispose of slaves in public," Herndon said.

"Only a special kind of man would do it, though," said Bollar Benjin. "A cruel man--or a foolhardy one. Which are you?"

"Both," Herndon said. "And now, if you'll let me pass--"

"Just one moment." The croaking voice suddenly acquired the snap of a whip. "Talk to me a moment. If you can spare a thousand stellors to buy a slave you kill the next moment, you can spare me a few words."

"What do you want with me?"

"Your services," Benjin said. "I can use a man like you. Are you free and unbonded?"

Herndon thought of the thousand stellors--almost half his wealth--that he had thrown away just now. He thought of the Seigneur Krellig, whom he hated and whom he had vowed so implacably to kill. And he thought of the wrinkled man before him.

"I am unbonded," he said. "But my price is high. What do you want, and what can you offer?"

Benjin smiled obliquely and dipped into a hidden pocket of his tunic. When he drew forth his hand, it was bright with glittering jewels.

"I deal in these," he said. "I can pay well."

The jewels vanished into the pocket again. "If you're interested," Benjin said, "come with me."

Herndon nodded. "I'm interested."

"Follow me, then."

Herndon had been gone from Borlaam for a year, before this day. A year before--the seventeenth of the reign of the Seigneur Krellig--a band of looters had roared through his home village in Zonnigog, destroying and killing. It had been a high score for the Herndon family--his father and mother killed in the first sally, his young brother stolen as a slave, his sister raped and ultimately put to death.

The village had been burned. And only Barr Herndon had escaped, taking with him twenty thousand stellors of his family's fortune and killing eight of the Seigneur's best men before departing.

For eight thousand stellors the surgeons of Meld had taken these things away and given him a new face: broad where the other had been high, tan-skinned, narrow-eyed, with a majestic hook of a nose quite unlike any of Zonnigog. He had come back wearing the guise of a spacerogue, a freebooter, an unemployed mercenary willing to sign on to the highest bidder.

The Meldian surgeons had changed his face, but they had not changed his heart. Herndon nurtured the desire for revenge against Krellig--Krellig the implacable, Krellig the invincible, who cowered behind the great stone walls of his fortress for fear of the people's hatred.

Herndon could be patient. But he swore death to Krellig, someday and somehow.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet