Hayden Howard

“ Hitching up to full height, he raced ahead like a great ground bird and with a challenging war screech hurled his kauri from its perch stick toward the crags of The Assassin, bulbous and black, close-packed like a herd of great bulls upon the field of the Milky Way, a long climb, a high flight for skar or kauri.
The bird arched back in the windmoan, hissed over their heads, plunging toward the dome of the city.
"Sire, she stoops. A mountain man!" ”

“ The Assassin will never come to that."
The monster bowed low and his tuberculed face smiled without intelligence as his charred, fingerless paw pointed their way into the labyrinth.
"That was Garnak," whispered Taen. "Sire, the ancestors of The Assassin netted him in the swamps. For generations he was their chief agent of death for those who could not afford a skar; a quick-moving creature with the understanding of a man, they trained him to kill without a sound. He was The Assassin's most prized possession. ”

“ Sometimes when he would push her away she would snarl and squawl at him, other times, she would stand with her lip pushed out and her eyes blinking so that he was near tears himself. He listened for the rocket with eager unhappiness.
In the ninth month, without warning, she bit the tip off his ear. The impetus of the pain swung his fist against her mouth. When she stumbled to her feet, she tore off her dress, spitting blood and hatred, and fled into the woods. ”

“ A dozen jetcopter drivers rushed at them, jabbering, tugging at their arms. But Taen motioned as if to loose his kauri, rasping: "Back, sons of suri," then to Jeff: "To approach The Assassin afoot is more traditional."
The quick climb up the mountain made Jeff's breath whistle back and forth through his respirator. Below, the city was a glistening bubble, and below it the alien jungle was soft black fur, its lakes and rivers mirrors for The Dancers.
"Sire," Taen fairly screamed with exhilaration. "This clean air sweeps the thick oxygen from my lungs. My soul awakes. Anything is possible." ”

“ When his face nuzzled the leaves, bean rows sprang higher than a man, leghorns were scratching everywhere and the spacemen came with bright sheaves of credits in their fists. The bean rows spread beyond the horizon and the dust of plowing tractors rose like smoke against the sky, while Paul and Harry, hardly distinguishable, for Paul was only three minutes older, proudly led a ragged old man and a slack-jawed captain through the flowering avenue of peach trees. ”

“ The heir swept back the curtain, throwing a beam of sunlight across the operating room. It gilded the side of the old man's face and as he turned his head blindly toward it, it lighted his strange eyes huge and bright.
Wide and deep, with buried spiders of red, fringed by lashes that beat as frantically as the wings of a wounded kauri, the eyes glowed. Their small black centers mirrored in duplicate Kit's face. They reflected in miniature her slow collapse into Jeff's arms in the instant of silence that followed her one word: "Konrad." ”

“ But The Assassin's mask turned with the pulsing of the airsquid. His voice rasped with such painful effort that the doctor in Jeff tentatively listed it as a symptom of cancer of the larynx: "Whoever you are, return my weapon to its cote. If the doctor so wishes, his advisor may remain." His mask stared straight ahead once more. "You have come to purchase the life of Konrad. Good. If I were not The Assassin, with an ethic more rigid than man's, I would have ended him myself, for it is said that he is the Earthman who ordered death to the City of Three Spears." ”

“ At sleeping time, his dreams of beautifully gowned women leaning over the piano and beckoning, bending in velvet curves to refill his glass, dancing up to him with their arms outstretched, standard spacemen's dreams, no longer gave him pleasure because he could never be sure when they disrobed in their softly lit apartments that they might not turn revealed, the nameless girl. ”

“ As the earless one spoke quickly in The Assassin's ear, the old man's hands struggled clumsily with the straps of his mask. When the equally nervous fingers of the earless young man replaced them, The Assassin croaked breathlessly: "If you can give me sight and your advisor hands, perhaps you will return the arms and legs, the eyes and ears of my followers. Since you are by no means a wealthy man, we will contrive to pay you for your work."
As his hands rose to the heavy circle of gold about his neck, the mask clattered across them to the floor.
Shock of horror stiffened Jeff's face. ”

“ When she began to relax, he pried loose three of the bars, quickly poured a solution of nutrient tablets into the rubber glove, pricked a hole in the thumb and wriggled into the cage, almost filling it. While he held her head so she would not see him if she opened her eyes, very gently he began her training.
Sometimes he would sing to her, and she would smile. Gradually he saw himself transformed in her eyes from the horrible thing that gives fear and pain to something that gives food. ”

“ Sometimes when I start thinking of all the planets you've seen, the strange and wonderful people, the monsters and kings you've healed, I get frightened. This one planet—and I—won't be enough to hold you. ”

“ He felt he owned the power of the city, and, since few clashed with his managerial decisions, for they were usually wise ones, this illusion grew in him until he felt like a god holding the world in the palm of his hand. ”

“ A chip of damp leaves, dark side up with alien things dragging their larvae from the sun, down the slope another, he pursued scars in the leaves over the hill, down, lost the trail in the dry watercourse, zig-zagging, circling like a hound dog, found it again. Ran. His leg muscles were soft from months without gravity. Steep hills. Rollercoasters. Winded.
Resting, listening to his heart, listening, smiling: the mouse was not the largest fauna in his private world. Doubtless the thing that ran like a man was hills and valleys ahead, a world to hide in. ”

“ Taen forestalled Jeff's question: "Yes sire, it is hardly what one would expect. You see, The Assassin's palace was magicked to sand and steam by the weapons of the first of your comrades to land upon this planet. They did not understand—they never have understood—that The Assassin's person is inviolate. They have blown away his prestige with their own mightier weapons. Every man can now be his own assassin, they say, or at least so my people have understood. Many of The Assassin's followers have joined your Security Guards. Many of his wealthiest clients now deal through them. ”

“ Above this continuing racket, Paul shouted: "A smart guy could get richer here than on one of those damned rocks."
The old man's voice came between blows. "You won't get rich anywhere." He said something Paul couldn't hear. "—not the type." He smiled as though it were a compliment. "But if you're thinking of watching peaches ripen—" The hammering drowned him out. "—and the drooling lip because that's what men get all alone on alien planets." ”

“ With the mismatched hands the doctor had fitted him from the Body Bank, Taen unsheathed his kauri's spurs. A year before, when Jeff found this mountain man lying with bleeding wrist stumps in the jungle he readily admitted he had killed without hiring The Assassin. Caught, he had been maimed and left to die in the jungle. Since only The Assassin could directly take life, since he was too expensive to be hired to execute any but the most aristocratic murderers, Taen had been merely maimed and deserted. ”

“ If they intended to stay, they could try the other side of the planet, he'd tell them that. This land was staked.
When they reached him, the one who was a doctor pounced on his ankle the way the nameless girl would pounce on a mouse.
When he enquired for the Doric, they shook their heads. Their farming supplies had never arrived, but it made no difference now. They were being forced out of the system, which was not the first time they had been pushed around, their bearded leader said.
"You are lucky we paused here to fill the water tanks for the long trip in. We are the last ship. ”

“ Jeff dressed in his study, slung his sten gun and, pressing the signal-emitter in his pocket, opened the spike-topped gate characteristic of all the great houses of the dome city. They stepped echoingly along the sidewalk.
"Sire," Taen's voice hissed. His face was searching the shadows. "I wouldn't take that sten gun. It would give The Assassin the fear to kill you. The excuse too, if your life has been purchased. If you are unarmed while you are on his territory it would be hardly honorable to kill you. ”

“ It seemed far too complicated for an animal incapable of consistently picking ripe tomatoes from among the green or of hoeing a bean row for more than a few minutes without losing interest and running over to hug him. ”

“ The old man, who still felt uncomfortable from what he might have seen on the hill, reinforced this with a mutter: "Only man in a world, with a hole for a belly and a spook for a shoulder."
To his own surprise almost as much as theirs, Paul set his feet firmly. "I'm going to cash in my sixteenth of this space coffin for supplies we got for the Mormon colony on Smith. I'll get rich here!" ”

“ That is why he is dealing through The Assassin."
When they reached the fog-snaked street that led to Konrad's, Taen found his voice in a rush of complaints. He even forgot to say, "sire."
"You are doing this all wrong. Treating The Assassin is craziness. What will it do except bring your death if you fail? Your wife is already doomed. The Assassin's bargain is made. And Konrad, he won't speak with you. He'll order his machines to shoot you. Go home and be with your wife while there is time."
But Jeff reached for the iron handle. ”

“ To every man who ever died away from home, Paul thought as he ran over the leaves. Harry brother, there she stands, boy.
She was going. Already tiny figures were dismantling the well rig. They had refilled the tanks with water, the fist for the mighty arm that was the power pile. The heat exchanger was the wrist. The steam, disassociated into H and O by the manmade sun, would provide the mass to push back, pushing them forward to a rock in the sky where there might be heavy metals and there might not. ”

“ They walked slowly, for the path was deeply eroded by cave drip.
"Taen," Jeff whispered. "Are all of his followers like that? It seems to me the old man at the entrance had a bent back—there was something wrong with him too."
"No doubt, sire. The Assassin has recently come to favor those who are not whole. They have greater loyalty, for there is no place else they could earn food, and there is another reason he likes their company which you shall soon see." ”

“ While he lives there is still hope for Kit."
"But such a man does not relent."
"We shall see. But first I want to try to learn The Assassin's thoughts. Perhaps Taen, there are certain conditions under which he does not operate entirely by custom that you do not know about."
"He is incorruptible, sire."
"Sometimes a man's price is not wholly monetary." Jeff fitted on his respirator, then inserted their pass cards into the mouth slot of the automatic gate guard. The rush of wind as the gate of the city swung outward swept them into the ammoniated world of jungles and mountains. ”

“ You need not be afraid of our ways. We do not try to convert spacemen in any case." The doctor took a forward step but stopped, off balance, when Paul's hand slapped the automatic.
"My wife—," Paul had a perplexed, embarrassed look.
The old man was right about him never getting rich. "We have decided to stay here. This is our home."
He saw the doctor raise an eyebrow: no doubt he had run across spacemen who dreamed that convincingly of women many times before. It was difficult when they awoke. Paul had seen a guy in a cage once that had had that happen to him. ”

“ A very broad-shouldered Earthman masked in brass climbed the long path to The Assassin's crags two nights ago. No doubt he purchased your wife's life, enabling The Assassin to reclaim his necklace."
Jeff leaned wearily against the pillar. "Konrad."
Taen raised his kauri on its perch-staff in assent. "No doubt he retained clothing that had touched her body and with that The Assassin was able to train the skar." Taen whipped the hood from the kauri and it clattered its beak and hummed its incredibly small wings. "Are we in turn to purchase the death of Konrad?" ”

“ A mountain man burst into the operating room. "We can't hold them much longer. They must have finished the boys at the Coliseum because now there are hundreds of them. They're shooting at the house down the block. Pretty soon they'll figure out this is the house. Hurry it up."
Deliberately Jeff forgot the outside world and concentrated on the operation. With steady hands he drew out the end of the optic nerve like a small white worm and brought it close to the cross street of nerves in the old man's forehead, the optic chiasma. ”

“ You have to lug them around, hoist them up and down, clean off the rust. But without an anchor in a storm, a ship, a man and a woman, will go on the rocks.
"Taen?" Jeff called. Hawklike eyes appeared around the pillar. "Would you ask Garth to come sit with Kit."
"You going someplace at this time of night." Then she inhaled with a great gasp of breath as she noticed the crushed skar. "Konrad!"
"Very unlikely. He's probably more interested in bossing the city than in carrying out any crazy threats he once made. This airsquid undoubtedly blundered through the dome ventilators. It's a wild one. ”