Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Beyond the Yellow Fog by McDowell Robert Emmett Rubimor Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 716 lines and 23792 words, and 15 pages
"The Commission suspended my license for a year."
"Why?"
"So!" said the Martian.
Gavin heard the girl draw a sharp breath.
Captain Cabot leaned forward quickly from the waist, his narrow brown eyes boring into Gavin's.
Colonal was the most vicious drug known in the System. Extracted from a Ganymedian plant, it lifted its devotees into a special paradise for a few short years; then blind raving insanity inexorably followed its use. Transplanet Lines had been in reality a powerful ring of wholesale smugglers. Agents of the Terrestial Intelligence Service had finally smashed the ring. The company had ceased to exist; its high officials having been sent to prison, its ships and records confiscated.
Gavin felt his stomach go hollow. He faced the girl, his hands still clasped grotesquely behind his neck, and forced himself to observe her coolly.
He saw a girl with skin almost as white as a Martian. Her lustrous black hair was combed back severely from a high white forehead, parted in the center, and done in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her long black eyes were half-hidden by thick black lashes. She was wearing white shorts and blouse, the universal daytime dress of Venus.
Gavin turned back to the Martian and said in a stony voice, "I sailed with Transplanet for seven years. I never heard of a Miss Petrovna!"
The girl bit her lip, brought her hand up to her high virginal breasts. The Martian looked puzzled. Captain Cabot frowned.
Gavin Murdock's jaw dropped. He stared at the girl in utter astonishment, unable to believe his ears.
"Oh," said the girl, reading his disbelief in his gaunt, freckled features, "I wouldn't have dared put myself forward. I worshipped from afar. I was only eighteen, just out of school."
The Martian interrupted, "Sit down, Mr. Murdock." The lines of suspicion had faded from his forehead. "Sit down. You may drop your hands. What have you been doing since then?"
Gavin sank weakly into his chair. He didn't reply. Captain Cabot was regarding Miss Petrovna with an alert expression. The film of drunkenness, Gavin sensed, had been banished from the Captain's brain like a fog by a ray of sunlight.
The Martian said, "Never mind. It's not important. Once we're satisfied with a man, we don't delve too deeply into his activities. Here, you can have your gear back."
The Captain's tone was dry and formal, lacking cordiality. There was, Gavin sensed, no cordiality in the man. He was as devoid of emotion as a block of stone.
"I wouldn't miss it," Gavin assured her dryly.
When Gavin Murdock reached the street, he leaned weakly against the lichen-covered wall of the office building and blew out his breath. Still not trusting himself to think, he hailed a robot cab. As the taxi darted out into the traffic, he relaxed limply into the yielding flexoplas cushions.
A grin lit his bony freckled face. With the girl vouching for him, the slavers would never be able to disprove his story. Transplanet was no longer in existence; its records were in the secret files of the Terrestial Intelligence Service.
Gavin chuckled. Nadia Petrovna's lie had been superb, especially that touch about having had a crush on him. That had been pure artistry. It had carried absolute conviction.
But why had she done it?
He had never been employed by Transplanet, though. He didn't know Nadia Petrovna from Eve!
Then why had she lied?
The robot cab drew up to the curb, stopped, said in a harsh metallic voice, "Offices of the Interplanetary Commission," and the door opened automatically.
The light, filtering through Venus' eternal cloud blanket, was a soft gray, not intense enough to cast shadows. Gavin Murdock noted the phenomena with a frown as he walked along the Street of Sorrow.
In the center of the block, he paused suddenly, lit a cigarette. His eyes, darting across the lighter's flame, searched the crooked twilit street behind him. He was just in time to see a figure flatten itself in a doorway.
He allowed his glance to travel about the street. He was in the Old Port district. Once it had been the heart of the city, but, the big space lines having built a new field on the bogs of Antram just north of Venusport, the crumbling rocket blast pits of Old Port were no longer used except by slavers, smugglers and a few tramp freighters.
He turned abruptly on his heel and resumed his course toward the Temple of Joy. Let them trail him; they'd learn nothing for their pains.
From the Street of Sorrows, he emerged into Venner Square. The statue of August Venner, the first Terrestial to bridge the void and set foot on Venus, rose green with mold in the center of the plaza.
It began to drizzle.
Gavin glanced at his watch. In a few minutes it would be dark. Already the fungus, lichens and mosses creeping up the face of the buildings were radiating a greenish phosphorescent glow. He quickened his pace across the square. As he entered Mercury Alley, he glanced back.
The figure was furtively skirting the statue.
A frown made two vertical furrows between Gavin's sandy brows. Then a movement at the other end of Mercury Alley caught his attention. Two men were bearing down on him. They came ahead in the open, but with caution.
A shiver of apprehension coursed up Gavin's spine. He spun around. The shadower behind him was no longer furtive. He too was closing in warily. Both exits of the alley were closed. Except for a single bar, the buildings on either hand were dark and silent. Trap!
The bar should have a rear exit. Gavin wheeled suddenly and plunged through the door. A barmaid industriously polishing the plastic bar glanced up as Gavin slammed the door. There was one customer, a Terran, seated at a corner table. He smiled at Gavin. "Won't you have a seat, Mr. Murdock?"
Gavin halted in mid-stride to regard the man in utter astonishment. He was a nondescript-looking fellow, middle-aged, with a slight black mustache.
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Murdock?" he repeated genially. "I was beginning to fear you'd never arrive."
The girl crossed silently to the door and bolted it.
Gavin's bewilderment gave way rapidly to caution. His pale blue eyes narrowed; his face hardened. He had been herded into the bar, he realized, like a horse into a corral.
"Sit down," urged the middle-aged man for the third time. "What'll you have?"
Gavin reached a decision. He sat down with his back to the wall so that he could keep both the door and the barmaid under observation and said, "Bourbon."
"Fetch the gentleman bourbon, Meg," said the middle-aged man in a pleasant voice.
The girl brought a bottle of Terran whiskey and a glass, placing them on the table before Gavin. She was a buxom blonde with hard, unsmiling blue eyes and hard, painted features. Her violet shorts fit too tight and she was wearing the sketchiest kind of halter around her full breasts.
Gavin poured himself a drink and waited.
Gavin drank and asked, "Well?"
"You're an astro-engineer, Mr. Murdock. We're interested."
"Who's 'we'?"
The middle-aged man pulled out a handkerchief with which to pat his sallow cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mr. Murdock, but I'm not at liberty to reveal that."
Gavin scowled. "Who are you?"
"How much?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page