Secret of the Stars Read Free

dealer hesitated, and then the first law of his jungle prevailed: in a raid it was each man for himself.
    A panel swung under his hand. He plunged through only to be pinned in a spearhead of brilliant light. Joktar’s last coherent thoughts, as he went down under the full impact of a stun ray, was that he must have been included on Kern’s list of expendables after all.

    Joktar did not open his eyes at once. He let the senses of hearing and smell relay the first information of his new quarters to his brain. He knew he was not alone; a moan, a grunt, a querulous mumble to his left, assured him of company in misfortune. The smell of closely packed and none-too-clean humanity backed up that deduction.
    He concentrated on his last clear memory; he had burst through the proper bolt hole, straight into the arms of a reception committee. So, now he must be in the E-pens. For a moment, wild panic shook Joktar’s control. Then he forced himself to open his eyes slowly, to lie still, when every inch of him, mind and body, clamored for action. But his first lesson on the streets had been the need for patience—that and the folly of fighting against overwhelming odds blindly and without plan.
    Letting his head roll to one side he obtained a floor-level view of his present quarters. Haggy from the SunSpot lay next to him, a drooling thread of saliva spinning from his slack mouth. Haggy, and beyond him was a stranger wearing the grimy skin which spelled happy-smoke addiction.
    There were two more, both strangers and drifters, the sort easily swept up in any E-raid. But to find Haggy a fellow captive, that meant that more than one bolt hole of the SunSpot had been tagged. Haggy was not one to linger after the alert was on. Were all of Kern’s senior employees here?
    Time was one factor which must be reckoned with. Joktar tried to remember whether there had been E-ships waiting in port. But then such a raid usually occurred only when there was a ship ready. No use housing and feeding emigrants at government expense.
    A man might escape from a planetside prison. However, as far as Joktar had ever heard, there was no escape except a buy-out from the E-pens. Unless you could prove that you were an honest citizen in good standing with a job. They were careful on that point nowadays, ever since the big stink when they had swept up the son of a councilor who had been doing some sight-seeing on the streets and shipped him off to the stars. Now there was supposed to be a double-check on the status of emigrants and that was when a buy-out could be arranged. But for that a man had to have someone working from the outside.
    Kern? Joktar considered the possibility of help from the boss. He thought there was a thin chance, a very thin one, of that. And a man clung to any chance at a time such as this. He had no weapon, they had taken his knife, and the very possession of such a blade would count against him. His hands explored—yes, they’d taken his purse, his other small belongings. But what he wore beneath his shirt, the one thing which he had carried out of his misty childhood, that was still on him.
    “Attention!” That impersonal bark out of the air overhead was like a whip-snap. “You will come out through the door immediately!”

2
    As a section of the wall opened, Joktar felt the warning twinge of a vibrator. The captives would leave, all right, or twist in agony. He got to his feet, stooped to shake Haggy. The barman moaned, opened bleared eyes which became terror-stricken as he grew aware of his surroundings. Lurching free of Joktar’s hold, he staggered to the door. The dealer followed, to be caught up in the web of a tangle-field. He could still walk, in fact he had to, since he was being drawn down a brightly lighted corridor, but otherwise he could not raise a finger.
    The E-men had all the props. But then, why shouldn’t they? The Galactic Council was solidly behind this emigration policy which worked two ways. First it got