Secret of the Stars Read Free Page B

’til you get planetside again.”
    “Only I heard as some don’t make it to wake up again.”
    The ex-runner leaned forward on the bench. “Sure, a man’s luck may be run out all the way. They gets enough of ’em through to make a trip pay. Maybe them machines they had us in and out of tell ’em which can make the big jump and live.”
    “Hey!” One of the others started away from the wall. “I hear someone comin’! Maybe they’ll run us out now.”
    Joktar was on his feet, his mess tin held as if that could serve him in place of his lost force blade. The ex-runner laughed.
    “Fixin’ for a rumble, kid? You ain’t got a chance. Every guard in here carries a tangle. Me, I’d take what they dish out peaceable. No use askin’ to be worked over just to prove how big and brave you are.”
    He was right, but Joktar resented that rightness. His own helplessness was a frightening thing. He had believed he was tough and independent. But he began to realize now that there had always been Kern and the SunSpot between him and the full rawness of the streets. Now he was really alone and he needed time to adjust. He put the tin plate on the bench, seated himself beside it. And the ex-runner, reading his face with the shrewdness of his kind, stopped grinning.
    A guard stood in an open panel, surveying them with contempt. His glance fastened on Joktar and he beckoned. The hope which had died a few moments earlier revived. Kern, buying him out? Joktar shoved past the ex-runner, only too willing to obey that summons. The familiar strangle of the tangle fell about him and his spark of hope flickered.
    Two more guards closed in at the end of the corridor and one of them spoke to the man escorting the captive.
    “Gentlehomo Ericksen wants you at the front office. We’re to hold this one until later.”
    “Why the change?”
    “Spaceport police want to ask him some questions.”
    Spaceport police? Joktar was bewildered. Was this some move of Kern’s? The boss had his contacts in the port control, all vips did. But, as the first guard left, the tangle caught with a painful grip about his middle.
    “Get going, you!”
    The pace they set was close to a run and Joktar sweated, his first uneasiness growing close to fear. These guards had a furtive air, as if they were acting beyond their orders. Yet their attitude toward him did not suggest they were in Kern’s pay.
    His puzzlement grew as he was hustled into a small room to front a man in the uniform of the port police as well as a young man wearing a tunic Joktar had not seen before. The regular space patrol went in dark blue, this man’s garb was silver-gray and sported a badge bearing a glittering constellation, instead of the comet and circle of stars. Joktar blinked. Somewhere—perhaps in that portion of his brain which had been blocked so long ago—a small prick of warning flashed, then spread. He knew that this stranger spelled a deadly danger out of all proportion to their present meeting.
    Then he glimpsed what the strange officer was holding and sucked in his breath. The disc he had been forced to abandon in the examination room swung from its chain gripped between the other’s forefinger and thumb. Above it the man’s face was stark with anger. Yet Joktar was sure he had never seen the other before.
    “Well, Gentlehomo,” the policeman spoke first, “this one of the scum who jumped you and your friend?”
    “If he isn’t, he knows them! This proves it, doesn’t it? How else would a burnout from the streets get a scout’s ident? You—” he added two descriptive expressions which flattened Joktar’s lips against his teeth in a tight snarl. Then the dealer rocked under a blow across his face.
    “Well? Speak up! Where did you get this ident?” In its way, the policeman’s reasonable tone was as deadly as the open brutality of the officer’s attack.
    “I’ve always had it.” Joktar was startled into the direct truth and knew that they would never