Star Hunter Read Free Page B

surveying him from head to foot. Lansor
wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the
other's gaze when it reached his face again.
    "No—not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way." Now he
looked at Vye again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions,
some call on his interest as a personality. "Want a job?"
    Lansor pressed his hand deeper into the foam seat. "What—what kind?"
He was angry and ashamed at that small betraying break in his voice.
    "You have scruples?" The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye
reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in
the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the
Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could
not tell why he was.
    "Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher
cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter."
    Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a
dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected
some reaction.
    "You may inspect my credentials if you wish."
    "I believe you," Vye found his voice.
    "I happen to need a gearman."
    But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye
Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did
not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn't a smoke eater! It
was the kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was
port-drift.
    "Would you be willing to sign on?"
    Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A
gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large
premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt cut through
the first hazy rosiness. A swamper from a port-side dive simply did
not become a gearman for a Guild Hunter.
    Again it was as if the stranger read his thoughts. "Look here," he
spoke abruptly. "I had a bad time myself, years ago. You resemble
someone to whom I owe a debt. I can't repay him, but I can make the
scales a little even this way."
    "Make the scales even." Vye's fading hope brightened. Then the
Out-Hunter was a follower of the Fata Rite. That would explain
everything. If you could not repay a good deed to the one you owed,
you must balance the Eternal Scales in another fashion. He relaxed
again, a great many of his unasked questions so answered.
    "You will accept?"
    Vye nodded eagerly. "Yes, Out-Hunter." He still could not believe that
this was happening.
    The other pressed the refresher button, and this time he handed Lansor
the brimming cup. "Drink on the bargain." His words had the ring of
command.
    Lansor drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was
aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes
closed.
    Ras Hume took the cup from the lax fingers of the young man. So far,
very good. Chance appeared to be playing on his side of the board. It
had been chance which had steered him into the Starfall just three
nights ago when he had been in quest of his imposter. And Vye Lansor
was better than he dared hope to find. The boy had the right coloring,
he had been batted around enough to fall for the initial story, he was
malleable now. And after Wass' techs worked on him he would be Rynch
Brodie—heir to one-third of Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz!
    "Come!" He touched Vye on the shoulder. The boy opened his eyes but
his gaze did not focus as he got slowly to his feet. Hume glanced at
his planet-time watch. It was still very early; the chance he must run
in getting Lansor out of this building was small if they went at once.
Guiding the younger man with a light hold above the elbow, he walked
him out back to the flitter landing stage. The air-car was waiting.
Hume's sense of being a gambler facing a run of good luck grew as he
shepherded the boy into the flitter, punched a cover destination and
took off.
    On another street he transferred himself and his charge into a second
air-car, set the destination to within a block of the