The Five Gold Bands Read Free Page A

landed on the asteroid, the port opened. Paddy, expecting the boat’s air to rush out into airless space, tensed, gasped, made a warning gesture. Nothing of the sort occurred. There seemed to be an equal pressure of air outside.
    The Kudthu thrust him out. He found himself walking to normal gravity though the asteroid, a rock the shape of a man’s foot, was hardly two hundred feet across its longest diameter. A gravity unit must be operating, surmised Paddy— somewhere on the underside of the rock.
    Below the circle of bright tubing a floor of polished granite flags had been laid with a pattern of baroque pentagons inlaid in gold surrounding a large central star of bright red coral or cinnabar. Five heavy chairs faced inward toward a circular cockpit three feet in diameter, a foot deep.
    The Shaul pilot said to Paddy, “Come.” The Kudthu guards shoved. He set out angrily after the Shaul, followed him up onto the brightly lit circular platform and to the central cockpit.
    “Step down.”
    Paddy hesitated, gingerly looking into the opening. The Kudthu pushed him—willy-nilly he stepped down. The Shaul stooped, there came the rattle of chain, a clank and a band encircled Paddy’s ankle.
    The Shaul said in a hurried voice, “You occupy a very exalted position. See that you bear yourself with respect. When one of the Sons speaks repeat his words in the appropriate language to each of the other Sons—in clockwise order away from the speaker.
    “Suppose the Shaul Son who sits in the chair yonder speaks, repeat his first words in Loristanese to the Son there”—he pointed—“then in Koton to the Son from Koto, then in Badaic to the Badau Son and in Pherasic to the Son from Alpheratz A. Do you understand?”
    “Very well,” said Paddy. “That much of it. What I wish to know is, after I complete my services, what then?”
    The Shaul turned half away. “Never mind about that. I can assure you of unpleasantness if you conduct yourself improperly. We Shauls do not torture but the Eagles and the Kotons have no scruples whatever.”
    “None at all indeed,” said Paddy with conviction. “I went to Montras on Koto to a public torturing and the blood-letting quite turned me against the devils. There’s a city of hell, that Montras.”
    “Conduct yourself well, then,” the Shaul told him. “They are more than ordinarily irascible, these five Sons. Speak loudly, correctly and mind you, clockwise from the speaker, so there will be the most complete equality of place.”
    He sprang away from Paddy, ran to the boat and the Kudthu guards lumbered after him.
    Alone on the tiny world Paddy searched the sky to see what had occasioned the haste. The five ships, about two miles distant, had drifted together into a roughly parallel formation with their keels toward Paddy.
    It was a rather solemn sensation, alone and manacled to this bit of nameless rock, exposed like a victim on an altar. Paddy bent to examine his bonds. From the band clamped about his ankle a chain led to a staple in the stone. He tested it, heaving till the skin of his hands tore and his stomach muscles knotted, to no effect.
    He stood erect once more, studied his surroundings. There was no bar within reach he might use as a lever, no fragment of rock to pound with. He was completely alone, unless someone were stationed on the far side of the little space-island. Craning his neck, he saw a concrete casement and a flight of steps leading down into the rock. Toward the gravity unit, thought Paddy, and maybe an air generator.
    He heard a swish, a drone, He looked up to see a shining space-boat settling almost at his head. It touched the surface, the dome swung back. The five Sons of Langtry stepped out. Silently in a formal line they advanced to the platform, the gaunt Eagle of Alpheratz A at one end, then the butter-colored Loristanese with the flickering features, the Shaul with the mottled cowl, the saucer-eyed Koton and last the stocky Badau with the short