Citizen of the Galaxy (8 page)

“I did?”

“Why, sure, you did. You told me --” Thorby glanced down, looked amazed and blurted, “You're not the one.”

“I certainly am not. Get down from there.”

“I can't. You've got my ankle.

The man let go and stepped back as Thorby climbed down. “I don't know what silly idiot could have told you --” He broke off as Thorby's face came into light. “Hey, ifs that beggar boy!”

Thorby broke into a run as the man grabbed for him. He went ducking in and out between pedestrians as the shout of, “Patrol! Patrol! Police!” rose behind him. Then he was in the dark court again and, charged with adrenaline, was up a drainpipe as if it had been level pavement. He did not stop until he was several dozen roofs away.

He sat down against a chimney pot, caught his breath and tried to think.

Pop was dead. He couldn't be but he was. Old Poddy wouldn't have said so if he hadn't known. Why . . . why, Pop's head must be on a spike down at the pylon this minute, along with the other losers. Thorby had one grisly flash of visualization, and at last collapsed, wept uncontrollably.

After a long time he raised his head, wiped his face with knuckles, and straightened up.

Pop was dead. All right, what did he do now?

Anyhow, Pop had beat them out of questioning him. Thorby felt bitter pride. Pop was always the smart one; they had caught him but Pop had had the last laugh.

Well, what did he do now?

Auntie Singham had warned him to hide. Poddy had said, plain as anything, to get out of town. Good advice -- if he wanted to stay as tall as he was, he had better be outside the city before daylight. Pop would expect him to put up a fight, not sit still and wait for the snoopies, and there was nothing left that he could do for Pop, now that Pop was dead -- hold it!

“When I'm dead, you are to look up a man and give him a message. Can I depend on you? Not goof off and forget it?”

Yes, Pop, you can! I didn't forget -- I'll deliver it! Thorby recalled for the first time in more than a day why he had come home early: Starship Sisu was in port; her skipper was on Pop's list. “The first one who shows up” -- that's what Pop had said. I didn't goof, Pop; I almost did but I remembered. I'll do it, I'll do it! Thorby decided with fierce resurgence that this message must be the final, important thing that Pop had to get out -- since they said he was a spy. All right, he'd help Pop finish his job. I'll do it, Pop. You'll have the best of them yet!

Thorby felt no twinge at the “treason” he was about to attempt; shipped in as a slave against his will, he felt no loyalty to the Sargon and Baslim had never tried to instill any. His strongest feeling toward the Sargon was superstitious fear and even that washed away in the violence of his need for revenge. He feared neither police nor Sargon himself; he simply wanted to evade them long enough to carry out Baslim's wishes. After that . . . well, if they caught him, he hoped to have finished the job before they shortened him.

If the Sisu were still in port . . .

Oh, she had to be! But the first thing was to find out for sure that the ship had not left, then -- no, the first thing was to get out of sight before daylight. It was a million times more important to stay clear of the snoopies now that he had it through his thick head that there was something be could do for Pop.

Get out of sight, find out if the Sisu was still dirtside, get a message to her skipper . . . and do all this with every patrolman in the district looking for him --

Maybe he had better work his way over to the shipyards, where he was not known, sneak inside and back the long way to the port and find the Sisu. No, that was silly; he had almost been caught over that way just from not knowing the layout. Here, at least, he knew every building, most of the people.

But he had to have help. He couldn't go on the street, stop spacemen and ask. Who was a close enough friend to help . . . at risk of trouble with police? Ziggie? Don't be silly; Ziggie would turn him in for the reward, for two minims Ziggie would sell his own mother -- Ziggie thought that anyone who didn't look out for number one first, last, and always was a sucker.

Who else? Thorby came up against the hard fact that most of his friends were around his age and as limited in resources. Most of them he did not know how to find at night, and he certainly could not hang around in daylight and wait for one to show up. As for the few who lived with their families at known addresses, he could not think of one who could both be trusted and could keep parents concerned from tipping off the police. Most honest citizens at Thorby's level went to great lengths to mind their own business and stay on the right side of the police.

It had to be one of Pop's friends.

He ticked off this list almost as quickly. In most cases he could not be sure how binding the friendship was, blood brotherhood or merely acquaintance. The only one whom he could possibly reach and who might possibly help was Mother Shaum. She had sheltered them once when they were driven out of their cave with retch gas and she had always had a land word and a cold drink for Thorby.

He got moving; daylight was coming.

Mother Shaum's place was a taproom and lodging house, on the other side of Joy Street and near the crewmen's gate to the spaceport. Half an hour later, having crossed many roofs, twice been up and down in side courts and once having ducked across the lighted street, Thorby was on the roof of her place. He had not dared walk in her door; too many witnesses would force her to call the patrol. He had considered the back entrance and had squatted among garbage cans before deciding that there were too many voices in the kitchen.

But when he did reach her roof, he was almost caught by daylight; he found the usual access to the roof but he found also that its door and lock were sturdy enough to defy barehanded burglary.

He went to the rear with the possibility in mind of going down, trying the back door anyhow; it was almost dawn and becoming urgent to get under cover. As he looked down the back he noticed ventilation holes for the low attic, one at each side. They were barely as wide as his shoulders, as deep as his chest -- but they led inside.

They were screened but a few minutes and many scratches later he had one kicked in. Then he tried the unlikely task of easing himself over the edge feet first and snaking into the hole. He got in as far as his hips, his clout caught on raw edges of screening and he stuck like a cork, lower half inside the house, chest and head and arms sticking out like a gargoyle. He could not move and the sky was getting lighter.

With a drag from his heels and sheer force of will the cloth parted and he moved inside, almost knocking himself out by banging his head. He lay still and caught his breath, then pushed the screening untidily back into place. It would no longer stop vermin but it might tool the eye from four stories down. It was not until then that he realized that he had almost fallen those four stories.

The attic was no more than a crawl space; he started to explore on hands and knees for the fixture he believed must be here: a scuttle hole for repairs or inspection. Once he started looking and failed to find it, he was not sure that there was such a thing -- he knew that some houses had them but he did not know much about houses; he had not lived in them much.

He did not find it until sunrise striking the vent holes gave illumination. It was all the way forward, on the street side.

And it was bolted from underneath.

But it was not as rugged as the door to the roof. He looked around, found a heavy spike dropped by a workman and used it to dig at the wooden closure. In time he worked a knot loose, stopped and peered through the knothole.

There was a room below; he saw a bed with one figure in it.

Thorby decided that he could not expect better luck; only one person to cope with, to persuade to find Mother Shaum without raising an alarm. He took his eye away, put a finger through and felt around; he touched the latch, then gladly broke a fingernail easing the bolt back. Silently he lifted the trap door.

The figure in the bed did not stir.

He lowered himself, hung by his fingertips, dropped the remaining short distance and collapsed as noiselessly as possible.

The person in bed was sitting up with a gun aimed at him. “It took you long enough,” she said. “I've been listening to you for the past hour.”

“Mother Shaum! Don't shoot!”

She leaned forward, looked closely. “Baslim's kid!” She shook her head. “Boy, you're a mess . . . and you're hotter than a fire in a mattress, too. What possessed you to come here?”

“I didn't know where else to go.”

She frowned. “I suppose that's a compliment . . . though I had ruther have had a plague of boils, if I'd uv had my druthers.” She got out of bed in her nightdress, big bare feet slapping on the floor, and peered out the window at the street below. “Snoopies here, snoopies there, snoopies checking every joint in the street three times in one night and scaring my customers . . . boy, you've caused more hooraw than I've seen since the factory riots. Why didn't you have the kindness to drop dead?”

“You won't hide me, Mother?”

“Who said I wouldn't? I've never gone out of my way to turn anybody in yet. But I don't have to like it” She glowered at him. “When did you eat last?”

“Uh, I don't remember.”
    
“I'll scare you up something. I don't suppose you can pay for it?” She looked at him sharply.

“I'm not hungry. Mother Shaum, is the Sisu still in port?”

“Huh? I don't know. Yes, I do; she is -- a couple of her boys were in earlier tonight. Why?”

“I've got to get a message to her skipper. I've got to see him, I've just got to!”

She gave a moan of utter exasperation. “First he wakes a decent working woman out of her first sleep of the night, he plants himself on her at rare risk to her life and limb and license. He's filthy dirty and scratched and bloody and no doubt will be using my clean towels with laundry prices the way they are. He hasn't eaten and can't pay for his tucker . . . and now he adds insult to injury by demanding that I run errands for him!”

“I'm not hungry . . . and it doesn't matter whether I wash or not. But I've got to see Captain Krausa.”

“Don't be giving me orders in my own bedroom. Overgrown and unspanked, you are, if I knew that old scamp you lived with. You'll have to wait until one of the Sisu's lads shows up later in the day, so's I can get a note out to the Captain.” She turned toward the door. “Water's in the jug, towel's on the rack. Mind you get clean.” She left.

Washing did feel good and Thorby found astringent powder on her dressing table, dusted his scratches. She came back, slapped two slices of bread with a generous slab of meat between them in front of him, added a bowl of milk, left without speaking. Thorby hadn't thought that it was possible to eat, with Pop dead, but found that it was -- he had quit worrying when he first saw Mother Shaum.

She came back. “Gulp that last bite and in you go. The word is they're going to search every house.”

“Huh? Then I'll get out and run for it.”

“Shut up and do as I say. In you go now.”

“In where?”

“In there,” she answered, pointing.

“In that?” It was a built-in window seat and chest, in a corner; its shortcoming lay in its size, it being as wide as a man but less than a third as long. “I don't think I can fold up that small.”

“And that's just what the snoopies will think. Hurry.” She lifted the lid, dug out some clothing, lifted the far end of the box at the wall adjoining the next room as if it were a sash, and disclosed thereby that a hole went on through the wall. “Scoot your legs through -- and don't think you are the only one who has ever needed to lie quiet.”

Thorby got into the box, slid his legs through the hole, lay back; the lid when closed would be a few inches above his face. Mother Shaum threw clothing on top of him, concealing him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Mother Shaum? Is he really dead?”

Her voice became almost gentle. “He is, lad. A great shame it is, too.”

“You're sure?”

“I was bothered by the same doubt, knowing him so well. So I took a walk down to the pylon to see. He is. But I can tell you this, lad, he's got a grin on his face like he'd outsmarted them . . . and he had, too. They don't like it when a man doesn't wait to be questioned.” She sighed again. “Cry now, if you need, but be quiet. If you hear anyone, don't even breathe.”

The lid slammed. Thorby wondered whether he would be able to breathe at all, but found that there must be air holes; it was stuffy but bearable. He turned his head to get his nose clear of cloth resting on it.

Then he did cry, after which he went to sleep.

He was awakened by voices and footsteps, recalled where he was barely in time to keep from sitting up. The lid above his face opened, and then slammed, making his ears ring; a man's voice called out, “Nothing in this room, Sarge!”

“Well see.” Thorby recognized Poddy's voice. “You missed that scuttle up there. Fetch the ladder.”

Mother Shaum's voice said, “Nothing up there but the breather space, Sergeant”

“I said, 'We'd see.' “

A few minutes later he added, “Hand me the torch. Hmm . . . you're right. Mother . . . but he has been here.”