Trader's World (35 page)

He motioned with his gun as the elevator doors opened. Beyond them lay a long, low-ceilinged corridor with the same reflecting walls of chillsuit material. Mike was led to a closed door and made to face the other way while his hairless companion operated a cipher lock.

"In you go," he said. "Hope you enjoy the company. It's not our fault if you don't."

The other man, still wearing his chillsuit, gave a high-pitched laugh and prodded gently with his gun. Mike walked inside and looked around as the door slammed solidly to behind him.

Success—but it didn't feel like it. He was standing no more than twenty feet from Seth Paramine.

The missing genius was hunkered down on the floor of the room, in the same posture shown in the videos. This time he was frowning and muttering over a sort of interlocking spiral structure made from many pieces of thin metal and plastic balls.

As the door closed he looked up and stared at Mike with his lower Up pushed out. "Where's my dinner?" he said.

Mike went to sit next to him. The room had a soft floor, but no chairs. "It's too early. It won't be dinnertime for another three hours."

That earned a frown and a shake of the heavy head. "I want dinner
now
." Then he ignored Mike to concentrate on his metal spirals.

Mike's thoughts ran wild. He was face-to-face with Seth Paramine. Paramine was a genius. Mike would explain the whole thing to him, Paramine would think of a way to get both of them out of there, they would fly away in the skimmer, back to Trader headquarters . . .

Improbable, but he had to try. Mike gave it his best shot. He sat beside Seth Paramine and explained the whole thing, slowly and in detail: how Seth had been kidnapped, how his friends and family back in the Great Republic were worried about him, how the brain probes that had been used on him here could do harm, how Mike had been sent to find him, how with his help they could both escape and go back home . . .

Nothing was left out. At the end of it Paramine looked at Mike thoughtfully with those dull, slaty eyes. "You talk too much, and you have funny ears," he said. And then he delivered the irrefutable counter-argument to all Mike's eloquence. "I get two kinds of pie with dinner here."

For the next three hours he sat playing, while Mike prowled the big room and fantasized about overpowering the man or woman who brought in dinner.

He should have known better. This was Chill territory—the land of the people who had
invented
table-service robots. The whole food-supply system, kitchen included, was automated. Promptly at five o'clock a wall panel turned, becoming a table complete with serving hatch. Plates of hot food slid out onto the flat surface. No knives or forks were provided, but that didn't worry Seth Paramine—he didn't seem to expect them. He picked up his spoon, bent his head low to the plate, and gobbled all his share. Then he sat impatient for dessert.

It came, but it was not to his satisfaction.

"Only one sort of pie!" he said. He glared at the offending plate, banged on the hatch with his spoon, and looked at Mike accusingly. "Only one pie. Always get two pies when you're not here."

"Here." Mike pushed a plate forward. He had hardly started his first course. "If you want it, you can have my creamcake."

Paramine gave one slack-jawed gape, grinned, and pulled the plate to him. He grabbed the spoon. It took him twenty seconds at most to eat the creamy dessert. Then he picked up the dish, licked it clean, and grunted in disappointment. He still looked hungry. Apparently two helpings of one dessert did not equal one helping of two.

"Only one sort of pie!" he said again.

A little of Seth Paramine's company went a long way. Mike was relieved when the genius finally stood up and wandered around the room, muttering to himself about pies. Mike carried on eating his own food. He didn't even notice that Seth was near the door until it was already open and Paramine had gone out through it. Before Mike could get there it slammed shut again.

"Seth!" Mike ran across and banged on it with both hands. "Seth, open the door. Let me out, too."

Nothing. Not a word, not a sound. Mike groaned and went back to the table—just in time to see his own food disappear. The serving robots had assumed he was finished. It was his turn to bang on the hatch with the spoon, with no more success than Seth Paramine had enjoyed.

Mike was still doing that when he heard the door behind him opening again. This time he moved a lot faster. As Seth came back in, triumphantly carrying a plateful of fruit pie, Mike made sure that the door stayed open.

He held it ajar. "Seth, can you open this anytime?"

Paramine nodded, mouth crammed full.

"
How
do you do it?"

Paramine shrugged. "I open lock."

"Yes, but I mean
how
—" Mike stopped. Why bother? Whatever the answer, it wouldn't help. Seth did electronics at an intuitive level. Opening a mere electronic doorlock would be as natural to him as breathing.

"You're sure you can open it anytime?" Mike asked again. When Paramine nodded, Mike pulled the door closed and allowed the lock to operate.

He waited a couple of hours, then began to talk to Seth again. This time he had found his own key. They talked about food. Seth was quite willing to do that. He told Mike all his favorite kinds: sugared figs, roast wild goose, crabcakes, candied morels, corn bread, baked apples, seal-belly pie, stuffed flounder, snapper-turtle soup, treacle tart, fried oysters, persimmon flan—and anything with pineapples and chocolate.

He listed foods in no particular order. When he was done, Mike sat down and developed a menu, scribbling on the serving hatch with one of Seth's crayons. It took a long time. He came up with twelve courses, not counting the side dishes of breads, salads, sauces, and trimmings, and every item selected for Seth's tastes.

When Mike was finished he went to sit next to Seth. "I want to tell you about a dinner I'm going to give for my friends."

Mike didn't hurry. Course by course, dish by dish, he described the whole meal. When he was finished there was a look on Seth's face that could only be described as religious ecstasy.

"When?" he asked.

"As soon as we get back to Cap City. Not far from here—we could fly there tonight. There's a skimmer that would take us."

Seth stood up and headed for the door.

"Wait a minute," Mike said. "We'll have to go outside. Do you have a chillsuit?"

"Chillsuit?" The eyes were vacant again.

"One of these." Mike showed him the suit he had arrived in.

"Don't know." The heavyset shoulders shrugged. "You find one for me?"

"We'll see. You'll have to open the door for us, though, before we can look."

"Mm-mm." Seth picked up one of the pieces of metal spiral and wandered over to the door. All he seemed to do was wave it a couple of times next to the lock, and push. The door opened and he went through. The savant side of the idiot—but
how did he do it
? No wonder he had driven the Chill designers crazy.

The corridor was deserted. They wandered along until they came to the elevator, and Mike saw nothing like an extra chillsuit. Could they manage without? No way. It might be fifty below zero out there.

Somewhere in the main building there had to be spare suits. But looking for them could take all night, and once the two were seen it would be all over.

Mike knew only one place where he was
sure
he would find a spare chillsuit. There was one in the skimmer.

"Wait for me right here," he said. "Don't move for anything. I'll be right back."

Without giving Paramine time to argue he stepped into the elevator and gave the signal to ascend. On the way up he took out his own chillsuit. By the time the door opened onto the surface he was completely suited, and near that door—thank God for the logical Chills—was a rack with half a dozen spare chillsuits. He picked one up and looked outside.

Another snowstorm was on the way, and the first flakes were already falling. He took a few paces toward the opening in the metal fence, wanting to be sure that he knew how to get back to the skimmer with the worsening visibility. As he did so there was a roar and a flash of light in front of him. The gap in the fence vanished, replaced by a wall of burning gas that sprang up from the metal pipe at ground level.

So much for the idea that security at Mundsen Labs was somewhere between casual and nonexistent. Anyone who came too close to the gap in the fence triggered the flaming wall. If he tried to go through it, he would be fried to a crisp.

Unless
. . . An item of basic physics popped into his head.

Mike ran back to the elevator as fast as he could and jabbed at the down button. Somewhere an alarm would be ringing, and every second was important.

Paramine was waiting, leaning idly against the wall. Mike dragged him into the elevator, hit the button to ascend, and started to work him into the other chillsuit. Halfway through Mike suddenly remembered. The things that terrify Seth Paramine . . . pins, needles and scissors . . . fire and flame . . .

Seth would never run through that wall of flame.

The suit was on, and the elevator was almost at the surface.

"It's going to be dark and quiet when we get outside," Mike said quietly. "Don't worry, though, I know the way to the skimmer, and I'll always be holding your hand. All right?"

"Mm-mm. Getting hungry."

"Just wait, I'll give you the best dinner you've ever had." Mike lifted a suited hand and pressed at the suit controls under Paramine's chin just as the elevator door opened.

"Dark," Mike heard him say. Then he was pulling Seth toward the fence.

There was a whoosh of igniting gas when they were still five paces away. Mike kept going, leading the way right through the flame.

Five seconds more and they were clear, heading for the skimmer and freedom.

* * *

They almost made it.

Mike had them off the ground thirty seconds after they reached the skimmer. He didn't turn Seth's suit controls back on until they were already airborne.

With the lifting surfaces extended he went up to fifteen thousand feet and opened the engines all the way. The speed climbed past Mach Two. Mike thought they were clear, on the way home. He took his chillsuit off and helped Seth to do the same. As he was finishing, the engine power faded away to zero and the craft went into a long, steep glide. No action at the controls made any difference.

A thousand feet up the engines came to life again, with enough force to allow a controlled landing. The car skidded to a halt on a long bank of ice. After that last effort the engines refused to respond at all.

One minute later another skimmer landed next to them. Three armed men came out of it and moved across to the ship. Mike had no weapons, not even a stick. There was no sense in trying to fight. He unlocked the door and the men came in, removing their suits as they entered.

It was the bald-headed man, accompanied by two grim-faced youngsters.

"Well," the man said. "Well, well, well. I'm glad to see you're being sensible about this. I hope you realize that this makes us rethink our whole security system."

Mike said nothing. Seth Paramine scowled and said, "We're going to dinner. Are you his friends?"

"Not exactly." Baldy even managed a half smile and sat down on one of the cabin seats. "But maybe we will be, one day. We respect competence and ingenuity, you know, wherever it comes from. How did you learn that the chillsuits would allow you to pass safely through the fire?"

Seth growled at that forbidden word, but did not move.

"Elementary physics." (Why tell them this? he wondered. Then, why not? The same thing would never work again.) "I was told that a chillsuit radiates very little heat, and it's made of nonconducting material. If it won't radiate, it won't absorb either—emissivity and absorption
have
to be the same or the second law of thermodynamics is violated. And those—" Mike pointed at the projectile weapons "—support that idea. With a suit that reflects energy, lasers won't work—but you can still blow holes in people with old-fashioned guns."

"True—but it's rare to find somebody with so much faith in physical laws. I'm not sure I'd take that risk myself." This time it was a real smile. "Oh, well. What now?"

"You tell me. You're in charge."

"That's right, I suppose I am." The man sat without moving for a few seconds, looking at Mike with a curiously friendly expression. "Naturally, we'll be taking Paramine back with us. And we'll erase that little gadget you carry in your finger, if you don't mind, so there's no record to show of all this. But after that . . . you know, I'll feel much more relaxed when Mikal Asparian is back in Cap City—or better still, Trader Headquarters. You make me uncomfortable. I really don't want you at Mundsen Labs again. So let me make a call or two and work out what's to be done with you."

The trio headed for the door, keeping Mike well covered with their weapons. Then Baldy turned in the doorway. "Just so you don't set Seth to work picking locks again, let me mention that this is a mechanical closure, not an electronic one. And we'll be keeping an eye on this door all the time. See you shortly."

Mike went to the window and watched them walk back to their aircar. As the bald-headed man had promised, one of them was always looking back, and once they were inside Mike saw a face peering out through their window.

He sat down glumly in the pilot's seat. How long did they have? It didn't make any difference. Even if time was too short, he had to make the effort.

Mike leaned forward to look at the car's control panel. It was held in place by half a dozen missy-bolts, with their hollow pentagon heads. A bad start—without the correct missy-bolt screwdriver he would never be able to turn them. He got down on hands and knees, crawled forward into the knee space below the control panel, turned his head around so far that he thought his neck would break, and peered upward. The light level was so low under the knee cavity that he couldn't see a thing, and there was no flashlight in the cabin.
And
the panel was only a couple of inches from his face. He couldn't have focused so close, even in perfect light.