The Five Gold Bands

The Eagle turned his head just in time to meet Paddy's fist. In a great thrash of rickety arms and legs the Eagle sprawled over backwards into the road.

"Now we've really done it," said Paddy ruefully. "It's long years picking oakum for this."

"Shut up-jump on that bike. Let's get moving," panted Fay.

"I don't know how to run the thing," Paddy grumbled. "Run it! We'll coast! Let's go!"

Paddy threw his leg over the narrow seat and Fay jumped on behind. He turned it downhill, threw levers till he found the brake. With a lurch the motorcycle started.

"Wheel" yelled Fay in Paddy's ear. "This is like the roller coaster at Santa Cruz."

Paddy stared big-eyed down the hill and the wind whipped water from his eyes.

"I don't know how to stop her!" yelled Paddy. "I can't remember where the brake is!" The rush of wind tore the words from his lips. He pulled frantically at unfamiliar knobs, levers, handles and at last chanced on a pedal that seemed to have some effect.

"Watch that side-road," screamed Fay in his ear. "It goes down to the city!"

Paddy leaned and the motorcycle screeched around a party of pedestrians, who shouted raucous insults at their backs. And now to Paddy's horror the brake pedal had lost its effect.

"Slow down, Paddy," cried Fay. "For heaven's sake; you reckless fool-"

"I wish I could," gritted Paddy. "It's my dearest wish."

"Throw in the drive!" She leaned past him, pointed. There-try that knob!"

Paddy pulled the lever a notch toward him. There was a loud whine and the motorcycle slowed so rapidly as almost to toss them off. It wobbled to a halt. Paddy put out his leg.

"Get off," hissed Fay. There's that little path, and right over that ridge of rock is our boat."

Sweeee-eeeee-eeee-eeee! From far above them a nerve-tingling sound, urgent and shrill.

"Here comes the other," said Paddy. "Swooping like a panther."

"Run," said Fay. "Over the ridge. We've got to get to our ship and fast."

SWEEE-EEEEE-EEEEE!

Too late," said Paddy. "He'd shoot us while we run. Come here with me. Watch this now."

He pulled her off the road, down behind a rock.

The sound of the motor increased in volume but dropped in pitch as the officer approached slowly, cautiously. He trundled past the boulder.

"Boo!" yelled Paddy, jumping out. The Eagle squawked. Paddy heaved at the handle bars, the motorcycle left the path, bounded, bumped down a steep ravine. The last they saw was the Eagle frantically trying to steer the machine around outcrops and boulders, his crest tense, elbows wide, legs spraddled out into the air.

There was a crash, then silence.

Paddy sighed. Fay said, "You're not so smart. You wouldn't believe me when I said the point was not on the cliff but at the base."

Paddy was disposed to argue. "How could it be? There was the Sacred Sign just as the sheet said."

"Nonsense," said Fay. "You'll see."

Their boat had not been touched. They crawled in, sealed the port, Fay climbed into the pilot's seat. "You keep watch."

She lifted the boat, slid it off the table, let it sink under the gas, which showed luminous yellow through the observation window.

The color is from suspended dust," said Fay off-handedly. The gas is dense and the dust seeks the level of its own specific gravity and there it floats forever. A little deeper the gas will be clear-or so I've been told."

"What's the composition of the gas?" asked Paddy. "Or is it known?"

"It's neon kryptonite."

"That's a strange pairing," remarked Paddy.

"It's a strange gas," replied Fay tartly.

Now she let the boat fall. The sun-drenched dust disappeared and they found themselves looking out at a marvelous new landscape. It was like nothing else either had seen before, like nothing imagined.

The yellow light of Alpheratz was toned to an old gold suffusion, a tawny light that changed the landscape below to an unreal hazy fairyland. Underneath them was a great valley with hills and dales fading off into golden murk. To the left loomed the great cliff of Kolkhorit Island, rising up and out of sight above. Fay followed the cliff till it jutted out, fell back.

"There's North Cape," she said. "And there on the little plateau-that's exactly the right spot."

Paddy said in a subdued voice, "Yes, by all that's holy, you seem to be right for once."

"Look," said Fay. "See that thing like a sundial? That's what we want."

Paddy said dubiously, "How're we to get it?"

She said angrily, "In your space-suit, of course! And hurry! They'll be after us any minute."

Paddy gloomily let himself out through the space-lock, stalked across the plateau. Bathed in the eerie golden light he advanced on the pedestal. On its face was inlaid a red and gold pentagram.

He tried to lift-nothing happened. He pushed, felt a quiver, a wrench. He put his shoulder down, heaved. The pedestal fell over. In a little lead-lined cavity was a brass cylinder.

Badau lay below, an opulent blue-green planet with a thick blanket of atmosphere.

Paddy pinched Fay's calves, felt her thighs. She jerked, turned to him a startled glance.

"Now, now-I was merely testing to see if you might be fit to walk on the planet," explained Paddy. "You'll be monstrous heavy, you know."

Fay laughed ruefully. "I thought for a moment you were making love Skibbereen-style."

Paddy screwed up his features. "You're not my type. It's the cow-girls of Maeve for me with all their upholstery. Now-as I've just discovered-you've hardly enough flesh to keep the air away from your bones. You're so pale and peaked. No, for some you might do but not for Paddy Blackthorn."

But he was smiling and she laughed back and Paddy said, "In truth, sometimes when you've got that devil's gleam in your eye and you're showing your teeth in a grin, you're almost pretty in a puckish sort of way."

"Thank you very much. Enough of the blarney. Where are we going?"

"It's a place called the Kamborogian Arrowhead."

"And where's that, I wonder?"

Paddy studied the charts. "There's no mention of it here. It sounds like an i

"I'm not worried about the gravity," said Fay. "I'm worried whether or not the Badou police have received our description yet."

Paddy pursed his lips. "Badau's a popular place with Earth tourists, gravity or none. Though why they come surpasses my understanding, since it's nothing but insults and slights and arrogance they get from the Hunks, the conceited omadhauns."

"It's a very beautiful planet," mused Fay. "So gentle and green-looking with those million little lakes and rolling valleys.

"There's no mountains," said Paddy, "because the water tears them down as fast as they're pushed up.

"What do you call that?" Fay pointed to a tremendous palisade flung across the countryside.

"Ah, that's a big segment of land being pulled down," said Paddy. "With so much gravity there's these great movements of the crust and these great cliffs. The Badaus build dams across all the waterfalls and make use of the power. Then the water doesn't tear a great gully into the land."

"Land, land, land," said Fay. "That first Son of Langtry was a glutton for land."

"And the Langtry clan still owns all Badau. It's a feudalism or so it says in the book. Langtrys own the big estates, rent out to lesser noblemen, who rent out again, and sometimes there's another subletting and another until it's the little farmer that's supporting them all.

"And marvelous crops they grow here, Fay. The finest fruits and vegetables-all Earth imports, since the original growth was rank poison. And the plants have changed as much as the men when they came to be Badaus."