The Five Gold Bands

Paddy said, "Ah, you ghoul, do you think I'd be telling you? Not on your life."

"You can't resist, Blackthorn," said the Son mildly. "The strongest wills break. No man of any planet can fight indefinitely. Some last an hour, some a day, some two days. One Koton hero stayed two weeks and held his tongue. Then he spoke. He babbled, craving for death."

Paddy said, "I suppose you gave it to him then?"

Zhri Khainga made a quick quivering motion with his mouth. "Then we took our revenge on him. Oh, no. He still lives."

"And when I speak-after that you'll take your revenge on me?"

Zhri Khainga smiled, a ghastly grin that affected Paddy's viscera. "There is yet your woman."

Paddy felt flat, buffeted, over-powered. "You've-caught Fay then?"

"Certainly."

"I don't believe it," said Paddy weakly.

Zhri Khainga tapped an upright tube on the table with his shiny blue-gray fingernail. It rang. A Koton in a yellow breech-clout scuttled into Paddy's range of vision. "Yes, Lord, your magnificent commands."

"The small Earther woman."

Paddy waited like a spent swimmer. Zhri Khainga watched him carefully for a moment, then said, "You have a projective identification with this woman?"

Paddy blinked. "Eh, now? What are you saying?"

"You 'love' this woman?"

"None of your business."

Zhri Khainga made play with his fingernails on the table-top. "Assume that you do. Would you then allow her to suffer?"

Paddy said quietly, "What would be the difference since in any event you'll torment us till you tire of the sport?"

Zhri Khainga said silkily, "Not necessarily. We Kotons are the most direct of all intelligences. You have put me in your debt by. killing my father, thus setting me free to shave my head. Life and death are mine. Now I have over-power. I rule, I direct, I envision.

"Already two hundred of my jealous brothers are stacked in the Cairn of South Thinkers. If you helped me to sole knowledge of the space-drive over the false Sons from Shaul, Badau, Alpheratz and Loristan-then there would be an unbalance indeed."

Paddy said. "Now butter won't melt in your mouth, I don't understand you. You are bargaining with me? What for what? And why?"

"My reasons are my own. There is dignity to be considered."

"And haste?" suggested Paddy.

"Haste-and you might lose your memory. That is common when a man lies too long in the nerve-suit. The imagination begins to intrude upon fact and presently information is untrustworthy."

Paddy cackled a wild laugh. "So we've got you in a corner! And your nerve-suit won't get you your bacon after all. Well, then, old owl, what's your bargain?"

Zhri Khainga stared expressionlessly across the room. "On the one hand you may return to Earth, with your woman and your space-vessel. I crave the death of neither of you."

Zhri Khainga flicked with the back of his hand. "Negligible. Riches, money? As much as you desire." He flicked again. "Negligible. Any amount and I will not say no. That on the one hand. On the other-"

A sound interrupted him. Paddy turned his head sharply. It came from a nerve-suit which had been quietly rolled into the room-a cry of desperation, contralto, aching, lost.

"That," said the Son of Langtry, "is your woman. She is experiencing unpleasantness. That is the alternative-for both of you. Forever and ever for all your lives."

Paddy struggled to rise but was afflicted by a strange weakness as if his legs were muscled with loose string. Zhri Khainga watched attentively.

Paddy said hoarsely "Stop it, you devil-you devil!"

Zhri Khainga made a sign with his hand. The Koton in the yellow breech-clout snapped down a bar. A sigh, a gasp came from within.

"Let me talk to her," said Paddy. "Let me talk to her alone."

Zhri Khainga said slowly, "Very well. You shall talk together."

XIII

Fay, Fay, Fay!" cried Paddy. "Why didn't you leave the wretched world when you had the chance?"

She smiled wanly. "Paddy, I couldn't leave you. I knew I should. I knew my life was more important to Earth than to you. I knew all the things that the Agency drilled into me- but still I couldn't leave without trying to help. And they trapped the ship."

They stood in a wide concrete hall, a hundred yards long, high-ceilinged, illuminated with a glow that seemed blue and yellow at the same time, like strong moonlight.

Paddy looked in all directions. "Can they hear us now?"

Fay said dully, "I imagine that every sound we make is amplified and recorded."

Paddy moved close, and said softly into Fay's ear, "They want to trade us our lives."

She looked at him with wide eyes that still held traces of terror. "Paddy-I want to live!"

Paddy said between his teeth. "I want you to live too, Fay-and me with you."

She said desperately, "Paddy, I've thought the whole thing out. And I don't see what we gain by holding our tongues. The Kotons will get the space-drive-but what then?

"Earth wouldn't have it in any event since we've got only four fifths. And the four fifths"-she breathed in his ear in a whisper so low he could hardly hear-"I can dictate from memory."

"From-" Paddy gasped.

"Yes. I told you once I was trained for that."

"Hmm."

Fay said softly, "If we were able to keep silent no one would have space-drive. In ten years there's be no more star travel. On the other hand, if we told what we know-and if we can get back to Earth-then Earth will have as much as we have now."

"Which is as good as nothing," Paddy said bitterly. "Of the thirty numbers you only know twenty-four. Twenty-four dial-settings."

He paused, blinked. A picture came into his mind from a past that seemed remote as ancient Egypt. It was the interior of the manifolding shop on Akhabats, where the five Sons came to curl power into the tungsten cylinders. Five panels, each with three dials.

"Fay," said Paddy, "I'm not fit to live."

She looked at him in alarm. "What's the matter?"

Paddy said slowly, "I see it all now and I see it clear. We've been abysmal fools. I've been the worse one. Now on these sheets"-he leaned to her ear-"remember the duplications?"

"Oh, Paddy!"

He said, "When I broke into that shop on Akhabats I saw a curling machine. There were fifteen control knobs. Those data sheets show six readings to a sheet-thirty in all. Does that mean anything?"

She nodded. "There are duplicates of the numbers too. Paddy-we had it all!"

"All of it," said Paddy. "We didn't need to come to Koto any closer than the Southern Cross."

Fay winced.

"We've got to get away," said Paddy with great energy.

"Somehow. Because in that little cap of yours you've got space-drive."

Fay shook her head sadly. "They won't let us go, Paddy. Even if we tell everything we know they'd still kill us."

"Not till we'd blown the fuses in all their nerve-suits."

"Oh Paddy! Let's think-think!"

They thought. Paddy said, "He's hot after us, that Zhri Khainga, he's got the wind up. But why? Maybe word has got out to the other planets that he's caught us and all the spies and agents and secret services are going into action and he doesn't want to chance our holding out till the others get to see us."

There was a moment of silence. "Think," muttered Fay.

"Listen here," said Paddy. "We'll tell him that you'll go out to get the sheets and I'll stay as a hostage. Then you go to Earth and we'll spring the news that we know all there is to know about space-drive. Then you buy me back for twenty space-drives more or less."

"At the going rate," said Fay dryly, "that's twenty million marks. Are you worth that much?"

"That's the best I can think up," said Paddy. "There's no other way of getting us both out alive and the drive to Earth."