The Star Hyacinths Read online

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  _the STAR HYACINTHS_

  By JAMES H. SCHMITZ

  Illustrated by FINLAY

  _On a bleak, distant unchartered world two ships lay wrecked and a lone man stared at a star hyacinth. Its brilliance burned into his retina ... and he knew that men could easily kill and kill for that one beauty alone._

  The robbery of the Dosey Asteroids Shipping Station in a remote andspottily explored section of space provided the newscasting systems ofthe Federation of the Hub with one of the juiciest crime stories of theseason. In a manner not clearly explained, the Dosey Asteroids Companyhad lost six months' production of gem-quality cut star hyacinthsvalued at nearly a hundred million credits. It lost also its ChiefLapidary and seventy-eight other company employees who had been in thestation dome at the time.

  All these people appeared at first to have been killed by gunfire, but astudy of their bodies revealed that only in a few instances had gunwounds been the actual cause of death. For the most part the wounds hadbeen inflicted on corpses, presumably in an attempt to conceal the factthat disaster in another and unknown form had befallen the station.

  The raiders left very few clues. It appeared that the attack on thestation had been carried out by a single ship, and that the locks to thedome had been opened from within. The latter fact, of course, arousedspeculation, but led the investigators nowhere.

  Six years later the great Dosey Asteroids robbery remained an unsolvedmystery.

  * * * * *

  The two wrecked spaceships rested almost side by side near the tip of anarrow, deep arm of a great lake.

  The only man on the planet sat on a rocky ledge three miles uphill fromthe two ships, gazing broodingly down at them. He was a big fellow inneatly patched shipboard clothing. His hands were clean, his facecarefully shaved. He had two of the castaway's traditional possessionswith him; a massive hunting bow rested against the rocks, and a minorrepresentative of the class of life which was this world's equivalent ofbirds was hopping about near his feet. This was a thrush-sized creaturewith a jaunty bearing and bright yellow eyes. From the front of itsround face protruded a short, narrow tube tipped with small, sharpteeth. Round, horny knobs at the ends of its long toes protectedretractile claws as it bounded back and forth between the bow and theman, giving a quick flutter of its wings on each bound. Finally itstopped before the man, stretching its neck to stare up at him, tryingto catch his attention.

  He roused from his musing, glanced irritably down at it.

  "Not now, Birdie," he said. "Keep quiet!"

  The man's gaze returned to the two ships, then passed briefly along atowering range of volcanos on the other side of the lake, and lifted tothe cloudless blue sky. His eyes probed on, searching the sunlit, emptyvault above him. If a ship ever came again, it would come from there,the two wrecks by the lake arm already fixed in its detectors; it wouldnot come gliding along the surface of the planet....

  Birdie produced a sharp, plaintive whistle. The man looked at it.

  "Shut up, stupid!" he told it.

  He reached into the inner pocket of his coat, took out a small objectwrapped in a piece of leather, and unfolded the leather.

  Then it lay in his cupped palm, and blazed with the brilliance of twentydiamonds, seeming to flash the fires of the spectrum furiously fromevery faceted surface, without ever quite subduing the pure violetluminance which made a star hyacinth impossible to imitate or, onceseen, to forget. The most beautiful of gems, the rarest, the mostvaluable. The man who was a castaway stared at it for long seconds, hisbreath quickening and his hand beginning to tremble. Finally he foldedthe chip of incredible mineral back into the leather, replaced itcarefully in his pocket.

  When he looked about again, the sunlit air seemed brighter, the coloringof lake and land more vivid and alive. Once during each of this world'sshort days, but no oftener, he permitted himself to look at the starhyacinth. It was a ritual adhered to with almost religious strictness,and it had kept him as sane as he was ever likely to be again, for oversix years.

  It might, he sometimes thought, keep him sane until a third shippresently came along to this place. And then ...

  The third ship was coming along at the moment, still some five hours'flight out from the system. She was a small ship with lean, rakishlines, a hot little speedster, gliding placidly through subspace justnow, her engines throttled down.

  Aboard her, things were less peaceful.

  * * * * *

  The girl was putting up a pretty good fight but getting nowhere with itagainst the bull-necked Fleetman who had her pinned back against thewall.

  Wellan Dasinger paused in momentary indecision at the entrance to thehalf-darkened control section of the speedboat. The scuffle in therevery probably was none of his business. The people of the rovingIndependent Fleets had their own practices and mores and resentedinterference from uninformed planet dwellers. For all Dasinger knew,their blue-eyed lady pilot enjoyed roughhousing with the burly membersof her crew. If the thing wasn't serious....

  He heard the man rap out something in the Willata Fleet tongue,following the words up with a solid thump of his fist into the girl'sside. The thump hadn't been playful, and her sharp gasp of painindicated no enjoyment whatever. Dasinger stepped quickly into theroom.

  He saw the girl turn startled eyes toward him as he came up behind theman. The man was Liu Taunus, the bigger of the two crew members ... toobig and too well muscled by a good deal, in fact, to make asportsmanlike suggestion to divert his thumpings to Dasinger look like asensible approach. Besides Dasinger didn't know the Willata Fleet'slanguage. The edge of his hand slashed twice from behind along the thickneck; then his fist brought the breath whistling from Taunus's lungsbefore the Fleetman had time to turn fully towards him.

  It gave Dasinger a considerable starting advantage. During the nexttwenty seconds or so the advantage seemed to diminish rapidly. Taunus'sfists and boots had scored only near misses so far, but he began to looklike the hardest big man to chop down Dasinger had yet run into. Andthen the Fleetman was suddenly sprawling on the floor, face down, armsflung out limply, a tough boy with a thoroughly bludgeoned nervoussystem.

  Dasinger was straightening up when he heard the _thunk_ of the wrench.He turned sharply, discovered first the girl standing ten feet away withthe wrench in her raised hand, next their second crew member lying onthe carpet between them, finally the long, thin knife lying near theman's hand.

  "Thanks, Miss Mines!" he said, somewhat out of breath. "I really shouldhave remembered Calat might be somewhere around."

  Duomart Mines gestured with her head at the adjoining control cabin. "Hewas in there," she said, also breathlessly. She was a long-legged blondewith a limber way of moving, pleasing to look at in her shaped Fleetuniform, though with somewhat aloof and calculating eyes. In the dimlight of the room she seemed to be studying Dasinger now with anexpression somewhere between wariness and surprised speculation. Then,as he took a step forward to check on Calat's condition, she backed offslightly, half lifting the wrench again.

  Dasinger stopped and looked at her. "Well," he said, "make up your mind!Whose side are you on here?"

  Miss Mines hesitated, let the wrench down. "Yours, I guess," sheacknowledged. "I'd better be, now! They'd murder me for helping aplaneteer."

  * * * * *

  Dasinger went down on one knee beside Calat, rather cautiously thoughthe Fleetman wasn't stirring, and picked up the knife. Miss Mines turnedup the room's lights. Dasinger asked, "What was this ... a mutiny?You're technically in charge of the ship, aren't you?"r />
  "Technically," she agreed, added, "We were arguing about a Fleetmatter."

  "I see. We'll call it mutiny." Dasinger checked to be sure Calat wasn'tfaking unconsciousness. He inquired, "Do you really need these boys tohelp you?"

  Duomart Mines shook her blond head. "Not at all. Flying the Mooncat is aone-man job."

  "I did have a feeling," Dasinger admitted, "that Willata's Fleet wasdoing a little featherbedding when they said I'd have to hire a crew ofthree to go along with their speedboat."

  "Uh-huh." Her tone was non-committal. "They were. What are you going todo with them?"

  "Anywhere they can be locked up safely?"

  "Not safely. Their own cabin's as good as anything. They can battertheir way out of here if they try hard enough. Of course we'd hear themdoing it."

  "Well, we can fix that." Dasinger stood up, fished his cabin key out ofa pocket and gave it to her. "Tan suitcase standing at the head of mybunk," he said. "Mind bringing that and the little crane from thestoreroom up here?"

  Neither of the Fleetmen had begun to stir when Duomart Mines came ridinga gravity crane back in through the door a couple of minutes later, thesuitcase dangling in front of her. She halted the crane in the center ofthe room, slid out of its saddle with a supple twist of her body, andhanded Dasinger his cabin key.

  "Thanks." Dasinger took the suitcase from the crane, unlocked and openedit. He brought out a pair of plastic handcuffs, aware that Miss Minesstood behind him making an intent scrutiny of what could be seen of thesuitcase's contents. He didn't blame her for feeling curious; she waslooking at a variety of devices which might have delighted the eyes ofboth a professional burglar and military spy. She offered no comment.

  Neither did Dasinger. He hauled Liu Taunus over on his back, fastenedhandcuffs about the Fleetman's wrists, then rolled him over on his faceagain. He did the same for Calat, hung the suitcase back in the crane,slung a leg across the crane's saddle and settled into it.

  Miss Mines remarked, "I'd look their cabin over pretty closely for gunsand so on before leaving them there."

  "I intend to. By the way, has Dr. Egavine mentioned how close we are toour destination?" Dasinger maneuvered the crane over to Taunus, lowereda beam to the small of the Fleetman's back and hoisted him upcarefully, arms, head and legs dangling.

  The blond girl checked her watch. "He didn't tell me exactly," she said,"but there's what seems to be a terraprox in the G2 system ahead. Ifthat's it, we'll get there in around five hours depending on whatsubspace conditions in the system are. Dr. Egavine's due up here inthirty minutes to give me the final figures." She paused, addedcuriously, "Don't you know yourself just where we're going?"

  "No," Dasinger said. "I'm financing the trip. The doctor is the man withthe maps and other pertinent information."

  "I thought you were partners."

  "We are. Dr. Egavine is taciturn about some things. I'll bring him backhere with me as soon as I have these two locked away." Dasinger finishedpicking up Calat, swung the crane slowly towards the door, theunconscious Fleetmen suspended ahead of him.

  * * * * *

  Dr. Egavine stood at the open door to his stateroom as Dasinger camewalking back up the passage from the crew quarters and the storage.Quist, the doctor's manservant, peered out of the stateroom behind him.

  "What in heaven's name were you doing with those two men?" Egavineinquired, twitching his eyebrows disapprovingly up and down. The doctorwas a tall, thin man in his forties, dressed habitually in undertakerblack, with bony features and intense dark eyes. He added, "Theyappeared to be unconscious ... and fettered!"

  "They were both," Dasinger admitted. "I've confined them to theircabin."

  "Why?"

  "We had a little slugfest in the control section a few minutes ago. Oneof the boys was beating around on our pilot, so I laid him out, and shelaid out the other one when he tried to get into the act with a knife.She says the original dispute was a Fleet matter ... in other words,none of our business. However, I don't know. There's something decidedlyfishy about the situation."

  "In what way?" Egavine asked.

  Dasinger said, "I checked over the crew quarters for weapons just nowand found something which suggests that Willata's Fleet is much moreinterested in what we're doing out here than we thought."

  Egavine looked startled, peered quickly along the passage to the controlsection. "I feel," he said, lowering his voice, "that we should continuethis discussion behind closed doors...."

  "All right." Quist, a bandy-legged, wiry little man with a large bulbof a nose and close-set, small eyes, moved back from the door. Dasingerwent inside. Egavine pulled the door shut behind them and drew a chairout from the cabin table. Dasinger sat down opposite him.

  "What did you find?" Dr. Egavine asked.

  Dasinger said, "You know Miss Mines is supposed to be the only Fleetmember on board who speaks the Federation's translingue. However, therewas a listening device attached to the inside of the cabin communicatorin the crew quarters. Its settings show that the Willata Fleet peoplehave bugged each of the Mooncat's other cabins, and also--which I thinkis an interesting point--the control section. Have you and Quistdiscussed our project in any detail since coming aboard?"

  "I believe we did, on several occasions," Egavine said hesitantly.

  "Then we'd better assume Taunus and Calat knew that we're looking forthe wreck of the Dosey Asteroids raider, and ..."

  Egavine put a cautioning finger to his lips. "Should we...?"

  "Oh, no harm in talking now," Dasinger assured him. "I pulled theinstrument out and dropped it in my cabin. Actually, the thing needn'tbe too serious if we stay on guard. But of course we shouldn't go backto the Fleet station after we have the stuff. Gadgetry of that kindsuggests bad intentions ... also a rather sophisticated level ofcriminality for an I-Fleet. We'll return directly to the Hub. We mighthave to go on short rations for a few weeks, but we'll make it. Andwe'll keep those two so-called crew members locked up."

  The doctor cleared his throat. "Miss Mines ..."

  "She doesn't appear to be personally involved in any piratical schemes,"Dasinger said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have bugged her cabin and thecontrol rooms. If we dangle a few star hyacinths before her eyes, sheshould be willing to fly us back. If she balks, I think I can handle theMooncat well enough to get us there."

  Dr. Egavine tugged pensively at his ear lobe. "I see." His hand moved ontoward his right coat lapel. "What do you think of ..."

  "Mind watching this for a moment, doctor?" Dasinger interrupted. Henodded at his own hand lying on the table before him.

  "Watch...?" Egavine began questioningly. Then his eyes went wide withalarm.

  Dasinger's hand had turned suddenly sideways from the wrist, turned upagain. There was a small gun in the hand now, its stubby muzzlepointing up steadily at Egavine's chest.

  "Dasinger! What does ..."

  "Neat trick, eh?" Dasinger commented. "Sleeve gun. Now keep quiet andhold everything just as it is. If you move or Quist over there movesbefore I tell you to, you've had it, doctor!"

  * * * * *

  He reached across the table with his left hand, slipped it beneathEgavine's right coat lapel, tugged sharply at something in there, andbrought out a flat black pouch with a tiny spray needle projecting fromit. He dropped the pouch in his pocket, said, "Keep your seat, doctor,"stood up and went over to Quist. Quist darted an anxious glance at hisemployer, and made a whimpering sound in his throat.

  "You're not getting hurt," Dasinger told him. "Just put your hands ontop of your head and stand still. Now let's take a look at the thing youstarted to pull from your pocket a moment ago ... Electric stunsap, eh?That wasn't very nice of you, Quist! Let's see what else--

  "Good Lord, Egavine," he announced presently, "your boy's a regulararmory! Two blasters, a pencil-beam, a knife, and the sap ... All right,Quist. Go over and sit down with the doctor." He watched the little manmove dejectedly
to the table, then fitted the assorted lethal devicescarefully into one of his coat pockets, brought the pouch he had takenfrom Egavine out of the other pocket.

  "Now, doctor," he said, "let's talk. I'm unhappy about this. Idiscovered you were carrying this thing around before we left Mezmiali,and I had a sample of its contents analyzed. I was told it's a hypnoticwith an almost instantaneous effect both at skin contact and wheninhaled. Care to comment?"

  "I do indeed!" Egavine said frigidly. "I have no intention of denyingthat the instrument is a hypnotic spray. As you know, I dislike guns andsimilar weapons, and we are engaged in a matter in which the need todefend myself against a personal attack might arise. Your assumption,however, that I intended to employ the spray on you just now is simplyridiculous!"

  "I might be chuckling myself," Dasinger said, "if Quist hadn't had thesap halfway out of his pocket as soon as you reached for your lapel. IfI'd ducked from the spray, I'd have backed into the sap, right? There'sa little too much at stake here, doctor. You may be telling the truth,but just in case you're nourishing unfriendly ideas--and that's what itlooks like to me--I'm taking a few precautions."

  Dr. Egavine stared at him, his mouth set in a thin, bitter line. Thenhe asked,