Third Eagle by R. A. MacAvoy

Author:R. A. MacAvoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 1988-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

IT WAS AS THOUGH he were on the liner again, back in the days when he carried a heavy changer and was on his way. Wanbli sat in the lounge where the boy had left him, amid the daises, padded platforms and piled cushions: common-denominator furniture, suitable for any traveling race, except the hoomie. Wanbli shivered, for it was chilly in here after the desert. Except the hoomie.

From his pack he took the wonderful fur jacket, which had not seen use since the planet of its purchase. It smelled musty already. He put it over his shoulders.

His blunderbuzz fell out at his feet. Indecisively he regarded it, touched it, took it out of its holster.

It was disturbing how much he wanted to put it on. He asked himself if he thought he could buzz his way out of his problems. (It was a rhetorical question.) Going from little error to big error, from honest mistake to murder. Ending up in a bloodbath—no doubt suicide. He’d seen enough shimmers to know how it went.

Just a few minutes ago he’d been resigned. Not happy, but resigned. Now, because some hatchling had an idea, he was cowering under the aegis of perfect strangers. He remembered the Patish, and its tongue. Perfectly strange. Why would the creatures feel bound to protect him? How could they, against Myronics Security, which was a good-sized army, or even against the less imposing civil authorities of New Benares? It didn’t make sense for strangers to try.

Running away was not the act of an innocent man. He had convicted himself before all eyes. Perhaps even Audry’s.

But she had said, “Go away. Go somewhere else…”

There was someone in the doorway. Wanbli had heard nothing, but there was someone in the doorway. He gave a spring sideways and came rolling down a set of padded stairs which existed to serve the seating requirements of six different races. This it did moderately well. Rolling down would not have suited any of them, but Wanbli did not lose his blunderbuzz. He came to rest with the rise of the two bottom steps in between himself and the open doorway.

It was empty again.

A voice spoke around the corner. It was thin and lisping, as the boy had lisped, but Wanbli recognized it as Doych, a language of which he only knew a hundred words. He shouted back that information.

“I am telling you that you do not need that gun. I am the owner of the ship and it was I who sent Pascal to invite you here.”

Wanbli stood up. He was not full of trust, but that hardly mattered. He could not hold off all comers indefinitely, from behind a universal chair. He was not a frightened beast. He put the blunderbuzz down on the second stair.

The Patish came out. If it was the same creature he had seen that morning, it had taken off its robe, wimple and drapeau. It was a four-limbed biped, but a greater proportion of its length was body than would be normal in a human being.

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