Chapter 16

For a while I toyed with the idea of just chalking it up as a miracle. Then I decided it would be a nice problem in probabilities. It had been seven months since we had parted company on the pink terrace at Okk-Hamiloth. Where would I have gone if I had been a cat? And how could I have found me--my old pal from earth?

Itzenca exhaled a snuffle in my ear.

“Come to think of it, the stink is pretty strong, isn’t it? I guess there’s nobody on Vallon with quite the same heady fragrance. And what with the close quarters here, the concentration of sweat, blood, and you-name-it must be pretty penetrating.”

Itz didn’t seem to care. She marched around my head and back again, now and then laid a tentative paw on my nose or chin, and kept up a steady rumbling purr. The feeling of affection I had for that cat right then was close to being one of my life’s grand passions. My hands roamed over her scrawny frame, fingered again the khaffite collar I had whiled away an hour in fashioning for her aboard the lifeboat--

My head hit the stone wall with a crack I didn’t even notice. In ten seconds I had released the collar clasp, pulled the collar from Itzenca’s neck, thumbed the stiff khaffite out into a blade about ten inches long, and was scraping at the mortar beyond my head at fever heat.

They had fed me three times by the time the groove was nine inches deep on all sides of the block; and the mortar had hardened. But I was nearly through, I figured. I took a rest, then made another try at loosening the block. I thrust the blade into the slot, levered gently at the stone. If it was only supported on one edge now, as it would be if it were a little less than a foot thick, it should be about ready to go. I couldn’t tell.

I put down my scraper, got into position, and pushed. I wasn’t as strong as I had been; there wasn’t much force in the push. Again I rested and again I tried. Maybe there was only a thin crust of mortar still holding; maybe one more ounce of pressure would do it. I took a deep breath, strained ... and felt the block shift minutely.

Now! I heaved again, teeth gritted, drew back my feet, and thrust hard. The stone slid out with a grating sound, dropped half an inch. I paused to listen: all quiet. I shoved again, and the stone dropped with a heavy thud to the floor outside. With no loss of time I pushed through behind it, felt a breath of cooler air, got my shoulders free, pulled my legs through ... and stood, for the first time in how many days...

I had already figured my next move. As soon as Itzenca had stepped out I reached back in, groped for the water bottle, the dry crusts I had been saving, and the wad of bread paste I had made up. I reached a second time for a handful of the powdered mortar I had produced, then lifted the stone. I settled it in place, using the hard bread as supports, then packed the open joint with gummy bread. I dusted it over with dry mortar, then carefully swept up the debris--as well as I could in the total darkness. The bread-and-water man would have a light and he was due in half an hour or so--as closely as I had been able to estimate the time of his regular round. I didn’t want him to see anything out of the ordinary. I was counting on finding Foster filed away somewhere in the stacks, and I’d need time to try to release him.

I moved along the corridor, counting my steps, one hand full of breadcrumbs and stone dust, the other feeling the wall. There were narrow side branches every few feet: the access ways to the feeding holes. Forty-one paces from my slot I came to a wooden door. It wasn’t locked, but I didn’t open it. I wasn’t ready to use it yet.

I went back, passed my hole, continued nine paces to a blank wall. Then I tried the side branches. They were all seven-foot stubs, dead ends; each had the eight-inch holes on either side. I called Foster’s name softly at each hole ... but there was no answer. I heard no signs of life, no yells or heavy breathing. Was I the only one here? That wasn’t what I had figured on. Foster had to be in one of these delightful bedrooms. I had come across the universe to see him and I wasn’t going to leave Bar-Ponderone without him.

It was time to get ready for the bread man. I had a choice of trying to get back into my hole and replacing the block, or of hiding in one of the side branches. I thought it over for a couple of microseconds and decided against getting back in my tomb. If there were as many vacancies here as I guessed, I’d be safe in any one of the side passages but my own.

I groped my way into a convenient hidey-hole, Itzenca at my heels. With half a year’s experience at dodging humans behind her, she could be trusted not to show at the crucial moment, I figured. I had just jettisoned my handful of trash in the backmost corner of the passage when there was a soft grating sound from the door. I flattened myself against the wall. I’d know in a second or two how observant the keeper was.

A light splashed on the floor; it must have been dim but seemed to my eyes like the blaze of noon. Soft footsteps sounded. I held my breath. A man in bodyguard’s trappings, basket in hand, moved past the entry of the branch where I stood, went on. I breathed again. Now all I had to do was keep an eye on the feeder, watch where he stopped. I stepped to the corridor, risked a glance, saw him entering a branch far down the corridor. As he disappeared I made it three branches farther along, ducked out of sight.

I heard him coming back. I flattened myself. He went by me, opened the door. It closed behind him and the darkness and silence settled down once more. I stood where I was, feeling like a guy who’s just showed up for a party ... on the wrong day.

The bread man had stopped at one cell only--mine. Foster wasn’t here.

It was a long wait for the next feeding but I put the time to use. First I had a good nap; I hadn’t been getting my rest while I scratched my way out of my nest. I woke up feeling better and started thinking about the next move. The bodyguard who brought the food was the first item: I had had to get a set of clothes somewhere and he’d be the easiest source to tap. If my mental clock was right it was about time--

The door creaked, and I did a fast fade down a side branch. The guard shuffled into view; now was the time. I moved out--quietly, I thought, and he whirled, dropped the load and bottle, and fumbled at his club hilt. I didn’t have a club to slow me down. I went at him, threw a beautiful right, square to the mouth. He went over backwards, with me on top. I heard his head hit with a sound like a length of rubber hose slapping a grapefruit. He didn’t move.

I pulled the clothes off him, struggled into them. They didn’t fit too well and they probably smelled gamey to anybody who hadn’t spent a week where I had, but details like those didn’t count anymore. I tore his sash into strips and tied him. He wasn’t dead--quite, but I had reason to know that any yelling he did was unlikely to attract much attention. I hoped he’d enjoy the rest and quiet until the next feeding time. By then I expected to be long gone. I lifted the door open and stepped out into a dimly-lit corridor.

With Itzenca abreast of me I moved along in absolute stillness, passed a side corridor, came to a heavy door: locked. We retraced our steps, went down the side hall, found a flight of worn steps, followed them up two flights, and emerged in a dark room. A line of light showed around a door. I went to it, peered through the crack. Two men in stained kitchen-slave tunics fussed over a boiling cauldron. I pushed through the door.

The two looked up, startled. I rounded a littered table, grabbed up a heavy soup ladle, and skulled the nearest cook just as he opened up to yell. The other one, a big fellow, went for a cleaver. I caught him in two jumps, laid him out cold beside his pal.

I found an apron, ripped it up, and tied and gagged the two slaves, then hauled them into a storeroom. I was stacking Vallonians away like a squirrel storing nuts.

I came back into the kitchen. It was silent now. The room reeked of sour soup. A stack of unpleasantly familiar loaves stood by the oven. I gave them a kick that collapsed the pile as I passed to pick up a knife. I hacked tough slices from a cold haunch of Vallonian mutton, threw one to Itzenca across the table, and sat and gnawed the meat while I tried to think through my plans.

Owner Qohey was a big man to tackle but he was the one with the answers. If I could make my way to his apartment and if I wasn’t stopped before I’d forced the truth out of him, then I might get to Foster and tell him that if he had the memory playback machine I had the memory, if it hadn’t been filched from the bottom of a knapsack aboard a lifeboat parked at Okk-Hamiloth.

Four ‘if’s’ and a ‘might’--but it was something to shoot at. My first move would be to locate Qohey’s quarters, somewhere here in the Palace, and get inside. My bodyguard’s outfit was as good a disguise as any for the attempt.

I finished off my share of the meat and got to my feet. I’d have to find a place to clean myself up, shave--

The rear door banged open and two bodyguards came through it, talking loudly, laughing.