The Players Page 7

was drawing away from him,its storm sails set.

  As he struggled in the water, he wondered if it was worth while. Afterall, he had only to allow himself to sink, and all his troubles would beover shortly. Wouldn't it be easier to do this than to continuetorturing himself with a hopeless fight?

  Too, he wondered if he had been right in leaving the ship, but hequickly dismissed that thought. The sea was impersonal, neither cruelnor kind. It was far better, he thought, to surrender to the forces ofnature than to subject himself to the viciousness of angry men.

  Suddenly, a constraining force seized him. He instinctively fought tofree himself, then realized that he was being drawn upward, out of thewater. Possibly, he thought, the Great One wanted to speak to him.

  * * * * *

  He rose swiftly through the air, passed through complete darkness for aninstant, then found himself in a small room. Two men stood facing him,both of them vaguely familiar. As his mind refocused, Musa recognizedthe peddler of amulets, then the herder to whom he had once sold asword. They were strangely familiar, but they were in strange costumes.He stared at them.

  "Well, Musa," said the herder. "I see you got into trouble."

  Musa blinked. "Who are you?" he demanded. "How do you know of myaffairs?"

  The peddler of amulets grinned. "Why, we are old companions, Musa," hesaid. "Of course, you have forgotten us, but we never forgot you." Hepointed.

  "This is Resident Guardsman Lanko. I am Banasel, also of the StellarGuard. Our job is to prevent just such situations as the one you justfound yourself in." His grin faded. "That, and a few other things."

  Musa frowned. "Stellar Guard? What is that?"

  Lanko studied him for a moment, then crossed the small room. "You knewonce," he tossed over his shoulder, "but you rejected the knowledge, andit had to be taken from you. Since you'll be working with us for awhile, I think we will have to restore your memories. Perhaps you'llwant to retain them." He removed equipment from a cabinet.

  "Some of this will have to be secondhand, since neither Banasel normyself have been in the spots shown. But some of it is firsthand."

  His hand flicked a switch.

  A power unit hummed, and Musa found himself recalling a campsite nearthe now destroyed and rebuilt city of Atakar. As the imposed mentalblocks fell away, he remembered who Banasel and Lanko were. And herealized why he had been drawn to them in the recent past.

  Memories of his days of slavery in Atakar flashed before his mind, andhe remembered the part these two had taken in his escape. He recalledthe days of banditry, and the strange visitors, who had brought withthem disturbing knowledge, and strange powers.

  He saw the destruction of Atakar, and the capture of the galacticcriminals who had depraved that city. He shared the experiences of histwo companions during their introduction to the advanced culture of theGalactic Federation, and he saw snatches of their training at AldebaranBase. He went with them on some of their missions.

  The humming stopped, and he looked up at the two.

  "So," Lanko told him, "now you know."

  Musa nodded. "I turned something down, didn't I?"

  * * * * *

  As Musa disappeared over the vessel's side, the priest, Dontor, loweredhis arms. Quickly turning the unscheduled event to advantage, he cried,"We need worry no further, my children. The Great One has called thisblasphemer to final account."

  He turned to one of his juniors, lowering his voice.

  "Go below, Alnar, and break out this man's goods. We must reward thosewho informed us."

  The junior bowed. "Yes, sir." He hesitated. "Will this storm blow oversoon?" he queried.

  Dontor smiled. "You should have paid more attention to your course inpractical seamanship," he chided. "We are sailing fairly close hauled,so our speed is added to that of the wind. And, since storms move, it'llpass us shortly." He pointed to the horizon.

  "See that small break in the clouds? That indicates a possibility ofclear weather beyond. We should be through the worst of the storm in amatter of a few hours. And we'll never reach the really dangerous coreof the storm, for we are passing through an edge of it. Our only problemis to keep from losing a mast during the time we are close to thestorm's heart." He paused, looking aloft.

  "The crew is competent. They have the sails properly reefed, and, ifnecessary, they can furl them in short order. What trouble can we have?"

  "Thank you, sir." The younger priest bowed again. "I will make thenecessary arrangements for those goods."

  Dontor stood for a moment, surveying the ship, then walked toward thehelm.

  "If I am ever in charge of operations," he told himself, "I will replacesome of these sailors by neophyte priests, and let them steer by theirown compasses. This method is too cumbersome. Besides, the neophytesshould get to sea earlier, anyway."

  He approached the pilot priest, who stood apart from the helmsman, hisslave holding the little red box with the compass.

  "How is our course?"

  The priest turned, then bowed. "We are off course twelve degrees to thenorth, sir," he reported. "I have instructed the helmsman to come asclose to the wind as possible."

  Dontor nodded. "Very good," he approved. "Keep track of your time, andwe'll correct when we get a chance to shift course to the south. We candetermine whatever final correction is necessary at noon sighttomorrow."

  Alnar came up the ladder to the quarterdeck. Approaching Dontor, hebowed in salute, then reported.

  "The goods are ready, sir."

  "Very well. Find those two traders and give them the usual ten per cent,then bring me an inventory of the remainder."

  * * * * *

  Musa stood, fists clenched, facing the recorder play-back. "The usualten per cent, he says! Why, I'd like to slaughter the lot of thosemurdering thieves!"

  Lanko snapped off the switch. "Don't blame them too much," he laughed."After all, they're only trying to make a living, and it's the onlytrade they know."

  As Musa nearly choked on his attempted reply, Banasel broke in.

  "Sure," he chuckled. "Besides, it's guys like them that keep guys likeus in business."

  Lanko noticed the horrified expression on Musa's face, and quicklycomposed himself. He put his hand on the man's shoulder.

  "Look," he explained seriously, "if we got so we took people like theseto heart, we'd spend half our time getting psyched to unsnarl our ownmental processes." He gestured to the reels of tape in a cabinet.

  "Here, we have the records of hundreds of cases like this one. Some areworse, some are not so bad. Every one of them had to be--andwas--cracked by members of our Corps. This is just another of thoseminor, routine incidents that keep cropping up all over the galaxy. It'sour problem now, and we'll get to work on it." He turned.

  "Where do you want to start, Banasel?"

  "Well--competition's the life of trade."

  "That comes later." Lanko shook his head. "There's an alien or so to betaken care of first, you know."

  "I know. It's fairly obvious."

  "So, we've got to find him--or them."

  Musa had regained his self-control. "What about these birds in hand?"

  Banasel shrugged. "Small fry. We'll take care of them later." He walkedover to the workbench, picking up Lanko's sword.

  "I wondered about this before," he said. "Now, I'm sure about it. Itsimply doesn't match a normal technology for this period."

  Musa looked at him curiously. "But there are a lot of those aroundNorlar," he said. "They're a rarity in the Galankar, to be sure, but--"

  "That's what we mean," Lanko told him. "Too many anachronisms. First, wehave this sword. Then, we meet these priests of Kondaro, who discussmeteorology, navigation, and pilotage with considerable understanding.We've had communicators planted on that ship for several days now, and Istill can't see how the technology was developed that allowed themanufacture of some of their instruments. We should have noti
cedsomething wrong a long time ago.

  "The priests use sextants, watches, compasses. And, just to make itworse, we have one video recording of a priest laying out a course on anaccurate chart. He was using a protractor, which was divided intoGalactic degrees. That was the clincher. Somebody's out of place, andwe've got to find him--or them."

  He took the sword from Banasel. "I think we'd better go on to theeastern continent, see what we can find, then we can deal with ourfriends. But first, Ban, you'd better run out a call for one of