The Soul Eater Page 10

  “Somehow, I think Tchaka's will survive without my business,” said Lane.

  “True,” said Tchaka. “But Tchaka's won't give up your business without a fight. What's happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” said Lane. “Why don't you just get the hell out of here?”

  “Because I feel like talking,” said Tchaka. He walked to the wall, took a screecher off Lane's weapon rack, and bent it out of shape with his right hand. “Shall we have a little chat now, Nicobar?”

  “Not until you pay me for the screecher,” said Lane.

  “I'll give you twice its value in trade,” said Tchaka. He looked around for a chair, discovered that Lane was sitting on the only one, and settled for leaning against a wall. “The last time I saw you you were studying a bunch of decaying old star maps. As I recall, it had something to do with the Dreamwish Beast. Ever find it?”

  Lane nodded.

  “Did you kill it?”

  “No, I didn't.”

  “Must be some beast, if Nicobar Lane can't kill it.”

  “I'll kill it, all right,” said Lane with the first show of emotion Tchaka had seen.

  “Is that what you're doing here?” said Tchaka. “Getting money together to help you kill it?”

  Lane nodded again. “It takes a special weapon. I've got to build it.”

  “First you've got to find the Dreamwish Beast again,” said Tchaka. “It's a big galaxy.”

  “I'll find it,” said Lane grimly.

  “Just because you've seen it once or twice doesn't mean you can find it at will.”

  “Not once or twice,” said Lane. “Nine times.”

  “Nine?” repeated Tchaka, staring at the haunted eyes that seemed to be looking right through him.

  “Nine,” said Lane. “Twice before I left here the last time, once more between here and Lodin...” His voice trailed off into nothingness for a moment. “And six more times since I left Belore.”

  “Belore?” said Tchaka. “What is there to hunt on Belore?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then what were you doing there?”

  “Seeing a being that can assemble the weapon.”

  “Has he completed it?”

  “I don't know,” said Lane.

  “This isn't like you, Nicobar,” said Tchaka. “You kept alive all this time by attending to details, and now you tell me that you don't even know if your dream-killer has been built yet. How long has the Beloran had to work on it?”

  “Four years, more or less,” said Lane.

  “Four years is a long time,” said Tchaka. “It should be done by now.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then why haven't you got it?”

  “I've been out of touch the past two years,” said Lane.

  “Where?” said Tchaka.

  “In space.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Don't ask,” said Lane. “Just let it drop, Tchaka.”

  “So you've seen the Dreamwish Beast six times in the past two years.” Tchaka smiled. “So what? Why do you chase it if you can't kill it?”

  “Shut up,” said Lane softly.

  “Seems wasteful to me,” said Tchaka. “Think of all the money you wasted on fuel and food. You'd have been a lot better off to have spent it here, Nicobar. No space-spawned monster can please you like one of Tchaka's girls.”

  “Shut up!” screamed Lane, jumping to his feet.

  “Or can it?” said Tchaka, his face lighting up. “Is that it, Nicobar? Is that what you've been doing up there?”

  Lane took a swing at Tchaka. The huge man caught his fist in mid-blow, smiled again, and squeezed until Lane fell to his knees with a cry of anguish.

  “You should know better than that, Nicobar,” he said with a laugh. “When Tchaka dies it will be from pleasure, not punishment. If I let you go are you going to try to attack me again?”

  There was no response, and Tchaka squeezed harder.

  “All right,” whispered Lane between clenched teeth.

  “Very reasonable,” said Tchaka. “I hope you're as severe with your enemies as you are with your friends.” He chuckled, then helped Lane to his feet. “Tell me about it, Nicobar.”

  “There's nothing to tell,” said Lane, flexing his fingers painfully.

  “We're not going through all that again, are we?” said Tchaka. “Tell me about the Dreamwish Beast.”

  “It's about seven miles in diameter,” said Lane mechanically, “reddish-orange in color, no visible—”

  “Tell me what it did to you, Nicobar,” said Tchaka. “I don't give a damn what it looks like.”

  “It hasn't done anything to me,” said Lane.

  “You've aged thirty years, all the meat is off your bones, it evidently scared the life out of you—and you say it's done nothing? Let's try again, Nicobar.”

  “All right,” said Lane slowly. “You remember when I told you about its defense mechanism?”

  “That it throws pain and death back at you?” said Tchaka. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, I was wrong.”

  “I thought so,” said Tchaka. “I never did believe in—what was it you called it?—a sending empath.”

  “The term still applies,” said Lane.

  “But you just said—”

  “That it doesn't throw death back at me. I know what I said.”

  “You're not being very clear, Nicobar,” said Tchaka.

  “What I felt wasn't pain or death, Tchaka,” said Lane, forcing each word out with an enormous effort. “Do you understand now?”

  Tchaka's whole face lit up. His artificial eye began blinking and sparkling faster and brighter than Lane had ever seen it, and every one of his golden teeth was visible as he threw back his head and laughed.

  “Why didn't you say so in the first place?” he boomed. “A new thrill, a new pleasure! And here I was, thinking my good friend had gone and become a necrophiliac! What's the problem, Nicobar? Why didn't you just sit back and enjoy it?”

  “Enjoy it?” rasped Lane. “Enjoy that thing?”

  “Of course!” thundered Tchaka. “I know men who have traversed half the galaxy looking for new sensations, who would sell their souls for just the briefest, tiniest taste of something different, and here you went out and discovered it by accident. That's what I call luck!”

  “You haven't felt it,” said Lane. “You haven't had those damned sensations inside your head.”

  “Evidently they can't be so terrible,” said Tchaka, “or you wouldn't have spent the last two years chasing it all over space for six more doses.”

  “It's terrible, all right,” whispered Lane, staring blindly at some point behind Tchaka's head. “You don't know.”

  “I know this,” said Tchaka. “If it was me instead of you, I wouldn't be trying to kill the damned thing. I'd be trying to figure out what it's got and learn how to bottle it. This thing could be worth a fortune, Nicobar.”

  “It's got to die,” said Lane softly.

  “Why? Because it makes you feel perverted? Because it shames or disgusts you? That's nonsense, Nicobar. You might as well kill every woman who doesn't please you in bed, or every distiller whose liquor you don't like. Besides, who are you to decide what might give someone else a thrill?”

  “It's not a thrill,” said Lane. “It's ... alien. It's not something that a human being was ever meant to feel.”

  “If human beings stuck to what they were meant to feel,” said Tchaka, “we wouldn't have any tobacco, or narcotics, or homosexuality, or alcohol. Hell, anything that feels or tastes or sounds or smells good is fair game.” He paused for a moment, and then another broad smile crossed his face. “Maybe Tchaka will come out with you and experience this feeling for himself.”

  “No,” said Lane firmly. “This is a battle between me and the creature. I don't need any help.”

  “Help?” Tchaka laughed. “I'm on the Dreamwish Beast's side, Nicobar!”

  “You don't understand what it can do to
you,” said Lane.

  “I can tell you this,” said Tchaka. “It wouldn't turn me into a neurotic, bloodthirsty sack of bones. I've heard that ancient royalty on old Earth copulated with sheep and other barnyard animals. Now Tchaka will go them one better and have sex with a ball of energy! Maybe my name will even go down in the history books.”

  “You're not coming with me, Tchaka,” said Lane. “I'm going to pick up that weapon and I'm going to kill the thing and nothing is going to stop me.”

  “It's like a sex addict killing a woman because he's ashamed of wanting her,” said Tchaka. “That damned thing has warped your mind, Nicobar. If it's too much for you, come back to my place. I've even got a virgin for you—that is, if the doctor has finished restoring her.”

  “Not interested,” said Lane.

  “It's on the house, Nicobar,” said Tchaka. “Who knows? Maybe you learned some new techniques from the Dreamwish Beast.”

  “Forget it,” said Lane.

  “Don't tell me you've given up women as well as liquor?” Tchaka laughed.

  “All right. I won't tell you.”

  “I'd sure like to know just what that thing is dishing out,” said Tchaka, shaking his head wonderingly. “You're not kidding, are you?”

  “No, I'm not.”

  “If it's that potent, I know why you kept after it the past two years.”

  “Are you through yet?” said Lane. “Can we let it drop now?”

  “Not quite,” said Tchaka. “Why did you come all the way back to Hellhaven for money? I know for a fact that you've got bank accounts on half a dozen worlds across the galaxy.”

  “Not any more,” said Lane.

  “Then buying this weapon will break you?”

  Lane nodded. “Just about.”

  Tchaka snorted. “Thirty years of saving money, and it's all down the drain just like that. You should have been smart and spent it all at Tchaka's, Nicobar.”

  “I'll make more,” said Lane. “After I kill the creature.”

  “Ah, but what will you spend it on?” said Tchaka. “You've given up women and alcohol, and probably drugs too.”

  “There are other things to spend money on, Tchaka,” said Lane, smiling for the first time.

  “Not for men like you and me, Nicobar,” said Tchaka. “Not for men who live on the frontier. What would you buy? A house? You live in your spaceship. A library? If books and tapes interested you you wouldn't be here in the first place. Clothes, jewels, trinkets? Who would see them? No, Nicobar, when you live from one minute to the next, as you and I do, you have to spend your money on such things as you can enjoy between those minutes.”

  “Then I won't spend it,” said Lane. “I'll just go back to hunting.”

  “Why not do that now?”

  “I can't,” said Lane. “I can't do anything until I kill the creature.”

  “You keep calling it a thing or a creature,” said Tchaka. “I thought it had a name.”

  “It has a lot of names,” said Lane.

  “Then why not use one of them?”

  “None of them is accurate. It's a creature, plain and simple.”

  “When will you be going out after it?” asked Tchaka.

  “Another two or three days,” said Lane. “Whenever the ship is ready. I just sent off the money for the last two components, but I've still got to go to Belore and have it installed in the Deathmaker.”

  “Surely you can come by for one farewell drink before you leave,” said Tchaka.

  Lane shook his head.

  Tchaka shrugged and walked to the door. “R.I.P., my friend. It was very nice to have known you.”

  “You sound like I'm already dead,” said Lane. “The damned creature hasn't killed me yet.”

  “Look at a mirror, Nicobar,” said Tchaka, and left.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  CHAPTER 14

  The journey from Northpoint to Belore took eighty-three days. Lane spent about four-fifths of the trip in Deepsleep and devoted the remainder of the time to poring over hundreds of star charts until he knew the creature's feeding grounds almost by heart. He tried very hard not to think about the fact that it had just deserted those grounds for the better part of two years.

  At last he reached Belore and put the Deathmaker down about five miles from the Dornes’ shanties. Before he had walked across the intervening distance Vostuvian had come out to greet him.

  “You took a long time, killer of animals,” said the Dorne in his customary half-whisper.

  “I was busy,” said Lane.

  “And now your business is done?” said Vostuvian.

  “No,” said Lane. “Now my business is just beginning. Is the weapon ready to install in my ship?”

  “It is ready,” said Vostuvian. “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said the Dorne. “For a time I was afraid you had gone out hunting the Dreamwish Beast with your vibrator. I am glad that I misjudged you.”

  Lane shot him a quick glance, but couldn't tell whether the remark was an honest or a sardonic one. He walked with Vostuvian in silence for a few moments, then turned to the Dorne. “I went hunting.”

  “Ah,” said Vostuvian. “And did you find it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are you now convinced that the vibrator will not kill it?”

  “Yes,” said Lane. “I had six encounters with it.”

  “Some people take more convincing than others,” said Vostuvian, and again Lane could not tell if the comment was straightforward or not.

  “What is the effective range of your weapon?” he asked at last.

  “Between sixty and seventy thousand miles,” said the Dorne. “However, if you could get to within ten or fifteen thousand miles, the drain on your ship's power would be considerably diminished. As it is, we will have to eliminate or bypass most of your ship's nonessential systems. What are your minimum needs in that regard?”

  Lane lowered his head in thought for a minute. “Well, I've got to have life support, of course, and food storage.”

  “Would you consider food recycling?” asked Vostuvian.

  “Only as a last resort,” said Lane. “My rations are concentrated, and your weapon can't take up that much room.”

  “Very well,” said Vostuvian. “What else will you need?”

  “The Deepsleep machine, with two compartments,” said Lane.

  “Two?”

  “One for the Mufti.”

  “What is a Mufti?” asked Vostuvian.

  “Never mind,” said Lane. “I need a Deepsleep with two compartments. The Carto-System's built into the main computer, so you couldn't eliminate that even if you wanted to. Ditto for the sensing devices and the navigational computer. I have a number of star charts I'll want to take along, but they can all be rolled into a large tube. I'll need at least two protective suits, one for space and one for super-hot planets, both with a ten-day supply of oxygen.”

  “What else?” asked the Dorne.

  “My Dryshower equipment, and that's just about it,” said Lane. “And I think I'd better keep one of the ship's weapons operative, just in case your diluter doesn't work.”

  “Diluter?”

  “The entropy weapon,” said Lane.

  “Which of your own weapons do you wish to retain?”

  “The vibrator,” said Lane.

  “Your laser cannon has a much greater range,” said Vostuvian.

  “The vibrator,” repeated Lane, fighting back a rush of anger.

  “As you wish,” said Vostuvian. “We will begin adapting the weapon to your ship in the morning.”

  “What's wrong with right now?” demanded Lane.

  “You have waited more than four years, killer of animals,” said Vostuvian, “and my people have waited for many millennia. Both of us can wait another day. In the meantime, you will join me for the evening meal. Ondine Gillian assures me that our food is both harmless and nourishing to the human syste
m.”

  Vostuvian fell silent as he walked toward the shanties, and Lane followed him without a word. They soon reached the ramshackle little dwellings, and before long the Dorne stopped in front of one that seemed no different from the rest, except perhaps that it was even more in need of repair.

  “This is my abode,” said Vostuvian. “You may enter it if you wish.”

  “I don't see the weapon anywhere,” remarked Lane, looking around the village.

  “How big do you think it is?” said Vostuvian, and for the first time Lane thought he detected just the slightest change of facial expression on the gaunt Dorne.

  “I don't know,” said Lane, “but I know I sent you a lot of tonnage over the past few years.”

  “More than ninety percent of it was for use as tools,” said Vostuvian, “and what was left was broken down and modified. The weapon is inside my domicile. Come.”

  Vostuvian entered the shanty, and Lane followed him. The interior didn't differ greatly from the exterior, except for the lack of sunlight. The floor was dirt—or, rather, there was no floor at all. There were two wooden objects which might have been chairs or beds, or perhaps tables. Thrown carelessly on the floor in one corner of the single-room dwelling were numerous tapes and even a pair of books, though Lane couldn't identify the language on the covers.

  “We have a community kitchen,” whispered Vostuvian. “Your food will be brought here shortly.”

  “And the diluter?”

  Vostuvian walked to a certain section of the floor, brushed aside the dirt, and brought forth a small box that had been buried there. He pulled it out, set it on the ground, and opened it, taking out a compact and very complex piece of machinery that looked more like an ancient meat grinder than anything else.

  “That's it?” said Lane incredulously. “That's the whole thing, the weapon that cost me thirty years’ savings?”

  He reached over, took it from Vostuvian, and hefted it. It was more substantial than it looked, but he was able to lift it with one hand just the same.

  “That is your entropy weapon,” said Vostuvian.

  “It damned well better work,” said Lane. “I don't think I could get a two percent return on my investment if I broke it down for parts.”