Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net _A Juvenile Science Fiction Novel_ THE COLORS OF SPACE Marion Zimmer Bradley MONARCH BOOKS, INC. Derby, Connecticut Published in August, 1963 Copyright 1963 by Marion Zimmer Bradley [Transcriber's note: This is a rule 6 clearance. PG has not been able to find a copyright renewal.] _Cover Painting by Ralph Brillhart_ Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC., Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works of outstanding novelists and writers of non-fiction especially chosen for their literary merit and reading entertainment. Printed in the United States of America All Rights Reserved To DAVID STEPHEN SUDDEN PANIC It was a week before the Lhari ship went into warp-drive, and all that time young Bart Steele had stayed in his cabin. He was so bored with his own company that the Mentorian medic was a welcome sight when he came to prepare him for _cold-sleep_. The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. "Do you wish to be wakened for the time we shall spend in each of the three star systems, sir? You can, of course, be given enough drug to keep you in cold-sleep until we reach your destination." Bart felt tempted--he wanted very much to see the other star systems. But he couldn't risk meeting other passengers. The needle went into his arm. In sudden panic, he realized he was helpless. The ship would touch down on three worlds, and on any of them the Lhari might have his description, or his alias! He could be taken off, unconscious, and might never wake up! He tried to move, to protest, but he couldn't. There was a freezing moment of intense cold and then nothing.... CHAPTER ONE The Lhari spaceport didn't belong on Earth. Bart Steele had thought that, a long time ago, when he first saw it. He had been just a kid then; twelve years old, and all excited about seeing Earth for the first time--Earth, the legendary home of mankind before the Age of Space, the planet of Bart's far-back ancestors. And the first thing he'd seen on Earth, when he got off the starship, was the Lhari spaceport. And he'd thought, right then, _It doesn't belong on Earth._ He'd said so to his father, and his father's face had gone strange, bitter and remote. "A lot of people would agree with you, Son," Captain Rupert Steele had said softly. "The trouble is, if the Lhari spaceport wasn't on Earth, we wouldn't be on Earth either. Remember that." Bart remembered it, five years later, as he got off the strip of moving sidewalk. He turned to wait for Tommy Kendron, who was getting his baggage off the center strip of the moving roadway. Bart Steele and Tommy Kendron had graduated together, the day before, from the Space Academy of Earth. Now Tommy, who had been born on the ninth planet of the star Capella, was taking the Lhari starship to his faraway home, and Bart's father was coming back to Earth, on the same starship, to meet his son. _Five years,_ Bart thought. _That's a long time. I wonder if Dad will know me?_ "Let me give you a hand with that stuff, Tommy." "I can manage," Tommy chuckled, hefting the plastic cases. "They don't allow you much baggage weight on the Lhari ships. Certainly not more than I can handle." The two lads stood in front of the spaceport gate for a minute. Over the gate, which was high and pointed and made of some clear colorless material like glass, was a jagged symbol resembling a flash of lightning; the sign, in Lhari language, for the home world of the Lhari. They walked through the pointed glass gate, and stood for a moment, by mutual consent, looking down over the vast expanse of the Lhari spaceport. This had once been a great desert. Now it was all floored in with some strange substance that was neither glass, metal nor concrete; it looked like gleaming crystal--though it felt soft underfoot--and in the glare of the noonday sun, it gave back the glare in a million rainbow flashes. Tommy put his hands up to his eyes to shield them. "The Lhari must have funny eyes, if they can stand all this glare!" Inside the glass gate, a man in a guard's uniform gave them each a pair of dark glasses. "Put them on now, boys. And don't look directly at the ship when it lands." Tommy hooked the earpieces of the dark glasses over his ears, and sighed with relief. Bart frowned, but finally put them on. Bart's mother had been a Mentorian--from the planet Mentor, of the star Deneb, a hundred times brighter than the sun. Bart had her eyes. But Mentorians weren't popular on Earth, and Bart had learned to be quiet about his mother. Through the dark lenses, the glare was only a pale gleam. Far out in the very center of the spaceport, a high, clear-glass skyscraper rose, catching the sunlight in a million colors. Around the building, small copters and robotcabs veered, discharging passengers; and the moving sidewalks were crowded with people coming and going. Here and there in the crowd, standing out because of their height and the silvery metallic cloaks they wore, were the strange tall figures of the Lhari. "Well, how about going down?" Tommy glanced impatiently at his timepiece. "Less than half an hour before the starship touches down." "All right. We can get a sidewalk over here." Reluctantly, Bart tore his eyes from the fascinating spectacle, and followed Tommy, stepping onto one of the sidewalks. It bore them down a long, sloping ramp toward the floor of the spaceport, then sped toward the glass skyscraper; came to rest at the wide pointed doors, depositing them in the midst of the crowd. The jagged lightning flash was there over the doors of the building, and the words: HERE, BY THE GRACE OF THE LHARI, IS THE DOORWAY TO ALL THE STARS. Bart remembered, as if it were yesterday, how he and his father had first passed through this doorway. And his father, looking up, had said under his breath "Not for always, Son. Someday men will have a doorway to the stars, and the Lhari won't be standing in the door." Inside the building, it was searingly bright. The high open rotunda was filled with immense mirrors, and glass ramps running up and down, moving staircases, confusing signs and flashing lights on tall oddly shaped pillars. The place was crowded with men from all over the planet, but the dark glasses they all wore gave them a strange sort of family resemblance. Tommy said, "I'd better check my reservations." Bart nodded. "Meet you on the upper level later," he said, and got on a moving staircase that soared slowly upward, past level after level, toward the information desk located on the topmost mezzanine. The staircase moved slowly, and Bart had plenty of time to see everything. On the step immediately in front of him, two Lhari were standing; with their backs turned, they might almost have been men. Unusually tall, unusually thin, but men. Then Bart amended that mentally. The Lhari had two arms, two legs and a head apiece--they were that much like men. Their faces had two eyes, two ears, and a nose and mouth, all in the right places. But the similarity ended there. They had skin of a curious pale silvery gray, and pale, pure-white hair rising in what looked like a feathery crest. The eyes were long and slanting, the forehead high and narrow, the nose delicately thin and chiseled with long vertically slit nostrils, the ears long, pointed and lobeless. The mouth looked almost human, though the chin was abnormally pointed. The hands would almost have passed inspection as human hands--except for the long, triangular nails curved over the fingertips like the claws of a cat. They wore skin-tight clothes of some metallic silky stuff, and long flowing gleaming silvery capes. They looked unearthly, elfin and strange, and in their own way they were beautiful. The two Lhari in front of Bart had been talking softly, in their fast twittering speech; but as the hum of the crowds on the upper levels grew louder, they raised their voices, and Bart could hear what they were saying. He was a little surprised to find that he could still understand the Lhari language. He hadn't heard a word of it in years--not since his Mentorian mother died. The Lhari would never guess that he could understand their speech. Not one human in a million could speak or understand a dozen words of Lhari, except the Mentorians. "Do you really think that _human_--" the first Lhari spoke the word as if it were a filthy insult--"will have the temerity to come in by this ship?" "No reasonable being can tell what _humans_ will do," said the second Lhari. "But then, no reasonable being can tell what our own Port Authorities will do either! If the message had only reached us sooner, it would have been easier. Now I suppose it will have to clear through a dozen officials and a dozen different kinds of formalities." The younger Lhari sounded angry. "And we have only a description--no name, nothing! How do they expect us to do anything under those conditions? What I can't understand is how it ever happened, or how the man managed to get away. What worries me is the possibility that he may have communicated with others we don't know about. Those bungling fools who let the first man get away can't even be sure--" "Do not speak of it here," said the old Lhari sharply. "There are Mentorians in the crowd who might understand us." He turned and looked straight at Bart, and Bart felt as if the slanted strange eyes were looking right through to his bones. The Lhari said, in Universal, "Who are you, boy? What iss your businesssses here?" Bart replied in the same language, politely, "My father's coming in on this ship. I'm looking for the information desk." "Up there," said the old Lhari, pointing with a clawed hand, and lost interest in Bart. He said to his companion, in their own language, "Always, I regret these episodes. I have no malice against humans. I suppose even this Vegan that we are seeking has young, and a mate, who will regret his loss." "Then he should not have pried into Lhari matters," said the younger Lhari fiercely. "If they'd killed him right away--" The soaring staircase swooped up to the top level; the two Lhari stepped off and mingled swiftly with the crowd, being lost to sight. Bart whistled in dismay as he got off and turned toward the information desk. A Vegan! Some poor guy from his own planet was in trouble with the Lhari. He felt a cold, crawling chill down his insides. The Lhari had spoken regretfully, but the way they'd speak of a fly they couldn't manage to swat fast enough. Sooner or later you had to get down to it, they just weren't human! Here on Earth, nothing much could happen, of course. They wouldn't let the Lhari hurt anyone--then Bart remembered his course in Universal Law. The Lhari spaceport in every system, by treaty, was Lhari territory. Once you walked beneath the lightning-flash sign, the authority of the planet ceased to function; you might as well be on that unbelievably remote world in another galaxy that was the Lhari home planet--that world no human had ever seen. On a Lhari spaceport, or on a Lhari ship, you were under the jurisdiction of Lhari law. Tommy stepped off a moving stair and joined him. "The ship's on time--it reported past Luna City a few minutes ago. I'm thirsty--how about a drink?" There was a refreshment stand on this level; they debated briefly between orange juice and a drink with a Lhari name that meant simply _cold sweet_, and finally decided to try it. The name proved descriptive; it was very cold, very sweet and indescribably delicious. "Does this come from the Lhari world, I wonder?" "I imagine it's synthetic," Bart said. "I suppose it won't _hurt_ us?" Bart laughed. "They wouldn't serve it to us if it would. No, men and Lhari are alike in a lot of ways. They breathe the same air. Eat about the same food." Their bodies were adjusted to about the same gravity. They had the same body chemistry--in fact, you couldn't tell Lhari blood from human, even under a microscope. And in the terrible Orion Spaceport wreck sixty years ago, doctors had found that blood plasma from humans could be used for wounded Lhari, and vice versa, though it wasn't safe to transfuse whole blood. But then, even among humans there were five blood types. And yet, for all their likeness, they were _different_. Bart sipped the cold Lhari drink, seeing himself in the mirror behind the refreshment stand; a tall teen-ager, looking older than his seventeen years. He was lithe and well muscled from five years of sports and acrobatics at the Space Academy, he had curling red hair and gray eyes, and he was almost as tall as a Lhari. _Will Dad know me? I was just a little kid when he left me here, and now I'm grown-up._ Tommy grinned at him in the mirror. "What are you going to do, now we've finished our so-called education?" "What do you think? Go back to Vega with Dad, by Lhari ship, and help him run Vega Interplanet. Why else would I bother with all that astrogation and math?" "You're the lucky one, with your father owning a dozen ships! He must be almost as rich as the Lhari." Bart shook his head. "It's not that easy. Space travel inside a system these days is small stuff; all the real travel and shipping goes to the Lhari ships." It was a sore point with everyone. Thousands of years ago, men had spread out from Earth--first to the planets, then to the nearer stars, crawling in ships that could travel no faster than the speed of light. They had even believed that was an absolute limit--that nothing in the universe could exceed the speed of light. It took years to go from Earth to the nearest star. But they'd done it. From the nearer stars, they had sent out colonizing ships all through the galaxy. Some vanished and were never heard from again, but some made it, and in a few centuries man had spread all over hundreds of star-systems. And then man met the people of the Lhari. It was a big universe, with measureless millions of stars, and plenty of room for more than two intelligent civilizations. It wasn't surprising that the Lhari, who had only been traveling space for a couple of thousand years themselves, had never come across humans before. But they had been delighted to meet another intelligent race--and it was extremely profitable. Because men were still held, mostly, to the planets of their own star-systems. Ships traveling between the stars by light-drive were rare and ruinously expensive. But the Lhari had the warp-drive, and almost overnight the whole picture changed. By warp-drive, hundreds of times faster than light at peak, the years-long trip between Vega and Earth, for instance, was reduced to about three months, at a price anyone could pay. Mankind could trade and travel all over their galaxy, but they did it on Lhari ships. The Lhari had an absolute, unbreakable monopoly on star travel. "That's what hurts," Tommy said. "It wouldn't do us any good to have the star-drive. Humans can't stand faster-than-light travel, except in cold-sleep." Bart nodded. The Lhari ships traveled at normal speeds, like the regular planetary ships, inside each star-system. Then, at the borders of the vast gulf of emptiness between stars, they went into warp-drive; but first, every human on board was given the cold-sleep treatment that placed them in suspended animation, allowing their bodies to endure the warp-drive. He finished his drink. The increasing bustle in the crowds below them told him that time must be getting short. A tall, impressive-looking Lhari strode through the crowd, followed at a respectful distance by two Mentorians, tall, redheaded humans wearing metallic cloaks like those of the Lhari. Tommy nudged Bart, his face bitter. "Look at those lousy Mentorians! How can they do it? Fawning upon the Lhari that way, yet they're as human as we are! _Slaves_ of the Lhari!" Bart felt the involuntary surge of anger, instantly controlled. "It's not that way at all. My mother was a Mentorian, remember. She made five cruises on a Lhari ship before she married my father." Tommy sighed. "I guess I'm just jealous--to think the Mentorians can sign on the Lhari ship as crew, while you and I will never pilot a ship between the stars. What did she do?" "She was a mathematician. Before the Lhari met up with men, they used a system of mathematics as clumsy as the old Roman numerals. You have to admire them, when you realize that they learned stellar navigation with their old system, though most ships use human math now. And of course, you know their eyes aren't like ours. Among other things, they're color-blind. They see everything in shades of black or white or gray. "So they found out that humans aboard their ships were useful. You remember how humans, in the early days in space, used certain birds, who were more sensitive to impure air than they were. When the birds keeled over, they could tell it was time for humans to start looking over the air systems! The Lhari use Mentorians to identify colors for them. And, since Mentor was the first planet of humans that the Lhari had contact with, they've always been closer to them." Tommy looked after the two Mentorians enviously. "The fact is, I'd ship out with the Lhari myself if I could. Wouldn't you?" Bart's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "No," he said. "I could--I'm half Mentorian, I can even speak Lhari." "Why don't you? I would." "Oh, no, you wouldn't," Bart said softly. "Not even very many Mentorians will. You see, the Lhari don't trust humans too much. In the early days, men were always planting spies on Lhari ships, to try and steal the secret of warp-drive. They never managed it, but nowadays the Lhari give all the Mentorians what amounts to a brainwashing--deep hypnosis, before and after every voyage, so that they can neither look for anything that might threaten the Lhari monopoly of space, nor reveal it--even under a truth drug--if they find it out. "You have to be pretty fanatical about space travel to go through that. Oh, my mother could tell us a lot of things about her cruises with the Lhari. The Lhari can't tell a diamond from a ruby, except by spectrographic analysis, for instance. And she--" A high gong note sounded somewhere, touching off an explosion of warning bells and buzzers all over the enormous building. Bart looked up. "The ship must be coming in to land." "I'd better check into the passenger side," Tommy said. He stuck out his hand. "Well, Bart, I guess this is where we say good-bye." They shook hands, their eyes meeting for a moment in honest grief. In some indefinable way, this parting marked the end of their boyhood. "Good luck, Tom. I'm going to miss you." They wrung each other's hands again, hard. Then Tommy picked up his luggage and started down a sloping ramp toward an enclosure marked TO PASSENGER ENTRANCE. Warning bells rang again. The glare intensified until the glow in the sky was unendurable, but Bart looked anyhow, making out the strange shape of the Lhari ship from the stars. It was huge and strange, glowing with colors Bart had never seen before. It settled down slowly, softly: enormous, silent, vibrating, glowing; then swiftly faded to white-hot, gleaming blue, dulling down through the visible spectrum to red. At last it was just gleaming glassy Lhari-metal color again. High up in the ship's side a yawning gap slid open, extruding stairsteps, and men and Lhari began to descend. Bart ran down a ramp and surged out on the field with the crowd. His eyes, alert for his father's tall figure, noted with surprise that the ship's stairs were guarded by four cloaked Lhari, each with a Mentorian interpreter. They were stopping each person who got off the starship, asking for identity papers. Bart realized he was seeing another segment of the same drama he had overheard discussed, and wished he knew what it was all about. The crowd was thinning now. Robotcabs were swerving in, hovering above the ground to pick up passengers, then veering away. The gap in the starship's side was closing, and still Bart had not seen the tall, slim, flame-haired figure of his father. The port on the other side of the ship, he knew, was for loading passengers. Bart moved carefully through the thinning crowd, almost to the foot of the stairs. One of the Lhari checking papers stopped and fixed him with an inscrutable gray stare, but finally turned away again. Bart began really to worry. Captain Steele would never miss his ship! But he saw only one disembarking passenger who had not yet been surrounded by a group of welcoming relatives, or summoned a robotcab and gone. The man was wearing Vegan clothes, but he wasn't Bart's father. He was a fat little man, with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of curling gray hair all around his bald dome. _Maybe he'd know if there was another Vegan on the ship._ Then Bart realized that the little fat man was staring straight at him. He returned the man's smile, rather hesitantly; then blinked, for the fat man was coming straight toward him. "Hello, Son," the fat man said loudly. Then, as two of the Lhari started toward him, the strange man did an incredible thing. He reached out his two hands and grabbed Bart. "Well, boy, you've sure grown," he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, "but you're not too grown-up to give your old Dad a good hug, are you?" He pulled Bart roughly into his arms. Bart started to pull away and stammer that the fat man had made a mistake, but the pudgy hand gripped his wrist with unexpected strength. "Bart, listen to me," the stranger whispered, in a harsh fast voice. "Go along with this or we're both dead. See those two Lhari watching us? Call me Dad, good and loud, if you want to live. Because, believe me, your life's in danger--right now!" CHAPTER TWO For a moment, pulled off balance in the fat stranger's hug, Bart remained perfectly still, while the man repeated in that loud, jovial voice, "How you've grown!" He let him go, stepping away a pace or two, and whispered urgently, "Say something. And take that stupid look off your face." As he stepped back, Bart saw his eyes. In the chubby, good-natured red face, the stranger's eyes were half-mad with fear. In a split second, Bart remembered the two Lhari and their talk of a fugitive. In that moment, Bart Steele grew up. He stepped toward the man and took him quickly by the shoulders. "Dad, you sure surprised me," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Been such a long time, I'd--half forgotten what you looked like. Have a good trip?" "About like always." The fat man was breathing hard, but his voice sounded firm and cheerful. "Can't compare with a trip on the old _Asterion_ though." The _Asterion_ was the flagship of Vega Interplanet, Rupert Steele's own ship. "How's everything?" Beads of sweat were standing out on the man's ruddy forehead, and his grip on Bart's wrist was so hard it hurt. Bart, grasping at random for something to say, gabbled, "Too bad you couldn't get to my graduation. I made th-third in a class of four hundred--" The Lhari had surrounded them and were closing in. The fat man took a deep breath or two, said, "Just a minute, Son," and turned around. "You want something?" The tallest of the Lhari--the old one, whom Bart had seen on the escalator--looked long and hard at him. When they spoke Universal, their voices were sibilant, but not nearly so inhuman. "Could we trrrouble you to sssshow us your paperrrssss?" "Certainly." Nonchalantly, the fat man dug them out and handed them over. Bart saw his father's name printed across the top. The Lhari gestured to a Mentorian interpreter: "What colorrr isss thisss man's hairrr?" The Mentorian said in the Lhari language, "His hair is _gray_." He used the Universal word; there were, of course, no words for colors in the Lhari speech. "The man we sssseek has hair of _red_," said the Lhari. "And he isss tall, not fat." "The boy is tall and with _red_ hair," the Mentorian volunteered, and the old Lhari made a gesture of disdain. "This boy is twenty years younger than the man whose description came to us. Why did they not give us a picture or at least a name?" He turned to the other Lhari and said in their own shrill speech, "I suspected this man because he was alone. And I had seen this boy on the upper mezzanine and spoken with him. We watched him, knowing sooner or later the father would seek him. Ask him." He gestured and the Mentorian said, "Who is this man, you?" Bart gulped. For the first time he noted the energon-ray shockers at the belts of the four Lhari. He'd heard about those. They could stun--or they could kill, and quite horribly. He said, "This is my father. You want my cards, too?" He hauled out his identity papers. "My name's Bart Steele." The Lhari, with a gesture of disgust, handed them back. "Go, then, father and son," he said, not unkindly. "Let's get going, Son," said the little bald man. His hand shook on Bart's, and Bart thought, _If we're lucky, we can get out of the port before he faints dead away._ He said "I'll get a copter," and then, feeling sorry for the stranger, gave him his arm to lean on. He didn't know whether he was worried or scared. _Where was his father?_ Why did this man have his dad's papers? Was his father hiding inside the Lhari ship? He wanted to run, to burst away from the imposter, but the guy was shaking so hard Bart couldn't just leave him standing there. If the Lhari got him, he was a dead duck. A copter swooped down, the pilot signaling. The little man said hoarsely, "No. Robotcab." Bart waved the copter away, getting a dirty look from the pilot, and punched a button at the stand for one of the unmanned robotcabs. It swung down, hovered motionless. Bart boosted the fat man in. Inside, the man collapsed on the seat, leaning back, puffing, his hand pressed hard to his chest. "Punch a combo for Denver," he said hoarsely. Bart obeyed, automatically. Then he turned on the man. "It's your game, mister! Now tell me what's going on? _Where's my father?_" The man's eyes were half-shut. He said, gasping, "Don't ask me any questions for a minute." He thumbed a tablet into his mouth, and presently his breathing quieted. "We're safe--for the minute. Those Lhari would have cut us down." "You, maybe. I haven't done anything. Look, you," Bart said in sudden rage, "you owe me some explanations. For all I know, you're a criminal and the Lhari have every right to chase you! Why have you got my father's papers? Did you steal them to get away from the Lhari? _Where's my father?_" "It's your father they were looking for, you young fool," said the man, gasping hard. "Lucky they had only a description and not a name--but they've probably got that by now, uncoded. We've only confused them for a little while. But if you hadn't played along, they'd have had you watched, and when they get hold of the name Steele--they will, sooner or later, the people in the Procyon system--" _"Where is my father?"_ "I hope I don't know," the fat man said. "If he's still where I left him, he's dead. My name is Briscoe. Edmund Briscoe. Your father saved my life years ago, never mind how. The less you know, the safer you'll be for a while. His major worry just now is about you. He was afraid, if he didn't turn up here, you'd take the first ship back to Vega. So he gave me his papers and sent me to warn you--" Bart shook his head. "It all sounds phony as can be. How do I know whether to believe you or not?" His hand hovered over the robotcab controls. "We're going straight to the police. If you're okay, they won't turn you over to the Lhari. If you're not--" "You young fool," said the fat man, with feeble violence, "there's no _time_ for all that! Ask me questions--I can prove I know your father!" "What was my mother's name?" "Oh, God," Briscoe said, "I never saw her. I knew your father long before you were born. Until he told me, I never knew he'd married or had a son. I'd never have known you, except that you're the living image--" He shook his head helplessly, and his breathing sounded hoarse. "Bart, I'm a sick man, I'm going to die. I want to do what I came here to do, because your father saved my life once when I was young and healthy, and gave me twenty good years before I got old and fat and sick. Win or lose, I won't live to see you hunted down like a dog, like my own son--" "Don't talk like that," Bart said, a creepy feeling coming over him. "If you're sick, let me take you to a doctor." Briscoe did not even hear. "Wait, there is something else. Your father said, 'Tell Bart I've gone looking for the Eighth Color. Bart will know what I mean.'" "That's crazy. I don't know--" He broke off, for the memory had come, full-blown: _He was very young: five, six, seven. His mother, tall and slender and very fair, was bending over a blueprint, pointing with a delicate finger at something, straightening, saying in her light musical voice:_ _"The fuel catalyst--it's a strange color, a color you never saw anywhere. Can you_ think _of a color that isn't red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, indigo or some combination of them? It isn't any of the colors of the spectrum at all. The fuel is a real eighth color."_ _And his father had used the phrase, almost adopted it. "When we know what the eighth color is, we'll have the secret of the star-drive, too!"_ Briscoe saw his face change, nodded weakly. "I see it means something to you. Now will you do as I tell you? Within a couple of hours, they'll be combing the planet for you, but by that time the ship I came in on will have taken off again. They only stop a short time here, for mail, passengers--no cargo. They may get under way again before all messages are cleared and decoded." He stopped and breathed hard. "The Earth authorities might protect you, but you would never be able to board a Lhari ship again--and that would mean staying on Earth for the rest of your life. You've got to get away before they start comparing notes. Here." His hand went into his pockets. "For your hair. It's a dye--a spray." He pressed a button on the bulb in his hand; Bart gasped, feeling cold wetness on his head. His own hand came away stained black. "Keep still." Briscoe said irritably. "You'll need it at the Procyon end of the run. Here." He stuck some papers into Bart's hand, then punched some buttons on the robotcab's control. It wheeled and swerved so rapidly that Bart fell against the fat man's shoulder. "Are you crazy? What are you going to do?" Briscoe looked straight into Bart's eyes. In his hoarse, sick voice, he said, "Bart, don't worry about me. It's all over for me, whatever happens. Just remember this. What your father is doing is _worth_ doing, and if you start stalling, arguing, demanding explanations, you can foul up a hundred people--and kill about half of them." He closed Bart's fingers roughly over the papers. The robotcab hovered over the spaceport. "Now listen to me, very carefully. When I stop the cab, down below, jump out. Don't stop to say good-bye, or ask questions, or anything else. Just get out, walk straight through the passenger door and straight up the ramp of the ship. Show them that ticket, and get on. Whatever happens, don't let anything stop you. Bart!" Briscoe shook his shoulder. "Promise! Whatever happens, you'll _get on that ship_!" Bart swallowed, feeling as if he'd been shoved into a silly cops-and-robbers game. But Briscoe's urgency had convinced him. "Where am I going?" "All I have is a name--Raynor Three," Briscoe said, "and the message about the Eighth Color. That's all I know." His mouth twisted again in that painful gasp. The cab swooped down. Bart found his voice. "But what then? Is Dad there? Will I know--" "I don't know any more than I've told you," Briscoe said. Abruptly the robotcab came to a halt, swaying a little. Briscoe jerked the door open, gave Bart a push, and Bart found himself stumbling out on the ramp beside the spaceport building. He caught his balance, looked around, and realized that the robotcab was already climbing the sky again. Immediately before him, neon letters spelled TO PASSENGER ENTRANCE ONLY. Bart stumbled forward. The Lhari by the gate thrust out a disinterested claw. Bart held up what Briscoe had shoved into his hand, only now seeing that it was a thin wallet, a set of identity papers and a strip of pink tickets. "Procyon Alpha. Corridor B, straight through." The Lhari gestured, and Bart went through the narrow passageway, came out at the other end, and found himself at the very base of a curving stair that led up and up toward a door in the side of the huge Lhari ship. Bart hesitated. In another minute he'd be on his way to a strange sun and a strange world, on what might well be the wild-goose chase of all time. Passengers were crowding the steps behind him. Someone shouted suddenly, "Look at that!" and someone else yelled, "Is that guy crazy?" Bart looked up. A robotcab was swooping over the spaceport in wild, crazy circles, dipping down, suddenly making a dart like an enraged wasp at a little nest of Lhari. They ducked and scattered; the robotcab swerved away, hovered, swooped back. This time it struck one of the Lhari grazingly with landing gear and knocked him sprawling. Bart stood with his mouth open, as if paralyzed. _Briscoe! What was he doing?_ The fallen Lhari lay without moving. The robotcab moved in again, as if for the kill, buzzing viciously overhead. Then a beam of light arced from one of the drawn energon-ray tubes. The robotcab glowed briefly red, then seemed to sag, sink together; then puddled, a slag heap of molten metal, on the glassy floor of the port. A little moan of horror came from the crowd, and Bart felt a sudden, wrenching sickness. It had been like a game, a silly game of cops and robbers, and suddenly it was as serious as melted death lying there on the spaceport. _Briscoe!_ Someone shoved him and said, "Come on, quit gawking, kid. They won't hold the ship all day just because some nut finds a new way to commit suicide." Bart, his legs numb, walked up the ramp. Briscoe had died to give him this chance. Now it was up to him to make it worth having. CHAPTER THREE At the top of the ramp, a Lhari glanced briefly at his papers, motioned him through. Bart passed through the airlock, and into a brightly lit corridor half full of passengers. The line was moving slowly, and for the first time Bart had a chance to think. He had never seen violent death before. In this civilized world, you didn't. He knew if he thought about Briscoe, he'd start bawling like a baby, so he swallowed hard a couple of times, set his chin, and concentrated on the trip to Procyon Alpha. That meant this ship was outbound on the Aldebaran run--Proxima Centauri, Sirius, Pollux, Procyon, Capella and Aldebaran. The line of passengers was disappearing through a doorway. A woman ahead of Bart turned and said nervously, "We won't be put into cold-sleep right away, will we?" He reassured her, remembering his inbound trip five years ago. "No, no. The ship won't go into warp-drive until we're well past Pluto. It will be several days, at least." Beyond the doorway the lights dwindled, and a Mentorian interpreter took his dark glasses, saying, "Kindly remove your belt, shoes and other accessories of leather or metal before stepping into the decontamination chamber. They will be separately decontaminated and returned to you. Papers, please." With a small twinge of fright, Bart surrendered them. Would the Mentorian ask why he was carrying two wallets? Inside the other one, he still had his Academy ID card which identified him as Bart Steele, and if the Mentorian looked through them to check, and found out he was carrying two sets of identity papers.... But the Mentorian merely dumped all his pocket paraphernalia, without looking at it, into a sack. "Just step through here." Holding up his trousers with both hands, Bart stepped inside the indicated cubicle. It was filled with faint bluish light. Bart felt a strong tingling and a faint electrical smell, and along his forearms there was a slight prickling where the small hairs were all standing on end. He knew that the invisible R-rays were killing all the microorganisms in his body, so that no disease germ or stray fungus would be carried from planet to planet. The bluish light died. Outside, the Mentorian gave him back his shoes and belt, handed him the paper sack of his belongings, and a paper cup full of greenish fluid. "Drink this." "What is it?" The medic said patiently, "Remember, the R-rays killed _all_ the microorganisms in your body, including the good ones--the antibodies that protect you against disease, and the small yeasts and bacteria that live in your intestines and help in the digestion of your food. So we have to replace those you need to stay healthy. See?" The green stuff tasted a little brackish, but Bart got it down all right. He didn't much like the idea of drinking a solution of "germs," but he knew that was silly. There was a big difference between disease germs and helpful bacteria. Another Mentorian official, this one a young woman, gave him a key with a numbered tag, and a small booklet with WELCOME ABOARD printed on the cover. The tag was numbered 246-B, which made Bart raise his eyebrows. B class was normally too expensive for Bart's father's modest purse. It wasn't quite the luxury class A, reserved for planetary governors and ambassadors, but it was plenty luxurious. Briscoe had certainly sent him traveling in style! B Deck was a long corridor with oval doors; Bart found one numbered 246, and, not surprisingly, the key opened it. It was a pleasant little cabin, measuring at least six feet by eight, and he would evidently have it to himself. There was a comfortably big bunk, a light that could be turned on and off instead of the permanent glow-walls of the cheaper class, a private shower and toilet, and a placard on the walls informing him that passengers in B class had the freedom of the Observation Dome and the Recreation Lounge. There was even a row of buttons dispensing synthetic foods, in case a passenger preferred privacy or didn't want to wait for meals in the dining hall. A buzzer sounded and a Mentorian voice announced, "Five minutes to Room Check. Passengers will please remove all metal in their clothing, and deposit in the lead drawers. Passengers will please recline in their bunks and fasten the retaining straps before the steward arrives. Repeat, passengers will please...." Bart took off his belt, stuck it and his cuff links in the drawer and lay down. Then, in a sudden panic, he got up again. His papers as Bart Steele were still in the sack. He got them out, and with a feeling as if he were crossing a bridge and burning it after him, tore up every scrap of paper that identified him as Bart Steele of Vega Four, graduate of the Space Academy of Earth. Now, for better or worse, he was--who _was_ he? He hadn't even looked at the new papers Briscoe had given him! He glanced through them quickly. They were made out to David Warren Briscoe, of Aldebaran Four. According to them, David Briscoe was twenty years old, hair black, eyes hazel, height six foot one inch. Bart wondered, painfully, if Briscoe had a son and if David Briscoe knew where his father was. There was also a license, validated with four runs on the Aldebaran Intrasatellite Cargo Company--planetary ships--with the rank of Apprentice Astrogator; and a considerable sum of money. Bart put the papers in his pants pocket and the torn-up scraps of his old ones into the trashbin before he realized that they looked exactly like what they were--torn-up legal identity papers and a broken plastic card. _Nobody_ destroyed identity papers for any good reason. What could he do? Then he remembered something from the Academy. Starships were closed-system cycles, no waste was discarded, but everything was collected in big chemical tanks, broken down to separate elements, purified and built up again into new materials. He threw the paper into the toilet, worked the plastic card back and forth, back and forth until he had wrenched it into inch-wide bits, and threw it after them. The cabin door opened and a Mentorian said irritably, "Please lie down and fasten your straps. I haven't all day." Hastily Bart flushed the toilet and went to the bunk. Now everything that could identify him as Bart Steele was on its way to the breakdown tanks. Before long, the complex hydrocarbons and cellulose would all be innocent little molecules of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen; they might turn up in new combinations as sugar on the table! The Mentorian grumbled, "You young people think the rules mean everybody but you," and strapped him far too tightly into the bunk. Bart felt resentful; just because Mentorians could work on Lhari ships, did they have to act as if they owned everybody? When the man had gone, Bart drew a deep breath. Was he really doing the right thing? If he'd refused to get out of the robotcab-- If he'd driven Briscoe straight to the police-- Then maybe Briscoe would still be alive. And now it was too late. A warning siren went off in the ship, rising to hysterical intensity. Bart thought, incredulously, _this is really happening_. It felt like a nightmare. His father a fugitive from the Lhari. Briscoe dead. He himself traveling, with forged papers, to a star he'd never seen. He braced himself, knowing the siren was the last warning before takeoff. First there would be the hum of great turbines deep in the ship, then the crushing surge of acceleration. He had made a dozen trips inside the solar system, but no matter how often he did it, there was the strange excitement, the little pinpoint of fear, like an exotic taste, that was almost pleasant. The door opened and Bart grabbed a fistful of bed-ticking as two Lhari came into the room. One of them said, in their strange shrill speech, "This boy is the right age." Bart froze. "You're seeing spies in every corner, Ransell," said the other, then in Universal, "Could we trrouble you for your paperesses, sirr?" Bart, strapped down and helpless, moved his head toward the drawer, hoping his face did not betray his fear. He watched the two Lhari riffle through his papers with their odd pointed claws. "What isss your planet?" Bart bit his lip, hard--he had almost said, "Vega Four." "Aldebaran Four." The Lhari said in his own language, "We should have Margil in here. He actually saw them." The other replied, "But I saw the machine that disintegrated. I still say there was enough protoplasm residue for two bodies." Bart fought to keep his face perfectly straight. "Did anyone come into your cabin?" The Lhari asked in Universal. "Only the steward. Why? Is something wrong?" "There iss some thought that a stowaway might be on boarrd. Of courrrse we could not allow that, anyone not prrroperly prrotected would die in the first shift into warp-drive." "Just the steward," Bart said again. "A Mentorian." The Lhari said, eying him keenly, "You are ill? Or discommoded?" Bart grasped at random for an excuse. "That--that stuff the medic made me drink made me feel--sort of sick." "You may send for a medical officer after acceleration," said the Lhari expressionlessly. "The summoning bell is at your left." They turned and went out and Bart gulped. Lhari, in person, checking the passenger decks! Normally you never saw one on board; just Mentorians. The Lhari treated humans as if they were too dumb to bother about. Well, at least for once someone was acting as if humans were worthy antagonists. _We'll show them--someday!_ But he felt very alone, and scared.... A low hum rose, somewhere in the ship, and Bart grabbed ticking as he felt the slow surge. Then a violent sense of pressure popped his ear drums, weight crowded down on him like an elephant sitting on his chest, and there was a horrible squashed sensation dragging his limbs out of shape. It grew and grew. Bart lay still and sweated, trying to ease his uncomfortable position, unable to move so much as a finger. The Lhari ships hit 12 gravities in the first surge of acceleration. Bart felt as if he were spreading out, under the weight, into a puddle of flesh--_melted flesh like Briscoe's_-- Bart writhed and bit his lip till he could taste blood, wishing he were young enough to bawl out loud. Abruptly, it eased, and the blood started to flow again in his numbed limbs. Bart loosened his straps, took a few deep breaths, wiped his face--wringing wet, whether with sweat or tears he wasn't sure--and sat up in his bunk. The loudspeaker announced, "Acceleration One is completed. Passengers on A and B Decks are invited to witness the passing of the Satellites from the Observation Lounge in half an hour." Bart got up and washed his face, remembering that he had no luggage with him, not so much as a toothbrush. At the back of his mind, packed up in a corner, was the continuing worry about his father, the horror at Briscoe's ghastly death, the fear of the Lhari; but he slammed the lid firmly on them all. For the moment he was safe. They might be looking for Bart Steele by now, but they weren't looking for David Briscoe of Aldebaran. He might just as well relax and enjoy the trip. He went down to the Observation Lounge. It had been darkened, and one whole wall of the room was made of clear quartzite. Bart drew a deep breath as the vast panorama of space opened out before him. They were receding from the sun at some thousands of miles a minute. Swirling past the ship, gleaming in the reflected sunlight like iron filings moving to the motion of a magnet, were the waves upon waves of cosmic dust--tiny free electrons, ions, particles of gas; free of the heavier atmosphere, themselves invisible, they formed in their billions into bright clouds around the ship; pale, swirling veils of mist. And through their dim shine, the brilliant flares of the fixed stars burned clear and steady, so far away that even the hurling motion of the ship could not change their positions. One by one he picked out the constellations. Aldebaran swung on the pendant chain of Taurus like a giant ruby. Orion strode across the sky, a swirling nebula at his belt. Vega burned, cobalt blue, in the heart of the Lyre. Colors, colors! Inside the atmosphere of Earth's night, the stars had been pale white sparks against black. Here, against the misty-pale swirls of cosmic dust, they burned with color heaped on color; the bloody burning crimson of Antares, the metallic gold of Capella, the sullen pulsing of
{'title': 'The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}