THE COLORS OF SPACE

By Marion Zimmer Bradley

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 star ship, was the Lhari space port.
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 guards uniform gave them each a pairof 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 robot cabs 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 star ship 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 metallicsilky 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 grewl ouder, 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 hisMentorian 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 asif it were a filthy insult--"will have the temerity to come in by thisship?"
"No reasonable being can tell what _humans_ will do," said the secondLhari. "But then, no reasonable being can tell what our own PortAuthorities 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 areMentorians 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--itreported 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 Inter planet. 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 didit on Lhari ships. The Lhari had an absolute, unbreakable monopoly onstar 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'recolor-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 thatmight 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 hishand. "Well, Bart, I guess this is where we say good-bye."
They shook hands, their eyes meeting for a moment in honest grief. Insome 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 hisluggage and started down a sloping ramp toward an enclosure marked TO PASSENGER ENTRANCE.
Warning bells rang again. The glare intensified until the glow in thesky was unendurable, but Bart looked anyhow, making out the strangeshape 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 thevisible spectrum to red. At last it was just gleaming glassy Lhari-metalcolor 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. Hiseyes, alert for his father's tall figure, noted with surprise that theship's stairs were guarded by four cloaked Lhari, each with a Mentorianinterpreter. They were stopping each person who got off the starship,asking for identity papers. Bart realized he was seeing another segmentof the same drama he had overheard discussed, and wished he knew what itwas all about.
The crowd was thinning now. Robotcabs were swerving in, hovering abovethe ground to pick up passengers, then veering away. The gap in thestarship'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 theship, he knew, was for loading passengers. Bart moved carefully throughthe thinning crowd, almost to the foot of the stairs.
One of the Lharichecking 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 beensurrounded by a group of welcoming relatives, or summoned a robotcab andgone. The man was wearing Vegan clothes, but he wasn't Bart's father. Hewas a fat little man, with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of curling grayhair all around his bald dome. _Maybe he'd know if there was anotherVegan 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 thefat man was coming straight toward him.
"Hello, Son," the fat man said loudly. Then, as two of the Lhari startedtoward him, the strange man did an incredible thing. He reached out histwo hands and grabbed Bart.
"Well, boy, you've sure grown," he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, "butyou're not too grown-up to give your old Dad a good hug, are you?" Hepulled Bart roughly into his arms. Bart started to pull away and stammerthat the fat man had made a mistake, but the pudgy hand gripped hiswrist with unexpected strength.
"Bart, listen to me," the stranger whispered, in a harsh fast voice. "Goalong 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, Bartremained perfectly still, while the man repeated in that loud, jovialvoice, "How you've grown!" He let him go, stepping away a pace or two,and whispered urgently, "Say something. And take that stupid look offyour face."
As he stepped back, Bart saw his eyes. In the chubby, good-natured redface, the stranger's eyes were half-mad with fear.
In a split second, Bart remembered the two Lhari and their talk of afugitive. 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 fromshaking. "Been such a long time, I'd--half forgotten what you lookedlike. Have a good trip?"
"About like always." The fat man was breathing hard, but his voicesounded 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 hisgrip on Bart's wrist was so hard it hurt. Bart, grasping at random forsomething to say, gabbled, "Too bad you couldn't get to my graduation. Imade 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," andturned around. "You want something?"
The tallest of the Lhari--the old one, whom Bart had seen on theescalator--looked long and hard at him. When they spoke Universal, theirvoices 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 themover. Bart saw his father's name printed across the top.
The Lhari gestured to a Mentorian interpreter: "What colorrr isss thisssman'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 issstall, not fat."
"The boy is tall and with _red_ hair," the Mentorian volunteered, andthe old Lhari made a gesture of disdain.
"This boy is twenty years younger than the man whose description came tous. Why did they not give us a picture or at least a name?" He turned tothe other Lhari and said in their own shrill speech, "I suspected thisman because he was alone.
And I had seen this boy on the upper mezzanineand spoken with him. We watched him, knowing sooner or later the fatherwould seek him. Ask him." He gestured and the Mentorian said, "Who isthis man, you?"
Bart gulped. For the first time he noted the energon-ray shockers at thebelts of the four Lhari. He'd heard about those. They could stun--orthey could kill, and quite horribly. He said, "This is my father. Youwant my cards, too?" He hauled out his identity papers. "My name's BartSteele."
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'tknow 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 Lhariship? He wanted to run, to burst away from the imposter, but the guy wasshaking 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, andpunched a button at the stand for one of the unmanned robotcabs. It swung down, hovered motionless. Bart boosted the fat man in. Inside, theman collapsed on the seat, leaning back, puffing, his hand pressed hardto 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 myfather?_"
The man's eyes were half-shut. He said, gasping, "Don't ask me anyquestions for a minute." He thumbed a tablet into his mouth, andpresently 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 suddenrage, "you owe me some explanations. For all I know, you're a criminaland the Lhari have every right to chase you! Why have you got myfather's papers? Did you steal them to get away from the Lhari? _Where'smy 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--butthey'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 lefthim, he's dead. My name is Briscoe. Edmund Briscoe. Your father saved mylife years ago, never mind how. The less you know, the safer you'll befor a while. His major worry just now is about you. He was afraid, if hedidn't turn up here, you'd take the first ship back to Vega. So he gaveme 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 robotcabcontrols. "We're going straight to the police. If you're okay, theywon'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 hereto do, because your father saved my life once when I was young andhealthy, 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, likemy own son--"
"Don't talk like that," Bart said, a creepy feeling coming over him. "Ifyou're sick, let me take you to a doctor."
Briscoe did not even hear. "Wait, there is something else. Your fathersaid, '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 sawanywhere. 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 ofthe 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 becombing the planet for you, but by that time the ship I came in on willhave taken off again. They only stop a short time here, for mail,passengers--no cargo. They may get under way again before all messagesare cleared and decoded." He stopped and breathed hard. "The Earthauthorities might protect you, but you would never be able to board aLhari ship again--and that would mean staying on Earth for the rest ofyour 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 coldwetness on his head. His own hand came away stained black.
"Keep still." Briscoe said irritably. "You'll need it at the Procyon endof the run. Here." He stuck some papers into Bart's hand, then punchedsome buttons on the robotcab's control. It wheeled and swerved sorapidly 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, hesaid, "Bart, don't worry about me. It's all over for me, whateverhappens. Just remember this. What your father is doing is _worth_ doing,and if you start stalling, arguing, demanding explanations, you can foulup a hundred people--and kill about half of them."
He closed Bart's fingers roughly over the papers. The robotcab hoveredover the spaceport. "Now listen to me, very carefully. When I stop thecab, 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 doorand 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 hisshoulder. "Promise! Whatever happens, you'll _get on that ship_!"
Bart swallowed, feeling as if he'd been shoved into a sillycops-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 messageabout the Eighth Color. That's all I know." His mouth twisted again inthat 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 therobotcab came to a halt, swaying a little. Briscoe jerked the door open,gave Bart a push, and Bart found himself stumbling out on the rampbeside the spaceport building. He caught his balance, looked around, andrealized that the robotcab was already climbing the sky again.
Immediately before him, neon letters spelled TO PASSENGER ENTRANCEONLY. Bart stumbled forward. The Lhari by the gate thrust out adisinterested 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 astrip of pink tickets.
"Procyon Alpha. Corridor B, straight through." The Lhari gestured, andBart went through the narrow passageway, came out at the other end, andfound himself at the very base of a curving stair that led up and uptoward a door in the side of the huge Lhari ship. Bart hesitated. Inanother 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 waspat a little nest of Lhari. They ducked and scattered; the robotcabswerved away, hovered, swooped back. This time it struck one of theLhari grazingly with landing gear and knocked him sprawling. Bart stoodwith his mouth open, as if paralyzed.
_Briscoe! What was he doing?_
The fallen Lhari lay without moving. The robotcab moved in again, as iffor the kill, buzzing viciously overhead.
Then a beam of light arced from one of the drawn energon-ray tubes. Therobotcab glowed briefly red, then seemed to sag, sink together; then puddled, a slag heap of molten metal, on the glassy floor of the port. Alittle 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 androbbers, and suddenly it was as serious as melted death lying there onthe spaceport. _Briscoe!_
Someone shoved him and said, "Come on, quit gawking, kid. They won'thold the ship all day just because some nut finds a new way to commitsuicide."
Bart, his legs numb, walked up the ramp. Briscoe had died to give himthis 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, motionedhim through. Bart passed through the airlock, and into a brightly litcorridor half full of passengers. The line was moving slowly, and forthe first time Bart had a chance to think.
He had never seen violent death before. In this civilized world, youdidn't. He knew if he thought about Briscoe, he'd start bawling like ababy, so he swallowed hard a couple of times, set his chin, andconcentrated on the trip to Procyon Alpha. That meant this ship wasoutbound on the Aldebaran run--Proxima Centauri, Sirius, Pollux,Procyon, Capella and Aldebaran.
The line of passengers was disappearing through a doorway. A woman aheadof Bart turned and said nervously, "We won't be put into cold-sleepright 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 willbe several days, at least."
Beyond the doorway the lights dwindled, and a Mentorian interpreter tookhis dark glasses, saying, "Kindly remove your belt, shoes and otheraccessories of leather or metal before stepping into the decontaminationchamber. They will be separately decontaminated and returned to you.
Papers, please."
With a small twinge of fright, Bart surrendered them. Would theMentorian ask why he was carrying two wallets? Inside the other one, hestill had his Academy ID card which identified him as Bart Steele, andif 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 theindicated cubicle. It was filled with faint bluish light. Bart felt astrong 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 cupfull of greenish fluid.
"Drink this."
"What is it?"
The medic said patiently, "Remember, the R-rays killed _all_ themicroorganisms in your body, including the good ones--the antibodiesthat protect you against disease, and the small yeasts and bacteria thatlive in your intestines and help in the digestion of your food. So wehave to replace those you need to stay healthy. See?"
The green stuff tasted a little brackish, but Bart got it down allright. 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 witha numbered tag, and a small booklet with WELCOME ABOARD printedon 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 littlecabin, measuring at least six feet by eight, and he would evidently haveit to himself. There was a comfortably big bunk, a light that could beturned on and off instead of the permanent glow-walls of the cheaperclass, a private shower and toilet, and a placard on the walls informinghim that passengers in B class had the freedom of the Observation Domeand the Recreation Lounge. There was even a row of buttons dispensing synthetic foods, in case a passenger preferred privacy or didn't want towait 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, anddeposit 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 ifhe were crossing a bridge and burning it after him, tore up every scrapof paper that identified him as Bart Steele of Vega Four, graduate ofthe 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 twentyyears old, hair black, eyes hazel, height six foot one inch. Bartwondered, painfully, if Briscoe had a son and if David Briscoe knew where his father was. There was also a license, validated with four runson the Aldebaran Intrasatellite Cargo Company--planetary ships--with therank of Apprentice Astrogator; and a considerable sum of money.
Bart put the papers in his pants pocket and the torn-up scraps of hisold ones into the trashbin before he realized that they looked exactlylike 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 wereclosed-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 untilhe had wrenched it into inch-wide bits, and threw it after them.
The cabin door opened and a Mentorian said irritably, "Please lie downand fasten your straps. I haven't all day."
Hastily Bart flushed the toilet and went to the bunk. Now everythingthat could identify him as Bart Steele was on its way to the breakdown tanks. Before long, the complex hydrocarbons and cellulose would all beinnocent little molecules of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen; they might turnup 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 theyhave to act as if they owned everybody?
When the man had gone, Bart drew a deep breath. Was he really doing theright 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 anightmare. His father a fugitive from the Lhari. Briscoe dead. Hehimself traveling, with forged papers, to a star he'd never seen.
He braced himself, knowing the siren was the last warning beforetakeoff. First there would be the hum of great turbines deep in theship, then the crushing surge of acceleration. He had made a dozen tripsinside the solar system, but no matter how often he did it, there wasthe strange excitement, the little pinpoint of fear, like an exotictaste, that was almost pleasant.
The door opened and Bart grabbed a fistful of bed-ticking as two Lharicame into the room.
One of them said, in their strange shrill speech, "This boy is the rightage."
Bart froze.
"You're seeing spies in every corner, Ransell," said the other, then inUniversal, "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. Heactually saw them."
The other replied, "But I saw the machine that disintegrated. I stillsay 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 courrrsewe could not allow that, anyone not prrroperly prrotected would die inthe 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 mademe 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 worthyantagonists. _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 hefelt the slow surge. Then a violent sense of pressure popped his eardrums, weight crowded down on him like an elephant sitting on his chest,and there was a horrible squashed sensation dragging his limbs out ofshape. It grew and grew. Bart lay still and sweated, trying to ease hisuncomfortable position, unable to move so much as a finger. The Lhariships hit 12 gravities in the first surge of acceleration. Bart felt asif he were spreading out, under the weight, into a puddle offlesh--_melted flesh like Briscoe's.
Bart writhed and bit his lip till he could taste blood, wishing he wereyoung enough to bawl out loud.
Abruptly, it eased, and the blood started to flow again in his numbedlimbs. Bart loosened his straps, took a few deep breaths, wiped hisface--wringing wet, whether with sweat or tears he wasn't sure--and satup in his bunk. The loudspeaker announced, "Acceleration One iscompleted. Passengers on A and B Decks are invited to witness thepassing of the Satellites from the Observation Lounge in half an hour."
Bart got up and washed his face, remembering that he had no luggage withhim, not so much as a toothbrush.
At the back of his mind, packed up in a corner, was the continuing worryabout 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 clearquartzite. Bart drew a deep breath as the vast panorama of space openedout 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 burnedclear and steady, so far away that even the hurling motion of the shipcould 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 ofthe Lyre.
Colors, colors! Inside the atmosphere of Earth's night, the stars had been pale white sparks against black. Here, against the misty-paleswirls of cosmic dust, they burned with color heaped on color; the bloody burning crimson of Antares, the metallic gold of Capella, thesullen pulsing of Betelgeuse. They burned, each with its own inwardflame and light, like handfuls of burning jewels flung by some giant hand upon the swirling darkness. It was a sight Bart felt he could watchforever and still be hungry to see; the never-changing, ever-changing colors of space.
* * * * *
to be continued