• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Officer!” Vuffi Raa shouted. “He’s trying to get away!”

“Thanks a lot, you atom-powered fink!”

The policeman drew his blaster, held it steady on Lando’s chest. “Well—first time I’ve ever heard of a droid with a security clearance like that, but—hold still, you! We’ll have some transportation in a minute, then we’ll all take a nice little ride.”

The governor’s office looked much the same as it had before, even to the absence of Rokur Gepta the Sorcerer of Tund. With the Mindharp lying across the crystalline desk, Lando wondered why the wizard wasn’t present to claim the prize he’d sought so avidly.

He didn’t wonder very long.

“Good afternoon,” Duttes Mer said, entering from the right and easing himself into his chair. “I see you have the object. Very good. You could tell me one little thing, though, if you would be so kind.”

Lando was standing between two of Teguta Lusat’s finest once again. This time Vuffi Raa was present, standing beside the governor’s desk.

“Anything you want to know,” Lando said, trying hard for cheerfulness and not quite making it.

“EXACTLY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THESE LAST FOUR MONTHS?” The governor calmed himself down, straightened his neckcloth, blinked.

“Four months?” Lando asked, reeling from one astonishing development after—so that was it! The time differential. What had seemed like a couple of days to him had actually been sixty times that long. “Governor, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Ask your treacherous friend, here. He’ll tell you—unless he’s a congenital liar.”

“Don’t be too hard on the droid, Captain. He did what he was programmed to do: play the Emissary’s part so that the natives would help you find the Harp. Also, to report to me the instant the Harp was in your possession. It would seem I’ve had a stroke of luck in that respect, however. How is it that you flew to Rafa V and returned here without being picked up on planetary defense sensors? We really have a nice, modern system, you know.”

“You tell him, Vuffi Raa, since you’re such a blabbermouth anyway.”

“Sir,” the robot said, “the Sharu appear to have some method of matter transport. I’m not certain when the transition occurred, and I am told that you lost track of my telemetry the instant we entered the pyramid on Rafa V. The shift could have been any time afterward, from the inside wall of the pyramid to the aperture through which we stepped into the street here in Teguta Lusat.”

The governor patted his stumpy fingers together. “Well, well. A technological bonus, if we can unravel its secret. In the meantime, as I said, a stroke of unexpected luck. You see, Captain, my, er, colleague is orbiting Rafa V this very minute, waiting for your emergence there.”

“Haw, haw. I am here. And I have the Mindharp. It would appear that I am something of a lucky gambler, too, wouldn’t you say?”

Lando shrugged indifferently. This wasn’t going to turn out good, no matter what he did, and there wasn’t any point in giving the fat slob any satisfaction.

“Come now, Captain, consider: Rokur Gepta hired an anthropologist—a real one, mind you, with genuine credentials—to investigate the system. The poor fellow thought he was working for me, which gave us the opportunity to appropriate his paycheck from Imperial funds, and yielded Gepta the enjoyment of misdirection he seems to treasure so much for its own sake.

“Meanwhile, we set a little trap. In return for the offer of a new job, once his investigations here were finished, the anthropologist went to Oseon 2795 in search of, well, shall we say a suitably gullible individual to do our work for us.”

Interested despite himself, and aware that Mer’s desire for, what, approval? might show him a way out of the mess, Lando asked, “Why didn’t you just hire yourself another sucker—or let your tame scientist get the Mindharp for you? Why me, and why maneuver me into it, rather than simply coming out and—”

The governor laughed. “You know the legends. It had to be a wandering adventurer from the stars, a stranger to the Toka, someone they hadn’t seen snooping around, recording