A Call to Arms by Robert Sheckley Read Free Book Online Page A

sex.
    Vlast was a scavenger who aspired to be something greater--a conspirator, perhaps. He had managed to get a good free meal the previous night--a consignment of old meats from the throwaways of the Eddisto, one of the newer restaurants. He had begged his dinner from Med, the busboy, whose vegetarian constitution had no use for it, and who owed Vlast a favor.
    Vlast didn’t have much money on him. But he did have his eyes open. And when he saw the compact, golden-skinned woman, he sensed that he had come upon an opportunity.
    She was a newcomer. He could tell this by her strangely alien features, and the way she tried to blend in with the crowd. Her clothing alone would have given her away as a new arrival. She had on the sort of outfit a fighting man or woman would wear. Was she looking for bodyguard work? There was no fighting down here, unless you counted the occasional drunken scuffle and, of course, the assassin’s dagger in the dark. But since she was raw, and ignorant of Down Below’s ways, she had to be gullible, he reasoned. Here was a rich opportunity for Vlast.
    Nonchalantly, he began walking behind her, keeping a good distance to prevent being noticed. There was no need for following too closely, anyhow: she wasn’t going anywhere. She could run, but she could not hide. There was no place she could get to here where Vlast could not find her. In his five years in Down Below, Vlast had learned every twist and turn of the place, every hidey-hole, every closet and cupboard.
    The woman had a casual air about her that Vlast figured must be feigned. She was looking for something, he was sure of that. And who better than he to help her find it? For a price, of course. Always for a price.
    She stopped, and he stopped, too. Something had attracted her attention. And now she was moving again, more surely now, into a tangle where five corridors met.
    Vlast hurried after her, moving as quickly as his stubby legs would take him, his ragged coat floating out behind him.
    Into the tangle of streets. Five directions to choose from. No sign of the woman in any of them.
    Damn it! What was the use of knowing all of Down Below if you didn’t know what path your quarry had taken through it?
    He calmed himself. She’d had beginner’s luck, eluding him that way. He’d find her. There was no place for her to go.
     

Chapter 11
     
    When Dureena had entered Down Below, she’d had no idea where she was going. How could she? It was the first time she’d seen this place. The folks around here didn’t furnish any street maps, and there certainly were no street signs. Nor was she about to ask directions from any of the people in the area, who, to say the least, looked very strange.
    Maybe she didn’t know where she was going, but she knew what she was looking for.
    The organization to which she belonged was clandestine, secret, illegal, but very far-ranging. They had branches everywhere, on all planets where civilized beings assembled. She was sure she’d find some sign of them here.
    She moved at random through a howling metal wilderness of coiling and intersecting corridors running off at bewildering angles. Steam, leaking out of vents and loosened pipe fittings, furnished spooky effects, making the denizens of this place indistinct. They moved through the warm fog like ghosts of themselves.
    The people she passed seemed to come from all corners of the universe. Only a few of them were Humans, and they were not the best-looking examples of that species. Many of them looked like they had been damaged in transit, or maybe they’d been malformed to begin with. And the aliens were no better. A great number were clad in cast-off bits of native costume--as was Dureena herself--but they carried it off less tastefully, she thought. She couldn’t identify most of the races. There were a few good-looking red-skinned ones, tall and with delicate features. They could almost be Human. But if so, why were they invariably in consort with a