"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."