J. F. Bone, page 18
In the months we were away my following melted away like snow in the summer sun, and I never would have heard until it was too late had not Furth, defying his wife and his hope of salvation, ridden to Jartan by secret ways to tell us of the ferment in Valthi.
Sar Malthor immediately assembled his troops, armed himself and went galloping post hasteback to Zamal.
I couldn’t move so fast. Martha’s condition held me to a slow crawl, and after the first day when we traveled only ten harads, Martha told me to go ahead and she would return to Karida and remain with Kyri.
“It’s better that I stay here,” she insisted. “I’m not really able to travel over these rough roads in springless wagons. I have another two months, I think, and I’d hardly get to Zamal before I’d have to return. Go on without me. You’ll travel faster and work more effectively if you travel alone. Here—take this and my luck wish with it.” She handed me the second kelly. “Give me the webcor. It will be enough, I think, and right now I doubt if I could hold the big gun steady enough to hit anything.”
I protested, but I knew she was right. She had no real friends in all Tharn except Kyri. The others tolerated her, but her knowledge and her attitudes made them uneasy and afraid, and with my power in doubt, Martha could have a bad time indeed in Valthi. She was better where she was. I kissed her goodbye and she clung to me briefly, femininely and possessively, and then she was herself again. She waved to me as I rode off, a Spartan wife bidding farewell to a soldier husband.
I rode until late that night with Furth at my side. We found a sheltered glen and unpacked our blanket rolls, but I could not sleep. I wandered far enough away that I would not disturb Furth, whose snores were those of one at peace with himself. I came out on a ledge that gave a view of a valley and a line of hills in the distance. Barely visible was the winking light of a semaphore on top of one of the distant hills. I focused on it with mild curiosity, spelling out the letters as they flowed from the blinking lanthorn.
ATTENTION URGENT WARN ROSSAW HAS
CROSSED BORDER AT KONLE VALLEY
NOTIFY ALL TROOPS CAPTURE IF
POSSIBLE KILL IF NOT—VANTHA.
Vra Vantha was the chief priest in Zamal, the Lord Templar, and one who was my enemy. I had enough evidence of his work to hang him twice over, and while I was at the castle he was very quiet. He was roaring now. I wondered if he had found the documentation of bribery, perjury, nepotism and assassination which I held. Certainly he had no fear of me, and I had better avoid contact with any troops if I expected to remain alive.
Somehow the situation had deteriorated beyond all reasonable grounds. Something more than priests was aligned against me.
I let Furth sleep another hour and then roused him.
“What is it, milord?’” he asked. His voice was thick with fatigue.
“I want the truth, Furth. What awaits in Zamal?”
“Trouble, milord. The priests have risen against you. By threatening to cut off religious service, by refusing to consecrate, baptize and hold service for the dead they have forced the guilds to declare against you. The castle is badly divided. Those who work for you are mostly in your favor; the rest are not.”
“How many men can I count on?”
“Not over a score, milord.”
“And how many can Sar Malthor command?”
“Virtually all of us. After all, he is the Provincal, and he has our oaths. An Sar Malthor gave you passage; no man would dare stand in your way. But I fear he is sore pressed. There is an order from the Tarnas demanding your arrest and delivery to the capital. I do not think Sar Malthor dare disobey it. I think you were a fool, milord, to raise the anger of the priests. Tharn is not smiling on you.”
“Yet Sar Malthor is my friend, and you are faithful.”
“I owe you my life, milord.”
“That debt was long paid.”
“Not in my mind, milord. But this journey will, I think pay it in full. Now where do you want to go?”
“To Zamal, of course. Where else?”
“You ride straight into the heart of the fire?”
“I can go nowhere else. My power lies in Zamal. It is the only place I know well enough to gain shelter until this storm passes.”
Furth nodded. “It is a bold course, milord, but no one has ever accused you of lack of boldness.”
We saddled and rode off through the forest along one of the many game trails, and it was there we met the enemy.
I never heard them. My first knowledge of an attack was a quarrel slamming into my mail shirt. It didn’t penetrate. Little indeed could get through oil-tempered chain mail. I jerked out one of the kellys, turned in my saddle and sprayed the four men spurring out of the trees with a minimum aperture charge of sublethal intensity. It was as though a gigantic hand swept them from their jessets. Armor was an invitation to a kelly. It might protect against a lethal charge by grounding it, but it spread a stun charge over the entire body, throwing the wearer into a tetanic convulsion.
I rode over to them, ignoring Furth’s goggle-eyed amazement, and took a good new-style sword, an axe and two sacks of food from the fallen heroes.
“Tharn! What was that thing?” Furth asked. “Magic?”
“A weapon,” I replied. “I have not killed these men, but they could just as easily be dead, had I wished.”
“That is the sort of weapon no soldier needs,” Furth said. “It takes the skill out of war and turns it into killing.”
“And that is the sort of weapon you will get if you discover enough and war among yourselves long enough. A man named Aloysius Kelly discovered the blaster principle a thousand years ago and we have never been able to really improve upon it since that time. It did a great deal to make wars too bloody to fight. It could be called a weapon for peace. Instead it is called a kelly.”
We had no further trouble with patrols that day, but the first victims would be recovering soon and one of their number would presently be racing for Zamal Temple with the news that I was coming with a flaming sword to demand vengeance. It shouldn’t increase the composure of the priesthood—nor of the Tarnas for that matter.
For the next day and the ones that followed we played hare and hounds with mounted patrols. As I checked the liveries of the men who hunted us, I thought they must have a couple of squadrons in the area. Anyway I looked at it, it was a polyglot organization. I could recognize liveries of four of our demesnes and several others from nearby provinces. These latter surprised me. I was not aware that a nationwide scheme was afloat to rid Tharn of Warren Robertshaw. But I should have realized that the temple was a national institution and what affected one part affected all of it. Priests were like pigs, I thought. Stick one of them and they all squeal in unison. But in this case the squeals were followed by action.
I wondered if Vra Branvar’s suicide was proclaimed as martyrdom in provinces outside of Valthi. The fat priest had done me no favor by killing himself. Probably he knew that when he swallowed the khej. I wondered why I had wept for him when he died. But I knew as surely as I was in the forests of Valthi being hunted by Tharns that I would weep again if that act could be repeated. I had liked Vra Branvar.
Later that day we crossed the path of a straggler in a livery I did not recognize. He saw us and turned to run, but before he had gone ten meters I cut him down with a stat blast.
“He is not dead,” I repeated to Furth as we dragged the man into the cover of a brushy cleft in the ground where a small stream ran. down the rocky bottom. “I am not about to leave a string of corpses behind me unless I must.”
“You are more merciful than I, milord. That man is from one of the demesnes of Arnadel. The diamond pattern of his japon is characteristic. He has no business here. In your place I would cut his throat.”
“That would be a poor return for the information he is going to give us,” I said. “Come now, let us get him on his back and disarm him. I don’t want him to feel too secure.”
We worked quickly, and by the time the stat charge had worn off we had the fellow disarmed, stripped and bound to a small tree.
The Tharn looked hatred at me, but tne hate was mixed with fear. “Priest killer!” he spat.
“What priest have I slain?” I asked.
“You poisoned Vra Branvar. And for that you are proscribed. Men-at-arms from all provinces are hunting you. My death will be avenged.”
“Tell me what is going on.” I demanded.
“You do not know?”
“Only that I am hunted and that the priests have lied about me.”
“They have lied to good purpose—if they lie,” the trooper said. “You have been cut off by the temple and proscribed by the Lord Templar of Valthi. The Tarnas has published a writ for your arrest and the Lord Templar has added a reward for you dead or alive. A thousand crowns is a great fortune, my lord. Many have volunteered to take you, and the Lord Tertiplar has enrolled them all as a secular arm of Tharn.”
Tharn, the god. I thought, not Tharn the state.
“And what of Sar Malthor?”
“He has been silent. The Lord Templar says he has been consorting with witches and warlocks, but the Tarnas shows no eagerness to proscribe him and the people of Zamal laugh at the Lord Templar even though some countryfolk believe the charges. Were Sar Malthor in my province the story would be different, since we are not so lacking in reverence for Tharn as you are in Valthi.”
Well, that was something, I thought. But Sar Malthor was effectively immobilized by the Tarnas, and the Lord Templar had a free hand. The ironic thing was that I had probably supplied the priest with the crowns he was offering as head-money. For I had done my best to purchase the neutrality of the Zamal temple. I shrugged. I’d know better next time than to try to compromise a priest with gold. They did not have the same values as secular folk and they were not willing to stay bought. I was learning a great deal about how a good meddler should operate. The only trouble was that I might not live long enough to apply it.
I asked more questions and received more answers that generally fitted the pattern I had already extrapolated. A minority of Tharn were for me, a minority were against, and the majority didn’t care. They leaned toward the temple because the temple was familiar and I was not. Well, that was to be expected, and with the price on my head as large as it was, I could expect to have virtually everyone’s hand against me. But I had no intention of being taken. Before we had left Valthi for Jartan I had instructed my technicians in the method of refueling the lifeboat, and I had ordered Furth to take four reels of newly drawn pure silver wire to the warehouse where I had stored the spaceship. There were nearly two tons of metal in those reels. I had also left instructions that the few hundred feet of copper wire remaining on the fuel reels be divided among the loading crew as a reward for industry. Since copper was of high value, I was fairly certain that the ship was fueled. Since I had supervised the extraction process myself and had tested each batch that came from the crucibles, I was not worried about the purity of the silver. Nor was I worried about gauge. I had used case-hardened oil-tempered dies and had drilled the final holes myself; there was little chance for improper gauging. The weight, however, was another thing. Silver was some two-thirds heavier than copper, and while it furnished more reaction mass and hence higher speeds, there would be less lineal meters to feed into the drive unless I could load an extra ton of weight on the fuel reels. Half a ton could be loaded inplace of the six other people the boat would not be carrying and another half ton could be compensated for by things that could be jettisoned, such as bunks and extra spacesuits and other survival gear. The net result should be that the lifeboat would have the same gross weight, but the silver wire should nearly quadruple its cruising range and put our speed at least into the blue. And if we couldn’t raise a confederation planet in that distance there was something wrong with the galaxy.
Oh, it was great! I could go literally trillions of standard miles if I could only cover the hundred and fifty kilometers separating me from the lifeboat. That was the critical distance.
For a week Furth and I worked our way toward Zamal. We traveled mainly at night and stood watches back to back during the day when the searchers were active. Once we were discovered by a patrol and I was forced to use the kellys on maximum to take care of the leader. I killed the others as a security measure, to prevent them from reporting how close to Zamal we had come and how many of us were coming. Fortunately, none of them were from Valthi, which for some odd reason made me feel belter. But I was at last certain of one thing. I could kill if necessity demanded it.
After the noise and the smoke had dissipated, Furth and I looked down at the six bodies and then looked at each other. There was a question in Furth’s eyes and I answered it.
“I think you had better leave me,” I said quietly. “You have done all that a true soldier can be expected to do. And from now on I may have to leave a trail of bodies behind me.”
“My oath was to the death,” Furth said.
“I relieve you of it. Go back to Alyse. Tell her, if she asks, that you couldn’t find me. Join the searchers. Cover yourself.”
“But what of you, milord?”
“I think I can take care of myself from here on. A determined person can always enter a city, no matter how well it may be guarded. And of all places in Tharn, I know Zamal best. Now before you go, help me bury and conceal these bodies so they will not soon be found.”
“An you think it best, milord,” Furth said. He sounded relieved and I didn’t blame him. The debt had been more than repaid. He had been faithful to an alien against his own people and that was more than I had a right to ask. Yet I felt a genuine sense of loss when we covered the last corpse and he rode off toward Zamal. Since he had been my man and accountable only to me, he was now accountable to no one until he took service under another lord. He was free to choose. I hoped he would go to Sar Malthor, as I had made arrangements for him to enter next year’s trials, and Sar Malthor, I was sure, would carry them out, if only for friendship’s sake.
Three days later I came out of the forests on the peninsula opposite the docks of Zamal and looked at the city. It was beautiful in the distance. I could see across the two kilometers of water to the docks and warehouses and the seawalls. I could see the laboratory where my assistants and I had built the devices that were responsible for my downfall. In that large gray warehouse directly across from me was my lifeboat, hopefully resting on its fins in launch attitude in the bottom of a heavily timbered silo, fueled and ready to leave. There were a number of pieces of advanced gadgetry in my quarters in the castle that I wouldn’t be able to save, including the Hunt-Winslow translator I had used for extracting the truth from reluctant Tharns. I shrugged. I could get along without it and I was sure that transistors, microminiaturization, and liquid hydrogen moderated circuitry would be beyond this race for centuries to come. Some of the other devices, however, were not so sophisticated and could really do damage if they were studied by Tharns bright enough to understand their implications. I debated whether I should try to secure them and finally decided against it. Tharn would simply have to take its chances, or perhaps Sar Malthor would have the brains to destroy them.
I waited until it was dark and then made my way down the steep slope to the water, stripped to my undergarments, sealed my kellys and slipped into the warm water of Zamal Harbor.
I had plenty of time and I would utilize it wisely. First I would swim to the anchored vessels in the harbor that showed no lights. Using these as shields, I would then work my way from one to another toward the shoreline, avoiding the active docks and vessels showing lights. It was a crooked course and in a way a dangerous one since the water lizards were large and numerous, and the biggest ones had no compunctions about attacking Tharns. I didn’t know whether they would attack me, but I carried a dagger in the event that they might. My plan was basically sound, but none of the baggage I carried was lighter than water and I regretted every ounce of it before I reached the anchor rope of the first vessel. It had taken too much energy to reach this stage of my swim, and I had to find something that would aid me to go the rest of the way.
The tide. I noted, was coming in and with it came some of the debris that collects around any harbor; boxes, boards, pieces of timber, garbage. I searched the floating mass and found a fair-sized plank, its edges waterworn and smooth. I drove the dagger into it, wrapped the belt of my kellys around the blade, and using the board as a float pushed off toward the second boat.
It was almost too easy. No one noticed me. No one challenged me. I reached my dock with ease, recovered my weapons and worked my way through the close-set, growth-covered pilings to the shore and the iron ladder that extended from a concealed trap door in the floor of the warehouse above, to the beach below. I had put this bolt-hole in the warehouse months ago—just after I had bought it—on the theory that one should always have an escape route when engaged in meddling. The thought was paying off now.
I climbed the ladder, found the wards and opened the trap and presently I was inside the warehouse. It was deadly quiet. Nothing moved. There was no sound except for faint external noises. I could hear the beating of my heart and the rush of blood through my veins as I moved with slow careful motions to clear my kellys and leave the store room.
I found the door and pushed on it gently.
It squeaked!
The sound cut the stillness, shattering it.
“Quiet, you fool!” a voice whispered in the darkness.
“That wasn’t me,” another said softly.
“Nor me,” said a third.
“Then it must be—” the first voice said.
“ME!” I roared, slammed the door open and darted across the floor, a darker blob in the darkness of the warehouse.
I had one advantage. I knew the layout and I knew where I was going, and the shortest distance between where I was going and where I wanted to be wasn’t a straight line. And at least for a moment surprise and darkness covered me.
I caromed off something soft that grunted and then screamed as I struck out with the dagger. There was a hard thump of metal against the floor and a softer thump followed by a groan. My foot hit metal. I bent and felt the outline of an axe. I picked it up. It might, I thought, be handy.
Sar Malthor immediately assembled his troops, armed himself and went galloping post hasteback to Zamal.
I couldn’t move so fast. Martha’s condition held me to a slow crawl, and after the first day when we traveled only ten harads, Martha told me to go ahead and she would return to Karida and remain with Kyri.
“It’s better that I stay here,” she insisted. “I’m not really able to travel over these rough roads in springless wagons. I have another two months, I think, and I’d hardly get to Zamal before I’d have to return. Go on without me. You’ll travel faster and work more effectively if you travel alone. Here—take this and my luck wish with it.” She handed me the second kelly. “Give me the webcor. It will be enough, I think, and right now I doubt if I could hold the big gun steady enough to hit anything.”
I protested, but I knew she was right. She had no real friends in all Tharn except Kyri. The others tolerated her, but her knowledge and her attitudes made them uneasy and afraid, and with my power in doubt, Martha could have a bad time indeed in Valthi. She was better where she was. I kissed her goodbye and she clung to me briefly, femininely and possessively, and then she was herself again. She waved to me as I rode off, a Spartan wife bidding farewell to a soldier husband.
I rode until late that night with Furth at my side. We found a sheltered glen and unpacked our blanket rolls, but I could not sleep. I wandered far enough away that I would not disturb Furth, whose snores were those of one at peace with himself. I came out on a ledge that gave a view of a valley and a line of hills in the distance. Barely visible was the winking light of a semaphore on top of one of the distant hills. I focused on it with mild curiosity, spelling out the letters as they flowed from the blinking lanthorn.
ATTENTION URGENT WARN ROSSAW HAS
CROSSED BORDER AT KONLE VALLEY
NOTIFY ALL TROOPS CAPTURE IF
POSSIBLE KILL IF NOT—VANTHA.
Vra Vantha was the chief priest in Zamal, the Lord Templar, and one who was my enemy. I had enough evidence of his work to hang him twice over, and while I was at the castle he was very quiet. He was roaring now. I wondered if he had found the documentation of bribery, perjury, nepotism and assassination which I held. Certainly he had no fear of me, and I had better avoid contact with any troops if I expected to remain alive.
Somehow the situation had deteriorated beyond all reasonable grounds. Something more than priests was aligned against me.
I let Furth sleep another hour and then roused him.
“What is it, milord?’” he asked. His voice was thick with fatigue.
“I want the truth, Furth. What awaits in Zamal?”
“Trouble, milord. The priests have risen against you. By threatening to cut off religious service, by refusing to consecrate, baptize and hold service for the dead they have forced the guilds to declare against you. The castle is badly divided. Those who work for you are mostly in your favor; the rest are not.”
“How many men can I count on?”
“Not over a score, milord.”
“And how many can Sar Malthor command?”
“Virtually all of us. After all, he is the Provincal, and he has our oaths. An Sar Malthor gave you passage; no man would dare stand in your way. But I fear he is sore pressed. There is an order from the Tarnas demanding your arrest and delivery to the capital. I do not think Sar Malthor dare disobey it. I think you were a fool, milord, to raise the anger of the priests. Tharn is not smiling on you.”
“Yet Sar Malthor is my friend, and you are faithful.”
“I owe you my life, milord.”
“That debt was long paid.”
“Not in my mind, milord. But this journey will, I think pay it in full. Now where do you want to go?”
“To Zamal, of course. Where else?”
“You ride straight into the heart of the fire?”
“I can go nowhere else. My power lies in Zamal. It is the only place I know well enough to gain shelter until this storm passes.”
Furth nodded. “It is a bold course, milord, but no one has ever accused you of lack of boldness.”
We saddled and rode off through the forest along one of the many game trails, and it was there we met the enemy.
I never heard them. My first knowledge of an attack was a quarrel slamming into my mail shirt. It didn’t penetrate. Little indeed could get through oil-tempered chain mail. I jerked out one of the kellys, turned in my saddle and sprayed the four men spurring out of the trees with a minimum aperture charge of sublethal intensity. It was as though a gigantic hand swept them from their jessets. Armor was an invitation to a kelly. It might protect against a lethal charge by grounding it, but it spread a stun charge over the entire body, throwing the wearer into a tetanic convulsion.
I rode over to them, ignoring Furth’s goggle-eyed amazement, and took a good new-style sword, an axe and two sacks of food from the fallen heroes.
“Tharn! What was that thing?” Furth asked. “Magic?”
“A weapon,” I replied. “I have not killed these men, but they could just as easily be dead, had I wished.”
“That is the sort of weapon no soldier needs,” Furth said. “It takes the skill out of war and turns it into killing.”
“And that is the sort of weapon you will get if you discover enough and war among yourselves long enough. A man named Aloysius Kelly discovered the blaster principle a thousand years ago and we have never been able to really improve upon it since that time. It did a great deal to make wars too bloody to fight. It could be called a weapon for peace. Instead it is called a kelly.”
We had no further trouble with patrols that day, but the first victims would be recovering soon and one of their number would presently be racing for Zamal Temple with the news that I was coming with a flaming sword to demand vengeance. It shouldn’t increase the composure of the priesthood—nor of the Tarnas for that matter.
For the next day and the ones that followed we played hare and hounds with mounted patrols. As I checked the liveries of the men who hunted us, I thought they must have a couple of squadrons in the area. Anyway I looked at it, it was a polyglot organization. I could recognize liveries of four of our demesnes and several others from nearby provinces. These latter surprised me. I was not aware that a nationwide scheme was afloat to rid Tharn of Warren Robertshaw. But I should have realized that the temple was a national institution and what affected one part affected all of it. Priests were like pigs, I thought. Stick one of them and they all squeal in unison. But in this case the squeals were followed by action.
I wondered if Vra Branvar’s suicide was proclaimed as martyrdom in provinces outside of Valthi. The fat priest had done me no favor by killing himself. Probably he knew that when he swallowed the khej. I wondered why I had wept for him when he died. But I knew as surely as I was in the forests of Valthi being hunted by Tharns that I would weep again if that act could be repeated. I had liked Vra Branvar.
Later that day we crossed the path of a straggler in a livery I did not recognize. He saw us and turned to run, but before he had gone ten meters I cut him down with a stat blast.
“He is not dead,” I repeated to Furth as we dragged the man into the cover of a brushy cleft in the ground where a small stream ran. down the rocky bottom. “I am not about to leave a string of corpses behind me unless I must.”
“You are more merciful than I, milord. That man is from one of the demesnes of Arnadel. The diamond pattern of his japon is characteristic. He has no business here. In your place I would cut his throat.”
“That would be a poor return for the information he is going to give us,” I said. “Come now, let us get him on his back and disarm him. I don’t want him to feel too secure.”
We worked quickly, and by the time the stat charge had worn off we had the fellow disarmed, stripped and bound to a small tree.
The Tharn looked hatred at me, but tne hate was mixed with fear. “Priest killer!” he spat.
“What priest have I slain?” I asked.
“You poisoned Vra Branvar. And for that you are proscribed. Men-at-arms from all provinces are hunting you. My death will be avenged.”
“Tell me what is going on.” I demanded.
“You do not know?”
“Only that I am hunted and that the priests have lied about me.”
“They have lied to good purpose—if they lie,” the trooper said. “You have been cut off by the temple and proscribed by the Lord Templar of Valthi. The Tarnas has published a writ for your arrest and the Lord Templar has added a reward for you dead or alive. A thousand crowns is a great fortune, my lord. Many have volunteered to take you, and the Lord Tertiplar has enrolled them all as a secular arm of Tharn.”
Tharn, the god. I thought, not Tharn the state.
“And what of Sar Malthor?”
“He has been silent. The Lord Templar says he has been consorting with witches and warlocks, but the Tarnas shows no eagerness to proscribe him and the people of Zamal laugh at the Lord Templar even though some countryfolk believe the charges. Were Sar Malthor in my province the story would be different, since we are not so lacking in reverence for Tharn as you are in Valthi.”
Well, that was something, I thought. But Sar Malthor was effectively immobilized by the Tarnas, and the Lord Templar had a free hand. The ironic thing was that I had probably supplied the priest with the crowns he was offering as head-money. For I had done my best to purchase the neutrality of the Zamal temple. I shrugged. I’d know better next time than to try to compromise a priest with gold. They did not have the same values as secular folk and they were not willing to stay bought. I was learning a great deal about how a good meddler should operate. The only trouble was that I might not live long enough to apply it.
I asked more questions and received more answers that generally fitted the pattern I had already extrapolated. A minority of Tharn were for me, a minority were against, and the majority didn’t care. They leaned toward the temple because the temple was familiar and I was not. Well, that was to be expected, and with the price on my head as large as it was, I could expect to have virtually everyone’s hand against me. But I had no intention of being taken. Before we had left Valthi for Jartan I had instructed my technicians in the method of refueling the lifeboat, and I had ordered Furth to take four reels of newly drawn pure silver wire to the warehouse where I had stored the spaceship. There were nearly two tons of metal in those reels. I had also left instructions that the few hundred feet of copper wire remaining on the fuel reels be divided among the loading crew as a reward for industry. Since copper was of high value, I was fairly certain that the ship was fueled. Since I had supervised the extraction process myself and had tested each batch that came from the crucibles, I was not worried about the purity of the silver. Nor was I worried about gauge. I had used case-hardened oil-tempered dies and had drilled the final holes myself; there was little chance for improper gauging. The weight, however, was another thing. Silver was some two-thirds heavier than copper, and while it furnished more reaction mass and hence higher speeds, there would be less lineal meters to feed into the drive unless I could load an extra ton of weight on the fuel reels. Half a ton could be loaded inplace of the six other people the boat would not be carrying and another half ton could be compensated for by things that could be jettisoned, such as bunks and extra spacesuits and other survival gear. The net result should be that the lifeboat would have the same gross weight, but the silver wire should nearly quadruple its cruising range and put our speed at least into the blue. And if we couldn’t raise a confederation planet in that distance there was something wrong with the galaxy.
Oh, it was great! I could go literally trillions of standard miles if I could only cover the hundred and fifty kilometers separating me from the lifeboat. That was the critical distance.
For a week Furth and I worked our way toward Zamal. We traveled mainly at night and stood watches back to back during the day when the searchers were active. Once we were discovered by a patrol and I was forced to use the kellys on maximum to take care of the leader. I killed the others as a security measure, to prevent them from reporting how close to Zamal we had come and how many of us were coming. Fortunately, none of them were from Valthi, which for some odd reason made me feel belter. But I was at last certain of one thing. I could kill if necessity demanded it.
After the noise and the smoke had dissipated, Furth and I looked down at the six bodies and then looked at each other. There was a question in Furth’s eyes and I answered it.
“I think you had better leave me,” I said quietly. “You have done all that a true soldier can be expected to do. And from now on I may have to leave a trail of bodies behind me.”
“My oath was to the death,” Furth said.
“I relieve you of it. Go back to Alyse. Tell her, if she asks, that you couldn’t find me. Join the searchers. Cover yourself.”
“But what of you, milord?”
“I think I can take care of myself from here on. A determined person can always enter a city, no matter how well it may be guarded. And of all places in Tharn, I know Zamal best. Now before you go, help me bury and conceal these bodies so they will not soon be found.”
“An you think it best, milord,” Furth said. He sounded relieved and I didn’t blame him. The debt had been more than repaid. He had been faithful to an alien against his own people and that was more than I had a right to ask. Yet I felt a genuine sense of loss when we covered the last corpse and he rode off toward Zamal. Since he had been my man and accountable only to me, he was now accountable to no one until he took service under another lord. He was free to choose. I hoped he would go to Sar Malthor, as I had made arrangements for him to enter next year’s trials, and Sar Malthor, I was sure, would carry them out, if only for friendship’s sake.
Three days later I came out of the forests on the peninsula opposite the docks of Zamal and looked at the city. It was beautiful in the distance. I could see across the two kilometers of water to the docks and warehouses and the seawalls. I could see the laboratory where my assistants and I had built the devices that were responsible for my downfall. In that large gray warehouse directly across from me was my lifeboat, hopefully resting on its fins in launch attitude in the bottom of a heavily timbered silo, fueled and ready to leave. There were a number of pieces of advanced gadgetry in my quarters in the castle that I wouldn’t be able to save, including the Hunt-Winslow translator I had used for extracting the truth from reluctant Tharns. I shrugged. I could get along without it and I was sure that transistors, microminiaturization, and liquid hydrogen moderated circuitry would be beyond this race for centuries to come. Some of the other devices, however, were not so sophisticated and could really do damage if they were studied by Tharns bright enough to understand their implications. I debated whether I should try to secure them and finally decided against it. Tharn would simply have to take its chances, or perhaps Sar Malthor would have the brains to destroy them.
I waited until it was dark and then made my way down the steep slope to the water, stripped to my undergarments, sealed my kellys and slipped into the warm water of Zamal Harbor.
I had plenty of time and I would utilize it wisely. First I would swim to the anchored vessels in the harbor that showed no lights. Using these as shields, I would then work my way from one to another toward the shoreline, avoiding the active docks and vessels showing lights. It was a crooked course and in a way a dangerous one since the water lizards were large and numerous, and the biggest ones had no compunctions about attacking Tharns. I didn’t know whether they would attack me, but I carried a dagger in the event that they might. My plan was basically sound, but none of the baggage I carried was lighter than water and I regretted every ounce of it before I reached the anchor rope of the first vessel. It had taken too much energy to reach this stage of my swim, and I had to find something that would aid me to go the rest of the way.
The tide. I noted, was coming in and with it came some of the debris that collects around any harbor; boxes, boards, pieces of timber, garbage. I searched the floating mass and found a fair-sized plank, its edges waterworn and smooth. I drove the dagger into it, wrapped the belt of my kellys around the blade, and using the board as a float pushed off toward the second boat.
It was almost too easy. No one noticed me. No one challenged me. I reached my dock with ease, recovered my weapons and worked my way through the close-set, growth-covered pilings to the shore and the iron ladder that extended from a concealed trap door in the floor of the warehouse above, to the beach below. I had put this bolt-hole in the warehouse months ago—just after I had bought it—on the theory that one should always have an escape route when engaged in meddling. The thought was paying off now.
I climbed the ladder, found the wards and opened the trap and presently I was inside the warehouse. It was deadly quiet. Nothing moved. There was no sound except for faint external noises. I could hear the beating of my heart and the rush of blood through my veins as I moved with slow careful motions to clear my kellys and leave the store room.
I found the door and pushed on it gently.
It squeaked!
The sound cut the stillness, shattering it.
“Quiet, you fool!” a voice whispered in the darkness.
“That wasn’t me,” another said softly.
“Nor me,” said a third.
“Then it must be—” the first voice said.
“ME!” I roared, slammed the door open and darted across the floor, a darker blob in the darkness of the warehouse.
I had one advantage. I knew the layout and I knew where I was going, and the shortest distance between where I was going and where I wanted to be wasn’t a straight line. And at least for a moment surprise and darkness covered me.
I caromed off something soft that grunted and then screamed as I struck out with the dagger. There was a hard thump of metal against the floor and a softer thump followed by a groan. My foot hit metal. I bent and felt the outline of an axe. I picked it up. It might, I thought, be handy.
