"And own gems to garland your hair, and furs to swathe your body," he
said.
His green eyes belied his voice: they drank up the sight of Ilse and
her red mouth and her platinum hair as a miser drinks up the sight of
his yellow gold.
"You idiot," she whispered. "You man-killing, tempestuous idiot! Zut
forgive me, but I love you."
* * * * *
She straightened; faced him fully, eyes unwavering.
"They sent me to you, knowing that you might kill another. They--we
need you, Kortha. Hurlgut lies on his back, unable to move. You put him
there; you and those terrible arms of yours. But Hurlgut forgave you
long ago. You know that! But you don't know--
"You don't know that Guantra keeps him there, with green _bessa_-mead
and white women to amuse him, to make him forget that he rules Mars!"
Kortha started, and his lips drew back from his large white teeth,
like the snarl of a hungry leopard. Deep in his corded throat a curse
rumbled.
"Guantra. I remember him. An evil smell of a thing!"
"Guantra aspires to power. He has had himself declared Premier of the
Council. He wants to turn Mars over to the victors in the Earth-Venus
war, with himself as sole power on Mars. He plays politics like a
master, does Guantra. Mars, with its rich ore-beds and mines--Mars,
the prize of a war that does not concern her. Under a united Mars,
she would take her place among the planets beside Earth and Venus as
members of the Council of the Trinity. Under the Confederacy, Mars
could have done this. Once it was almost accepted. Then--you ran away.
And the Earthmen and the Venusians who feared your brains and your
body, Kortha--they revoked their acceptance."
"They had agreed. I stayed that long."
"They refused to go through with it. They revoked their decision. They
said--they said Mars was a hotbed of trouble, that it had no competent
ruler to make its decisions, and enforce them!"
"Guantra," said Kortha bitterly, "wants to be that ruler. As Premier he
stands an excellent chance of fulfilling his ambition."
Ilse came close to him, touched his hands with hers and clung. Her blue
eyes stared anxiously up to his green ones.
"If you were to come back, and be that ruler," she breathed. "Kortha,
Kortha, don't you see Mars needs you?"
Kortha looked past Ilse, out toward the red desert. Far in the haze of
distance, against the black and jagged Mountains of Eternity, there was
something white that shook and eddied in the heat waves rising from
the sands. Kortha knew it for forgotten Yassa, the city beyond recall.
A dead city, that ate up travelers that went to it.
Kortha sighed, and looked at Ilse. Always had Kortha wanted to go to
Yassa. There was a mystery about Yassa, a mystery that Kortha meant to
solve. The time was now come when he could.
"Give me time," he said to Ilse. "I need time to think."
She looked at him and in the depths of her blue eyes there was an
infinite sadness, a yearning.
"You lie, Kortha," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "You do not ever
intend to return. Tell me why?"
He looked down at her and smiled. How could he tell _her_? The long
uncut blonde hair that hung to his naked brown shoulders swayed a bit
as he shook his head.
"I will, perhaps. But not yet."
Not yet you cannot tell her, Kortha. It is for her sake that you have
buried yourself alive. But she would not understand. She is turning now
and going away from you, perhaps forever.
Kortha walked across the sands behind her toward the 'copter. Once his
great hands went out hungrily, then fell listlessly at his sides. Ilse
was not for him. She was part of his brooding, the part that ached and
stabbed with loneliness. Ilse was what made him a coward.
In the shadows of the flier the girl faced him once again. She stood
perilously close, her eyes beseeching silently, and the fragrance of
her hair and her curving body steamed in his nostrils.
"You are no hermit, Kortha. You need life. You need a woman. You
need--me."
He nodded, staring at her face, drinking it in. He did not ever intend
to see Ilse again, Ilse whom he loved, Ilse of the fair hair and the
blue eyes and the body tanned brown by Sol.
Kortha stepped back and his shadow fell from hers. He lifted a hand,
saying softly, "Goodbye."
With arms hanging to his thighs, he stood on the desert, watching until
the dot that was the 'copter in the sky passed beyond the horizon.
Wearily he swung about and went back to his hut.
He yanked down a gigantic steel hammer from the wall, breaking the
thong that held it to its nail. Gripping the hammer in his great
hands, he swung it around his head, once, twice, in a flashing circle
of blue-white light.
The walls crumpled when he hit them. The roof caved in and became the
floor. Scraps of brick and metal fell to dance on the shuddering tiles.
Fire leaped from the forge, caught hold and grew in a red frenzy. Red
and huge in its crimson heat, Kortha battered and slammed his sledge,
buckling even the wrought metalwork of his dwelling. This was his past,
here before him. Sobbing, he fought it; and sobbing, watched as the
fire came to consume it.
When the place lay black and smouldering, Kortha lifted his head and
looked with his green eyes across the desert to Yassa.
* * * * *
A rolling something on the red sands caught his alert gaze. He smiled
gently. A tumblie. Probably Xax, who liked him. He watched it roll
straight and fast over the desert, toward him.
Nature had made a perfect gyroscope in a tumblie: a round ball of
sharp, glistening spikes with a core of jelly that stayed level no
matter how fast the powerful spikes rotated. Two long feelers, like
skeletal arms, lay hidden in the spikes, but could stretch beyond them
to clutch food seeking to escape. In the heart of the jelly was a
strong brain.
Xax stopped, looking between his hard spikes at the blackened ruins.
"You leave the desert, Kortha?"
"I go to Yassa."
He felt the alarm of the tumblie, and sighed as Xax shrilled, "You go
to death! Only the tumblies have ever entered Yassa and--lived. There
is a part of Yassa that even a tumblie cannot penetrate. The white
tower. The temple of dead, forgotten Zut."
Kortha hefted his big hammer and eyed its gleaming length.
"Kortha has never gone to Yassa," he whispered grimly.
It was not a boast; it was a statement of fact, a realization that
there was only one Kortha.
Xax looked around him and saw the tire marks in the sand. He sat
silent, looking up at the man who towered more than six feet above him.
"Someone was here," Xax said at last. "Ilse, wasn't it? You've told me
enough of her! The Confederacy needs you, doesn't it? And you won't
go."
"I go to Yassa."
"Mad. Mad!"
"Not mad, Xax. So sane that I go to the one spot on Mars where I might
bring her freedom, and a place in the planetary sun."
Xax digested that, squatting there.
At last he said, "You have not dwelt out here three years for nothing.
You tried to hide from yourself at first, but you have learned things
here on the desert."
A pain tugged and tore at Kortha's heart, and his lips were bitter as
they smiled.
"You are clever, Xax. Smarter than Ilse."
"Ilse is a woman who loves you. Her love is inclined to blind her."
Kortha swung the hammer idly in his hand, eying the sunlight play
across it. He took a stride toward Yassa, and another.
"Come, Xax," he called. "It is easy to talk and walk at the same time."
The tumblie rolled along beside him. They went out into the hot red
sands, their shadows before them. Kortha fixed his eyes on the white
blot that was Yassa, and his long legs lengthened their stride. Sand
crunched faintly under his sandalled feet, releasing tiny clouds of red
dust at every step.
"Eons ago Mars was a cultured world, Xax. They had everything, our
ancestors. Even you tumblies possessed your own civilization. The
ancients had power, and weapons long since forgotten by the clans that
descended from the survivors of the Great War.
"Wars are useless things, but they must be fought as long as there are
men to quarrel. Who says otherwise is a fool. But the Great War--ahh,
that _was_ a war. They used things to fight with that we have long ago
lost, and that Earth and Venus have never known. Mars is older than
either and had more time to develop them. Our ancestors fought and
destroyed: men and machines and cities. They left little. Among the
things they did not leave was the knowledge of their arts and sciences.
Mars had to build again, from scratch."
Their shadows crept behind them as they walked.
"Today Mars is a weak Confederacy of clans, ruled by a prince I
crippled for life. Guantra hopes to rule that Confederacy, but Guantra
is a cautious man. He would never dare usurp the throne unless he were
sure of victory. So sure of such a complete victory that he need fear
neither Earth nor Venus.
"There is only one thing that would make Guantra so confident."
A pool of clear blue water lay in a little hollow ahead of them. Kortha
put his palms to the hard sand that packed its edge and lowered himself
to his belly. Immersing his lips in the cold spring water bubbling from
hidden streams, he drank deeply. Xax lay to one side, watching him.
With the back of his hand, Kortha wiped his mouth, his eyes on the
blood red sun dying in the desert a darker crimson on the horizon.
"We'll stay here for the night."
Kortha lay down and locked his hands behind his head. His golden hair
spilled in a flood across the red sand. Xax rolled close to him.
"Two hundred years ago," said Kortha slowly, "the first Earthmen set
foot on Mars. Those first colonists settled among us. Some of them
married Martian girls. One of them wedded my great-great-grandmother.
Mixed blood flows in my veins. I am brood of Earth and brood of Mars."
Xax said, "You keep me in suspense, Kortha. What one thing is there
that will make Guantra confident?"
"A weapon, Xax. He needs a weapon. I think I know where he can find it.
But to get back--
"They say that Earth ancestor of mine was a big man, and strong. He
must have been, for it was he who whipped the clans into semblance of
order, who established the Confederacy, who placed Hurlgut's ancestor
on the throne.
"Earth made Mars rich in those early days, with demands for the metals
of its mines and the stellus-ore to power their rocket ships. Earth
was not strong enough to conquer us, then. It extended friendship, and
traded. Fortunately, the Confederacy was ruled by wise men. They used
their new riches to make the Confederacy strong, too."
Kortha sighed and watched Phobos roll on upward into the vault of sky
above him.
"Those early leaders left the Confederacy strong. I made it weak."
Kortha rolled onto his stomach, his head buried in the crook of his
naked forearm. He heard Xax snort, "You were the greatest of the lot!"
"I crippled Hurlgut in a fit of rage. I left him prey to Guantra."
Kortha sighed, "I ran away. It has been bitter, being out here, Xax. I
had a long time to think. I hope my hermitdom has made me a wiser man.
But I am afraid."
They were silent for long moments. Xax stirred restlessly and the
clicking of his quills was like the rasping of many needles.
"Now Guantra will rule Mars," said Kortha hoarsely. "He will get his
weapon unless I can stop him. He will wait until Earth and Venus are
weakened by war. Then he will attack them. Ilse thinks he will turn
Mars over to them, but that is not so! He wants to rule the Trinity of
the three planets. In the end he will pull Mars down, for Mars is not
ripe to rule--not yet. Not under Guantra, at any time."
Kortha closed his eyes, whispering, "I must stop Guantra. I must stop
him without seeming to do so. For I cannot ever again take my place in
the Confederacy. I am too dangerous."
Xax said softly, "Guantra has the army and the air fleet tinder his
banner. You are one man against a world."
"I am Kortha," said the giant.
He rolled on his side and cuddled his head in his elbow.
An instant later, he was asleep.
Xax squatted, thinking.