"I told you it was a weapon," rasped Kortha, shoving the machine in
front of him, wheeling it toward the square.
There were a few guards left, in front of the fliers. When they saw
Kortha, they came running. One by one he picked them off; watched them
fall harshly, bouncing a little on the cobblestones. They did not fire.
Kortha realized Guantra must have been very explicit about wanting him
taken alive.
When he stood alone in the square, Kortha lifted his hammer and brought
it down on the glistening orifact. Metal danced and shattered under
his blows. Casings split. Magnetizers fell apart. Bolts and shards of
metallic rings jangled on the paving, clattering and rolling among the
lichen-lifted flaggings.
"Guantra will never use that," said Kortha grimly.
He walked toward the fliers. One after the other, he smashed their
radios; and the controls of every ship but one. Holding open the door
of the last plane, he said to Xax, "Get in."
"Where are we going?"
"To find Ilse," answered Kortha, settling his big frame in the
plasticine seat. His hands went forth to punch buttons and twist dials.
The tubes behind him roared their power, shaking the entire ship.
He taxied the flier across the square and yanked back hard on the
repellever. The nose went up sharply, and riding the air currents on
blunt wings, the flier rose above the ruins of white Yassa and aimed
its prow at the desert.
Kortha slipped in the automatic controller, and ran fingers through his
fur jacket.
"Ilse will know the politics I've missed in living on the desert for
three years. She will know if we can raise a force strong enough to
fight Guantra. We'll need men and money and ships. Guantra has cornered
the market on those, right now."
"You wouldn't go to Ilse before. Why will you now?"
"Three years ago I crippled a man, Xax. Hurlgut, who was my best
friend. It was in a fit of rage. I couldn't control my temper. And--I
was afraid that some day I'd do something like that to Ilse. I couldn't
afford to let that happen. I love her too much. There was only one
thing to do, since I couldn't master my own emotions.
"I ran away. I came here across Syrtis Major to the Yassan desert
because it is so far from life. Nothing exists away out here. If
Hurlgut or Ilse were to send searching parties, it would be like
looking for a sword out in the asteroid belt.
"I picked a good spot, all right. It took them three years to find
me. They wouldn't have found me yet if I hadn't helped an occasional
unfortunate who'd come to try his luck at mining in the Yassan sands."
"Mining?" puzzled Xax. "In the desert?"
"There's a lot of copper mixed into that sand. Some day I hope to learn
why. Cliffs of metal abound on Mars. The cliffs around Ruuzol, for
instance. But enough of that. Let me explain about myself. I came to
the desert and lived alone. High hopes were mine that the silence and
loneliness and my work would teach me control. I don't know how well I
succeeded in that, but in another thing I did have success.
"On the long winter nights, I saw lights in Yassa, Xax. Man-made
lights. Electritorches and solar-beams. Now everyone on Mars knows
that Yassa is a deserted city, and deadly. Lights didn't belong there.
I wanted to go to Yassa to see who walked its dead streets. But as a
test, I curbed myself, fought my yearning. I mastered it. I wondered
and puzzled, but I stayed on the desert. Some day I would go, but not
yet. Finally the lights went away, and did not return.
"I know now that those lights were carried by Guantra's science staff,
who discovered the secret of the tower of Zut, and used it. They took
away the weapons they could use and left the others, thinking no one
could fathom their use. They thought me dead. Bah, the fools!
"Then when Ilse came for me, I realized the truth. Guantra had sent men
to Yassa. But if I went to Yassa, I might prevent their taking anything
of value from the city. I was too late!"
Xax shuddered at the glitter in the green eyes of this big giant.
"I did not think Guantra had taken anything. I know better now. Without
a weapon, Guantra would not dare strike for power. By smashing every
weapon in that Tower, I could have stopped him cold at one stroke. Then
I could have returned to my smithy, in the desert, and lived out my
life."
* * * * *
Kortha sighed, and surveyed the craggy ground below. They were flying
low over a barren plain where rocks lay yellow in the sun as far as
they could see, like golden pebbles. Jagged red cliffs rose off to the
right, shining dully like copper; to the left, a mesa of red-green
stone lifted a flat top toward the sky. Between the mesa and the
cliffs, the golden floor of the plain went on and on, endlessly.
Kortha increased the speed of the little flier, and sighed, "But now
all that is changed. Guantra has his weapon, and I must find Ilse. We
must raise a fleet to oppose him. I'm still afraid of myself, Xax. I
may yet hurt Ilse, but I'll have to chance it. Mars is bigger than both
of us!"
A dot in the sky to sunward of them grew bigger, loomed into a small
flier. Kortha swore happily, seeing the emblazoned dragon on its prow.
"Ilse. She's come back to talk to me again."
He swung the ship toward her, anathematizing himself for having smashed
its radio. He had meant it as a protective measure, to prevent Guantra
from triangulating his position. It boomeranged, now. Ilse would see
Guantra's rippled black star pennon on his own prow.
She fled from him like a startled fawn, but Guantra built good ships.
Kortha overhauled her slowly, ducking her gun-blasts, swallow-darting.
When she dove for a cliffside, Kortha followed; and only expert
piloting prevented them both from slamming the hulls of their ships
against those coppery walls.
A shell from her rear electrogun ripped away a section of his fuselage
before she saw him, big and white-furred, in the glass cabin. He saw
her face go white, looking back at him. Ilse fought her controls,
dropping toward the plain. Grinning wryly, fighting his ship that
bucked with a hole in her side, Kortha followed her down.
She came running to him across the stones, her loose white bolero
jacket blowing back, her straight long legs flashing brown in the
sunlight, making shadowy grotesques ahead of her on the jagged rocks.
Her red mouth shouted laughter at him, mixed with sobs.
He caught her up against him; bent to memorize her blue eyes, the soft
cheeks that were moist with tears, the full scarlet mouth. Her platinum
hair blew wild in the breeze.
Kortha drank a kiss from her wet mouth, and kept her crushed to him for
moment after moment. Three years on the desert is a long time.
"Whew!" whispered Ilse, laughing up at him with lips and eyes, her nose
crinkling a little.
She sobered suddenly; put soft hands to his cheeks, stroking them.
"You fly Guantra's ship. What happened?"
He told her, looking down into her eyes, moving his gaze from hair to
lips, to cheeks and throat. She shuddered, listening, and he held her
tighter.
"It's no use, Kortha," she said at last. "We can't fight the fleet that
Guantra can muster. The fact that he has those weapons makes a lot of
difference. I knew when I came for you that we were nearly beaten. You
were our only hope. If Kortha could come back from the grave--there
would be a psychological value to the thing. We might aim at strikes,
at seducing men from Guantra's navy. Build ships on the sly, from Mare
Cimmerium to Sinus Gomer. But now--"
Her shoulders drooped. Kortha scowled across at the red cliff
crimson in the sunlight. It was true. The fleet that Guantra owned
was the fleet that Kortha had built. Battleship and air-cruiser,
he had blue-printed their models, seen them swung into their
launching-cradles. He had manned it with picked men. Nothing on Mars
could match it, certainly; possibly nothing on Earth or Venus, either,
with the exception of their vast space fleets. He sighed.
Xax shrilled a warning, clicking his needles.
From the south a huge grey battleflier rose grim and massive above the
flat mesa. Sunlight disclosed its rippled black star pennon, and the
gleaming guns, and the swarms of fighters covering its decks. Towering
masts brooded down across the plains, giving the ship an aetherial look
that its dark bulk belied.
Kortha laughed bitterly, "What use to talk of fleets now? That's
Guantra's own flagship. He's come in person for me now. By some black
magic, he's learned of what took place at Yassa. Probably took alarm
when his radio calls went unanswered."
They ran across the stones for the small cruiser, kicking pebbles into
life, making them roll and bounce. With big hands, Kortha tossed Ilse
into the open door of the flier; swept in after her with a hard, swift
leap. The door clanged behind them.
* * * * *
The ship shuddered under a direct hit on her rear rockets. Kortha went
flying, clutching at Ilse, dragging her down on him. His back met the
far wall, and he cushioned her against his chest.
Kortha was on his feet, eyes blazing. His hand went to his hammer,
hefting it, lifting it up and down, very slowly. He snarled a little,
deep in his throat.
"He knows we're here. He's playing with us. He wants us alive."
"There's my plane. If we hurry--"
Across the stone-bottom, they saw the silvered hull of the little flier
cave inward. Metal sides slivered, and splinters flew through the air.
"Guantra has good gunners," said Kortha drily. "Let's learn if his
combat units are as good."
He drove the massy head of his hammer against the door, breaking it
open. With Ilse in one arm he dropped to the rocks and walked away from
the flier. Side by side, they stood and looked up at the gigantic ship
that hovered yards above the plains. Men came swarming over its sides,
dropping like ants from ropes, leaping toward them.
Kortha saw they were unarmed. He tossed his hammer aside and grinned
mercilessly, lips writhing back from strong white teeth.
Ilse looked up at him and shuddered. She had seen Kortha fight before.
He sprang to meet them, hamlike fists balled into twin maces. He broke
a man's jaw with his first blow. With his second he snapped three
ribs of an officer in a short green cloak. He hit again, and again,
and everytime that his fists struck, bones cracked or splintered. Men
shrieked there on the stones, trying to stand up to him.
Occasionally he unclasped his hands to grasp; and when his grip fell,
clutching, the victim dropped with shredded limbs.
They were all around him now, grunting under his blows, screaming when
he wrenched. Kortha danced like a temple harlot, twisting on his toes,
slamming his long arms out, dropping his fists where they hurt the
most: on jaw, on belly, on ribs. He laughed harshly as he fought; his
eyes flared, and his nostrils quivered. The soft thudding of fists on
flesh, and the sobs of air-hungry lungs orchestrated the battle.
It looked as though he would beat them all, for a moment. His great
form was untouched, and men lay sprawled on the rocks all around him.
Then someone flung sand from a pouch. Kortha knew its bitter burn as it
bit into his eyes. They welled with tears, but Kortha held them open,
fighting the smart with all the surging energy of his will. To close
them would make him helpless; yet the tears blinded him, too, and those
he could not help.
The guards raged into him, goaded to desperation, hitting hard.
Buffeted, blinded, swept off his feet, Kortha was hurled backward onto
the stones. For long minutes he was the core of a shifting, sobbing,
maddened group. A hand dug at his face, shoving it into sharp rocks.
Kortha arched his loins, thrusting hard, upwards, heaving men off. He
came to his feet, blind, striking out, shouting as he felt flesh pulp
beneath his fists.
Something slammed across his temple, bouncing off.
Kortha pitched face downward, hearing Ilse screaming.