"Twins have some ESP to each other. I knew Miellyn had gone to the
Toymaker. I tried to get Dallisa to find out where Miellyn had gone,
learn more about it. Dallisa wouldn't risk it, but Kyral saw me with
Dallisa and thought it was Miellyn. That put him on my tail, too, and I
had to leave Shainsa. I was afraid of Kyral," he added soberly. "Afraid
of what he'd do. I couldn't do anything without Rindy and I knew if I
told Juli what I was doing, she'd take Rindy away into the Terran Zone,
and I'd be as good as dead."
As he talked, I began to realize how vast a web Evarin and the
underground organization of Nebran had spread for us. "Evarin was here
today. What for?"
Rakhal laughed mirthlessly. "He's been trying to get us to kill each
other off. That would get rid of us both. He wants to turn over Wolf to
the nonhumans entirely, I think he's sincere enough, but"--he spread his
hands helplessly--"I can't sit by and see it."
I asked point-blank, "Are you working for Terra? Or for the Dry-towns?
Or any of the anti-Terran movements?"
"I'm working for _me_", he said with a shrug. "I don't think much of the
Terran Empire, but one planet can't fight a galaxy. Race, I want just
one thing. I want the Dry-towns and the rest of Wolf, to have a voice in
their own government. Any planet which makes a substantial contribution
to galactic science, by the laws of the Terran Empire, is automatically
given the status of an independent commonwealth.
"If a man from the Dry-towns discovers something like a matter
transmitter, Wolf gets dominion status. But Evarin and his gang want to
keep it secret, keep it away from Terra, keep it locked up in places
like Canarsa! Somebody has to get it away from them. And if I do it, I
get a nice fat bonus, and an official position."
I believed that, where I would have suspected too much protestation of
altruism. Rakhal tossed it aside.
"You've got Miellyn to take you through the transmitters. Go back to the
Mastershrine, and tell Evarin that Race Cargill is dead. In the Trade
City they think I'm Cargill, and I can get in and out as I choose--sorry
if it caused you trouble, but it was the safest thing I could think
of--and I'll 'vise Magnusson and have him send soldiers to guard the
street-shrines. Evarin might try to escape through one of them."
I shook my head. "Terra hasn't enough men on all Wolf to cover the
street-shrines in Charin alone. And I can't go back with Miellyn." I
explained. Rakhal pursed his lips and whistled when I described the
fight in the transmitter.
"You have all the luck, Cargill! I've never been near enough even to be
sure how they work--and I'll bet you didn't begin to understand! We'll
have to do it the hard way, then. It won't be the first time we've
bulled our way through a tight place! We'll face Evarin in his own
hideout! If Rindy's with us, we needn't worry."
I was willing to let him assume command, but I protested, "You'd take a
child into that--that--"
"What else can we do? Rindy can control the Toys, and neither you nor I
can do that, if Evarin should decide to throw his whole arsenal at us."
He called Rindy and spoke softly to her. She looked from her father to
me, and back again to her father, then smiled and stretched out her hand
to me.
Before we ventured into the street, Rakhal scowled at the sprawled
embroideries of Miellyn's robe. He said, "In those things you show up
like a snowfall in Shainsa. If you go out in them, you could be mobbed.
Hadn't you better get rid of them now?"
"I can't," she protested. "They're the keys to the transmitter!"
Rakhal looked at the conventionalized idols with curiosity, but said
only, "Cover them up in the street, then. Rindy, find her something to
put over her dress."
When we reached the street-shrine, Miellyn admonished: "Stand close
together on the stones. I'm not sure we can all make the jump at once,
but we'll have to try."
Rakhal picked up Rindy and hoisted her to his shoulder. Miellyn dropped
the cloak she had draped over the pattern of the Nebran embroideries,
and we crowded close together. The street swayed and vanished and I felt
the now-familiar dip and swirl of blackness before the world
straightened out again. Rindy was whimpering, dabbing smeary fists at
her face. "Daddy, my nose is bleeding...."
Miellyn hastily bent and wiped the blood from the snubby nose. Rakhal
gestured impatiently.
"The workroom. Wreck everything you see. Rindy, if anything starts to
come at us, you stop it. Stop it quick. And"--he bent and took the
little face between his hands--"_chiya_, remember they're not toys, no
matter how pretty they are."
Her grave gray eyes blinked, and she nodded.
Rakhal flung open the door of the elves' workshop with a shout. The
ringing of the anvils shattered into a thousand dissonances as I kicked
over a workbench and half-finished Toys crashed in confusion to the
floor.
The dwarfs scattered like rabbits before our assault of destruction. I
smashed tools, filigree, jewels, stamping everything with my heavy
boots. I shattered glass, caught up a hammer and smashed crystals. There
was a wild exhilaration to it.
A tiny doll, proportioned like a woman, dashed toward me, shrilling in a
supersonic shriek. I put my foot on her and ground the life out of her,
and she screamed like a living woman as she came apart. Her blue eyes
rolled from her head and lay on the floor watching me. I crushed the
blue jewels under my heel.
Rakhal swung a tiny hound by the tail. Its head shattered into debris of
almost-invisible gears and wheels. I caught up a chair and wrecked a
glass cabinet of parts with it, swinging furiously. A berserk madness of
smashing and breaking had laid hold on me.
I was drunk with crushing and shattering and ruining, when I heard
Miellyn scream a warning and turned to see Evarin standing in the
doorway. His green cat-eyes blazed with rage. Then he raised both hands
in a sudden, sardonic gesture, and with a loping, inhuman glide, raced
for the transmitter.
"Rindy," Rakhal panted, "can you block the transmitter?"
Instead Rindy shrieked. "We've got to get out! The roof is falling down!
The house is going to fall down on us! The roof, look at the roof!"
I looked up, transfixed by horror. I saw a wide rift open, saw the
skylight shatter and break, and daylight pouring through the cracking
walls, Rakhal snatched Rindy up, protecting her from the falling debris
with his head and shoulders. I grabbed Miellyn round the waist and we
ran for the rift in the buckling wall.
We shoved through just before the roof caved in and the walls collapsed,
and we found ourselves standing on a bare grassy hillside, looking down
in shock and horror as below us, section after section of what had been
apparently bare hill and rock caved in and collapsed into dusty rubble.