Sawyer was standing in the middle of the room, talking rapidly to the
chiefs of the Indianas and the Illinois. The Indiana chief was old and
fat and lazy, but the Chief of the Illinois was young, heavy-jowled and
hard-eyed, the type that is born suspicious and never gets over it.
Sawyer turned to look at Price. He was intent and wire-drawn, a man
poised on the brink of great happenings, at that crucial point from
which he may still choose whether to advance or retreat. Price bore
his gaze steadily, and it was not easy to do, because the eyes of this
tough old man seemed to be laying bare everything within him.
"But you can't take him _there_," said the Illinois Chief violently,
looking also at Price. "The biggest secret on Earth, and if he's a
spy--"
"If he's a spy," Sawyer interrupted harshly, "he'll never live to tell
what he sees there."
He spoke to Price. "We're going on a journey. You're going too. And you
two--" to Burr and Twist "--will guard him."
Burr and Twist nodded silently, and got their guns. The rifle and
revolver had been handed over to Sawyer for safe hiding, and these
guns were the clumsy, short-range bolt-action rifles of their own
handcrafting.
Price said, "This is a hell of a way to treat a man who comes to you as
a friend. I hate the Vurna as much as you do, for what they've done to
Earth, and--"
Sawyer stopped him, saying ominously, "Save your words, you'll need
them later. We've got a hard ride before morning. Let's go."
They all went out through a back door, except the old chief of the
Indianas who was not going. In the twilight outside, there were horses
ready.
Sawyer and Oakes of the Illinois led off, and Price followed with Burr
ahead of him and Twist behind him. One man rode ahead of the whole
party with a lantern made to shine down but not up. The flying-eyes
watched of night, too.
The six horses went all night at a steady pace, single file along a
narrow track that dipped and wound through the forest. Price felt sure,
from what he had overheard, that they were riding toward some great
secret council. He guessed that his fate would be decided there, and
probably the fate of the rest of mankind too.
There was nothing he could do about it till he got there. Meanwhile
he thought about a long-thighed girl in crimson, with her bright hair
swinging on her shoulders as she walked. He wished he could have had a
closer look at her face. It had seemed beautiful, a clear forehead and
a fine chin, but it was the eyes that told you what a person was, and
he had not been able to study them. Could she be as heartless as all
the Vurna were supposed to be?
He thought she must be. His hate of the conquering Star Lords was
rapidly growing. Before they had come, this dark, wild forest he was
riding through had been rich farmland and pleasant towns. And when they
had smashed all that, and built the Citadel to hold the ruined Earth,
they had tried to make men willing captives by telling them that story
of the Ei. It was the old Big Lie technique, but this lie had been too
big for anyone to believe.
The woman might not be cruel. Arrin might be only a decent officer in a
hard position. But all the same, they were aliens, despoilers of Earth,
and he was an Earthman. These were his people--Sawyer, Burr, Twist,
even the hateful and suspicious Oakes. These were the ones he would
fight for, and with.
If they let him.
But they had to let him. He was the man with the plane. And as he rode
wearily through the dark, he thought he knew the argument to use.
* * * * *
Just before dawn, when the world was at its blackest and most silent,
there was a challenge in the woods ahead, and the man with the lantern
answered. Here and there among the trees other shielded lanterns
flickered, widely scattered, and the woods were full of quiet sounds,
the creak of leather and jingle of bridle-chains, the soft thump of
hoofs, the somnolent blowing of picketed horses. What men there were
spoke in low voices.
Price's party dismounted and walked quietly among the picket lines. In
a few minutes they reached the edge of the sheltering woods. The man
with the lantern gave a low whistle, and another man materialized out
of the blank dark ahead.
"This way," he said. "And watch your foot."
Now the man with the lantern followed him, the others coming after
in Indian file. And Price began to see that the darkness was not as
blank as he had thought. There were pale areas that gathered the faint
starlight to themselves on flat, broken surfaces. He realized presently
that these were walls, or had been once, and that he was walking on the
shattered fragments of a city street. The feel of gritty concrete was
unmistakable.
They went for quite a long way, apparently on some known path through
the ruined city, and the sky began to pale before they reached
their destination. Price could now make out the ghostly looming of
building-fronts on both sides, high fronts with nothing behind them, so
that the window-holes looked like a kind of elaborate pierced-work. It
was deathly still, so still that their own breathing and the stealthy
padding of their feet woke furtive echoes from the stone.
Their guide stopped beside a small black hole no different from all the
other small black holes that lurked under fallen masonry and flattened
girders. "Down there," he said, and left them.
They climbed down a wide steel stairway, bent and twisted, but
mostly intact. A great wave of warmth from close-packed and steaming
humanity rolled up the stair to meet them, mingled with the smells of
candle-grease, smoke, leather, sweat and the lingering overtones of
horse.
Beyond the bottom of the stair there was a comparative blaze of light.
Price knew they were in the basement of what had been a public building
or department store, a space foreshortened by a mass of rubble and
hanging steel where part of it had caved in. It was crammed with men,
and their voices growled in that low enclosed space like the growling
of a great animal too long caged.
There was a small group of men sitting somewhat apart, and Sawyer
joined them, with Oakes. Chiefs, thought Price, and realized that this
was a very big council indeed, and planned for long ahead. Burr and
Twist stood close on either side of him, but he forgot them for the
moment, looking around in fascination at these his countrymen.
Forest-runners and hunters, like Burr and Twist, in greasy buckskins.
Men from the lower river, from the swamp and bayou country,
soft-spoken, hard-handed, dressed in coarse cotton dyed in bright
Indian colors, yellow and red and green. Gaunt hill-farmers in hickory
homespun, with their rifles between their hands. Boatmen down from
the northern lakes, with a faint smell of fish about them, and long
lean riders up from the southwest, leather-skinned and dangerous as
rattlesnakes. Men from the black cornlands of Iowa, following their
chief to talk of war. America, Price thought, basically unchanged,
basically recognizable, but with all the fat sweated off it and all the
luxuries stripped away, fined down to the ruggedness and strength of an
earlier day, when men like this made a nation out of a wilderness.
He had a feeling they could do it again, in spite of the overwhelming
power of the Star Lords. And if they couldn't, they would go down
fighting like wildcats to the last.
The Chiefs were talking among themselves. Twist knew some of them,
leaders of the Iowas, the Michigans, the Arkansas, the Mississippis.
Others they could guess at, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana. The
two Missouri hunters were as excited as hounds before a hunt. Twist
said there had never been a council this big in his memory. It would
go on until the issue was decided, the men staying under cover in the
ruins, the horses hidden in the surrounding woods.
* * * * *
Price realized suddenly that the assembled chiefs were all looking
at him with an intense and largely hostile interest. Sawyer's news
seemed to have upset them badly. The Chief of the Michigans, a huge
black-bearded man with an enormous voice, bellowed suddenly for
silence. In seconds the place was absolutely quiet, except for the
shuffle of men closing in to see and hear a little better.
"Sawyer of the Missouris has something to tell you," shouted Michigan.
"You listen hard. Because what he's got to say will make the difference
whether we fight or hold our peace."
An astounded and angry roar broke out. Michigan jumped up on a
makeshift stand and cursed them till they fell quiet.
"Do your howling afterward," he said. "This isn't just a whim on
Sawyer's part. Something's happened. Shut up and listen."
Now they were alarmed and uneasy. They watched Sawyer climb the stand,
their faces dark-bronze in the smoky light, their eyes glistening.
Sawyer said, "Twist--come up here."
Twist pushed his way to the stand and got on it. Burr moved closer to
Price, his hand curled lightly around the haft of the knife in his belt.
Sawyer said, "Tell them."
Perfectly at ease, aware of his importance but not impressed by it,
Twist told the story of the landing of Price's plane in the Forbidden
Belt, and what had been done with both of them afterward. He told only
the simple facts, scrupulously avoiding any attempt to incite his
listeners for or against Price.
The simple facts were enough. They heard them, the men of the Great
Lakes and the southern bayous, the plains riders and the hillmen and
hunters and farmers, and their reactions were various and wonderful
after the first shock of incredulous amazement. Twist had to stop to
let the tumult die down, and when he could make himself heard again he
said,
"Yes, it was just what I said, a plane, and I flew in it. Not one of
those whistling fliers, but a plane--so." He made a graphic pantomime
with his hands and a remarkably accurate motor sound. "Now I guess
that's all," he said, and stepped back.
Sawyer said, his words carrying clearly to the farthest man, "The Vurna
have turned our lands upside down to find the plane. They haven't
found it. Last night Arrin--" A furious snarl greeted that name, so
apparently it was well known, "--Arrin gave me three days to surrender
the plane and the man who flew it. I've brought him here, instead."
He held up his hands, to quell the rising voices. "Listen! I'm not
finished yet. Arrin had some other things to say. He said, _if you
are planning an attack on the Citadel, forget it. He said, We will
slaughter you without mercy._"
"Now," said Sawyer, "here is what we have to decide. Two things. Is
this man Price a friend offering us a weapon, or a spy of the Vurna
offering us death? And shall we fight, or let it go until another year?
They're big questions, the biggest you'll ever have to answer in your
lives. Don't come at them like hasty boys, all feeling and no sense.
Come at them man-like, slow and careful."
Michigan rumbled, "Those are good words. Heed them. And now let's have
the man up here."
Burr gave Price a shove. "That's you."
Price shouldered forward through the pack and climbed the stand. As he
did so Twist whispered in his ear, "You'd better make this good, boy.
You won't get another chance."
His voice sounded friendly. Price was glad of it.
He stood on the platform and faced the chiefs and the representatives
of the people.
Michigan said, "You tell your side of it. And speak up so everyone can
hear."
Price spoke up, loud. But he said, "What's the good of that? I've told
my side of it a dozen times already, and nobody believes me." He glared
around the close-packed circle of men. "If I'd known you'd treat me
like this, I'd have smashed the plane and left it for the coyotes."
"Just the same," said Michigan, "tell it again."
* * * * *
Price told it. "I didn't know you were up to anything in particular: it
just seemed obvious that a plane might be useful to you sometime, now
or later, and it wasn't doing any good where it was." He had coached
himself so carefully in the story that it was beginning to seem like
truth to him, gathering little embellishments and embroideries. "I
brought guns, too, better than anything you have. And does anybody say,
Thank you? The hell they do. They accuse me of being a spy for the
Vurna."
A low animal grunt from the listeners. Their faces were as hard as
flint.
Price shouted, "Would the Vurna be so anxious to get me back if they'd
just sent me out as a spy? You heard Sawyer."
The Chief of the Louisianas said, "It would be a very smart trick for
them to say so, for just that reason."
"And how is it," cried the Chief of the Arkansas, "that right away
the minute you turn up, Arrin says that about attacking the Citadel?
Doesn't that show they know something, and want to know more?"
"I should think that was obvious," said Price. "There hasn't been a
plane in the air for two generations. All of a sudden there is one.
Wouldn't the Vurna want to know where you got it, and whether you're
building more like it? And do you suppose they'd figure that with a
weapon like that you _wouldn't_ be planning an attack of some kind on
them?"
That was good sense, and they thought it over, muttering among
themselves. Price began to feel he was getting somewhere, and
marshalled his words for the final argument. Then the Chief of the
Oklahomas spoke up and said,
"My word would be to kill this man and hand his body, and the plane,
to Arrin. That way we comply, but not to his advantage. Arrin knows no
more than when he started, but we look innocent. We look as though we
have no use for a plane. And when their backs are turned, we go ahead
as we planned all along."
And that sounded better yet, even to Price. Especially since he knew
better than any of them the relative usefulness of one Beechcraft as a
weapon against the kind of forces the Star Lords had.
But he knew if they began to think of that he was finished. So he said,
"Listen, you need that plane. It can reconnoiter, it can carry bombs--"
"Shut up," said someone fiercely. "Shut up, all of you. I hear
something."
They quieted, and listened. Price could not hear anything but the tense
mass breathing of the men. Then on the far side of the room first one
man and then several began to dig like dogs after a rabbit into the
heaped-up rubble.
"Here it is! Here it is--look!"
"What is it? Let's see."
"Ain't nothing but a little bitty box--"
"No! It's one of _their_ contraptions! Let me through!"
A man in a linen shirt of green and yellow came bursting through the
crowd, carrying something high over his head in one hand. He put it
down on the stand, where it lay buzzing gently.
"Is that Vurna, or ain't it?"
Everyone drew back and away from it, as though fearing it might
explode. It was a little metal box no bigger than a cigarette case, but
Price knew what it was. He stepped forward and smashed it underfoot.
"You'd better clear out of here," he said. "Fast. That was a radio
transmitter, broadcasting a steady guide signal to bring the Vurna
right here."
There was one stunned moment of absolute silence, and then the place
erupted into sound and movement. In the midst of it, in the heart of
it, the Chief of the Michigans and the man in the linen shirt were
possessed of the same idea. Crying "Spy!", they flung themselves at
Price with their knives drawn.
* * * * *
Remembering a trick or two the Army had taught him, Price stepped
inside the chief's rush, caught his wrist, and flung him into the
other, who had been slowed by the necessity of climbing onto the stand.
And Price yelled at them furiously,
"Are you crazy? I wasn't near that side of the room. _I_ didn't bring
it and plant it here."
Twist stepped between him and the two men, drawing his own knife. "He
wasn't, and that's a fact. Besides--"
"Get out of my way!" roared Michigan.
Unexpectedly, Burr leaped up and pulled him back. "I was close to him
as his own skin, every minute," he said. "He didn't move, and he didn't
have that thing on him to drop if he'd wanted to."
"We searched him," said Twist, "days ago. Personal."
"Then you're traitors too," said Michigan, clinging to his single idea.
He started to charge again, and now there were others swarming up onto
the stand after him, screaming for Price's blood.
Sawyer moved like a big cat. Michigan stopped in mid-stride, with the
point of Sawyer's knife touching his heart-ribs.
"These are my men," said Sawyer mildly. "I don't like having their
loyalty called in question any more than they do."
Price leaned over and grabbed a rifle out of somebody's hands. He
clubbed it and began to swing, scattering men like ten-pins off the
edge of the stand.
"Get out of here, you fools!" he howled at them. "Can't you get it
through your thick skulls? The Vurna are coming. Get out!"
Numbers of them were already streaming up the stairs. Now more and
more took up the cry, seeming to understand suddenly that someone's
treachery had made this place a trap. Sawyer said to the Chief of the
Michigans,
"Go on, take that hot head back to the lake and cool it. Hurry up,
before they get you."
Michigan snorted like an angry bull, but he turned and jumped down
into the crowd. The man with the linen shirt was gone. Price was about
to follow when he saw the muzzle of a rifle, upflung, glinting darkly
in the lamplight. He shouted to Burr and Twist to look out, and then
flung himself upon Sawyer. The shot was stunning in that closed space.
He heard the slug go whistling overhead and then ricochet from the
low concrete roof. Someone on the far side of the room cried out in
rage and pain. "I thank you," said Sawyer, "and now let's get off this
damned target."
They got off, the four of them sticking close together. Price did
not see Oakes, nor the man who had carried their lantern. Most of
the lights were going out, knocked over and trampled. The dark surge
of running men carried them to the stair and up and out into full,
blinding day.
Somebody pointed to the sky and yelled, "There they come--the Vurna!"