"It'll get colder," said Donovan tonelessly. "This is an old planet of
an old red dwarf sun. Its rotation has slowed. The nights are long."
"How do you know?" Lieutenant Elijah Cohen glared at him out of a
crudely bandaged face. The firelight made his eyes gleam red. "How do
you know unless you're in with them? Unless you arranged this yourself?"
Wocha reached forth a massive fist. "You shut up," he rumbled.
"Never mind," said Donovan. "I just thought some things would be
obvious. You saw the star, so you should know it's the type of
a burned-out dwarf. Since planets are formed at an early stage
of a star's evolution, this world must be old too. Look at these
rocks--citrified, back when the stellar energy output got really high
just before the final collapse; and nevertheless eroded down to bare
snags. That takes millions of years."
He reflected that his reasoning, while sound enough, was based on
foreknown conclusions. _Cohen's right. I have betrayed them. It was
Valduma, watching over me, who brought Wocha and myself unhurt through
the crash. I saw, Valduma, I saw you with your hair flying in the
chaos, riding witch-like through sundering ruin, and you were laughing.
Laughing!_ He felt ill.
"Nevertheless, the planet has a thin but breathable atmosphere, frozen
water, and vegetable life," said Takahashi. "Such things don't survive
the final hot stage of a sun without artificial help. This planet has
natives. Since we were deliberately crashed here, I daresay the natives
are our earlier friends." He turned dark accusing eyes on the Ansan.
"How about it, Donovan?"
"I suppose you're right," he answered. "I knew there was a planet in
the Nebula, the natives had told me that in my previous trip. This star
lies near the center, in a 'hollow' region where there isn't enough
dust to force the planet into its primary, and shares a common velocity
with the Nebula. It stays here, in other words."
"You told me--" Helena Jansky bit her lip, then slowly forced the
words out: "You told me, and I believed you, that there was nothing
immediately to fear when the Nebulites took over our controls. So we
didn't fight them; we didn't try to overcome their forces with our own
engines. And it cost us the ship and over half her crew."
"I told you what happened to me last time," he lied steadfastly. "I
can't help it if things were different this trip."
She turned her back. The wind blew a thin hissing veil of dry snow
across her ankles. A wounded man suddenly screamed out there in the
dark.
_How does it feel, Donovan? You made her trust you and then betrayed
her for a thing that isn't even human. How does it feel to be a Judas?_
* * * * *
"Never mind recriminations," said Takahashi. "This isn't the time to
hold trials. We've got to decide what to do."
"They have a city on this planet," said Donovan. "Drogobych, they call
it, and the planet's name is Arzun. It lies somewhere near the equator,
they told me once. If they meant us to make our own way to it--and it
would be like them--then it may well lie due south. We can march that
way, assuming that the sun set in the west."
"Nothing to lose," shrugged the Terran. "But we haven't many weapons,
a few assorted sidearms is all, and they aren't much use against these
creatures anyway."
Something howled out in the darkness. The ground quivered, ever so
faintly, to the pounding of heavy feet.
"Wild animals yet!" Cohen grinned humorlessly. "Better sound battle
stations, Captain."
"Yes, yes, I suppose so." She blew her whistle, a thin shrilling in the
windy dark. As she turned around, Donovan saw a gleam running along her
cheek. Tears?
The noise came closer. They heard the rattle of claws on stone. The
Terrans moved together, guns in front, clubs and rocks and bare hands
behind. They have guts, thought Donovan. God, but they have guts!
"Food would be scarce on a barren planet like this," said Ensign
Chundra Dass. "We seem to be elected."
The hollow roar sounded, echoing between the hills and caught up by the
thin harrying wind. "Hold fire," said Helena. Her voice was clear and
steady. "Don't waste charges. Wait--"
The thing leaped out of darkness, a ten-meter length of gaunt scaled
body and steel-hard claws and whipping tail, soaring through the
snow-streaked air and caught in the vague uneasy firelight. Helena's
blaster crashed, a lightning bolt sizzled against the armored head.
The monster screamed. Its body tumbled shatteringly among the humans,
it seized a man in its jaws and shook him and trampled another
underfoot. Takahashi stepped forward and shot again at its dripping
wound. The blaster bolt zigzagged wildly off the muzzle of his gun.
_Even the animals can do it--!_
"I'll get him, boss!" Wocha reared on his hind legs, came down again
with a thud, and charged. Stones flew from beneath his feet. The
monster's tail swept out, a man tumbled before it with his ribs
caved in, and Wocha staggered as he caught the blow. Still he rushed
in, clutching the barbed end of the tail to his breast. The monster
writhed, bellowing. Another blaster bolt hit it from the rear. It
turned, and a shot at its eyes veered away.
Wocha hit it with all the furious momentum he had. He rammed its
spearlike tail down the open jaws and blood spurted. "Ho, Donovan!" he
shouted. As the thing screamed and snapped at him, he caught its jaws
in his hands.
"Wocha!" yelled Donovan. "Wocha!" He ran wildly toward the fight.
The Donarrian's great back arched with strain. It was as if they could
hear his muscles crack. Slowly, slowly, he forced the jaws wider. The
monster lashed its body, pulling him to his knees, dragging him over
the ground, and still he fought.
"Damn you," he roared in the whirling dust and snow, "hold still!"
The jaws broke. And the monster screamed once more, and then it wasn't
there. Wocha tumbled over.
Donovan fell across him, sobbing, laughing, cursing. Wocha picked him
up. "You all right, boss?" he asked. "You well?"
"Yes--yes--oh, you blind bloody fool! You stupid, blundering ass!"
Donovan hugged him.
"Gone," said Helena. "It vanished."
They picked up their dead and wounded and returned to the fires. The
cold bit deep. Something else hooted out in the night.
It was a long time before Takahashi spoke. "You might expect it,"
he said. "These parapsychical powers don't come from nowhere. The
intelligent race, our enemies of Drogobych, simply have them highly
developed; the animals do to a lesser extent. I think it's a matter
of life being linked to the primary atomic probabilities, the psi
functions which give the continuous-field distribution of matter-energy
in space-time. In a word, control of external matter and energy by
conscious will acting through the unified field which is space-time.
Telekinesis."
"Uh-huh," said Dass wearily. "Even some humans have a slight para
power. Control dice or electron beams or what have you. But why aren't
the--what did you call them?--Arzunians overrunning the Galaxy?"
"They can only operate over a certain range, which happens to be about
the distance to the fringe stars," said Donovan. "Beyond that distance,
dispersion limits them, plus the fact that differences of potential
energy must be made up from their own metabolism. The animals, of
course, have very limited range, a few kilometers perhaps. The
Arzunians use telekinesis to control matter and energy, and the same
subspatial principles as our ships to go faster than light. Only since
they aren't lugging around a lot of hull and passengers and assorted
machinery--just themselves and a little air and maybe an armful of
sacrificial goods from a fringe planet. They don't need atomic engines.
"They aren't interested in conquering the Galaxy. Why should they be?
They can get all their needs and luxuries from the peoples to whom they
are gods. An old race, very old, decadent if you will. But they don't
like interference."
Takahashi looked at him sharply. "I glimpsed one of them on the ship,"
he said. "He carried a spear."
"Yeah. Another reason why they aren't conquerors. They have no sense
for mechanics at all. Never had any reason to evolve one when they
could manipulate matter directly without more than the simplest tools.
They're probably more intelligent than humans in an all-around way, but
they don't have the type of brain and the concentration needed to learn
physics and chemistry. Aren't interested, either."
"So, swords against guns--We may have a chance!"
"They can turn your missiles, remember. Guns are little use, you
have to distract them so they don't notice your shot till too late.
But they can't control you. They aren't telepaths and their type of
matter-control is heterodyned by living nerve currents. You could kill
one of them with a sword where a gun would most likely kill you."
"I--see--" Helena looked strangely at him. "You're becoming very vocal
all of a sudden."
Donovan rubbed his eyes and shivered in the cold. "What of it? You
wanted the truth. You're getting it."
_Why am I telling them? Why am I not just leading them to the slaughter
as Valduma wanted? Is it that I can't stand the thought of Helena being
hunted like a beast?_
_Whose side am I on?_ he thought wildly.
Takahashi gestured and his voice came eager. "That's it. That's it!
The ship scattered assorted metal and plastic over twenty hectares as
she fell. Safe for us to gather up tomorrow. We can use our blaster
flames to shape weapons. Swords, axes, spears. By the Galaxy, we'll arm
ourselves and then we'll march on Drogobych!"
V
It was a strange little army, thought Donovan, as strange as any the
Galaxy had ever seen.
He looked back. The old ruined highway went down a narrow valley
between sheer cliffs of eroded black stone reaching up toward the
deep purplish heaven. The sun was wheeling westerly, a dull red ember
throwing light like clotted blood on the dreariness of rock and ice and
gaunt gray trees; a few snowflakes, borne on a thin chill wind, drifted
across the path of march. A lonely bird, cruel-beaked and watchful,
hovered on great black wings far overhead, waiting for them to die.
The men of the Imperial Solar Navy walked close together. They were
haggard and dirty and bearded, clad in such ragged articles as they
had been able to salvage, armed with the crudely forged weapons of a
vanished age, carrying their sick and wounded on rude litters. Ghost
world, ghost army, marching through an echoing windy solitude to its
unknown weird--but men's faces were still brave, and one of them was
singing. The sunburst banner of the Empire flapped above them, the one
splash of color in the great murky landscape.
Luck had been with them, of a sort. Game animals had appeared in
more abundance than one would have thought the region could support,
deer-like things which they shot for meat to supplement their iron
rations. They had stumbled on the old highway and followed its
arrow-straight course southward. Many days and many tumbled hollow
ruins of great cities lay behind them, and still they trudged on.
_Luck?_ wondered Donovan. _I think it was intentional. I think the
Arzunians want us to reach Drogobych._
He heard the scrape of boots on the slanting hillside behind him,
and turned around to face Helena. He stopped and smiled. There had
been a slow unspoken intimacy growing between them as they worked
and struggled together. Not many words, but the eyes of each would
often stray to the other, and a hand would brush over a hand as if by
accident. Tired and hungry and road-stained, cap set askew on tangled
hair, skin reddened by wind and blued with cold, she was still good to
look on.
"Why are you walking so far from the road?" she asked.
"Oh serving as outrider, maybe," he said, resuming his stride. She fell
into step beside him. "Up here you get a wider view."
"Do you think we have much further to go, Basil?"
He shrugged.
"We'd never have come this far without you," she said, looking down at
her scuffed boots. "You and Wocha and Takahashi."
"Maybe the Empire will send a rescue mission when we don't come back,"
he suggested.
"No doubt they will. But they can't find one little star in this
immensity. Even thermocouples won't help, the Nebula diffuses radiation
too much. And they'd be blundering into the same trap as we." Helena
looked up. "No, Basil, we've got to fight our way clear alone."
There was a long stretch of thicket growing on the hillside. Donovan
went along the right of it, cutting off view of the army. "You know,"
he said, "you and those boys down there make me feel a lot kinder
toward the Empire."
"Thank you. Thank you. We--" She took his arm. "It's a question of
unifying the human race, ultimately this whole region of stars,
and--_Oh!_"
The beasts were suddenly there in front of them, lean black things
which snarled with mouths of hunger. One of them circled toward the
humans' flank, the other crouched. Donovan yanked his sword clear.
"Get behind me," he snapped, turning to face the approaching hunter.
"No--back to back--" Helena's own blade rasped from its sheath. She
lifted a shout for help.
The nearest animal sprang for her throat. She hacked wildly, the blade
twisted in her hand and scraped the muzzled face. Jaws clamped on the
edged steel and let go with a bloody howl. Donovan swung at the other
beast, the blow shuddered home and it screamed and writhed and snapped
at his ankles.
Whirling, he turned on the thing which had launched itself at Helena.
He hewed, and the animal wasn't there, his blade rang on naked stone. A
weight crashed against his back, he went down and the teeth clamped on
his shoulder.
Helena swung. The carnivore raised its head to snarl at her, and she
gripped the sword in both hands and stabbed. It threshed wildly, dying,
spewing blood over the hillside. The other wounded creature disappeared.
Helena bent over Donovan, held him close, her eyes wild. "Are you hurt?
Basil. Oh Basil, are you hurt?"
"No," he muttered. "The teeth didn't have time to work through this
heavy jacket." He pulled her head down against his.
"Basil, Basil!"
He rose, still holding her to him. Her arms locked about his neck, and
there were tears and laughter in her voice. "Oh, Basil, my darling."
"Helena," he murmured. "I love you, Helena."
"When we get home--I'm due for furlough, I'll retire instead--your
house on Ansa--Oh, Basil, I never thought I could be so glad!"
The massive thunder of feet brought them apart. Wocha burst around
the thicket, swinging his giant ax in both hands. "Are you all right,
boss?" he roared.
"Yes, yes, we're all right. A couple of those damned wolf-like things
which've been plaguing us the whole march. Go on back, Wocha, we'll
join you soon."
The Donarrian's ape-face split in a vast grin. "So you take a female,
boss?" he cried. "Good, good, we need lots of little Donovans at home!"
"Get on back, you old busybody, and keep that gossiping mouth shut!"
Hours later, Helena returned to the army where it was making camp.
Donovan stayed where he was, looking down at the men where they moved
about gathering wood and digging fire-pits. The blazes were a note of
cheer in the thickening murk.
_Helena_, he thought. _Helena. She's a fine girl, wonderful girl,
she's what the thinning Family blood and I, myself, need. But why did
I do it? Why did I talk that way to her? Just then, in the strain and
fear and loneliness, it seemed as if I cared. But I don't. She's just
another woman. She's not Valduma._
* * * * *
The Twilight murmured, and he saw the dim sheen of metal beside him.
The men of Drogobych were gathering.
They stood tall and godlike in helmet and ring-mail and night-black
cloaks, leaning on swords and spears, death-white faces cold with an
ancient scorn as they looked down on the human camp. Their eyes were
phosphorescent green in the dark.
Donovan nodded, without fear or surprise or anything but a sudden great
weariness. He remembered some of them from the days when he had been
alone in the bows of the ship with the invaders while his men cowered
and rioted and went crazy in the stern sectors. "Hello, Morzach, Uboda,
Zegoian, Korstuzan, Davleka," he said. "Welcome back again."
Valduma walked out of the blood-hued twilight, and he took her in his
arms and held her for a long fierce time. Her kiss was as cruel as a
swooping hawk. She bit his lips and he tasted blood warm and salt where
she had been. Afterward she turned in the circle of his arm and they
faced the silent men of Drogobych.
"You are getting near the city," said Morzach. His tones were deep,
with the chill ringing of struck steel in them. "It is time for the
next stage."
"I thought you saved some of us deliberately," said Donovan.
"_Us?_" Valduma's lips caressed his cheek. "Them, Basil, them. You
don't belong there, you are with Arzun and me."
"You must have projected that game where we could spot it," went on
Donovan, shakily. "You've kept us--them--alive and enabled us to
march on your city--on the last inhabited city left to your race. You
could have hunted them down as you did all the others, made sport of
them with wild animals and falling rocks and missiles shooting out of
nowhere, but instead you want them for something else. What is it?"
"You should have guessed," said Morzach. "We want to leave Arzun."
"Leave it? You can do so any time, by yourselves. You've done it for
millennia."
"We can only go to the barbarian fringe stars. Beyond them it is a
greater distance to the next suns than we can cross unaided. Yet though
we have captured many spaceships and have them intact at Drogobych, we
cannot operate them. The principles learned from the humans don't make
sense! When we have tried to pilot them, it has only brought disaster."
"But why do you want to leave?"
"It is a recent decision, precipitated by your arrival, but it has been
considered for a long while. This sun is old, this planet exhausted,
and the lives of we few remnants of a great race flicker in a hideous
circumscribed drabness. Sooner or later, the humans will fight their
way here in strength too great for us. Before then we must be gone."
"So--" Donovan spoke softly, and the wind whimpered under his voice.
"So your plan is to capture this group of spacemen and make them your
slaves, to carry you--where?"
"Out. Away." Valduma's clear lovely laughter rang in the night. "To
seize another planet and build our strength afresh." She gripped his
waist and he saw the white gleam of her teeth out of shadow. "To build
a great army of obedient spacegoing warriors--and then out to hunt
between the stars!"
"Hunt--"
"Look here." Morzach edged closer, his eyes a green glow, the vague
sheen of naked steel in his hand. "I've been polite long enough. You
have your chance, to rise above the human scum that spawned you and be
one of us. Help us now and you can be with us till you die. Otherwise,
we'll take that crew anyway, and you'll be hounded across the face of
this planet."
"_Aye--aye--welcome back, Basil Donovan, welcome back to the old
king-race.... Come with us, come with us, lead the humans into our
ambush and be the lord of stars...._"
They circled about him, tall and mailed and beautiful in the
shadow-light, luring whispering voices, ripple of dark laughter, the
hunters playing with their quarry and taming it. Donovan remembered
them, remembered the days when he had talked and smiled and drunk and
sung with them, the Lucifer-like intoxication of their dancing darting
minds, a wildness of magic and mystery and reckless wizard sport, a
glory which had taken something from his soul and left an emptiness
within him. Morzach, Marovech, Uboda, Zegoian, for a time he had been
the consort of the gods.
"Basil." Valduma laid sharp-nailed fingers in his hair and pulled his
lips to hers. "Basil, I want you back."
He held her close, feeling the lithe savage strength of her, recalling
the flame-like beauty and the nights of love such as no human could
ever give. His whisper was thick: "You got bored last time and sent me
back. How long will I last now?"
"As long as you wish, Basil. Forever and forever." He knew she lied,
and he didn't care.
"This is what you must do, Donovan," said Morzach.
He listened with half his mind. It was a question of guiding the army
into a narrow cul-de-sac where the Arzunians could perform the delicate
short-range work of causing chains to bind around them. For the rest,
he was thinking.
_They hunt. They intrigue, and they whittle down their last few
remnants with fighting among themselves, and they prey on the fringe
stars, and they capture living humans to hunt down for sport. They
haven't done anything new for ten thousand years, creativeness has
withered from them, and all they will do if they escape the Nebula is
carry ruin between the stars. They're mad._
_Yes--a whole society of psychopaths, gone crazy with the long racial
dying. That's the real reason they can't handle machines, that's why
they don't think of friendship but only of war, that's why they carry
doom within them._
_But I love you, I love you, I love you, O Valduma the fair._
He drew her to him, kissed her with a terrible intensity, and she
laughed in the dark. Looking up, he faced the blaze that was Morzach.
"All right," he said. "I understand. Tomorrow."
"Aye--good, good, well done!"
"Oh, Basil, Basil!" whispered Valduma. "Come, come away with me, now."
"No. They'd suspect. I have to go down to them or they'll come looking
for me."
"Good night, Basil, my darling, my vorza. Until tomorrow!"
He went slowly down the hillside, drawing his shoulders together
against the cold, not looking back. Helena rose when he approached her
campfire, and the flimmering light made her seem pale and unreal.
"Where have you been, Basil? You look so tired."
"Just walking around. I'm all right." He spread his couch of stiff and
stinking animal hides. "We'd better turn in, eh?"
But he slept little.