For some time there was only the rushing and jolting of the truck, the
roar of motors and a kind of dim uneasy background of sound as though
the whole city stirred and seethed. Durham was frightened. The food he
had eaten had turned against him, he was stifling in his own sweat, and
he thought of Morrison cruising comfortably somewhere out in space,
smoking cigarettes and drinking good whiskey and sending down a message
now and then, the way a man pokes with a stick at a brace of beetles,
stirring them casually toward death. He ground his jaws together in an
agony of hate and fear, and the taste of them was sour in his mouth.
Somebody said to them, "We're on the spaceport highway now. It won't be
long."
A minute later somebody shouted and Karlovic caught the Senyan word and
echoed it. "Barricade!" The truck rocked and whirled about and there
were great crashes in the night that had fallen. Durham was thrown to
his knees. The truck raced at full speed. There were sounds of fighting
that now rose and now grew faint, and the truck lurched and swerved,
and then there were more roars and crashes and it came violently to
a halt. The Senyans began firing out of the loopholes in the armored
sides. Some of them leaped out of the truck, beckoning Durham and
Karlovic to come after them. A large force of rioters was attacking
what remained of the convoy, which had been forced back into the city.
Four of the Senyan soldiers ran with the two men into a side street,
but a small body of rioters caught up with them. The soldiers turned to
fight, and Karlovic said in a voice that was now curiously calm,
"If we're quick enough they may lose sight of us in the darkness."
He turned into an areaway between two buildings, and then into another,
and Durham ran beside him through the cold green mist and the dim glow
of lamps that glimmered on the alien walls. The sound of the fighting
died away. They turned more corners, hunting always for the darkest
shadows, hoping to meet a patrol. But the streets were deserted and all
the doors barred tight. Finally Durham stopped.
"How much oxygen you got left?"
Karlovic peered at the illuminated indicator on the wrist of his suit.
"Hour. Maybe less."
Both men were breathing hard, panting, burning up the precious stuff of
life. Durham said,
"I won't last that long. Listen, Karlovic. Where is the Bitter Star?"
Karlovic's face was a pale blur inside his helmet. "You crazy? You
can't--"
Durham put his two hands on the shoulders of Karlovic's suit and leaned
his helmet close so that it clicked on Karlovic's.
"Maybe I'm crazy. In thirty, forty minutes I'll be dead, so what will
it matter then? Listen, Karlovic, I want to live." He pointed back the
way they had come. "You think we can walk through that to the spaceport
in time?"
"No."
"We got anyplace else to go?"
"No."
"All right then. Let's give 'em hell."
"But they're not all our enemies. Jubb, my friends--"
"Friend or enemy, they'll clear the way. We might just make it,
Karlovic. You said the darkbirds control it, and you can talk to them."
He shook Karlovic viciously. "Where is it? Don't you understand? If we
use it we can hound Morrison out of space!"
Karlovic turned and began to walk fast, sobbing as he went. "The
darkbirds will never let us. You don't know what you're doing."
"I know one thing. I'm sick of being pushed, pushed, pushed, into
corners, into holes, where I can't breathe. I'm going to--" He shut his
teeth tight together and walked fast beside Karlovic, starting at every
sound and shadow.
By twining alleys and streets where nothing moved for fear of the
violence that was abroad that night, Karlovic led Durham to an open
space like a park with vast locked gates that could keep a Senyan out
but not a little agile human who could climb like a monkey with the
fear of death upon him. Beyond the gates great wrinkled lichens as tall
as trees grew in orderly rows, and a walk led inward. The lichens bent
and rustled in the wind, and Durham's suit was wet with a poisonous dew.
The walk ended in a portico, and the portico was part of a building,
round and squat as though a portion of its mass was underground. They
passed through a narrow door into a place of utter silence, and a
darkbird hung there, barring their way.
"Jubb," said Durham. "Tell it Jubb has sent us. Tell it the Bitter Star
must be freed again to destroy Jubb's enemies."
Karlovic spoke to the shadow. Others came to join it. There was a
flurry of hooting and chittering, and then the one Karlovic had been
speaking to disappeared in the uncanny fashion of its kind. The others
stayed, a barrier between the two men and a ramp that led steeply down.
Karlovic sat down wearily on the chill stone. "It isn't any use," he
said. "I knew it wouldn't be. The darkbird has gone to ask Jubb if what
we say is true."
Durham sat down, too. He did not even bother to look at the indicator
on his wrist. No use. The end. Finish. He shut his eyes.
There was a stir and a hooting in the air. Karlovic gasped. Then he
began to shake Durham, laughing like a woman who has heard a risque
story. "Didn't you hear? The bird came back, and Jubb said--Jubb said
Morrison has been preaching the war of the Bitter Star, so let him have
it."
He grasped Durham's suit by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet,
and they ran with the cloud of shadows, down into the dimness below.