"Taboo?" Menlik repeated. "In what manner are these forbidden? Do you
not carry them openly, use them as you wish? Are they not weapons of
your own people?"
Travis shook his head. "These are the weapons of dead men--if we can
name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who
held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing
the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone spears. They are
from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ourselves with their
use."
There was a strange light deep in the shaman's eyes. Travis did not know
who or what Menlik had been before the Red conditioner had returned him
to the role of Horde shaman. He might have been a technician or
scientist--and deep within him some remnants of that training could now
be dismissing everything Travis said as fantastic superstition.
Yet in another way the Apache spoke the exact truth. There was a curse
on these weapons, on every bit of knowledge gathered in that warehouse
of the towers. As Menlik had already noted, that curse was power, the
power to control Topaz, and then perhaps to reach back across the stars
to Terra.
When the shaman spoke again his words were a half whisper. "It will take
a powerful curse to keep these out of the hands of men."
"With the Reds gone or powerless," Buck asked, "what need will anyone
have for them?"
"And if another ship comes from the skies--to begin all over again?"
"To that we shall have an answer, also, if and when we must find it,"
Travis replied. That could well be true ... other weapons in the
warehouse powerful enough to pluck a spaceship out of the sky, but they
did not have to worry about that now.
"Arms from a tomb. Yes, this is truly dead men's magic. I shall say so
to my people. When do we move out?"
"When we know whether or not the trap to the south is sprung," Buck
answered.
The report came an hour after sunrise the next morning when Tsoay,
Nolan, and Deklay padded into camp. The war chief made a slight gesture
with one hand.
"It is done?" Travis wanted confirmation in words.
"It is done. The Pinda-lick-o-yi entered the ship eagerly. Then they
blew it and themselves up. Manulito did his work well."
"And Kaydessa?"
"The woman is safe. When the Reds saw the ship, they left their machine
outside to hold her captive. That mechanical caller was easily
destroyed. She is now free and with the _mba'a_ she comes across the
mountains, Manulito and Eskelta with her also. Now--" he looked from his
own people to the Mongols, "why are you here with these?"
"We wait, but the waiting is over," Jil-Lee said. "Now we go north!"
18
They lay along the rim of a vast basin, a scooping out of earth so wide
they could not sight its other side. The bed of an ancient lake, Travis
speculated, or perhaps even the arm of a long-dried sea. But now the
hollow was filled with rolling waves of golden grass, tossing heavy
heads under the flowing touch of a breeze with the exception of a space
about a mile ahead where round domes--black, gray, brown--broke the
yellow in an irregular oval around the globular silver bead of a spacer:
a larger ship than that which had brought the Apaches, but of the same
shape.
"The horse herd ... to the west." Nolan evaluated the scene with the
eyes of an experienced raider. "Tsoay, Deklay, you take the horses!"
They nodded, and began the long crawl which would take them two miles or
more from the party to stampede the horses.
To the Mongols in those domelike yurts horses were wealth, life itself.
They would come running to investigate any disturbance among the grazing
ponies, thus clearing the path to the ship and the Reds there. Travis,
Jil-Lee, and Buck, armed with the star guns, would spearhead that
attack--cutting into the substance of the ship itself until it was a
sieve through which they could shake out the enemy. Only when the
installations it contained were destroyed, might the Apaches hope for
any assistance from the Mongols, either the outlaw pack waiting well
back on the prairie or the people in the yurts.
The grass rippled and Naginlta poked out a nose, parting stems before
Travis. The Apache beamed an order, sending the coyotes with the
horse-raiding party. He had seen how the animals could drive hunted
split-horns; they would do as well with the ponies.
Kaydessa was safe, the coyotes had made that clear by the fact that they
had joined the attacking party an hour earlier. With Eskelta and
Manulito she was on her way back to the north.
Travis supposed he should be well pleased that their reckless plan had
succeeded as well as it had. But when he thought of the Tatar girl, all
he could see was her convulsed face close to his in the ship corridor,
her raking nails raised to tear his cheek. She had an excellent reason
to hate him, yet he hoped....
They continued to watch both horse herd and domes. There were people
moving about the yurts, but no signs of life at the ship. Had the Reds
shut themselves in there, warned in some way of the two disasters which
had whittled down their forces?
"Ah--!" Nolan breathed.
One of the ponies had raised its head and was facing the direction of
the camp, suspicion plain to read in its stance. The Apaches must have
reached the point between the herd and the domes which had been their
goal. And the Mongol guard, who had been sitting cross-legged, the
reins of his mount dangling close to his hand, got to his feet.
"Ahhhuuuuu!" The ancient Apache war cry that had sounded across deserts,
canyons, and southwestern Terran plains to ice the blood, ripped just as
freezingly through the honey-hued air of Topaz.
The horses wheeled, racing upslope away from the settlement. A figure
broke from the grass, flapped his arms at one of the mounts, grabbed at
flying mane, and pulled himself up on the bare back. Only a master
horseman would have done that, but the whooping rider now drove the herd
on, assisted by the snapping and snarling coyotes.
"Deklay--" Jil-Lee identified the reckless rider, "that was one of his
rodeo tricks."
Among the yurts it was as if someone had ripped up a rotten log to
reveal an ants' nest and sent the alarmed insects into a frenzy. Men
boiled out of the domes, the majority of them running for the horse
pasture. One or two were mounted on ponies that must have been staked
out in the settlement. The main war party of Apaches skimmed silently
through the grass on their way to the ship.
The three who were armed with the alien weapons had already tested their
range by experimentation back in the hills, but the fear of exhausting
whatever powered those barrels had curtailed their target practice. Now
they snaked to the edge of the bare ground between them and the ladder
hatch of the spacer. To cross that open space was to provide targets for
lances and arrows--or the superior armament of the Reds.
"A chance we can hit from here." Buck laid his weapon across his bent
knee, steadied the long barrel of the burner, and pressed the firing
button.
The closed hatch of the ship shimmered, dissolved into a black hole.
Behind Travis someone let out the yammer of a war whoop.
"Fire--cut the walls to pieces!"
Travis did not need that order from Jil-Lee. He was already beaming
unseen destruction at the best target he could ask for--the side of the
sphere. If the globe was armed, there was no weapon which could be
depressed far enough to reach the marksmen at ground level.
Holes appeared, irregular gaps and tears in the fabric of the ship. The
Apaches were turning the side of the globe into lacework. How far those
rays penetrated into the interior they could not guess.
Movement at one of the holes, the chattering burst of machine-gun fire,
spatters of soil and gravel into their faces; they could be cut to
pieces by that! The hole enlarged, a scream ... cut off....
"They will not be too quick to try that again," Nolan observed with cold
calm from behind Travis' post.
Methodically they continued to beam the ship. It would never be
space-borne again; there were neither the skills nor materials here to
repair such damage.
"It is like laying a knife to fat," Lupe said as he crawled up beside
Travis. "Slice, slice--!"
"Move!" Travis reached to the left, pulled at Jil-Lee's shoulder.
Travis did not know whether it was possible or not, but he had a heady
vision of their combined fire power cutting the globe in half, slicing
it crosswise with the ease Lupe admired.
They scurried through cover just as someone behind yelled a warning.
Travis threw himself down, rolled into a new firing position. An arrow
sang over his head; the Reds were doing what the Apaches had known they
would--calling in the controlled Mongols to fight. The attack on the
ship must be stepped up, or the Amerindians would be forced to retreat.
Already a new lacing of holes appeared under their concentrated efforts.
With the gun held tight to his middle, Travis found his feet, zigzagged
across the bare ground for the nearest of those openings. Another arrow
clanged harmlessly against the fabric of the ship a foot from his goal.
He made it in, over jagged metal shards which glowed faintly and reeked
of ozone. The weapons' beams had penetrated well past both the outer
shell and the wall of insulation webbing. He climbed a second and
smaller break into a corridor enough like those of the western ship to
be familiar. The Red spacer, based on the general plan of the alien
derelict ship as his own had been, could not be very different.
Travis tried to subdue his heavy breathing and listen. He heard a
confused shouting and the burr of what might be an alarm system. The
ship's brain was the control cabin. Even if the Reds dared not try to
lift now, that was the core of their communication lines. He started
along the corridor, trying to figure out its orientation in relation to
that all-important nerve center.
The Apache shoved open each door he passed with one shoulder, and twice
he played a light beam on installations within cabins. He had no idea of
their use, but the wholesale destruction of each and every machine was
what good sense and logic dictated.
There was a sound behind. Travis whirled, saw Jil-Lee and beyond him
Buck.
"Up?" Jil-Lee asked.
"And down," Buck added. "The Tatars say they have hollowed a bunker
beneath."
"Separate and do as much damage as you can," Travis suggested.
"Agreed!"
Travis sped on. He passed another door and then backtracked hurriedly as
he realized it had given on to an engine room. With the gun he blasted
two long lines cutting the fittings into ragged lumps. Abruptly the
lights went out; the burr of the alarms was silenced. Part of the ship,
if not all, was dead. And now it might come to hunter and hunted in the
dark. But that was an advantage as far as the Apaches were concerned.
Back in the corridor again, Travis crept through a curiously lifeless
atmosphere. The shouting was stilled as if the sudden failure of the
machines had stunned the Reds.
A tiny sound--perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder. Travis edged
back into a compartment. A flash of light momentarily lighted the
corridor; the approaching figure was using a torch. Travis drew his
knife with one hand, reversed it so he could use the heavy hilt as a
silencer. The other was hurrying now, on his way to investigate the
burned-out engine cabin. Travis could hear the rasp of his fast
breathing. Now!
The Apache had put down the gun, his left arm closed about a shoulder,
and the Red gasped as Travis struck with the knife hilt. Not clean--he
had to hit a second time before the struggles of the man were over.
Then, using his hands for eyes, he stripped the limp body on the floor
of automatic and torch.
With the Red's weapon in the front of his sash, the burner in one hand
and the torch in the other, Travis prowled on. There was a good chance
that those above might believe him to be their comrade returning. He
found the ladder leading to the next level, began to climb, pausing now
and then to listen.
Shock preceded sound. Under him the ladder swayed and the globe itself
rocked a little. A blast of some kind must have been set off at or under
the level of the ground. The bunker Buck had mentioned?
Travis clung to the ladder, waited for the vibrations to subside. There
was a shouting above, a questioning.... Hurriedly he ascended to the
next level, scrambled out and away from the ladder just in time to avoid
the light from another torch flashed down the well. Again that call of
inquiry, then a shot--the boom of the explosion loud in the confined
space.
To climb into the face of that light with a waiting marksman above was
sheer folly. Could there be another way up? Travis retreated down one of
the corridors raying out from the ladder well. A quick inspection of the
cabins along that route told him he had reached a section of living
quarters. The pattern was familiar; the control cabin would be on the
next level.
Suddenly the Apache remembered something: On each level there should be
an emergency opening giving access to the insulation space between the
inner and outer skins of the ship through which repairs could be made.
If he could find that and climb up to the next level....
The light shining down the well remained steady, and there was the
echoing crack of another shot. But Travis was far enough away from the
ladder now to dare use his own torch, seeking the door he needed on the
wall surface. With a leap of heart he sighted the outline--his luck was
in! The Russian and western ships were alike.
Once the panel was open he flashed his torch up, finding the climbing
rungs and, above, the shadow outline of the next level opening. Securing
the alien gun in his sash beside the automatic and holding the torch in
his mouth, Travis climbed, not daring to think of the deep drop below.
Four ... five ... ten rungs, and he could reach the other door.
His fingers slid over it, searching for the release catch. But there was
no answering give. Balling his fist, he struck down at an awkward angle
and almost lost his balance as the panel fell away beneath his blow. The
door swung and he pulled through.
Darkness! Travis snapped on the torch for an instant, saw about him the
relays of a com system, and gave it a full spraying as he pivoted,
destroying the eyes and ears of the ship--unless the burnout he had
effected below had already done that. A flash of automatic fire from his
left, a searing burn along his arm an inch or so below the shoulder--
Travis' action was purely reflex. He swung the burner around, even as
his mind gave a frantic No! To defend himself with automatic, knife,
arrow--yes; but not this way. He huddled against the wall.
An instant earlier there had been a man there, a living, breathing
man--one of his own species, if not of his own beliefs. Then because his
own muscles had unconsciously obeyed warrior training, there was this.
So easy--to deal death without really meaning to. The weapon in his
hands was truly the devil gift they were right to fear. Such weapons
were not to be put into the hands of men--any men--no matter how well
intentioned.
Travis gulped in great mouthfuls of air. He wanted to throw the burner
away, hurl it from him. But the task he could rightfully use it for was
not yet done.
Somehow he reeled on into the control cabin to render the ship truly a
dead thing and free himself of the heavy burden of guilt and terror
between his hands. That weight could be laid aside; memory could not.
And no one of his kind must ever have to carry such memories again.
* * * * *
The booming of the drums was like a pulse quickening the blood to a
rhythm which bit at the brain, made a man's eyes shine, his muscles
tense as if he held an arrow to bow cord or arched his fingers about a
knife hilt. A fire blazed high and in its light men leaped and whirled
in a mad dance with tulwar blades catching and reflecting the red gleam
of flames. Mad, wild, the Mongols were drunk with victory and freedom.
Beyond them, the silver globe of the ship showed the black holes of its
death, which was also the death of the past--for all of them.
"What now?" Menlik, the dangling of amulets and charms tinkling as he
moved, came up to Travis. There was none of the wild fervor in the
shaman's face; instead, it was as if he had taken several strides out of
the life of the Horde, was emerging into another person, and the
question he asked was one they all shared.
Travis felt drained, flattened. They had achieved their purpose. The
handful of Red overlords were dead, their machines burned out. There
were no controls here any more; men were free in mind and body. What
were they to do with that freedom?
"First," the Apache spoke his own thoughts--"we must return these."
The three alien weapons were lashed into a square of Mongol fabric,
hidden from sight, although they could not be so easily shut out of
mind. Only a few of the others, Apache or Mongol, had seen them; and
they must be returned before their power was generally known.
"I wonder if in days to come," Buck mused, "they will not say that we
pulled lightning out of the sky, as did the Thunder Slayer, to aid us.
But this is right. We must return them and make that valley and what it
holds taboo."
"And what if another ship comes--one of _yours_?" Menlik asked shrewdly.
Travis stared beyond the Tatar shaman to the men about the fire. His
nightmare dragged into the open.... What if a ship did come in, one with
Ashe, Murdock, men he knew and liked, friends on board? What then of his
guardianship of the towers and their knowledge? Could he be as sure of
what to do then? He rubbed his hand across his forehead and said slowly:
"We shall take steps when--or if--that happens--"
But could they, would they? He began to hope fiercely that it would not
happen, at least in his lifetime, and then felt the cold bleakness of
the exile they must will themselves into.
"Whether we like it or not," (was he talking to the others or trying to
argue down his own rebellion?) "we cannot let what lies under the towers
be known ... found ... used ... unless by men who are wiser and more
controlled than we are in our time."
Menlik drew his shaman's wand, twiddled it between his fingers, and
beneath his drooping lids watched the three Apaches with a new kind of
measurement.
"Then I say to you this: Such a guardianship must be a double charge,
shared by my people as well. For if they suspect that you alone control
these powers and their secret, there will be envy, hatred, fear, a
division between us from the first--war ... raids.... This is a large
land and neither of our groups numbers many. Shall we split apart
fatally from this day when there is room for all? If these ancient
things are evil, then let us both guard them with a common taboo."
He was right, of course. And they would have to face the truth squarely.
To both Apache and Mongol any off-world ship, no matter from which side,
would be a menace. Here was where they would remain and set roots. The
sooner they began thinking of themselves as people with a common bond,
the better it would be. And Menlik's suggestion provided a tie.
"You speak well," Buck was saying. "This shall be a thing we share. We
are three who know. Do you be three also, but choose well, Menlik!"
"Be assured that I will!" the Tatar returned. "We start a new life here;
there is no going back. But as I have said: The land is wide. We have no
quarrel with one another, and perhaps our two peoples shall become one;
after all, we do not differ too greatly...." He smiled and gestured to
the fire and the dancers.
Among the Mongols another man had gone into action, his head thrown back
as he leaped and twirled, voicing a deep war cry. Travis recognized
Deklay. Apache, Mongol--both raiders, horsemen, hunters, fighters when
the need arose. No, there was no great difference. Both had been tricked
into coming here, and they had no allegiance now for those who had sent
them.
Perhaps clan and Horde would combine or perhaps they would drift
apart--time would tell. But there would be the bond of the guardianship,
the determination that what slept in the towers would not be roused--in
their lifetime or many lifetimes!
Travis smiled a bit crookedly. A new religion of sorts, a priesthood
with sacred and forbidden knowledge ... in time a whole new life and
civilization stemming from this night. The bleak cold of his early
thought cut less deep. There was a different kind of adventure here.
He reached out and gathered up the bundle of the burners, glancing from
Buck to Jil-Lee to Menlik. Then he stood up, the weight of the burden in
his arms, the feeling of a greater weight inside him.
"Shall we go?"
To get the weapons back--that was of first importance. Maybe then he
could sleep soundly, to dream of riding across the Arizona range at dawn
under a blue sky with a wind in his face, a wind carrying the scent of
pinon pine and sage, a wind which would never caress or hearten him
again, a wind his sons and sons' sons would never know. To dream
troubled dreams, and hope in time those dreams would fade and thin--that
a new world would blanket out the old. Better so, Travis told himself
with defiance and determination--better so!