"Of course! Volakech has seized the rocket boat. No Terrestrial in his
right mind would show him how to use it, so he had to capture someone
who understood its operation and force them to take him out to the
Star Ship. Old Masefield Henry was killed resisting arrest--you know
how bloody guardsmen are, in spite of orders to take someone alive.
Volakech ordered the arrest of all Terrestrials then. A few surrendered
to him, a few were killed resisting, most were captured by force. As
far as we know, this group is all which escaped."
"Then Ellen--?"
"That's the weird thing. I don't believe she has been caught.
Volakech's men are still scouring the city for 'an Earthling woman'
as the orders read. And who could it be but Ellen? No other woman
represents any danger or any desirable capture to Volakech."
"Ellen understands astrogation," said Anse slowly. "She learned it from
her grandfather."
"Yes. And now that he is dead, she is the only human--the only being on
this planet--who can get that rocket up to the Star Ship. And Masefield
Carson knows it."
"Carson? Ellen's older brother? What--"
Janazik's voice was cold as Winter: "Masefield Carson was with
Volakech. He led the rebels inside the city. Now he's the new king's
lieutenant."
"Carson! No!"
"Carson--yes!" Janazik's smile was without mirth or pity. His eyes
sought out Philip, huddled miserably beside the lamp. "Isn't that the
truth?"
* * * * *
The boy nodded, too choked with his own unhappiness to cry. "Carse
always was a friend of Volakech, before King Aligan outlawed him," he
mumbled. "And he always said how it was a shame, and how Volakech would
know better what to do with the Star Ship than anyone now. Then--that
night--" His voice trailed off, he sat dumbly staring into the flame.
"Carson led the rebel guardsmen in their seizure of the city guns,"
said Janazik. "He also rode to the Masefield house at the head of a
troop of them and called on his people to surrender on promise of good
treatment. Joe and the mother did, and I suppose they're held somewhere
in the citadel now. Phil and Ellen happened to be out at the time.
When Phil heard of the uprising, he was afraid to give himself up, in
spite of the heralds that went about promising safety to those who
did. He heard how the rebels had been killing his friends. He went to
Slavatozik here, whom he could trust, and later they got in touch with
me. I'd used this hiding place before, and gathered all the fugitives I
could find here." Janazik shrugged, a sinuous unhuman gesture. "Since
then I've seen Carse, at a distance, riding around like a prince of the
blood, with a troop of his own personal guardsmen. I suspect he really
runs things now. Volakech wants power, but only Carse can show him how
to get it."
"And Ellen--?"
"No sign of her. But as I said, I think she's in hiding somewhere,
or the guards wouldn't be out looking for a woman. She wouldn't give
herself up."
"Not Ellen." A grim pride lifted Anse's head.
"Remains the problem of finding her before they do," said Gonzales
Alonzo. "If they catch her and make her plot an orbit for the rocket,
they'll have the Star Ship--which means power over the whole planet."
"Not that I care who's king," growled Pragakech. "But you know that
Masefield Carson never did want to use the ship to get out to the
stars. And I want to see those other worlds before I die."
"To the thirteenth hell with the other worlds," snarled Bolazan.
"Aligan was my king, and it's for me to avenge him and put his rightful
heir on the throne."
"We all have our motives for wanting the blood of Volakech and Carson,"
said Janazik. "Never mind that now; the important thing is how to
get at their livers. We're few, Anse. Here are all the free humans
we know of, except Masefield Ellen. There can't be more than two or
three at large, and perhaps ten dead. That means the enemy holds
almost a hundred humans captive. Discounting children and others who
are ignorant of Terrestrial science, it still means they'll be able to
operate the guns, the steel mill, the atomic-power plant--all the new
machines except the rocket boat, and they only need Ellen for that."
Anse nodded, slowly. "What is our strength?" he asked.
"I don't know. Not much. I know where about a hundred Khazaki warriors
are hiding, ready to follow us whenever we call on them, and there will
be many more sitting at home now who'll rise if someone else takes the
lead. But the enemy has all the guns. It would be suicide."
"What about the Khazaki who fled?" Usually, in one of the planet's
violent changes of governments, the refugees were powerful nobles
who would be slain as a safety measure if they stayed at home but
who could, in exile, raise strong forces for a comeback. Such a one
had Volakech himself been, barely escaping with his life after his
disastrous attempt to seize the throne a few years back.
"Don't be more stupid than you can help," snorted Janazik. "By the time
they can have rallied enough to do any good, Volakech and Carson will
have the Star Ship, one way or another, and then the whole world is at
their mercy."
"That means we have to strike back somehow--quickly!" Anse stood for a
moment in thought.
The habits of his warring, wandering years were coming back to him. He
had faced death and despair before, and with strength and cunning and
bluff and sheer luck had come through alive. This was another problem,
more desperate and more urgent, but still another problem.
No--there was more to it than that.
* * * * *
His face grew bleak, and it was as if a coldness touched his heart.
Carson was Ellen's older brother, and even if they had quarreled from
time to time he knew she had always felt deeply bound to him. _Carse is
everything I never was. He stayed in Krakenau and studied and became
an educated man and a skilled engineer while I went hallooing over
the world. He's brave and a good fighter--so am I--but he's so much
more than that. I imagine it was his example that made Ellen learn the
astrogation only her grandfather knew._
_And now I'm back from roaming and roving with Janazik, and I'm
trying hard to settle down and learn something so that I won't be
just a barbarian, a wild Khazaki in human skin, when we go out to the
civilization of the stars. So that I won't be too utterly ashamed to
ask Ellen to marry me. And it was all going pretty well until now._
_But now--I'm fighting her brother--_
Well--he pushed the thought out of his brain. After all, apparently she
was in opposition to Carse's plans too.
"I wonder why they tried to kill me?" he asked aloud, more to fill in
the time while he thought than out of curiosity.
"You'd be of no use to Carson, having no technical education," said
Janazik, "while your knowledge of fighting and your connections with
warlike groups make you dangerous to him. Also, I don't think he ever
liked your paying attention to Ellen."
"No--he always said I was a waster. Called me a--an absorbed Khazaki.
I'd've split his skull if he hadn't been Ellen's brother--No matter
now. We've more important things to talk over."
_Have we, now?_ he thought sickly. _Carson must know Ellen well, better
than I do. If he thinks he can have me killed without making her hate
him, then--maybe I never had any chance with her then--_
"How'd you happen by?" he asked tonelessly.
"I've been out from time to time, looking for Ellen and killing
guardsmen whenever I could catch them alone." Janazik's white fangs
gleamed in a carnivore's smile. "And, of course, I expected you back
from your fishing trip about this time, and watched for you lest you
blunder into their hands."
Anse began to pace the floor, back and forth, his head bent to avoid
the basement rafters. If Carson was in control, and out to kill him....
There was more to it than that, of course. The whole future of the
planet Khazak, perhaps of the fabulous Galactic civilization itself,
was balanced on the edge of a sword. If Volakech or a descendant of
his took the warlike race out among the stars, with a high level of
industry to back a scheme of conquest--
But it didn't matter. All the universe didn't matter. There was only
Ellen, and his own dead kin, and himself.
A man's heart can only hold so much.
Janazik stood quietly back, watching his friend's restless prowling.
He had seen that pacing before, and he knew that some scheme would come
out of it, crazy and reckless and desperate, with his own cool unhuman
intelligence to temper it and make it workable. He and Anse made a good
team. They made the best damned fighting team Khazak had ever seen.
Presently the human lifted his head. There was silence in the hiding
place, thick and taut, so that they could hear their own breathing and
the steady drum of rain on the trapdoor.
"I have an idea," said Anse.