Flandry of Terra Page 10

  “They have found means to live, less cumbersome than all those buildings and engines were,” said Juchi. “They have been free to think for I know not how many ages. But they have therefore grown weak in sheerly material ways. They help us withstand the aggressions from Ulan Baligh; they can do nothing against the might of Merseia.”

  Half seen in red moonlight, one of the autochthones spoke.

  Juchi: “They do not fear racial death. They know all things must end, and yet nothing ever really ends. However, it would be desirable that their lesser brethren in the ice forests have a few more million years to live, so that they may also evolve toward truth.”

  Which is a fine, resounding ploy, thought Flandry, provided it be not the simple fact.

  Juchi: “They, like us, are willing to become clients of the Terrestrial Empire. To them, it means nothing; they will never have enough in common with men to be troubled by any human governors. They know Terra will not gratuitously harm them-whereas Merseia would, if only by provoking that planet-wide battle of space fleets you describe. Therefore, the Cold People will assist us in any way they can, though they know of none at present.”

  “Do these two speak for their whole race?” asked Flandry dubiously.

  “And for the forests and the lakes,” said Juchi.

  Flandry thought of a life which was all one great organism, and nodded. “If you say so, I’ll accept it. But if they can’t help-“

  Juchi gave an old man’s sigh, like wind over the acrid waters. “I had hoped they could. But now-Have you no plan of your own?”

  Flandry stood a long time, feeling the chill creep inward. At last he said: “If the only spaceships are at Ulan Baligh, then it seems we must get into the city somehow, to deliver our message. Have these folk any means of secretly contacting a Betelgeusean?”

  Juchi inquired. “No,” he translated the answer. “Not if the traders are closely guarded, and their awareness tells them that is so.”

  One of the natives stooped forward a little, above the dull blue fire, so that his face was illuminated. Could as human an emotion as sorrow really be read into those eyes? Words droned. Juchi listened.

  “They can get us into the city, undetected, if it be a cold enough night,” he said. “The medusae can carry us through the air, actually seeing radar beams and eluding them. And, of course, a medusa is invisible to metal detectors as well as infra-red scopes.” The Shaman paused. “But what use is that, Terra man? We ourselves can walk disguised into Ulan Baligh.

  “But could we fly-?” Flandry’s voice trailed off.

  “Not without being stopped by traffic control officers and investigated.”

  “S-s-so.” Flandry raised his face to the glittering sky. He took the moonlight full in his eyes and was briefly dazzled. Tension tingled along his nerves.

  “We’ve debated trying to radio a Betelgeusean ship as it takes off, before it goes into secondary drive.” He spoke aloud, slowly, to get the hammering within himself under control. “But you said the Tebtengri have no set powerful enough to broadcast that far, thousands of kilometers. And, of course, we couldn’t beamcast, since we couldn’t pinpoint the ship at any instant.”

  “True. In any event, the Khan’s aerial patrols would detect our transmission and pounce.”

  “Suppose a ship, a friendly spaceship, came near this planet without actually landing… could the Ice Dwellers communicate with it?”

  Juchi asked; Flandry did not need the translated answer: “No. They have no radio sets at all. Even if they did, their ‘casting would be as liable to detection as ours. And did you not say yourself, Orluk, all our messages must be kept secret, right to the moment that the Terran fleet arrives in strength? That Oleg Khan must not even suspect a message has been sent?”

  “Well, no harm in asking.” Flandry’s gaze continued to search upward, till he found Betelgeuse like a torch among the constellations. “Could we know there was such a ship in the neighborhood?”

  “I daresay it would radio as it approached… notify Ulan Baligh spaceport-” Juchi conferred with the nonhumans. “Yes. We could have men, borne by medusae, stationed unnoticeably far above the city. They could carry receivers. There would be enough beam leakage for them to listen to any conversation between the spaceship and the portmaster. Would that serve?”

  Flandry breathed out in a great freezing gust. “It might.”

  Suddenly, and joyously, he laughed. Perhaps no such sound had ever rung across Tengri Nor. The Dwellers started back, like frightened small animals. Juchi stood in shadow. For that instant, only Captain Dominic Flandry of Imperial Terra had light upon him. He stood with his head raised into the copper moonlight, and laughed like a boy.

  “By Heaven,” he shouted, “we’re going to do it!”

  X

  An autumn gale came down off the pole. It gathered snow on its way across the steppe, and struck Ulan Baligh near midnight. In minutes, the steep red roofs were lost to sight. Close by a lighted window, a man saw horizontal white streaks, whirling out of darkness and back into darkness. If he went a few meters away, pushing through drifts already knee-high, the light was gone. He stood blind, buffeted by the storm, and heard it rave.

  Flandry descended from the upper atmosphere. Its cold had smitten so deep he thought he might never be warm again. In spite of an oxygen tank, his lungs were starving. He saw the blizzard from above as a moon-dappled black blot, the early ice floes on Ozero Rurik dashed to and fro along its southern fringe. A cabling of tentacles meshed him, he sat under a giant balloon rushing downward through the sky. Behind him trailed a flock of other medusae, twisting along air currents he could not feel to avoid radar beams he could not see. Ahead of him was only one, bearing a Dweller huddled against a cake of ice; for what lay below was hell’s own sulfurous wind to the native.

  Even Flandry felt how much warmer it was, when the snowstorm enclosed him. He crouched forward, squinting into a nothingness that yelled. Once his numbed feet, dangling down, struck a rooftree. The blow came as if from far away. Palely at first, strengthening as he neared, the Prophet’s Tower thrust its luminous shaft up and out of sight.

  Flandry groped for the nozzle at his shoulder. His destination gave just enough light for him to see through the driven flakes. Another medusa crowded close, bearing a pressure tank of paint. Somehow, Flandry reached across the air between and made the hose fast.

  Now, Arctic intelligence, do you understand what I want to do? Can you guide this horse of mine for me?

  The wind yammered in his ears. He heard other noises like blasting, the powerful breaths by which his medusa moved itself. Almost, he was battered against the tablet wall. His carrier wobbled in midair, fighting to maintain position. An inlaid letter, big as a house, loomed before him, black against shining white. He aimed his hose and squirted.

  Damn! The green jet was flung aside in a flaw of wind. He corrected his aim and saw the paint strike. It remained liquid even at this temperature… no matter, it was sticky enough… The first tank was quickly used up. Flandry coupled to another. Blue this time. All the Tebtengri had contributed all the squirtable paint they had, every hue in God’s rainbow. Flandry could but hope there would be enough.

  There was, though he came near fainting from chill and exhaustion before the end of the job. He could not remember ever having so brutal a task. Even so, when the last huge stroke was done, he could not resist adding an exclamation point at the very bottom-three centimeters high.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered. Somehow, the mute Dweller understood and pointed his staff. The medusa flock sprang through the clouds.

  Flandry had a moment’s glimpse of a military airboat. It had detached itself from the flock hovering above the spaceport, perhaps going off duty. As the medusae broke from the storm into clear moonlight and ringlight, the craft veered. Flandry saw its guns stab energy bolts into the flock, and reached for his own futile blaster. His fingers were wooden, they didn’t close…

  The medusae,
all but his and the Dweller’s whipped about. They surrounded the patrol boat, laid tentacles fast and clung. It was nearly buried under them. Electric fires crawled, sparks dripped, these creatures could break hydrogen from water. Flandry recalled in a dull part of his mind that a metallic fuselage was a Faraday cage, immune to lightning. But when concentrated electric discharges burned holes, spotwelded control circuits-the boat staggered in midair. The medusae detached themselves. The boat plummeted.

  Flandry relaxed and let his creature bear him northward.

  XI

  The town seethed. There had been rioting in the Street of Gunsmiths, and blood still dappled the new-fallen snow. Armed men tramped around palace and spaceport; mobs hooted beyond them. From the lake shore encampments came war music, pipes squealed, gongs crashed, the young men rode their varyaks in breakneck circles and cursed.

  Oleg Khan looked out the palace window. “It shall be made good to you,” he muttered. “Oh, yes, my people, you shall have satisfaction.”

  Turning to the Betelgeusean, who had just been fetched, he glared into the blue face. “You have seen?”

  “Yes, your majesty.” Zalat’s Altaian, usually fluent and little accented, grew thick. He was a badly shaken being. Only the quick arrival of the royal guards had saved his ship from destruction by a thousand shrieking fanatics. “I swear, I, my crew, we had nothing to do with… we are innocent as-“

  “Of course! Of course!” Oleg Yesukai brought one palm down in an angry slicing motion. “I am not one of those ignorant rodent herders. Every Betelgeusean has been under supervision, every moment since-” He checked himself.

  “I have still not understood why,” faltered ] Zalat.

  “Was my reason not made clear to you? You know the Terran visitor was killed by Tebtengri, operatives, the very day he arrived. It bears out what I have long suspected, those tribes have become religiously xenophobic. Since they doubtless have other agents in the city, who will try to murder your people in turn, it is best all of you be closely guarded, have contact only with men we know are loyal, until I have full control of the situation.”

  His own words calmed Oleg somewhat. He sat down, stroked his beard and watched Zalat from narrowed eyes. “Your difficulties this morning are regrettable,” he continued smoothly. “Because you are outworlders, and the defiling symbols are not in the Altaian alphabet, many people leaped to the conclusion that it was some dirty word in your language. I, of course, know better. I also know from the exact manner in which a patrol craft was lost last night, how this outrage was done: unquestionably by Tebtengri, with the help of the Arctic devil-folk. Such a vile deed would not trouble them in the least; they are not followers of the Prophet. But what puzzles me-I admit this frankly, though confidentially-why? A daring, gruelling task… merely for a wanton insult?”

  He glanced back toward the window. From this ” angle, the crimson Tower looked itself. You had to be on the north to see what had been done: the tablet wall disfigured by more than a kilometer of splashed paint. But from that side, the fantastic desecration was visible across entire horizons.

  The Kha Khan doubled a fist. “It shall be repaid them,” he said. “This has rallied the orthodox tribes behind me as no other thing imaginable. When their children are boiled before their eyes, the Tebtengri will realize what they have done.”

  Zalat hesitated. “Your majesty-“

  “Yes?” Oleg snarled, as he must at something.

  “Those symbols are letters of the Terran alphabet.”

  “What?”

  “I know the Anglic language somewhat,” said Zalat. “Many Betelgeuseans do. But how could those Tebtengri ever have learned-“

  Oleg, who knew the answer to that, interrupted by seizing the captain’s tunic and shaking him. “What does it say?” he cried.

  “That’s the strangest part, your majesty,” stammered Zalat. “It doesn’t mean anything. Not that makes sense.”

  “Well, what sound does it spell, then? Speak before I have your teeth pulled!”

  “Mayday,” choked Zalat. “Just Mayday, your majesty.”

  Oleg let him go. For a while there was silence. At last the Khan said: “Is that a Terran word?”

  “Well… it could be. I mean, well, May is the name of a month in the Terran calendar, and Day means ‘diurnal period.’ ” Zalat rubbed his yellow eyes, searching for logic. “I suppose Mayday could mean the first day of May.”

  Oleg nodded slowly. “That sounds reasonable. The Altaian calendar, which is modified from the ancient Terran, has a similar name for a month of what is locally springtime. Mayday-spring festival day? Perhaps.”

  He returned to the window and brooded across the city. “It’s long until May,” he said. “If that was an incitement to… anything… it’s foredoomed. We are going to break the Tebtengri this very winter. By next spring-” He cleared his throat and finished curtly: “Certain other projects will be well under way.”

  “How could it be an incitement, anyhow, your majesty?” argued Zalat, emboldened. “Who in Ulan Baligh could read it?”

  “True. I can only conjecture, some wild act of defiance-or superstition, magical ritual-” The Khan turned on his heel. “You are leaving shortly, are you not?”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  “You shall convey a message. No other traders are to come here for a standard year. We will have troubles enough, suppressing the Tebtengri and their aboriginal allies.” Oleg shrugged. “In any event, it would be useless for merchants to visit us. War will disrupt the caravans. Afterward-perhaps.”

  Privately, he doubted it. By summer, the Merseians would have returned and started work on their base. A year from now, Altai would be firmly in their empire, and, under them, the Kha Khan would lead his warriors to battles in the stars, more glorious than any of the hero songs had ever told.

  XII

  Winter came early to the northlands. Flandry, following the Mangu Tuman in their migratory cycle, saw snow endless across the plains, under a sky like blued steel. The tribe, wagons and herds and people. Were a hatful of dust strewn on immensity: here a moving black dot, there a thin smoke-streaked vertical in windless air. Krasna hung low in the southeast, a frosty red-gold wheel.

  Three folk glided from the main ordu. They were on skis, rifles slung behind their parkas, hands holding tethers which led to a small negagrav tow unit. It flew quickly, so skis sang on the thin scrip snow.

  Arghun Tiliksky said hard-voiced: “I can appreciate that you and Juchi keep secret the reason for that Tower escapade of yours, five weeks ago. What none of us know, none can reveal if captured. Yet you seem quite blithe about the consequences. Our scouts tell us that infuriated warriors flock to Oleg Khan, that he has pledged to annihilate us this very year. In consequence, all the Tebtengri must remain close together, not spread along the whole Arctic Circle as before-and hereabouts, there is not enough forage under the snow for that many herds. I say to you, the Khan need only wait, and by the end of the season famine will have done half his work for him!”

  “Let’s hope he plans on that,” said Flandry. “Less strenuous than fighting, isn’t it?”

  Arghun’s angry young face turned toward him. The noyon clipped: “I do not share this awe of all things Terran. You are as human as I. In this environment, where you are untrained, you are much more fallible. I warn you plainly, unless you give me good reason to do otherwise, I shall request a kurultai. And at it I will argue that we strike now at Ulan Baligh, try for a decision while we can still count on full bellies.”

  Bourtai cried aloud, “No! That would be asking for ruin. They outnumber us down there, three or four to one. And I have seen some of the new engines the Merseians brought. It would be butchery!”

  “It would be quick.” Arghun glared at Flandry. “Well?”

  The Terran sighed. He might have expected it. Bourtai was always near him, and Arghun was always near Bourtai, and the officer had spoken surly words before now. He might have known that this in
vitation to hunt a flock of sataru-mutant ostriches escaped from the herds and gone wild-masked something else. At least it was decent of Arghun to warn him.

  “If you don’t trust me,” he said, “though Lord knows I’ve fought and bled and frostbitten my nose in your cause-can’t you trust Juchi Ilyak?

  He and the Dwellers know my little scheme; they’ll assure you it depends on our hanging back and avoiding battle.”

  “Juchi grows old,” said Arghun. “His mind is feeble as-Hoy, there!”

  He yanked a guide line. The nega-grav unit purred to a stop and hung in air, halfway up a long slope. His politics dropped from Arghun, he pointed at the snow with a hunting dog’s eagerness. “Spoor,” he hissed. “We go by muscle power now, to sneak close. The birds can outrun this motor if they hear it. Do you go straight up this hill, Orluk Flandry; Bourtai and I will come around on opposite sides of it-“

  The Altaians had slipped their reins and skied noiselessly from him before Flandry quite understood what had happened. Looking down, the Terran saw big splay tracks: a pair of sataru. He started after them. How the deuce did you manage these foot-sticks, anyway? Waddling across the slope, he tripped himself and went down. His nose clipped a boulder. He sat up, swearing in eighteen languages and Old Martian phono-glyphs.

  “This they call fun?” He tottered erect. Snow had gotten under his parka hood. It began to melt, trickling over his ribs in search of a really good place to refreeze. “Great greasy comets,” said Flandry, “I might have been sitting in the Everest House with a bucket of champagne, lying to some beautiful wench about my exploits… but no, I had to come out here and do ‘em!”Slowly, he dragged himself up the hill, crouched on its brow, and peered through an unnecessarily cold and thorny bush. No two-legged birds, only a steep slant back down to the plain… wait!

  He saw blood and the dismembered avian shapes an instant before the beasts attacked him.