Three Worlds to Conquer Read online

  the crunch of jaws and see the bushes ripple outward, wavelike, from the great domed shell that heaved above them. He circled until he faced the animal, took a firm two-handed grip on his spear, and charged.

  The armored neck lifted, tendrils drew back and the hooked mouth gaped. Six thick legs waddled to meet the attack. The earth quivered beneath a bulk more than twice Theor’s.

  “Kee-yi!” At the last second, he shifted his aim toward the vulnerable throat pouch. With all his weight and speed behind it, the spear drove through.

  The skalpad twisted around. Theor barely dodged a bite that could have taken off an arm. The head shook, the embedded shaft splintered against the soil, blood pumped out over the scrub. Theor believed the wound was mortal, but night was approaching even faster than the rain. He couldn’t wait much longer.

  Unwrapping his bundle, he took the ax in one hand and a point in the other. The rest he held in his mouth. He raced around the threshing monster, came alongside and drove the daggerlike spearhead into one eye. His next several passes missed, when he must duck from the snapping jaws. When nothing remained but the handax, he charged again and again, striking when he could. It was a savage business. He felt nearly as tired and sick as his prey when the skalpad’s limbs finally buckled and the creature at last was still.

  But there was no time for guilt, if he was to take advantage of the weather. Light was already draining out of the west, too. He assaulted the body with the cutting edges of his coup de poing, not stopping to do a good butcher’s job, concerned only to get the shell off and some pounds of meat for himself. Let the scavengers have the rest. Wings rattled overhead and howling went among the trees.

  When roughly cleaned out, the shell could be rolled. Otherwise he would never have gotten it over those dark, tangled miles back to the volcano, let alone up the slope. After the mountains he had traversed, this wasn’t any climb to speak of. But he was shaking with exhaustion by the time he reached the secondary vent halfway between foot and peak.

  By then, also, the first rain was upon him. Heavy drops of ammonia lashed his skin, and the low cloud roof was almost continuously lit by lightning. Where it struck the firepot, the rain hissed back in steam, so that Theor entered white billows of fog in which danced tiny sparks.

  The vapor offered some protection, however, against the heat that radiated from the vent. When he looked into that yard-wide hole, his eyes were dazzled. The roaring down there was as loud as the thunder around him. His gills cramped shut in reflexive protest against the fumes; again and again he must retreat for air.

  The moltenness which raged within was water, and its temperature was only a few hundred degrees Fahrenheit. But Theor’s kind of life had not evolved to endure such conditions.

  And in truth the forces which brought them about were stupendous. The metallic core of Jupiter is wrapped in thousands of miles of solid hydrogen. Above this is a shell of ice, less vast but quite adequate to maintain pressures that collapse ordinary molecular structures. Somewhere in those depths, an equilibrium had been broken. The pressure in a certain volume dropped below a critical value. A titanic mass of ice changed to a less dense crystalline phase, in an explosion comparable to that of a large thermonuclear bomb. Liquefied by the released energy, water spurted through the riven planetary surface.

  It could not vaporize; the atmosphere weighed too heavily on it. Cooling and congealing, it built up a cone which rapidly grew to be a mountain. The flow might continue for centuries before a new balance was struck and the volcano became extinct.

  Slowly, painfully, Theor built a wall of stones on the lower lip of the vent, until he had a roughly level rim around it. He spent nearly his last strength getting the skalpad shell up on top, inverted to the sky.

  Now he could only wait. He found shelter beneath an overhang further down and tore a haunch of meat with his teeth. The rawness meant nothing to him. Cooking was still a highly experimental art, indulged in by a few Ath folk who had ready access to heat. But he missed the spices of home.

  Home . . . did it still exist?

  He huddled back and waited. The rain brawled on. Well, the longer and heavier the fall, the better for him. He had thought he might need several storms, but perhaps this one would do. He slept.

  The rain continued through the night and day and night, on into the following morning. A human would not have been able to comprehend the Noachian magnitude of precipitation; but it was not unusual for Jupiter, which is constructed on another scale than Earth. When at length the fog that followed it had lifted, Theor emerged. He felt physically better and more hopeful than at any time since Gillen Beach. Still, his pulses racketed as he dragged the skalpad shell off the firepot with a stone chipped into a sort of hook. Its hard substance was blackened and shrunken, but the bowl was still intact and struck the ground with a crash. Eagerly, Theor peered inside.

  Several pounds of metal glistened on the bottom.

  He was careful to wrap his hands in leaves before taking the cooled lumps forth. It was unpredictable what the stuff might do to him in such a quantity, even though he was adapted to breathing it and probably used it in his metabolism. Fraser had told him how tricky raw sodium could be.

  The man had also explained that this element, dissolved by ammonia and forming complexes with it, was what supplied many of the cloud colors. And it reacted powerfully with liquid water. Perhaps that explained certain disasters in the early days of hydrurgy. For when you boiled away the ammonia—

  The rest of Theor’s day went to climb the mountain and erect a wall on the southeast verge of the crater. He stared often in that direction—Walfilo’s host must be somewhere yonder, if. they yet lived—but saw only forest and the remote Wilderwall. This land was so big that an army was swallowed without leaving a trace.

  Night fell. He glanced at the seething below, summoned his courage, wrenched loose a gob of the soft metal and threw it over the edge.

  His dive for shelter was barely fast enough. Fire vomited, water drops pelted his barricade, the volcano smoke was lit yellow. He could not see that color, his eyes registered a lurid pirell, but he felt the radiation beat on his skin. Echoes snapped back and forth until his head tolled.

  When the explosion was over, he cast a second piece. And a third. Wait several beats; then a fourth and fifth in quick succession. He had duplicated in light the call for help of a military drummer.

  He had only sufficient material to repeat the cycle once. And then he could only wait. Reflected off clouds, the flashes were so brilliant to Jovian vision that they should be perceptible for fifty miles or better. But were his people that close? And would they investigate? He crept tiredly back to his shelter to wait and hope.

  Footfalls roused him some hours after dawn.

  Two males were climbing the mountain. They were gaunt and dirty, but they carried Nyarran weapons. And when they saw him they burst into a gallop.

  “Reeve, oh, my Reeve!”

  Theor embraced them. For a space he was joyous, he had beaten the wilderness, reached his own kind by a road no Jovian ever trod before. Then he thought, The real fight is only begun, and said, “We had best start back at once. This is not a good country.”

  The scouts had come on forgar-back, with a couple of remounts. Before turning one over to Theor, they brought him up to date on what had happened. “Though little there is to tell, Reeve. We could not make a stand anywhere on the plain, so we crossed the Steeps and went on for two days north, to where there is a lake and game can be gotten. There we are still encamped, not knowing whether to return or die, or stay and become Rollarikans. Some have argued that we could swing far east of Medalon and so south until we reach the Foresters, who might aid us. But doubtful that is, and our homeland would long have fallen to the enemy before we could act.”

  “Yes, we have little time,” Theor agreed. “Nyarr cannot stand siege much longer than foodstores last, and they are scant at this season. Without Nyarr” city and the ice works of Ath, even i
f we won back the land we would be meat for the next barbarian incursion.”

  He pondered what to do as they traveled. There was no clear answer. But his resolution stiffened, and he entered the camp with long strides.

  It was not conspicuous. The plaited lean-tos were scattered through the woods and most of the people were out each day on the chase. But Walfilo had had a large hut erected on the lake shore, and his banner flew above.

  The scarred professional welcomed Theor with a genuine gladness, heard his story and was gratifyingly impressed. But then he asked, “What shall we do?”

  “Return as fast as we can,” Theor answered. “If we cross the Wilderwall at Windgate Pass, we will enter Medalon not far from the Brantor River, with forests close by for the making of rafts. Thus we can approach the city with speed, unobserved until we are near—at which time we will go ashore and attack the Ulunt-Khazul. When those within sally forth, the enemy will be caught between two hosts.”

  “Which he will chop Into bits,” Walfilo grunted. “We are not the army which your demi-fathers led out. Death, wounds and hunger have dealt hardly with us.”

  “What other choice have we?”

  “This. We are settling into Rollarik, already learning its ways, having daily more success at winning food. No band of miserable woods-runners can oppose us. Belike we can even raise a smithy on that volcano where you were, and so continue to have cast weapons. We can establish ourselves as the germ of a new nation.”

  “Leaving our kin to be devoured?”

  Walfilo winced. “That is a hard necessity. But I have been a fighter all my life, Reeve. This is not the first time I have had to sacrifice much in order to keep something vital. A march against the Ulunt-Khazul can only end in us too being devoured; and then darkness will indeed fall over the world.”

  “You may know more of war than I do,” Theor said angrily, “but you show little knowledge of what is needed for a civilization. Why do the Rollarikans forever seek to spill across Medalon? Because this country is poor. Rains leach the soil until only trees as hardy as the yor-war flourish. The plants that supply most of our fiber would not grow here. And do you know how many octads of years it would take to clear enough land for even the scantiest ranching? As for that volcano, the ice minerals I have seen there are not those which make good alloys. We are too few to maintain a literate culture—and how much help would mates be that we stole from the barbarians? I tell you, if we remain here the darkness will come even more surely than if we go home and hazard our lives.”

  “That is your judgment. Mine is otherwise. We might in time regain Medalon, you know, by the help of allies—”

  “A Medalon ruined, with its people dead or scattered or enslaved, because we were too cowardly to help them!”

  Walfilo’s comb bristled. “Call me not coward,” he said, “or I will cease to call you Reeve.”

  Theor choked off his own wrath.

  An inbred coolness descended; he weighed the problem, watched the balance tilt, and said: “I take it you forbid a return.” Walfilo gestured yes. “Let us assemble the army, then, so that they may understand the case.”

  He spent the remainder of the day preparing his speech. His education had included rhetoric, and his conversations with the alien Fraser had sharpened that training.

  Toward sunset the host gathered by the lake. Theor mounted a tree stump and looked over them. Spears and helmets blazed in the last light, rank upon rank; the shields were faded and battered, but he could still make out emblems which had a proud history.

  “Males and demimales of Nyarr.” His voice rolled into a deep, waiting stillness, where the forest stood black above the lake’s glimmer. The least stirring went through the armed lines, like a small gust before a storm. “Both my demi-fathers died at Gillen Beach, where you also left comrades and kin. Now I am told I must betray them.”

  “What?” Walfilo started furiously. “I deny—”

  “The Reeve is speaking!” Theor said. “By the law of Nyarr, you shall say what you will afterward; but none now may interrupt.” He turned back to the army. “The enemy has pillaged his way to our city. He seals it shut with edged ice, and waits for our children and mates to die. I cannot call that an evil thing to do—not yet—not while we are doing just the same.”

  They roared!

  When Theor had finished, Walfilo took the stump, looked coldly at the weapons which threatened him and cried, “If this is your will, so be it. We shall spend two or three more days gathering food, and then we return to Medalon. Dismissed!” He stepped down again and sought Theor. “That was a cruel and unfair word you gave them,” he said through the shouting. “You knew well that I was acting as seemed best for the people.”

  “Indeed I do.” Theor clasped the warrior’s shoulder. “But had I not the same obligation? You told me yourself, often one must sacrifice much to keep something vital.”

  “So my honor is the sacrifice.”

  “No, never. They won’t recall my words against you. Not very long. What will live is the fact that you led us home.”

  Walfilo stood a while in the twilight regarding the younger male. Finally he laid his ax at Theorii feet, the ancient sign of obedience. “Indeed the blood of your folk is in you,” he said, “and you are a Reeve born.” Teeth flashed in a smile. “And thank you! My decision was nigh too heavy for me to bear. You have lifted it onto your own back. I will die sooner, following your counsel—but much more gladly!”

  XVI

  Fraser laid down his wrench.

  “That’s that,” he said. “No more safety cutoff on this engine. Now we only have to start her.”

  He rose, awkward in his suit, and found himself confronting Lorraine. The flashtube she had held to furnish him light wavered in her hand, making grotesque shadows chase across the room, over crowded machines and dully gleaming bulkheads. There the undiffused puddle of glow was reflected. Behind the faceplate, her features stood forth against the darkness in the doorway, and the gold hair seemed almost to crackle with die cold that filled the moonship.

  “Well,” he said, wishing he had better words, “let’s go.”

  “Mark—”

  “What?”

  “Oh . . . nothing, I guess.” Her eyelids fluttered down. He could see how she braced herself. “I just wanted to say . . . if we don’t make it . . . you’ve been a grand guy. There’s nobody I’d rather be with now.”

  Despite die synthetic emotional control he had eaten, his heart sprang. He patted her hand, fabric on fabric. “Same to you, kid. I’ll even admit—I think you’ll understand—I had a tough time remaining a gentleman, all those cycles in your apartment. I might not have managed it with someone I thought less of.”

  “Hell, you think I wasn’t having trouble being a lady?” She turned on her heel. “C’mon.”

  They climbed the ladder to the control room. Fraser set the engine to warmup and threw the starter switch. The preliminary whine shivered through his boots.

  “Quick, before the fusion starts!”

  She hung back at die airlock, as if to let him go first He shoved her ahead. The vibration built up with unnatural speed and raggedness. When he was halfway down the accommodation ladder, he jumped the rest of the distance.

  Blind in the gloom between the parked vessels, he fumbled around after her. Fingers closed on his arm. She led him to the north end of the area, and around westward.

  Cautiously, he peered from behind a landing jack. The field stretched yellowish gray between him and the town, in the light of third-quarter Jupiter. Ahead and to his right stood the Olympia, his entire hope. But his gaze was held on the enormous spheroid of the Vega, on the guns silhouetted lean against the Milky Way and the dozen armed men ringing her in. Another minute, I’d guess, till that engine blows. As if his estimate were exact, he counted down. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-six, no, seven, fifty-five—

  —twenty-four twenty-three, twenty-two—

  The world shuddered beneath him
. A roar passed through his feet and hammered in his skull. The ship beside him reeled on her jacks. Ho knew better than to look at the fire which spouted upward, but he saw its light pitiless on the ground, Hue-white, making each rock beyond the concrete apron stand forth Eke a mountain.

  A crack opened in the field and ran zigzag toward the Hind safety wall before Aurora. A moonship on the south side swayed, tottered, and fell with infinite slowness, struck at last and made the ground ring with her metal anguish. Vapor boiled through the space she had occupied, hellishly tinted by the fire.

  The chaos enured for one split instant, then the reactor was destroyed and the reaction ended. Night came again. Jupiter looked wan and the stunned eye could make out not a single star.

  Fraser and Lorraine ran.

  They didn’t pause to see if they were noticed. A shot would tell them that. In long frantic bounds they crossed the open field, reached the Olympic, and skidded to a halt.

  Because she was meant to land aerodynamically, on unknown and possibly unsafe terrain, in a strong gravitational field, she rested on wheeled jacks, and horizontally rather than vertically. Hence the cargo entry was lower than for a regular spaceship—but nonetheless higher than was convenient. Fraser braced his hands against the support below the hatch. Lorraine sprang onto his shoulders, reached up and spun the manual control. A circle opened. She chinned herself through, flopped down and extended a hand. Fraser jumped to catch her. Briefly, he was afraid she would be dragged out by his weight. But she drew him in. He rolled over, bounced to his feet and pelted for the pilot room. She closed the hatch and followed.

  An equally massive door guarded the human part of the ship. Fraser cranked the wheel and cursed its gear ratio. Through! He entered the forward section and plunked himself down in the pilot’s seat. The board was as dark as the rest of the vessel, and laid out differently from those he was used to. He was helpless until Lorraine came behind him and aimed the flashtube at his hands.