The Only Game in Town tp-4 Page 3

  “And make fireworks? It’ll have to be pretty fancy. Those Cathayans know about gunpowder. They even have military rockets.”

  “Small ones. I know. But when I assembled my gear for this trip, I packed away some fairly versatile gadgetry, in case my first attempt failed.”

  The hill bore a sparse crown of pine trees. Everard landed the scooter among them and began to unload boxes from its sizeable baggage compartments. Sandoval helped, wordless. The horses, Patrol trained, stepped calmly off the framework stalls which had borne them and started grazing along the slope.

  After a while the Indian broke his silence. “This isn’t my line of work. What are you rigging?”

  Everard patted the small machine he had half assembled. “It’s adapted from a weather-control system used in the Cold Centuries era upstairs. A potential distributor. It can make some of the damnedest lightning you ever saw, with thunder to match.”

  “Mmm… the great Mongol weakness.” Suddenly Sandoval grinned. “You win. We might as well relax and enjoy this.”

  “Fix us a supper, will you, while I put the gimmick together? No fire, naturally. We don’t want any mundane smoke.… Oh, yes, I also have a mirage projector. If you’ll change clothes and put on a hood or something at the appropriate moment, so you can’t be recognized, I’ll paint a mile-high picture of you, half as ugly as life.”

  “How about a p.a. system? Navajo chants can be fairly alarming, if you don’t know it’s just a yeibichai or whatever.”

  “Coming up!”

  The day waned. It grew murky under the pines; the air was chill and pungent. At last Everard devoured a sandwich and watched through his binoculars as the Mongol vanguard checked that campsite he had predicted. Others came riding in with their day’s catch of game and went to work cooking. The main body showed up at sundown, posted itself efficiently, and ate. Toktai was indeed pushing hard, using every daylight moment. As darkness closed down, Everard glimpsed outposts mounted and with strung bows. He could not keep up his own spirits, however hard he tried. He was bucking men who had shaken the earth.

  Early stars glittered above snowpeaks. It was time to begin work.

  “Got our horses tethered, Jack? They might panic. I’m fairly sure the Mongol horses will! Okay, here goes.” Everard flipped a main switch and squatted by the dimly lit control dials of his apparatus.

  First there was the palest blue flicker between earth and sky. Then the lightnings began, tongue after forked tongue leaping, trees smashed at a blow, the mountainsides rocking under their noise. Everard threw out ball lightning, spheres of flame which whirled and curvetted, trailing sparks, shooting across to the camp and exploding above it till the sky seemed white hot.

  Deafened and half blinded, he managed to project a sheet of fluorescing ionization. Like northern lights the great banners curled, bloody red and bone white, hissing under the repeated thunder cracks. Sandoval trod forth. He had stripped to his pants, daubed clay on his body in archaic patterns; his face was not veiled after all, but smeared with earth and twisted into something Everard would not have known. The machine scanned him and altered its output. That which stood forth against the aurora was taller than a mountain. It moved in a shuffling dance, from horizon to horizon and back to the sky, and it wailed and barked in a falsetto louder than thunder.

  Everard crouched beneath the lurid light, his fingers stiff on the control board. He knew a primitive fear of his own; the dance woke things in him that he had forgotten.

  Judas priest! If this doesn’t make them quit…

  His mind returned to him. He even looked at his watch. Half an hour… give them another fifteen minutes, in which the display tapered off… They’d surely stay in camp till dawn rather than blunder wildly out in the dark, they had that much discipline. So keep everything under wraps for several hours more, then administer the last stroke to their nerves by a single electric bolt smiting a tree right next to them… Everard waved Sandoval back. The Indian sat down, panting harder than his exertions seemed to warrant.

  When the noise was gone, Everard said, “Nice show, Jack.” His voice sounded tinny and strange in his ears.

  “I hadn’t done anything like that for years,” muttered Sandoval. He struck a match, startling noise in the quietness. The brief flame showed his lips gone thin. Then he shook out the match and only his cigarette-end glowed.

  “Nobody I knew, on the reservation, took that stuff seriously,” he went on after a moment. “A few of the older men wanted us boys to learn it to keep the custom alive, to remind us we were still a people. But mostly our idea was to pick up some change by dancing for tourists.”

  There was a longer pause. Everard doused the projector completely. In the murk that followed, Sandoval’s cigarette waxed and waned, a tiny red Algol.

  “Tourists!” he said at last.

  After more minutes: “Tonight I was dancing for a purpose. It meant something. I never felt that way before.”

  Everard was silent.

  Until one of the horses, which had plunged at its halter’s end during the performance and was still nervous, whinnied.

  Everard looked up. Night met his eyes. “Did you hear anything, Jack?”

  The flashlight beam speared him.

  For an instant he stared blinded at it. Then he sprang erect, cursing and snatching for his stun pistol. A shadow ran from behind one of the trees. It struck him in the ribs. He lurched back. The beam gun flew to his hand. He shot at random.

  The flashlight swept about once more. Everard glimpsed Sandoval. The Navajo had not donned his weapons again. Unarmed, he dodged the sweep of a Mongol blade. The swordsman ran after him. Sandoval reverted to Patrol judo. He went to one knee. Clumsy afoot, the Mongol slashed, missed, and ran straight into a shoulder block to the belly. Sandoval rose with the blow. The heel of his hand jolted upward to the Mongol’s chin. The helmeted head snapped back. Sandoval chopped a hand at the Adam’s apple, yanked the sword from its owner’s grasp, turned and parried a cut from behind.

  A voice yammered above the Mongol yipping, giving orders. Everard backed away. He had knocked one attacker out with a bolt from his pistol. There were others between him and the scooter. He circled to face them. A lariat curled around his shoulders. It tightened with one expert heave. He went over. Four men piled on him. He saw half a dozen lance butts crack down oh Sandoval’s head, then there wasn’t time for anything but fighting. Twice he got to his feet, but his gun was gone by now, the Mauser was plucked from its holster—the little men were pretty good at yawara-style combat themselves. They dragged him down and hit him with fists, boots, dagger pommels. He never quite lost consciousness, but he finally stopped caring.

  6

  Toktai struck camp before dawn. The first sun saw his troop wind between scattered copses on a broad valley floor. The land was turning flat and arid, the mountains to the right farther away, fewer snowpeaks visible and those ghostly in a pale sky.

  The hardy small Mongol horses trotted ahead—plop of hoofs, squeak and jingle of harness. Looking back, Everard saw the line as a compact mass; lances rose and fell, pennants and plumes and cloaks fluttered beneath, and under that were the helmets, with a brown slit-eyed face and a grotesquely painted cuirass visible here and there. No one spoke, and he couldn’t read any of those expressions.

  His brain felt sandy. They had left his hands free, but lashed his ankles to the stirrups, and the cord chafed. They had also stripped him naked—sensible precaution, who knew what instruments might be sewn into his garments?—and the Mongol garb given him in exchange was ludicrously small. The seams had had to be slit before he could even get the tunic on.

  The projector and the scooter lay back at the hill. Toktai would not take any risks with those things of power. He had had to roar down several of his own frightened warriors before they would even agree to bring the strange horses, with saddle and bedroll, riderless among the pack mares.

  Hoofs thudded rapidly. One of the bowmen flanking Everard g
runted and moved his pony a little aside. Li Tai-Tsung rode close.

  The Patrolman gave him a dull stare. “Well?” he said.

  “I fear your friend will not waken again,” answered the Chinese. “I made him a little more comfortable.”

  But lying strapped on an improvised litter between two ponies, unconscious… Yes, concussion, when they clubbed him last night. A Patrol hospital could put him to rights soon enough. But the nearest Patrol office is in Cambaluc, and I can’t see Toktai letting me go back to the scooter and use its radio. John Sandoval is going to die here, six hundred and fifty years before he was born.

  Everard looked into cool brown eyes, interested, not unsympathetic, but alien to him. It was no use, he knew; arguments which were logical in his culture were gibberish today; but one had to try. “Can you, at least, not make Toktai understand what ruin he is going to bring on himself, on his whole people, by this?”

  Li stroked his fork beard. “It is plain to see, honored sir, your nation has arts unknown to us,” he said. “But what of it? The barbarians—” He gave Everard’s Mongol guards a quick glance, but evidently they didn’t understand the Sung Chinese he used—“took many kingdoms superior to them in every way but fighting skill. Now already we know that you, ah, amended the truth when you spoke of a hostile empire near these lands. Why should your king try to frighten us away with a falsehood, did he not have reason to fear us?”

  Everard spoke with care: “Our glorious emperor dislikes bloodshed. But if you force him to strike you down—”

  “Please.” Li looked pained. He waved one slender hand, as if brushing off an insect. “Say what you will to Toktai, and I shall not interfere. It would not sadden me to return home; I came only under Imperial orders. But let us two, speaking confidentially, not insult each other’s intelligence. Do you not see, eminent lord, that there is no possible harm with which you can threaten these men? Death they despise; even the most lingering torture must kill them in time; even the most-disgraceful mutilation can be made as naught by a man willing to bite through his tongue and die. Toktai sees eternal shame if he turns back at this stage of events, and a good chance of eternal glory and uncountable wealth if he continues.”

  Everard sighed. His own humiliating capture had indeed been the turning point. The Mongols had been very near bolting at the thunder show. Many had groveled and wailed (and from now on would be all the more aggressive, to erase that memory). Toktai charged the source as much in horror as defiance; a few men and horses had been able to come along. Li himself was partly responsible: scholar, skeptic, familiar with sleight-of-hand and pyrotechnic displays, the Chinese had helped hearten Toktai to attack before one of those thunderbolts did strike home.

  The truth of the matter is, son, we misjudged these people. We should have taken along a Specialist, who’d have an intuitive feeling for the nuances of this culture. But no, we assumed a brainful of facts would be enough. Now what? A Patrol relief expedition may show up eventually, but Jack will be dead in another day or two… Everard looked at the stony warrior face on his left. Quite probably I’ll be also. They’re still on edge. They’d sooner scrag me than not.

  And even if he should (unlikely chance!) survive to be hauled out of this mess by another Patrol band—it would be tough to face his comrades. An Unattached agent, with all the special privileges of his rank, was expected to handle situations without extra help. Without leading valuable men to their deaths.

  “So I advise you most sincerely not to attempt any more deceptions.”

  “What?” Everard turned back to Li.

  “You do understand, do you not,” said the Chinese, “that our native guides did flee? That you are now taking their place? But we expect to meet other tribes before long, establish communication…”

  Everard nodded a throbbing head. The sunlight pierced his eyes. He was not astonished at the ready Mongol progress through scores of separate language areas. If you aren’t fussy about grammar, a few hours suffice to pick up the small number of basic words and gestures; thereafter you can take days or weeks actually learning to speak with your hired escort.

  “…and obtain guides from stage to stage, as we did before,” continued Li. “Any misdirection you may have given will soon be apparent. Toktai will punish it in most uncivilized ways. On the other hand, faithful service will be rewarded. You may hope in time to rise high in the provincial court, after the conquest.”

  Everard sat unmoving. The casual boast was like an explosion in his mind.

  He had been assuming the Patrol would send another force. Obviously something was going to prevent Toktai’s return. But was it so obvious? Why had this interference been ordered at all, if there were not—in some paradoxical way his twentieth-century logic couldn’t grasp—an uncertainty, a shakiness in the continuum right at this point?

  Judas in hell! Perhaps the Mongol expedition was going to succeed! Perhaps all the future of an American Khanate which Sandoval had not quite dared dream of… was the real future.

  There are quirks and discontinuities in space-time. The world lines can double back and bite themselves off, so that things and events appear causelessly, meaningless flutters soon lost and forgotten. Such as Manse Everard, marooned in the past with a dead John Sandoval, after coming from a future that never existed as the agent of a Time Patrol which never was.

  7

  At sundown their unmerciful pace had brought the expedition into sagebrush and greasewood country. The hills were steep and brown; dust smoked under hoofs; silvery-green bushes grew sparse, sweetening the air when bruised but offering little else.

  Everard helped lay Sandoval on the ground. The Navajo’s eyes were closed, his face sunken and hot. Sometimes he tossed and muttered a bit. Everard squeezed water from a wetted cloth past the cracked lips, but could do nothing more.

  The Mongols established themselves more gaily than of late. They had overcome two great sorcerers and suffered no further attack, and the implications were growing upon them. They went about their chores chattering to each other, and after a frugal meal they broke out the leather bags’ of kumiss.

  Everard remained with Sandoval, near the middle of camp. Two guards had been posted on him, who sat with strung bows a few yards away but didn’t talk. Now and then one of them would get up to tend the small fire. Presently silence fell on their comrades too. Even this leathery host was tired; men rolled up and went to sleep, the out-posts rode their rounds drowsy-eyed, other watch-fires burned to embers while stars kindled overhead, a coyote yelped across miles. Everard covered Sandoval against the gathering cold; his own low flames showed rime frost on sage leaves. He huddled into a cloak and wished his captors would at least give him back his pipe.

  A football crunched dry soil. Everard’s guards snatched arrows for their bows. Toktai moved into the light, his head bare above a mantle. The guards bent low and moved back into shadow.

  Toktai halted. Everard looked up and then down again. The Noyon stared a while at Sandoval. Finally, almost gently, he said: “I do not think your friend will live to next sunset.”

  Everard grunted.

  “Have you any medicines which might help?” asked Toktai. “There are some queer things in your saddlebags.”

  “I have a remedy against infection, and another against pain,” said Everard mechanically. “But for a cracked skull, he must be taken to skillful physicians.”

  Toktai sat down and held his hands to the fire. “I’m sorry we have no surgeons along.”

  “You could let us go,” said Everard without hope. “My chariot, back at the last camp, could get him to help in time.”

  “Now you know I can’t do that!” Toktai chuckled. His pity for the dying man flickered out. “After all, Eburar, you started the trouble.”

  Since it was true, the Patrolman made no retort.

  “I don’t hold it against you,” went on Toktai. “In fact, I’m still anxious to be friends. If I weren’t, I’d stop for a few days and wring all you kno
w out of you.”

  Everard flared up. “You could try!”

  “And succeed, I think, with a man who has to carry medicine against pain.” Toktai’s grin was wolfish. “However, you may be useful as a hostage or something. And I do like your nerve. I’ll even tell you an idea I have. I think maybe you don’t belong to this rich southland at all. I think you’re an adventurer, one of a little band of shamans. You have the southern king in your power, or hope to, and don’t want strangers interfering.” Toktai spat into the fire. “There are old stories about that sort of thing, and finally a hero overthrew the wizard. Why not me?”

  Everard sighed. “You will learn why not, Noyon.” He wondered how correct that was.

  “Oh, now.” Toktai clapped him on the back. “Can’t you tell me even a little? There’s no blood feud between us. Let’s be friends.”

  Everard jerked a thumb at Sandoval.

  “It’s a shame, that,” said Toktai, “but he would keep on resisting an officer of the Kha Khan. Come, let’s have a drink together, Eburar. I’ll send a man for a bag.”

  The Patrolman made a face. “That’s no way to pacify me!”

  “Oh, your people don’t like kumiss? I’m afraid it’s all we have. We drank up our wine long ago.”

  “You could let me have my whisky.” Everard looked at Sandoval again, and out into night, and felt the cold creep inward. “God, but I could use that!”

  “Eh?”

  “A drink of our own. We had some in our saddle-bags.”

  “Well…” Toktai hesitated. “Very well. Come along and we’ll fetch it.”

  The guards followed their chief and their prisoner, through the brush and the sleeping warriors, up to a pile of assorted gear also under guard. One of the latter sentries ignited a stick in his fire to give Everard some light. The Patrolman’s back muscles tensed—arrows were aimed at him now, drawn to the barb—but he squatted and went through his own stuff, careful not to move fast. When he had both canteens of Scotch, he returned to his own place.