“Come on, then,” Valdir rapped out. In another minute they were all racing down the slope; Larry, startled, jerked his reins and rode after them, as fast as he could. Keeping his seat with an effort, not wanting to be left behind, he wondered what it was all about.
As they came over the brow of a little hill, he could hear the still-clamoring bell, louder and more insistent, and see, lying in the valley below them, a little cluster of roofs—the village of Aderis. The streets were filled with men, women and children; as they rode down from the slope into the streets of the village, they were surrounded by a crowd of men who fell silent as they saw Valdir Alton.
Valdir slid from his saddle, beckoned his party closer, Larry drawing close with them. He found himself beside Kennard. “What is it, what’s going on?”
“Forest fire,” Kennard said, motioning him to silence, listening to the man who was still pointing toward the hills across the valley. Larry, raising his head to look where the man pointed, could see only a thick darkening haze that might have been a cloud—or smoke.
The crowd in the village street was thickening, and through it all the bell tolled on.
Kennard, turning to Larry, explained quickly, “When fire breaks out in these hills, they ring the bells from the village that sees it first, and every village within hearing takes it up. Before tonight, every able-bodied man in the countryside will be here. That’s the law. It’s almost the only law we have that runs past the boundaries of a man’s own estate.”
Larry could see why; even in a countryside that scorned impersonal laws, men must band together to fight the one great impersonal enemy of fire. Valdir turned his head, saw the two boys standing by their horses; and came swiftly toward them. He looked harried and remote again, and Larry realized why some men were afraid of the Alton lord when he looked like this.
“Vardi will take the horses, Kennard. They’re going to send us forward into the south slopes; they need fire-lines there. Larry—” he frowned slightly, shaking his head. Finally he said, “I am responsible for your safety. The fire may sweep down this slope, so the women and children are being sent to the next town. Go with them; I will give you a message to someone there who can have you as a guest until the emergency is over.”
Kennard looked startled, and Larry could almost read his thoughts; the look in Kennard’s eyes was too much for him. Should he, the stranger, be sent to safety with the women, the infirm, the little children?
“Lord Alton, I don’t—”
“I haven’t time to argue,” The Darkovan snapped, and his eyes were formidable. “You’ll be safe enough there.”
Larry felt a sudden, sharp-flaring rage, like a physical thing. Damn it, I won’t be sent out of the way with the women! What do they think I am? Valdir Alton had begun to turn away; he stopped short, so abruptly that Larry actually wondered for a moment if he had spoken his protest aloud.
Valdir’s voice was harsh. “What is it, Larry? Be quick. I have a place to fill here.”
“Can’t I go with the men, sir? I—” Larry sought for words, trying to put into words some of the angry thoughts that struggled in his mind.
As if echoing his thoughts, Valdir said, “If you were one of us—but your people will hold me responsible if you are harmed…”
Larry, catching swifly at what Valdir had told him of Darkovan codes, retorted, “But you’re dealing with me, not with all my people!”
Valdir smiled, bleakly. “If that’s the way you want it. It’s hard, rough work,” he said, warningly, but Larry did not speak, and Valdir gestured. “Go with Kennard, then. He’ll show you what to do.”
Hurrying to join Kennard, Larry realized that he had crossed another bridge. He could be accepted by the Darkovans on their own terms, as a man—like Kennard—and not as a child to be guarded.
After a confused interval, he found himself part of a group of horsemen, Valdir in the lead, Kennard at his side, half a dozen strange Darkovans surrounding him, riding toward the low-lying haze. As they rode, the smell of smoke grew stronger, the air heavy and thick with curious smells; flecks of dust hung in the air, while bits of black soot fell on their faces and stung their eyes. His horse grew restive, backing and whinnying, as the smoke thickened. Finally they had to dismount and lead their horses forward.
As yet, the fire had been only a smolder of smoke lying against the sky, an acrid and stinging stench; but as they came between the two hills that cut off their view of the forested slopes, Larry could see a crimson glow and hear a strange dull sound in the distance. A small rabbitlike beast suddenly scudded past, almost under their horses’ hooves, blindly fleeing.
Valdir pointed. He made a sharp turn past a high hedge, and came out into a broad meadow whose grayish high grass was trampled and beaten down. A large number of men and boys were milling around at the center; there was a tent pitched at the edge, and after a moment of confusion Larry realized that the random groupings were orderly and businesslike. An elderly man, stooping and hobbling, came to lead their horses away; Larry gave up his reins and hurried after Kennard to the center of the field.
A boy about his own age, in a coarse sacking shirt and leather breeches, motioned to them. He nodded to Kennard in recognition, looked at Larry with a frown and asked, “Can you use an axe?”
“I’m afraid not,” Larry said.
The Darkovan boy listened briefly to his accent, but shrugged it aside. “Take this, then,” he said, and from a pile of tools handed Larry a thing like a long-toothed, sharp rake. He waved him on. Raising his eyes to the far end of the meadow, Larry could see the edge of the forest. It looked green and peaceful, but over the tops of the trees far away, he saw the red glare of flame.
Kennard touched his arm lightly. “Come on,” he said, and gave Larry a brief wry grin. “No doubt about which way we’re going, that’s for sure.”
Larry put the rake over his shoulder and joined the group of men and boys moving toward the distant glow.
Once or twice during that long, confused afternoon, he found himself wondering, remotely, why he had gotten himself into this, but the thought was brief. He was just one of a long line of men and boys spread out, with rakes and hoes and other tools, to cut a fire-line between the distant burning fire and the village. Crude and simple as it was, it was the oldest known technique for dealing with forest-fires—create a wide space where there was nothing for it to burn. With rakes, hoes, spades and shovels, they cleared away the dry brush and pine-needles, scraped the earth bare, chopped up the dry grass and made a wide swath of open ground where nothing could burn. Men with axes felled the trees in the chosen space; smaller boys dragged the dead trees and brush away, while behind them came the crew that scraped and shoveled the ground clear. Larry quickly had an ache in his muscles and his palms stung and smarted from the handle of the rake, but he worked on, one anonymous unit in the dozens of men that kept swarming in. When one spot was cleared they were moveed on to another. Younger boys brought buckets of water around; Larry drank in his turn, dropping the rake and lowering his lips to the bucket’s edge. When it was too dark to see, he and Kennard were called out of the line, their places taken by a fresh crew working by torchlight, and they stumbled wearily down the slope to the camp, lined up for bowls of stew ladled out by the old men keeping the camp, and, wrapping themselves in blankets, threw themselves down to sleep on the grass, surrounded by young men and old.
Larry woke before dawn, his throat and lungs filled with smoke. He sat up. The roar of the fire sounded ominous and harsh in his ears; men were still gathered at the center of the camp space. He recognized the tall form of Valdir Alton, heard the sound of excited voices. He wriggled out of his blanket and stood upright, then was aware of Kennard, rising to his feet beside him. Against the dimness, Kennard was only a blurred form. He said, “Something’s happening over there. Let’s go and see.”
The two boys picked their way carefully through the rows of sleeping men. As they came closer to the lighted fire, the firelig
ht shone on a tall man in a somber gray cloak, dull-red hair splotched with white, and Larry recognized the stern, ascetic face of Lorill Hastur; close at his side, in a close-wrapped cape, shivering, was a slight and fragile woman with masses of burning, fire-red hair.
Kennard whistled softly. “A leronis, a sorceress—and the Hastur-Lord! The fire must be worse than we thought!” He tugged at Larry’s wrist. “Come on—this I want to hear!”
Quietly they crept to the outskirts of the little group. Valdir Alton had spread a blanket on the trampled grass for the woman; she sat down, staring at the glow of the distant fire as if hypnotized.
“The fire’s leaped the lines on the North slope,” Valdir said. “They were too close to the flames, and had to leave the area. We brought up donkey-teams to plow lines and clear away faster, but there weren’t enough people working there. We had only one clairvoyant, and he couldn’t see too clearly where the fire was moving.”
Lorill Hastur said, in his deep voice, “We came as quickly as we could. But there’s not much we can do until the sun rises.” He turned to the woman. “Where are the clouds, Janine?”
Still staring fixedly at the sky, the woman said, “Too far, really. And not enough. Seven vars distant.”
“We’ll have to try it, though,” Valdir said. “Otherwise it will cross the hill to the west, and burn down—Zandru’s hells, it could burn all the way to the river! We can’t afford to lose that much timberland.”
Larry heard the words with a strange little prickle of dread. He found himself thinking, painfully, of his own world.
With tractors and earth-movers they could cut firelines twenty feet wide in a few hours! With chemicals, they could douse the fire from the air, and have it out within the hour! Here, they didn’t even have helicopters or planes to see from the air which way the fire was moving!
Kennard looked at him a little wryly, and Larry again wondered if he had spoken aloud, but the Darkovan boy said nothing. The darkness was thinning, and through the thick sooty air the sky was flushing purple with dawn.
“What are they going to do?” Larry asked.
Kennard did not answer.
The woman motioned to Lorill Hastur; he lowered himself and sat, cross-legged, on the blanket before her. Valdir Alton stood behind them, his face wiped clean of expression, intent and calm.
The woman was holding something in her hand. It was a blue jewel, glimmering, pale in the purplish dawn, and Larry thought suddenly of the blue jewel Valdir had held in his hand when he probed the mind of the dying Ranger. A curious little prickle of apprehension ran down his spine, and he shivered in the chilly, soot-laden wind.
The three forms were motionless, tense and still as carven images. Kennard gripped at Larry’s arm and Larry felt the taut excitement in his friend; he wanted to ask a dozen questions, but the intentness of the three redheaded forms held him speechless. He waited.
Minutes dragged by, slowly, and the blue jewel gleamed in the woman’s hand, and Larry could almost see the tension radiating between the three of them. The pale dawn brightened, and far away at the eastern horizon a dimmer crimson glow lightened the lurid red of the faraway fire. The light strengthened, grew brighter in the pale clear sky.
Then the woman sighed softly, and Larry felt it as a palpable darkening and chill. Kennard gripped his arm, pointed upward. Clouds were gathering—thickening, moving in the pale windless sky, centering, clustering from no-where. Thick, heavy, high-piled cumulus, thin wispy fast-moving cirrus, raced from the horizon—from all the horizons! Not moving with normal wind, but coming, collecting from all corners of the compass, the clouds gathered and darkened, piling high and higher above them. The sun was blurred away, the meadow gradually darkened and Larry shivered in the sudden chill—but not with cold. He let out his breath in a long sigh.
Kennard loosed his clenched fists. He was staring at the sky. “Clouds enough,” he muttered, “if only they would rain! But with no wind, if the clouds just sit there—”
Larry took the murmured words as license to break his silence. Questions tumbled one over another, condensed themselves to a blurted, “How did they do that? Did they bring those clouds?”
Kennard nodded, not taking it very seriously. “Of course. Nothing much to that—I can even do it myself, a little. On a good day for it. And they’re Comyn—the most powerful psi powers on Darkover.”
Larry felt the chill run up and down his spine with cold feet. Telepathy—and now clouds moved by the power of trained minds!
His Terran training said, Impossible, superstitious rubbish! They observed which way the clouds were moving and bolstered up their reputation by predicting that clouds would pile up for rain. But even as he said it, he knew it was not true. He was not in the safe predictable world of Terran science now, but in the cold and alien strangeness of a world where these powers were more common than a camera.
“What now?” he asked, and as if in answer, Valdir said from the center of the circle, “Now, we pray for rain. Much good may it do us.”
Then, raising his head, he saw the boys, and beckoned to them.
“Have some breakfast,” he said. “As soon as it’s a little lighter they’ll send you out on the fire-lines again. Unless it rains.”
“Evanda grant it,” said the woman huskily.
Lorill Hastur raised his still face and gave Kennard a smile of greeting, which turned impassive as he saw Larry. Larry, under the man’s gaze, was suddenly aware of his soot-stained face, his raw and blistered hands, the torn and sweaty state of his clothes. Then he realized that Valdir Alton was in little better state. He had vaguely noticed, yesterday, that the men on the fire-lines were of all sorts: some soft-handed, in the rich clothing of aristocrats, some in the rags of the poorest. Evidently rank made no difference; rich and poor alike worked against this common danger. Of all those in the field, only the two telepaths were unstained by hard work.
Then he saw the gray look of fatigue in the eyes of the woman, the deep lines in the face of the Hastur. Maybe their work has been the hardest of all—
Kennard nudged him, and he accepted, from one of the old men, a lump of bread and a battered cup of a bitter-chocolaty drink. They found an unmuddied stretch of grass and sat to eat, their ears tuned to the distant roaring of the fire.
Kennard said, grimly, “They can bring the clouds and pile them up, but they can’t make them rain. Although sometimes just the sheer weight of the clouds will condense them into rain. Let’s hope.”
“If you had airplanes—” Larry said.
“What for?”
“On Terra, they can make rain,” Larry said slowly, thinking back to half-learned lessons of his schooldays. “They seed the clouds with some chemical—crystals—silver iodide,” he used the Terran word, not knowing the Darkovan one, “or even dry ice will do. I’m not sure how it works, but it condenses the clouds into rain—”
“How can ice be dry?” Kennard demanded, almost rudely. “It sounds like nonsense. Like saying dry water or a live dead man.”
“It’s not real ice,” Larry corrected himself. “It’s a gas—a frozen gas, that is. It’s carbon dioxide—the gas you breathe out. It crystallizes into something like snow, only it’s much, much colder than ice or snow—and it burns if you touch it.”
“You’re not joking?”
“I hope not,” said Valdir abruptly from behind them. “Kennard, what was Larry saying to you just now? I picked it up, but I can’t read him—”
With a curious prickly sensation again, Larry realized that Valdir had been well out of earshot. The Darkovan lord was looking down at him with an almost fierce intensity. He said, “Make rain? It sounds, then, as if the Terrans have a magic greater than ours. Tell me about this rain-making, Larry.”
Larry repeated what he had said to Kennard, and the older man stood scowling, deep in thought. Without a word, Lorill Hastur and the frail, flame-haired woman had approached them, and stood listening.
Lorill Hastur said, �
�What about it, Valdir? You know something of atomic structures. Is it practical at all?”
The men who had slept in the meadow were collecting their tools now, forming in groups, getting their orders for the day’s work. Larry looked at the forest edge. How green it looked. Yet above it rose the blanket of smoke and the omnipresent dull roar of the fire. Valdir turned, too, and looked at the cloud that hung over the burning woods.
He said, “Fire throws off the same gas as breath. There must be an enormous quantity of carbon dioxide going off into the air.”
“We can move it into the cold of the outer sky,” Lorill Hastur said. “That’s easy enough. And from there, if it falls on the clouds—”
“There’s no time to waste,” the woman said. Her eyes were closed, her voice remote, as she added, “A fire-storm has broken out on the far side of the forest, and the main blaze is racing toward the villages there. The fire-lines will never contain it. Rain is the only hope. There is enough moisture in those clouds to kill the fire—if we could only get it out of them.”
“We can try,” Valdir said. The three of them went into one of those intent silences again, the very air between their still forms seeming to tremble with invisible force.
Larry looked at Kennard. “Do you know what they’re going to do? How can they—?”
“They can teleport the gas above the clouds,” Kennard said. “If the cold can freeze it—”
Larry was becoming a little hardened to these curious powers now. If telepathy was possible, teleportation was only a minor step—
“If they can teleport, why don’t they just teleport enough water from a river, or something, to put out the fire?”
“Too much weight involved,” Kennard said gravely. “Even the clouds—they didn’t move the clouds themselves, just enough air to create a wind to move them here.” He fell silent, his eyes on his father, and when Larry started to speak, motioned him, impatiently, to silence.
The silence in the dawnlit meadow deepened; there was no sound at all, except for the distant, indistinct sound of the fire. The clouded sky seemed to darken, grow thick and dreary. Larry watched a group of men moving away toward the fire-lines; he and Kennard should have been with them. And they stood here, waiting, watching the three telepaths—
Star of Danger Page 8
