The man looked startled, but he recovered and switched from his own language to the patois. "I am Sergeant Chuichi Fushida of the Sixteenth Imperial Japanese Airborne Marine Detachment. And you are my prisoners. You will follow us to our base."
"Not a chance of that," Clive responded. "Sergeant, are you." He turned to Horace Hamilton Smythe. "Perhaps you'd better deal with this chap."
"Understand, sah," Smythe replied. "Smythe here, my brother. Regimental Chief Quartermaster Sergeant, Her Majesty's Fifth Imperial Horse Guards. Perhaps we can settle this thing, eh, Sergeant? What's that name again, Fushida?"
The Oriental appeared thunderstruck. "Horse Guards? Her Majesty? What majesty? What horse guards?"
Now it was Smythe's turn to show startlement. "What majesty? Why, Her Imperial Majesty Victoria."
The Japanese sergeant frowned. "Victoria? Of England?"
"The same."
"Victoria has been dead for years." He shouted a command to his two subordinates. They reached into the equipage of the cart and brought out carbines. Brilliantly polished bayonets protruded from the front of each weapon.
Annie had stood, staring at the entire exchange.
Finnbogg cowered behind her, whining and quivering.
The two armed Japanese ran forward, menacing the travelers with their weapons.
"This ain't working, Major Folliot. We'd best defend ourselves." Smythe brandished his cyberclaw.
Clive followed suit.
The first marine ran toward Folliot and Smythe; the second, toward Annie and Finnbogg. "Doesn't look like they're going to shoot us, anyway," Smythe said. "Maybe they don't have any ammunition."
Finnbogg was backing away, shaking his head in fright, setting up a din of whines and whimpers.
Annie reached inside her bodice to turn on the electrofield but the marine nearest her swung his carbine butt-first against the side of her head. With a sickening thud the weapon connected with her skull and she collapsed to the ground and into an even more frightening silence.
Horace Hamilton Smythe was feinting and jabbing at the second marine, using his cyberclaw as a dirk. He was at a distinct disadvantage as the carbine and bayonet gave the Japanese marine a longer reach.
The cyberclaw clashed against the bayonet and slid along the barrel of the carbine. The marine reversed his weapon and swung its butt toward Smythe. Smythe danced away.
Clive started toward Annie, but came first to Finnbogg. The dwarf was curled up on the ground.
Folliot kicked him angrily, shouting, "Get up, you great coward. We're in a fight now! Get up and give an account of yourself." Finnbogg flattened himself on the ground, groveling.
"No," Finnbogg wailed. "No, n-o-o-o. Nihonjin kill everybody, cook everybody, eat everybody. Not eat Finnbogg! Go away, Nihonjin! Go away, Folliot man!"
Folliot bent over the supine Finnbogg. He seized him by the shoulders and tugged at him, enraged at the great dwarf's craven behavior.
Folliot snarled. He felt a glancing blow to the back of his head and tumbled, stunned, across the form of Finnbogg. He blinked. The bright sky whirled. For an instant he saw the face of one of the enemy marines bending over him, leering eagerly. He saw the marine raise his carbine. The weapon was held butt-downward over Clive's forehead. Apparently the Japanese intended to crush Clive's skull with the butt of the weapon rather than eviscerate him with the bayonet that gleamed in the sunlight.
It was a moment of strange clarity and calm. Clive felt as if he were separated from his body. He could see himself lying on his back, squinting against the sky. He could see the Japanese marine staring at him. He could see the carbine, a small rifle with a wooden stock and a heavily textured plate at its butt. He realized that this plate, weighted by the wood and steel of the weapon and powered by the wiry but muscular arms of the marine, would crush his skull and drive fragments of bone into his brain, obliterating him utterly, at any moment.
He even noted, with curiosity, a hinge on the carbine's stock just behind the receiver and trigger housing. He wondered at the purpose of that construction, and felt a pang of regret at the realization that he would never live to inquire.
Sunlight glinted again on the polished bayonet and the carbine began its descent.
The Japanese marine whirled across Clive, performing a perfect somersault. At the very edge of his vision Clive saw the man land on his feet, staggering.
The form of Horace Hamilton Smythe flashed above Clive.
Folliot was able to push himself to his hands and knees. He crouched on the grass, watching Smythe and the Japanese marine face each other. The odd moment of disembodied calm was past, and Clive heard a ringing in his ears, felt a pain in his skull and the nausea that he knew came with concussion.
The Japanese marine lunged at Smythe. He was using the bayonet now, performing a perfectly orthodox drill that Clive had seen a hundred times on the training fields and parade grounds of the Fifth Imperial Horse Guards.
Horace Hamilton Smythe was armed only with his cyberclaw, and to Clive Folliot's startlement, the sergeant had slipped the claw back into the waistband of his trousers. Instead of using his own weapon, he sidestepped the lunging marine. The marine, his weight committed to the bayonet stroke, fell easy prey to Smythe. The Englishman caught the Japanese by shoulder and elbow, adding to his momentum as he collided with Smythe's extended leg.
The Japanese tumbled through the air.
He landed on his back and stared up in astonishment at Horace Hamilton Smythe, who somehow had plucked the carbine from his grasp as he spun to the earth.
There was a clattering behind Clive. He turned and saw the pedal-powered cart bouncing away. The Japanese marine who had struck Annie to the ground had loaded her inert form onto the cart. Now he was pedaling furiously at one station while his commanding sergeant had unbent from his stiff posture on the rear seat and assumed the other position as pedaler.
"Stop them! They've got Annie!" Clive took a few staggering steps after the cart. He realized that he couldn't possibly catch it—even if he were not still half-stunned.
"Down, sah!" came Sergeant Smythe's voice from behind him. Clive dropped in his traces, turned to see what Smythe was up to. The sergeant had raised the Japanese carbine to his shoulder and was sighting carefully at the cart.
Clive shouted, "No, Smythe—you'll hit Annie!"
But Smythe squeezed the trigger. Clive heard a click from the weapon. Smythe lowered it, opened the receiver. "No ammunition. An empty magazine but no ammunition."
"We'd better get after that cart, Smythe!" Clive took a few more unsteady steps, then halted, weak and dizzy.
"No chance of that right now, sah. Let's see what we can get out of this chap. We have to make a plan. See what we can do with Finnbogg while we're at it. Too bad Madame Shriek has decamped. Perhaps we'll see her again, sah."
The marine, lying on the ground near Smythe, scrambled on his hands and feet. He launched himself at the Englishman. Without bothering to look around, Smythe stepped aside. The marine slammed past him and Smythe pricked him in the hindquarters with the bayonet.
"Chaps keep their pieces clean and their bayonets honed, anyway," Smythe murmured. "Pity they don't keep any bullets in their pieces."
The Japanese marine started to climb to his feet but Smythe stopped him with a sharp command. In the local patois he said, "You just sit where you are, fellow. Put your feet straight out in front of you and your hands behind your back. That's a good bloke. I don't want to kill you, but you've had too many chances already and you won't get another. Major Folliot—"
Clive looked at Smythe.
Smythe hesitated briefly. Then he said, "Sah, suppose I hand you this piece. Keep the bayonet pointed at this blighter, and if he tries anything, let's just spill his innards on the ground, eh?"
Clive took the weapon and stood over the prisoner. Smythe knelt beside the man and unwrapped the cloth leggings from his ankles. "Always wondered what these things were any good for," he grumbled.
He scuttled around the Japanese and with one unraveled legging tied the man's arms firmly together behind his back. He knotted one end of the second legging to the man's wrists so that it became, in effect, a leash.
"Don't want this chap to run away, now."
Keeping one eye on their prisoner, Folliot and Smythe examined the carbine. Smythe discovered the purpose of the hinged stock: the carbine could be folded, for compact packing.
"Why do you want to fold a carbine in half?" Smythe asked the prisoner.
The man stared blankly past Smythe.
"I asked you a question," Smythe snapped.
The Japanese continued to stare. His air was more one of shock than of defiance.
"Maybe another little pricking with his own bayonet, Sergeant Smythe," Clive suggested.
Smythe considered briefly. Then he drew himself up in his best parade ground manner. "Private, report!" he roared.
The Japanese squared his shoulders. His eyes grew brighter, as if he were more on the alert even if confused.
"Onishi, Shigeru, private, Sixteenth Airborne Marine Detachment, Sergeant, sir!"
"Good! And where are you stationed, Private Onishi?"
"Onemak Island, Kwajalein Atoll, Sergeant, sir!"
"And your commanders?"
"Senior Lieutenant Takamura, sir! Junior Lieutenant Yamura, sir! Sergeant Fushida, sir!"
"You ever hear of those places, sah? What did he say? Onemak, Kwajalein." Smythe looked at Folliot.
Clive said, "I think I recall Kwajalein. Some little spit of coral out in the western Pacific. Don't think the empire has reached that far, as yet. Don't know why anybody would want it. Perhaps as a resupply point for merchant ships."
There was a tugging at Clive's ankle and a whining from his feet. He turned and saw Finnbogg cringing and cowering. The dwarf's massive frame was still quivering and his cheeks were wet with tears.
"Coward," Clive sneered. "Traitor. What do you want, Finnbogg?"
"Finnbogg sorry, Folliot man," the dwarf sobbed. "Finnbogg so afraid. Nihonjin, bad Nihonjin men—"
"Never mind. I know. Nihonjin roast people for dinner. And they've got Annie now. We've got to get her out of their clutches!"
"Japanese marines are not cannibals!" Private Onishi snapped. The man was coming back to himself. These were the first words he had volunteered. "We obey the will of the emperor. You should know as much, you English. You have a king of your own."
"A queen, not a king. But yes."
"King."
Exasperated, Clive said, "Come now. Victoria reigns and all is well with the empire. She's been our sovereign for thirty-one glorious years. Since 1837."
The Japanese laughed. "What year is it now, do you think Englishman?"
"It's 1868, of course!"
"It's 2603 by the Japanese calendar. Meiji year '76. By your Western calendar, it is the year 1943." Folliot stared into the man's face.
The Japanese lost some of his assuredness. "We have been in the Dungeon since 1943."
Sergeant Smythe stepped around the prisoner to stand beside Clive Folliot. He peered at the marine. "Since 1943, eh? Your chaps have been here since 1943? Your whole unit? Officers, sergeants, and all?"
"Yes!"
"And how long has that been? How old were you when this happened? How did it happen?"
The Japanese appeared even more confused. "I—do not know how long we have been here. We have suffered. We came at night. There were whirling stars. We thought they were some new weapon of the Americans. General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, President Roosevelt—the Americans have great leaders, more weapons than we have."
A shudder racked the man's frame. "But it was not the Americans. It was the Q'oornans. Since we have been here we have been attacked by monsters, raided by bandits. Men disappear. Our ammunition is all gone. Our fuel is all gone, so we converted our vehicles to pedal carts. Our Nakajima airplane no longer flies. The pilot, Sergeant Nomura, refused to let us salvage it for parts; he polishes and cares for the Nakajima as if it were a sacred shrine. We could get good parts from the Nakajima. Wheels, gears, good sheet metal."
"You've been here a long while, then. You didn't tell me your age."
"I was sixteen when we came to the Dungeon." Smythe cocked an eye at the man. "Have you seen a mirror lately? Look at yourself, Private! Lines in your face. Gray in your hair. If you ask me, you're on the shady side of forty. If you're not there, you're close to it."
Onishi shrugged.
"They've been here twenty years," Smythe said to Folliot, "maybe a bit more. That would make it 1963 by their reckoning. Seems to me they just forgot about the passage of time, once they arrived here."
"But it's 1868," Clive insisted.
"It is for us, sah. We don't really understand the Dungeon even yet, do we, sah?"
"I wish du Maurier were here, Sergeant. You don't know the man, but this is the kind of puzzle that his mind loves to grapple with. Perhaps the Dungeon exists on some—I don't know what to call it—well, time track, I suppose. Some time track that is separate from our own. It isn't just a different place, it's a different kind of place, where geography and chronology don't work the same way they do on Earth. Oh, du Maruier would love it!"
Onishi said, "By 1963 the war will be over. General Tojo will dictate peace terms to President Roosevelt. Admiral Yamamoto will ride his white horse on the White House lawn!"
"I wouldn't know about that, Private. That's a problem for your century, not for mine!"
He threw a scornful look at Finnbogg, then a more respectful one at Horace Smythe. "Our problem is to find Private Onishi's detachment and rescue Annie."
"Oh yes," Finnbogg wailed. "Rescue Annie. Rescue Annie, find Shriek, go 'way from Nihonjin. Go 'way from Nihonjin!"
"Our council of war is convened," Clive announced.
CHAPTER 22
New Kwajalein Atoll
It was Finnbogg who redeemed himself, who risked his life to save the life of another, whose great cowardice, in the end, was not as great as his loyalty and his courage. But before any of that could happen, Clive Folliot had to have his confrontation with the dwarf.
"They are ordinary men, Finnbogg. No different from Sergeant Smythe and myself. You're not terrified of us."
"No, not afraid of Folliot man, Smythe man."
"Then why are you so terrified of the Japanese— the Nihonjin?"
"Nihonjin eat people."
"How do you know that?"
"Know it."
"How, Finnbogg? Have you encountered Nihonjin before? Have you been in this part of the Dungeon?" The massive being shook his head. "Not here before. Q'oornans tell Finnbogg. Show pictures. Tell stories."
Clive exchanged glances with Horace Smythe. "Tell us the stories they told you, Finnbogg," Smythe urged.
Before the dwarf could answer, Clive said, "What about Annie? Why are we not pursuing the cart in which they took her away?"
"Cart moves too fast, sah. We couldn't catch up by direct pursuit. Have to do something better than that. Outsmart the Nihonjin if we can."
Clive rubbed his chin. "Suppose you're right, Smythe. But it's hard to remain calm and analytical with Annie in the clutches of those devils."
"Yes, sah." He gestured encouragingly to Finnbogg. "Q'oornans say, Nihonjin have Crown of the Castle. Anyone who wears crown will become Lord of Castle. Nihonjin not let others get crown. Kill anyone who try. Cook 'em, eat 'em up."
"The Q'oornans told you this?"
Finnbogg nodded vigorously, completely human in the act.
"But—why would they tell you this? They used you only as a guard at the bridge, did they not?"
"Finnbogg was good guardian. Not ever let anyone pass. Only let Folliot men pass. Let Neville Folliot pass. Let Clive Folliot pass. Like Folliot men."
"Yes. But why would the Q'oornans tell you about the Nihonjin? They never intended you to reach this level of the Dungeon, did they?"
Finnbogg shook his head, bafflement written cle
arly upon his features.
"He doesn't know, sah." Smythe, keeping an eye on Private Onishi, lowered his voice to Clive. "The doggy bloke isn't too bright, sah, I don't think. There's a lot of questions old Finnbogg can't answer, sah. I suggest the major not waste too much time pursuin' so dim and flickerin' a lamp, if the major takes my meaning, sah."
Clive looked at Finnbogg, then back at Sergeant Smythe. "Point taken, Sergeant. What do you propose, then?"
Smythe turned to Finnbogg. "What else do you know about these Nihonjin, old fellow? What was that about a crown, eh?"
"Q'oornans tell Finnbogg since he was a puppy, Nihonjin kill everybody, cook 'em 'n' eat 'em. That's why Finnbogg scared. Finnbogg sorry, sorry friend Smythe, sorry friend Folliot. Finnbogg love sweet Annie. If Nihonjin cook Annie, Finnbogg kill Nihonjin. Kill 'em! Kill 'em! Kill 'em all!"
The dwarfs eyes blazed, his lips drew back to reveal rows of huge, pointed canine teeth.
Private Onishi cowered, trying to keep Horace Smythe between himself and the dwarf.
"You've got your courage back, Finnbogg?" Clive was not convinced.
"Finnbogg sorry he was scared, Folliot man. Next time will be brave. Next time kill Nihonjin if Nihonjin hurt Annie!"
Clive turned to Smythe. "D'you think we can trust him—after he funked on us?"
Smythe looked at Finnbogg and nodded. "I think so, san."
"Cowardice to courage, just like that? Not easy to believe."
"I understand, sah. But I think the fellow was taught all his life to fear the Japanese. Never saw 'em, it seems. They were like boogeymen to him. Horrible fantasy figgers to scare naughty children, eh? Then—suddenly—there they are."
He jerked his head toward Private Onishi. "Now we've seen 'em. Finnbogg knows they're only human. Pshaw, we've got one of our own right here on a leash. He won't funk on us again, Major. I'd bet a year's pay vouchers on it!"
Clive rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Images of Annie lying on the ground, of Annie being driven away in the Japanese pedal cart, rose to haunt him. For an errant moment he wondered how the marine had managed to hit her with the butt of his carbine if she had turned on the electrofield of her Baalbec A-9. Well, he wasn't certain that it had been turned on.
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