Andre Norton - [Time Traders (Ross Murdock) 07]

by Atlantis Endgame (epub)

  She took the bucket out and splashed it into the gutter that ran downhill along the outer edge of the street. The bucket was to be returned in the morning. Until then, it was hers.

  She draped the underclothes over the bucket, set it in the corner, and then lay down on the woven straw pallet that Eveleen had bought for them the night before. The dampness of her robe cooled her enough so that the very faint breeze felt pleasant.

  Cooking smells wafted in, and the sounds of voices, so few now each was distinct: low laughter from across the way, a fretful child, a couple having an argument, all the more fierce for being whispered.

  In the distance, far away, some voices began singing a song, the melody strange and yet curiously familiar, too. It pulled at the heart: a lament?

  Linnea drifted into sleep.

  When she woke, it was to the awareness of movement, of breathing. She looked up in dismay and amazement. Four women had crowded into her room, one of them being the bucket's owner.

  One, a young woman in the tight jacket and flounced skirt of the prosperous, held up her camisole and underwear—the good cotton, machine-stitched underwear, and the fine cotton-silk camisole—and shook it at Linnea. She then made a demand in a language that was only vaguely familiar.

  CHAPTER 10

  LINNEA STARED UP at the women, her brain at first refusing to work. Was she dreaming? No, her neck was gritty, her mouth dry, and she realized she knew this language; the woman had spoken in Egyptian.

  And now the women all looked at her with expressions ranging from curious to wary.

  Wary.

  What was it Gordon had said? There is no record of a woman speaking a foreign tongue, surprising people with things that never have been.

  The woman frowned a little, then said again in her rough, stilted Egyptian, "Where got you these?"

  Linnea thought rapidly, but another of the women forestalled her, saying in better Egyptian, "Why do you not trade this? You and the young one brought that old cloth from Kemt to trade, but our young girls make better." She turned her chin over her shoulder, making a spitting motion.

  Curiosity was swiftly turning into hostility. 7am the stranger here, Linnea thought, and she cleared her throat. "I wish we had such cloth to sell," she said. "Oh, how I have searched."

  The women listened, the one's hostility easing slightly.

  "You tell us, then, that this is the only such things you have?"

  "Yes," Linnea responded. "They were brought back for me by my man, from the Land of the Dragon, far, far in the direction of the morning sun."

  "Ah," said the older women, all nodding.

  "I have heard of that place," said the one with the jacket. "Some of the sailors have spoken of it. And the fine things that come from there, rare and precious. Precious enough for only the great families to trade precious artifacts of gold or very fine pearls."

  Linnea, following instinct, said, "It is really for younger women, these fine things. You may have them, if you like."

  The one with the jacket gaped in surprise and then pleasure. The youngest one gasped, running her fingers with reverence along the seams. "How tiny the threads are, how even. They must have looms the size of a cricket!"

  "It is far too great a gift," said the older woman, and the one with the jacket flushed. "What can we offer you as a trade?"

  In other words, why are you really here?

  Linnea licked her lips, and because instinct had gotten her this far, she said tentatively, "I have come with my family to trade, but I myself have . . . questions . . . for your oracle. I know the priestesses where I live, and they said that I should consult over the seas," she added randomly.

  The three older women nodded again, one with pursed lips. The youngest was still marveling over the machine stitching, holding the cloth only an inch or two from her eyes. Her big golden hoop earrings swung against her cheeks as she studied the seams.

  "Ah yes, our oracle is renowned for her communion with the goddess; this we know. But we have troubled times, you can see," the oldest said, pointing toward the sky.

  "I could ask about that, too," Linnea ventured, greatly daring.

  "We do ask. Many ask each day, but there has been no answer."

  "Perhaps it is for the far-sailing Kemtiu to break the silence?" asked the one with the jacket.

  "Perhaps," agreed the oldest. And she made a gesture of decision. "I shall send you to the priestesses. My sister's girl is with them. Her name is Ela. Tell her that Theti sent you. She will gain you entrance on the mountain."

  "That is a fair trade, is it not?" asked the one with the jacket.

  There was no mistaking her anxious look. Linnea nodded. "I think it very fair."

  The one with the jacket then plucked the garments from the younger woman, and vanished with a triumphant smile and a flounce of triply layered skirts.

  Linnea was left to find her way to the communal toilets, under which ran a stream. She went straight out, bought some fresh flatbread and cheese, and then started up the mountain to find Ela, and the oracle.

  ——————————

  AT THE SAME time, Ross and Eveleen woke up, surrounded by complete darkness.

  Ross fought the instinct to panic and forced himself to lie still, to mentally review.

  He remembered reaching the summit. Remembered the great vent and Eveleen taking pictures of the inner waters, before stashing her camera back in her clothing. He remembered turning around, and there was the Fur Face.

  It used some kind of translator to gabble some idiocy about not damaging them while holding a weapon pointed their way.

  So they'd gone within, into the heat and dangerous fumes. A smoothed passage then, made by very high-tech means, after which they were motioned into this chamber and the door shut, cutting off all light.

  Eveleen had not reacted at all, other than to hold his hand. He'd squeezed her hand in warning, and she'd squeezed back: I know what to do.

  What to do? Locking people up in a room to wait was a standard scare tactic, meant to soften up prisoners, make them really sweat about their fate. Darkness made it worse. What's more: if there were two, they were only left together in hopes that someone, unseen, would get to overhear talk.

  So they'd stayed silent, after a time stretching out on the stone floor and catching up on their rest.

  Now Ross was awake, and from the sound of her changed breathing, Eveleen was as well. He groped about and found her hand. He spelled into her palm,See or hear anything?

  Not a thing. It feels like morning.

  I think so, too. I'll bet we'll see action soon.

  He didn't want to speculate what kind.

  ——————————

  WHILE ROSS AND Eveleen waited, and Linnea Edel slowly trudged up the mountain path, on the northern shore of the peninsula that formed one end of their island-crescent, Gordon Ashe woke up, bleary-eyed and headachy.

  He looked around. No sign of the Baldies—of course.

  Damn.

  Down in a little gully to his left he saw some goats drinking from a small stream. He swallowed convulsively. The stream appeared to be bubbling up from underground, which meant it was probably sanitary. He had certainly risked worse during his many runs; he did have massive antibiotic doses back at the ship, but meantime his canteen was empty, and he had to get some water. He worked his way down the rocky incline. The goats scattered, the older ones scolding him with an insistent"Na-ha-ha-ha!"

  The water tasted faintly metallic. It had to be rich in minerals, but there was no dangerous flatness as of rotting matter or other pollutants. He drank his fill, and then sat down to think.

  He'd followed the Baldies at a respectable distance, not knowing how far their supposed detection might range. But they had not once looked back as they sped in a group northward over the hills. Ashe had followed, using all his years of experience at outdoor trail-craft to stay silent and out of sight but still keep them within his vision. Yet even so, just as t
he moon rose, he lost them.

  He could hardly be blamed. He been edging along a crumbling section of the trail, the Baldies just ahead around a turn, when a sudden quake sent the trail underfoot hurtling down toward the dry creek bed far below.

  The next ninety or so nearly vertical feet were like surfing on dirt; Ashe frantically pedaled his feet, keeping himself on top of the swirling dirt and rocks as the mass slid ever faster downward. He was successful until just a couple of feet from the bottom, when a larger rock banged into the back of his knee and sent him sprawling. The impact knocked the breath out of him; he grayed out for a moment. The agent was dimly aware of more rocks hitting him, then silence broken only by random slippages of pebbles.

  When he scrambled back to the trail, he hurried forward, limping, finally catching a glimpse of the Baldies far ahead. But only once. He soon was forced to conclude that he'd lost them. The trail was hard and stony there, and he could find no footprints.

  By the light of the low-hanging moon he had grimly worked his way from that spot in ever widening circles, but not a trail, or cave, or door did he find. So he'd finally laid himself down on a grassy little hillock to sleep.

  Now that it was daylight, he was determined to do another search, and if he did not find any suspicious anomalies like indications of spaceship burn, evidence of vehicle tracks, or flattened vegetation in the case of something air cushioned, he'd be forced to give up and return to the ship empty-handed.

  He got to his feet, pulled the stale remains of his flatbread from the leather pouch at his waist, and chewed as he started his search.

  ——————————

  IT DID NOT surprise Eveleen that Ross's instincts were right.

  With a hiss of muted hydraulics a crack of light appeared, rapidly widening into a doorway. Ross and Eveleen blinked, trying to adjust to the light. She put her hands up to her face, discovered her breathing mask. Panic! With a few more exchanges spelled out on each other's palms, they'd decided to stick to their covers. They hastily adjusted the cloth covering their faces and heads, so only their eyes showed and the breathing masks stayed hidden.

  She cast a look Ross's way, and he gave his head a tiny shake.

  The doorway darkened. One of the Fur Faces appeared, gesturing for them to come out. Another was in view behind.

  They slowly rose to their feet. Eveleen watched Ross look around as though totally mesmerized. His gaze, she saw with a bleak spurt of amusement, lingered on how the door retracted into the rock and the mechanism that controlled it.

  Out they walked. The two Fur Faces closed in behind them, tall, dressed in shapeless robes, each carrying something short and tubular in a clawed, double-jointed hand. Another Fur Face stepped in front of them, blocking off what had to be some kind of computer console, an egg of shimmering metal and misty bars of light, shapes that trembled in constant motion.

  She and Ross were guided into another room, this one light, with another partially blocked off console. The Fur Faces prodded them not ungently back toward the wall and then lined up behind the console.

  A Fur Face did something; they could not see what from their angle. The machine hummed, then spoke in a metallic, flat voice: "Who are you, and what seek you on the mountain?" The language was Ancient Greek.

  Ross cleared his throat. "We are Timos and Hesti, and we came in search of our missing goat."

  One of the Fur Faces spoke softly into what had to be their equivalent of a pin mike. This time the question came out in what sounded very much like Ancient Egyptian.

  Eveleen felt a flare of danger. So the Fur Faces did not believe their pose? Would they rip off the breathing masks, then? The virtual overlay in her mask indicated that the chamber was filled with dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfides— natural to volcanoes and also, apparently, to Fur Faces.

  They stayed silent, and a moment later, the machine spoke again, in a guttural language that sounded vaguely like Ancient Norse. Then once more, this time in some prehistoric form of Goth or Visigoth.

  Eveleen did her best to seem bewildered, though inside she felt a spurt of relief. Even if the Fur Faces did not believe that they were bona fide Kallistans, at least they appeared to believe that she and Ross were from the ancient world.

  Her relief was short-lived. The next language to emerge from that machine was Classical Latin. And then the machine proceeded through a remarkable, no, an intimidating number of languages, Eastern and Western, right up until modern times. When it spat out the same question in English—Who are you? Why are you here?—and then in German, French, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, Eveleen had time to consider the fact that modern times were not, as they had comfortably surmised, unknown to these aliens.

  After that the machine went on to speak in strange amalgams of what might be English and other languages. Eveleen thought that these would be a linguist's joy to hear, but they were so much gibberish to her, familiar yet not.

  She'd just finished that thought when the Fur Face halted the stream of questions.

  Silence, as the Fur Face fumbled at the console.

  Eveleen was distracted by a warning pressure on her hand, which Ross still held. He pinched her little finger, tugging it to the right.

  The right?

  She looked up, just as the Fur Face's machine said, again in Ancient Greek, "There are two tongues here that make your blood-organ speed its rate of pumping—"

  And before it could identify English, Ross drew in a sharp breath. That was the only warning Eveleen had. As Ross launched himself to the left, she whirled to the right, launching a high kick, a snap to the Fur Face's narrow jaw. As it staggered off balance she gave it a knuckle blow to what would be the solar plexus on a human, and the being crumpled soundlessly to the stone floor. She bent, relieved that she had judged right: the Fur Face was still breathing.

  Ross's groaned, but then subsided into unconsciousness. Eveleen held her hands up, waiting for the other two to attack, and then stared: they stood, impassive, their sight focused on the wall where the two Time Agents had been standing-Then it dawned on her. "Holographs?" she whispered.

  He nodded, raised a finger to his lips.

  Of course. The machine had to be recording whatever was said.

  They both sprang to the console, which was of course totally incomprehensible. Ross scanned it and then began pressing pads and lights, and when the machine responded with flickers and streams of glyphs, he pressed more pads and lights, then stepped back and delivered a vicious chopping kick down onto the console. There was a musical jangling from within the egg, and several indicators changed color or went dark. Ross kept at it, obviously hoping to at least confuse things.

  Then they moved to the door. Eveleen reached for the control mechanism; the door slid open, and they were in the outer room. No one around.

  She chanced a word. "Weapon?" She used Ancient Greek.

  Ross shook his head. "Useless." He answered in the same tongue.

  He paused long enough to do the same thing to the console out there, and then they ran to what had to be the outer door. Again it slid open almost silently, and the two ran up the smoky stone vent to the surface.

  "Let's get out of here," Ross said, and they plunged down the path.

  CHAPTER 11

  BY THE TIME Ross and Eveleen reached the harbor, the day was ending. Four rolling quakes and a brief, fierce thunderstorm full of stinging acid rain had slowed them, but at last they arrived just as the boat sailed up and dropped anchor.

  Ross looked around and saw Gordon Ashe coming down the hard-packed trail from Akrotiri.

  "Looks like we all had the same idea," Gordon greeted Ross.

  "I wish we didn't have to stick with radio silence," Ross said.

  Gordon gave his head a shake.

  Before he could speak, Ross said, "I know; I know. Baldies could listen in, and identify our time-frame as well as where we are. But you didn't know this. The Baldies are not our only problem."

  And, as S
tavros and Kosta came up to join them, Ross gave a swift report on his and Eveleen's experiences inside the volcano.

  The others listened in tense silence.

  Ross finished, "... I watched the Fur Faces while the language test was going on and realized that two of them were damn still for supposedly live beings. Only two of them reacted. Then I watched those weapons, or what we thought were weapons. No firing stud or trigger or anything made me wonder if they were just pointing a handy piece of tech at us, their equivalent of a camera or something, and letting us provide the imaginary firepower. So when they started to tell us that our heart rates had given us away, I figured it was time for do or die. Signaled to Eveleen, and we jumped them."

  Ashe turned Eveleen's way. She obviously interpreted his look before Ross could, and said, "We left them unconscious."

  "We also did our best to mess up their computer setup, which looked field-rigged; then we hightailed out."

  "Holographs," Ashe said, looking grim. "I didn't think of that. And I thought the trail they were leaving was a little thin."

  Everyone looked at him.

  Ashe sighed, and said, "Linnea and I spent most of yesterday watching a group of Baldies standing right out in the open, occasionally interrogating people. That is, only a couple of them did; the rest just watched. When they suddenly took off, I followed them. A quake knocked me over a bit of a cliff, and when I was able to follow, they had gotten too far ahead, and I lost them. But I realize now their trail didn't look right, so maybe some of them were holos and I ended up following a bunch of phantoms."

  "Moving holos?" Ross asked, scratching his itchy scalp.

  Ashe shrugged a shoulder. "Considering the sophisticated level of the rest of their tech, it's entirely possible. A moving projector should be easy enough, if they have a strong enough power source."

  Eveleen said soberly, "If you're right, it would indicate that they don't have huge numbers. Not if they have to go to the trouble of falsifying their head count."

  "Exactly," Ashe said. "Might even the odds a bit."