Firehand

by Andre Norton

the time homo sapiens was starting to spread widely and lifted a few

  tribes, brought them to Dominion, and then artificially advanced their

  civilization before vanishing themselves. Possibly, they fell victim to the

  Baldies.

  "Anyway, Dominion was already using iron and its population was

  beginning to unite in small towns and states while we were still in the

  Bronze Age."

  "And they hadn't gotten any farther with star flight than you say?"

  Murdock demanded.

  She looked at him. "They developed it, friend. No one handed them a

  working ship to copy. Besides, they had other things to occupy them. They

  didn't pull straight along a high-tech line the way we have, for one thing.

  They moved on the mental and spiritual fronts as well, and they

  concentrated a long while on developing and working with the planets of

  their own solar system, which they managed to fully utilize without

  raping. Also, they followed a considerably more pacific history than ours

  starting shortly after what they had instead of a proper feudal period.

  Advances didn't come nearly as quickly without the immediacy of major

  wars to drive them."

  "Hold up," Ashe interjected. "You said they developed their own

  interstellar drive. Why didn't they just take the Baldies' ideas the way we

  did? They had a whole fleet of ships to our one."

  "They weren't technologically advanced enough to appreciate, much

  less make use of, that bounty. They just destroyed what they took. Their

  scientists have cursed that folly ever since, but it enabled them to go their

  own way, including freeing themselves from slavery to the tapes."

  Ross looked at them both impatiently. "Be that as it might, are we

  supposed to somehow chase off an entire Baldy murder fleet?"

  "No, that we are not. The Dominionites have to wage and win that fight

  entirely on their own. Under no circumstances whatsoever are we to reveal

  our presence as aliens, not to the invaders and not even to the locals."

  "Why?" Something in the way she said that, in the way she looked as

  she said it, sent the chill of his own grave through his spirit.

  "The Baldies know there are humans, albeit primitive humans, on

  Terra. We've survived the return of Hawaika and the destruction of

  Dominion untouched, probably because neither was our own history. That

  might not prove to be the case if they took it into those oversized heads of

  theirs to play it safe and serve us the way they did Dominion, which they

  well might do if they found themselves thwarted by off-world humans yet

  again."

  "We have to let her die, then?" Murdock asked sullenly.

  Suddenly his head raised in anger. "We're not expected to go back and

  undo everything, kill Hawaika?"

  "No!" She gripped herself. It had been a savage question, but it was a

  logical one. "We're not planning to leave Dominion to her fate, either."

  "We've worked out a way to prevent that?" Ashe demanded tightly. It

  was more statement than inquiry. If the brass had not, it would have been

  pointless to carry this discussion so far, or to mention the disaster at all,

  at least at this time.

  "We have, or at least the possibility of a solution. A lot depends on

  chance." The woman leaned forward, more deadly serious than she had

  been even while describing Dominion of Virgin's death. "Everything

  hinges on the native populace's developing their mental weapon in time to

  beat off the Baldies' assault. They had it in their old history. This time they

  did not. Something blocked its development."

  Ross's eyes narrowed. "We're going to rewrite their history yet again,

  remove that block?"

  "We're going to try damn hard. You wild cards did it for Hawaika. Now

  we're about to attempt to give Dominion similar service."

  "We've found what looks like the crux point in a minor local war that

  took place seven hundred ten years ago, our present time. If the outcome

  of that can be altered properly, we should be able to leave the rest to the

  Dominionites."

  Eveleen drew two maps from the wide document pouch on her belt. The

  first showed eight large bodies of land set in six expanses of water, all of

  which were peppered as well with nigh unto innumerable islands.

  She pointed to one of the latter lying about two hundred fifty miles off

  the northwestern coast of the largest continent. "Not much to look at, is

  it? A little lump of real estate like that, and the entire life of the planet

  hangs on the outcome of an ancient struggle for control of it."

  She lay the second map on top of the first, this one a detailed study of

  the disputed isle. "Here's our battleground."

  "Glacier country," Gordon observed. The pattern of highlands and

  valleys would have made that almost a certainty on Terra, and the

  discoveries already made among the stars indicated that natural forces

  were at least similar on planets of the same basic type.

  "Yes, by the look of it. You can see from the legend that altitudes are

  somewhat higher on the average than in such ranges at home, but it's

  beautiful country.

  "The northern quarter's considerably rougher than the rest. The

  mountains are taller and wilder with narrow, rocky valleys separating

  them. The soil's reasonably good, though there's not a great deal of it, and

  water's plentiful, as it is throughout the whole island. The south has fewer

  really steep heights, and the valleys are broad and extremely fertile."

  "That horizontal range seems to sever the two sections, the north and

  the south," Ross observed.

  "Actually, the individual components of it are part of separate vertical

  ranges, but the effect is the same. For a preflight people, they form a

  nearly impenetrable barrier. Individual walkers or riders can get through

  in a few places, but only at this one pass here can vehicles cross at all or

  people in large numbers with any kind of speed, and that's closed for

  several months during the height of the winter."

  "What about this war?"

  "It's the same old story," she said with a disgust she did not bother to

  conceal. "It was a nice, balanced, feudal society until the ruler of one of the

  domains into which the island was divided got greedy. Condor Hall was

  the largest and best domain in the north, but its Ton, Zanthor I Yoroc,

  wanted more. Early one spring, without any warning whatsoever, he

  struck one after the other of his neighbors, swallowing them up before

  they could raise any defense at all.

  "Only one landowner, Luroc I Loran of Sapphirehold, had time enough

  to give battle. This domain was the very southernmost, right on the

  barrier range. It was large, rich for the region, and well peopled, so he had

  a good army, or militia, at his disposal, but Zanthor had taken the

  probability that he would be prepared into consideration in his planning.

  Condor Hall possessed a fine coast and harbor, and the invader had made

  use of them to secretly import a vast horde of mercenaries from the

  Mainland. He sprung them on Luroc just as the two armies met. The

  slaughter of the defenders was complete, and backed by the supplies he

/>   seized at Sapphirehold, Zanthor rushed his forces through the pass to

  crush the forming confederation of the southern domains before it could

  raise an effective defense against him. In another two weeks, winter would

  have closed the Corridor, and he would have been blocked, but he had won

  the gamble. The island was his.

  "His empire only outlived him by a few years. None of his sons or the

  mercenary commanders he'd rewarded with land had the strength to keep

  his gains. They weakened themselves with plotting and battling until the

  local people were able to rise and throw the lot of them into the sea and

  restore the old order as best they could, but by then, the damage was

  done.

  "The mutation that was to give the Dominionites of the future their

  mental powers originated on the island. The seeds of it were already

  present at the time, but the enormous slaughter and the subsequent

  diluting of the remaining gene pool as a result of the decades-long

  presence of Mainland mercenaries put its development back by centuries."

  "Wouldn't all this have happened originally as well?" Ashe asked.

  "We don't know. We had no reason to delve into Dominion's ancient

  history apart from that one Baldy encounter. All we know is it's crucial to

  change the outcome of that war now."

  She looked from one to the other of them. "Dominion was a lovely, rich

  planet, and her people were a fine, talented race. We want to save them,

  especially if we were indirectly responsible for their eradication."

  "There's also the matter of their independent interstellar flight,"

  Murdock interjected dryly.

  "Yes, there is," Eveleen responded coolly.

  "So we've got to delay this Zanthor's invasion of the south in some

  manner, buy the rulers down there the winter so they can organize

  sufficiently to meet his mercenaries?"

  "Precisely."

  "No chance of just blowing up the pass and keeping him penned, I

  suppose?"

  "None. We can't risk Terra."

  "Is the danger to us really so great?" Ross asked, frowning.

  "Apparently, it is, given the sketchy data we have."

  "That doesn't matter," Gordon interjected impatiently. "Great or small,

  no one's going to chance it."

  "No," the other man agreed. "I wouldn't, either."

  Murdock studied the map intently for several long moments. "What

  kind of weapons do they use? Old-time stuff, I imagine, since you're

  involved, Eveleen."

  "Old time," she agreed. "Swords, bows. The basics. There are some

  differences in design and style of use, of course, but you'll pick it all up

  fast." She gave him a wicked grin. "They ride oversized deer. You lads'll

  have real fun learning to manage those."

  "I'll bet," he responded but immediately returned to his perusal of the

  map. "Why a battle at all? Those fools of Sapphireholders have a partisan's

  paradise if those highlands are anything like our old wild country at home.

  Move everything of value and everyone into the hills where the invaders

  can't get at them and use hit and run guerrilla tactics against Zanthor.

  They mightn't be able to whip him, but they'd hold him the two weeks

  simply by removing or destroying the supplies he'd hoped to take, they'd

  stay intact themselves, and when the campaign opened up in the spring,

  they could rip the guts out of his efforts to keep his troops supplied. —He'll

  have to do that through the pass?"

  She nodded. "He will."

  "We'll have to start early. Homes'll have to be built and crops planted in

  the highlands. It's all got to be ready when the time comes so we can bum

  everything that's not portable and run…"

  The Time Agent stopped. He looked at Ashe in confusion. "Sorry. I

  shouldn't have…"

  "Go on," the other told him. "You appear to be doing just fine."

  Ross's eyes returned to the map, although they did not focus on it.

  "We'll need the full cooperation of everyone, especially the ruler's, the

  more particularly if we're going to work with the necessary speed and

  secrecy. I'm afraid we might have a problem with that since no one's come

  up with the idea already."

  "Warfare's a matter of open, old-fashioned slash and bash, not hiding

  in the hills," she affirmed. "I believe we'll be able to convince Luroc of his

  danger easily enough, but it'll take maneuvering and a lot of tact if you're

  going to manage the domain's defense the way you want. Even at that, you

  may have to make do with a very partial victory." Eveleen sighed. "That's

  why there's so much uncertainty about our ability to save Dominion."

  The man glanced up sharply. "I'll have to make do?"

  Ashe's eyes met the newcomer's, then flickered to his partner. "You'll be

  in charge of that phase of the mission," he told him. "You've already taken

  charge of it."

  "It fits with our cover," Eveleen agreed quickly, before Ross could

  protest. "You and I're to pose as mercenary officers escorting our learned

  companion here. Doctor Ashe is to bear the warning to Luroc. After that,

  it would only be logical for us to handle the planning and conducting of

  Sapphirehold's war, assuming we can convince him to follow our advice."

  "You?" Murdock asked sharply. "Will that be acceptable, Eveleen?" He

  braced himself, although it had hardly been an unreasonable question.

  The woman's nod told her acknowledgment of that fact. "Yes, indeed,"

  she responded cheerfully. "Dominion isn't Terra. The Great Mother was

  never supplanted there—her people worshiped a nice, highly sophisticated

  version of Her right until the moment their civilization vanished—and

  women retained a position of respect throughout her history. True, there

  were no female Tons at the time we're discussing, but, then, there were no

  male priests, either. Just about every other profession was open to both

  genders, including that of mercenary. I'll be regarded as somewhat

  unusual since not many of my sex did take up that work but certainly not

  a freak, and my presence in that capacity won't cause any offense."

  The brown eyes held his. "It's important for me to take that role, Ross,

  and to involve the domain's women as heavily as possible in what's to

  come. The mutation rose first in the females, and it's only through them

  that their race's mental abilities can be used for any purpose save straight

  one-to-one communication. The men will have to be able to channel their

  power through the women to bring down the Baldies, and there'll have to

  be complete trust and acceptance between the two sexes to accomplish

  that. It's as important for us to do what we can to foster an early flowering

  of that as it is to help thwart Zanthor I Yoroc's aim."

  "My role?" Gordon asked.

  "That of a wealthy, very learned physician from the central Mainland

  who initially journeyed north to study manuscripts kept in the region's

  temples in order to compare their contents with those in his own area.

  Three mercenaries, especially soldiers of rank, on the loose on that island

  would be highly suspect at the time when we plan to arrive. However, two

  of us could reasonably be traveling as escorts to
a distinguished

  individual… You have to be a doctor," she added, forestalling any question

  on that point. "Outside of the Tons or top mercenary leaders, medicine's

  the only profession open to a man that would give you the necessary

  prestige to gain the audiences you need.

  "The story is that we two fighters noted the presence of a lot of our own

  kind in the port town where you were studying and remarked upon the

  fact considering the total absence of fighting in the area to account for

  their being there at all, much less in number. By dint of careful digging by

  all three of us, you copped onto Zanthor's plot and hastened to spread the

  alarm. That you would drop your own research to do so will be believed.

  Dominionite healers of that era were totally dedicated to their oath to

  preserve life, though they never hesitated to fight when they believed that

  to be necessary. Reinforcing that is the fact that Zanthor's treachery

  completely went against the custom of the times, which is how he was able

  to take everyone so completely by surprise. No one believed it could

  happen until it did. Anyone at all, but especially a man sworn to the

  defense of life, would be totally repelled and would be eager to do whatever

  he could to foil I Yoroc's empire building."

  "I'll buy all that, Miss Riordan, but I'm still an archeologist, not an MD.

  The mission will be a fairly long-term one by the sound of it, and if I'm

  called upon to act professionally…"

  "Given your detailed first aid training and better than basic grasp of

  the medical knowledge of our own time, you're a small infinity better

  prepared than any of your supposed Dominionite colleagues. They're all

  functioning at the medieval level, don't forget. Just to be sure, though,

  you'll be given a crash PA course before you go in."

  "It takes two to three years of intensive study to qualify as a physician's

  assistant!"

  "You won't need everything, and you already have a good bit of what

  you do require," the woman assured him. "You'll also be bringing a nice

  supply of real Terran medications in your luggage, all artfully disguised…

  Never fear. You'll manage quite well if you ever do have to go into practice,

  Doctor."

  "Wouldn't it be a whole lot simpler just to bill me as a foreign Ton on

  the loose from his lands for some reason?"

  She shook her head. "Unfortunately not. They simply don't go far from