by Andre Norton
Loud voices, sharp with hate, were audible outside the tent in which
the Sapphirehold leaders sat. Now that everything immediately possible
had been done for the living, the dead were being gathered for burial. To
judge by the present commotion, I Yoroc's corpse must have just been
drawn up from the slope.
Tarlroc read the meaning of the sounds as well. For an instant, his
control threatened to shatter, but he was practiced in holding a rein on
himself, and he kept his face and stance impassive before his captors.
Ross observed the quickly masked quiver of emotion pass over the
younger man. He could pity the sudden loss of a father and brothers
without regretting the deaths themselves. "Tell them to keep it quiet out
there," he ordered the two guards. "Just take care of the dead, theirs and
ours, and get the wounded ready to move."
Once the pair left to obey, he turned to his prisoner. "Your kin will be
buried with the rest of your fallen, as is necessary to prevent the spread of
sickness. No dishonor will be shown them. As for yourself, I want some
answers from you."
"You cannot expect me to provide them," I Zanthor responded quietly,
with a dignity that belied his youth. "Even if I had them," he added with
carefully schooled bitterness. "My father always kept his plans to himself
until he was ready to act. Even the Ton-heir might not have been informed
of his purpose."
Would they believe him? They might, for Zanthor had always been
known to play his game close, long before he had started on the road to
domination. And death.
As for himself, Tarlroc I Zanthor was a minor light, a clerk, not a
warrior at all unless unavoidably pressed by circumstances as in this last,
tragic battle.
Condor Hall was lost anyway, he thought dully, whether he held quiet or
not. Neither the new Ton nor his other surviving brother was a man to
equal Zanthor I Yoroc. They would not be able to hold the war effort
together much less carry out the rape of the south, even in the unlikely
event that their sire had communicated his intentions to one or the other
of them. One of the mercenary commandants might possibly be able to do
so, functioning behind a figurehead Ton, but none of the three was clearly
dominant now, and he could not see any of them seizing control in time to
accomplish any good.
Maybe they had been fated to fail in any case. In that event, Zanthor
was fortunate to have fallen here, albeit at the hand of an ugly woman
scarcely bigger than a child, rather than later and far more slowly to the
so-called justice of his enemies.
A sudden surge of loss and hate filled him. "It is the demons who should
have died," he whispered through set lips. "They encouraged Zanthor to
begin the war and then withheld the aid that would have given him
victory."
A strangling dread crushed Murdock's heart, but his brows only raised.
"Are you trying to excuse Zanthor, to say that he was one who obeyed
voices sounding in the air around him?"
"Zanthor I Yoroc bowed to no one's will, and the only voices he heard
came from throats solid enough to grasp and strangle."
"Go on." The Condor Hall man said nothing more, and Ross Murdock
leaned forward. "You claim these supposed allies betrayed Zanthor, at
least to the extent of refusing significant help. Tell us what happened. It is
the only way you have left of avenging him."
I Zanthor studied Firehand. He was determined not to compromise his
sire's cause or his brothers' efforts, however futile, but the big heads were
no part of Condor Hall's war. They had no claim on his loyalty.
The partisan leaders were silent for some moments after he had
finished his tale. At last, Murdock called for the guards, who had been
waiting outside the tent. "Watch him carefully," he commanded, "and see
that nothing happens to him. We may want to question him again."
His eyes closed as the Dominionites left the tent. "Baldies," he
whispered.
"They're well met." Eveleen Riordan shivered. "That man frightens me
more than they do."
Her eyes flashed in anger. "His father was betrayed! There's no word
about his father's neighbors or the women and babies butchered or those
dying in battle, for and against Condor Hall!"
"Terra knows his kind all too well," Ashe said grimly. "Psychiatrists…"
"Damn it, Gordon, don't go bleeding heart on me!" Ross snapped.
"Tarlroc I Zanthor and his old man weren't little lambs led into evil ways
by the big, bad Baldies. They knew full well what they were doing, and they
went right ahead and did it."
"Precisely. So do the people I was describing. Psychopaths, sociopaths,
antisocial personalities—call them what you will, they're sane, they're
aware of the harm they do, and they simply do not care. Nearly all our
serial killers have been of that breed and most of the real military and
political monsters as well."
The other man's eyes dropped. "I'm sorry, Gordon, but what are we
going to do, or how are we going to do it, rather? On Hawaika, we had the
Foanna's magic, and we were still nearly whipped. Here, all we have are
swords and bows to set against everything those devils can command."
The archeologist shook his head. "They're tough, but don't make the
mistake of believing them more formidable than they are." He smiled at
the incredulity in his comrades' expressions. "First off, we won't be facing
anything like we did on Hawaika. The Baldies themselves had tapped into
on-world powers there. That's what created most of the havoc. There were
a lot more of them as well. Here, we have only five…"
"That's all I Zanthor saw at a given time," Eveleen interjected. "I'd bet a
month's pay that he can't tell one Baldy from another any more than we
can."
"Good point," Murdock agreed, "but I think Gordon's right on that
point. This seems to be a small party sent to get Zanthor to do their killing
for them." His lips tightened as bitter memories rose in his mind. "Five of
them are more than enough of a challenge."
"A challenge we can reduce," Ashe told him. "We know from your own
experience and also from I Zanthor's that they can be surprised, and they
cannot wield their mental powers as long as they themselves are physically
occupied. I stayed conscious during that battle on Hawaika longer than
you did, long enough to be certain of that. We'll have to hit them fast and
hard so they don't have a chance to bring their mental or physical
weaponry into play, but it is at least theoretically possible for us to take
them."
Ross scowled at his partner. "There's a problem with theory. It doesn't
always work out in practice."
The other smiled. "It's up to us to make it work."
The partisan commander nodded, deadly serious now. "The attack
party will have to be small, limited to ourselves probably, and we'll have to
go in deerless on the last leg of the approach. That was how Zanthor and
Tarlroc managed to surprise them. If we can't gain that edge, we might as
wel
l just pack up and go home. Our Baldy friends'll either burn us down or
immobilize us before we ever reach their camp."
"If they're still there," Eveleen said.
"No reason why they shouldn't be." He frowned. "That's one point that
really puzzles me. Why have they just sat it all out for so long? Those boys
aren't shy, or at least, they've taken active roles everywhere else that we've
encountered them. Why are they so passive here?"
"I'd like to know why—or how—they're here at all," Gordon Ashe
remarked. "This is more than seven centuries ahead of their time."
That observation gave his companions a nasty jolt. Ross licked his lips.
"It's how many millennia ahead of ours?… Time travel?"
"They're nothing if not technologically sophisticated, and they did get a
good look at our rivals' setup back on Terra."
"Then no place, no era, is safe from them…"
"Let's stop raising windmills to fight, shall we?" Eveleen told her
comrades. "There are a number of possible explanations for the Baldies'
presence here and now besides the one that brought us. For one thing, we
ran into them at a certain stage in their history. They had to be around a
lot longer than that and be star traveling longer. These could be
discoverers or a team sent to seed long-term trouble."
Ashe nodded. "That makes sense. They're trying to keep a low profile."
"Maybe they just can't do more," Murdock suggested. "By the sound of
it, they've had equipment problems on a major scale almost from the
start. They must have managed to reach Dominion, or part of the
intended team did, brought their camp gear, supplies, and the gold with
them, but they couldn't get the rest. They have to be short to be using
their lasers for repair tools."
"Not to mention trying to patch things up with native metals and
maybe trying to manufacture the components they need out of them as
well," Gordon agreed.
"Beggars usually have to take what they get, whether they plead for
alms or demand them," Eveleen remarked.
"Zanthor I Yoroc would have been a singularly ungenerous donor. He
may well have doomed his own cause by his tightness. Even Baldies
couldn't fight if they didn't have the means."
"He might also have preserved his own hide, from them at least. They'd
have been quick to eliminate him once he had done the job they wanted,
especially since both he and his son were resistant to mental control."
The Lieutenant pushed her chair away from the rough table and stood
up. "We might get a few answers when we check out their camp, assuming
we survive the attempt to take it… Do you think I Zanthor will cooperate
enough to guide us there?"
"He'll cooperate," her husband said, "that far anyway. He apparently
did love his father, and he suffered considerable abuse from those devils
himself. We represent his only chance to get a crack at them."
"Unless he's spun us a fine story," she suggested darkly.
"That's hardly impossible, but he'll still lead us to them, to our sorrow if
we can't outwit the lot of them. We can be sure of one thing. Tarlroc I
Zanthor did encounter Baldies. He's right on too many points for him to
be faking that."
28
THE PARTISAN COMMANDER eased his way past a thick stand of
brush crowding the narrow path. This was it, the culmination of two
weeks made hellish by ever-growing dread and the anticipation of
disaster.
It was fitting, he supposed, Terran Time Agents once again directly
confronting the Baldies whose drive for destruction they were attempting
to thwart. The only trouble was that they stood too good a chance of
losing. Losing their lives and more than their lives. Losing Dominion of
Virgin.
Tarlroc I Zanthor, who had been walking a few paces ahead, stopped
and waited for him. "Let me have a knife if not a sword."
"Just stay out of it when the trouble starts, if it does."
"You will not trust me?"
"Would you trust us?"
The Dominionite's eyes narrowed. "You may not be talking so proudly
soon, Firehand," he snarled, "or talking at all. Those we brought with us
the first time never spoke again. The demons made statues of them."
"We shall see how they fare with us, if your demons are there at all."
That response was required by the role he played, but Ross Murdock
felt better for having voiced it. He had confronted these foes before, and
each time, he had come away unbroken. He could hold that knowledge as
an inner shield, a brace for his courage, in whatever was all too soon to
come.
A new surge of fear set his heart racing. It was almost time. They had
picketed their springdeer half a mile back. An hour's walk at this cautious
pace would bring them to the starmen's camp.
His hands balled despite his effort to keep them open at his sides. Lord
of Time, was it this bad for Eveleen and Gordon as well? Could it be? They
had never stood alone on a windswept beach and faced down that raw will
to conquer…
Ross's heart was still hammering; but his mind and emotions were
under tight control. They had to be. He was crouching at the edge of the
clearing Tarlroc had described, and his targets were before him.
Four targets. The fifth Baldy was not in sight. Bad. That boded trouble
for later, but there was no help for it. They must strike at once or lose the
power of surprise that was their only hope of victory.
The Time Agent's hand raised in signal to his comrades. As it did, their
bows released, and two of the spacers fell.
Murdock lifted his own weapon to set an arrow to it. He struggled to
draw, but it was as if he were battling an atmosphere suddenly turned to
molasses. He willed himself to continue, but his hands were shaking so
badly that he could not aim.
Will? The Baldies, damn them! The two survivors were using their
powers of mind to immobilize their attackers. He could feel the tugging at
his mind, the weighting of his limbs. He could still move despite the force
of their command—perhaps his previous exposures had sharpened his
resistance—but he lacked the coordination to shoot effectively.
He groaned as the starmen changed their method of attack and pain
exploded in his head. Ross knew this agony. He set himself to fight it as he
had fought that day on Terra's Bronze Age beach.
It was even more urgent that he conquer this time. He could sense, feel,
a difference in purpose in his opponents. Before, they had wanted to take
him. Now they intended to burn his mind away.
His comrades were under the same pressure. He heard a moan from
Gordon, a little whimper from Eveleen, but he could give them no help. He
was losing this one himself…
The Baldies felt their victory and increased the power of their assault.
Murdock was helpless now. His will was still holding, but he could channel
none of it to his body.
"No, you don't," Eveleen Riordan hissed suddenly. Her voice was low
and hoarse but clearly audible to him. "Not to me, you don't."
All at once, the pressure on him vanished. The Ti
me Agent blinked in
surprise, then fixed his eyes on those in the clearing. To his amazement,
one of the Baldies was clasping his head as if in agony. The other had
ceased to attack; his thoughts were coiled in a protective barrier around
him.
Murdock's breath caught. He recalled what the Foanna had said about
Eveleen's defenses, that she, too, had mental shields but that she inflicted
more pain than he did in her refusal to admit them. The weapons expert
had only been guarding herself against the too-close advance of those she
knew to be friends. Here, with real anger, fear, and hate to drive her, she
was fighting an active battle.
She could not hold two such opponents indefinitely. Even as he
watched, the less affected of the pair reached for the slender rod hooked to
his belt.
Ross let fly an arrow. It missed but startled the other long enough for
Murdock to slam into him, throwing him to the ground.
The spacer struck him sharply in the chest, hard enough to wring a
grunt out of him. Had that blow caught him in the throat as intended,
Murdock would have been out of the fight before it had half started.
Ross was prepared for a stiff battle. He had learned in that first
encounter years before that these aliens were tough and strong despite
their thin, seemingly frail bodies.
The Baldy had already half drawn his laser and was now trying to bring
it to bear. Murdock's hand clamped over the other's, twisting desperately
in his effort to keep the business end turned away from him.
A crackling hiss and streak of vicious light and heat drove Ross back,
forcing him to release his hold. He braced himself for the death that now
seemed inevitable, but his opponent had fallen as well and lay still. The
agent saw why. Half the face had been burned away and all that part of
the skull and brain above it.
Murdock wasted no time. He whirled in response to the sounds of a
second struggle.
Gordon Ashe and the remaining Baldy were locked in one another's
grasp, each striving to secure a solid grip on the other's throat.
The spacer was not ignorant of the ways of unarmed combat and had
the wiry strength of his kind, but he customarily fought with mind and
weapons that killed from a distance. The Terran had trained long and
hard in the various methods of close combat for his previous missions and
