“Hurry!” Ghej was at the cave mouth, beckoning. Jamie shrugged off all his wisdom and shouldered after him through the fragrant, purple-flowered curtain into the cool dimness beyond. Ghej was just ahead of him, Quanna just behind.
The cavern was heavy with the fragrance of trumpet flowers and tremulous with green light filtering through the leaves. A man in a scarlet cloak sat dejectedly upon a ledge opposite them, cradling the folded umbrella of the Knute across his knees.
Vastari looked up, startled, as the three figures blocked light from the cave mouth. He could not quite make out who the other two were against the brightness, and he blinked for a moment, trusting Ghej from long experience and not greatly alarmed.
Jamie slid sidewise to put himself out of silhouette against the light, and his gun hand rose so that green light glittered on the barrel.
“In the name of the Imperial Planet,” he said clearly, his voice hollow and echoing between the walls, “I condemn you to death, Vastari.”
Ghej, flattened to the wall halfway between them, laughed suddenly and said: “No!” in the hissing Martian syllable of negation. His hand came out from under his cloak with murderous speed, and the gun in it was not for Vastari, but for Jamie.
The commander stared down incredulously.
“Drop your gun, commander!” said Ghej, jerking his own weapon ominously.
Jamie let his fingers loosen. He was too bewildered for a moment even to speak as his gun thudded to the sand. He had been half expecting something like this, but it didn’t make sense. Vastari’s quick Venusian brain, trained in trickery, leaped to swifter understanding.
“Oh, no you don’t!” he cried, and was in midair before the words were finished. His red cloak and fair hair streamed as he sprang straight at Ghej. A bright grin of triumph lighted his face as his ringed hand clawed at the Martian’s gun.
Ghej stepped sidewise half a pace and his other hand flashed out from beneath his cloak, moving almost too quickly for the eye to see that a small Venusian blackjack swung in his fist. It struck Vastari an accurately glancing blow.
The scarlet figure plunged past Ghej and sprawled upon the sandy floor. Across it Ghej’s gun rose to fix Jamie with a black-muzzled stare.
With one lifted hand Jamie sketched the old crook-symbol of Mars in the air. He said bitterly: “Remember? But I might have known—”
“I mean it,” Ghej declared, his voice strained and shaking a little. “Wait.”
Vastari was sitting up, spitting out sand and vivid Venusian curses.
“Get up,” ordered Ghej. “Quanna, help him. Go back to the ledge, you two. Commander, Vastari — I have something to say to you both.”
Vastari spat a series of highly colored oaths at him.
“I’ve gone to great trouble to save your life, my boy,” Ghej reminded him mildly. “I shall expect something more from you than curses.”
Jamie’s brows rose. He was beginning to understand at least a little. Vastari’s attack upon his rescuer was clear now — no Venusian willingly allows himself to be so obligated if he can avoid it, particularly by a trick as flagrant as Ghej’s had been.
“You owe me a promise now, Vastari,” Ghej went on. “Part of it is this — listen in peace to what I have to tell you. Commander, this concerns you, too. I followed you from Darva the day after you left. I rode very fast. Certain news had arrived which you must know before you leave Venus. Vastari, you must hear, too.” He hesitated a moment. Then he drew a deep breath and said quietly: “The barbarians have come.”
~ * ~
There was a long moment of silence in the cave. This time it was Jamie whose mind moved quicker. Vastari said: “Barbarians? But what—” Jamie’s monosyllable interrupted. “Where?”
“At Yvaca. You know it, the walled valley? They landed secretly a week ago and took the city. Word had just come over the mountains when I left.”
“Who are they?”
“The worst of the lot, commander. Mixed breeds from half a dozen worlds. The vanguard of no one knows how many other shiploads.”
“The first plague spot,” said Jamie. There was silence a moment more. Then Vastari’s voice, slurred a little as if he were still bewildered from the blow:
“But what is it, Ghej? I—”
“I’ve tricked you both,” Ghej told them, still holding his gun to meet any sudden impulse on the part of either man. “You’ve been enemies for a long while, but you have a common enemy now and you must listen to me.
“Vastari, the barbarians have come. Venus is being attacked by outworld raiders for the first time in three hundred years.”
“We’ll drive them out,” said Vastari simply.
“These same barbarians are attacking Earth,” Ghej reminded him. “If the Imperial Planet can’t keep them off, what can Venus do?”
“Fight,” said Vastari, his eyes on Ghej’s gun.
“Not alone. These aren’t Terrestrials bent on conquest, my boy. They’re bloodthirsty degenerates of a hundred races with nothing but destruction and loot in their minds. And they have weapons that even Earth can’t improve on, because it was Earth who gave them away, long ago. No, there’s no hope for Venus at all now, unless—” He looked appealingly at Jamie. “Commander—”
Jamie shrugged. “They need me at home, Ghej.”
“They need you here. I saw all this happen to Mars, commander. I know the signs. We’ve never spoken of this before, although the thought has been between us whenever we met. This is the twilight for you and me and Imperial Earth. Do you honestly think civilization can survive what’s happening on Earth now? There’s no germ of it in the decadent barbarians who are conquering there. Their future is far in the past. Earth gave them a brief new grip on the tools of conquest, and they’re using them to destroy Earth, but when it’s done they’ll go on decaying. They don’t understand anything but destruction.
“My world died of an ill like this, commander. Your world is dying of it. But perhaps we can save Venus. If we can’t, then this is the twilight of civilized man and he will not rise again.”
“Venus?” echoed Jamie scornfully. “It’s twilight for Venus, too. What does Venus know about civilization?”
Vastari stared uncomprehendingly from one to the other, waiting his chance to spring at Ghej’s gun. Ghej said heatedly:
“Do you remember what I said when we parted at Darva, commander? This is the one peril that might be strong enough to draw all Venusians together against a common enemy — teach them the value of unity and civilization. It’s as if the gods were giving us one last chance. But the barbarians won’t wait, commander. Venus isn’t ready. If you could only stay, just for a little while — just long enough to teach them how to fight—”
“Teach us how to fight!” roared Vastari, springing to his feet. “Why, you dried shell of an outworlder, we were born fighting! This is some trick of the Earthmen to lure my men into the open. Why should we join with them just as we’re winning our freedom? We’ll—”
“Freedom!” Jamie derided him. “Freedom to loot and kill! What do you know about freedom?”
“It’s the right to live as we choose!” declared Vastari fiercely. “The same right your people fought for. Not to have tyrants making our laws, policing our towns, collecting our taxes! We don’t want you back, Earthman! We’ll take our chances against invaders — if that isn’t another trick of Ghej’s.”
“Trick?” Ghej echoed sadly. “My boy, will you have to lose your freedom before you really know the meaning of the word? You must earn freedom before you can control it. You’d destroy yourself if you had what you call freedom now. Wait until the barbarians come with their weapons. The barbarians are destruction itself — wait until that overtakes you, my boy, and then remember what you had under the Earthmen!”
“Lies!” shouted Vastari. “Why should we trust you or anyone in league with the tyrant Terrestrials? We can fight for ourselves!”
~ * ~
All this, to Quanna, was was
ted breath. The Venusian mind wanders when talk turns to the abstracts, and Quanna had an urgent problem of her own to solve. Under her velvet robe she was clutching the Gilson fuse that would turn the Knute on the ledge into a deadly weapon. She thought she had found the way now to coerce Jamie — that was all her mind had room for.
She was going to turn the killing force of the vibrator upon Vastari. It would take a moment or two before the violence of the vibrations shook his brain cells apart; in that time he would realize that she was a traitor and her life thereafter would be forfeit upon Venus, for Jamie’s sake. He would have to take her back with him.
True, Vastari might die. She did not much care if he did. After all, he had been equally ruthless when she stood in his way in the valley among the Earthmen. If he died, then she would shout what she had done to the echoing peaks around the cave, where she knew Vastari’s men were hiding. Some of them would hear. It would amount to a burning of bridges that would leave Jamie no choice but to take her.
Imperceptibly she had been edging the folded Knute onto her knee as Vastari shouted his defiance and hatred of Earthmen and the Solar Empire. Ghej and Jamie were absorbed, too. In the green gloom of the cavern her green robe made her a shadow on the wall. If Ghej saw her slip past, he did not heed her. He was too deep in his hopeless argument with Vastari. And Jamie’s back was turned.
The Knute was heavy. She slid along the wall and passed the curtain of flowering vines, breathing a little swiftly now. She was putting all hope in this last, desperate cast.
The Knute was not too difficult to set up. She had watched the Darva men do it any times. Here, beyond the cave mouth, across a stretch of sand, was a parapet behind which she could shelter long enough to do what she must without interruption. She had the glass Gilson fuse ready to slip into place. And now — now—
A long shudder swept the purple flower trumpets before the cave. The rainbow shimmer of the Knute settled down and all that stretch of wall and vine and cave became unreal, a figment of dream dancing unsteadily before the eyes. She knew that confused terror was invading the minds of the three men inside. She called clearly, yet softly:
“Ghej, send out Vastari. I am going to kill him.”
There was stunned silence for a moment from inside the cave. Then Ghej’s voice, quavering with the mind-shaking effect of the vibration:
“Quanna . . . Quanna, have you gone mad?”
“I mean it!” she called fiercely. “Send him out or I’ll kill you all. I’ve got the Gilson fuse, you know!” And she smiled secretly. Jamie would not die, even if the full force of the Knute were turned into the cave. For Jamie still wore his helmet, and it would resist the killing vibrations for the few moments it took the others to die. She would be sorry to kill Ghej, but—
There was silence in the unreal cavern, shimmering behind its shimmering vines. Too long a silence. They were planning something.
“Send him out!” she called. “Send him now! I’m putting in the Gilson fuse, Ghej! Commander! Do you want to die with him?”
Still silence.
Quanna found the socket for the little glass pencil of the fuse. She fumbled a bit, putting it in. It stuck the first time. Then there was a small click and she felt a subtle change in the vibration of the Knute. Deeper, heavier. The purple trumpets of the vine began to wilt, folding softly upon their stems. The leaves crumpled. Death was pouring into the cave.
“The fuse is in,” called Quanna. “Are you ready to die, Vastari?”
There was a heavy step upon the cave floor. The curtain of withering vines swept aside and a man stood in the doorway looking up at her. Jamie. His black head bare of the shielding helmet. He stood in silence, feet planted wide, frowning at her somberly under heavy brows. He was like a figure in a dream, shimmering in the full bath of the killing rays.
“Jamie, Jamie!” Quanna sobbed, and hurled the Knute backward off the parapet. Its rays swept up across the cliff in a shimmering rainbow and the machine clattered down the slope in an avalanche of pebbles, its death ray fanning the clouds.
~ * ~
Quanna could not remember afterward stumbling down the rocks toward the cave. Her first conscious awareness was of Jamie fending her unsteadily off his wounded arm as he leaned against the cave wall with closed eyes, waiting for his brain to stop shaking with the force of the Knute.
In the cave, Ghej and Vastari sat with heads in hands, blind and sick, as the vibrations faded slowly inside their skulls. Quanna was abstractly glad that they still lived. Now her treachery was established without the need for outside evidence. But it had been a near thing — too near, for Jamie. She shivered a little, guiding him to a seat on the ledge.
After a while Vastari lifted his head unsteadily and gave Quanna a poisonous glare. She met it opaquely. His eyes shifted to Jamie and he said in a bitter voice:
“Damn you, Earthman — I owe you my life! Now what did you want badly enough to take that risk for me?”
“Nothing,” Jamie said wearily, not lifting his head. “Don’t bother me.”
There was something so electric in the breathless silence that followed that in a moment Jamie looked up to see what was causing it. He met Vastari’s look of blank amazement.
“Nothing?” echoed Vastari in an incredulous voice. “Then why—”
“Oh, sure — I came here to kill you.” Jamie spoke in a tired and indifferent voice. “But things are different now. Venus is going to need her leaders.”
“But — you risked your life! No one ever does that without a reason!”
Jamie looked at him in silence. He was not sure himself just why he had done it. And there was no hope of making this Venusian understand how he felt about the world to which he had given twenty years and all his hopes and interests, the world upon which mankind might have found its ultimate future—
“You could command me to join forces with you, if you wanted that.” Vastari was still groping.
“You’d be no good to me at the point of a gun,” Jamie shrugged. “Fighting the barbarians will be a full-time job. I wouldn’t want an ally I won like that.”
Vastari sat very still, considering Jamie with fathomless eyes. Perhaps Ghej’s warnings had frightened him more than his pride had let him admit. Perhaps he had been waiting for a chance to surrender gracefully. Perhaps this first encounter with genuine selflessness honestly impressed him. There was no guessing what went on behind that expressionless face. But at last Vastari said slowly:
“My life belongs to you until I redeem it, Earthman. I am pledged to Ghej, too. Will it satisfy you both if I offer my men and myself as your sworn allies until the invaders are driven away?”
Ghej’s hooded head came up for the first time since the vibrations had filled the cave. He stared long and unblinkingly at the young Venusian. Jamie was staring, too. Presently Jamie’s eyes shifted to Ghej, and the two exchanged a long, questioning look in which hope was slowly dawning. After a moment Ghej said in a shaken voice:
“Venus is the morning star from Earth this time of year.”
Jamie smiled. It was his own figure of speech, coming spontaneously into the Martian’s mind. But he only said practically:
“It would mean much hard work, Vastari. Much sacrifice.”
Vastari said with dignity: “Tell me what you need.”
“More than you can give, perhaps. You can’t fight the barbarians with spears. Even if you drove this group out by a miracle, there’ll be more. You’ll need modern weapons. There are men in the Terrestrialized cities who know how to make them, but they need supplies. That’ll mean law and order, Vastari. You can’t get raw materials or transport them in an anarchy where every brawling tribe has the ‘freedom’ to do as it likes. You’ll have to forget all quarrels, forget personal jealousies, forget greed and looting and fighting. It’ll mean back-breaking labor, night and day. You’ve got to work the mines and machines again, hard and fast. We’ll help all we can. We’ll see that your trained workmen are taught what lit
tle else they may need to know, before we leave. But we must leave soon, Vastari.”
Vastari was watching the Earthman’s face with narrowed eyes, searching for some sign of the trickery he could not yet believe wholly absent. His quicksilver mind was turning the points over as Jamie brought them up, but nowhere, apparently, could he find anything that might be two-edged. Finally he nodded, still with that puzzled look.
“Very well, it shall be done.”
Yes, thought Jamie, with Ghej’s help it might yet be done, after all. The Venusians were so childlike in so many ways, irresponsible, unable to see beyond the needs of the next moment. But Vastari, with his dream of freedom, distorted though it was, proved them more capable of pursuing an ideal than Jamie would ever have believed. And if the barbarians frightened them enough, perhaps they might work together to destroy them. And the work together, the common danger — would it be enough to build a civilization on? Jamie knew he would never hear the answer to that question.
Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02] Page 31
