~ * ~
The walled valley of Yvaca was doubly walled with flame. From the last Terrestrial spaceship left on Venus, slanting down toward it on broad, steel wings, it looked like the valley of hell. Only the high-walled Terrestrial city of Yvaca remained now; all around it the native village that filled the valley had been fired by the invaders to keep the Venusians at bay. But there was one ship left on Venus, and Yvaca was still vulnerable from the air.
In the deep night twilight flame lapped high about the city walls and lighted the low clouds over Yvaca with a sullen, sulphurous glow. Looking down from that height as the ship slid down a long aerial incline above the peaks, Jamie could not see the Venusian mountaineers ringing Yvaca. But he knew they were there. He spoke into a microphone and felt the floor slant more sharply as Yvaca seemed to rise at a tilted angle in the port before him.
In the heart of the city, ringed by blackened ruins, lay the invaders’ spaceship. They had brought it down in one careless sliding crash that demolished three city blocks. A pale stab of light shot upward from the city as the barbarians sighted the swooping ship; Jamie could see small, distorted figures running for their ruin-cradled vessel, and his teeth showed in a hard grin as lightning flamed downward from the ship. There was something horrible about the barbarians even from this height; their warped, degenerate shapes were vicious parodies of men.
Blue fire fanned downward again from the Earth ship and touched the other vessel with a gout of flame. Half of it flew into glittering flinders that made the air sparkle over Yvaca. And now, thought Jamie, there was one ship left on Venus. The first of them had come from Earth for conquest. This last, he told himself, would set Venusians free of more than Earthly domination before it left.
The pale, stabbing ray of the barbarians’ weapon shot skyward again, and the Terrestrial ship slid deftly sidewise as the ray shaved it, raking the city below with fingers of blue light that were tipped with flame wherever they touched Yvaca.
From this height there was silence in the vessel. Jamie knew that below him, in the red inferno of the valley, cliff echoed to bellowing cliff with the roar of gunfire and the crash of sliding walls and the deep-throated soughing of flame. But he would never hear the sounds of Venus any more. Already the city below was afire. Those who escaped would find Venusians waiting in a grim circle around the valley. The first plague spot of the malady that was killing Earth was being wiped out here in flame.
There would be other spots, perhaps very soon. It might be well for Venus if they came soon, to keep the knowledge of peril fresh in careless minds. For Venus would have to meet the next attacks unaided. Remembering the feverish activity now in progress among the mountain cities, Jamie thought Venus might meet them well. He could not be sure about that, of course. He would have to leave Venus, never knowing.
He spoke again into the microphone and the ship banked for the last time over flaming Yvaca under the glowing clouds. No more rays leaped skyward from the city. The barbarians were in full flight. His work was done.
Cool hands upon his cheeks roused Jamie from his contemplation of the inferno below as the ship swung away. He looked up and smiled wearily into Quanna’s face.
“Your last look at Venus, my dear,” he told her, nodding down. She gave him a puzzled, little frown under delicate brows.
“It’s not too late yet, Jamie. Oh, why wouldn’t you stay? It would have been so easy to let the rest go on. You and I and Venus might have ruled the world!”
He shook his head helplessly. “I’m not a free man, Quanna. Less now than ever. I’ve a duty to Venus as well as to Earth — I’ve got to help hold the barbarians off until Venus is ready for them. Earth needs every man and every gun, but not to save herself. Earth doesn’t know it, and I don’t suppose she ever will, but her duty now is to keep the barbarians busy for Venus’ sake—” He looked up at the girl’s uncomprehending face and smiled. “Never mind. Go get you harp, Quanna, and sing to me, will you? We’ll sit here and watch the last of Venus— Look, we’re coming into daylight already.”
Far behind them the sullen glow of burning Yvaca faded as they neared the edge of the cloud-tide. Diluted sunlight was pouring down upon the tremendous turquois mountains and the leaning cliffs astream with waterfalls, all the high, blue country they would never see again. Quanna strummed her Martian harp softly.
“I’ll probably be court-martialed,” Jamie mused, his eyes on the mountains falling away below. “Or — maybe not. Maybe they’ll need fighting men too badly for that. I’m doing you no service, Quanna, or myself, either. For your sake I wish you could have stayed.”
“Hush,” said Quanna, and struck her harp string. I’ll sing you ‘Otterburn’ again. Forget about all that, my dear. Listen.” And her thin, sweet voice took up the ballad.
“The Otterburn’s a bonny burn,
It’s pleasant there to be,
But there is naught on Otterburn
To feed my men and me—”
Jamie laughed suddenly, but he shook his head when she lifted questioning eyes. He had remembered his dream again, and unexpectedly it made fantastic sense that perhaps only a Celt might have read into the dream and the song that had inspired it. He hummed the stanza again:
“Oh, I have dreamed a dreamy dream
Beyond the Isle of Skye,
For I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I.”
The clouds below were thickening now between him and the great blue mountains of Venus that slanted away below. The Isle of Skye, the morning star. The hope of civilized man. He was leaving the future behind him, if mankind had any future at all. James Douglas was a dead man indeed, sailing out into the nighttime of space toward a dying world where nothing but death waited for him. But he left the Isle of Skye behind, and on it a battle won against the powers of evil. If ever a dead man won a fight, thought Jamie, I think that man was I.
The ship drove on into darkness.
<
~ * ~
Like mist before the dawn, the reign of terror at last melted away. The barbarians, exhausted, their plunder spent, were finally absorbed by the old culture which they would have destroyed. Self-sufficient feuded communities sprang up and squabbled with one another. In 77oo freedom existed only within the sanctuaries, where groups of men, possessing nothing, nurtured their ideals. Here the hope of the future awaited its chance.
TABOO
by Fritz Leiber
I
n the name of the Great Heritage, I claim refuge!”
The voice was strong and trumpet-clear, yet with a curious note of mockery. The face was in shadow, but the embers of a smoky sunset outlined, with smudged brush-strokes of blood, the giant figure. The left hand lightly gripped the lintel of the low doorway for support. The right hung limp—Seafor noted that there the sunset red merged into real blood, which now began to drip upon the floor.
Seafor looked up. “If I am not mistaken,” he said, “you are Amine, the outlaw—”
“When there was law, or rather, the illusion of law, which there hasn’t been, in my lifetime,” interjected the other, in an amused rumble.
“—who has ravaged a hundred petty domains,” Seafor continued imperturbably, “who has thieved, kidnaped, and killed without mercy, whose trickery and cunning have already become a legend, and who does not care one atom in chaos for the Great Heritage which he now invokes to save his life.”
“What difference does that make?” Amine chuckled. “You have to grant me refuge if I claim it. That’s your law.” He swayed, gripped the lintel more strongly, and looked behind him. “And if you don’t cut your speech of welcome pretty short, it’ll be my funeral oration. I’m still fair prey, you know, until I’m inside the door.”
There was a sudden humming in the murky sky. A narrow beam laced down, firing the air to incandescence, making a great gout of blinding light where it struck the ground a dozen yards away. Immediately came thunder, a puff of heat, and the sm
ell of burning. Seafor fell back a step, blinking. But in the empty hush that followed the thunder, his reply to Arnine sounded as cool and methodical as his previous remarks.
“You are right, on all counts. Please come in.” He moved a little to one side and inclined his head slightly. “Welcome, Arnine, to Bleaksmound Retreat. We grant you refuge.”
The outlaw lurched forward, yet with something of the effect of a swagger. As he passed Seafor, there came from beyond the door a groan of the sort that sets the teeth on edge. Seafor looked at him sharply.
“You have a companion?”
The outlaw shook his head. He turned, so that the ruddy sunset glow highlighted his lean, big-featured face—a dangerous, red-haired god, a hero with a fox somewhere among his ancestors.
“Some beast, perhaps, singed by the blast,” he hazarded, and showed his teeth in a long, thin smile.
Seafor made no comment. “Hyousik! Teneks!” he called. “We have a guest. Attend to his hurts. Relieve him of his weapons.” Then he took down from the wall a small transparent globe with a dark cylindrical base and went outside.
It was a ragged and desolate landscape that opened up for Seafor. The crimson band of sky edging the horizon heightened the illusion that a forest fire had recently burned through it. Dead and sickly trees were outlined blackly.
Seafor skirted the blasted patch, holding up the globe, in which a curled wire now glowed brightly. The humming returned. He did not look up, but he moved the luminous globe back and forth to call attention to it.
The groan was repeated. A metallic shimmer caught Seafor’s eyes. A few steps brought him to the wreck of a small flier. Beside it, in an unnaturally contorted posture, was sprawled a small figure clad in rich synthetics.
Seafor unlashed the small wrists, and did a little to ease the broken ankle. The boy shuddered and tried to draw away. Then his eyes opened.
“Seafor! Seafor of Bleaksmound!” There was surprise in the shrill voice. He stared and plucked at Seafor’s sleeve with his skinny fingers.
The humming increased. It was as if the buzzing of one giant wasp had brought others.
“You’re safe now,” said Seafor. “Arnine’s gone. Your father’s men will be here very soon.”
The boy’s fingers tightened. “Don’t let them take me,” he whispered suddenly.
“Don’t you understand ? I said your father’s men.”
The boy nodded. “Please don’t let them take me,” he repeated in the same imploring whisper. “I want to stay with you, Seafor. I want to stay at Bleaksmound.”
Within seconds of each other, four fliers grounded, their repulsors scattering clods of black soil. From each, two men sprang.
The boy tugged frantically at Seafor’s arms, as if by that means he could force a nod or a reassuring smile. Then a kind of boyish cunning brightened his eyes.
“Refuge, Seafor,” he whispered. “I claim refuge.”
Seafor did not reply and his expression remained impassive, but he hooked to his belt the globe which he had previously set down, and carefully lifted the boy in his arms.
The men hurried up. They wore identical emblems on their blue synthetic coveralls and skull-tight hoods. They carried blasters. They seemed like soldiers, except for a lack of discipline and a kind of animal bleakness that darkened their faces like a tangible film. Because of that film, they did not even seem human—quite.
Seafor’s gray robe was crude and beggarly compared with their sleek clothing, but his pale, stern, ascetic face, like something carved from ivory, shone with a light that further darkened theirs.
Now that they faced him, a certain confusion became apparent in their manner.
“We’re Ayarten of Rossel’s men,” one of them explained. “That’s his son you’ve got there. Amine the outlaw kidnaped him, intending ransom. We brought down his flier.”
“I know that,” said Seafor.
“We’re grateful to you, outsider, for the help you’ve given Ayarten’s son,” the other continued. He stepped forward to take the boy, but his manner lacked assurance.
Seafor did not reply. The boy clung to him. He turned and walked toward the dark, square mass of Bleaksmound.
“We must take the boy home to his father,” the other protested* following a step. “Give him to us, outsider.”
“He has claimed refuge,” Seafor told them without turning his head, and walked on.
They conferred together in whispers, but no action came of it. They watched the luminous globe jog gently up the hill, casting a huge fantastic shadow.
“Gives you the shivers,” muttered one. “Dead men. That’s what they’re like. Dead men.”
“You can’t figure them out. Think of getting light by heating a wire inside a ball of dead air. Like our primitive ancestors. And when there’s atom power a-plenty!”
“But they give up atom power, you know, when they give up everything else—when they die to the world.”
“Imagine the boy asking for refuge. Scared out of his wits, I suppose. Never catch me doing that.”
“I always thought young Ayten was a queer boy.”
“Ayarten won’t like this when we tell him. He won’t like it at all —not with Amine taking shelter in the same place. He’ll be angry.”
“Not our fault, though.”
“We’d better hurry. Set the cordon. Report to Ayarten.”
Burly, blue-tinged shadows, they dispersed to their fliers.
Seafor handed the boy to two of his gray-robed brethren, who had a stretcher ready, and preceded them to the infirmary. He met Amine coming out of the weapon room under escort, and noted the greedy look on the outlaw’s face.
“Remarkable collection you have there,” said Amine. “Some of the fine old models they don’t turn out any more. And so many!”
“Some people die in refuge,” Seafor explained. “A few become outsiders. And some go away without reclaiming their weapons.”
Arnine’s ruddy-gold eyebrows arched skeptically. He seemed on the point of launching a satirical reply when he noticed the stretcher.
Seafor motioned the bearers on to the infirmary. “Do you feel up to having dinner in the refectory?” he asked.
The outlaw laughed boisterously, as if the idea of his being too sick to eat was very humorous indeed. His arm was in a sling and the feline springiness had returned to his stride. Seafor accompanied him back along the gloomy corridor.
“Is it your intention to become the accomplice of a kidnaper?” Amine asked in amused tones a moment later. He showed no embarrassment at his previous lie having been uncovered.
“The boy claimed refuge,” Seafor said.
“They’d have found him soon enough, and that would have satisfied Ayarten. But the way it is now— Well, you’re lucky that the border war with Levensee of Wols is keeping Ayarten’s hands full. Still, even that may not be enough.” He shrugged his good shoulder.
An elderly man turned into the corridor some distance ahead of them. He wore a green uniform of archaic cut, faded and frayed but very neat. Disks of a greenish metal formed the chief insignia.
“The President of the Fourth Global Republic,” Seafor replied in answer to Arnine’s immediate question. “Been in refuge here for the past year.”
The outlaw expressed incredulity. “Why, if that were the case, he’d have to be two hundred . . . two hundred fifty years old.”
“Not at all. When the last elected president died, he exercised his power to appoint an emergency successor to serve until elections could be resumed. Several of his cabinet members held the office. When the last of those died, he handed on the executive authority to some faithful subordinate—perhaps a secretary or bodyguard. It’s gone on that way ever since.”
Amine roared with laughter. “Do you mean to say that that old chap still thinks of the state of the world as merely an emergency temporarily interrupting the majestic and tranquil course of the Fourth Global Republic? Is he grooming a secretary to succeed him?”
Arnine’s laughter became Gargantuan. “One more worthless tradition for you to guard! One more trinket tossed into the rubbish bag of the Great Heritage!” He looked at the man ahead more closely. “I see a blaster. Isn’t that against your rules?”
“As commander in chief of the Earth’s armed forces, we have granted him certain extraordinary privileges,” Seafor replied imperturbably.
Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02] Page 32
