by Roland Green
Jazra did not see Drenin and Asrienda go, because she was now huddled under the log, curled up like a child waking from a nightmare. She was shivering, too, in spite of her armor.
She also did not want to believe what she had seen, but the evidence was there on her sensor records. Drenin had come into sight as a large carnivore, then, before her eyes, turned back into his "human" form. No illusions, no tricks, no substitutions. One and only one being had been there, but in two different forms. He had changed from beast to man as easily as Jazra changed from combat armor into shipboard coveralls.
Magic.
There were legends, from the dawn of Rael civilization, of folk who could change their shapes. There were legends of many other kinds of magic, too. But they were all legends.
No, they were all legends on the worlds of the Rael.
On this world, magic was not a legend.
The thought chilled her all over again. She wanted to whimper, or even suck her thumb. She fought down the panic, but it receded slowly.
After a while she remembered Drenin's words as well as his deeds. He had gone close enough to Fworta to recognize it as the wreckage of an artifact. He could not understand it any more than she could understand his magic—but he knew that he faced a mystery.
"The number of mysteries on this world is becoming completely outrageous," Jazra said to herself, mocking the tone of a well-known senior officer who spent most of her time in a state of righteous indignation.
This made her laugh, which healed the chill. After a while,
she was able to rise, and continue her march toward Fworta.
• • •
Few of the search parties left the temple before dawn, and Hellandros did not expect much from those. Most of them were the more hotheaded adventurers, plainly thinking more of being first to the site of the comet's fall than of the fate of Aston Tanak.
Hellandros wondered what these searchers expected to find. He remembered his clear vision of something solid within the flames, but whatever it was, it could hardly have survived hitting the ground. Even here at the temple, probably at least a day's journey from the comet's fall, the ground had shaken as if an earthquake were rumbling through. People had scattered and fallen, and the temple building itself was now missing a few stones.
But if the comet did come from the gods, or something like them, so was not bound by either natural laws or human magic. . ..
That thought first made Hellandros feel colder than the chill mountain morning had made him feel, then he grew more sympathetic toward the adventurers, and more fearful for their safety. At last he knew that he still had to seek out Drenin Longstaff, if only to learn whether he was still alive. Only then would he feel free to seek out the comet's fall.
More search parties left at dawn, each one with a soldier or monk guiding it. Other folk walked off in the other direction, toward the town, to see if their homes and kin had survived the comet's passage. Most of the women and children went that way.
At last Hellandros knew it was time for him to join a search party of his own. It was his duty, in as much as he had staved off the panic by suggesting the search in the first place.
Leaving was impossible, however, until he had something to eat, and a bit of sleep. Erick Trussk gathered some hard bread, and a piece of even harder salt fish. That, with weak, sour ale, made Hellandros's breakfast. When he finished, Hellandros found an empty monk's hut, shook out the dusty pallet, lay down, and was asleep in seconds.
He awoke barely an hour later, to hear Trussk arguing with someone. "I don't know that you're friends of his, save that you call yourselves such, but my orders are to guard him. Anyway, he needs sleep."
Hellandros lurched to his feet, thinking that if Trussk really-wanted him to sleep, the young soldier would discourage visitors a trifle more quietly. Then he heard Fedor Ohlt's voice reply: "I don't doubt that he needs sleep. So do we all, but we need to talk to him."
Hellandros opened the door, and at first thought he was too tired to see clearly. Four companions stood before him, not three. Somehow, M'lenda had returned. From the way she looked away from him, he knew that he would need to talk with her, and soon.
For the moment, though, it was enough for him to step forward and embrace her. He was as awkward as a schoolboy, not being much accustomed to embracing women, but she smiled, then patted his cheek as she might have her grandfather's.
"Thank you, Hellandros. It is a long tale, and only the least part of it is mine. Fedor, can you tell the rest?"
The four new arrivals disarmed themselves, and unslung heavy packs. Erick Trussk lit a candle, and after that Brinus would clearly have preferred that he leave, but Elda and Ohlt told him to stay. Elda, Hellandros observed, had her eyes running up and down Erick's well-conditioned, youthful body.
Then Ohlt told the tale of the companions' night. For all that sailors are supposed to be long-winded storytellers, he made quick work of it, then listened to Hellandros's own tale.
"Have you seen Asrienda?" Ohlt asked, when the wizard was done. "Her people at the Fox and Feather were asking about her. They and the house are all well, save for a couple of guests who fell down the stairs in their hurry to get outside."
"No, but I've heard that she was visiting Drenin Longstaff, or perhaps on the way home. Not knowing where she was, or where the comet fell. . . ." Hellandros shrugged.
"Anyway, I can guide you up-country," M'lenda said. "Istill wonder if I should seek out my father's kin. But what I owe to you. . . ."
Elda actually kissed the half-elf, then yawned. "Nobody's going to guide me anywhere, except maybe behind a decent tree, until I've had some sleep."
Hellandros opened his mouth to reply. It stayed open in a tremendous yawn. Slowly he nodded, then lay down.
It took him longer to get to sleep this time. Mild and polite Brinus snored, so that sleeping in the hut with him was like sleeping in a sawmill. The last thing Hellandros's eyes took in before they closed was Elda sliding backward into Ohlt's arms. The shipwright barely woke up, but he did put his arms around the woman, rather as he might have embraced his dead daughter.
• • •
Jazra spent a good long while on the mountainside overlooking Fworta's wreck before she descended into the valley for a closer examination.
Her eyes had not deceived her. Fworta had come down under some sort of control, and luck and physics had done the rest. The ship had clipped the west side of the mountain, then slid down one side of the valley and come to rest, damming a small stream. The bow was crushed like a foil ration wrapper, the midships section showed cracks and fractures from more than the gate explosion, and the stern was pitted and blackened from hot hydrogen and burning fuel.
But Fworta was not a heap of charred wreckage at the bottom of a glazed crater. Secondary explosions, if any, had been minor. Survivors, both Rael and Overseer, were possible. Jazra's mission, and for now her only one, was to find them.
She picked a route that would keep her under cover most of the way downhill, and bring her out into the open down the valley from the wreck. She knew that any surviving Rael would know that going downhill and downstream was the standard procedure for getting out of a wilderness. It would also be easier for the wounded, those carrying them, or anyone with a heavy pack, which would be most of the survivors if they had the sense of green mites.
Downhill would also be the fastest route away from the ship, if anything unfriendly came out of it.
Jazra stopped every few minutes to watch for signs of movement, but saw none. Not that almost anything up to a death-strike tank couldn't be hiding in the swathe of tangled and charred tree trunks between her and the ship, but she couldn't see it.
Either the enemy wasn't there or it wasn't going to reveal its position by shooting at a lone Rael. She hoped the former was true, and not just for her own safety. Tactical sophistication meant that the Secondary Director was still in operation. The limited onboard self-control capacity of lower-level con
structs made them incapable of that kind of discretion.
Jazra's route led her into a thicket of battered coniferous saplings that hid not only the ship, but very nearly the sun as well. It was there that she found her comrades' trail.
It was not much, but it would have taken a much worse tracker than Jazra to overlook it, particularly with all her senses sharpened to their limits. She found broken branches, needles and weeds disturbed, and on one patch of bare ground the unmistakable print of a Rael marine boot. A heavily loaded Rael marine, carrying a wounded comrade, or perhaps a pack of ammunition, and rations salvaged from the wreck. . ..
Jazra kept her thoughts from dwelling too long on the possibilities of a band of armed Rael survivors. It was good that they'd been able to escape; the Overseer's control of the ship could not have been total. Also, there was no sign of hostile pursuit.
For now, indeed, the Rael survivors might be in more danger from curious natives coming to explore the wreck for treasure. Curious natives, fearing that the gods' wrath had fallen from the sky, and ready to fight anything or anyone that did not look like them.
Jazra shuddered at the thought of natives and Rael embroiled with each other just as the constructs marched out and slaughtered the lot.
Then the faint clink of metal from below reached her helmet-augmented hearing. Jazra crouched low, and crawled through the trees until she could look down.
It seemed as if she was not the first outsider to find the wreck. Two beings, formed like the humans but only about two-thirds as tall, and much broader, squatted behind a boulder. They were talking in a language her decryptor had not yet assimilated, and one of them was pointing at the ship with every other word.
Although they carried packs and weapons—a short sword and an axe—like the taller humans, these were clearly males of yet another race. How many intelligent races did this planet hold?
Jazra crept a little farther downhill and stretched out, turning up her audio sensors to maximum sensitivity. At least she could take the little humans' language into her translator. She wondered if she would be the first Rael to overload her decryptor
with the languages of a single area, on a single world. . . .
• • •
Chakfor and Ithun Stonebreaker had been well on their way home when the comet struck. Dwarves may not look as if they are made for fast traveling, but their endurance and determination help compensate for their short legs.
Their route homeward happened to make them the closest intelligent beings to the crash site, or at least the closest to survive. Even they might not have lived to tell the tale, had they not been dwarves.
Being low to the ground helps keep one out of the way of a shock wave. Being heavy of bone and muscle, and thick of skull, helps when the shock wave finally does catch up, and flings one over the ground like a boy flinging a handful of pebbles. And if one has spent much of one's waking hours laboring in a hot workshop, one will be more resistant to heat than almost anything short of a fire elemental.
So both dwarves survived, even if they were briefly rendered senseless. When they regained their wits, they realized that the comet—or whatever it was—would be too hot to approach until daylight. They alternated sleeping and keeping watch, until then.
It was Ithun who awakened Chakfor, and pointed out what looked like a column of living beings moving out of the comet. Both dwarves being nearsighted, they could not make out as much as they wished.
They could, however, count some twenty to thirty beings; three carried on litters, and the rest marching. The marchers all carried heavy packs, and appeared to be wearing dark clothing—heavy leather, Chakfor guessed—and white face paint. Or perhaps they were just naturally pale, like some underground dwellers.
Certainly they were of no race the dwarves had ever seen. The beings were taller than most humans, but leaner than elves, and the shape of their heads was unnaturally round. Or perhaps they were soldiers, wearing helmets?
"Might be," Chakfor said. "The one in the lead—it's carrying what looks like a weapon. Or at least it's carrying it like humans carry a crossbow."
"That doesn't mean it has to be a weapon," Ithun said. "These might be no more than the pet animals of the ones who made the comet."
"Animals don't rescue wounded packmates and carry them off on litters," Chakfor said.
The debate might have gone on for quite a while, if the leading being hadn't heard or seen something suspicious. He raised his device to his shoulder, pointed it, and proved that it was a weapon, whether he had made it or not.
With a crack like a thunderbolt, a fair-sized boulder vanished. All that was left was a smoking patch on the ground, and smoking shards of rock scattered over the area of a good-sized garden patch.
The column immediately stopped, and somebody appeared to be arguing with the leader, judging from all the arm-waving. Finally the second arguer took the lead, and the former leader fell back into the column. That was still the formation when the column vanished into the trees, and did not reappear.
After a while, Ithun stood up. "I am going down to the comet," he said.
Chakfor resisted the impulse to knock his comrade down, or even beat his head against a rock until he was senseless. More senseless than he was already, that was to say.
"There may be more of them down there, and they're not friendly," Chakfor said.
"That's why you ought to stay up here and watch what happens," Ithun said. "If they are unfriendly, you can warn the clan."
"Me?" Chakfor replied. "You may be the one with ranger hair on your toes, but I'm the assayer."
"So?"
"So that—comet—seems to be made of metal. Can you imagine what wonderful metal it will be, if they can build anything that size out of it? The secret of it—"
"—is something that you have to be alive to discover," Ithun finished for his friend. "That means that I should go."
Before the argument could go any further, Ithun dropped all his equipment except his belt knife, and walked out into the open. He walked straight downhill toward the fallen comet, hands held out in front of him with palms open, in the classic peaceful gesture.
Those whitefaces should understand it, Chakfor thought. They did seem to have hands like dwarves, humans, or elves.
Minutes later, he thought he heard a gasp from above— turned to see nothing—then looked back down the hill to see what appeared to be a giant spider crawling toward Ithun.
No, make that three giant spiders. Each of them had a curiously shiny look to it, as if they wore armor, or were made of polished stone. They also seemed to be carrying equipment in pouches, bags, and slings, as well as in jaws that looked more like a smith's tongs.
Two more spiders had crawled out of the comet before the first one came up to Ithun. Seeing all five, Chakfor thought of golems, those mechanical creations of wizardry.
He wanted to scream to his friend to run, but doubted that would make any difference except to reveal his position. Instead, he unslung his axe and held it in both hands, gripping it until his knuckles were white.
Ithun stepped up to the first spider-golem, hands still held out. Chakfor could not tell whether or not Ithun was speaking.
If he was, the spider-golem seemed deaf. Suddenly, it reared back on its four hind legs, and dropped something at Ithun's feet. A stone, no, a pot—a pot that shattered as it struck the ground, and poured out a great cloud of white smoke, like green wood tossed on a forge.
This smoke seemed to be some kind of poison. When it cleared away, the spider was holding Ithun aloft in its two forelegs. The dwarf was limp and unresisting.
Then Chakfor Stonebreaker heard an unmistakable cry from above. The spider holding Ithun turned back toward the comet, but the others turned toward Chakfor.
A moment later, thunderbolts like the one the whiteface had fired were ravaging the hillside. Chakfor felt rather than saw trees bursting into flame on three sides of him. He didn't know if the fourth side led him to safety or
into the path of the thunderbolts, and didn't care.
If he died here, no one would warn the clan. No one would warn anyone, until the spider-golems and the whitefaces were on them.
And no one would avenge Ithun.
a • »
Fear pursued Jazra as she ran. Worse was the fear of being afraid. That fear was strong within her, chilling, shaking, and burning her all at once.
She could have done nothing for the first of the small humans. Only with a blaster rifle could she have picked off even one of the spider drones, and even then there would have been four others. More than enough to make off with the small human and send him into the ranks of the Doomed, and to pursue Jazra and the other small human.
This was one truth. Another truth, bred in the bone of every Rael fighter, was that you did not run from the enemy. You fought, to death and disintegration, so that you would not end as one of the Doomed. You helped those who needed it, before, during, and after the fight.
You did not run.
Jazra knew of Rael who had broken, even as briefly as she had, who had put the muzzles of their blasters in their mouths and departed that way. This image was very clear in her mind. And why not, when there were other Rael survivors to continue the fight, and rally the people of this world against the Overseer?
Her run had now turned into a stumble. Only running into a moss-grown tree kept her from tumbling headlong into a stream. She staggered back, fell to her knees, and stared at the stream as if she had never seen water before.
The sight reminded her of a tormenting thirst, almost as unendurable as the weight on her conscience, and the emptiness of her canteen. She decided to drink first, then decide whether to live or die.
She was careful to let the canteen's filter/purifier work on the water for the full ten minutes. Carefully ingrained fieldcraft said that no matter how clear water might look, treat it first.
