by Douglas Hill
The young man glowered. 'Why should we do that?’
'Because there is a force of men near by on skimmers,' KeilI said firmly, 'who seem very much at home here, and very disciplined and dangerous. And it might be them, waiting for you, the next time you come blundering around a corner in these rocks.’
The under-commander's eyes dropped for an instant, and a trace of red appeared in his cheeks.
'Very well,' he said sheepishly. 'We will talk.'
---
Once settled in some comfort on a patch of soft moss, the young under-commander seemed more cheerful. Even his men lost some of their sourness when they were able to shed their heavy packs and take their ease – though most were still now and then rubbing furtively at their bruises.
The under-commander readily confirmed what Keill had said, and added a few details. After the raid on the spaceport the authorities on Jitrell were organising every kind of search and investigation they could think of, including Jitrellian ships sweeping the planet's territorial space, and squads of militia sent on other ships to make low-level searches of all the other planets of the system.
The ship assigned to Rilyn had met the suppressor field, and crashed, killing the pilot. Since then the young militiamen had been wandering, in the desperate hope that somehow they might emerge from the suppressor field and get a message back to Jitrell.
Keill shook his head. 'Ithink the field stretches over most of this higher ground. And you were walking towards the centre of it.'
'Where the killers are? The raiders?'
'Most likely.'
'Then who or what are they?' the young man demanded.
But before Keill could speak, another of the Jitrellians interrupted, with a glare at Keill. 'We might better ask who this one is, who knows so much. Are we children, to take his word that he is no enemy?’
A babble of sullen agreement rose, subsiding slowly as the under-commander ordered them to silence. And Keill nodded quietly, aware that the young militiamen's bruises were nothing compared to the damage that had been done to their pride.
The young leader turned back to Keill. 'It is a point to be made. We must know more of why you are here, and where you have come from.’
'As to where I'm from,’ Keill said evenly, 'the answer is nowhere in particular. But once I came from a planet called Moros.’
'Moros?’ said the under-commander, frowning. 'I have heard the name...’
'Moros! Yes!' helped one of the others. 'The planet of the Legions!’
The under-commander looked startled. 'That is so. But the Legions are dead. Did not their planet blow up?’
'Moros was destroyed, yes,’ Keill said in a voice empty of emotion. 'But not every legionary died. I survived... and there may be others.'
As he spoke he was seeing again the impossibly youthful face of Miclas, but none of the militiamen noticed the shadow that flitted across his eyes. Instead they were staring at Keill with saucer-wide eyes and expressions mingling awe and delight. All sullenness or anger now was gone: there was no shame in being overcome by a legionary of Moros.
'Will you tell us, sir,’ said the under-commander, 'what brings a legionary to Rilyn?’
'It's a long story, under-commander,' Keill began, then paused. 'What is your name again?’
'Tamanaikl Re Saddeti,' the young man said proudly, then, smiled. 'Everyone calls me Tam.’
'Tam, then,’ Keill said. 'And you call me Keill – I’m not one of your officers,’ Tam's grin grew even wider, but then his round face grew serious as Keill went on.
'You could say that I'm here because my world, Moros, was not destroyed in an accident It was murdered, by... a very ruthless and deadly enemy. And I have good reason to think that the men on this planet, who are almost certainly your raiders, could also help to lead me to the murderer of my people.'
Tam gulped, and the other young men glanced nervously round at the gathering dusk. 'The enemy who destroyed the Legions?’ Tam echoed shakily. 'Here?’
'Perhaps not that very person,’ Keill said. 'But his agents.’
'Then why, sir... I mean, Keill,' stammered the young man, 'would such people concern themselves with Jitrell?’
'I don't know. There are many questions that need answers. And those men on skimmers may provide them.’
Tam set his jaw. 'Our strength is yours to command, sir... Keill,’ he said, his stiff Jitrellian diction even more formal. A murmur of earnest agreement rose among the others.
'My thanks,' Keill said gravely. Just what I need, he thought to himself. Eight untrained amateurs stumbling about getting in each other's way. Yet they were willing and well-meaning, and there was a look of something near to hero-worship in their eyes. It would not be easy to leave them behind without both humiliating them and putting them at risk from the more dangerous men on the skimmers. Inwardly, Keill sighed at the problems people created for themselves.
But Tam saw none of that. 'The night approaches,' he announced, gazing round at the shadowed rocks, 'Should we not remain here tonight and make plans in the morning?'
'Good idea,' Keill said, trying not to smile as Tam beamed. 'We'll need to be rested – it's a fair march.’
'Have you knowledge of where the raiders are, sir?' asked one of the others.
'I managed to... fix the position of their base, from space,' Keill said. It was necessary, he reminded himself, to seem to be operating alone. Not the smallest hint about the Overseers could ever be allowed to slip out, to anyone.
Do you intend to mention me to these humans?Glr's voice entered his mind, sardonically. Or am I to stay up here until I fall from hunger and exhaustion?
'I’m sorry,'Keill replied to her, guiltily. 'Come down – but let me explain you, first.’
Tam and the others had begun busily unpacking food stores and sleeping gear from their packs, but paused as Keill stood up. 'Don't be alarmed,' he said to them, 'but I have a... a companion. An unusual being, winged. She's about to join us,’
As he spoke, eight Jitrellian mouths fell open in unison. Silent on her widespread wings, Glr drifted out of the twilight, to alight as delicately as a puff of mist on Keill's shoulder.
The Jitrellians scrambled to their feet and stared. 'Some... some kind of alien creature?' Tam breathed, fascinated. 'It is native to Moros?'
'Not Moros,’ Keill said. 'From... another world.'
'A pet, could it be, sir?' asked one of the others.
'A pet?’ He saw no point in burdening the Jitrellians with too much information. There was no knowing who might be interrogating them, in the next few days. 'Yes... something like that,’
And then he had to duck with all his reflexive speed as Glr's sharp little fangs snapped within a centimetre of his ear.
A pet?Glr repeated, laughter bubbling behind her mock anger. One day, insensitive human, I will take you to my world and let the Ehrlil decide who is the pet!
Smiling wryly, Keill moved slightly away from the group of Jitrellians. He found a comfortable patch of moss, with a solid boulder at his back, and reached into his belt pouch for his food concentrates.
Glr took her share – her wordless distaste echoing in his mind – and hopped up to perch on the boulder.
'Tell me about the men on the skimmers?Keill said to her as they ate.
Your faithful servant watched them as ordered,Glr replied. They did not locate our ship – but they did come upon the wreckage of another one. No doubt it belonged to these humans. Keill nodded, and Glr continued. That may have satisfied them, for as darkness began to fall they turned back the way they had come. They passed by a safe distance from here, but then the darkness and mist hid them. I have, however, noted the direction.
'Then you can point me in that direction,’Keill said, ' after first light.’
I will.The humour had drained from Glr's inner voice. And I wish it could be sooner, and that everything here could be finished swiftly.
Keill stared up at her. ' Why the urgency?'
&nb
sp; Because while I was watching the humans I contacted the Overseers. They told me we have only some days to do what must be done here. Though even they cannot yet tell exactly how long.
'What is it?'Keill asked, half-knowing what the answer would be.
The Overseers' monitors,Glr said darkly, show that the rogue planet of this system has reappeared. Very soon, Keill, this planet will once again be overwhelmed by what the humans call the Starwind.
PART TWO
DEATHWING LEGION
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning Keill led the young Jitrellians along the route plotted for him mentally by Glr. She ranged ahead, again flying high enough to be almost invisible against the full overcast sky. And not for the first time Keill found himself envying those sweeping wings.
It seemed that if a single rock or furrow or shrub lay in the way, the heavy feet of the Jitrellians would find it. So their progress was painfully slow, punctuated by stumblings, muffled curses, heavy panting and much rattling of equipment. Keill kept his face and his voice expressionless, knowing that if he urged the young men on he would merely make them more anxious, and therefore more awkward.
But inwardly he was chafing. Glr had not yet seen the strangers' base through the distant haze. It was possible that it could be several days' march away, at this plodding pace. And Keill did not have several days to waste – not when the rogue planet was again threatening Rilyn with the Starwind.
That thought led to another. Did Tam and his troop know how near they were to the cataclysm?
During the midday break, he casually mentioned the subject.
'The Starwind?' Tam nodded knowingly. 'Yes, soon, our scientists say. But who can know exactly? Not until the planet Qualthorn, the intruder, appears in the night sky. Then we know,'
So, Keill mused, the rogue planet – the 'intruder’ – hadn't been detected by the Jitrellians before Tam left his planet. Yet how could he tell them that the planet had now appeared, without having to explain how he knew?
'What if the wind rose,’ Keill asked, 'while you – we – were still here?'
'We would find a deep cave, and hide.’ Tam waved a hand at the rocks around them. 'Here the land is riddled with caves and tunnels, where the creatures of Rilyn have lived and dug for centuries.’
'And what of the creatures?’ asked another Jitrellian. 'Do we hide from the Starwind only to be killed by the stone-whips?’
Tam glowered at the speaker, then turned to Keill. 'Our briefing for this mission told us of cave beasts...’
'I've seen them,' Keill broke in. 'You've named them well. They have stingers like whips – but they themselves don't move much faster than stones.’ He smiled dryly. 'I’m told the Starwind moves faster.’
A ripple of laughter moved through the troop, and the good humour lasted through the task of restoring their packs and resuming their trudging march.
But Keill's mood grew steadily darker. It was all very well to plan on finding a safe and cosy cave when the Starwind struck. But would the strangers do the same? Their base might be underground
– it would be the logical way to build, on Rilyn. But when the wind rose, what if they simply went elsewhere? What if their stay on Rilyn had been planned to end when the Starwind appeared?
Too many questions. And too slow a progress towards the answers.
Glr's clear inner voice broke into his thoughts.
Keill, I can see a shape ahead that may be a structure. Shall I go closer – or shall I attend to the group of armed humans on vehicles directly below me?
'How far are they from here?’Keill asked quickly.
Glr’s projected map appeared again in Keill's mind, showing moving dots representing men on skimmers, a few kilometres away. But their course looked like it would bring them directly upon Keill and the Jitrellians.
They are not moving swiftly,Glr said, so I assume they are not aware of you.
'I’ll get this group into cover somehow,’Keill replied, 'and have another look at them – while you might go closer to the structure.’
Your pet obeys, master,Glr teased, before breaking contact
Keill grinned wryly to himself, knowing that it would be a long time before Glr would let him forget that fatal three-letter word. He glanced round for a possible hiding place, and spotted a likely-looking gully to one side. But he let the terrain disguise his change of direction, so the Jitrellians suspected nothing.
Soon, to his relief, the gully deepened and narrowed into a ravine, where the shrubbery grew densely at the edges, providing extra cover. There he halted the troop.
'I'm wondering about those other men,' he told them quietly. 'We don't want to walk into a trap.
I’m going to scout ahead for a while.’
'I will come with you,' Tam said at once.
'One man alone runs less risk of being spotted,’ Keill said. And can move faster, he added privately. 'Keep your men here, and keep them out of sight – in case the others are out there somewhere.’
Tam agreed, reluctantly, and his men began shedding their packs as Keill moved away. Out of the ravine, he angled back towards the direction that they had been following before. At once he settled again into the loping run that devoured the distance – while shunning the more open areas, winding his way through the sheltering outcrops of rock with all the instinctive stealth of a wild creature.
After a few moments Glr's inner voice returned. I can see the structure more clearly now. It seems to be a substantial tower, rising from a level plateau. It has few external features that I could see, through the haze that seems to surround it – but there is a semicircular shape on the very top of it that I am sure is a spacecraft.
A tower? Keill nodded sourly to himself. If anything spelled the presence of the Deathwing, it was the brazen arrogance of building a tower on the planet of the Starwind. It was just the Deathwing style.
But the fact that the strangers’ base was a tower could also mean just what he feared – that the occupants might leave Rilyn before the Starwind struck, especially if they had a ship waiting. Would there be time for him to learn what he needed to know?
'Stay there and see what else you can find out.'he said to Glr. 'I’m c oming up to the men on skimmers now.’
But he was wrong. His sense of direction and of terrain had brought him almost to the point where he should intersect the route of the others. But he could hear no hint of the muttering rumble of skimmers.
Uneasiness began to gnaw at him as he changed direction, changed again, casting back and forth like a hunting animal searching for spoor, stopping now and then and straining his ears to pick up the sound of engines.
Nothing. Then where were they?
Maybe they had stopped, he thought. Glr had said they were moving slowly, so they might be still a kilometre away, idling over a delayed midday meal.
But they might well have unpredictably veered aside from their original path. If so, he would need Glr to come and spot them again from the air. And he would need to hope that they would not come upon the Jitrellians first.
His uneasiness grew. I hope they keep their foolish heads down, he thought.
He changed direction again, retracing his steps back towards the ravine where he had left the Jitrellians. Though he still kept carefully within the cover of the rugged, broken terrain, he speeded his pace, driven by the strengthening feeling that something had gone wrong.
The ravine was a good hiding place: only wild chance would bring the others close enough to spot Tam and his troop. Unless someone among those inexperienced youths did something foolish, or clumsy, and exposed them…
Soon the ravine was in sight, and Keill was moving towards its entrance, crouched low, boots silent on the moss. All his highly tuned senses were picking up a feeling of tension around the place, an unnatural quiet – as if the plants, the rocks, the very air itself were holding still in the presence of danger.
Keill drifted soundlessly forward, his eyes sweeping over the shrub-c
lad slopes that formed the sides of the ravine. Perhaps it had once been the bed of a stream, for it curved and twisted as only the path of moving water will do. And around one of those curves Keill found what he had most dreaded.
The bodies of five of the Jitrellian youths lay sprawled, sightless eyes staring up at the indifferent Rilyn sky.
Keill knelt beside each, his soldier's mind noting the positions of the corpses, assessing the gaping, bloody wounds in their bodies. They had been killed by some sort of projectiles – bullets fired from guns by controlled explosion, which would not be affected by the suppressor field.
His eye caught the gleam of metal in a thicket of nearby shrubbery, and there he found two more Jitrellian bodies – two who must have been quick enough to try to dive to safety into the dense greenery, but not quick enough to escape the bullets of their attackers.
Keill had fought in too many battles to be disturbed by death alone. But this had not been war –
not against young, inept and totally defenceless young men. This had been savage and evil murder.
Anger swelled within him – the controlled anger of a legionary, hard as a diamond, cold as space, fuelling the readiness for combat. A readiness that was complete when the two red-uniformed men came round a curve in the ravine.
One had the face of the legendary Miclas. But he was not the man Keill had seen before. This version of Miclas was even younger – in his early twenties.
So was the other man moving towards Keill. And he had the face and the tall, broad-shouldered body of another famous legionary of Moros – the great Callor.
Who had died of old age two years before the Legions had been destroyed.
Keill straightened, neither his anger nor the shock he felt at the others’ appearance showing in his face as he stepped easily forward.
The two men carried guns – projectile weapons, as Keill had guessed – bolstered at their hips.
But they did not reach for their guns. So they weren't seeking to kill him at once, he realised, nor even to capture him at gunpoint. What, then? Did they think they could take him barehanded?
