Greg Bear - Hegira

by Hegira (lit)

  Then they left, and Barthel was quiet.

  The day seemed unbearably long. Survey crews climbed Barometer and continued their measuring, but Kiril wasn't among them. He stood by the landing strip waiting for the plane to arrive, knowing it came this time to take Bar-Woten to his trial. He waited until dusk, walking to the food shed and mess tent after sunset to eat, then to the beach to listen to the swift surge of the river heading seaward.

  The airplane didn't arrive by late evening, and the landing field, without lights as yet, was closed. Kiril went to his cabin to try for a few hours of sleep.

  He didn't have a chance. He was caught between slumber and nervous alertness when Barthel called from outside the tent. The other sleepers grumbled, and one sat up in the murky light of the pole lamp rubbing his eyes. Kiril motioned for him to go back to sleep and held his fingers to his lips. Then he swung out of the cot, automatically picked up the clothes he had packed earlier, and left the tent.

  A flaring gas flame provided a guttering illumination across the end of the camp, exaggerating the shadows and emphasizing the frequent gusts of wind. The night was dark and without bright fire doves. Barthel stood next to a barrel covered by a wire screen. Someone else was behind him, shadowy and indistinct, but Kiril knew who it was. "How did he get out?"

  "Never mind that," Bar-Woten said from the darkness. Barthel took Kiril's arm and pulled him along.

  They crossed the tarmac. Rocky and molten terrain began several hundred meters north of the camp. Bar-Woten told them they would follow the beach for a while, then duck into the stony maze if they were pursued.

  "I thought there weren't supposed to be night landings," Barthel said. He stopped in the dark, squinting eastward at die pair of red lights racing low over the water. "They can't land on the runway. No lights."

  "That's not an airplane," Kiril said. "It might be a helicopter. It's flying too low and too slow to be an - "

  Bar-Woten grabbed both of them by the arms. "Quickly!" he said. "Into the rocks."

  "Why?" Kiril asked, resisting the rush. "No one's after us."

  "Trust a soldier's instincts for once! Into the rocks."

  They broke into a run. Engines roared from the east. Bright lights split the camp into scattered spots of day. Barthel stumbled on a rock and split his knee open. Limping and gasping, he held up his hands, and they lifted him to cover behind the rocks. Kiril peered over a split boulder. The base camp was alive with running, shouting people.

  "What's going on?" he asked wonderingly.

  "They're being attacked," Bar-Woten said.

  "Nobody's shooting - "

  Gouts of flame billowed from the main tents. A vivid red arrow of light swept the camp. Everything it touched flared incandescent.

  "They're ships," Bar-Woten said. "But they're going faster than the hydrofoils - they're flying above the water!"

  At least five of the craft skimmed up the beach, each shooting lethal red beams into the camp. The ships resembled broad scrub brushes scouring the water. They danced on wide fringes of rubber and threw plumes of spray behind them. Each was fifty or sixty meters long, rounded and streamlined. They didn't slow as they approached the beach.

  Bar-Woten examined the Khemite's leg by matchlight. He tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt and tied a bandage. "It's only a cut," he said. "Hold your leg out straight."

  "What are they doing up there? I can't see anything." Barthel gritted his teeth.

  "They're killing everybody."

  "Who? With what?"

  "I don't know. Just be glad you're here."

  "They're coming up on the beach!" Kiril said. "They can go anywhere!"

  "What are they shooting with?" Barthel asked.

  "I don't know," Bar-Woten said. "Keep still."

  "We have to leave, or they'll kill us too!" The Khemite groaned in pain.

  "We're well hidden."

  "They'll come after us," Kiril agreed. "God, I can't stand it!" he held his hands up to his ears. "It's slaughter!" He crouched to jump down from the ledge.

  Something blinding flashed over them. His hair caught fire, and for an instant, amazed, he stood like a torch. Bar-Woten reached up and pulled him off the rock, smothering his head in a coat. When he removed the coat, the Mediwevan was unconscious. His scalp hadn't been burned, but the smell of his singed hair added to the sickening smoke drifting across the rocks. Barthel's glancing eyes picked up stray gleams in the orange half-light. He struggled up from Bar-Woten's grip to look across the airfield. "Holy Allah!" he said, ducking down quickly. He grimaced as his knee flexed.

  "Keep the leg straight!" Bar-Woten commanded.

  "We can't stay here. We have to go farther away, or they'll kill us."

  "You speak without thinking - " The Ibisian pulled his head in like a turtle as another beam flashed above them. "They've got the wrath of Samhain at work out there. They'll scythe us if we stick our heads up. Best to stay here for a moment."

  There were fewer screams now. Scattered shots punctuated the crackle and hiss of burning. The engines of the craft throttled and hummed. Kiril came to and reached for his scalp. He brushed his hair vigorously with his fingers. They came away smudged. "Am I burned?" he asked.

  "Not badly. You're lucky, young friend," Bar-Woten said. His face was fixed into a death's-head smile. Barthel leaned back in the shadow of the ledge and muttered prayers with his hands clasped. Kiril wondered why he wasn't praying himself. Mediweva's provincial God didn't seem to have any jurisdiction here. He brushed the singed hairs from his head.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Wait," Bar-Woten said. He stood up and put his knees on the ledge, barely raising his head over the rim of the rock. "There are men leaving the ships. They're carrying weapons - guns, I think. Some of the camp people are surrendering. They aren't shooting."

  "Taking prisoners?" Barthel asked.

  "It would seem so." He ducked back. "We'll lie low and creep around these rocks as fast as we can. Nobody is close."

  "Who are they?" Kiril asked.

  The Ibisian shrugged. "The rivals are here. Do you think a bone as big as an Obelisk wouldn't draw every jackal in the area? The real story's barely begun now."

  "Allah was good to us, having you arrested," Barthel said. "There is a reason for everything."

  Bar-Woten grunted. "Let's go."

  "Morning in an hour or so," Kiril said as they crawled over the rough, pebbly ground between the bigger boulders. "We should be pretty far from here by then."

  An ear-pounding whumpf broke the quiet behind them. Bar-Woten stood up and saw the Trident's fragments riding a flower of smoke and fire. Bits of blazing wood fell on the beach, forcing ranks of prisoners to break and run. "It's the ship," he said. "I don't think the new ones did it, though."

  "Did what?"

  "She's gone."

  They continued to crawl.

  "Stop!"

  Kiril looked up. A shadow on the rock above them pointed a gun into the crevice.

  "Come out of there, all of you," the shadow said.

  "What does he want?" Bar-Woten asked.

  "He wants us to get up out of here," Kiril replied. "He's speaking English - good old English. That," he grimaced, "was my specialty a few years ago." He held up his hands, and the others mimicked him. "Coming," he said.

  "Damn right you are. Nothing false, now."

  A boat rowed silently near the water-washed rocks. It was filled with men dressed in black, all sporting wicked-looking rifles.

  "Into the water," the man said. "It's shallow. Go on."

  They were hauled into the boat and securely tied with scratchy ropes. Bound and helpless, they were pitched into the bottom. A shadow stood over them, bending and reaching out to examine them. The shadow's profile was irregular. A flap of black cloak fell away and Barthel looked directly into the figure's face. His skin paled in the lamplight from the prow. Kiril lay face down in the boat and couldn't see.

  "It's not a man," the Khe
mite whispered.

  "Be gentle with these," the figure said, it's voice muffled. "They're different from the others."

  The oars were pulled in, and the boat drifted with the river currents.

  Twenty-one

  Kiril looked their captors over quickly as they were shoved into line with the rest of the prisoners. The night hid the features of the one Barthel had said wasn't a man. It walked to the rear of the armed guards and whispered instructions to several uniformed men. It moved its limbs with an odd jerking motion. Its loose-fitting robes formed novel humps and hollows as the wind grabbed at it.

  Those tents that hadn't burned were being searched. Sporadic gunfire still accented the wind. The hulking flying ships whistled and hummed. A ramp was lowered from the nearest craft, and the first line of thirty prisoners was herded into a dark aft compartment, Kiril among them. Barthel and Bar-Woten were in the next line but didn't come aboard his craft.

  The cramped quarters reeked with fear. A few lights flickered on above them, strips of white in the low ceiling, and he saw the floor was padded. Seats lined the walls. Those who could sit did so. Nobody from the Trident was in the group beside Kiril. He squatted on the padding and rubbed his face with his hands. His fingers came away wet with tears. He felt like dying, he was so confused.

  The engines beneath them coughed, seemed to laugh, then broke into a body-strumming roar. The craft lurched and rose. The engines pitched higher.

  Sometime in the next few hours he slept. He awoke in a press of bodies and struggled free of nightmares about slaughter. Most of the captives were breathing slowly, rhyth-mically, a sea of flesh gently rolling. He wiped sleep from his eyes and wet his finger to erase traces of dried tears from his cheeks. A few owlish eyes returned his gaze from across the room, but most of the prisoners were lost in blind, escapeful slumber.

  He had to urinate. The pressure was almost unbearable. He crossed his legs and gritted his teeth to still the insistent acid pangs. There was already urine smell in the air from others. He felt a small, mild nausea, a reminder he still had a stomach and that he hadn't eaten for a while. At least the flying ship didn't roll with the water - if they were still over water.

  He stood without disturbing those sprawled around him, stretched his arms, and tensed his leg muscles. He could touch the ceiling. With one finger he felt a light-strip. It was warm but not hot. He thought of Barthel and Bar-Woten. Perhaps they were dead already, and he was on his own. He found that hard to accept. He had gotten so much strength from the two despite their differences.

  "We've been moving for six hours," said a man across the cabin. Kiril recognized the guard of the makeshift jail. He had a broad bruise above his eye, and he held one arm as if it were a baby. "Did your friends get away?"

  Kiril shook his head. Unsettled, he looked away from the guard. "Your friends didn't hurt me badly," the man said. "But these bastards - I think they've broken my arm."

  He didn't seem to hold a grudge, but Kiril thought it best to consider everyone and everything an enemy now. He felt it was within his power to kill if he had to - something he had never known before. He flexed his hands and looked at them speculatively.

  If Bar-Woten and Barthel were dead he'd have to protect himself. He was no longer a ward, an amateur. He was a caged animal.

  The engines changed pitch. The craft banked forward, then rocked back. He tumbled over as they slowed.

  The other prisoners were waking. Questions passed back and forth in volleys. A man and a woman hugged each other joyfully, then gazed around like cornered rabbits.

  The engines stopped. The craft thumped gently to rest. The hatch opened and blinding daylight poured in, silhouet-ting five armed guards. The prisoners were herded from the craft down the ramp, stepping into soft snow covering gray concrete. Slate-gray mountains rose on three sides, and on the fourth a stretch of wave-flaked water. Above was a bank of rushing clouds, piling around the mountains and sculpting wind-saucers in their lee. Kiril's heart leaped with the crisp smell of the air - forests and cold stretches of beach, lakewater smell, rain smell. The land was horrible and beautiful at the same time, mountains raw with black jagged rock and stunted trees, the wind like a flight of icicles. The prisoners beat themselves with their arms and puffed their cheeks out, huffing, trying to keep warm. The guards kept their slender guns raised and ready.

  The thirty were lined up on the concrete and snow in two rows and made to stand until they were blue.

  A second craft climbed from the water of the lake and whisked across the concrete apron to park beside the first. A third followed, and both disgorged loads of prisoners. These were lined up twenty meters behind Kiril's row. He craned his neck searching for Bar-Woten and Barthel. He thought he saw the Khemite, but couldn't be sure. He was afraid to turn. His teeth chattered until they threatened to vibrate his aching eyes out. His ears were numb, and when he touched his armpit-warmed fingers to them, they tingled.

  Trucks with canvas-covered beds rolled onto the strip and stood with engines idling, white smoke belching from pipes hung near the cabs. Kiril saw the shrouded figure climb down a ladder from the second hovercraft. It wore a silvery mask beneath its dark hood. Two men conferred with it, then took its arms and led it to the cab of the truck. It tugged them to a stop and turned to point to the ranks of prisoners. Its hand, Kiril saw, was gloved. Beneath the silvery mesh of the glove there could only have been three fingers, unless more than one digit occupied each finger. He felt a tremor pass through him that was more than just cold. Where could such a thing have come from? Perhaps, he consoled himself, it was only a man made up to look strange to cow the captives. But its walk was so authentically different that he doubted it was human.

  The guards prodded the captives with their guns and marched them into the backs of the trucks. There in the windy canvas tunnels they sat until the gates were closed and the trucks lurched head. Then they rushed to peer between the truck panels and the canvas.

  Kiril found a position where he could see the concrete landing field pass beneath them, changing to a rocky, ice-pocketed road.

  "We're being guarded from the cab," word passed. "They have guns aimed at us."

  "Maybe we can slip out the rear," a woman suggested. She stood up to see if the folds of canvas above the gate were tied down, but was wrenched back into her seat by a sudden bump.

  "We're going too fast," a man said. "We'd be killed."

  "We're going to be killed anyway," the jail guard said. "You know who these people are? They're from the east..."He said the word as if it were synonymous with evil.

  "We don't know that yet," another said. 169

  "Who else could build machines like these but the ones who've been dropping rockets on the Library Cities?"

  "There may be others, but even so, they're all trying to destroy us," the woman near the gate spoke up. "We have to get away from them and fight!"

  Kiril listened with interest, "Two equals," he murmured to himself. "They have to fight it out."

  But it wasn't only their fight. With instruments like the fire guns and flying ships it wouldn't be long before everyone on Hegira would face a rout. It would be Bar-Woten's March all over again - but this time the Ibisians would look like reckless children.

  He remembered the Bible and thought of Cain and Abel. Cain meant "smithy," or forger of tools. The tool-forger slew his farmer brother because God looked on the brother's sacrifice with more favor. Now in a different place and far. different time, those with the better tools won - just as the tiger with the swifter claws gained dominance in the forest. Mercy, kindness, grace, and beauty had nothing to do with human existence in such crazed times. He shook his head. He was so far from all of it, so isolated in mind and temper - yet he dearly wished, with a portion of his darker soul, that he had the finest tools of all. He would scourge his way to the Wall like a tide of cats through a mouse village - a tide of stray cats. All the stray cats were licking at him, testing him with claws, pulling away the piec
es of soggy paper he had wrapped around himself for warmth. They mewed and purred and rubbed against him -

  He lifted his head up and wrapped his arms around himself to stop his shivering. He was freezing - they all were. More and more quiet, eyes glazed, faces blue, lips purple. The truck jolted to a stop.

  Hardly aware where he was going, Kiril followed the stumbling crowd of prisoners down a sloping ramp into a concrete corridor. The guards jostled the slow ones until they regained thek footing and lurched after. Kiril's feet were numb.