Ancestor's World

by T. Jackson King

  "Alive!" he said loudly. "But not fully conscious. As if she'd been struck."

  Gordon cursed. "If he's hurt her--"

  Krillen fixed them both with a terrified stare. "Beloran is completely mad, Mahree. You and Gordon must rescue Etsane before he kills her. He said he would."

  "No he won't!" Mahree said tightly. "If Beloran is heading for the back country, then he'll take his skimmer. To escape on the Royal Road. No one could find them in this storm." Except me, she thought fiercely. I know where the Royal Road goes.

  Gordon nodded. "Head for the landing field! Maybe we can catch him before he reaches the Great Ramp."

  "Right," Mahree said, letting go of the Investigator. "Krillen, go to the Lab.

  Greyshine is in charge until we return. He'll get everyone out in the shuttle if the baffles fail to stop the flash-flood."

  "What about you two? The floods could drown you!" Krillen hissed, the boom of thunder battering her ears.

  "We'll take that gamble!" Mahree yelled, then started forward. She tripped and barely saved herself from falling. Her boot had caught in something outside Etsane's tent. She

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  picked it up as Krillen limped toward the Lab. Rain-soaked and slick, it was a length of tanned leather. Etsane's sling!

  "Bring it," Gordon ordered. "There are times when the old weapons are useful, as Etsane has shown us."

  Together, they headed for the landing field at a run.

  Gasping for breath, sliding in the wet sand and from the quivering of aftershocks, Mahree nearly fell several times. Gordon reached out to her, giving her his hand, and that helped.

  They raced along together, Mahree's heart pounding more in fear for her friend than from the exertion.

  When they reached the landing field, they found Beloran's skimmer gone.

  Gordon turned to the camp skimmer and jumped in. "Come on! We'll try to head him off!"

  She tumbled into the front seat. He gunned the vehicle and they roared ahead, the fans straining, the gyros whining in protest as they fought to keep the craft level. Gordon sent the craft skimming over boulders at a speed Mahree would never have dared.

  Surely, she thought, he's a much better driver than Beloran, who only learned to drive a few months ago. But can we make it across the creek?

  "Can you see them?" Gordon yelled, slewing the skimmer around a huge, house-sized boulder. "We're coming up on Flat Rock and the creek crossing."

  See them? In this storm? Mahree thought incredulously.

  She stood up, gripped the windshield rim, and peered into gray sheets of rain. Gordon piloted the skimmer with precision, but his hands were too tight on the control yoke, knuckles white. It had only taken them a moment to prepare the vehicle and start after the murderous Na-Dina, but the feeling in her heart was that they must already be too late. She hefted the pulse-gun that Gordon had handed her and then reholstered it, wondering if she'd have to use it.

  She searched ahead for some sight of Beloran's skimmer. They'd passed Pokeel and the Guards and Khuharkk' coming in as they headed out, and now they'd just crossed over Flat Rock. The formerly tiny creek they'd so casually swum

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  in now raged two meters deep and five meters wide. She'd never seen anything this fiercely primal, this much the image of Nature unleashed.

  Quake, thunder, lightning, and soon, flood. On Ancestor's World, they were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  The skimmer shook and rattled as its fans sped them over scattered rock debris of all sizes. The day began to lighten, but rain still pounded them.

  Mahree scanned the broken landscape unfolding before them again and again, but saw only rock of every shape and degree of erosion.

  "Look!" Gordon pointed ahead and to their left, at the side canyon. "There's his skimmer!"

  "After him!" Mahree cried, then almost fell as the skimmer bounced off a hidden obstruction.

  "We could rip out the fans if we keep on like this!" Mahree swayed as the skimmer hit again. "We've got to save her!" She would not lose another person to this alien lunatic.

  Lightning flashed ahead of them, illuminating their quarry. Beloran's skimmer had made it past the first side canyon and now headed for the second and last side canyon, with its arroyo crossing. If he made it across, he'd be home free and able to get up the Great Ramp before they could catch him. Mahree pounded on the windshield. "Faster! Faster!"

  Gordon looked at her as if she were crazy, but obediently increased speed.

  Mahree was raging, bloodlust filling her mind and heart. Murderer! Beloran had killed one of her own students, one of the best Interrelators they'd ever had. If she'd had him in the sights of the pulse-gun, she'd have shot him without a moment's hesitation.

  "He's slowing, getting ready to cross the arroyo."

  "No!" Mahree pulled out the pulse-gun, leaned her elbows on the top of the windshield and, bracing her feet, aimed the gun's open ring-sight at the shiny silver rectangle of the skimmer.

  "Mahree!" Gordon shouted. "It's two hundred meters to them! And you might hit Etsane."

  She knew that. But she also knew that if she didn't act,

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  the alien would get away, would flee up the Great Ramp and disappear into this storm, never to be found again. She squinted, lining up the sight. "I told you ... I was ... a good shot..." she gasped, and then held her breath. She felt time stretch, felt her ears shut off, felt all her attention focus on the ring-sight and the gleam ahead. For a brief instant, it all lined up.

  "There/"

  She fired.

  The blue bolt shot forward like a ball of lightning, moving so fast she could hardly see it, splashing against the rear of the skimmer. Metal shrieked.

  Black tendrils of smoke rose from the engine compartment. The craft swerved to the left, heading up the last side canyon.

  "You got the fans!" Gordon cried out.

  Mahree sagged down onto the bench seat. "Oh, God. He's going to crash."

  "No, he's not," Gordon said. "He's on the auto-descend landing sequence.

  We've got them!"

  "Watch out!" she yelled to Gordon.

  Their skimmer swayed as they crossed over the raging floodwaters of the first side canyon. Briefly, they hovered above five meters of open air.

  Momentum and fan power carried them over to the other side. The skimmer's rubber skirts squealed as they scraped rocky ground, then went silent as Gordon controlled the bounce, lifting them into half-steady flight. Beloran's skimmer had disappeared around the edge of the canyon wall.

  Mahree stood up again, careless of the storm or the wildly swaying skimmer.

  Give me just one shot, she begged the Revered Ancestors. Just one. Let me get him!

  "There they are!" Gordon pointed as they rounded the brown sandstone wall, coming into a clear view of the side canyon.

  "Where?" She looked up the curving canyon, searching the creek bottom, then scanned the boulders piled up against the canyon walls. "Yes! They're down, crashed onto those boulders." She pointed. "Beloran and Etsane are moving. They're alive!"

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  Gordon nodded grimly. "Alive and ... watch out!" He swerved the skimmer and reached out to push hard against her chest, forcing her to sit.

  Blue light flashed against the front of their own skimmer. She cried out, throwing up her hands. And they went down...

  Gordon shook his head, half stunned from the auto- descend emergency landing. Their skimmer had crashed perhaps fifty meters downcanyon from the rain-slashed wreckage of Beloran's skimmer. Mahree! He turned in his seat.

  She looked up at him, a bruise purpling under her right eye. "Gordon!"

  "Mahree!" He grabbed her and held her tight. "You okay?"

  "I think so," she said shakily. "How about you?"

  "Yeah." Turning to look ahead, he spit out the rain that had gathered in his mouth.

  Mahree looked ahead. "We've got to save her, Gordon." She made to stand up. The skimmer's crumpled met
al floor defeated her efforts. She fell back to the rain-soaked bench seat with a gasp.

  Gordon looked around for the pulse-guns, but his holster was empty. He couldn't find Mahree's, either. Lost in the crash, most likely.

  Desperate, he grabbed Etsane's sling, then climbed out of the skimmer, his boots slipping on the rain-slick boulders that had piled up against the vertical wall of the side canyon, making a small ramp that reached halfway up to the high rim of the canyon. Gordon shook his head when Mahree tried to follow.

  "Stay here! Find one of the guns! This is high enough to escape any flash flooding, and with that gun you can prevent Beloran from escaping this way.

  Please?"

  She looked at him rebelliously, her anger and her need filling her face.

  "Damn it!" Mahree sagged back onto the bench seat. Then she looked upcanyon. He did too, seeing as if through a gray veil. Etsane struggled now in the grasp of Beloran, trying to keep him from dragging her out of 277

  the skimmer. Mahree's words came to him clearly, despite the roar of new thunder. "Gordon, are there flood baffles in this canyon?"

  He thought of lying to her, then didn't. "No. The old Na-Dina ones were washed away centuries ago." He turned from her, picking his way down the boulder ramp, trying to keep to the side of the canyon.

  She called after him, her voice full of pain. "Don't die!"

  He didn't plan to.

  Keeping to the sheltering safety of boulders washed off the canyon rim, Gordon walked, slipped, stumbled, fell and yet still made progress toward his objective. Through the gray sheets of rain, Etsane saw him coming, a red welt showing through her slashed blouse where Beloran's tail had struck her. Not giving away what she saw, she lifted up her feet and kicked forward at Beloran, catching him in the chest. The alien staggered back, his arms flailing. The pulse-gun fell from his grasp, skittering to a stop on a boulder below the skimmer.

  Now!

  As Beloran turned to climb down and retrieve his weapon, Gordon rushed over the intervening space between him and Etsane.

  Twenty meters.

  The rain slashed his face, numbing already chilled flesh.

  Fifteen meters.

  Lightning flashed high overhead. Thunder instantly deafened his ears.

  Staggering as another aftershock shook the rocky ground, Gordon crouched, grabbed three small rocks, then rushed on.

  Ten meters.

  Beloran was out of sight below the skimmer, halfway between the craft's crumpled wreckage and the creek at canyon bottom. Muddy-brown waters surged out of the narrow confines of its sandy bottom, rising upward slowly.

  "Astamari!" cried Etsane as he reached her.

  He stuffed sling and rocks inside his shirt, then grabbed at her bonds, tearing at them with cold-numbed fingers. "Damn!" He turned, grabbed a metal fragment, and sawed

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  at the bindings. The girl's feet were unbound. If he could just free her hands ...

  "Sky Infidel!"

  Beloran's scream of fury made him look over the side of the skimmer. Five meters below, the rain streamed off the alien's blue-scaled body. The Liaison's taloned feet were propelling him quickly up the boulder pile on which the skimmer had crashed. The alien raised his pulse-gun, aiming at Gordon. He ducked.

  Whap!

  The bolt splashed harmlessly against the canyon wall behind him. They were protected by the skimmer--until Beloran reached the middle part of the boulder ramp on which his skimmer, like Gordon's, had crashed, wedging itself in among the rounded boulders.

  Suddenly, the skimmer began vibrating. It was a steady vibration, a thrumming that was not an aftershock, not thunder, and not anything else.

  Except for one thing.

  The bindings parted. "Etsane! Run! Out of the skimmer and up to the top of this boulder pile! There's a flash flood coming!"

  The girl looked alarmed, then determined. She reached out to him. "Give me my sling. I will strike down Beloran!"

  "No!" Gordon pushed her away and over the side of the skimmer. "You don't study archaeology and not learn how to use ancient tools. I can sling this baby almost as good as you. Go! I don't know why, but you're the one he's trying to kill."

  Etsane tumbled out onto the boulders, but called back to him even as Gordon loaded a stone into the cup of the sling. "He said I could not live because of my deciphering of the Royal script! " Gordon peered over the edge of the skimmer.

  Just three meters away, Beloran lifted up his scaly head. Black eyes fixed on Gordon. "Infidel!"

  "Gordon!" Etsane yelled. "He thought if I was dead, the Mizari would leave, the CLS would leave, and his world would be stronger because of the dam and its power."

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  He didn't care what insanity the alien used to justify murder. Spinning the sling despite the rain and his fear, he rose up suddenly. "Run, Etsane!"

  Beloran raised his pulse-gun. "Die!"

  Aiming with his chin, Gordon let fly the sling stone with a snap-thwack that almost unhinged his shoulder. "Yeah!" The stone hit Beloran between his eyes. Blue scales parted. Red blood ran freely. The alien clutched his forehead, crying out "Nooooo!" Then he fell backward and tumbled downslope, a rolling ball of blue scales and slashing tail that ended up at the bottom of the boulder pile. One leg wedged between two rocks. The pulse-gun disappeared.

  Gordon felt the vibration in the skimmer floor increase. Scrambling out of the craft, he looked up the boulder ramp toward where Etsane had fled. She huddled at the top of the ramp, her back against the canyon wall. But someone else also sat with her. "Mahree!"

  His love grinned crazily, waving madly for him to join them. "Get up here!"

  The boulders vibrated even more strongly. Looking up the narrow canyon, Gordon froze with horror. A wall of gray water mixed with brown sand and red mud roared around the last curve of the canyon. It rushed at him with the speed of a skimmer.

  "Gordon!"

  He unfroze, looked up the boulder ramp, and climbed for his life.

  The ground vibration grew. Rain slashed his face. Climbing, he battled against the cascading water that poured over the canyon rim ten meters above Mahree and Etsane. They were being drenched by the cascade, their clothes plastered to their skin. But they were wedged between the uppermost boulders. The cascading waterfall did not dislodge them. He climbed.

  He slipped.

  He slammed knees against the stones.

  A shuddering roar filled his ears, a sound like all the demons loosed from some distant hell.

  Would the Revered Ancestors claim him for their own?

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  Gordon had offered water and salt yesterday morning, in company with Pokeel and Axum. He'd treated the sarcophagus and body of King A-Um Rakt with the reverence due all burials. And he'd tried his best to learn what could be learned from a myriad of temple-cities soon to be buried under a giant lake. As his homage to the past, his respect shown for the remarkable civilization of a people whose culture predated that of the pharaohs by two thousand years.

  "Gordon!" Mahree grabbed him as he fell into her arms.

  "Teacher Mitchell!" Etsane too grabbed him.

  He turned in their embrace, settled into the hole between the boulders, and then looked down at the bottom of the canyon.

  Beloran the Merchant cried out to them. "Save me!"

  Shivering from the wet, the cold, the shock of it all, Gordon sat between his two special women. He watched as the high wall of the flash flood rushed over Beloran's blue scales, burying the murderer under tons and tons of sand, water, and small rocks. He shuddered.

  Mahree leaned into him. He looked her way. She sat under a waterfall cascading down from the canyon rim, and yet to him, she looked beautiful.

  She smiled. "You didn't die."

  "No, I didn't." He hugged her close, crying with relief, his cries lost among the shuddering roar of Mother's Tears--the flash flood. The bright flash of Mother's Touch shook them with booming thunder. And a new aftershock hit as Father
's Snores reminded them all of how dangerous it is to disturb the chambers of Father Earth.

  Etsane pushed against him, shaking. He put his other arm around her and, the three of them holding each other close, he joined his women in silent, thankful homage to Mother Sky and Father Earth.

  Two days after the earthquakes and floods, Mahree squatted on the hard stone floor of the meeting chamber of the Council of Elders. She faced the central sand disk and the assembled effigy sticks of the clans of the Na-Dina with a thumping heart. She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking.

  To either side squatted the sixteen Elders,

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  gathered like her in a ring about the pit as they all faced the red porphyry effigies of the Revered Ancestors. Their manner was subdued, their glances at her wondering, and the pile of salt tablets lying in front of each Elder, and before Mahree, lay unused.

  She had come to explain how Nordlund had lied about the safety of the dam site, how a flooding of their upriver villages and cities had been narrowly avoided when the clay core of the diversion dam did not breach, and how one of their own, one of the People, had murdered Bill Waterston, her predecessor to this very Council. She felt inadequate to the task. But the presence of Gordon, sitting behind her in the shadows of the round-walled chamber, comforted her.

  Elder Salween, from the Temple of Earth Quaking, flared her silvery ears, then fixed dark eyes on Mahree. The woman tossed salt onto the sand.

  "Ambassador Burroughs, how is your camp? Are your homes safe? Are your people uninjured?"

  The woman's voice, speaking firmly in High Na-Dina, sounded sympathetic.

  Mahree rose, bowed deeply to her questioner, then stood straight. "Elder Salween, the Camp survived intact. The ancient flood baffles prevented damage to my people, to our tents, to the Queen's Own Guard, and to the sarcophagus and body of King A-Um Rakt." A hissing sigh of relief echoed around the chamber as she mentioned the last. "The drilling camp at the Lake of Stars was destroyed, but the workers survived. Sadly, the same could not be said for the person of Beloran, of the clan Flooding Waters, of the Trade Merchant, former Liaison to us."

  "Beloran!" hissed Elder Hakeem, representative of the King and the Royal House.

  Salween ignored the male's breach of protocol, maintaining her stare at Mahree. Well, at least the senior Traditionalist thought she'd done something right. "Our apologies to your clan, and to all damaged by the actions of this member of clan Flooding Waters." Salween's ears fluttered with anger.