[122] Bardan hurried along the starlit desert road as fast as he could manage. He was in good physical condition, but he had seldom been out of the city at night, and the sounds that came ominously from so many places around him kept him in a state of constant tension. He found himself panting heavily and pausing often to look over his shoulder. The wind made a soft sighing over the dunes. There were night birds crying and other nocturnal creatures making strange noises. There was always the danger of mutants. He had heard of raids conducted this close to the city now and then, if the food in the mountains where they lived was sparse. He didn’t know if it had been scarce recently, but he thought nervously that it might have been. He peered ahead and managed to make out the dark shapes of the kerra trees that formed a scrawny oasis here on the rim of the desert. That was his destination, but now that he had reached it, he hesitated. It was dark and still among the trees. Suddenly, the pale starlight of the sky overhead and the night noises that had disturbed him seemed much more friendly than that black stand of trees. He moved into it slowly, as silently as he was able. It seemed to grow darker as he came under the shelter of the thick-leaved branches. He held out a hand in front of him and promptly ran into the massive trunk of one of the trees.
As Bardan reeled back, startled, a shape suddenly leaped out from behind the tree and pounced on him. He shouted in fear as the robed and hooded figure knocked him to the ground and half fell on top of him, grabbing his wrists in a strong, fierce grip. As Bardan struggled wildly, he abruptly realized that the figure [123] holding him down was shapely and sweet-smelling—and giggling uncontrollably.
“Silene!” he roared, angry now because he had been caught in fear.
“Hush, hush,” she laughed quietly. She put a hand over his mouth lightly and rolled off him. “You are soft yet, love. Not your fault. Wait until the desert toughens you. Then I will never again be able to surprise you like that.”
He sat up, brushing sand off him, still pouting. His eyes had begun to adjust to the dark under the trees, and he could make out her lovely features, framed by the material of her hood. He had no need of the light to know she had long, thick chestnut hair and witching green eyes. The people of her tribe were all fair in coloring, though their skin was always tanned brown by the sun. She tilted her head mischievously, still smiling at him.
“Forgive me?”
He wanted to pretend he was angry, but her smile was prompting one of his own in response. Finally, it broke across his face, and she launched herself into his arms, knocking him flat again, but this time it ended in a kiss that satisfied them both. When she raised her head, she said solemnly, “I think I am forgiven.”
“Most heartily forgiven,” Bardan agreed. “But Silene, we have to hurry. We’re not that far from the city. I wasn’t followed, but if anyone looks in for me after I supposedly retired to bed and they find I’m not there ...”
“Yes, love. You are right. We will need distance between us and both our families. We will begin now.” She rose to her feet in the easy, graceful manner of the [124] nomad people. It was a move Bardan had never mastered. He clambered up after her and found she was holding out a hand to him. “Come. I have two meercans tethered here.” She led him farther back under the trees, again smiling saucily back at him. “They are two of Father’s best.”
Bardan winced. “I suppose it was clever of you to take them, but he’s going to be very angry.”
“They were promised to the man who would bond me. Fortunately, no man had yet come forward, and I chose you as bond mate. The meercans are yours now.” She reached the two saddle animals that snuffled affectionately against her sleeve. “Did you bring nothing to our bonding, love?”
“Well, my father has no meercans, and I couldn’t carry much of his merchandise with me. I brought some food for us. And”—he jingled a pouch at his belt—“Father does have money. We can buy what we will need when we reach Andasia.”
Silene flung her arms around his neck and nestled against him. “I have chosen a man of wisdom,” she murmured.
The basic operating principle of the matter-antimatter engines of a starship was relatively simple, as so many brilliant ideas are. A dilithium crystal was suspended in the center of the injector core and subjected to a carefully directed stream of matter from the top of the core and one of antimatter from the bottom. The planes of the faceted crystal absorbed the two streams of matter that were deadly to each other and redirected them into a compatible river of material that produced warp power for the engines. [125] However, sometimes—not often, but sometimes—a little thing or two could go wrong. Nothing that would endanger the engines, or even the ship, but which could make a difference in the equipment involved in the operation of the system or anything attached to it.
The engineering graveyard shift was quiet as always. Scott had chosen this time to start through his first batch of engine-room hooch. The curiously shaped pipe-and-bulb arrangement that formed his still had been installed inconspicuously in a tangle of other pipes that hooked into the maintenance scope that looked into the injector core for routine inspections and servicing. As he had pointed out to Brien, no one had noticed it in the least, and it blended into the background of pipe and tubing that surrounded the core so naturally that no one was likely to. Scott carefully uncapped the maintenance scope hole, moved aside a neatly inserted (and nearly indetectable) circle in the wall of the scope hole, inserted a funnel, and began to pour in the mash and pure water that were the base of his recipe. There were other ingredients, which he measured out carefully and slipped into the tube in the wall. That done, he poured in more water, waited a moment, then took a careful sniff at the tube. The expression that passed over his face was pure bliss. His grandfather had told him you could always smell the quality of the end product in the first mix of the recipe, and Montgomery Scott’s nose told him this would be a perfect batch. Let them talk about the Lionheart, he thought. Wait until they get a taste of this brew! He happily closed the scope hole and went back on duty.
At that moment, the dilithium crystal in the core [126] suffered an infinitesimal fracture along the edge line of a facet. Crystal fracture was one of the few inherent drawbacks to using dilithium, but it happened so infrequently (and every ship carried a number of backup crystals) that it was felt the risk was worth taking in exchange for the immense power possible through the system. This fracture was so tiny that only a microscopic investigation would have revealed it. With the warp engines in low idle while the ship was in orbit, it did not affect the efficiency of the crystal in transforming matter and antimatter into the correct mix of energy required. It did, however, result in a few stray gamma rays being thrown off in a direction not intended by the designer of the injector core. They bounced along the line of the maintenance scope hole and found the slightest edge of an opening in the side wall that did not inhibit their passage into the piping there.
The way had been long and arduous for the two riders in the desert. Silene had known the direction she was heading, guided by the stars, but Bardan had to take her leadership on faith. He trusted her, she was desert born and bred. But still, he had never turned his own life over to anyone so completely as he had to this slim young woman he loved. He had his moments of fear and vague doubts until the large kerra tree oasis loomed up before them, just as Silene had said it would. She smiled over her shoulder at him, and he could see that luminous look on her face in the light of the two moons which now shone high in the sky.
“Here we make camp,” she told him as he urged his mount up beside hers. “No one will be here. This [127] place is my tribe’s winter graze, and they are south of Sendai now. They are not due to be here for months.”
They moved into the shelter of the big trees and found a flat, grassy space near the center where a spring fountained into a sweetwater pond. Silene slid from her mount, handed Bardan the reins as he did the same, and told him to tend the meercans while she set up camp for them. Unaccustomed to being ordered, Bardan
balked at first and then quickly realized her job was the more complicated. He tended the beasts quickly—unsaddling, watering, and feeding them. While he was occupied, Silene set out utensils, started a small sheltered fire in an old scooped-out cookpit, and assembled a meal that smelled wonderful to a man who had eaten little before beginning this adventure. She had also laid out sleeping rolls and had a full plate and cup ready for him when he rejoined her.
“I could eat a meercan on a spit,” he told her with a smile. She stared at him, shocked, and he realized he had just violated one of the nomad’s most sacred rules. No one spoke of a meercan’s death; the beast was too valuable to the tribesmen. The only way a meercan would ever be eaten by a desert dweller was if it was too old or too injured to be saved. The death of a meercan under any circumstances was a major loss to a nomad. “I’m sorry, sweet. It was a phrase, a townsman’s phrase,” he assured her quickly. “It means I’m hungry, that’s all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Silene. I wouldn’t want to eat a meercan. Really.”
“I’ve made ucha meat stew.”
[128] He took a quick taste, then a larger one as the flavor burst on his tongue. “I like it. It’s wonderful.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I’ll never lie to you, Silene.” He set his spoon in his plate and reached out his hand to touch her lovingly.
She looked away, pretending to be withdrawn. “The wise women of my tribe say a man is already lying when he says such a thing to a woman.”
“I come from a different tribe. I thought that was why you loved me.”
“Oh, yes.” The pretension was banished by her brilliant smile. Suddenly, their hunger was gone and the plates were set aside, and hunger of another kind overcame them. The bedrolls and blankets were close by, and it was only a matter of moments for them to spread them and find each other, touching and being touched, making discoveries they had not yet permitted themselves. They were so deep in their love, so lost in sensation, that they never heard the soft, padding footsteps that should have been their warning.
The creatures that leaped from the darkness, yanking Bardan away from Silene, were grotesque in the moonlight that filtered through the kerra trees. Bardan caught a glimpse of their faces and twisted, frightening bodies as they grabbed him. Mutants. He saw Silene fighting grimly, silently, trying to twist away from her captors to pull out the dree knife on her belt. Bardan tried to reach her as the mutants easily subdued her. She continued to kick and struggle until they bore her to the ground. Bardan shouted in rage and threw himself against the two mutants who held him. Strong as he was, they were stronger, and he was controlled as easily as a child. The mutants had him [129] and Silene trussed up and slung on their saddled meercans. They had their own mounts—odd animals something like meercans and yet unlike. Mutants also? The creatures’ language was difficult to make out, but Bardan found, if he listened carefully, he could understand the gist of what they were saying. What he understood he didn’t like. They were heading for the mountains the mutants controlled, the Druncara Range. No normal who had ever gone into the Range had ever returned.
Chapter Eight
PIKE WOKE TO A DAWN that was a soft glow on the horizon, rapidly spreading to a golden flood of sunshine. He made himself a cold breakfast of ship’s rations and water as he sat on the sand and watched Areta’s sun rise. From this point until he returned to the ship, he would have to eat as the people around him ate. Finishing the rations, he collapsed the personal tent and folded it neatly into his possessions bag. The tribe of nomads should be less than two kilometers south of him now, and he began to walk in that direction.
The desert wind that had blown most of the night had dropped to a whisper, and the sand lay still on the gentle dunes that dominated the landscape in this area. It had been a stroke of good luck that the first time Pike had beamed down and approached the tribe led by Shinsei Farnah, he had appeared striding out of the midst of a desert sand devil, a swirl of sand whipped up by the swiftly changing winds running [131] ahead of a storm. The great nomad leader, Sadar-es, had come to the tribes in exactly the same manner, and Farnah’s people had welcomed Pike generously because of the coincidence. Sadar-es had been a loner, something of a hermit, but either intuitive or learned enough to foresee the gathering trouble among the people of the planet that meant a catastrophic war. He had preached everywhere he went that the coming war would destroy them if they stayed close to the cities. The original tribespeople had then been little more than scattered individuals and groups who preferred to live off the land in the rural areas of their world, the rough equivalent of farmers and ranchers. More and more people had come to listen to Sadar-es as he spoke eloquently about the shadow of death that hung over Areta when the great powers that ruled the planet finally clashed in the war that would inevitably come. Many left the cities and embraced the philosophy the desert hermit preached. Before the final conflict descended on Areta, Sadar-es had led his followers deep into the desert fastnesses, where they had molded themselves into the nomad life now followed by their descendants. After the holocaust, Sadar-es had stayed with his people until they formed themselves into the eight tribal units that survived to the present. He saw them begin to organize their tribal government and taught them everything he had known of desert survival. He was calculated to be in his eighty-first year when he had abruptly taken up his possessions bag and water container and disappeared into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
The two cities that survived, Sendai and Andasia, had had leaders who also believed in the message [132] Sadar-es had preached, but they had no wish to give up their cities. Instead, they had begun to build down, burrowing into the bedrock beneath their cities and creating a safe shelter there. The townspeople had survived the holocaust by going deep and staying there until the surface environment was clean enough to support life again. Then they had emerged and started building up, beginning with stout city walls encircling their enclaves to protect them from marauding mutants as well as the tribespeople, whose nomadic ways they did not trust. Sadar-es was a legend among the city dwellers, too, a prophet whose vision saved them but also a renegade connected with the tribes. They were grateful for his warning and that their ancestors had heeded it, but they were just as happy he had disappeared into legend.
There were any number of tales about Sadar-es, one of them being that another prophet like him would come to the people to lead them in a new direction. Pike’s appearance out of the sand devil had led Farnah’s tribe to adopt a reverential approach to him, which he quickly worked to dispel. He insisted he was just a wanderer, content to live outside a tribe but needful of their company now and again. He told a story of originally being bora to a tribe occupying desert lands on the other side of the planet, far enough away that his tale should go unchallenged. (His assumption was correct; Farnah’s people never roved that far from their own established territory.) Pike told them he felt the need for solitude and meditation, and the nomads respected his story, asking few difficult questions. Pike had also carefully refrained from making any statements that might set him up as a [133] potential prophet, but his shrewd direction in discussions of trade among the tribes had planted the seed of the idea that perhaps establishing mercantile contacts with the townsmen might be beneficial to all.
The tribespeople had successfully bred and herded their uchas from the beginning. These were hardy animals that needed little more than brush and scrub grass, some wild grains, and water to survive and multiply. The uchas provided milk, meat, long coarse hair that could be clipped off and spun into yarn, and hides for tanning. The nomads also cultivated the arts and crafts of leatherwork, weaving, pottery, jewelry of beads and desert stone, hunting, and a kind of hawking using a falconlike bird called a torep which they trapped and trained. They knew how to make food from the succulents, wild plants, and herbs of the desert and the oases. Their most revered weapons—dree knives, hunting spears, and swords—were relics handed
down from before the holocaust, from father to son, mother to daughter. Firearms of any kind had apparently been set aside once the knowledge of how to create them and their ammunition had vanished. The disposition of a weapon after the owner’s death was a serious matter and never lightly made. Their language was fluent and beautiful, often sensitive, and they could guide themselves by the sun and the stars, but only the makleh of the tribe could read or write or do sums. Pike equated the makleh with the tribe’s secretary-treasurer. He or she did all the trading for the group; ensured that monies, animals, or trade goods were correctly paid and received; and recorded all agreements and all disposition of wealth through marriage or death.
[134] The townsmen had controlled their subsurface environment since the holocaust and were beginning to exert some control over the ground near the cities. They had developed a viable, though limited, agriculture in addition to the crops they grew hydroponically and were also successful in raising small animals and poultry as well as a variety of edible fish in their ponds. They used wind and solar energy for power and obtained their water from the deep wells they had sunk. They had become sophisticated in weaving and dyeing fiber material from native strella plants and had developed a paper much like papyrus. They had stores of iron and copper and formed utensils and decorations from these metals, but alloys were beyond them, as well as beyond the nomads. The townspeople had maintained their education system, though many of the products and resources they had known in their history had been lost to them. It was considered unlettered not to be able to read and write, to master mathematics, at least one basic science, or one craft.
STAR TREK: TOS #44 - Vulcan's Glory Page 10
