INFINITY HOLD3

by Longyear, Barry B.

  Worthy. Was Bando Nicos worthy?

  Between what Anna Tane and Kegel did to me and what I had done to Prophet, not to mention what I had done to myself, I pretty much felt I knew the answer. If that wasn't enough, there was another answer hanging from her guts down there in front of Kegel's tent. What had been done hadn't just been done to Alna. When she died the powers of the universe said how much Bando Nicos was worth to them.

  I was filled with the evil and sickness of the universe. I'd done a little good with the law, and maybe I could balance a couple of accounts by killing Anna Tane and Kegel, but it was too little to make up for the crime of being Bando Nicos.

  The sun was reaching toward the western horizon when I noticed some anxious talking coming from the sharks. After awhile I heard footsteps on the slope above me. I looked up and it was Cap. His face had caught a storm cloud.

  "What is it?" I got to my feet and climbed up to where he stood. "Did they thin Stays and Jak Edge?"

  He shook his head. "No. We haven't heard from them yet." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb toward the grass. "Back there, Idiot Son and Mummy found a body. There wasn't much of the head left. It was a man and it was wearing a Razai camouflage sheet. I think he's from your posse."

  Endless guilt slithered through my guts like some kind of snake that couldn't be put to sleep. I sat on the ground, wrapped my arms around my knees, and nodded.

  "It's Prophet."

  "The body's head looks like it was beaten off with a rock," said Cap. He was silent for a long time. "Bando, is there something you want to tell me?"

  I nodded, turned, and looked back at Kegel's camp. The shadow of the bluff had almost reached the outer perimeter. "In time." I raised my head. "As soon as this is done. Let me have that much."

  After a pause, I heard Cap's footsteps as he walked away. "Okay," I whispered to Prophet's ghost, "I know you're there. Everything will happen just like it's supposed to."

  The shadows grew longer. My communion with Prophet was interrupted by a shot being fired in Kegel's camp. I jumped to my feet and strained my eyes as Cap ran up. There were more shots, and I could see dust being raised at the western edge of the camp and around Kegel's tent. Suddenly hundreds of rifles were firing at once punctuated by the rips of automatics.

  I raced back to the edge of the grass to find my critter and the rest of the RCs as Cap began shouting orders to mount up. Marietta was already mounted and she and Deadeye had my critter between them. "Let's boogie, down 'n brown. It's show time!"

  Mummy was shrieking to Idiot Son, "Glory! Glory! The beast is loose! He's free! Glory to be!"

  The roar of automatic weapons drowned out the sounds of anything else, which meant that someone was trying to bust out of the camp and had run into the Razai. I didn't know where he was headed, but I followed Cap and his critter as they trolloped down the switchbacks, Mummy hot on my heels screaming, "Glory! Oh, Glory!"

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  Grave Concerns

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  By the time we stampeded into the camp, the fight was done past except for an odd shot or two from the west. The body count looked light. Only a couple hundred, and just about all of them Hellborn. Stays was alive. So was Ondo and Jak. The three of them had convinced most of the Kegeleros to join the Razai. Only the Hellborn had stayed with Kegel and they opened fire and attempted to make a break for it. Just as I climbed down off my critter, Nance and Mercy Jane emerged from Kegel's tent. A cheer erupted from the camp, and a little piece of me eased up. I hadn't expected to get them back alive. In another second the rest of the Razai held prisoner by Kegel were free. Three hostages had been wounded, none had been killed.

  There were two things that kept the rest of me wired tight. The first thing was that Anna Tane and Gutty Kegel hadn't been captured. With the bit of shooting going on in the west, I figured they and the Hellborn were still trying to punch through. As soon as I finished taking care of the second thing, I planned to take off after them. The second thing was getting Alna off that tripod and buried.

  Once we had her and her two mates off the sticks and on the ground covered with desert sheets, I sent Head Start and Deadeye off to search the camp to find something that could be used for shovels. Then I started checking the two hundred odd bodies of the dead. All of the faces I could remember from Kegel's tent were there, except for Kegel and Anna Tane. The ones who had held me had died much too quickly. I felt cheated. While I was checking them, Stays came up behind me.

  "I don't know how, but Kegel and Anna Tane made it out."

  I stood up from examining my current corpse. "No. A grass worm couldn't've gotten through. They have to be here." I pointed at a pair of dead Hellborn, their arms and legs twisted together in a grotesque pose.

  "Check the dead again. Maybe they're disguised. Check 'em again." I pointed around at the camp. "If they're not dead, then they're hiding. Tear this camp to pieces until you find them."

  "Chief, what if they took off before we surrounded the place?"

  I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. What was left of me was held together by a flimsy net of revenge. If Kegel and Anna Tane had escaped, I didn't believe there would be anything left of me. The universe would end. Besides, there was that disdainful expression on Anna Tane's face, that arrogant sound of her voice. She had to be there.

  "They're here. They have to be here. Keep looking." I saw the Magic Mountain frowning at me. I waved my hands at her and shouted, "Everybody keep looking! They've got to be here!"

  We looked until the overcast sky turned dark with the approaching night. Moments later there were flashes of lightning followed by a brief but respectable downpour. After ten minutes or so the rain eased up until it was light and steady.

  Deadeye and Head Start found some digging tools and we began to dig graves there where the tripods stood. I swung a pick, and the ache in my shoulders and head helped to drown the ache in my heart. Every fifteen minutes or so Stays, Marietta, or Cap would come by to say that they still hadn't found Kegel or Anna Tane, and I would tell them to keep looking. The tents were torn down, the supply areas torn up, all of the fodder for the critters loaded up, and the pair of them were still invisible.

  As I swung the pick I would catch a glimpse of Alna's covered form out of the corner of my eye. One time, just as I had broken loose another load of hard packed earth, I noticed that the wind had blown the sheet off of Alna's face. I climbed out of the grave to let Deadeye in with his shovel. Bringing the pick with me I went over to Alna's side and knelt down.

  Her face was at peace, and I wiped the raindrops from it with my fingers. It felt so cold. "Alna," I whispered to her icy form. "Alna, I love you. I should've been able to stop this." A wave of heart wrenching pain flooded the universe as my lips formed the words, "What am I supposed to do?"

  Her eyes opened.

  I saw her eyes open as she grabbed my wrist with a grip of iron. She looked at me and I couldn't breathe.

  "My grave," she said. "Dig my grave."

  "Bando?"

  Cap's voice snapped me out of it. Alna's eyes were closed, there was no hand holding my wrist. I lifted the edge of the sheet with a shaking hand, covered her face, stood, and took deep breaths as I tried to quiet my heart.

  "What is it, Cap?"

  "Are you all right?"

  "That's about a stupid fuckin' question!" I cooled it bit. "What about Kegel and Tane?"

  "Nothing. All of the tents and structures have been torn down and packed up. We've been over every square inch of the camp twenty times, and they just aren't here."

  "Then look again! They—"

  "No." Cap placed his hand on my shoulder. "Enough is enough. Nance says it's time to go."

  I turned and saw Nance Damas, Jak Edge, Ondo Suth, and Martin Stays standing behind Cap. Nance wore a sheet against the rain, the hood hiding her face with shadows. "We've got to get moving, Bando," she sa
id. "You and me're going back to the main column. Cap and Jak Edge'll head east with most of the rifles to get the rest of Kegel's men to surrender. Those that surrender'll be going south with him to take over Kegel's territory and put it under the law." She glanced at Jak. "He says there're a few Hellborn to scrape out of the way, but the rest of the gang'll join the Razai."

  Kegel's gang, his territory, was just about ours. All our little ducks were lined up in a row. As soon as Jak and Cap had gotten Kegel's column to surrender, there'd be nothing to stop us from taking out the Hand. But there were loose ends. There were always loose ends.

  I looked from Nance to Jak Edge. "Well?"

  "I told her."

  I looked at Nance. "He told me," she said. Her voice was flat. "His payback is to bring Kegel's gang into the Razai."

  "What about that thing you said to me back in your sled?"

  "What thing?"

  "Oh, you know. Find that bastard, you said. I want to give him his payback personally, you said."

  Nance pushed her hood back, took a step, and stood in front of me. She looked down into my face. "He's been found and I've delivered my payback. Personally. It's done past, Bando. It's time to get on with other things." She nodded at Jak and Cap. "Get going. Cap's the head of your RCs, and as soon as the dust settles, hold elections for referees. You'll need 'em to bring your votes back to the main column." She pointed east. "By the time your troops reach us, we should be at the Sunrise Mountains."

  Ondo jabbed Jak's arm. "That'll be a novelty, eh, chup? An election?"

  "The cryin' truth."

  Nance continued. "As soon as you get the surrender of the column and I can cut her loose, I'll send Bloody Sarah down to organize your sharks and head 'em toward the Hand. She'll set up communications with the heliographs." Turning toward me, she said, "Stays is my new number two. Find yourself another sidekick." She motioned to Stays, he waved at me, and the pair of them walked into the dark. Easy come, easy go.

  "Ondo," I said, "Are you going back south?"

  "I'm goin' back." His shoulders heaved as he sighed. "There's a girl. I don't know if the gut stringers've gotten around to her yet. I need to know. Anyways, there's the law to bring to the south. It's important work."

  "What about that Land-Beyond-the-Sunset you were always looking for?"

  He looked down for a moment and smiled. "Maybe it's not somethin' you find. Maybe it's somethin' you have to build."

  Prophet's ghost tugged at my sleeve. I looked at Cap and said, "What about that thing I was going to tell you?"

  "It's no longer my problem. As soon as you nail the gut stringers, tell it to Nance. She's the boss."

  Jak looked at Nance, she stared back at him, and he turned away and mounted his critter. Once he was settled in he said to her, "I'm sorry. Believe me."

  "I believe you" She nodded toward the south. They waved goodbye, I waved goodbye, everything was sweetness and light, and I spat on the ground. The rain began to come down more heavily. I stooped over, grabbed the handle of my pick, and headed toward Alna's grave. Deadeye had just climbed out and was standing beside the grave leaning on his shovel. I didn't want to talk to Nance right then. Cap was right. There wasn't anything to tell her until I had closed the books on Kegel and Anna Tane.

  As I walked over and climbed down into the hole, the mud just over my toes, I saw it stretching before me. I saw Kegel and his bit loose on the landscape with me trying to track them down, my heart crippled by Prophet's murder, living only to nail those two creatures before I had little Ratt Katz put me out of my misery.

  In the black bottom of the grave I saw Kegel's face. I lifted the pick, swung it down with all of my might, and hit something that jarred my arms and shoulders all of the way down to the small of my back.

  "Jesus!"

  "What'd you hit?" asked Deadeye. Head Start was looking at me from one of the other graves.

  "You hit a rock?"

  I shook my head. "No. It's not a rock." I tried to wiggle the handle of the pick. "Wood." It was stuck fast. "A buried log, maybe."

  "Out here?" asked Head Start.

  True. What was a buried log doing out in the Big Grass? This part of Tartaros hadn't seen a tree in at least a billion years. Deadeye knelt down next to me, struck a fire cube off his shovel, and stuck it on the end of my pick handle. Once the interior of the grave was lit, he took a good look and called back to Head Start. "How much water you got in your hole?"

  "Up to my ankles. Why?"

  I looked down at my feet and there was only about an inch of thick mud and almost no water. The water was going someplace. "An underground chamber?" I whispered as I grabbed Deadeye by the front of his sheet. "An underground chamber!"

  Leaving the pick in place, I pulled myself out of the grave and ran toward Head Start's project. He had been digging the grave for the soldier of Kegel's whose jugular I had opened. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out a fire cube just as Deadeye and I slid to a stop next to the other grave. It was obvious without any additional light. Head Start's hole was a birdbath.

  I grabbed Deadeye's shoulder. "Get 'em together. Find Marietta. Get 'em together and start looking for the entrance. We've got our rats. All we got to do now is get into the trap. Get going!"

  I looked over at Alna's sheet covered form and closed my eyes as the rain dribbled in icy rivulets down my face. "I'll get 'em, doll. I'll get 'em."

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  The Ends of the Rope

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  Nance had taken everyone else back toward the main column. As the sky cleared, lightened, and filled with the color of blood, only me, Marietta, Deadeye, Head Start, Power Tool, Mummy, and Idiot Son were left to search the campsite for the entrance to what had to be the hiding place for Kegel and Anna Tane. The hated tripods had been torn apart and their pieces scattered while the tents and other structures had been salvaged and packed up. There was nothing left on the ground but dirt, moss, and the bodies that had been piled up. Right after Alsvid cleared the horizon, the rain from the night before vaporized and began steaming us. We rolled our sheets and kept at it.

  Late in the morning a messenger from Nance showed up to see if we'd finished yet, and I goosed his little ass back to the Iron Lady with a bug in his ear. I was on RC business, so either piss off and leave me alone, or get yourself shot in the head under Rule 48, the Obstruction Max Payback Rule. I couldn't afford to stop looking for Kegel and Anna Tane, so I didn't.

  After we'd finished burying Alna and her two companions, Head Start arranged rocks over their graves in the shape of the Eyes of the Spider. I thought about Alna and what she'd said about the stars. I wondered where Head Start had heard about it.

  After the planting we touched off the grass and firecubes that covered the pile of Hellborn stiffs. They burned for a long time and the stench of burnt grease hung in the air like a guilty conscience.

  While the Kegeleros roasted, we dug five test holes, which was enough to see that the chamber was huge and extended far enough to occupy five or ten times the entire area beneath where Kegel's tent had been pitched. Three of the test holes showed us something else. There were a lot of skeletons that had been buried along with the chamber. It was like something out of an old sea pirate adventure story. The ones who had done the work could tell no tales. 'Ar, 'ar.

  Where Kegel's tent had been Marietta found a number of footprints that didn't go anywhere. There had to be a door someplace, but none of us could find it. We examined the tent site with special care. Power Tool swung down that pick into the soil every foot or so, but he never struck anything but dirt. There wasn't a trapdoor or anything like it near the surface. We tried hacking through the wood at the bottoms of the test holes, but the stuff was like armor and thicker than a cockroach's wallet. We tried filling the bottom of one of the holes with fire cubes to burn our way through, but the wood was like the greenstick centers on the big grass. It wouldn't burn.
It kept Power Tool muttering to himself about drills, chain saws, and expanding his interests far enough to consider the latent possibilities in high explosives as power tools. There wasn't enough of the blue plastic propellant to spare, so that was the one thing we didn't try.

  As the noon sun made the wasps in the clearing buzz angrily, all of us but Mummy wore only trousers and rag turbans to keep off the sun. I had everyone shut up, I went into one of the test holes head first, and placed my ear against the wood. Sticking my finger in my other ear, I held my breath and listened.

  At first there was nothing. Not a damned peep. The harder I listened, though, I began hearing a very faint tic-tic-tic sound. After awhile I couldn't tell the difference between that and my heartbeat. "Get me out of here."

  Deadeye pulled me out by my ankles, and I sat on the edge of the hole, flexing my fingers against the windpipe of an imaginary throat. They had to be down there. I just couldn't think of any other answer. The chamber was big enough to hold at least twenty or thirty armed sheets. There were only half a dozen of us. If we did break in maybe we'd have a fight on our hands. I sighed as I realized that I'd prefer that to just sitting around trying to sniff out farts in a hurricane.

  "I'm thirsty."

  Deadeye and me looked up at Idiot Son. "So drink," I said.

  "I'm thirsty." I did a scan trying to track down his mother. She was with Head Start at the eastern edge of the tripod area sinking another test hole. I looked back at Idiot Son. He was huge, strong, and had an expression on his face that made him look like he'd just been smacked on the back of his head with a mallet.

  "So, what do you want me to do about it?"

  "I'm thirsty."

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Right then what I didn't need was a three hundred pound baby. I lowered my hand and tried my best to frighten him away with a glare. "So go get a drink of water!"

  He shook his water bottle to indicate its emptiness. "I'm thirsty!" It sort of made me wonder why Cap had armed this particular veg with an automatic rifle.