“I thought it might be you, Cargill,” Rakhal said. “You've taken longer than I expected. Come in."
He hadn't changed much, except for the crimson, ugly scars that drew up mouth and nostril and jawline. His face was worse than mine. The mask tensed as he saw Miellyn, but he backed away to let us in, and shut the door behind us.
A little girl, in a fur smock, stood watching us. She had red hair like Juli's, and evidently she knew just who I was, for she looked at me quite calmly, without surprise. Had Juli told her about me?
“Rindy,” Rakhal said quietly, “go into the other room.” The little girl, still staring at me, did not move. Rakhal added, in a gentle, curiously moderate voice, “Do you still carry a skean, Race?"
I shook my head. “That's Juli's daughter. I'm not going to kill her father under her eyes. Suddenly my rage spilled over. “To hell with your damned Dry-town blood-feud and codes and your filthy Toad-god!"
Rakhal's voice was harsher now. “Rindy. I told you to get out."
I took a step toward the little girl. “Don't go, Rindy. I'm going to take her to Juli, Rakhal. Rindy, don't you want to go to your mother?” I held out my arms to her.
Rakhal made a menacing gesture; Miellyn darted between us, and picked up Rindy in her arms. The child struggled and whimpered, but Miellyn took two quick steps and carried her bodily through an open door.
Rakhal began, slowly, to laugh.
“You're as stupid as ever, Cargill. You still don't realize—I knew Juli would come straight to you, if she was frightened enough. I thought it would lure you out of hiding—you filthy coward! Six years hiding in the Terran zone! If you'd had the guts to walk out with me when I engineered that final deal, we would have had the biggest thing on Wolf!"
“Doing Evarin's dirty work?"
“You know damn well that had nothing to do with Evarin. It was for us—and Shainsa. Evarin—I might have known he'd get to you! That girl—if you've spoiled my plans—” Abruptly he whipped out his skean and came at me. “Son of the ape! I might have known better than to depend on you! I'll finish your meddling, this time!"
I felt the skean drive home, slicing flesh and ribs, and staggered back, grunting with pain. I grappled with him, forcing back his hand. My side burned furiously, and I wanted to kill Rakhal and I couldn't, and at the same time I was raging because I didn't want to fight the crazy fool, I wasn't even mad at him—
Miellyn flung the door open, shrieking. There was a flutter of silk, and then the Toy was darting, a small whirring droning horror, straight at Rakhal's eyes.
There was no time even to warn him. I bent and butted him in the stomach; he grunted, doubled, and fell, out of the path of the diving Toy. It whirred in frustration, hovered, dived again. Rakhal writhed in agony, drawing up his knees, clawing inside his shirt.
“You damned—I didn't want to use this—” He opened his closed fist, and suddenly there was another Toy in the room. An identical fledgling bird, and this one was diving at me—and in a split second I understood. Evarin had made the same arrangement with Rakhal, as with me.
From the door came a child's wild shriek.
“Daddy!"
Abruptly the birds collapsed in mid-air and went limp. They fell, inanimate, to the floor, and lay there, quivering. Rindy dashed across the room, her small skirts flying, and grabbed one of the vicious things in each hand.
She stood there, tears pouring down her little face. Dark veins stood out like narrow cords on her temples. “Break them, quick. I can't hang on to them any longer—"
Rakhal grabbed one of the Toys from a little fist, and smashed it under his heel. It shrilled and died. The other screamed like a living bird as his foot scrunched on the tiny feathers. He drew an agonized breath, his hands clutching his belly where I'd butted him.
“That blow was foul, Cargill, but I guess I know why you did it. You—” he stopped and said shame-facedly, “You saved my life. You know what that means. Did you know you were doing it?"
I nodded. It meant the end of the blood-feud. However we had wronged one another, this ended it, finally and forever.
He said, “Better get that skean out of your ribs, you damn’ fool. Here—” with a quick jerk he drew it out. “Not more than half an inch. Your rib must have turned it. Just a flesh wound. Rindy—"
She sobbed noisily, hiding her head on his shoulder. “The other Toys ... hurt you ... when I was mad at you. Daddy, only...” she dug her fists in her red eyes. “I wasn't that mad at you, I wasn't that mad at anybody ... not even ... him..."
He said over her head, “The Toys activate a child's subconscious resentments against his parents. That also means a child can control them—for a few seconds; no adult can."
“Juli told me you threatened Rindy—"
He chuckled. “What else could I have done that would have scared Juli enough to send her to you? Juli's proud, nearly as proud as you, you stiffnecked son of the ape! She had to be desperate."
He tossed it all aside with a shrug. “You've got Miellyn to take you through the transmitters. Go back to the Master-shrine, and tell Evarin I'm dead. In the Trade City, they think I'm Cargill; I can go in and out as I choose. I'll ‘vise Magnusson, and have him send soldiers to guard the street-shrines; Evarin may try to escape through one of them."
“Terra hasn't enough guards on all Wolf to cover the street-shrines in Charin alone,” I objected, “and I can't go back with Miellyn.” I explained why, and Rakhal pursed his lips and whistled when I described the fight in the transmitters.
“You have all the luck! I've never been near enough to be sure how the transmitters work, and I'll bet you didn't begin to understand! Well, we'll do it the hard way. We'll face Evarin down in his own shrine—if Rindy's with us, we needn't worry."
I was shocked at his casual suggestion. “You'd take a child into that?"
“What else is there to do?” Rakhal inquired logically, “Rindy can control the Toys, and neither you nor I could do that, if Evarin should decide to throw his whole arsenal at us!” He called Rindy to him again, and spoke softly. She looked from her father to me, and back again to her father, then smiled, and stretched out her small hand to me.
While we hunted for another street-shrine—Miellyn had some esoteric reason for not wanting to use the same one we'd landed in—I asked Rakhal point-blank, “Are you working for Terra? Or for the resistance movement? Or for the Dry-towns?"
He shook his head. “I'm working for myself. I just want one thing, Race. I want the Dry-towns, and the rest of Wolf, to have a voice in their own government. Any planet which makes a substantial contribution to Galactic science, by the laws of the Terran Empire, gets the status of an independent commonwealth. If a Dry-towner discovers anything as valuable as a matter-transmitter, Wolf gets dominion status. And incidentally, I get a nice fat bonus, and an official position."
Before I could answer, Miellyn touched my arm. “This is the shrine."
Rakhal picked up Rindy, and the three of us crowded close together. The street swayed and vanished, and I felt the familiar dip and swirl of blackness. Rindy screamed with terror and pain, then the world straightened out again. Rindy was crying, dabbing smeary fists at her face. “Daddy, my nose is bleeding—"
Miellyn bent and wiped the blood from the snubby nose. Rakhal set his daughter on her feet.
“The chak workroom, Race. Smash everything you see. Rindy, if anything comes at us, stop it—stop it, quick!"
Her wide round eyes blinked, and she nodded, a solemn little nod. We flung open the door of the elves’ workshop with a shout. The ringing of the fairy anvils shattered into a thousand dissonances as I kicked over a workbench and half-finished Toys smashed in confusion to the floor.
The chaks scattered like rabbits before our advance. I smashed half-finished Toys, tools, filigree and jewels, stamping everything out with my heavy boots. A tiny doll, proportioned like a woman, dashed at me, shrilling in a high supersonic shriek; I put my foot on her and ground the
life out of her. She screamed like a living woman as she came apart. Her blue eyes rolled from her head and lay on the floor watching me, still alive; I crushed the blue jewels under my foot.
I was drunk with crushing and shattering and ruining when I heard Miellyn shriek in warning, and turned to see Evarin standing in the doorway. He raised both hands in a sardonic gesture, then turned, and with a queer, loping, inhuman run, headed for the transmitter.
“Rindy,” Rakhal panted, “can you block the transmitter?"
Instead Rindy screamed. “We've got to get out! The house is falling down! It's going to fall on us—look—look at the roof!"
Transfixed by her horror, I looked up, to see a wide rift opening in the ceiling. The skylight shattered, broke, and daylight poured through the cracking, translucent walls. Rakhal snatched up Rindy, protecting her from the falling debris with his head and shoulders; I grabbed Miellyn around the waist, and we ran for the rift that was widening in the cracking wall. We shoved through, just before the roof caved in, the walls collapsed and we found ourselves standing on a bare, grassy hillside, looking down in shock and horror, as, below us, section after section of what was, apparently, bare hill and rock caved in and collapsed into dusty rubble.
Miellyn cried hoarsely, “Run! Run—hurry!"
I didn't understand, but I ran.
Then the shock of a great explosion rocked the earth, hurling me to the ground, Miellyn falling in a heap on top of me. Rakhal stumbled, went down to his knees. When I could see again, I looked at the hillside.
There was nothing left of Evarin's hideaway, or of the Master-shrine of Nebran, but a great, gaping hole, still oozing smoke and black dust.
“Destroyed! All destroyed!” Rakhal raged. “The workroom, all the science of the Toys, the secret of the transmitters—” He beat his fists furiously. “Our one chance to learn—"
“You're lucky you got out alive,” said Miellyn quietly. “Where are we?"
I looked down, and stared in amazement. Spread out below us lay the Kharsa, and straight ahead, the white skyscraper of the Terra HQ and the big spaceport. I pointed.
“Down there. Rakhal, you can make your peace with the Terrans, and with Juli. And you, Miellyn—"
Her smile was shaky. “I can't go into the Terran Zone like this. Have you a comb? Rakhal, lend me your shirtcloak, my robes are torn, and—"
“Stupid female, worrying about a thing like that at a time like this!” Rakhal's look was like murder. I put my comb into her hand, then, abruptly saw something in the symbols embroidered across her breasts.
I reached out, and ripped the cloth away.
“Cargill!” she protested angrily, turning crimson and covering her bared breasts with both hands. “Is this the place—and before a child, too—"
I hardly heard her. “Look,” I exclaimed, snatching at Rakhal's sleeve, “look at the symbols embroidered into the God! You can read the old nonhuman glyphs, I've seen you do it! I'll bet the formula is written out there for everyone to read! Look here, Rakhal! I can't read it, but I'll bet it's the equations for the matter-transmitter."
Rakhal bent his head over the torn robe. “I believe you have it!” he exclaimed, shaken and breathless. “It may take years to translate the glyph, but I can do it! I'll do it, or die trying!” His scarred face looked almost handsome, and I grinned at him.
“If Juli leaves enough of you, once she finds out what you did to her. Look, Rindy's asleep. Poor little kid, we'd better get her down to her mother."
We walked abreast, and Rakhal said softly, “Like old times, Race."
It wasn't like old times, and I knew he would see it, too, once his exultation sobered. I had outgrown my love for intrigue, and I had a feeling this was Rakhal's last adventure, too. It would take him, as he said, years to work out the equations for the transmitter.
And I had a feeling that my own solid, ordinary desk was going to look pretty good to me in the morning.
But I knew now, that I'd never leave Wolf. It was my own beloved sun that was rising. My sister was waiting down below, and I'd given her back her child.
My friend was walking at my side. What more could a man want?
I looked at Miellyn, and smiled.
END
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