Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  The people along the Third Street of the Merchants seemed totally absorbed in their own comings and goings and ignored Grayson. The merchant stalls were lightweight, easily assembled affairs of wood and canvas. Each crowded into the street in competition with its neighbors, turning the walk along the arrow-straight avenue into a zigzag around milling shoppers, piles of produce, stacks of woven cloth, and the merchants themselves vying with one another in a cacophony of bleated pleas for attention. But Grayson noticed that even the street merchants seemed to have lost something of their enthusiasm.

  Sarghad was gripped by fear, waiting for Hendrik's bandits to turn their attention to the city.

  Little was known about the bandit forces that now occupied the spaceport, and less was known about their intent. Berenir had said that no demands or threats had been made by the invaders, and that City Council representatives sent to the port had been turned away by sentries at the defensive perimeter that had been erected there. Hendrik's men had driven off the Commonwealth garrison Lance, thrown up the perimeter, and now were simply waiting.

  For what?

  The hub of the wheel of Sarghad embraced the Palace grounds, with the clustered domes of the Palace itself half hidden from public view by the lush, flowering vegetation of the irrigated gardens. The household of Minister Stannic was quartered in a line of luxurious three-story row houses that fronted the Royal Circle just across from the Palace entrance.

  He'd been told Mara would be home. He knew she worked for her father, serving as Stannic's social secretary since her mother's death. Berenir had promised that she would be waiting, that she and Stannic would arrange for a place for Grayson to stay out of the public eye.

  He was looking forward to seeing her again, despite his having already gone through a lingering set of last goodbyes with her. She was not as shy — or as protected — as most girls on a world that made a practice of sheltering its women by denying them much freedom. Stannic and his family had lived offworld for a number of years, according to Mara, and were not so set in Trellwan's social conservatism as their neighbors.

  He was just mounting the steps in front of her apartment when a voice caught him from behind. "Stop, you."

  Grayson stopped, and turned slowly. He found himself facing a young man in the dress uniform of Jeverid's Palace Guard, green jacket and trousers richly chased and edged with gold, and a white helmet polished to a dull shine ringed by a transparent blast shield. He held a functional-looking automatic rifle in white-gloved hands.

  "Identify yourself," the soldier said. Beyond the man's shoulder were two more green-and-gold uniforms.

  "Ah... Grayson, my name's Grayson." Trells did not use patronymics, and he dared not use his. "I'm here to see Mara. She knows me... she's expecting me..."

  The rifle muzzle did not waver from its position centimeters from Grayson's sternum. "But I don’t." The guard squinted at Grayson's face under the heavy cowl. "Take that thing off."

  He did so, reluctantly. The guard's eys widened at the sight of Grayson's fair hair. "So," he said, tightening his finger on the trigger. "Looks like we've captured ourselves one of those bandits!"

  7

  "Nonsense!" Grayson drew himself erect. "I am Grayson Carlyle, of the Commonwealth garrison Lance, and I'm here to see Minister Stannic... at once!"

  The direct approach failed him. The rifle barrel jabbed forward, prodding Grayson in the chest and knocking him backward, off balance.

  "You're not seeing anybody but the Guard Commander, offworlder. The interrogators will want to discuss some things with you, I'm thinking..."

  Grayson had heard of Jeverid's interrogators. The methods of the Sarghad's police force were a frequent topic of speculation in the garrison barracks. The fear that had been growing in Grayson ever since he'd awakened at Berenir's house exploded. He turned and ran, panic driving him back into the street and along the Royal Circle. Even after colliding with several Trell citizens walking under the overhanging eaves, he kept running. Behind him, Grayson heard a shouted "Halt!" and the terrifying crack of a single rifle shot. The round must have been aimed into the air, though, as the street was too crowded for indiscriminate firing. He didn't think the guards would risk killing civilians just to get him. But he ran harder nonetheless, his back muscles bunched hard as though anticipating a rifle bullet.

  Looking about wildly, he saw few options, with the Palace Gardens fence hemming him in to the right and the buildings crowded wall by wall along the Circle to the left People were ducking out of his way as he ran now, which would give his pursuers a clear shot at any moment.

  Could he get to the Palace? The gate was close by, and he could see the alabaster curve of the main Palace dome above the trees beyond the Gardens. And if he reached it, what else could he expect except to be arrested or shot? Besides, he saw the flash of gold and green on the black-surfaced drive behind the gate. The Palace Guard was there, too, at least a company of their grim-faced, white-helmeted ranks.

  A ragged thuttering sounded behind him, and bits of brickwork disintegrated in clouds of stinging dust and flakes of stone close by his head. A woman screamed, and people on the walkways scattered for cover. He collided with a young man in ragged street clothes, nearly knocking them both to the ground, and then he was past and running wildly down the street.

  "Halt!" Halt or we fire!"

  They were closer! Which way? He twisted between a pair of businessmen in richly dyed formal cloaks and tunics, leapt across the legs of an old man sitting on a crate beside the alley entrance, and plunged into the shadows of a narrow alley between two buildings to his left. Behind him, Grayson heard piping whistles and the clatter and shouts of running men.

  As he ran, he saw a two-meter-high fence directly in his path. Putting on even more speed, he launched himself from an overturned produce crate, throwing his arms and one knee across the top of the fence. It creaked and swayed as he pulled the other leg across, but he landed like a cat and continued racing toward the next street.

  Down this street... turn... down another... turn again. Could he lose them running blindly this way? He had come to a narrow, cross lane that curved between two of the major avenues leading out from the hub of the Palace Gardens. It was an ill-kept area. The sunshade had collapsed in places, filling the street with flat chunks of jagged-edged ferrocrete. The rest of it was layered with wind-swirled mounds of sand, empty bottles, and garbage steaming in the sun.

  There were people here, too, dozens of them stooped in the shade pools of surrounding buildings, or sprawled with their legs in the street. They wore rags and layers of caked mud and dust. Many were barefoot Some appeared asleep or unconscious amid the litter of empty bottles of alcohol, but the rest watched Grayson with wary, shuttered eyes.

  Forcing himself to slow to a walk, he made his way along the debris-choked road. Somehow he had to find a place to hide or at least a place where he could blend in with the background. Glancing continuously over his shoulder as he went, Grayson's heart froze, then began to hammer at his throat when something behind him moved. He relaxed then, thinking at first it was just another derelict. But no, it was the man he'd collided with on the street in front of the Palace Grounds. Had the man been following him? It could well be that any citizen who turned him in to the Guard would be rewarded, which certainly would be a temptation for any of this ragged lot. Grayson quickened his step. He didn't KNOW that he was being followed, but...

  Moving down the littered street, he was so startled to feel the squish of mud against his boots that he stopped where he was for a moment. All along the street there were places where secondnight ice had melted off roofs, flowed down rusted gutterspouts, and pooled in curbside depressions worn hollow over the years. In most spots, the surface water was sucked away by the thirsty sand, but here the meltwater was trapped in pools of black mud, where it would remain until the next freeze. The sight of it gave him an idea.

  Removing his cloak as he walked, Grayson dropped it beside a half-na
ked derelict leaning against a worn stone wall. There was no time to hide it. The soldiers were mere seconds behind him. Then he went to work unraveling his head bandage, which he crumpled and stuffed into an already overflowing garbage bin. A bit farther ahead, there was a stretch of road unoccupied by street people or anyone else. Kneeling by a mud pool, Grayson gathered a double handful of the stinking stuff, and lathered it over his head. It burned like fire when it touched the inflamed wound on the side of his head. He knew he was begging for an infection, but the thought of the Interrogators drove him on.

  By the time he was done, Grayson's yellow hair, his face, and his tunic were generously coated with black mud. What else? he thought, mind racing. His clothes were nondescript enough, except for his boots, so tight his feet were aching now. They were much too shiny and new to belong to a mud-smeared derelict

  After a moment's thought, Grayson pried off the boots and carefully set them together nearby, then muddied his feet as well. The final touch would be two empty liquor bottles he found in a mound of garbage across the street. Grayson then lay down with his feet sprawled well into the middle of the street, his head close by the noisome pool, with a bottle cradled in each arm. It was only seconds later that he heard the scuffing of booted feet rounding the curve of the street.

  There were five of them, Palace Guards in dark green and gold, four with wicked-looking assault rifles held at port arms. They picked their way cautiously along the street, stepping around or past the worst of the mud and garbage.

  "Here!" one of them shouted. "His boots!" The soldier swooped down and grabbed the shiny boots. Grayson opened his eyes in his best imitation of bleary-eyed dullness, and saw that one of the soldiers already had tucked his cast-off cloak and the bloodied strips of bandage under one arm. Another one — probably the leader, judging by his imperious hands-on-hips stance and lack of a rifle — stood over Grayson and nudged him with the toe of his boot. "You!"

  Grayson clutched the bottles tighter, and gave the man a wit-befuddled smile. If he could convince the soldiers that he was a street drunk, that someone else had dropped the boots beside him as he lay there in the mud...

  "You," the soldier said again. His upper lip curled even as he spoke, as though the man were trying to avoid breathing the stench of the noxious mud and garbage. "Where'd these boots come from?"

  "Wha-a?" Grayson slurred his speech and turned his grin idiotic.

  "Sergeant!" Here was a new voice. Grayson followed its sound and saw another squad of soldiers coming up the street from the other direction. They must have sent this second patrol ahead to another main street so that they could work back, hoping to trap him between. The newcomer was an officer, his Guard's Lieutenant uniform more gold than green, looped with aiguillettes and tassels that glittered in the red sunlight. "Any sign of him?"

  "He came this way, sir. Look."

  The two examined the cloak, bandages, and boots for a moment, their own boots only a meter from Grayson's bare, muddy feet. The lead officer shook his head. "He didn't get past us. You must have missed him."

  "He might be trying to blend in with the street scum, sir,' the sergeant said. At this, the bottles trembled in Grayson's hands and his heart pounded so furiously he was certain it would give him away. "We could round them up and question them all."

  "Pah! Or shoot them."

  "I might be able to help you, Lieutenant." That new voice sent chills along Grayson's spine. Rags moved down the street, and a filthy and unshaven man lurched into view. It was the young man he'd thought was following him. He must have been close enough behind Grayson to see him preparing his hasty disguise!

  Grayson tensed, readying himself. If he jumped up and ran, the soldiers would cut him down before he made it around the curve of the road, unless he could take them by surprise. He wondered how fast his bare and tender feet could move over broken chunks of sun baked ferrocrete.

  "You see this guy?" the Lieutenant asked, holding up the boots.

  "Sure did." The street dweller glanced at Grayson, his face neutral. "See that pipe?" he said, gesturing at the drainpipe above Grayson's mud pool. "Fella came tearing in here maybe a minute ago. Stripped off his boots, plopped 'em down there, and shinnied up that pipe like a leaflighter in heat." He pointed across the flat slab roofs back in the general direction of the palace. "He headed off across the roofs off that-a-way."

  "Damn," the Lieutenant muttered. "He's trying to backtrack on us. You men! At the double! C'mon!"

  The troop gathered into ragged ranks and clumped off down the street at a half-run. The one holding. Grayson's boots tossed them aside. When the soldiers were far enough away, he sat up slowly, dusting ineffectually at the mud caked on his tunic. "Thanks."

  The man glanced up and down the street, then his dirty face with its scraggly growth of beard broke into a wide, unexpected grin. "Don't mention it. You looked like you were new in town."

  "Well, you might say that. Who are you?"

  The man gave a sweeping, polished bow. "Renfred Tor, at your service."

  "I think it should be the other way around. I'm indebted to you, sir."

  "Why were they after you?"

  Grayson hesitated. His first inclination urged caution. The stranger seemed friendly enough, but maybe he was just looking for more information about the fugitive before turning him in. Picking his way across the street to retrieve his boots, Grayson turned various possibilities over in his mind. If he was going to have to do any more running, he would need those painfully tight boots.

  Suddenly Grayson realized that the man had used two names. He could not possibly be a native of Trellwan! "You're an offworlder," he said, avoiding the other's question.

  "You might say that." Tor's eyes shifted down the street "Offworlders don't seem very popular around here."

  Grayson nodded and smiled ruefully. "I'm Grayson Carlyle. I was with the Commonwealth garrison Lance at the Castle."

  "Pleased to meet you. Uh... you seem to have misplaced your 'Mech Lance."

  "They misplaced me. The bandits attacked the Castle and I was left for dead. When I came to, my unit had already pulled out"

  "Ah," said Tor.

  "How about you? What are you doing here?"

  Tor stared at Grayson a long moment, then told him, "I'm the DropShip pilot who brought those bandits here in the first place."

  8

  Renfred Tor was a native of Atreus, but it had been many long, standard years since he'd seen the capital of Marik's Free World League. At fourteen, he'd shipped out as cargo handler on a Tristar Lines freighter. By the time he was 20, he had worked his way up through sundry crews to deck officer. Then, he and his four brothers bought equal shares in an aging rustbucket freighter that they'd named the Invidious by the end of an evening of drunken celebration.

  The celebration turned out to be premature. A scheme to transport laser rifles and man-portable inferno launchers to an embattled revolutionary front had ended with the revolution crushed, his partners imprisoned or broke, and himself and an unhapppy fifteen-man crew plotting a jump route series into the Lyran Commonwealth. Their flight had ended in the Commonwealth's Periphery, and Tor had been buying, borrowing, or scamming spare parts and new crewmembers to keep the Invidious going ever since. Five years of short-term contracts and one-way cargo hauls had brought him at last to Drovahchein II in the heart of the Erit Cluster.

  There, the Invidious faced the end of her career. She needed a complete refit before she'd jump out-system again, and her station keeping drive was threatening to fail at any moment. With no money, no contracts, his crew threatening to scatter if they were not soon paid, and no hope of repairing the faltering hauler on his own, Tor was forced to contemplate an early retirement on Drovahchein II. Not that the trading capital of the Erit Cluster was uninteresting, but future opportunities for a freighter jump pilot with a ship were slim, the open billets on outbound ships few.

  That was when he'd met Proctor Sinvalie of House Mailai.

&n
bsp; Mailai was more the ruler of the Cluster than the distant court of Katrina Steiner on Tharkad. The Cluster was a tiny island of relative prosperity and technology in a rising sea of barbarism. Proctor Sinvalie was one of the principal House traders who oversaw the fragile web of commerce that bound the Eritese systems to the Commonwealth and to systems out in the Periphery, to worlds like Trellwan, and beyond.

  Sinvalie had called on Tor shortly after he'd grounded the Invidious' DropShip at Gharisport, on Drovahchein II's minor southern continent. The offer he'd made Tor seemed the answer to all the freighter captain's problems. Gharisport's Mailai Tech crew would give the Invidious the refit she needed, Tor's crew would be signed on for a six-standard-month hitch and receive an advance to spend on Gharisport's nightlife, and Captain Tor would get the long-term contract he so desperately needed. All he had to do was shuttle small numbers of passengers back and forth between Oberon VI and a world beyond the Periphery, undistinguished save for its location. That world was Trell I — Trellwan, as its natives had named it.

  "I should've known," Tor said as he led Grayson through the twists and odd angles of Sarghad's back alleys and side streets. "I should've known as soon as I found out old Hendrik the Great was involved."

  "Known what?" Grayson asked.

  "Known I wasn't going to get out with a whole skin. Old Sinvalie, he's a sharp character. He wasn't about to trust one of his precious ships and crews to the tender mercies of Hendrik's little bandit kingdom, so he hires an independent to take the risks — yours truly. They painted House Mailai's crest on the Invidious' DropShips, but it wasn't Mailai taking the risks!”