The Way Back

by A Bertram Chandler

  As he stepped on to the ground the torch bearers advanced and then, with their flambeaux, made a beckoning gesture. They turned about and, flanked by the pipers and the drummers, began to march back towards the village. The commodore and his party fell in behind them, then a larger contingent of men and women led by Carnaby, finally the major and his men.

  It was rough going in the deepening dusk; the fitful flare of the torches was more of a nuisance than a help. Luckily most of the boulders were well clear of the short grass and glimmered whitely. Nonetheless, Grimes was thankful for his stout boots.

  On they marched to the barbaric music, towards the dark huddle of houses among which fires flared and flickered ruddily. Downwind drifted the tang of wood smoke, the aroma of roasting meat. Grimes realized that he was starting to salivate. Nobody could have described Faraway Quest as a hungry ship—but tank-grown food loses, after a very few weeks, its essential flavors, its individuality.

  Suddenly drummers and pipers fell silent, but there was still music. They were singing in the village, a song in which male and female voices blended in compulsive rhythm.

  "And what is that?" Grimes asked Mayhew.

  "A . . . a welcome . . ." The telepath tripped over a rock and would have fallen flat on his face had Clarisse not caught him. "A welcome reserved for heroes or for superior beings . . ."

  "Gods?" asked Grimes.

  "As I keep saying," replied Mayhew, "these people regard gods as sort of older brothers. Powerful, but not quite omnipotent, and with all sorts of all-too-human weaknesses . . ."

  "That last part is true as far as we're concerned!"

  They were very close to the village now. The low houses stood in black silhouette against the glare of the fires—which must be, Grimes decided, in some sort of central square. The noise of singing was loud. And then he saw a huge figure, dark against the unsteady firelight, advancing to meet them. The torch bearers and the musicians stepped to one side to make way for the newcomer. It was the king, Hektor. In one hand he held not his sword but the arbalest, in the other a huge mug. He thrust this at Grimes, who had to use both his hands to grasp it.

  "Drink it. All of it," urged Mayhew in a whisper.

  The commodore lifted the vessel to his lips. He toasted briefly, "Down the hatch!" He sipped—then decided ruefully that this was something he would have to get over with quickly. He liked beer, and this was beer, but . . . It smelled musty and tasted mustier. It had an unpleasantly thick consistency, and there were semi-solid bodies suspended in it.

  He gulped and swallowed manfully.

  He muttered, "Garrgh!"

  But he finished the muck in one draught. At least, it was alcoholic . . .

  The king was leading the way now to where the feast was already in progress. It was, decided Grimes, quite a party. There were at least six huge fires burning in the village square; two of them were blazing, affording illumination, the other four were beds of red coals over which the spitted carcasses of animals dripped and sizzled, spurts of yellow flame marking the fall of each spatter of hot fat. The older women were attending to the cookery; the younger ones came dancing out to meet the party from the ship. A trio of beauties, more naked than otherwise, surrounded the commodore, and one of them hung a garland of rather wilted flowers about his neck.

  "And which one are you giving the apple to?" whispered Sonya.

  But these were no pale-skinned animated statues. These were shapely girls, very human, whose sun-browned skins gleamed ruddily in the firelight. The blonde who had presented the garland, greatly daring, threw her slim yet strong arms around Grimes' shoulders, brought her face close to his in a gesture of invitation. He hesitated only for a second, then kissed her full on the mouth. Her lips were greasy; it was obvious that she had been sampling one of the roasts of lamb—but, Grimes told himself, they tasted far better than that vile beer had and were just as intoxicating.

  "Down, boy, down!" growled Sonya.

  Reluctantly the commodore disengaged the girl's arms from his neck, put his own hands on her shoulders and turned her away from him. He could not resist the temptation to speed her on her way with a friendly slap on the buttocks. She squealed happily.

  They were led by the villagers to places around the fire—Grimes and his party, Carnaby and the men and women with him, Dalzell and his Marines, They sat on the threadbare grass, not too comfortably, yet pleasantly conscious of the heat from the flames. Men and women brought them mugs of drink. The commodore sipped his dubiously, but it was wine this time, much too sweet but a vast improvement on the beer. And there was coarse bread in thin, flat cakes, and rough hunks of hot meat, lamb and kid, thyme- and onion- and garlic-flavored. There was the continual drumming, and the singing, and—almost inaudible in the general uproar—the squealing of the pipes.

  There was dancing.

  There was a circle of girls weaving sinuously about a huge, naked, bearlike man crowned with a wreath of green leaves, laughing shrilly as he reached out and tried to grab them. It must be Herak, Grimes thought at first, and was pleased that the defeated wrestler had made a good recovery. Herak? No, it was the Marine, Titanov.

  He nudged Sonya.

  "Do you see what I see?"

  "What of it?" she countered.

  "He . . . He's going native . . ." And he thought, This won't do at all, at all. Have to put a stop to it . . . He realized that his thinking was getting muzzy, fumbled for the no-drunk tablets in his pocket, swallowed two of them.

  He got unsteadily to his feet, walked with careful deliberation to where Dalzell was reclining on the grass like a dissolute Roman, attended closely by two women. One of them was feeding him with bite-sized pieces that she was tearing from a leg of lamb, the other was holding a mug to his lips at frequent intervals.

  "Major!"

  "Commodore . . ."

  "That man of yours. The wrestler . . ."

  "What man? Where?"

  "There . . ."

  But as Grimes pointed he realized that Titanov was gone—and with him, presumably, had gone the dancing girls. But there was a little heap of uniform clothing not far from Dalzell, and a stunclub was on top of the garments.

  "What about that?"

  "The fire's hot, Commodore. Thinkin' of gettin' stripped off myself . . ."

  "But . . ."

  But the fire was hot, and it was bloody absurd wearing this heavy khaki . . . Grimes had unbuttoned his jacket when his ears were assailed by a strident blast of music. He turned to look at its source. One part of his mind was horrified—another, almost as strong, part accepted what he saw as being right and proper. Strutting by came one of his stewardesses. He remembered her name, Maggie Macpherson. She was wearing nothing but her kneeboots and jauntily angled forage cap, and she was playing a set of the native bagpipes, and playing them as well as such instruments can ever be played. He even recognized the tune, the traditional Scotland The Brave. After her pranced a small procession—three of her fellow stewardesses, a quartet of junior engineers, a half dozen villagers, three of whom were children.

  He thrust out a detaining hand. "Miss Macpherson!"

  The music squealed to a dying-pig finish.

  "Miss Macpherson, what is the meaning of this?"

  "What is the meaning of what, sir?"

  "You . . . You aren't properly dressed . . ."

  "I'm wearin' me cap, sir . . ."

  "Gie us The Scottish Soldier, Maggie!" shouted one of the engineers.

  "John!" It was Mayhew, his voice urgent. "What is it, Ken?"

  Grimes could not hear the telepath's reply for the renewed skirling of the pipes. "Speak up, man!"

  "It's the wine, John," almost shouted Mayhew. "Not the same wine as we had analyzed. Something in it. Mushrooms, I think . . ."

  "Could be . . ." muttered the commodore. Whatever it was, the drug was converting what had been a feast—a rather rough one, admittedly—into an orgy. The scene illuminated by the fitful flaring of the fires could have been painted
by Hieronymus Bosch. And yet Grimes was feeling revulsion only because he thought that he should be feeling revulsion. But as long as he kept his uniform on, that part of his personality which he regarded as "the commodore" would remain in the ascendancy.

  He demanded, "Can you and Clarisse control my people?"

  "It's all we can do to keep ourselves in control . . . Carnaby is still more or less in possession of his senses, and Brenda Cole . . . Apart from them . . . But you must do something, John. There're our weapons lying around for anybody to pick up . . ."

  And where the hell was Sonya? Grimes looked around for her, but could not see her. Accompanied by Mayhew, he hurried back to where he had left her. Her jacket was on the grass, and her slacks, her belt with the holstered pistol—and, beside them, what looked like a wolfskin breech-clout and something that gleamed metalically. It was the steel arbalest.

  But he, Grimes, was responsible for the entire ship's company, not just for one woman, even though she was his wife. (And, he knew very well, she was quite capable of looking after herself.) First of all he would have to put a stop to this . . . this orgy, and then there would be some sorting out.

  He raised his wrist transceiver to his mouth.

  "Commodore to Quest. Commodore to Commander Williams. Do you read me? Over."

  It was a woman's voice that answered. Grimes remembered that Ruth Macoboy, the Assistant Electronic Communications Officer, was among Williams' shipkeepers.

  "Quest here, Commodore. Bill—Commander Williams, I mean—is coming to the transceiver now."

  "Williams here, Skipper. Anything wrong?"

  "Plenty, Bill. First of all, get Hendriks to plaster the village with Morpheus D. Don't open fire, though, until I give the word. We shall be getting away from the place as soon as we can. Send somebody from the ship to meet us with half a dozen respirators. Got that?"

  "Have got, Skipper. Hendriks can load his popguns, but he's not to fire until you say so."

  "Correct. We're on the way out now."

  Clarisse appeared with Carnaby and Brenda Coles in tow. They seemed to be sober enough, but rather resentful. And then, to Grimes' surprise and great relief, Sonya came running up to them, her legs indecently long and graceful under the black sweater. She gasped, "That . . . lout!"

  "Never mind him. Out of here. Fast."

  "But . . . My clothes . . ."

  "Come on, damn you!" Grimes grabbed his wife by the arm, hurried her out of the village.

  Behind them somebody was wordlessly shouting, the bellowing of a frustrated animal. Then something whirred between Grimes and Sonya, narrowly missing both of them. A quarrel, the commodore realized, a bolt from Hektor's arbalest. There was a second missile—another very near miss—and a third.

  "Down!" ordered Grimes, suiting the action to the word. He spoke into his wrist transceiver, "Commodore to Quest. Fire!"

  From the fighting top of the distant ship came a flickering of pale flame and then, after what seemed a long interval, a series of sharp reports. The projectiles from Hendriks' guns wailed overhead and, almost immediately, came the dull thuds as the gas shells burst precisely over the village. Grimes could visualize that heavy, soporific vapour settling, oozing downwards through the air, permeating every building, every nook and cranny.

  Abruptly the wild singing and the shouting died and the drums fell silent.

  But a lone piper—was it Maggie Macpherson? It had to be—persisted for long minutes, an eldritch lament that blended perfectly with the thin, cold drizzle that was beginning to fall.

  But even she must, in the end, inhale, and then there was complete silence.

  Chapter 19

  Williams came out from the ship in one of the work boats, a flying craft that was little more than a platform fitted with a powerful inertial drive unit. He was using his searchlight, and Grimes and the others stood up and waved as he drifted towards them. He brought the ungainly thing down to a soft landing a meter or so from where they were waiting, then asked, "What the hell's been happening, Skipper?"

  The commodore found it hard to reply. He was almost overcome by a lethargy far deeper than that resulting from overindulgence in alcohol. But, with a great effort, he forced himself to reply. He finished, "And things were . . . getting out of hand. Only one thing to do . . . Put everybody to sleep . . ."

  "Sure you didn't get any o' the gas yourself, Skipper? You sound pretty dopey to me."

  "It was . . . the drug."

  "So you think you were all drugged?"

  "Think?" snapped Grimes testily. "I know we were drugged." He remembered vividly the taste and the smell of that beer-like drink, its consistency. Lucky he hadn't liked it, had downed only one mug of the muck. A concoction brewed from sacred mushrooms for special occasions? That assumption made sense.

  "And what do we do now, Skipper?"

  Grimes pulled himself together, gave orders. He and the others put on respirators, clambered aboard the work boat. Williams restarted the drive then cruised slowly, at low altitude, towards the village. The engine was horridly noisy in the quiet night, but nobody would hear it; the effects of the Morpheus D would take at least six hours to wear off. The fires were still burning in the village square but they were now little more than mounds of red embers, and in the glare of the searchlight no more than grey cinders. Grimes looked down and ahead anxiously; he was suddenly afraid that some of the anaesthetized revellers might have fallen into the beds of red-hot coals. But nobody had done so. The tangles of limbs and bodies were all well clear of danger.

  Williams landed the raft in a narrow lane just away from the square. Grimes, followed by the rest of the party, jumped down to the ground. The drizzle had misted his goggles and he doubted if he would be able to tell, even with the aid of the powerful hand torch that Williams had given him, who were members of his own crew and who were natives. Nudity makes for anonymity.

  The first body he came to was that of Maggie Macpherson. There was no mistaking her for anybody else. She still had the bagpipes, clasping the instrument to her breasts. It looked as though she were giving suck to some bloated little arthropoidal monster. Her uniform cap was, somehow, still on her unruly red curls. She still had her boots on. Grimes laughed—not an easy action to perform while wearing a respirator, but possible. This could be simple after all, so long as the others had shown the same respect for uniform regulations as had the Scottish girl.

  And so it turned out to be, although some of the tangles took some sorting out. Faraway Quest's crew hadn't died with their boots on—but they had been doing all sorts of other things when the anesthetic gas hit them. At one stage Williams muttered, "I should have brought a camera . . . What a marvelous picture this would make! Twelve people in six poses . . ."

  "Pipe down and get on with the bloody job!" growled Grimes. "It's quite bad enough without your making a joke of it!"

  But it was Williams who knew how many bodies to look for and who kept a tally of those piled aboard the raft. It was Williams who said that Titanov was still missing, and who over-rode his superior's suggestion that the Marine be left to stew in his own juice. The big man was found at last, in one of the houses. An untidy heap of six naked girls had to be lifted off him before his body could be carried outside.

  Another tally was made—of the weapons that had been recovered. Officers' side arms and the Marines' stunclubs were loaded aboard the workboat, together with a pile of discarded clothing. From this latter Sonya recovered her own uniform, got into it hastily.

  Then, "We have to find the king," said Grimes.

  "Why?" asked Williams.

  "Because the bastard shot at us. I'm taking back his crossbow."

  Carrying torches, the two men walked slowly through the sleeping village. For what seemed a long time they searched in vain. At last their lights showed two giant, huddled bodies, were reflected from gleaming steel.

  One of the unmoving men was Hektor, and he was dead, his skull messily crushed. The other was Herak, with th
e crossbow, which he had used as a club, still in his hands.

  The king was dead—and who would be the next king?

  That, Grimes told himself, was no concern of his.

  Chapter 20

  It was a long night, and a wearing one, and Grimes was still feeling muzzy from the effects of the mushroom beer. So was Sonya, and so were Carnaby and Brenda Coles, although the Navigator and the Assistant Biochemist had done little more than to take experimental sips of the stuff. Williams, of course, was exhibiting the infuriating, cheerful competency of the virtuously sober—but if it had not been for his efforts the sleeping crew members would never have been tucked away in their own quarters before daylight. Even so, the flush of dawn was bright in the east when the job was finally over.