The rebels fell one by one to the horrific onslaught. The Invisibles pressed the attack, bearing down relentlessly, forcing the rebels to give ground beneath a sheet of searing fire.
Tvrdy saw what was happening, and realized that if his men broke and ran, the Invisibles would butcher them in a killing frenzy. Their only hope was to stand against them and somehow withstand the force of the attack.
Above the shriek and crackle of the thermal weapons, the rebels heard a voice, Tvrdy’s voice, crying, “Stand your ground! Stand! Stand!” And they saw their commander standing fast with his weapon on his hip, firing bolt after blistering bolt into the onrushing Invisibles.
Cejka’s team, having survived the initial attack and regrouped, now laid into the Invisibles from behind the fibersteel grid of the refuse pits. The Invisibles’ attack, broadsided even as they pressed for the kill, faltered.
Tvrdy saw the momentary confusion—the Invisibles’ divide and conquer tactic had turned on them. He dashed forward, shouting, “Attack!” His men jumped up, and they ran to meet the Invisibles, screaming, weapons crackling, orange flames bursting the night into a million shadows. The Invisibles fell back upon themselves, stumbled, tripped over one another as the foremost ranks collided with those behind.
In seconds the Invisibles were reduced to chaos, and Tvrdy, still firing into the swarming ranks, broke off the attack and headed out across the strip. He reached the place where the Dhogs had gone down and found the few survivors struggling to pull their dead and dying out of the rubble.
“Leave them,” shouted Tvrdy. “Save yourselves!”
“No leaving Dhogs behind,” replied Bogney, swaying under the weight of a body slung across his shoulders.
There was no time to argue about it, so Tvrdy ordered his men to help get the casualties out while the Invisibles regrouped across the strip behind them, Cejka doing his best to hold them off. A moment later the raiders were fleeing to the refuse pits, the Invisibles charging hard after them.
The raiders reached the gridwork around the pits just as the Invisibles, seeing their prey escaping, rallied and broke out of Cejka’s containment, their black shapes flying over the broken strip.
They came rushing in, heedless of the wilting return fire. Invisibles fell in clusters as Tvrdy’s men labored to hold them off. But the Invisibles were too many and too quick. Their Mors Ultima commanders had decreed a suicide attack in a last-ditch effort to stop the rebels and, despite fearful casualties, were leveling the full force of their attack on Tvrdy’s group, trapping them outside the grid fence.
Hemmed in on every side, men dropping all around, the rebel team made a desperate last stand—weapons blazing, throw-probes glowing white hot, overheated handgrips searing the hands of those who held them—and kept on firing.
The Invisibles bore down, wave after wave of raking fire strafing the stranded rebels. In seconds it would be all over.
Then, with a flash and a roar, the strip erupted, hurling debris and dirt high into the air as one long continuous explosion ripped the ground. The Invisibles, frozen in the terrible cataclysm, were blown back by the force of the explosion, their bodies broken and flung like so many bundles tossed through the air.
“Piipo!” Tvrdy cried, turning to see the Hyrgo and his squad racing to their aid, the blunt barrels of their old-fashioned weapons smoking.
“Get moving!” yelled Piipo. He waved the gun overhead. “We’ll hold them off until you’re inside.”
The rebels scurried to safety, taking their casualties with them as they fled down into the refuse pits. Once inside, they passed the bodies of their comrades through the grate at the bottom of the pit and then followed them into the duct. More explosions thundered above, and then Piipo’s team came pouring through a gaping hole in the grid fence and down into the pit.
“They’ll … follow … us,” said a breathless Tvrdy when Piipo had joined him. “Get the injured … out of here.” His voice rang in the ductwork with a harsh metallic sound.
Cejka and his men were already dragging the injured and lifeless deeper into the great curving corridor. Piipo brandished his weapon. “I saved two rounds for them.”
“Good,” said Tvrdy. “Seal the duct. That will slow them down.”
“We can never use this entrance again anyway,” said Cejka. “Now they know about it.”
“Give us as long as you can to get clear and then destroy it,” ordered Tvrdy. He turned to leave, saying, “And give yourself plenty of time as well.”
“Get going. I’ll join you soon.”
They hurried off down the snaking ductwork, hands pressed against the smooth metal sides, feeling their way in the darkness, for the old duct was lit only at rare intervals by smudge pots placed along the floor.
They felt the rumble of the detonation before the concussion pummeled them like a giant fist, laying them out in one devastating punch. The shockwave rattled the duct with a deafening clatter as the walls convulsed.
And then all was silent.
Tvrdy and Cejka picked themselves up, choking in the smoke and dust raised by the explosion. Both peered fearfully into the churning blackness behind them. “Piipo?” Cejka called. “Piipo!”
Hearing a cough and another and then footsteps staggering toward them, they reached out their hands and caught the floundering Piipo as he lurched toward them.
“Are you hurt?” asked Cejka.
Piipo looked at them with a dazed expression. “I’m all right,” he shouted. “I can’t hear so good.”
They took him by the arms, and together the three threaded their way back to the Old Section.
FIFTY
“We heard on the monitor that you were in trouble,” said Piipo, speaking slowly and a little over-loud. He sat with his head in his hands, his right ear bandaged, both eyes black from the concussion of the bomb he used to seal the entrance. “When Cejka went to find you, he told us to stay there in case we were needed. I remembered the old weapons Tvrdy had showed us in the arsenal, and I thought they might be useful if the Invisibles found us. So I sent men back to get them.”
“You sent men back?” wondered Tvrdy. “All the way back to the Old Section for those weapons?”
Piipo smiled proudly. “The Hyrgo are sturdy. It was nothing.” Then he remembered the dead and added with a slow, sad shake of his head, “But we might have been quicker.”
“You did well,” said Tvrdy. “We all owe you our lives.” He looked at Cejka. “And I thank you, too.”
The mood in the briefing room was subdued. Treet had seen the raiders return, had seen the dead and dying carried into the Old Section, had seen the haggard, beaten expressions on the faces of the men … and knew that the raid had failed.
Now, a few brief hours later, Tvrdy was leading a much dejected group through an autopsy of the miscarried mission. “That is something at least,” continued Tvrdy, “to still be alive this morning when so many are not.”
The others in the room remained silent.
“I take responsibility for the failure of the raid,” said Tvrdy, speaking softly. “It was my idea. I gave the order. I was wrong, and others paid for my mistake.”
“Not your mistake,” said Cejka. “We all agreed. We did what we thought right. Besides, the raid was not a total failure. We succeeded in every other objective. We wiped out Jamrog’s bodyguard—the best of the Mors Ultima—and several squads of Invisibles.” He raised a fist to shoulder level and smashed it into his palm. “And we would have had Jamrog, too, if not for Mrukk.”
“The fact is,” Tvrdy said, “that we did not meet our primary objective—to remove Jamrog. This morning he is alive, and his hatred burns against us. We have succeeded only in making him more furious than ever.”
“Also a minor objective,” Piipo reminded him.
Tvrdy gave a snort of displeasure. “But at what cost? Too many men died for that success to have any value.”
Treet remembered it was Kopetch who had suggested that Jamrog’s a
nger might be useful. He glanced around the room and saw that Kopetch was not among them. Had he been killed, too?
He also noticed that Bogney and his two Dhogs sat in stony silence. Knowing the Dhogs had taken the brunt of the beating at the refuse pits, he supposed they were hurt and angry about the results, and were demonstrating as much by their aloofness.
Fertig, who had stayed behind with Treet and Ernina, entered the room and took a seat. All eyes turned toward him.
“You might as well tell us now,” said Tvrdy. “Waiting won’t make the news easier to hear.”
“We lost forty-three in the raid,” Fertig replied. “Seven more died of their wounds during the night. Fifty altogether.”
“The wounded?”
“Sixteen. Most should recover, but three or four may not. Time will tell.”
Tvrdy nodded. Treet had never seen him so despondent, so beaten. “We have lost over half of our ready force.”
“And the Invisibles now know one of our entrances,” pointed out Cejka.
“It is sealed,” offered Piipo.
“How long do you think that will stop them?”
“He’s right,” said Tvrdy. “We’ve got to destroy the rest of the duct. We’ll do it today.”
“Not enough,” said Bogney, speaking up. “Deathmen now be coming for us here.” He turned around again, away from the others.
“We don’t have enough supplies to hide here indefinitely,” said Piipo.
“Getting our men back in fighting shape will take time,” Cejka said.
“We weren’t ready,” replied Tvrdy, mostly to himself. “I was too anxious … too arrogant …”
“We all wanted it as badly as you,” Cejka said. “We couldn’t know Danelka would be taken. We underestimated Mrukk.”
“It will not happen again,” said Tvrdy. “I can promise you that.” He paused and drew a hand over his face. “We’re all tired. I suggest we get some rest and meet back here tonight to begin picking up the pieces.”
Treet shuffled out with the others, feeling particularly useless and overlooked. Is there nothing I can do to help the cause? he wondered. Why am I here?
The forest had been thinning for two days, becoming less dense with every kilometer. The big cat walked easily beside the man, both as soundless as the shadows they passed through. They had awakened early a few days ago to a restlessness, a tingling sense of necessity to be moving, traveling. Taking up his spear, Crocker left the sheltered bower, following the cat, and they began walking.
They ate when hungry, satisfied their thirst in cool forest pools and muddy streams, slept when they grew tired. But hour by hour they pushed deeper into the forest, moving further westward, following the nameless urge.
With every step, a long-forgotten sense of anticipation quickened in Crocker. He felt as if he would see something very important around the next turn, or the next.
There was no frustration in the expectation when, as he rounded the next bend, only more blue forest presented itself to view. Instead, Crocker experienced a continual sense of assurance: when he reached his journey’s end, he would be rewarded. It was not a thought, but a strong undercurrent of the same expectation. So he continued on, unhurriedly, even as the anticipation grew moment by moment.
From the jerk of the wevicat’s tail, the man knew his feline companion sensed the growing anticipation, too. From time to time, as the cat ranged further ahead, it would stop and look back at the slower human, then watch him with large, luminous eyes full of sly intelligence as if to say: Hurry! There is little time. Something’s going to happen. We must not miss it.
FIFTY-ONE
The boats reached the headwaters of the Taleraan at sunset. The Fieri disembarked to spend the night on shore—a rock shelf cut between two sheer canyons. Tomorrow they would make the journey by foot up through the mountain pass and down again to the lowlands and the Bay of Talking Fish, reaching it by dusk.
On shore Pizzle walked with his Mentor, Anthon, gazing at the canyon cliffs high above and at the sky beyond, taking on the color of iron. As they passed along the long line of boats moored in the shallows, Pizzle kept one eye peeled for a glimpse of Starla while Anthon instructed his charge in the protocol of approaching the talking fish.
“The fish really talk?” Pizzle inquired.
“Oh, yes,” Anthon assured him. “But you must know how to listen, and you must be ready.”
“How? How do you get ready?”
“Their speech is of a delicate, subtle kind—not really speech at all, since it has no words. Naturally, since this faculty is shared between two entirely different species, it is not at all strange to expect it to be so.”
“But what do they say—however they say it?”
Anthon laughed. “They don’t say, they communicate.”
“Pure communication—is that what you’re telling me?” Pizzle accepted Anthon’s nod. “But communication must be about something, or it’s not communication at all.”
“Precisely, or we would never have called them talking fish.” Anthon’s brow wrinkled in an effort to put words to the enigma of the talking fish—something the Fieri had long ago given up trying to do, preferring simply to accept the phenomenon. “They communicate …” Anthon said, straining after words, “sense impressions; they communicate their experience of the world. The talking fish communicate themselves. That’s why you have to know how to listen, or you’ll never hear it.”
Pizzle shook his head. “I still don’t get it. What am I supposed to do? Meditate?”
“Precisely!” said Anthon. “You meditate, fill your heart with thoughts of goodness, of truth, of joy. You draw the fish to you by the quality of your thought. You prepare a place for the fish to come to you.”
“I see. So I’m sitting there thinking all kinds of beautiful thoughts, and this fish swims up, and if he likes what he sees we have a chat. Is that it?”
Anthon laughed again. His laugh, like his manner, was gentle, understanding. “Yes, that’s the sense of it.”
“But do I say anything? Or do I just listen?”
“Whatever you feel,” Anthon told him. “Most people prefer just to listen. That is enough.”
“Hmmm.” Pizzle frowned in concentration. “I think I’m getting it now. Forgive me, I’m not usually this dense.”
“It’s more difficult to explain than it is to do,” admitted Anthon, placing a friendly hand on Pizzle’s shoulder. “It’s the same with so many things in life. We hinder ourselves with our fears and concerns when all that is needed is trust and faith.”
“Believe that the fish will speak and they’ll speak—something like that?”
“Something like that.”
“When will the fish come? Will we have to wait long?”
“Not long. A day perhaps. At most, three.” Anthon saw Pizzle’s involuntary grimace and added, “But you won’t mind waiting. The bay is beautiful. You will enjoy yourself. Besides, since everyone will be together on the beach, I don’t see any reason why you and Starla should be apart.”
“Terrific! You mean it? Wow, this is tremendous! Thanks, Anthon. You’re aces!”
Anthon shook his head in bemusement. “The things you say, Asquith. Earth must be a very strange place indeed if everyone talks as you do.”
They walked along a little further, and Pizzle gazed at the wide river stretching out before them, calm and deep, now shimmering with the reflected light of the sunstone cliffs, like captured sunset. The Fieri around them readied the evening meal, and smoke began drifting along the water’s edge as music, light and tinkling like delicate cut glass, lifted into the darkening sky.
“It’s so peaceful,” remarked Pizzle. “I love this life.”
Anthon heard the wistfulness in his voice. “Your life was very different on Earth?”
“Very different.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Miss it?” Pizzle glanced at the Mentor quickly. “No, not at all. I never even think about it.
Why would I? Back on Earth I was nothing—a cog in the corporate wheel, a nameless drone. All I did was shove printouts from one side of a plastic desk to the other, siphoning numbers off and putting them on other printouts. It was hell.”
He sighed at the futility of it. “No, I don’t miss it. Everything I ever dreamed of is here—it’s paradise. I’m surprised you even understand an emotion like longing, you know?”
“How so? Are we so fulfilled we cannot long for ultimate perfection?”
Pizzle shrugged. “I don’t miss it at all. Should I? I mean, I’m happier here than I ever was back there. Here … it’s like a dream I never want to end, you know? I want it to go on and on forever.”
“You speak of paradise,” said Anthon. “This isn’t paradise, Asquith. The life you speak of is found only in the Infinite Father. If Empyrion is good, its goodness is only a reflection of the greater goodness of the Creator.”
“I don’t care where it comes from,” replied Pizzle. “I just know that’s what I want.” They were silent for while. Upon reaching the last of the Fieri ships, they turned and started back. “Anthon?” said Pizzle. “Tell me something.”
“Anything.”
“Is it true—all you say about the Infinite Father?”
“There is a truth greater than we know, Asquith. This greater truth is the Infinite. We cannot know it; we can only get snatches, fleeting glimpses of it. But it is there. It exists. In fact, all that exists moves and lives in it.” He paused, and added, “However, I can offer no proof for this assertion.”
“I believe you,” said Pizzle, “but not because of anything you could say.”
“Oh!”
“No. That’s all good stuff, you understand. But it makes sense to me because I know I’m a better person now, believing it, or trying to, than I ever was before. You know?”
Anthon put his arm around Pizzle’s shoulders. “You have a freshness about you that does this old soul good. Yes, I know what you mean. Experience does often reflect its source. It is proof of a sort.”
They walked back along the river and came to one of the large fires that had been made at intervals on the bank. Fish roasted on spits arched over the shimmering pyramid of flames. In the coals, wrapped in bundles of wet leaves, fresh-gathered vegetables steamed. The aroma melted into the air, piquant and tantalizing. Pizzle and Anthon sat down among the others gathered there as the first spit was taken down.
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 31
