by Джеффри Лорд
The clatter of tools and the scraping of metal sounded from outside for about ten minutes. Then a pale and perspiring Silora climbed back in, unreeling a long teksin cord. She handed the leather loop at the end of the cord to Blade, then closed the hatch, leaving only a two-inch opening. Blade carefully pulled on the cord to make sure it would slide freely back and forth through the opening.
Silora sighed with relief and sat down cross-legged on the cabin floor. «That’s done, Mazda. Now all we can do is to hope everything works as we planned it to work and that the mercenaries have followed their usual camp plan.»
Blade nodded slowly. «If they don’t-«It was time to face something he had not felt it necessary to mention until now. «Suppose we can only destroy the machines if we are willing to destroy your people, the Peace Lords, along with them? Will you stand by me even then, or would you rather be left here and picked up on my way back rather than see that?»
Silora was silent for a moment. «I will fly with you all the way, Mazda. That is as it must be. But if the bomb must fall on the Peace Lords as well as the mercenaries, then-«Her voice failed her for a moment. She swallowed and continued. «Then when it comes time to drop the bomb, I want to go out on the platform and jump with it. It is better that the Peace Lords die than that Tharn and its people die. But if the Peace Lords die, then I must die with them. That is also as it must be, for I could not live long in that case.»
Blade was silent for quite a long time. He hoped she wasn’t expecting an answer to that, because he honestly couldn’t think of one. Finally he turned back to the controls and lifted the machine into the sky again.
The armed bomb now rode securely in a complex and rugged cradle of leather strips and teksin rods. A quick tug on the cord running in through the hatch and the whole cradle would collapse, letting the bomb roll off the platform of its own weight and fall free. It was fused to explode when it hit the ground. That would not give absolutely the best results, but with an atomic bomb who needed absolutely the best? It would flatten everything; for a mile in every direction, which was more than good enough.
They slid onward through the darkness, listening to the signals of the Looters grow stronger and stronger. About twenty miles out they saw a dim glow on the horizon ahead. It grew steadily stronger as they steered straight for it. At ten miles both of them shouted out loud in delight, as the glow began to separate into three distinct parts, the center one fainter than the other two. At the same time it became possible to distinguish three distinct signals on the direction-finder, each coming from a slightly different location.
Silora’s face was one enormous glowing smile that seemed to light up the whole cabin. «They are as usual, Mazda. The Principal Technician of War has not thought anything new was needed against this opponent.»
Blade did not smile. He merely nodded and said, «He will be a very surprised man before too long. Which one is the machine camp?» Within, he felt a great relief. He had not been looking forward to returning home without Silora, after watching her leap to a death he knew she welcomed.
«The farthest one is giving off the usual signal of the machine camp,» she said.
Blade swung the machine to the right and started it on a long curve around the triangle of Looter camps. The one with the machine was at the opposite point of the triangle. If they could skirt the whole patrolled area, they could come up on their target without any warning.
But whatever else he hadn’t done, the Looter commander had extended his patrols farther than usual. Five minutes later the radio crackled into life with a loud, harsh voice that completely drowned out the directional signals.
«Unknown machine approaching Sector Seven of Patrol Zone, identify yourself immediately.»
Silora switched the radio to SEND and replied, «Machine 576 returning to operations in control of Peace Lord Second Class Silora Jou after escape from natives. Repeat, this is Peace Lord Second Class Silora Jou. I have escaped from the natives of this dimension. I have-«
«Understand, Peace Lord,» said the voice sharply. «Identification insufficient. You are ordered to ground your machine immediately and await inspection. Failure to do so will lead to your being fired on. Repeat, ground your-«
Silora switched the radio back to SEND and made a rude noise into the microphone. As she shut off the radio entirely, Blade was at work on the power and the controls. The machine shot forward as he fed in the power, accelerating rapidly. When it was moving as fast as he dared to go this close to the ground, he shouted at Silora:
«Hang on!»
He put the machine into a steep climb, opening the power even wider. The machine leaped upward, its speed mounting rapidly. On the screens the plain began to spread out below them, an endless velvety black rug with moving sparks of light on it that were the patrol machines.
Now came the most dangerous part of the whole mission. Instead of using stealth they would have to use speed, hurtling straight down the center of the triangle of Looter camps and dropping the bomb by sheer guesswork from a high altitude.
Blade fed in still more power. The shriek and howl of the air rushing past outside blasted in through the open hatch. It sounded like a hundred madmen all screaming in chorus. Silora put her hands over her ears and Blade would have done the same if he hadn’t been too busy with the controls.
They must have been doing close to five hundred miles an hour. The circle of lights that was the camp of the machines was a good fifteen miles away, but it swept toward them with frightening speed. Blade kept the machine lined up precisely on the center of the circle. He wished he didn’t have to fly a straight course, but there was no choice. Otherwise he might miss the target, even with the atomic bomb.
At least they would be hard to hit at this speed. Hitting them with a ray or a rocket now would be like hitting a flying mosquito with a pistol shot. It could be done, but it would take good luck as well as good shooting.
The target leaped toward them out of the night at the rate of more than a mile every ten seconds. Blade checked altitude, remembered wind conditions on the ground, did a quick set of mental calculations, wished for a pocket calculator, let alone a bombsight. Now the machine camp was about to pass below. Blade saw the perimeter lights reflected from scores of humped and curved and flat metal shapes in a dozen different sizes spread out in a circle a mile across. As the nearer edge of the circle passed across the center of the forward screen, Blade jerked on the leather loop at the end of the bomb-release cord.
He felt the machine give a little jump as it suddenly became half a ton lighter. A black finned cylinder swept across the rear screen, plunging downward, appearing on the down-looking screen. Blade didn’t pay any attention to it. He nosed the machine over into a dive and pulled the hatch shut. The madmen’s howling of air outside died to a distant mutter and moan as the machine plunged down through the miles of air, heading for the relative safety of low altitude.
So far, there was no sign that anyone on the ground had even noticed them, let alone fired at them. That was just as well. Blade knew they would have to stay closer to the Looters than he liked until after the bomb went off-or didn’t go off. He had to watch what happened and then return to the people to tell the tale. If the defenders would just stay asleep until the bomb woke them up, that was all right with him!
Blade had guessed it would take the bomb roughly two minutes to reach the ground. Before the first minute was past they were racing through the patrol line. On one screen Blade saw a distant flash of purple as one of the patrol machines let loose with its ray. A desperate shot at them, or was the enemy firing at some ghost sprung from his own surprise and nerves?
One minute. One minute twenty seconds. One minute forty seconds. Two minutes. Two minutes ten seconds. Damn it, was the bloody thing going to take forever to fall? Or had it already hit and smashed itself to bits instead of going off? In another min—
Then there was no darkness anywhere, as the sun seemed to rise behind them. Silora screamed and
clapped her hands over her eyes as the rear screen dissolved into a searing blaze of blinding white light. Blade shut his eyes and fumbled for the button to cut off the screen. When he heard the switch click over he opened his eyes again.
The plain still showed up with almost daylight clarity in the other screens. Blade nosed upward, so that the shock wave would not slam the machine against the ground.
The shock wave caught them a hundred feet up, throwing the machine nose down and tail up until Blade thought it was going to turn a complete somersault, end over end. Then the roar and rumble was past, spreading out into the darkness that was slowly returning to the plain.
Blade cut in the rear screen again. The fireball was almost gone now. Where it had been a terrible glowing gray white pillar of smoke loomed miles high in the night. The top was already reaching the stratosphere and beginning to spread out in the high winds and thin air many miles aloft. Around the base of the pillar were scattered hunched dark shapes, some of them giving off their own clouds of smoke.
Blade swung the machine around and raced back toward the base of the pillar. Three miles out he stopped. That was close enough to see clearly, not close enough to risk catching too much fall-out or being an easy target if some Looter was somehow still alert and on his feet.
Blade did see clearly, and what he saw was enough to make him turn away again. Not a machine in the whole machine camp could have been more than a mile from ground zero. The ones that hadn’t been vaporized completely or melted into slag would never fly or fight again. Less than a hundred yards away a full-sized war machine lay on the ground, flung three miles through the air by the blast, half-buried and half-crushed by the impact of its landing. On one blackened metal side a pale man-shaped silhouette stood out with startling clarity. That was doubtless the shadow cast by a Looter, a Looter who had been standing between the machine and ground zero, a Looter who now formed part of the cloud that towered ten miles above the plain.
A crack Royal Air Force bomber crew might have dropped the bomb more precisely. But any more precision than Blade had managed would have been wasted. Blade’s eyes and reflexes and instincts had done all that was needed.
Blade let out a sigh of relief as he turned the machine homeward. He could return to the people bringing word that the first part of their victory had been won this night.
He could also return bringing Silora with him. He could not say that he loved her as he had loved Zulekia. But he could say that he would not have been at all happy to leave her behind as part of that monstrous cloud-pillar.
Chapter 25
Blade’s return with news of destroying the Looter machines set off a grand celebration. Only the fighting men and women of the people were now left in the camps around the New City, nearly three thousand of them. It was they who danced wildly up and down the streets, drank up what seemed like every drop of beer in Tharn, dragged each other off into deserted buts and sheltered places to make love. Blade saw Chara leading one of the lines of dancers, waving a sword in one hand and a beer cup in the other.
«They seem to think the war is already won,» said Blade as he watched the celebration from the roof of the King’s House.
His son shrugged. «A great victory has certainly been won, as you yourself promised. They are happy about that, happy that now they can face the Looters on equal terms.»
«The terms will not be equal if in their pride and courage they forget what we have taught them,» said Blade quietly. «Even if they can remember, many of them will still die in the battle against the Looters.»
King Rikard smiled. «All the more reason for them to celebrate. For many of those down there this may be the last time they will ever make love, taste beer, dance with their friends. Would you deny them these last pleasures?»
Blade could hardly argue that point. In fact, it reminded him of Silora. He was Mazda, but that did not make him immortal or mean that tonight might not be his last chance to make love.
So he went off to the chamber where Silora lay, and soon they were locked around each other. They did not unwind until the light of dawn and the sound of drums and trumpets told them it was daylight and time to mount up and ride out.
Blade did not leave the New City on horseback. He and Chara and Silora rode in one of the war machines that formed a scouting line well out in front of the advancing people. Possibly the mercenaries would stay where they were, paralyzed by the shock of the bombing. It was even possible that they were right now marching through the dimension door, back to Konis. But Blade doubted it, and Silora doubted it even more.
«The Principal Technician of War is not a fool,» she said. «But he is stubborn enough to seem one. The mercenaries will fight, and fight hard. We must face that.»
That meant the Looter army would have to be found, in all the endless miles of plain. Three of the captured machines formed an aerial scouting line, radioing reports back to the fourth, which flew just above the center of the main army.
There was something strange in aerial reconnaissance for an Iron Age cavalry army. But Blade knew that the plains of Tharn would see even stranger sights before much longer. The coming battle would mix more ages and stages of weaponry and the military art than Blade would have believed possible.
It was a pity that no Home Dimension military historians were ever likely to hear of this battle. He would have liked to hear them trying to explain away all its apparent contradictions and impossibilities. He was not going to worry about those contradictions and impossibilities, however. He would worry about winning, and nothing else.
The Looters were easy to find and not hard to count. There were more than two thousand of them. An army of that size could not be hidden on the open plain even in camouflaged uniforms.
They advanced on a front of about two miles, with their main body in three columns. Behind them came a fourth column, most of which seemed to be unarmed. In that column were also three large machines — a command machine, a large cargo machine, and a gleaming silver ovoid shape.
«That fourth column will be mostly unarmed Peace Lords under guard. They are bringing them along so that their guards can aid the main force when the fighting starts.» That was Silora’s guess.
She went on. «The Principal Technician of War doubtless rides in the command machine. The second probably carries ammunition and spare weapons. The oval one carries the machinery for creating the dimension door.»
«They can create it at will, from one side or the other?»
«Yes. But it needs a machine at each end to sustain it after it has been opened.»
God, what science Konis had, even now! And how little opportunity he was likely to have to examine the dimension door machine and try to discover some of its secrets. Lord Leighton’s scientific curiosity would be frustrated, and that would not make his Lordship terribly happy.
Damn Lord Leighton’s scientific curiosity and Lord Leighton too! He was in Home Dimension, not here in Tharn facing a battle for the life of the people, the life of his son’s people, the lives of those he had helped once before and would help again. Blade knew what his first job was, and would worry about anything else he might be able to do when and if he had the time to do it.
Only three of the smaller war machines were visible, flying in a V-formation high above the Looter army. The technician wouldn’t want to let his last possible air support wander off and be swallowed up by whatever monsters might be lurking beyond the flat horizon. None of the three paid any attention to Blade’s machine.
After looking as long as he needed and getting as close as he dared, Blade swung his machine away into the sky. He saw that Silora’s face was grimmer than it had been for some time.
«They have not come in the strength I hoped they would,» she said. «No more than half or a third of the mercenaries march against the people.»
As far as Blade was concerned that was quite all right. He would not care to try pitting the people against five or six thousand of the mercenaries. But he could see
why Silora was unhappy. Even total victory for the People of Tharn today would still leave the mercenaries able to rule Konis and leave her forever an exile in Tharn.
The army of the people camped for the night about twenty miles from the Looters. They did not camp until the air scouts reported that the Looters were also settling in for the night. Neither Blade nor King Rikard wanted to risk a night attack by the mercenaries.
Blade and Silora had a tent to themselves, but it seemed stiflingly hot inside it. After an hour or so of desperately trying to get to sleep, they both went out and lay down on the grass to stare up at the star-filled sky. The cooler air and the peaceful stars soon sent both of them off to sleep.
The next morning Blade could see the Looters in their camp from a war machine only a few hundred feet up. They were less than ten miles away. Once again their three war machines floated high above them-and stayed there.
The army of the people moved out, three thousand cavalry, a hundred chariots, a dozen portable catapults. Some of the chariots and all four of the captured war machines carried loads of bombs, and practically every fighter had at least one or two grenades.
As the people trotted and rolled toward the enemy, a Looter war machine swept low over the head of the column. A hundred or so archers loosed futile arrows at it. That should be enough to give the Looters the impression of a typical undisciplined barbarian horde. Blade’s plans depended on the Principal Technician of War continuing to despise his opponents until it was too late.
Within an hour the Looter army was in sight from the scouting line on the ground. Blade saw that so far his plan was working. As Silora had predicted, the Principal Technician was bringing a strong force of the mercenaries to Tharn, to fight it out on the ground. The battle would be terrible for both sides, but it could be a much greater victory for the people if they won.
The Looters were drawn up in an enormous square nearly a mile on a side. Most of the two thousand mercenaries formed the four sides of that square. Each side was a single line, with no more than one man every ten feet. In the center of the square was a small reserve, who doubled as guards for the Peace Lords and the three large machines. One of the war machines now floated only a few feet above the center of the square. Blade caught strangely brilliant sparkles of sunlight from the equipment of someone moving about on the rear platform.
