The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Charles V. De Vet

  I thought for a moment. “You might be able to introduce some product of your civilization’s technology that would be useful here. Not knowing your world, I couldn’t suggest just what.”

  “I should be able to come up with something,” he said thoughtfully. “Would I be allowed to manufacture and sell it if I did?”

  “If you can demonstrate that you can do it better than anyone else, you will be given an exclusive right to control both its construction and distribution.”

  “Does that apply to every function of your society?” he asked.

  “This world belongs to those who can prove their strength,” I answered.

  “That’s a bit different than on Earth,” he said. “We have always held that competition makes for the best results.”

  I had become quite interested in the discussion, and found myself giving a rather lengthy explanation of that part of our society’s functioning. “Competition is very real here, even though it is less tangible than yours. The fact that a producer of a product or service may be displaced by anyone demonstrating a better or more efficient product or method, acts as a spur to best efforts. The price is set by the state, with the prices of competing bidders in mind. Under our system time and energy is not wasted making inferior goods, or those already in adequate supply. The purchasers, also, are never exposed to an inferior article.”

  I was becoming quite drowsy by this time and left after I’d answered a few more of his questions. I felt affection toward the Earthling. He was direct and honest. Beneath his placid manner he had a pride as fierce as any Zade. Tomorrow would be the crucial day for him.

  * * * *

  Late the next afternoon I bought a packet of food and brought it to the outworlder’s room. “Did you have trouble with a Zade named Ctvar?” I asked him, immediately on entering.

  “Yes, I did,” he answered. “Why?”

  “His clansmen have been pouring into the city all day. I just learned that they are looking for you.”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Isn’t Ctvar able to handle his own trouble?”

  “Ctvar is dead.”

  He seemed unable at first to find the words to speak. At last he said, “It happened in a fight that he started. Why should they seek revenge?”

  “They would be poor clan brothers if they did not avenge him,” I answered.

  “Won’t your sentinels do anything to stop them?” he asked.

  “They won’t help you,” I answered. “You make no contribution to the state that would entitle you to their protection.”

  “Don’t you have laws against this sort of thing?”

  “An undetermined number of persons wish you dead. You, and perhaps I, want you to live. The majority is against us.”

  “But I’m at least entitled to a trial.”

  I puzzled over his meaning of the word, but could find no sure answer. “I don’t know what the purpose of a trial would be,” I said. “But it could change nothing. You have the ill will of many citizens.” He stared at the floor without any further questions.

  Against the strong logic of my reasoning I felt a strong empathy toward him. He had conducted himself well on this world that must seem very strange to him. I offered what consolation I could. “There is this possibility,” I said. “A majority is not always reckoned by numbers. If you can collect superior strength to your side—either by getting others to help you, or by your own ingenuity—and whip Ctvar’s clan, the law will do nothing to punish you. You may even kill them with impunity, except for the revenge of the other clansmen.”

  “That’s a small hope.”

  “It is,” I agreed, belatedly recalling to mind my mission. I was probably this minute under disapproving observation. “You can’t hope to fight them all,” I continued. “That is why I would earnestly suggest that you run.”

  “To where would I run?”

  “I gave that a good deal of thought on my way here,” I said. “There’s a space ship—on a meadow outside the walls, on the far side of the city—that you might be able to reach. You could take it and flee to your own world, probably the only place where you’d be safe.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to operate it.”

  “The ship is very nearly automatic. Look,” I said. I took a sheet of velum, and a stylus, and drew three circles with smaller circles beneath them. “These represent the dials on the ship’s control panel. The bubbles in the first dial must be set in this order—you’d better memorize them—blue-blue-yellow-blue-yellow. That’s the range for your Earth. You’ll have to shrink the last yellow bubble to about three-quarter size. That will give you a safety leeway. The ship will take itself in on motors from there.

  “This second dial starts the ship. You merely squeeze the knob beneath it. The third dial is for stopping. As you are about to land, the tighter you grip the knob, the slower the ship will settle. You shouldn’t have any trouble manipulating it.”

  His spirits seemed to revive somewhat. “It’s worth a try,” he said. “I have nothing to lose.”

  “It’s only a few hours to nightfall,” I told him. “That will be the best time to try getting through the city. I’d suggest you eat a good meal, and fix yourself a lunch to take along. Then nap if you can.”

  * * * *

  I was back in Srtes’ office, watching the big screen, with the eight council members, when the alien started out. That was shortly after dusk. It is never completely dark on Zade.

  He was shrewd enough to leave his room the back way, I observed. There was no rear door, but he let himself down from the balcony, dropping the last few feet to the ground.

  “He is wearing a sword, I see,” a white haired councilor remarked.

  “Yes,” Srtes answered. “He was given it when they were testing his weapons adaptability. But the fool filed it down until it is hardly thicker than a reed. It will be a poor weapon.”

  The alien hugged the wall of the house, and after glancing into the opening between it and the next, scurried quickly across. Two buildings farther on the rear court ended, and he had to go around to the front. When he reached the yellow pedestrian walk he did not turn, as we might have expected, but went on across a second courtyard.

  “He realizes that the normally travelled yellow walks would not be very safe,” Srtes said. “I wonder how long it will take him to solve the enigma of the others.”

  At the next white street he turned to his right. When he reached the end and learned that he had gone up a blind alley he retraced his steps and went across to a perpendicular blue street. He seemed a bit nervous now.

  A third of the way down the blue walk he ran into the invisible electric shock wall, and staggered backward. The lunch packet that he carried fell from his hand, and he was obviously too stunned to remember to pick it up as he started back.

  He had retreated only a short way before he paused and stood considering his situation. After a minute he returned and examined the buildings at each side of the electrified area. He must have found that the conduction outlets did not extend to the ground, for soon he began crawling forward on his hands and knees.

  “A point for the alien,” I heard Srtes murmur. I detected a hint of admiration in his voice.

  The alien kept his caution, for when the ground caved beneath his hand, at the end of the third street, he did not fall into the trap. He simply rolled back and lay quietly for a moment. Another decision.

  He was equal to it. Rising to his feet, he took a short run and leaped for the balcony on the nearest building. From there it was an easy matter to reach the roof. Observing carefully below before each venture, he leaped from roof to roof until he reached the end of the street.

  We lost him for a short time then. He had gone down into the last house. A few minutes later when a guard in front of the door stumbled abruptly backward and disappeared inside.

  Another moment passed and the guard reappeared. He walked briskly up two streets before we became aware of what had happened. The alien had chang
ed to the guard’s clothes!

  That would not take him far, of course. At the beginning of the third street he was stopped by two sentries. When they demanded a password, he whipped his sword out from beneath his cloak and ran the nearest through. The second shouted for help and drew his own sword. He offered only a moment of resistance. We saw then the alien’s reason for grinding down the long sword. He handled it almost like a whip, and the sentry was unable to parry his swift thrusts.

  As I noted the councilors’ exchange of wondering glances I understood that a new weapons concept had been born.

  When the second sentry fell, the alien sprinted into the house, and reappeared a minute later on the roof. Soon he was a block away from the scene of the fight.

  The sentries at the second intersection had run back in answer to the shout for help, and the alien was able to cross the street unmolested. Once again he took to the roof, and when he came down again he had reached the Building Administrates. He was directly below us!

  We followed him on the screen as he ran down the stairs to the basement. A sound from the front of the building attracted our attention and we switched back. Two sentinels had not been caught off guard. They had spotted him entering Administrates and were following closely.

  We switched back to the fugitive, and just in time. He had dragged himself almost all the way under the bottom ramp of the stairs. Soon he had disappeared entirely. Now the sentinels were looking about in a confused way.

  I heard Srtes beside me sigh heavily as he rose to his feet. “Do you realize,” he asked no one in particular, “that he is already halfway through? All our calculations pointed to the odds being heavily against his reaching this far.”

  “The sentinels will find him in a few minutes,” one of the councilors said reassuringly.

  “Of course they will!” Srtes replied angrily. “But he was not supposed to be able to get this far.”

  The alien stayed beneath the ramp only until his pursuers ran past. Immediately after, he reappeared and strode without hesitation toward the nearest air vent. The screen stuck when he gripped its spokes and tried to turn it, but he exerted his strength and it gave slowly. He pulled it from its frame and let it rest on the floor.

  Pushing his feet through the vent opening, still clutching the screen, he let himself down. Soon his feet came to rest on the inside ledge of the air tunnel and he balanced there as he screwed the screen back into place. He had vanished by the time the sentinels came running back.

  “By the great hound of Hagras!” a councilor exclaimed. “Is there no end to the creature’s ingenuity?”

  None of us paid any attention to him; we were too busy watching the scene below. Only Srtes spoke. “Will the fools have brains enough to look for him down there?” he muttered. The excitement of the chase had obviously gripped him also. He clicked on a control button that split the screen into two scenes, and we were able to watch the activity above, as well as in the tunnels below.

  We had no trouble following the flight of the alien. The lining of the tunnels had been prepared with a luminous coating that gave enough light for us to see the inside clearly.

  As we watched, the alien stumbled and fell to the floor. He lay for a long moment, too weary to rise. By this time he must be exhausted. His stamina had already proven greater than we had anticipated.

  He rose again and walked doggedly on, searching absent-mindedly in his pockets as he went. I knew he must be hungry and thirsty. He was probably only now remembering the packet he had lost early in his flight. But he did not slow his steady progress forward.

  On the right half of the screen we noted that the captain of the sentinels had evidently figured out what had happened. Up ahead his men were hurrying into the numerous branches of the air tunnel and blocking every passage. As they had probably been ordered, they began walking slowly back. We kept our attention on the one who would intercept the fugitive.

  The alien stopped occasionally and stood listening. Once he paused longer than usual. Was his hearing that good, I wondered, or was he just being cautious? After a minute he moved forward again, until only a fairly long bend in the tunnel branch separated him from the oncoming sentinel.

  This time he did hear his interceptor. He ran quickly back, keeping a close observation on the wall to his left as he went. Soon he found the hiding place he sought. Probably he had noted it in passing before, and had kept it in mind for an emergency of this kind.

  Where he stopped a connection in the sheet metal lining the tunnel had come loose and a dark space gaped open. He crawled inside.

  The man was stupid, I thought, if he expected the sentinel to pass without noticing the hiding place.

  The sentinel was not stupid. But then, we soon found out, neither was the alien.

  When the sentinel came to the opening he paused and jabbed tentatively into the dark cavity with the long sword that he carried in his hand. An instant later he stumbled forward, his knees gave beneath him, and he sagged to the floor.

  After a moment the alien emerged. A portion of his cloak was wrapped around one hand, his sword in the other. We understood then what had happened. He had grasped the sentinel’s sword in his padded hand and jerked him forward, at the same time thrusting out with his own weapon. The sentinel had been wounded critically.

  However, the alien himself had not escaped unscathed. As he unbuttoned his jacket we could see a large spot of blood on the lighter surface of his blouse. He took a white cloth from a rear pocket of his trousers and pressed it between his jacket and the wound. When he went on this time he was very weary, obviously dredging up the last dregs of his strength.

  In the short pause from action of the screen I looked around me. I was the only one in the room still sitting. The others had been unable to keep their seats during the excitement of watching the flight of the fighting alien. Some stood tensely or leaned against the walls, others paced restlessly, and one knelt on his hassock.

  I returned my attention to the outside half of the screen. The captain of the sentinels was letting gas into the tunnel!

  I felt a pang of regret. This was the beginning of the end. I wondered then if the alien did not have some inkling by this time that there was more to this than a mere seeking of revenge by Ctvar’s kinsmen.

  He went on only a few strides farther before he detected the gas. Even then his ingenuity did not desert him. As he stood with his nostrils spread a noise above him caused him to look up. He spied a metal covered opening into the tunnel directly over his head. A dozen sentinels, I saw with a side glance, were grouped around it.

  After only a brief hesitation the alien returned to the Zade he had wounded a few minutes before. The man had ceased to move. Evidently he was dead.

  The alien tossed the dead sentinel across his shoulders and carried him to the spot beneath the metal cover. Here he reached up and tapped sharply. The cover moved back cautiously, and the alien rammed the corpse upward, head foremost.

  The body struck the cover and knocked it aside. The alien shoved it a bit higher, and it quivered as the swords above pierced it.

  He dropped the dead carcass and sprinted forward. He had bought all the time he could, and there was nothing for him to do now except try to reach the end of the tunnel before the gas overcame him. His head was held high as he ran—he had deduced that they had to use a heavier-than-air gas. He did not have far to go.

  He reached the end of the tunnel and stumbled onto a conduit leading from the main air compressor.

  For a short time he lay sprawled across the metal duct, too exhausted to move. Finally he raised his head and looked wearily about him. He spied a vent opening on a level with his head, and with a determined effort he removed the screen and climbed through. Utter fatigue showed in line of his body.

  Outside he stood for several minutes, drawing clean air deep into his lungs. There were no sentries here. They had not expected him to get this far. But they would come, soon after they failed to flush him from the tunnel
.

  The alien looked about, then headed unerringly toward the sand banked against the wall of the pumping station. He dug until he had made a long hollow then let his weary body fall into the shallow place and began piling sand over his legs. When he had covered all of himself except one arm, he burrowed it down until he was completely hidden from sight.

  “How can such a man be stopped?” Srtes asked. His face was drawn and gray, as though he had suffered some great defeat.

  * * * *

  The alien must have dropped off to sleep for he stayed in the sand for several hours, and did not emerge until shortly before daylight. Evidently he had first made an opening through which to observe, for there were no guards about when he stood up and shook the sand from his body.

  He must also have studied all his surroundings. He had reached the city’s end. The wall ahead of him was without a gate. He had been sent on a foredoomed errand. Though I had been acting under orders, I felt a kind of shame at the part I had played in the deception.

  Even then, however, he was not defeated. He struck out without delay to his right, where there were few sentries, using his rooftop technique when needed, and reached a side gate within an hour. He dispatched the final sentry by dropping on him from a convenient balcony—he was probably too exhausted to risk a fight—and let himself out through the gate.

  He walked with jaded steps back the way he had come, skirting the outside wall closely. At last he reached the meadow for which he had started seven hours earlier.

  He must have guessed before this that the story of the waiting space ship was a hoax. But, giving the last of his strength, and hoping against hope, he had fought his way there. When the first rays of the morning sun showed him that the meadow was bare and empty his raw courage deserted him. He fell face forward on the red sand.

  “I suggest we conclude our project with a final vote before we leave,” Srtes said, a few minutes after we watched the alien come to the end of his resources. “I am certain no one of you can have any doubts as to what our decision must be.” His passive face betrayed no emotion.