Web of Sand dot-20

by E. C. Tubb

  "The reason for my visit?" He gestured with one delicate hand. "Harge has always interested me and when the opportunity arose I was eager to learn certain facts at first hand. Your culture is most intriguing. A rigid capitalistic hierarchy with a few owning all."

  "The first came, built, why shouldn't they reap what they have sown?" Old Keith Ambalo was quick to defend the order of things. "The Cinque have a right to rule."

  "But for how long?" Jen Tinyah, old, twisted, his eyes like splintered glass peering from a tangle of hair, fired the question as if from a gun. "Cyber, can you tell us that?"

  Tosya could but such information was not freely given. He said, "If you are interested in obtaining the services of the Cyclan I am sure the matter can be arranged."

  "For money, of course." Romi Barrocca made no effort to hide his sneer. "Always it is for money."

  "As it should be!" The slam of Mangit Yagnik's hand on the table echoed from the groined roof and sent glasses shivering. "You sneer, Romi, but how are you different? What do you give away? The price your family demands for water is monstrous!"

  "As is yours for power!"

  "Gentlemen!" Yunus Ambalo rose, hands lifted for attention. "This altercation is unseemly and an insult to our guest Cyber Tosya, I appreciate your position and am aware of your difficulty, but, as a favor to us of the Cinque, could you not, in general terms, naturally, give us your opinion as to our culture?"

  Smooth, thought Ellain as he sat. As subtle as a serpent and as ready to strike. And yet she knew that in the cyber he had met his match. Tosya could not be flattered, bribed or intimidated. What he did he would do for the Cyclan and for no other reason.

  "The culture here is brittle," said Toysa. "An uneasy balance which contains the seeds of its own destruction. This is true of all static societies, of course, but here on Harge you have an artificial environment which will accelerate the decay. Unless steps are taken it will occur in about thirty years." He added, "To be more precise I would need more accurate data than I have available."

  Facts from which his trained mind could extrapolate the logical sequence of events. The attribute of every cyber; all could make predictions as to what must occur from any event or course of action.

  As a storm of protest rose from those of the Cinque gathered at the table Toysa said, "The obvious is often difficult to recognize, but the problem here is one of simple mathematical extrapolation. You have a ratio of rulers to workers which is veering to a dangerous level. To live in comfortable idleness those not of the Cinque must acquire the debts of those less fortunate and so live off the interest. This system of debt-dependency, however, is virtual suicide for any enclosed community."

  Yunus, lifting a hand for silence, said, "Would you care to explain? Credit, surely, is beneficial to trade."

  "Normal credit, yes, but your interest rate is far too high. Unless the interest is paid each month the total mounts until the figures become meaningless. True wealth is based on actual production-interest rates create an unreal situation and, when too high, must result in inflation and depreciation of the currency. The danger of high rates is that the debtor loses all hope and becomes resigned to the situation of his inability to pay. The owner of the debt tries to sell it but cannot because there is no hope of regaining the money. Once a man is in debt he cannot borrow and so trade stagnates and workers become listless."

  "We have ways of curing that," said Keith Ambalo. "Methods of encouraging them to meet their obligations."

  Forced labor and ceremonial eviction if all else failed. Ellain shuddered at the thought of it, again, in imagination, feeling the sand-blast of the storm rip at her skin, her flesh. Remembering the sullen creatures she had once seen on a trip down in the Burrows; workers toiling in the stench and filth, crushed down to a level below that of slaves.

  "I am aware of your methods," said Toysa. "But they are inefficient. Already you must be conscious of the soaring cost of basic essentials. Even with free labor, food, water and certain standards must be met and when the output per head falls expenses must rise." Something the argument at the table had affirmed as Jen Tinyah's comment had revealed the innate fear of the Cinque. A fear Toysa deliberately exacerbated. "Men are not animals. They can think and reason and it takes little for them to realize how simple it would be to end the system which penalizes them. Listlessness turns into resentment, leaders rise and, once that point is reached, rebellion is inevitable. As I said it will happen here in something like thirty years unless steps are taken to prevent it."

  They wanted more but he refused to give it. The seed had been sown and the rest would follow. Anxious, afraid, they would be willing to pay the Cyclan for the services of a cyber. He would solve the immediate problems, demonstrate his value by the correctness of his predictions and make himself indispensable to the rulers of Harge. Desperate to retain power, they would become mere extensions of his will-and yet another world would have fallen beneath the domination of the Cyclan.

  Cold came with the night, the sudden, harsh chill of the desert, rime glistening on the cavern mouth as the sun plunged below the horizon. A change at first welcome then one resented as trapped body heat dissipated and the cold drained energy.

  "We need shelter," said Zarl Hine. "We need to go deep."

  His voice was flat, devoid of accusation, but Dumarest knew what he must be thinking. The original cave had been nothing but a hollow in a wall of rock. Lower they had found others, one which led downward only to narrow into an impassable shaft. Later still they had neared the foot of the range and found a cavern which led back and down the roof crusted with pendulous spines, the floor a litter of fallen rubble. Night had caught them in mid-exploration.

  "This could lead down," said Kemmer. "There's a continuation in the rear which slopes to a lower level. I shone a light down it and could see no end. A pebble-"

  "You threw down a stone!" The guide was savage. "You damned, stupid fool! Didn't I warn you about making noise?"

  "Up here? I thought-"

  "Here, down deep, anywhere!" Hine snarled his anger. "For God's sake, man, realize where you are! What you could bring down on us!"

  Dumarest said, "Calm down, Zarl. No harm has been done. What happened when you dropped the stone, Maurice?"

  "Nothing. It just fell. I didn't hear it land."

  A long fall, then, one which could lead to the subterranean caverns Jwani had told him to find. Dumarest followed the trader back into the cave, the beam of his helmet light shining, flashing as it hit reflective motes in the rock. Kneeling, he leaned over the lip of the slope. It ran like a slide for a hundred yards then dropped into blackness. The far side loomed ghostly in the lights, too distant to show clear detail.

  "A vent of some kind," said the mercenary from where he stood at the rear. "Maybe it goes all the way up to the summit."

  "We need to go down, not up." The guide's voice echoed from his diaphragm. He had mastered his recent anger. "Ropes, Earl?"

  Ropes and pitons and lamps flashing as they crawled down the slope to rest on the edge. Dumarest lowered a lamp and saw a ledge far down. The bottom, despite the lamp, was shrouded in darkness.

  "A long way down." Kemmer was dubious. "How are we to make it?"

  "Simple." Dumarest hauled up the lamp. "We'll aim for that ledge and drop down by rope. "You first, Zarl, then I'll lower the packs and the others will follow. I'll come last." He was working as he spoke, splicing the thin, strong rope into a double line. "Lets go!"

  Zarl dropped like a wingless bat, lights gleaming, coming to rest as he dropped to the ledge, waving as he released the rope. The packs followed, then Santis. Kemmer hesitated.

  "How do we get back, Earl?"

  "Climb if we have to. The rock's soft enough to take steps but I'm hoping we'll find another way out. Come on now, move!"

  The rope followed him down as Dumarest twitched it from the holding pitons. Another long drop and they stood at the bottom of the shaft. Grit covered it and dust rose to hang
suspended in the air, shimmering in the lights as they moved down toward a peaked opening.

  They were still within the mountain range and the guide relaxed as the peaked opening narrowed until they had to push the packs ahead of them and turn sideways in order to pass through. A space which would prevent the passage of any large sannak. He grew tense again as it widened into a vaulted chamber clogged with sand.

  "Any openings?" Dumarest swung the beam of his light around. "All of you check for openings."

  Zarl found them. The guide, knowing what to look for, waved his lamp in a signal. The mouth of the tunnel at which he stood was fretted, sand fallen inside to destroy the neat circle.

  "Old," he said as the others joined him. "The others are more recent but none are fresh." They lay to one side, overlapping, gaping mouths filled with dancing shadows, becoming invisible as the lights moved away. "There could be others on the far side."

  Dumarest examined the walls of the cavern as he went to check. The stone was rasped smooth and bore a faint polish. He moved closer, focusing his lamp, looking up to follow the trace of a shimmering blue mineral. It faded a few feet above where he stood. Other traces, all faint, blocked the extent of the chamber.

  "Malabar," said Hine. "Too scarce to attract. They've eaten this place out."

  A disappointment but proof of Jwani's theory. Dumarest swung his light to the floor and began to search the fine detritus.

  "No." The guide was emphatic. "They don't void where they eat. There'll be no tranneks here."

  "Where, then?"

  "Out in the runs. Maybe in a lair, certainly in a hatchery, but to find one of those is rare and to live to talk about it rarer still." Hine examined the wall. "Malabar but no chinteny. No elmish, either. This place was eaten out long ago. Those tunnels came from questers-young sannaks on the browse. They like to stay away from the big ones."

  Santis said, "A bust. What now, Earl?"

  "We camp."

  "Here?" Kemmer's face through his helmet was startled. "What if we get visited? Other sannaks could want to have a look around."

  "We need to rest," said Dumarest. "And here is as good a place as any. You pair with Zarl, Maurice, and I'll take first watch with Carl. Let's get the tent up."

  It was small, inflatable, designed to muffle vibration and retain heat and moisture. Inside it they could strip off the suits, cool down, apply salve to chafed and itching flesh, void wastes, eat and sleep in relative comfort-relative only when compared to remaining cooped up in the confines of the suits. With the tent they had carried cans of water, packs of food, lamps, electronic apparatus and weapons.

  Dumarest checked his as Santis busied himself with a sonarscope, crouching, leads plugged into his helmet, ears alert for the telltale vibration which would herald the approach of a sannak. The weapon was a large-calibre rocket projector firing a shell an inch in diameter at a velocity which would penetrate a sannak's hide. The missile was soundless aside from a spiteful hum, the explosion of the warhead, muffled by surrounding tissue would, hopefully, be insufficient to bring down the walls of a tunnel. The magazine held five rounds and Dumarest checked them all.

  From where he sat Santis said, "You've been in combat, Earl. A mercenary?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought so. You can always tell a professional by the way he handles arms. Never to take anything on trust, to check and recheck, to examine each load and to test the action. I've known raw recruits go into firing position with stuck safeties and damaged blocks. They last about as long as those who try to fire unloaded guns. Well, those who survive don't make that mistake." He adjusted a dial on the sonarscope. "Something-no, it must be the blood in my ears."

  "Take a rest." Dumarest knelt beside him. "Check your piece while I take over."

  "Check it and hope to God we never have to use it." Santis chuckled. "The prayer of every soldier working for pay."

  "A long, quiet war," said Dumarest. "No fighting and regular pay."

  "Good food and restful nights." Santis smiled, remembering traditional toasts, hopes rarely fulfilled. "It can be a good life if you've a decent commander. Let me take over now."

  He settled as Dumarest rose, stretching, picking up his rocket-rifle before moving softly toward the tent. Only a soft susuration reached his ears as he rested his helmet against the rigidly inflated dome; Kemmer snoring or the guide muttering in a dream of vast riches. Lower down in the cavern he paused to study the drift of sand which half filled the cavern, tunnels gaping like fretted lace where the wall swept in a dully polished curve. The beam of his lantern turned blue as Dumarest triggered the ultraviolet and swept it over the grit before him. Tranneks fluoresced in such light but he saw no answering glow. As Hine had said the area was barren.

  The tunnels?

  Dumarest approached them, halted as he reached the rim of the nearest. The roof curved a clear two feet above his helmet, it and the sides formed of compacted sand forced into a transient solidity by the pressure of the body of the creature which had made it. A large one; the sannak must have been over thirty feet long with a body swelling almost half as high again as a man.

  Stepping forward Dumarest touched the side of the tunnel with a gloved hand. The floor, beneath his lantern, was clean of tranneks but there could be some farther down. He shone the beam of his helmet light down the tube, seeing its gentle curve which masked the lower reaches. It was tempting to walk toward it, to search for the precious stones but he resisted the impulse.

  Turning, he again studied the wall, shining his beam higher to where a dark opening gaped, one a little smaller than the tunnel behind him but just as neatly formed. Above showed another, more, small in the dim glow, high, obviously old. The marks of sanneks who had come to feed in years long past, clearing the cavern of its mineral attraction, moving on to fresh deposits.

  Thoughtfully Dumarest again looked at the tunnels. The curve he had noticed was to his left, away from the cavern. He took two steps into it then halted, feeling a sudden tension, the old, familiar warning of impending danger. As he backed, the roof ahead, without warning, silently collapsed.

  It was almost in slow-motion, sand falling, pluming, filling the air with dust, a mound growing with incredible rapidity to block the tunnel, to surge toward him with a low, rasping whisper as if a thousand sheets of sandpaper were being rubbed together, a thousand files at work on steel.

  A sound followed by another, a deep tremulation felt rather than heard. A murmur of rushing water blending with the churn of great stones rubbing one against the other. A grind of blunted drills against adamantine stone. The regular throb and pulse of a rotating mechanism which rose from the floor to penetrate boots and tent and skin and air in an awful announcement of the destruction at hand.

  Chapter Nine

  "It's gone!" Hine straightened from the sonarscope. Beneath the transparency of his helmet his face was strained, dewed with perspiration. "By God, it was close! What happened?" He scowled as Dumarest explained. "You went into the tunnel?"

  "Two or three steps only, and I made no noise. The tunnel just fell in ahead of me as I watched. The sannak?"

  "Probably. It often happens when one comes too close. In any case the fall must have covered any noise you made getting clear." Hine listened, adjusted a dial, then released his breath in a sigh. "It's quiet enough now, thank God. You and Carl had better get some sleep."

  "Later." Dumarest pointed to the tunnels he had seen in the far wall. "After we get up there."

  "You want to climb?"

  "Those tunnels must be old but in rock they'll be firm. We'd be more secure in one of them-this cavern must act as a sounding board. I've checked the wall and we can make it with luck."

  "Cut steps?"

  "No. We'll rig a grapnel and throw it into the lowest tunnel. We climb and repeat." Dumarest gave them no time to object. "Carl, you stand guard. Maurice, Zarl, pack the gear. What have we to use as a grapnel?"

  He fashioned it from thin metal rods bent to form a
bent cruciform with rope lashed to the central joint. Standing back from the wall he swung it at the dark mouth illuminated by Kemmer's lantern, heard the guide curse as it missed and fell with a rasp to the sand.

  "The noise! Careful, Earl!"

  Again Dumarest whirled the grapnel to send it flying high and this time accurately. Gently he tugged at the rope, felt it catch then suddenly yield. Ignoring Hine he tried again, this time with success. Keeping the rope taut he climbed, boots hard against the wall, walking as he took the strain with arms and back.

  The tunnel, like the wall, held a dull polish, the floor clean of tranneks. Dust rested thick on the curved bottom but the wall remained intact beneath the rasp of his gloved hand. In the blue glow of his lantern he saw it sweep in an upward curve, the wall broken in one place where another tunnel sliced across it. Returning to the mouth he signaled to the others to ascend, stacking the packs and gear well back from the entrance.

  As Sartis drew up the rope Dumarest explained, "We don't need to climb higher. This tunnel will take us. We need to find a junction which is both firm and even. A spot giving us clear views and alternative escape routes. If this rock is as riddled as I think it must be we won't have much trouble finding such a place."

  "You intend to camp at a junction?" Hine echoed his doubts. "Man, you're asking for trouble. Each noise will be magnified as if we stood in the pipe of an organ."

  "But dispersed," said Dumarest. "That's why we need a junction. And if anything comes we've a chance to fight and run." He added, "Trust me, Zarl. It will work."

  As Jwani had hinted and Dumarest's own experience certified. Hunters such as Hine worked to a rigid pattern and were too close to the wood to see the trees. They found a mouth and searched single tunnels risking falls at every moment. Risking too being scented by a sannak and being crushed, eaten, buried alive. Fear had blinded them to what Dumarest had recognized.

  "When moving, a sannak makes noise," he explained. "It can't avoid it. So the safest time for us to move is when one is passing close. In the rock we are in less danger than in the sand and can get better soundings from the more solid material. We'll camp, search for a feeding-node and when we find one we'll move in."