by Hal Annas
And she remembered that the rites of the Denovians had, in their eyes at least, made her his. And there had been no mistake about that look in his eyes, about that smile on his face.
If she could just get to know him, she thought; if she was just given time, perhaps she could forget Chris Darby.
The trembling came again—that sense of helplessness.
“Clear for launching,” Acra-non said. “Five of you men will have to fill in as crew. Man the batteries.”
No,” Aline said, “Wait another five minutes.”
Five minutes ticked away. Acra-non said, “We have to move. It’s Lon-den’s orders.”
She felt that if the cruiser moved she would involuntarily scream. Something seemed to vibrate inside her. She rushed to the airlock, pressed the studs, and soon was out in the brittle cold. Her hands went numb before she’d gone twenty steps and her cheeks stung as if they were on fire.
She found the tunnel-like passage, stumbled along it. Just outside the panel her foot struck Lon-den’s body. It was covered with welts and bruises and blood oozed out of a gash on his head.
It seemed frozen stiff.
With hands that had no feeling, she struggled to lift him. He was as heavy as a Novakkan. Her healthy young strength was excessive for a girl, but she could no more lift him than she could’ve lifted three hundred sixty-eight pounds, earth gravity, of Rahn Buskner.
Acra-non and another appeared behind her. Between them they shouldered him and carried him to the cruiser.
Aline thought that she wouldn’t be able to make it herself. Her body, frozen through and through, lost all sense of feeling. Her legs became stiff, refused to respond. But she drove herself on and collapsed just inside the airlock.
With the men present, the women were calmer. They worked over her and Lon-den, packing them both in ice and letting them regain warmth gradually.
She felt the cruiser lurch, lift, and at some point heard its batteries in action, but wasn’t aware of when they crossed the mountain nor how they managed it with the sky full of warships.
There were incessant flashes outside the ports, and the cruiser rocked and seemed blown miles by near bursts, and the air was literally filled with glowing balls of photonic energy going out.
Hours passed after the cruiser settled on firm ground before she was allowed to move about. The women seemed to feel that she and Lon-den belonged in the same compartment, and at some point he reached toward her and took her hand.
“I returned to my era,” he said. “Some there feel that mankind is unworthy. I tried to make them understand that so long as such as you exist the race itself has more good than bad. I was delayed in returning and as I came through a nearby burst shook down stone and marble. I made it to the passage but could go no farther. I owe my life to you”.
“And I owe mine to you,” she said.
The battle still raged outside. The airlock was open and a constant roaring, as of wind, reached them.
Acra-non entered, said, “The Novakkans checked our markings as we crossed the mountain and put up a barrage the like of which has rarely been seen. Their ships have withdrawn into space, but the ground defense hopes to hold out until relief comes. They are driving the Egs and Golgons on the planet as slaves, and expect to contest every foot of ground.”
“Any other news?” Aline asked to stop her sudden trembling.
“Rahn Buskner,” Acra-non went on, “has broken through to Earth. He tore their fleet apart off Pluto, avoided the forts on the moons of Jupiter, and Mars, smashed through the ring of space stations, and circled the planet just beneath them where they couldn’t fire on his armada without firing on their own installations below.”
Aline’s trembling increased. “Any word of my mother, Aleta?”
“News of what’s going on there is not clear,” Acra-non explained. “But reports from Delos, still in communication with Earth, were picked up by the Novakkans here. It cheered them up in the face of defeat. They claim Rahn Buskner has rescued Aleta, laid waste the city where she was imprisoned, had the building itself taken apart piece by piece and reduced to dust and that he’s scorching the area for a hundred miles in every direction with radioactive poison, so that nothing may live there for a thousand years, as a reminder of Novakkan vengeance.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS she stepped out of the cruiser, Aline felt a tremor in the ground. Hot gusts of wind struck her. There was rosy twilight on every side and she could see that the cruiser was under an overhanging ledge at the foot of the mountain. The city stretched away below to the plain in the distance, where the tortured remains of innumerable ships lay twisted and blackened.
Near at hand great flashes occurred at regular intervals and huge masses of concentrated photonic energy leaped heavenward. Farther away the flashes seemed smaller, and in the semi-darkness she could follow the course of the energy with her eyes. It was endless, as if it were raining glowing drops upward, as far as her eyes could see.
Overhead the radiant courses of the ships stretched like threads of a spiderweb. They flashed, glowed as pinpoints of light, as their batteries emptied their energy.
The city was a mass of smoking rubble. Hardly one stone lay on top another.
And in all that expanse no human movement was visible. The flashes near at hand seemed to come from the very ground itself. In the distance it was just an endless sparkling, as the sun on disturbed water.
But there were human movements. She detected them later. At the moment she was attracted by agonized sounds above the gusty roaring of the wind. She had wondered where the uninjured women were. Now she discovered them in the shadow of the mountain, on a flat surface below.
They looked half dead from exhaustion. As she approached, with Lon-den at her side, she thought she had never seen a more haggard group of humans. And in the next moment it seemed that all the breath was drawn out of her body by the sight that met her eyes.
Wounded. Covered with something the exact color of the terrain. Wounded and dead. Wounded and dying. They numbered tens of thousands, Novakkans, Egs, Golgons and Earthmen. As her eyes took in the sight, vast acres of humans, lying inert side by side at the foot of the mountain, as far as her sight could reach, she thought she was going to faint.
Instead, she hurried forward. And throughout the nine long hours of twilight she completely forgot herself and her own plight.
Eg doctors, Golgons, men of strange races from remote corners of the galaxy, Earthmen among them, men who spoke precisely as the Earthmen, men who rumbled as Novakkans, harsh voices, soft voices, feminine voices and men she couldn’t understand at all, worked in feverish desperation. They paid no attention to who she was, the gun and blade she wore, gave not a thought to her fine garments, merely told her what to do, when they could make her understand, or showed her by illustration.
And they gave her no rest, not even when she felt that she would drop.
When yellow daylight came she knew she looked as haggard as the other women.
But still they didn’t let her stop. They stripped her cruiser of every inch of bandage, tore fine garments into strips, took every cubic centimeter of medicants, every gram of powder, and they drove her and the other women until they did drop, until they lay resting beside the wounded.
Food and water were major problems. She went twelve hours without a drink, and when she was finally given a drink by one of the other women it was taken away from her to ease the thirst of the dying.
Lon-den and Acra-non had vanished. Two of the crewmen stood guard over the cruiser, futilely, because they could not keep those desperate men from taking what they wanted, but successfully because they could keep the wounded from crawling in there to die.
Others of the men worked as she worked, were driven as she was driven, and they made no complaint.
Lon-den and Acra-non returned at mid-day. They brought food and a container of water, and the doctors who tried to confiscate it found themselves facing blades and men who
meant to add other scores to the rows of dead or dying, if the issue was forced.
They rationed the food and water to those from the cruiser and gave what was left to the wounded.
Aline satisfied her thirst but found that she could hardly eat. The stench of burns, the sight of gaping wounds, the odor of the dead, had sickened her.
The flashing and shaking and roaring went on and on. More wounded were brought until there wasn’t a square foot of space in which to place them.
Armed Novakkans, wearing dull fabrics that wouldn’t reflect light to the ships overhead, came and studied the scene. They were not interested in the injured; their ruby eyes searched for able-bodied.
They singled out six women from the cruiser and four men, told them they were needed elsewhere. Acra-non and Lon-den stepped forward.
In trembling fear, Aline watched the Denovian and the godlike man from the future, watched until she knew that in another moment the killing would begin.
With a cry, she rushed forward, confronted the Novakkans.
“I,” she said, holding her chin high, “am Rahn Buskner’s daughter. Leave these people alone.”
They pushed her aside, went to the cruiser, searched it, satisfied themselves. They departed without the men and women, but took every yard of cloth they could find.
Acra-non closed the airlock and stood guard himself. When a doctor came and said, “You have a hydroponic well inside and a machine that draws water from the atmosphere, and we must have them both,” he brought out his photon gun.
Aline talked with Lon-den, then told Acra-non, “We’ll have to let them in and out. They’ve been using the food and water. If we stop them they may call the armed men. Besides, it’s only humane.”
Just before rosy twilight, ships came low across the mountain, decelerated suddenly and landed on the plain, instantly to disgorge troops.
It happened so fast the ground batteries couldn’t swing into position to sweep the area before the ships themselves blazed into action. How many positions they knocked out in those few minutes, as twilight darkened the scene, couldn’t be estimated, but troops, tiny figures, looking like ants at that distance, fanned out from the ships, taking cover behind twisted wreckage, and fought their way toward the smoking ruins that had been the city.
Throughout the nine hours of semidarkness ships continued coming down and at daybreak Aline saw hand-to-hand fighting half a mile below.
She had never dreamed that Earthmen, men the size of Chris Darby, could stand up to Novakkans, but as the wounded were dragged up to the flat, to replace the dead stacked in piles and burned, she saw that they were armed with fantastic weapons.
They wore metal, clawlike gloves and built into each glove were a spring knife, a raygun and something that discharged a colorless vapor. Over their bodies, she saw, where their clothes had been burned off, thin armor, the joints of which were powered mechanically and responded to the flexing of their muscles. It amounted to mechanical muscles and made them stronger than Novakkans.
But the Novakkans bitterly contested every step of the way, with rayguns, with long knives, as she could see by the horrible gashes in the Earthmen, even through their armor, by leading them into pitfalls, by every trick and strategem of the Novakkan fighting man, and they left rows of dead as they retreated.
By noon the city was in the hands of Earthmen, what was left of it, and Earth doctors worked side by side with those already on the scene.
The battle went on in the distance, moving out from here, and she heard men say that it was even more horrible to the north and west.
Earthmen came, began disarming them and searching the cruiser. The one who took Acra-non’s raygun was later reported to have committed suicide. Those who attempted to disable the batteries inside the cruiser came out staggering, half-blind, and dropped dead a few yards away.
The others went away, reported, and an Earth warship lifted from the plain, settled again on the outskirts of the city, and sighted its batteries on the cruiser. All armed persons were ordered to come dawn or die there. The order was shouted from among the rows of wounded. The doctors went on working. The women went on helping.
The warship remained there, with its batteries trained on the cruiser, but didn’t fire. Too many innocent were in the way. The explosion would bring down the ledge and crush hundreds possibly thousands.
Armed Earthmen moved about cautiously, keeping their eyes on the cruiser, but issued no further orders.
To avoid provoking them, Aline and Acra-non touched the sensitive spots on their blades and left them inside the cruiser. She was about to lay aside her raygun, but he wouldn’t permit it. He hid his own inside his clothes, and handed her a thin belt. “Fasten the gun to it and wear it under your skirt.”
It was noticeable as a bulge, but not conspicuous. No Earthmen questioned her about it, but they did take her name and the names of those with her.
She hoped they wouldn’t realize that Miss Aline du David was Rahn Buskner’s daughter. Then she remembered the rites in the hall, wondered a moment about her name and grasped that she hadn’t seen Lon-den in hours.
She asked Acra-non.
“Don’t worry about him,” Acra-non said. “I think he’s fed up with both Earthmen and Novakkans. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t cooking up something from the future for both of them.”
The thought sent chills through her. It brought memory of what he’d told her about others of his era thinking mankind unworthy.
She didn’t have time to worry about it. Too many men were begging with their last breath for anything that would ease their dying. The Earthmen were particularly responsive to attention, and even those with limbs gone, bones broken, their insides spilling out, smiled when she kneeled beside them. They took her for an Earthgirl, and in the delirium of their last moments talked of home.
One said, “It’s like no other planet. As you come in on the Mars track, with Sol sparkling on its oceans, with its turquoise, bright green and brown colors, its gleaming polar caps, its mountains towering like anthills, its layers of frosty clouds, its rings of space stations, its swarming cities visible as vast beehive lakes, and with Lunar out there, naked and beautiful and smiling, reminding you of sultry nights and a girl in your arms, a girl like you, you suddenly realize you’re home, and that no other planet in the universe will ever be half so grand.”
It reminded her of Chris Darby. He had felt that way about Earth, as she had since felt about Unor, but he loved Delos, too, and told her that he might settle there.
The thought stirred a surging in her breast, and tears fell on the youth as he died.
She wondered why, out of all the suffering and dying she had seen, she would shed tears over one young man who thought longingly of her mother’s native planet in his last moments.
She received a summons. It was delivered politely and worded as a request: “Would she join the commander and officers of the SYZ forces, and the commander and officers of the Earth supporting forces, for dinner aboard a war ship? They wished to express their gratitude for her neutral services rendered to the wounded of both sides. She was at liberty to be accompanied by a modest retinue provided they were unarmed.”
She talked with Acra-non, told him she couldn’t go alone.
“They promise safe conduct both ways,” he admitted, “but I don’t like the idea of shedding my gun. And they have ways of detecting it.”
She talked with others, both men and women, and finally Lon-den appeared and settled the matter.
“We all go,” he said. “And keep your gun. If it’s the metal they detect I think my own composition will confuse them. It will register on any meter calculated to detect metal.” He turned to Aline. “Yours, I think will move the needle a trifle. You’re not wholly of this era.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS she entered the vast wardroom, which had been cleared and laid for a feast, she saw how it differed from the Spartan bareness of a raider. The table was spread with g
leaming linen. The cutlery was finely engraved and seemed endless in its number of pieces. The chairs were of foam and molded to the shape. Soft light came from some hidden source.
In a smaller connecting room officers stood drinking and talking. At sight of her, and the other women in the group, they hurried out, bringing drinks. She had never witnessed so much courtesy, so much polite and eager attention to her sex.
Then she saw him. He looked older and there were tight lines in his features. Instead of the torn and smoke-blackened uniform he had worn on Unor, he was resplendent in braid, in the uniform of commander.
The trembling came in her legs, in her body. She was thankful that Lon-den was on one side of her, Acra-non the other. She clutched at their arms to steady herself.
He advanced, stood before her. It was a moment before he could murmur the conventional words of greeting, another moment before she could respond.
He offered his arm, and as others moved about the table, led her into the connecting room.
“I wanted to get word to you,” he said, that I had nothing to do with taking your mother from Unor. I didn’t learn of it until we were well out into space. I didn’t even know the commander planned to take a ship. You believe me?”
She could hardly speak. She finally said, “I’ve heard that mother has been rescued. Is it true?”
He nodded. “But you won’t hear it spoken of here as a rescue. Commander Dynell, whose Earth units supported our forces in the action here, has some bitter terms for it. I learned from older officers that he’s carrying an old grudge. He was in command of the forces convoying the reparation settlements at the conclusion of the war between Earth and SYZ. He bore the brunt of the blame for losing the settlements to raiders. He has never forgotten the bitterness of the investigations at the time. He wants to reopen the whole thing and make somebody else the scapegoat.”
“But I know mother did nothing dishonorable.”
He nodded. “I’ve checked into that myself. The fleet already had orders before her message came from this planet. Intelligence was misled. It had information from numerous sources that large numbers of ships were grouped behind the dead star.
