“Curious, aren’t you? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.” Kynon lapsed abruptly into perfectly good colloquial English. “I was on Terra, learning about things like the Purcell electronic discharge.” Reaching over, he poured wine for Stark and held it out to him. “Now you know. Now we all know. So let’s wash the dust out of our throats and get down to business.”
Stark said, “No.”
Kynon looked at him. “What now?”
“You’re lying to your people,” Stark said flatly. “You’re making false promises, to lead them into war.”
Kynon was genuinely puzzled by Stalk’s anger. “But of course!” he said. “Is there anything new or strange in that?”
Luhar spoke up, his voice acid with hate. “Watch out for him, Kynon. He’ll sell you out, he’ll cut your throat, if he thinks it best for the barbarians.”
Delgaun said, “Stark’s reputation is known all over the system. There’s no need to tell us that again.”
“No.” Kynon shook his head, looking very candidly at Stark. “We sent for you, didn’t we, knowing that? All right.”
He stepped back a little, so that the others were included in what he was going to say.
“My people have a just cause for war. They go hungry and thirsty, while the City-States along the Dryland border hog all the water sources and grow fat. Do you know what it means to watch your children die crying for water on a long march, to come at last to the oasis and find the well sanded in by a storm, to go on again, trying to save your people and your herd? Well, I do! I was born and bred in the Drylands, and many a time I’ve cursed the border states with a tongue like a dry stick.
“Stark, you should know the workings of the barbarian mind as well as I do. The men of Kesh and Shun are traditional enemies. Raiding and thieving, open warfare over water and grass. I had to give them a rallying point—a faith strong enough to unite them. Resurrecting the old Rama legend was the only hope I had. And it has worked. The tribes are one people now. They can go on and take what belongs to them—the right to live. I’m not really so far out in my promises, at that. Now do you understand?”
Stark studied him, with his cold cat-eyes. “Where do the men of Valkis come in—the men of Jekkara and Barrakesh? Where do we come in, the hired bravoes?”
Kynon smiled. It was a perfectly sincere smile, and it had no humor in it, only a great pride and a cheerful cruelty.
“We’re going to create an empire,” he said softly. “The City-States are disorganized, too starved or too fat to fight. And Earth is taking us over. Before long, Mars would be hardly more than another Luna. We’re going to fight that Drylander and Low-Canaller together, we’re going to build a power out of dust and blood—and there will be loot in plenty to go round.”
“That’s where my men come in,” said Delgaun, and laughed. “We-Low-Canallers live by rapine.”
“And you,” said Kynon, “the ‘hired bravoes,’ are in it to help. I need you and the Venusian, Stark, to train my men, to plan campaigns, to give me all you know of guerrilla fighting. Knighton has a fast cruiser. He’ll bring us supplies from outside. Walsh is a genius, they tell me, at fashioning weapons. Themis is a mechanic, and also the cleverest thief this side of hell—saving your presence, Delgaun! Arrod organized and bossed the Brotherhood of the Little Worlds, which had the Patrol going mad for years. He can do the same for us. So there you have it. Now, Stark, what do you say?”
The Earthman answered slowly, “I’ll go along with you—as long as no harm comes to the tribes.”
Kynon laughed. “No need to worry about that.”
“Just one more question,” Stark said. “What’s going to happen when the people find out that this Rama stuff of yours is just a fake?”
“They won’t,” said Kynon. “The crowns will be destroyed in battle, and it will be very tragic, but very final. No one knows how to make more of them. Oh, I can handle the people! They’ll be happy enough, with good land and water.”
He looked around and then said plaintively, “And now can we sit down and drink like civilized men?”
They sat. The wine went round, and the vultures of Valkis drank to each other’s luck and loot, and Stark learned that the woman’s name was Berild. Kynon was happy. He had made his point with the people, and he was celebrating. But Stark noticed that though his tongue grew thick, it did not loosen.
Luhar grew steadily more morose and silent, glancing covertly across the table at Stark. Delgaun toyed with his goblet, and his yellow gaze which gave nothing away moved restlessly between Berild and Stark.
Berild drank not at all. She sat a little apart, with her face in shadow, and her red mouth smiled. Her thoughts, too, were her own secret. But Stark knew that she was still watching him, and he knew that Delgaun was aware of it.
Presently Kynon said, “Delgaun and I have some talking to do, so I’ll bid you gentlemen farewell for the present. You, Stark, and Luhar—I’m going back into the desert at midnight, and you’re going with me, so you’d better get some sleep.”
Stark nodded. He rose and went out, with the others. An attendant showed him to his quarters, in the north wing. Stark had not rested for twenty-four hours, and he was glad of the chance to sleep.
He lay down. The wine spun in his head, and Berild’s smile mocked him. Then his thoughts turned to Ashton, and his promise. Presently he slept, and dreamed.
He was a boy on Mercury again, running down a path that led from a cave mouth to the floor of a valley, one of the deep, interconnecting valleys of air. Above him the mountains rose into the sky and were lost beyond the shallow atmosphere. The rocks danced in the terrible heat, but the soles of his feet were like iron, and trod them lightly. He was quite naked.
The blaze of the sun between the valley walls was like the shining heart of Hell. It did not seem to the boy N’Chaka that it could ever be cold again, yet he knew that when darkness came there would be ice on the shallows of the little stream. The gods were constantly at war.
He passed a place, ruined by earthquake. It was a mine and N’Chaka remembered that when he had been very small he had lived there, with several white-skinned creatures shaped like himself. He went on without a second glance.
He was searching for Tika. When he was old enough, he would mate with her. He wanted to hunt with her now, for she was fleet and as keen as he at scenting out the great lizards. He heard her voice calling his name. There was terror in it, and N’Chaka began to run. He saw her, crouched between two huge boulders, her light fur stained with blood.
A vast black-winged shadow swooped down upon him. It glared at him with its yellow eyes, and its long beak tore at him. He thrust his spear at it, but talons hooked into his shoulder, and the golden eyes were close to him, bright and full of death.
He knew those eyes. Tika screamed, but the sound faded, everything faded but those eyes. He sprang up, grappling with the thing….
A man’s voice yelling, a man’s hands thrusting him away. The dream receded. Stark came back to reality, dropping the scared attendant who had come to waken him.
The man cringed away from him. “Delgaun sent me—he wants you, in the council room.” Then he turned and fled.
Stark shook himself. The dream had been terribly real. He went down to the council room. It was dusk now, and the torches were lighted.
Delgaun was waiting, and Berild sat beside him at the table. They were alone there. Delgaun looked up, with his golden eyes.
“I have a job for you Stark,” he said. “You remember the captain of Kynon’s men, in the square today?”
“I do.”
“His name is Freka, and he’s a good man, but he’s addicted to a certain vice. He’ll be up to his ears in it by now, and somebody has to get him back by the time Kynon leaves. Will you see to it?”
Stark glanced at Berild. It seemed to him that she was amused, whether at him
or at Delgaun he could not tell. He asked, “Where will I find him?”
“There’s only one place where he can get his particular poison—Kala’s, out on the edge of Valkis. It’s in the old city, beyond the lower quays.” Delgaun smiled. “You may have to be ready with your fists, Stark. Freka may not want to come.”
Stark hesitated. Then, “I’ll do my best,” he said, and went out into the dusky streets of Valkis.
He crossed a square, heading away from the palace. A misting lane swallowed him up. And quite suddenly, someone took his arm and said rapidly, “Smile at me, and then turn aside into the alley.”
The hand on his arm was small and brown, the voice very pretty with its accompaniment of little chiming bells. He smiled, as she had bade him, and turned aside into the alley, which was barely more than a crack between two rows of houses.
Swiftly, he put his hands against the wall, so that the girl was prisoned between them. A green-eyed girl, with golden bells braided in her black hair, and impudent breasts bare above a jeweled girdle. A handsome girl, with a proud look to her.
The serving girl who had stood beside the litter in the square, and had watched Kynon with such bleak hatred.
“Well,” said Stark. “And what do you want with me, little one?”
She answered, “My name is Fianna. And I do not intend to kill you, neither will I run away.”
Stark let his hands drop. “Did you follow me, Fianna?”
“I did. Delgaun’s palace is full of hidden ways, and I know them all. I was listening behind the panel in the council room. I heard you speak out against Kynon, and I heard Delgaun’s order, just now.”
“So?”
“So, if you meant what you said about tribes, you had better get away now, while you have the chance. Kynon lied to you. He will use you, and then kill you, as he will use and then destroy his own people.” Her voice was hot with bitter fury.
Stark gave her a slow smile that might have meant anything, or nothing.
“You’re a Valkisian, Fianna. What do you care what happens to the barbarians?”
Her slightly tilted green eyes looked scornfully into his. “I’m not trying to trap you, Earthman. I hate Kynon. And my mother was a woman of the desert.”
She paused, then went on somberly, “Also I serve the lady Berild and I have learned many things. There is trouble coming, greater trouble than Kynon knows.” She asked suddenly, “What do you know of the Ramas?”
“Nothing,” he answered, “except that they don’t exist now, if they ever did.”
Fianna gave him an odd look. “Perhaps they don’t. Will you listen to me, Earthman from Mercury? Will you get away, now that you know you’re marked for death?”
Stark said, “No.”
“Even if I tell you that Delgaun has set a trap for you at Kala’s?”
“No. But I will thank you for your warning, Fianna.”
He bent and kissed her, because she was very young and honest. Then he turned and went on his way.
V
Night came swiftly. Stark left behind him the torches and the laughter and the sounding harps, coming into the streets of the old city where there was nothing but silence and the light of the low moons.
He saw the lower quays, great looming shapes of marble rounded and worn by time, and went toward them. Presently he found that he was following a faint but definite path, threaded between the ancient houses. It was very still, so that the dry whisper of the drifting dust was audible.
He passed under the shadow of the quays, and turned into a broad way that had once led up from the harbor. A little way ahead, on the other side, he saw a tall building half fallen in ruin. Its windows were shuttered, barred with light, and from it came the sound of voices and a thin thread of music, very reedy and evil.
Stark approached it, slipping through the ragged shadows as though he had no more weight to him than a drift of smoke. Once a door banged and a man came out of Kala’s and passed by, going down to Valkis. Stark saw his face in the moonlight. It was the face of a beast, rather than a man. He muttered to himself as he went, and once he laughed, and Stark felt a loathing in him.
He waited until the sound of footsteps had died away. The ruined houses gave no sign of danger. A lizard rustled between the stones, and that was all. The moonlight lay bright and still on Kala’s door.
Stark found a little shard of rock and tossed it, so that it made a sharp snicking sound against the shadowed wall beyond him. Then he held his breath, listening.
No one, nothing, stirred. Only the dry wind stirred in the empty houses.
Stark went out, across the open space, and nothing happened. He flung open the door of Kala’s dive.
Yellow light spilled out, and a choking wave of hot and stuffy air. Inside, there were tall lamps with quartz lenses, each of which poured down a beam of throbbing, gold orange light. And in the little pools of radiance, on filthy furs and cushions on the floor, lay men and women whose faces were slack and bestial.
Stark realized now what secret vice Kala sold here. Shanga—the going-back—the radiation that caused temporary artificial atavism and let men wallow for a time in beasthood. It was supposed to have been stamped out, years ago. But it still persisted, in places like this outside the law.
He looked for Freka and recognized the tall barbarian. He was sprawled under one of the Shanga lamps, eyes closed, face brutish, growling and twitching in sleep like the beast he had temporarily become.
A voice spoke from behind Stark’s shoulder. “I am Kala. What do you wish, Outlander?”
He turned. Kala might have been beautiful once, a thousand years ago as you reckon sin. She wore still the sweet chiming bells in her hair, and Stark thought of Fianna. The woman’s ravaged face turned him sick. It was like the reedy, piping music, woven out of the very heart of evil. Yet her eyes were shrewd, and he knew that she had not missed his searching look around the room, nor his interest in Freka. There was a note of warning in her voice.
He did not want trouble, yet. Not until he found some hint of the trap Fianna had told him of.
He said, “Bring me wine.”
“Will you try the lamp of Going-back, Outlander? It brings much joy.”
“Perhaps later. Now, I wish wine.”
She went away, clapping her hands for a slatternly wench who came between the sprawled figures with an earthen mug. Stark sat down beside a table, where his back was to the wall and he could see both the door and the whole room. Kala had returned to her own heap of furs by the door, but her basilisk eyes were alert.
Stark made a pretense of drinking, but his mind was very busy, very cold.
Perhaps this, in itself, was the trap. Freka was temporarily a beast. He would fight, and Kala would shriek, and the other dull-eyed brutes would rise and fight also.
But he would have needed no warning about that—and Delgaun himself had said there would be trouble.
No. There was something more.
He let his gaze wander over the room. It was large, and there were other rooms off of it, the openings hung with ragged curtains. Through the rents, Stark could see other of Kala’s customers sprawled under Shanga-lamps, and some of these had gone so far back from humanity that they were hideous to behold. But still there was no sign of danger to himself.
There was only one odd thing. The room nearest to where Freka sat was empty, and its curtains were only partly drawn.
Stark began to brood on the emptiness of that room.
He beckoned Kala to him. “I will try the lamp,” he said. “But I wish privacy. Have it brought to that room, there.”
Kala said, “That room is taken.”
“But I see no one!”
“It is taken, it is paid for, and no one may enter. I will have the lamp brought here.”
“No,” said Stark. “The hell with it. I’m going
.”
He flung down a coin and went out. Moving swiftly outside, he placed his eye to a crack in the nearest shutter, and waited.
Luhar of Venus came out of the empty room. His face was worried, and Stark smiled. He went back and stood flat against the wall beside the door.
In a moment it opened and the Venusian came out, drawing his gun as he did so.
Stark jumped him.
Luhar let out one angry cry. His gun went off, a vicious streak of flame across the moonlight, and then Stark’s great hand crushed the bones of his wrist together so that he dropped it clashing on the stones. He whirled around, raking Stark’s face with his nails as he clawed for the Earthman’s eyes, and Stark hit him. Luhar fell, rolling over, and before he could scramble up again Stark had picked up the gun and thrown it away into the ruins across the street.
Luhar came up from the pavement in one catlike spring. Stark fell with him, back through Kala’s door, and they rolled together among the foul fur and cushions. Luhar was built of spring steel, with no softness in him anywhere, and his long fingers were locked around Stark’s throat.
Kala screamed with fury. She caught a whip from among her cushions—a traditional weapon along the Low Canals—and began to lash the two men impartially, her hair flying in tangled locks across her face. The bestial figures under the lamps shambled to their feet, and growled.
The long lash ripped Stark’s shirt and the flesh of his back beneath it. He snarled and staggered to his feet, with Luhar still clinging to the death grip on his throat. He pushed Luhar’s face away from him with both hands and threw himself forward, over a table, so that Luhar was crushed beneath him.
The Venusian’s breath left him with a whistling grunt. His fingers relaxed. Stark struck his hands away. He rose and bent over Luhar and picked him up, gripping him cruelly so that he turned white with the pain, and raised him high and flung him bodily into the growling, beast-faced men who were shambling toward him.
Kala leaped at Stark, cursing, striking him with the coiling lash. He turned. The thin veneer of civilization was gone from Stark now, erased in a second by the first hint of battle. His eyes blazed with a cold light. He took the whip out of Kala’s hand and laid his palm across her evil face, and she fell and lay still.
Eric John Stark Page 3
