Close Up the Sky

by James L. Ferrell

  The officer was reluctant to agree to the request, but when he saw that the four strangers would go with or without him, he acquiesced. "Very well," he said, "but we must hurry. My orders are to have you at the dock well before midnight."

  With that, they struck off up a wide street that led to the river.

  Nessif had successfully avoided apprehension by the prison guards as he made his way through the hallways and into the public street. Like all thieves, he continually looked over his shoulder as he moved stealthily along. By now the arrogant stranger who called himself Yosemite Sam would be dead or beaten to within a heartbeat of dying. He had complete confidence that he would never see him again. The man had escaped death twice: Once from the fire pit, and once because the giant who had slain his men had spared him. There would not be a third time. That pipsqueak of an Egyptian judge would just as soon have a man killed as look at him. Nessif snorted and spat on the ground. There was no justice in Egypt. They had not even paid him for his valuable information. But he had taken care of his own reward. He felt under his robe and ran his hand over the pistol magazines. He grinned and imagined how much loot he would take in the coming days. The weapon would make him invincible to all but a large force of men.

  He raised his nose and sniffed the air. The smell of the river was strong, and a few minutes later he saw the shimmering water just ahead. The moon had risen, driving away all but the deepest shadows. He darted across open spaces like a phantom, hugging the walls of buildings, taking care to avoid passersby and city patrols. Memhotep would undoubtedly know by now that he had stolen the items that had been taken from the stranger, and would probably have every soldier in the city looking for him. But they would never find him. By the time daylight came he would be many miles from Thebes, on his way back to the flat mountain and his tribe.

  In the darkness he saw a group of men and women approaching. He crouched in a dark doorway and waited for them to pass. He could smell the wine they were drinking as they passed his hiding place. One of the women laughed and dodged away as her companion grabbed for a bare breast. The others chided him for missing his target, and they all laughed uproariously as they walked past the crouching Morruk. It made Nessif think of his own women and the pleasures of their bodies. He grinned, thinking of the things he intended to do with them when he returned to his mountain. And with the new weapon, his supremacy as chief of the Morruks would be ensured for many years. There would be food, wine, more women, and all the loot he could carry just for the taking.

  The ruse he had pulled in the Egyptian court gave him great satisfaction. He had disposed of the foreigner without having to soil his own hands, and had acquired dozens of the small cylinders that made the weapon operate. The other item was still a mystery. He had not had time to examine it, but if fortune smiled on him it might also be of value.

  At last he came to the great gateway that led to the docks. Several guards were on duty, but they were occupied examining carts of merchandise whose owners were seeking entrance to the city. Hundreds of other people were milling about, shouting and laughing as they went about their business. Those passing out of the city were usually not detained unless there was some pressing reason to do so. He doubted that there had been enough time for an alert to have reached the outer gate. For that reason, he straightened himself and walked boldly past the guards. No one bothered to stop him. When he was out of sight, he broke into a trot and headed north along the river.

  Earlier, before he had entered the city, he had dug a shallow hole and buried the pistol and his other possessions. The place was only a short distance from the gate, so he reached it quickly. He searched around in the moonlight until he found the stone he had used to mark the hole. He moved it away, then sat down and dug in the soft earth with his hands until the cloth he had used to wrap his goods was uncovered. He removed the pistol and examined it in the moonlight. There had been ample opportunity to study the mechanism of the weapon while he had been hiding from the entity in the desert. Of course it would have been better if he could have forced the stranger to train him in its use, but he felt that he had learned enough to experiment. He placed his thumb on the magazine ejector button and pressed it. The empty magazine popped out. He laid it aside, retrieved a fresh one from his robe, and examined it closely. He pressed on the top cartridge with the tip of his thumb and removed it from the magazine. He held it up in the moonlight and gazed at it for a few seconds. The brass casing gleamed like gold. One by one he removed the other bullets and counted them. There were sixteen in all. He nodded in satisfaction. There were enough of them to last a long time if he was conservative in selecting whom to kill. He replaced the cartridges and shoved the magazine into the pistol. He had already learned how to work the slide, so he moved it backward and chambered a round.

  He was admiring the weapon when he heard a sound from behind him. It was soft, almost inaudible. He remained perfectly still, listening, and it came again from some bushes a few yards away. A long moment passed, and when the sound did not repeat itself he dismissed it as an animal foraging for food. The thought of food reminded him that he had not eaten since the day before. The stress of dealing with the Egyptians and the flight from Memhotep's court had left him hungry. Maybe he could catch whatever was moving around in the brush. He knew he could not light a fire even if he caught the animal, but the thought of eating raw meat did not bother him. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled toward the bushes from which the sounds had emanated. When he was close he reached beneath his robe and removed a razor-sharp knife from its scabbard. With the gun in one hand and the knife in the other he reached out and gently parted the bushes.

  A monstrous hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed him by the throat. The movement was so sudden that he did not even have time to scream. He felt his windpipe close as he was lifted off his feet. His eyes bulged from their sockets as the moonlight illuminated the most hideous face he had ever seen. A bulging forehead hung over facial features that could only have been arranged by a demon. The nose was long and twisted, with huge flaring nostrils. The eyes, large and bulging, were half obscured by drooping lids. They looked as though they might burst from their sockets at any moment. Twisted yellow teeth protruded from a mouth that was no more than a jagged gash in the lower face. Coarse shoulder-length hair hung from the head in oily strings. In his last seconds of life, Nessif realized that he was in the grasp of the giant from the desert. Somehow he had managed to follow him here. He stabbed at the face with his knife, but a mighty hand tore it from his grasp. Darkness began to close over him and he felt himself descending into a bottomless pit. In his last feeble effort to ward off death, he brought the pistol up and squeezed the trigger.

  Matt and the others had just reached the city gate when they heard gunfire in the distance. They halted abruptly and tried to get a bearing on its direction.

  "This side of the river," Matt said. "To the north. Let's go!"

  The four of them started off at a run with their escort close behind. A quarter of a mile further on, in a clearing near the riverbank, they found the bodies. One of them was Nessif, but the other belonged to a misshapen giant over seven feet tall. Matt knelt down and examined Nessif. The Morruk's tongue lolled out the side of his mouth and the glazed eyes bulged in terror. His throat had been torn open, soaking the front of his robe with blood. He still clutched the pistol in his left hand. Matt pried the weapon from his fingers.

  Taylor knelt beside him. In the moonlight, Nessif's face was even uglier than it had been in the bright sun. "You know this man?" she asked.

  "Yes. This is the criminal I told you about. It looks like he finally got what he was asking for."

  He stood up and moved over to the giant. Summerhour was already there, kneeling beside him. He wore a pained expression, as though it hurt him to look at the man's body. Matt had never seen a face so mistreated by nature. One of the eyes had been shot away and blood oozed from a ragged hole in the bony forehead. It appeared that Ne
ssif had gotten off two shots and put them where they did the most damage.

  "It's Bolek," Summerhour muttered. He reached out and brushed a few strands of hair away from the pitiful face.

  "Bolek?" Matt repeated. "You know him?"

  Summerhour stood up, took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. "Yes. He was just a poor disfigured misfit who lived alone in the desert. He was so ugly that his tribe refused to allow him to live with them. An outcast you might say. He scared the hell out of me the first time I ever saw him; nearly gave me a heart attack. It was a few years ago when I led an exploratory team into the Valley of the Kings to look for a certain tomb. It was twilight, and I had wandered away from the rest of my team looking around in the rocks for the hidden entrance. I had no idea that anyone else was around. Old Bolek here just popped up out of nowhere. I almost shot him, but I quickly realized that he didn't mean any harm. Turns out he was as gentle as he was big. After we all got used to him we started using him as a laborer to move some of the heavier rocks from the dig. I guess we were the only friends he ever had." He paused and scratched his head. "I wonder what he was doing here, so far from home?"

  Matt looked down at the huge body and sighed. "I think I know."

  Taylor and Williams came over and joined them.

  "What the hell is that?" Williams asked when he saw the enormous corpse.

  Matt gave him a sidelong look. "A friend of mine," he said.

  "What do you mean?" Summerhour asked, puzzled.

  "Just a minute. I want to check something." He knelt down and examined the body. On the left front of Bolek's robe were two small holes with dark stains around them. Matt opened the robe and saw bullet wounds in Bolek's side that matched the holes in the cloth. The wounds were old, but still unhealed. He removed a flint knife with a long blade from a pocket inside the robe and held it up to the light. He nodded, but said nothing to the others, remembering the condition of the Morruk bodies in the desert.

  "This must be the giant who pulled me out of Nessif's fire pit and killed the Morruks," Matt explained to Summerhour. "He probably saw the green flash from the stellarite beam when we transported in, but the storm prevented him from finding us. I saw some big footprints in the sand while I was making my way out of the crevasse. My guess is that Bolek saw me fall and came looking for me when the storm abated. You probably missed seeing him because he was inside the crevasse searching for me. I can pretty well guess at the rest of the story. When daybreak came he followed my tracks through the desert, but hid when the Morruks came along. Later, when they had me in the pit and were burning me alive, he had to act. While he was fighting them I heard the gun being fired until it ran out of ammo. Nessif apparently hit him twice, but not fatally. A guy this big could have taken a lot of punishment before he went down."

  "Why do you think he saved you?" asked Taylor.

  “He must have seen the L-suit and figured I was a friend of Summerhour’s. I don’t suppose there are too many black jumpsuits in this part of the world. But I can tell you one thing for certain: If it hadn't been for him I'd be dead now."

  Something suddenly dawned on Taylor. She looked at Summerhour. “Is this what you meant back in the hut when you said you believed Matt would be taken care of?”

  He nodded. “I knew Bolek was probably out there somewhere. This is the same time period as the one where I first met him. I also hoped that if Matt survived the storm, he would eventually encounter him. But I never figured on anything like this.”

  "He must have followed you and this ugly dude to Thebes, Matt," Williams said, referring to Nessif.

  Summerhour shook his head. "He was probably afraid to come any closer to the city than this spot because of past experiences with people. It's a despicable shame."

  Taylor put her arm around Matt's waist. "It looks like he evened the score for you," she said.

  The captain of their escort had been conducting his own crime scene investigation. When he was finished he came over to where the four of them were standing. "I found these on the body of the desert tribesman." He held out the pager and the second magazine. "Do you know what they are?"

  Matt took them from him. "Yes," he said. "These were taken from me during my trial earlier tonight. That is the man who gave false testimony against me in court." He pointed at Nessif’s body.

  "And the other one?"

  "Another of his victims," Taylor answered.

  "It appears he will have no more victims," the captain observed dryly. He motioned to the soldiers who had been standing by at a discrete distance and two of them came forward. The captain poked the Morruk's body with the toe of his sandal. "Throw this garbage into the river for the crocodiles," he commanded. "And see that the giant is properly buried." He looked at Summerhour. “We must leave now. My orders are to have you aboard your ship as soon as possible."

  The captain turned and started back toward the city. The others followed, not wishing to look back.

  Chapter 19

  Balkem had arranged for a large sailing barge equipped with forty rowers, and they reached Ipu by late afternoon the following day. They had made good time, and the caravan transporting Edward Leahy was only two days ahead of them. To ensure they experienced no unnecessary obstructions or delays in overtaking him, Ramses had assigned a young court official named Haremheb to accompany them. After their arrival he had gone into the city to begin making arrangements for a small caravan to take them to a point on the Euphrates River just north of where it joined the Tigris. From there they intended to take a boat to where the combined rivers flowed into the Persian Gulf. It was somewhere in that area that the Babylonian traders had reported the location of the sea people’s village.

  Ipu was nothing compared to Thebes. A large temple dedicated to Amen was located there; otherwise the town consisted of just over two hundred houses, buildings, and huts. There were a few shops where travelers connecting with caravans to Babylon and other eastern cities could purchase supplies and make arrangements for transportation to various places along the Nile, but the grandeur of Thebes was absent. The city's permanent population was less than a thousand, and the people they encountered seemed indifferent to their presence. For the most part, the inhabitants went about their business in a languid fashion, apparently neutral to anything that did not personally involve them. At Summerhour's insistence the four of them had acquired additional contemporary clothing, and now wore the loose fitting robes preferred by desert dwellers. In order to avoid any controversy, they had removed the L-suits and packed them in their luggage.

  During the trip Matt had not been alone with Taylor long enough to explain the details of Babylon Station, but he had hinted that there was far more to their mission than she knew. He felt certain that Summerhour was aware of the existence of the secret base, but to avoid a confrontation in front of the Egyptians he decided to wait him out and see if he would broach the subject. So far, that had not happened. He was unsure of just how Summerhour figured into the scheme of things, so he opted to play it safe for the time being and not reveal his hole card. Moreover, any discussion concerning the base would probably take place in Williams's presence, and it was not something that he needed to know about unless it became absolutely necessary.

  They were sitting in the shade of a palm cluster near the riverbank eating a meal of fruit, cheese, and bread when they saw Haremheb returning. Matt judged the young Egyptian to be about eighteen years old, tall and straight, with all the exuberance of energy attendant to his age. During the trip from Thebes he had become hopelessly captivated by Taylor, and blushed each time they spoke to each other. Matt found his infatuation amusing, and never missed an opportunity to tease Taylor about it.

  When Haremheb reached them he dropped to his knees near Taylor and sat back on his heels. “The arrangements are complete, my lady. The caravan master is loading supplies and will be ready to depart within the hour. We are to gather at the north side of the temple."

  Taylor smiled at him. The boy
blushed and dropped his eyes. Matt shook his head and grunted; Taylor hit him in the ribs with her elbow.

  "Thank you, Haremheb," she said. "You have done well. Come and sit with us while we wait. There is plenty of food and wine."

  Haremheb held back. He rubbed his palms on his thighs and did not look up. He obviously wanted to say something, but seemed to be searching for the right words.

  "Is there something more, Haremheb?" Her voice was gentle.

  Haremheb looked up at her. "Yes, my lady. But please do not think me presumptuous." He paused for a few seconds.

  "Yes?" Taylor prompted him.

  "Forgive me for speaking, my lady, but I am concerned about your safety. The caravan master I have retained has seen the man you are seeking. He says that he is quite mad. While they were preparing his litter for the trip across the desert, he attempted to escape several times and had to be restrained by the soldiers. They say he fought them like one possessed by a devil. I cannot stand the thought that you might be injured when you overtake him." Haremheb also wanted to warn her of something else; to tell her of another fear he felt, but found he could not speak of it. If he was wrong it might cause a terrible backlash, and his heart could not endure a rebuke from her. Besides, he could not say what needed saying while the men were present and could not think of a way to get her alone.

  Matt, who was relaxing next to Taylor against a tree, sat up when he heard Haremheb's report. He and Taylor exchanged alarmed looks. The others also seemed shocked at the revelation. He was aware that the boy was in awe of the men who sometimes wore strange black clothing, so he spoke as calmly as possible to avoid upsetting him any further.

  "Haremheb, why do they think he is mad?"

  Haremheb twisted his hands. "They say it is because of his terrible head wound, lord. Drool pours from his mouth and he speaks in an unknown tongue to invisible people. I think that if it were not for fear of the pharaoh they would have killed him and buried him in the desert. But instead they bound him and are taking him to his people as rapidly as possible."