"This is as far as I can go," Piper told them in a sweating voice. "Over there is the tomb."
Odin and Gunnar scrambled ash.o.r.e. Piper pushed the boat back into the river and was gone. Three thin sickles of moons were cleaving their way across the sky. A few unfamiliar stars were out. There was enough light now for them to see Maya"s tomb not far away. It seemed to be fashioned of moonbeams. It was such a perfect copy of the Taj Mahal that here both death and sleep were brothers--and a nirvana of peace hung over it in an aura of silver light.
"That Piper is a smart lad," Gunnar whispered. "He knows what he wants.
He"ll go far--maybe."
They approached. Odin knew that four guards were stationed here at all times. They were all gone. The two went in, Gunnar turned on a little flash.
Had there been time, Odin might have grudgingly given Grim Hagen a few kind words for the work he had done and the tribute he had paid Maya. The best of a planet"s treasures and art had been brought here. But all he could see was Maya, lying upon a golden, diamond-set couch. A silk embroidered coverlet was drawn over her, and it too seemed to have been spun from moonbeams. She looked no older. Odin could see no sign of breath. But he touched her hand and it was warm. He knelt beside her.
"Here," Gunnar handed him the light. "Hold this while I get busy. Here now, Nors-King. No blubbering."
He opened his buckskin bag and took out the last of its treasures--a small hypodermic case. He filled the hypodermic from a little vial that glittered in the light of the lamp. "Turn the light upon her forearm, now," he instructed.
Gunnar slowly counted to sixty after he had given her the shot. Maya"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s moved. She sighed and raised a hand to her dark curls. Then her eyes opened--in fear and wonder as a child opens its eyes in a strange place.
Then her vision cleared and she recognized them.
"Jack--Gunnar--" she gasped. Then she was in Odin"s arms. And Gunnar, the strong one, was standing over them--sniffling.
It was one of those moments that seem to last forever. And then it was over and she drew her hand through his light hair, "What happened? Where are we? I dreamed the strangest dreams."
"Never mind," Odin comforted. "We will explain later. Can you walk now?"
"Walk? Of course I can walk." But when Maya tried to sit up, she moaned in pain. "My whole body is stiff and sore. Have I been sick?"
Odin helped her to her feet. As he did so, hundreds of precious stones that had been heaped upon the couch rolled unnoticed to the floor.
Maya winced as she stood up. Reaching down, she rubbed the calves of her legs and then stood straight with a little gasp of pain.
"Carry her, Nors-King," Gunnar muttered. "The night grows old and we must make our way to the Nebula."
Odin lifted her easily. She put her arms around his neck and clung to him.
The perfume of her hair was as faint as the ghost of autumn flowers. Her breath was warm and caressing against his throat.
Then the mausoleum turned into a blinding glare of lights. Gunnar dropped the flash and his broadsword shrieked against the scabbard as he drew it.
Odin set Maya"s feet upon the floor. Still holding her with one arm, he drew his sword and made ready to stand beside Gunnar.
A dozen cloaked figures came into the room. The first was Grim Hagen, smiling sardonically. The others were Brons. The last to enter was carrying poor Piper"s dripping head by a handful of hair.
"So." Grim Hagen bowed. "The Princess awakens. And here is Prince Charming.
And here is the last Neebling that I shall ever kill. I would like to kill you very slowly, but I am afraid I do not have time. h.e.l.l is bubbling over in that fair city of mine tonight. I thought I paid my captains well, but some of them wanted more. Or they wanted what I could not give them. It doesn"t matter. Let them fight it out. We have the Old Ship with the New Drive. Out there at the edge of s.p.a.ce a desperate people are waiting for me. And now I have Maya. Gunnar, that was a mean trick. You used the science that your people stole from us to cheat me of my bride and my slave."
Gunnar had heard enough. The huge sword flashed in a circle as he swung it above his head with both hands. A Bron stepped forward and Gunnar slashed him from shoulder to stomach-pit.
Odin thrust Maya to the couch as he came forward to help.
But Grim Hagen had merely stepped back. Now he was holding a deadly little tube in his hand. A cold light winked on and off. Odin felt his muscles harden as though a hundred charley-horses had struck him at once. He froze, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Gunnar standing like a statue, his sword still upraised, a look of agony upon his face.
"One more flash and you will be dead." Grim Hagen mocked. "But before you plunge into the night, remember that I watched you so I could get Maya back. You were not clever at all, Gunnar. Ato can have these worlds if he wants them. I have the ship and Maya. And s.p.a.ce is mine to ravage as I please."
Then, at last, while Maya watched with fear-struck eyes, the tube flashed once more. Gunnar and Odin stood there for a second. They fell like unbalanced things of stone.
A Bron stepped forward and drew his sword. But Grim Hagen waved him aside as he bent over the two silent forms. "Put up your sword," he said quietly.
"They are dead."
CHAPTER 12
He had been drowned. He was floating in a sea of light, and now and then shining little fishes swam inquisitively up to him and stared. They would look at him with wide, cold eyes and then dart off into s.p.a.ce, leaving a flashing wake behind them. They hurtled through the murky light like shooting stars. And once two of them dashed together and burst like a rocket. The sparks came falling down through a billion miles of s.p.a.ce, and as they fell they built up planets and systems of their own. Until a dark coil that had the shape of a dragon slithered across the milky way and began to devour them one by one. The sparks disappeared into its dark maw. Then it turned about and came snuffling the air as it looked for him. It found him and buried its long fangs in the back of his skull.
Jack Odin groaned in pain and awoke. The pain hit him again and he thrust out with his arms. But strong hands were holding him down.
He became conscious of a buzzing, murmuring sound. It was neither sad nor glad. Something like the sound that the last bee of autumn makes as it hovers above the last ball of clover.
Something was falling across the back of his neck and spreading out across his shoulders. Like a woman"s hair, he thought. Perhaps it was a bit coa.r.s.er. But not much. But then, just as the strange soothing feeling was putting him back to sleep, the hairs changed their soft caress and a dozen of them plunged into his spinal cord and upward into that small old-brain where all the bogies of the stone age still cowered.
Odin yelled in pain and fought. But the hands held him tight. In his ears he could hear someone else screaming and cursing--threatening all sorts of vengeance. The voice was Gunnar"s.
Three times more the soft mane of hair caressed him and three times more just as he was getting ready to go back to sleep the torture began. And all the while he was lying upon his belly, his face thrust into a pillow.
He could see little as he writhed from one side to the other. The hands held him securely. And once when he almost struggled clear, a strong knee was thrust into his back and forced him down.
At intervals, he could hear Gunnar"s voice--and his own--crying, pleading, threatening.
Then at last it was over. The hands turned Odin upon his back and he lay there, gasping and hurting, like one who has just come up from deep water.
The lights were so bright that at first he could see nothing. Then his vision cleared and he knew where he was--in the surgery room of the Nebula.
Ato was standing nearby, trying to rea.s.sure him. Beside Odin on another bed was Gunnar, lying flat on his back and stripped to the waist. Gunnar was howling curses and kicking like a frog.
A doctor and a nurse were there. And completing the group was Nea holding a round object in each hand--round things with unkempt, trailing hair. He was not completely conscious--and for a second she looked like a high priestess of the Amazon, holding two mummified heads before her--
The pain left him. His mind cleared and he lay there gasping from the ordeal.
Ato and Nea smiled at them. So cheerfully that he almost expected them to write out a bill for surgical fees.
"G.o.d, that was a close one," Ato said, and wiped his forehead. "Five hours of it. And it was touch and go all the time."
"What happened?" Odin asked. He remembered something about a glittering tomb and Maya awakening from her long sleep and Grim Hagen. He even remembered the Bron carelessly swinging Piper"s head by the hair. But these were mere scenes that flashed before his mind. He could not fit them together, as yet.
"Tell him, Nea," Ato said.