"We are. Because we are an army and we"re at war. The idealists at home only understood that when it was too late. If they had backed us in the beginning we would have blown open every black castle on Dis, searched until we found those bombs. But that would have meant wanton destruction and death. They wouldn"t consider that. Now they are going to kill everyone, destroy everything." He flicked on the panel lights just long enough to take a compa.s.s bearing, and Brion saw the tortured unhappiness in his twisted body.
"It"s not over yet," Brion said. "There is more than a day left, and I think I"m onto something that might stop the war--without any bombs being dropped."
"You"re in charge of the Cultural Relationships Free Bread and Blankets Foundation, aren"t you? What good can your bunch do when the shooting starts?"
"None. But maybe we can put off the shooting. If you are trying to insult me--don"t bother. My irritation quotient is very high."
The driver merely grunted at this, slowing down as they ran through a field of broken rock. "What is it you want?" he asked.
"We want to make a detailed examination of one of the magter. Alive or dead, it doesn"t make any difference. You wouldn"t happen to have one around?"
"No. We"ve fought with them often enough, but always on their home grounds. They keep all their casualties, and a good number of ours. What good will it do you anyway? A dead one won"t tell you where the bombs or the jump-s.p.a.ce projector is."
"I don"t see why I should explain that to you--unless you are in charge. You are Hys, aren"t you?"
The driver gave an angry sound, and then was silent while he drove. Finally he asked, "What makes you think that?"
"Call it a hunch. You don"t act very much like a sand-car driver, for one thing. Of course your army may be all generals and no privates--but I doubt it. I also know that time has almost run out for all of us. This is a long ride and it would be a complete waste of time if you just sat out in the desert and waited for me. By driving me yourself you could make your mind up before we arrived. Could have a decision ready as to whether you are going to help me or not. Are you?"
"Yes--I"m Hys. But you still haven"t answered my question. What do you want the body for?"
"We"re going to cut it open and take a good long look. I don"t think the magter are human. They are something living among men and disguised as men--but still not human."
"Secret aliens?" Hys exploded the words in a mixture of surprise and disgust.
"Perhaps. The examination will tell us that."
"You"re either stupid or incompetent," Hys said bitterly. "The heat of Dis has cooked your brains in your head. I"ll be no part of this kind of absurd plan."
"You must," Brion said, surprised at his own calmness. He could sense the other man"s interest hidden behind his insulting manner. "I don"t even have to give you my reasons. In another day this world ends and you have no way to stop it. I just might have an idea that could work, and you can"t afford to take any chances--not if you are really sincere. Either you are a murderer, killing Disans for pleasure, or you honestly want to stop the war. Which is it?"
"You"ll have your body all right," Hys grated, hurling the car viciously around a spire of rock. "Not that it will accomplish anything--but I can find no fault with killing another magter. We can fit your operation into our plans without any trouble. This is the last night and I have sent every one of my teams out on raids. We"re breaking into as many magter towers as possible before dawn. There is a slim chance that we might uncover something. It"s really just shooting in the dark, but it"s all we can do now. My own team is waiting and you can ride along with us. The others left earlier. We"re going to hit a small tower on this side of the city. We raided it once before and captured a lot of small arms they had stored there. There is a good chance that they may have been stupid enough to store something there again. Sometimes the magter seem to suffer from a complete lack of imagination."
"You have no idea just how right you are," Brion told him.
The sand car slowed down now, as they approached a slab-sided mesa that rose vertically from the desert. They crunched across broken rocks, leaving no tracks. A light blinked on the dashboard, and Hys stopped instantly and killed the engine. They climbed out, stretching and shivering in the cold desert night.
It was dark walking in the shadow of the cliff and they had to feel their way along a path through the tumbled boulders. A sudden blaze of light made Brion wince and shield his eyes. Near him, on the ground, was the humming shape of a cancellation projector, sending out a fan-shaped curtain of vibration that absorbed all the light rays falling upon it. This incredible blackness made a lightproof wall for the recessed hollow at the foot of the cliff. In this shelter, under the overhang of rock, were three open sand cars. They were large and armor-plated, warlike in their scarred grey paint. Men sprawled, talked, and polished their weapons. Everything stopped when Hys and Brion appeared.
"Load up," Hys called out. "We"re going to attack now, same plan I outlined earlier. Get Telt over here." In talking to his own men some of the harshness was gone from his voice. The tall soldiers of Nyjord moved in ready obeyance of their commander. They loomed over his bent figure, most of them twice as tall as he, but there was no hesitation in jumping when he commanded. They were the body of the Nyjord striking force--he was the brains.
A square-cut, compact man rolled up to Hys and saluted with a leisurely flick of his hand. He was weighted and slung about with packs and electronic instruments. His pockets bulged with small tools and spare parts.
"This is Telt," Hys said to Brion. "He"ll take care of you. Telt"s my personal technical squad. He goes along on all my operations with his meters to test the interiors of the Disan forts. So far he"s found no trace of a jump-s.p.a.ce generator, or excess radioactivity that might indicate a bomb. Since he"s useless and you"re useless, you both take care of each other. Use the car we came in."
Telt"s wide face split in a froglike grin; his voice was hoa.r.s.e and throaty. "Wait. Just wait! Someday those needles gonna flicker and all our troubles be over. What you want me to do with the stranger?"
"Supply him with a corpse--one of the magter," Hys said. "Take it wherever he wants and then report back here." Hys scowled at Telt. "Someday your needles will flicker! Poor fool--this is the last day." He turned away and waved the men into their sand cars.
"He likes me," Telt said, attaching a final piece of equipment. "You can tell because he calls me names like that. He"s a great man, Hys is, but they never found out until it was too late. Hand me that meter, will you?"
Brion followed the technician out to the car and helped him load his equipment aboard. When the larger cars appeared out of the darkness, Telt swung around after them. They snaked forward in a single line through the rocks, until they came to the desert of rolling sand dunes. Then they spread out in line abreast and rushed towards their goal.
Telt hummed to himself hoa.r.s.ely as he drove. He broke off suddenly and looked at Brion. "What you want the dead Dis for?"
"A theory," Brion answered sluggishly. He had been half napping in the chair, taking the opportunity for some rest before the attack. "I"m still looking for a way to avert the end."
"You and Hys," Telt said with satisfaction. "Couple of idealists. Trying to stop a war you didn"t start. They never would listen to Hys. He told them in the beginning exactly what would happen, and he was right. They always thought his ideas were crooked, like him. Growing up alone in the hill camp, with his back too twisted and too old to be fixed when he finally did come out. Ideas twisted the same way. Made himself an authority on war. Hah! War on Nyjord--that"s like being an ice-cube specialist in h.e.l.l. But he knew all about it, though they never would let him use what he knew. Put granddaddy Krafft in charge instead."
"But Hys is in charge of an army now?"
"All volunteers, too few of them and too little money. Too little and too d.a.m.ned late to do any good. I"ll tell you we did our best, but it could never be good enough. And for this we get called butchers." There was a catch in Telt"s voice now, an undercurrent of emotion he couldn"t suppress. "At home they think we like to kill. Think we"re insane. They can"t understand we"re doing the only thing that has to be done--"
He broke off as he quickly locked on the brakes and killed the engine. The line of sand cars had come to a stop. Ahead, just visible over the dunes, was the summit of a dark tower.
"We walk from here," Telt said, standing and stretching. "We can take our time, because the other boys go in first, soften things up. Then you and I head for the sub-cellar for a radiation check and find you a handsome corpse."
Walking at first, then crawling when the dunes no longer shielded them, they crept up on the Disan keep. Dark figures moved ahead of them, stopping only when they reached the crumbling black walls. They didn"t use the ascending ramp, but made their way up the sheer outside face of the ramparts.
"Line-throwers," Telt whispered. "Anchor themselves when the missile hits, have some kind of quick-setting goo. Then we go up the filament with a line-climbing motor. Hys invented them."
"Is that the way you and I are going in?" Brion asked.
"No, we get out of the climbing. I told you we hit this rock once before. I know the layout inside." He was moving while he talked, carefully pacing the distance around the base of the tower. "Should be right about here."
High-pitched keening sliced the air and the top of the magter building burst into flame. Automatic weapons hammered above them. Something fell silently through the night and hit heavily on the ground near them.
"Attack"s started," Telt shouted. "We have to get through now, while all the creepies are fighting it out on top." He pulled a plate-shaped object from one of his bags and slapped it hard against the wall. It hung there. He twisted the back of it, pulled something and waved Brion to the ground. "Shaped charge. Should blow straight in, but you never can tell."
The ground jumped under them and the ringing thud was a giant fist punching through the wall. A cloud of dust and smoke rolled clear and they could see the dark opening in the rock, a tunnel driven into the wall by the directional force of the explosion. Telt shone a light through the hole at the crumbled chamber inside.
"Nothing to worry about from anybody who was leaning against this wall. But let"s get in and out of this black beehive before the ones upstairs come down to investigate."
Shattered rock was thick on the floor, and they skidded and tumbled over it. Telt pointed the way with his light, down a sharply angled ramp. "Underground chambers in the rock. They always store their stuff down there--"
A smoking, black sphere arced out of the tunnel"s mouth, hitting at their feet. Telt just gaped, but even as it hit the floor Brion was jumping forward. He caught it with the side of his foot, kicking it back into the dark opening of the tunnel. Telt hit the ground next to him as the orange flame of an explosion burst below. Bits of shrapnel rattled from the ceiling and wall behind them.
"Grenades!" Telt gasped. "They"ve only used them once before--can"t have many. Gotta warn Hys." He plugged a throat mike into the transmitter on his tack and spoke quickly into it. There was a stirring below and Brion poured a rain of fire into the tunnel.
"They"re catching it bad on top, too! We gotta pull out. Go first and I"ll cover you."
"I came for my Disan--I"m not leaving until I get one."
"You"re crazy! You"re dead if you stay!"
Telt was scrambling back towards the crumbled entrance as he talked. His back was turned when Brion fired. The magter had appeared silently as the shadow of death. They charged without a sound, running with expressionless faces into the bullets. Two died at once, curling and folding; the third one fell at Brion"s feet. Shot, pierced, dying, but not yet dead. Leaving a crimson track, it hunched closer, lifting its knife to Brion. He didn"t move. How many times must you murder a man? Or was it a man? His mind and body rebelled against the killing, and he was almost ready to accept death himself, rather than kill again.
Telt"s bullets tore through the body and it dropped with grim finality.
"There"s your corpse--now get it out of here!" Telt screeched.
Between them they worked the sodden weight of the dead magter through the hole, their exposed backs crawling with the expectation of instant death. No further attack came as they ran from the tower, other than a grenade that exploded too far behind them to do any harm.
One of the armored sand cars circled the keep, headlights blazing, keeping up a steady fire from its heavy weapons. The attackers climbed into it as they beat a retreat. Telt and Brion dragged the Disan behind them, struggling through the loose sand towards the circling car. Telt glanced over his shoulder and broke into a shambling run.
"They"re following us!" he gasped. "The first time they ever chased us after a raid!"
"They must know we have the body," Brion said.
"Leave it behind ..." Telt choked. "Too heavy to carry ... anyway!"
"I"d rather leave you," Brion said sharply. "Let me have it." He pulled the corpse away from the unresisting Telt and heaved it across his own shoulders. "Now use your gun to cover us!"
Telt threw a rain of slugs back towards the dark figures following them. The driver of the sand car must have seen the flare of their fire, because the truck turned and started towards them. It braked in a choking cloud of dust and ready hands reached to pull them up. Brion pushed the body in ahead of himself and scrambled after it. The truck engine throbbed and they churned away into the blackness, away from the gutted tower.
"You know, that was more like kind of a joke, when I said I"d leave the corpse behind," Telt told Brion. "You didn"t believe me, did you?"
"Yes," Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against the truck"s side. "I thought you meant it."
"Ahhh," Telt protested, "you"re as bad as Hys. You take things too seriously."
Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of the sand car. Killing like this was too personal. Talking abstractedly about a body was one thing, but murdering a man, then lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an entirely different matter. But the magter weren"t human, he knew that. The thought was only mildly comforting.
After they had reached the other waiting sand cars, the raiding party split up. "Each one goes in a different direction," Telt said, "so they can"t track us to the base." He clipped a piece of paper next to the compa.s.s and kicked the motor into life. "We"ll make a big U in the desert and end up in Hovedstad. I got the course here. Then I"ll dump you and your friends and beat it back to our camp. You"re not still burned at me for what I said, are you? Are you?"
Brion didn"t answer. He was staring fixedly out of the side window.
"What"s doing?" Telt asked. Brion pointed out at the rushing darkness.
"Over there," he said, pointing to the growing light on the horizon.
"Dawn," Telt said. "Lotta rain on your planet? Didn"t you ever see the sun come up before?"
"Not on the last day of a world."
"Lock it up," Telt grumbled. "You give me the crawls. I know they"re going to be blasted. But at least I know I did everything I could to stop it. How do you think they are going to be feeling at home--on Nyjord--from tomorrow on?"
"Maybe we can still stop it," Brion said, shrugging off the feeling of gloom. Telt"s only answer was a wordless sound of disgust.
By the time they had cut a large loop in the desert the sun was well up in the sky, the daily heat begun. Their course took them through a chain of low, flinty hills that cut their speed almost to zero. They ground ahead in low gear while Telt sweated and cursed, struggling with the controls. Then they were on firm sand and picking up speed towards the city.
As soon as Brion saw Hovedstad clearly he felt a clutch of fear. From somewhere in the city a black plume of smoke was rising. It could have been one of the deserted buildings aflame, a minor blaze. Yet the closer they came, the greater his tension grew. Brion didn"t dare put it into words himself; it was Telt who vocalized the thought.
"A fire or something. Coming from your area, somewhere close to your building."
Within the city they saw the first signs of destruction. Broken rubble on the streets. The smell of greasy smoke in their nostrils. More and more people appeared, going in the same direction they were. The normally deserted streets of Hovedstad were now almost crowded. Disans, obvious by their bare shoulders, mixed with the few offworlders who still remained.
Brion made sure the tarpaulin was well wrapped around the body before they pushed the sand car slowly through the growing crowd.
"I don"t like all this publicity," Telt complained, looking at the people. "It"s the last day, or I"d be turning back. They know our cars; we"ve raided them often enough." Turning a corner, he braked suddenly, mouth agape.
Ahead was destruction. Black, broken rubble had been churned into desolation. It was still smoking, pink tongues of flame licking over the ruins. A fragment of wall fell with a rumbling crash.
"It"s your building--the Foundation building!" Telt shouted. "They"ve been here ahead of us--must have used the radio to call a raid. They did a job, explosive of some kind."
Hope was dead. Dis was dead. In the ruin ahead, mixed and broken with other rubble, were the bodies of all the people who had trusted him. Lea ... beautiful and cruelly dead Lea. Doctor Stine, his patients, Faussel, all of them. He had kept them on this planet, and now they were dead. Every one of them. Dead.
Murderer!
XIV.
Life was ended. Brion"s mind contained nothing but despair and the pain of irretrievable loss. If his brain had been completely the master of his body he would have died there, for at that moment there was no will to live. Unaware of this, his heart continued to beat and the regular motion of his lungs drew in the dreadful sweetness of the smoke-tainted air. With automatic directness his body lived on.
"What you gonna do?" Telt asked, even his natural exuberation stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated. What could he do? What could possibly be done?
"Follow me," a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could turn. Aware now, Brion saw a native move away from the edge of the crowd and turn to look in their direction. It was Ulv.
"Turn the car--that way!" He punched Telt"s arm and pointed. "Do it slowly and don"t draw any attention to us." For a moment there was hope, which he kept himself from considering. The building was gone, and the people in it all dead. That fact had to be faced.
"What"s going on?" Telt asked. "Who was that talked in the window?"
"A native--that one up ahead. He saved my life in the desert, and I think he is on our side. Even though he"s a native Disan, he can understand facts that the magter can"t. He knows what will happen to this planet." Brion was talking to fill his brain with words so he wouldn"t begin to have hope. There was no hope possible.
Ulv moved slowly and naturally through the streets, never looking back. They followed, as far behind as they dared, yet still keeping him in sight. Fewer people were about here among the deserted offworld storehouses. Ulv vanished into one of these; LIGHT METALS TRUST LTD., the sign read above the door. Telt slowed the car.
"Don"t stop here," Brion said. "Drive around the corner, and pull up."
Brion climbed out of the car with an ease he did not feel. No one was in sight now, in either direction. Walking slowly back to the corner, he checked the street they had just left. Hot, silent and empty.
A sudden blackness appeared where the door of the warehouse had been, and the sudden flickering motion of a hand. Brion signaled Telt to start, and jumped into the already moving sand car.
"Into that open door--quickly, before anyone sees us!" The car rumbled down a ramp into the dark interior and the door slid shut behind them.
"Ulv! What is it? Where are you?" Brion called, blinking in the murky interior. A grey form appeared beside him.
"I am here."
"Did you--" There was no way to finish the sentence.
"I heard of the raid. The magter called together all of us they could to help them carry explosive. I went along. I could not stop them, and there was no time to warn anyone in the building."
"Then they are all dead?"