Captive of the Centaurianess (10 page)

A machine gun raved. Ray bellywhopped onto the flooring before he had identified the noise. A couple of Varannians tumbled, struck, though they couldn't be too badly wounded to judge from the swiftness with which they rolled out of the line of fire. Across the square, he saw the gun itself, where a corridor debouched. Several men in gray uniform crouched behind it. Whatever garrison the city possessed was reacting efficiently. Ray tried to dig a burrow.

He needn't have bothered. With lightning-reflexes, under a weight that to them was gossamer, the invaders had already escaped further bullets, leaping sideways or straight up. Spears, darts, flung axes replied. An instant later, the Centaurians arrived in person. Ray experienced an actual moment of sympathy for the Jovians. None of them happened to get killed either, but they were in poor shape.

An enemy squad emerged from the adjacent corridor. Their rapid-fire rifles could have inflicted fearful damage on the crowded amazons—except that one lady, who knew something about such things, picked up the .50-caliber machine gun and operated it rather like a pistol. The squad scampered back out of sight.

"
Hai-ai!
" the horde shouted, with additions. Ray, who had acquired a smattering of Kathantuman, might have blushed at these had time allowed. As was, he was again borne off on the tide of assault.

He saw little of what followed. In this warren of hallways and apartments, combat became almost entirely hand-to-hand. That was just what suited the Varannians, and what Dyann had counted on.

He did glimpse her in action when she rounded a corner and found a hostile platoon. She sprang, swung her feet ahead of her while she flew, and knocked the wind out of two men. As she landed on them, her sword howled in an arc which left two or three more disabled. One who stood farther off tossed a grenade at her. She snatched it and threw it back. He managed to catch and return it, but was barely able to duck before she flung it again and it blew in a door behind him. While this game went on, Dyann rendered a foeman unconscious by a swordblow to his helmet, broke the nose of another with the pommel of her weapon, and kneed a third. Then several more Centaurians joined in.

The gang of them went on. They had nothing left to do here. Ray dodged among their victims, past the door which the grenade had obligingly opened, into the apartment beyond. Maybe he could hide under a bed.

A hoarse shout sent him spinning around. Two members of the platoon had recovered enough to stagger in pursuit of him. He would have cried, "Hail, Wilder!" and explained what a peaceful citizen he was. Unfortunately, he too wore barbarian helmet and cuirass.

Before he could raise his hands, a Jovian had lifted rifle and fired. The shot missed. Though the range was close, the man was shaken. Also, in his time on Varann Ray had inevitably developed some strength and quickness. He didn't exactly dodge the bullet, but he flinched fast. His wild sword-swing connected. The Jovian sank to the floor and got busy staunching a bad cut.

His companion charged, with a clubbed rifle that was perhaps empty. Ray turned to meet him and tripped on his own scabbard. He clattered to the floor and the enemy tripped over him. Ray climbed onto the fellow's back, removed his helmet, and beat his head up and down till he lay semiconscious.

I've got to find someplace safe
, Ray thought frantically.
Back to the ships, maybe?
He scuttled from the apartment, overleaped the human wreckage outside, and made haste.

Not far beyond, he came to an intersection. A tommy gun blast from the left nearly touched him. "No-o-o," he whimpered, and hit the deck once more.

A boot in his ribs gained his attention. "Get up!" he heard.

He reeled to obey. What he saw was like a physical blow. Elegantly black-clad men, the famous elite guard of the Leader, accompanied Martin Wilder himself. Beside the dictator stood none less than Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp—
in charge of local defense?
Ray wondered, and tried to stretch his arms higher.

"Tallantyre!" His old opponent glared at him for a time which took on characteristics of eternity. "So you are responsible."

"No, I'm not, so help me, no," Ray chattered.

"Who else could have brought these savages here?" The officer cuffed the Earthling; head wobbled on neck. "If it weren't for your hostage value, I'd shoot you immediately. But I had better defer that pleasure. March!"

The detachment proceeded wherever it was bound. That chanced to be down a mercantile corridor, on which shops fronted. Smashed glass and gutted displays showed that the Centaurians were already collecting souvenirs.

Wilder condescended to address the prisoner: "Never think that this criminal assault of yours has truly penetrated any part of us. We may have to retire temporarily from our capital, but already help has been summoned and is on its way, the entire navy bound here on a sacred mission of vengeance."

Will the Centaurians stop their looting in time to get clear of that?
Ray thought in terror.
Somehow I doubt it.

"I beg your pardon, glorious sir," interjected Roshevsky-Feldkamp, "but we really must make haste, before the invaders discover the emergency hangar we are bound for."

"No, no, that would never do," agreed the Leader.

"You must get aloft, glorious sir, to take charge of the counterattack."

"Yes, yes. I will strike a new medal. The Defense of the Racial Homeland Medal."

"You remember, of course, glorious sir, that we must not simply destroy the pirate spacecraft," Roshevsky-Feldkamp said. "We must capture them for examination. Afterward, the universe is ours."

"
Hoo-hah!
" rang between the walls. From a side passage staggered a band of Centaurians, weighted down with armloads of assorted loot. The guardsmen sprang into formation and brought their rifles up.

Something like an atomic bomb hit them from the rear. Ray learned afterward that Dyann Korlas and Queen Hiltagar had, between them, evolved a tactical doctrine that employed scouts to keep track of important hostile units and decoys to distract these.

What he witnessed at the time seemed utter confusion. A kind of maelstrom flung him against a wall and kept him busy dodging edged metal. He did glimpse Dyann herself as she waded into the thick of the fight, hewing, striking, kicking, a veritable incarnation of that Will to Conquer which the Symmetrists preached. Her companions wrought equal havoc. Ray took a minor part in the action. A guardsman reeled near him, tommy gun gripped, seeking a clear shot that wouldn't kill comrades. The Earthling plucked his sidearm from its holster and shot him—in the left buttock, because of recoil, but that sufficed.

Dyann saw. "Oh, how cute!" she caroled while she broke yet another head.

Combat soon ended. Most of the Jovians had simply been knocked galley west, and yielded with dazed meekness. Ray spied Wilder and Roshevsky-Feldkamp being prodded off by a squat, one-eyed, grizzled amazon with a silly smirk on her lips. They were doubtless destined for her harem—their decorations may have struck her fancy—and he couldn't think of two people he'd rather have it happen to.

Only . . . the whole enemy fleet could be arriving any minute—

What Ray did not know until later was that Urushkidan had prudently taken the original spaceboat outside and was using her beams to disintegrate those vessels and their missiles as they descended. Meanwhile he hummed an old Martian work song. There are times when even a philosopher must take measures.

VIII

Official banquets on Earth are notoriously dull. This one was no exception. That the war was over, that the Confederated Satellites would become the Jovian Republic and a respectable member of the World Union, that the stars were attainable: all seemed to call forth more long and dismal platitudes than-ever.

Ray Tallantyre admitted to himself that the food and drink had been fine. However, there had been such a lot of both. He would have fallen asleep under the speeches had his shoes not pinched him. Thus he heard with surprise the president of his university describe what a remarkable student he had been. As a matter of fact, he'd damn near gotten expelled.

On his right, Urushkidan, crammed into a tuxedo tailored for his species, puffed a pipe and made calculations on the tablecloth. Left of the man, Dyann Korlas, her bronze braids wound about a plundered tiara, was stunning in a low-cut formal gown. The dagger at her waist was to set a new fashion. True, some confusion had arisen when she placed Ormun the Terrible at her plate and insisted that grace be said to the idol. Nevertheless—

"—unique scientific genius, whom his alma mater is pleased to honor with a doctorate of law—"

Dyann leaned close to whisper in Ray's ear: "Ven vill this end?"

"God knows," he answered as softly, "but I don't believe He's on the program."

"Ve have really had no time together since the campaign, have ve? Too many people, everyvun vantin us to do sometin or other. Vat are your plans for ven you get a chance to be yourself?"

"Well, first I want to try and patent the cosmic drive before Urushkidan does. Afterward ... I dunno."

"It vas fun vile it lasted, our romp, vasn't it?" Her smile held wistfulness. "Me, I must soon go back to Varann. I vant to do somethin vorth-vile vith my life, like find a backvard area and carve me out a throne. You, though—Ray, you are too fine and beautiful for such rough vork. You belon here, in the bright lights and glamour, not amon a bunch of unruly vomen vere you can get hurt."

"Right," he said.

"I vill alvays remember you." Her hand dropped warm across his wrist. "Maybe someday ven ve are old, ve can meet again and bore the young people vith brags about our great days."

She glanced around. "But for now, darlin, if only ve could get avay from here by ourselves. I know a good bar not far off. It has rooms upstairs, too."

"Hm-m-m," he murmured. The prospect attracted. When she wasn't being a warrior, she was very female. "This calls for tactics. If we could sort of slump down in our chairs bit by bit, acting tired—which ought not to surprise anybody that notices—till we've gradually sunk out of sight, then we could crawl under the table and slip out that service door yonder "

As he did, Ray heard Urushkidan, called upon for a speech, begin a detailed exposition of his latest theory.