John Rackham (18 page)

A
day came when she made a decision, out of the blue, that there would be no work
that afternoon at all. Instead, they would wander down to the pool and just
laze in the sun, ". . . and do nothing, nothing at all!" she
declared.

He
saved his comment until after they had plunged and bathed and were relaxed on
the grass in the sun. He was uneasy. She hadn't bothered to put her clothes
back on, and that was a change. After drying, she had spread the towel and was
stretched on it, seemingly far away in some reverie.

"What about the war-effort and the
grow-more food campaign?" he demanded. "How can we afford to loaf
like this?"

"What
does it matter. In a few days now we will all be dead. Isn't that what you have
been trying to tell me all this time?"

"Those were
my
words. What about yours? What about your 'Never! We will never
surrender!' What about that?"

"Things
have changed since then. I have changed. You once told me, when you were
talking about your world, of a saying. 'Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow
we die!' Remember?"

"I
remember. It's a fool's philosophy, a philosophy of despair."

"You reject it?"

"I do. There are some
things a man doesn't do."

She
came up on an elbow and smiled at him crookedly. "Then if I say to you let
us eat, drink and be merry—you wouldn't? Why not? We are all to die soon. What
does it matter?"

"It
matters to me. Like this." He looked away from her and set himself to be
deliberate. "If a man said to me— 'Here is something of mine, very
precious, but I give it freely to you because I'm going to die and it will be
no use to me after I'm dead'—I wouldn't count him much of a man, nor would the
gift be worth much. I don't want it; you can have it—that's not a gift; it's an
insult!"

"I
did not mean to insult you!" He saw that she had flushed a hot red all
over, and glanced away again hurriedly.

"It doesn't matter. Perhaps you didn't
mean anything at all. Perhaps you were just making talk."

"That's
it," she agreed, wearily, and lay back on the towel in the sun. "I
was just talking."

That
most uncomfortable day dragged to a close without any more speech between them,
but that night his tentative plans came to a head. It was no more than a
coincidence that Ryth's radio should bleat and chime an urgent call to her next
morning when the dawn was still gray, and her father's voice told her the
long-awaited news.

"They
are here. A host of strange objects gathering on the other side of the
sky-lights."

And then Karsh. "You decide for yourself
whether to tell him or not, but somebody will be along to get him as soon as we
can arrange it."

And then, when she padded along to his room
in her bare feet, he was not there. Unknown to her, he had packed up his few
needs and departed long before sunup. She stared, then whirled and ran back to
the radio with the news. Karsh reacted fast.

"We'll get him. There'll be scouts out.
You stand fast and let us know if he comes back."

But Bragan had no intention of coming back.
In his mind the two urgencies had reached a head together. He preferred to
think of Ryth only as something past and over with, and Zorgan as more
important. He knew the general directions of Stopa, and he had with him a
machete and a small sack of minimum provisions. By full dawn of that day he had
put three hills between himself and the farmhouse, and then, in caution, he
climbed a tree and settled himself to roost out the rest of the day. By morning
of the third day he reckoned he was within five miles or so of Stopa. Not
exactly fast time for the journey, but there had been rough terrain to cross,
streams to dodge around, farms to avoid, and he had no intention whatever of
underestimating Scartanni woodcraft. He had learned a little of his own in the
past months, and used it to the point where he could say with confidence that
Stopa had to be on the other side of that hill.

But
there was something on the top of that same hill that intrigued his eyes. From
a high crotch in the branches of a tree a hundred yards from the summit, he
studied the thing. A dark bulk masked by bushes, and then objects that looked
superficially like trees and might have fooled him a year ago, but not now. He
scrambled down and went closer cautiously, beating up the hill from bush to
bush until he came to the edge of a hollow depression and could peer down into
it from a fringe of undergrowth.

A
"hard" base. No doubt about it. That long-muzzled tiling, twined with
creepers and green stuff, was a beamer. As he stared the outlines became
apparent. A beamer—and a
big
one,
at that. And that pair of fragile trees that didn't stir in the wind, they
carried a peering camera. He circled the site gingerly, and saw that he was
right. That was Stopa, away down there with the river and the sea to catch the
morning light.

Then some sixth sense made his head come
around fast, to see a face and eyes staring at him from bushes about three
yards away. A face that grinned a wolfish grin and stood up to reveal a lean
youth in a snug, close-fitting woolen suit of green. Bragan stirred—and realized
that he was ringed by Scartanni. At least six of them were all around, now
showing themselves. He relaxed his caution, moved out into an open space.

"All
right," he called, "so you've caught me. Now come and get me, if you
can!" The youth with the grin also moved, but only a little, enough to let
Bragan see that he was carrying a hand-weapon that looked like a stun-gun.

"You
can't catch us with those tricks twice, Zorgan," he called. "We have
learned from Hork. And Yarrow. And Belven!" and he raised the weapon.
Bragan fell flat and rolled frantically, then scrambled to his feet and ran in
a crouch. Feet crackled through the undergrowth all around. A wrenching agony
struck his shoulder, paralyzing his left arm. He flung himself aside, twisting
and tiirning, but it was useless. Now a tall intent girl rose from the green in
front of him, aimed and fired. He saw her finger go down on the stud. And then
his whole world dissolved into twisting, knotting pain. He felt the ground
come up and hit him. And then nothing.

X

T
here
was
a taste of acid in
his mouth, and old-age arthritis in his limbs. Some heavy-footed goblin in big
boots was dancing a slow jig inside his skull. Then he recalled the stun-gun
and winced as he opened his eyes to look around.
Back to square one,
he thought, because he was in a cell once
more, the image of the one he'd been confined to, so long ago. As he sat up and
swung his feet to the floor the lights flared and the door opened. In the gap
stood a hard-faced youth. Bragan noted the stun-gun first, then the dress.
Close-fitting wool from head to foot, but this had been polished in some way to
give it a glitter, and it was a gray that looked like metal. And a red paint
slash-mark across the chest. Scarta
had
changed,
he realized.

"Up and out!" the youth ordered,
and stood aside to reveal a companion. Bragan shrugged and stood, reeled a
litde as the effect of the paralysis hit him, then steadied. The stunner waved
him out. He went, into the
f
amili
ar
long
tunnel, urged into a fast march by the youth at his heels.

"What's the
hurry?" he demanded.

"Enough for you. Your friends are up
there, preparing to come down."

"The big fleet—it's
here?"

"Not
for long. Hurry it up, and you'll see how we deal with invaders!" Bragan
stretched his legs, smiling wryly at the brusque tone. But there was something
new in the atmosphere. Noise. It grew as he went along, and then out of the
narrow walls and into an upturned bowl of a room that was huge, bright with
lights, and humming like a hive. Everywhere he looked he saw the glitter and
sheen of machinery controls, consoles, lively gauges and the purr and click of
gadgetry. Cabinets, buttons, winking lights, and a swarm of men and women
intent and alert, muttering across to each other, checking things. He was
astonished by the sheer quantity of organization represented here.

The stunner-muzzle jabbed at his back and a
grim voice said, "Straight ahead, Zorgan, to the central control."

As
he started to move again a tense voice rose above the chatter to declare.
"Sky-watch Three. High fifty, green one eight three. Six objects
separating out. Tracking."

"Lock-on!" came
another voice.
"I
have then. Tracking!"

Bragan marched on, came to the center of the
room and a clear space. And there at the focus of everything was a large
circular plot-screen showing the dark sky and stars. And Mordin sitting in one
swivel chair that was a mass of controls, Karsh in another. The third chair was
vacant.

"Here's the Zorgan,
sir!"

"Thank
you." Mordin looked up, as bleak and craggy as ever, and Bragan saw across
his chest a gold stripe through a circle. "Back to your post." The
youth went away; the gray eyes settled on Bragan.

"Supreme Executive of Zorgan on
Scarta," he said, very steadily. "And I am Supreme Executive of
Scarta. We have learned from you, Bragan, perhaps more than you realize. You
talk too much, and my daughter is a good listener."

"She is also a good cook, which is
equally relevant right now, so far as you are concerned. I gather the big fleet
is here?"

"It is, and the first wave of attack
ships is descending. Sit, and see how much we have learned. Watch your big
fleet eat up death at our hands."

Bragan sat, looked across at Karsh.
"Have our friends arrived yet?"

"Not yet. They are a trifle late,
cutting it fine!" Karsh undipped a small hand-set from the arm of his
chair and stood it on the edge of the plot. Mordin glared at it.

"You insist on using your own radio to
keep in touch with the others, when I tell you our land-wires are better,
safer."

"You can't have too many lines of
communication," Karsh declared. "You tend to your business; tell him
the setup Let's not waste time. They've already begun dropping."

"Six ships," Bragan nodded. "I
heard. One unit for each major city, just as we did. That's for openers. What
about sleep-gas? Are you prepared for that?"

"We have taken care of it. All the
underground systems are filter-trapped and with neutralizing systems."

"Right. And all your cities are in touch?"

"Every city, even the small ones, all
over Scarta, is in touch with us and we with them. We have learned,
Zorgan."

"Textbook stuff," Bragan told him
coldly. "Don't get too cocky about it. Where are those ships now?"
Mordin made a sign and a babble of information came back at him to do with
location, rate of fall and probable destination. Bragan watched distant screens
pick up green spots and lines and then put his attention on the old man, saw
him nod.

"Exactly as before.
One for each of the six cities." Mordin took up a trailing microphone.
"Attention all ring-beamers. Charge up and stand by."

"And what," Bragan demanded icily,
"do you think you're going to do now? Ring-beamers?"

"Where you were caught," Karsh put
in. "You must have recognized it. A hundred megawatt beamer.
Q-switched!"

"Switched? You mean, they can pulse-beam
those things?
I
thought it couldn't be done with that kind of
power?"

"These
boys can. Pretty good, huh? And every city on the planet is sitting inside a
solid ring of those."

"Those ships will be destroyed before
they ever touch the ground," the old man stated firmly. Bragan glared at
him.

"You're a fooll You've learned? Learned
what? Get on your
mike and tell your beamers to hold their firel"
          
*

Mordin
stared at him in amazement. "You think me mad, Zorgan? We will destroy
them, like that!" and he snapped his fingers. Bragan came up out of his
seat, reached out and grabbed the microphone, held it away and pushed his face
belligerently near to Mordin's.