Ride the Star Winds (47 page)

Free, Brasidus hugged the embarrassed Grimes in a bearlike embrace, then did the same to Maggie. (“Don’t
I
get a kiss?” complained Fenella.) And then, amazingly, he swept the small blonde into his arms, pressed his lips on hers. She did not resist, in fact cooperated quite willingly.

“Might I ask,” inquired Fenella, “just what the hell is going on here?”

Brasidus laughed. “It’s because of Lalia that I’m down in this hole. At first I enjoyed considerably more freedom. Lalia and I . . . Oh, well, you know how things are. Daphne caught us at it . . .”

“Perhaps Daphne had the right to be jealous,” suggested Fenella.

“It’s time that we were getting out of here,” said Grimes. “I’ve a ship waiting.”

“Come, then,” said Brasidus. With his arm still about Lalia’s shoulders he started for the foot of the staircase.

“You aren’t taking
her
with you,” stated rather than asked Fenella.

“Why not? She was good to me.”

And good to Daphne,
thought Grimes,
and, above all, good to herself.

He said, “I’m sorry. She has to stay here.”

Brasidus released the girl and shrugged.

“Just as well, perhaps,” he muttered. “Probably Ellena wouldn’t approve if I brought her into the Palace.”

And you’ve a lot to learn about Ellena, my poor friend,
thought Grimes.
But that can wait until we’re in the ship on the way back to Port Sparta.

Maggie’s stungun buzzed as she ensured Lalia’s unconsciousness for at least half an hour.

Chapter 28

In the upstairs room
they gave Brasidus the clothing that they had brought for him, the tough coveralls and the heavy boots. He dressed in sulky silence. They let themselves out of the house. The storm was abating although the rain was still as heavy as ever. There was no longer an almost continuous flare of lightning but laser pistols, set to low intensity, did duty as electric torches to illuminate their way.

The stream whose course they had followed up to the village was now a wild torrent, bearing on its crest all manner of flotsam, uprooted bushes and small trees and the like. Audible even above the sound of rushing water was the grinding rumble of the boulders rolling downhill along the river bed.

But where was
Krait
?

Surely,
thought Grimes,
we should be seeing her by now.

He set the beam of his laser to higher intensity, sent it probing ahead into the rain-lashed darkness. There was a very pretty rainbow effect but no reflection from gleaming metal. He began to feel a growing uneasiness. Surely the little bitch hadn’t lifted off by herself . . . Surely some freakish accident, a chance lightning bolt for example, had not caused actuation of the inertial drive machinery . . . .

But that was fantasy.

But where was the ship?

Maggie cried out.

Like Grimes, she had adjusted her laser pistol. Unlike him she was directing the beam only just above ground level. She was first to see the ship. Afterwards it was easy to work out what must have happened, what had happened—the almost-island on which Grimes had set her down had become a real island, an island whose banks were eroded, faster and faster, by the rushing water. With the once-solid ground below her vanes washed away she had toppled. The crash of her falling had just been part of the general tumult of the storm.

Fenella voiced the thoughts of all of them.

“That’s fucked it!” she stated.

Too right,
thought Grimes, but his mind was working busily. Suppose, just suppose, that the ship’s main machinery had not been too badly damaged . . . Then it would be possible, difficult but possible, to lift her on lateral thrust and then, when high enough from the ground, to turn her about a short axis to a normal attitude. In theory it could be done. In fact Grimes had heard of its being done, although he had never had to attempt such a maneuver himself; the nearest to it had been the righting of a destroyer, a much larger vessel. Then those in the ship had used lateral thrust while he, in control of operations, had employed a spaceyacht as a tug.

But to do anything at all he had to get into the ship.

Accompanied by the others he walked, so far as was possible, around the cigar-shaped hull. It formed a bridge over the river, with the nose on the bank upon which Grimes was standing, with the stern on what little remained of the island. And, Grimes saw by the light of the laser torches, she had fallen in such a way that the airlock was below her. He told Maggie and the others.

“Can’t we burn a way in?” she asked. “The control room viewports should be a weak point . . .”

And those viewports, thought Grimes glumly, were supposed to be able to withstand, at least for an appreciable time, the assault of a laser cannon . . . How long would it take hand lasers to make a hole? But it had to be tried.

And so they stood there, the five of them who were armed, with Brasidus watching, aiming their pistols at the center of one of the viewports. Soon their target was obscured by steam as the intense heat vaporized the falling rain, soon the exposed skin of their faces felt as though it were being boiled.

But they persisted.

Then the intense beam of ruby light from Maggie’s weapon faded into the infrared, died. She caught the butt of the weapon a clout with her free hand but it did not help. “Power cell’s dead,” she muttered.

“And mine . . .” said Fenella.

The other lasers sputtered out. The steam dispersed. The eyes of the party became accustomed to the darkness—but, Grimes realized, it was no longer dark. The sun must now be up, somewhere behind the fast-scudding nimbus. He looked at the shallow depression in the thick transparency of the viewport, all that they had been able to achieve at the cost of their most effective weaponry.

He flinched as something whipped past his head with a noise that was part whistle, part crack. A scar of bright metal appeared on the hide of
Krait
just below the viewports. A long time later—it seemed—came the report of a projectile firearm.

“Take cover!” yelled Grimes. “Behind the ship!”

He waited—
like a fool
, he told himself,
like a fool
—until the others had moved, looking toward where he thought the shot had come from, holding his pistol as though for instant use. He saw her, a pale form up the hillside. It was, he thought, the fat blonde. Her body bulk must have minimized the effects of the stungun blast. She had her rifle raised for another shot. It went wild and then she ducked behind a boulder.

Grimes, still holding his useless laser pistol threateningly, walked carefully backward. Just before he joined the others a third shot threw up a fountain of mud by his right foot.

Secure, for the time being, behind the bulk of the crippled courier he said, “There’s only one of them. That fat bitch . . . .”

“Hephastia,” said Brasidus.

“Thanks,” said Grimes. “That saves me the bother of being formally introduced to her. Luckily she doesn’t know that our lasers are dead. But when we fail to return her fire she’ll realize that they are, and come for us.”

“We’ve the stunguns,” said Maggie.

“And what effective range do
they
have?” asked Grimes. “Little more than three meters, if that.”

“But how much ammunition does
she
have?” said Fenella.

“We don’t know,” Grimes told her. “If she’s any sort of a shot six rounds should be ample.”

Very, very carefully he moved out from behind the protection of the ship, crawling in the mud, keeping head and buttocks well down. He was in time to see a flicker of movement as Hephastia changed positions, scurrying to the cover of another boulder, not appreciably decreasing the range but carrying out an outflanking operation. Even if she were not a member of the Amazon Guard she must have had military training on some world at some time.

He raised his pistol as though about to fire from the prone position. Her retaliatory shot was in line but, luckily for him, over. Frantically he scurried forward, found a boulder of his own behind which to hide. It was by no means as large as he would have wished—and it was even smaller after a well-aimed bullet had reduced the top of it to dust and splinters. Another one reduced it in size still further.

Grimes tried to burrow into the mud while still maintaining some kind of a lookout.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement by the ship.

It was Shirl, walking out calmly, something that gleamed, even in this dull, gray light, in her right hand. It was one of those sharpened discs. Hephastia did not see her. She must have had a one-track mind. With calm deliberation she was whittling away Grimes’s little boulder, shot after shot, using some kind of armor-piercing ammunition.

Shirl’s right arm went back, snapped forward.

The disc sailed up in what seemed lazy flight—
too high
, thought Grimes, watching,
too high
.

Shirl stood there, making no attempt to throw a second one.

Grimes’s boulder, under the impact of an armor-piercing bullet, split neatly down the middle, affording him a good view of what was happening. He saw the disc whir over Hephastia’s position and then turn, dipping sharply downward as it did so. It vanished from sight.

There was one last shot, wildly aimed, which threw up a spray of mud between Grimes and the ship. There was a gurgling scream.

Calmly Shirl walked to where Grimes was sprawled in the mud, helped him to his feet.

“She will not bother you again, John,” she said cheerfully.

“But how did you . . . ?”

He did not have to finish the question. The New Alicians had their telepathic moments.

“We did more than just sharpen the discs,” she told him. “We used the grinding wheels and we . . . shaped them. Put in curves. Like boomerangs.”

“But how did you
know
what to do?”

“We . . . We just
knew
.”

Together they walked up the hillside, through the pouring rain, the others straggling after them. They came to the boulder from behind which Hephastia had been shooting. The sight of the fat woman’s body was not quite as bad as Grimes had feared it would be; the downpour had already washed away most of the blood. Even so decapitation, or near decapitation, is never a pretty spectacle. Grimes looked away hastily from the gaping wound in the neck with the obscenely exposed raw flesh and cartilage. The rest of the body was not so bad. It looked drained, deflated, like a flabby white blimp brought to Earth by heavy leakage from its gas cells. Her dead hands still held the rifle. Grimes took it from her. It was a 10mm automatic, as issued to Federation military forces. It was set to Single Shot. There should have been plenty of rounds left in the magazine but there were not. Hephastia—or somebody—had neglected to replace it after some previous usage.

Grimes counted the remaining cartridges.

There were only five.

By this time the others had joined them.

“I’ve a rifle,” said Grimes unnecessarily, “but only five rounds.”

“There are weapons and ammunition a-plenty in the house,” said Brasidus.

“Just what I had in mind,” said Grimes.

He led the way up the hillside.

He covered the retreat, loosing off all five of the remaining rounds to deter a sally from the open door. The other women must have recovered, were firing from chinks in the heavily shuttered windows. After Grimes’s warning burst they seemed to be reluctant to show themselves—much to the disgust of Shirl and Darleen.

“So,” said Maggie, “what now?”

“We follow the river,” said Grimes. “From what I can remember of the maps there are sizable towns on its lower reaches.”

“On
foot
?” squealed Fenella.

“You can try swimming if you like,” said Grimes, “but I’d not recommend it with the river the way it is now.”

Chapter 29

They were cold
and they were wet and they were hungry.

Vividly in Grimes’s memory was the smell of the cellar from which they had rescued Brasidus—the cheeses, the smoked and spiced sausages, the pickles. If only he had known that they were to be denied access to
Krait
he would have seen to it that they commenced what promised to be a very long walk well-provisioned and -armed.

Surprisingly Brasidus was not much help. Grimes had hoped that the Archon would have some idea of the geography of this area, would be able to guide them to some other village where there would be an inn, would be capable of finding for them the easiest and shortest route to the nearest town.

“But you’re the ruler of this world!” said Grimes exasperatedly.

“That does not mean, friend John, that I know, intimately, every square centimeter of its surface, any more than you are familiar with every smallest detail of a ship that you command.”

“I always do my best to gain such familiarity,” grumbled Grimes.

They trudged on, the roaring torrent on their right, towering rocky outcrops, among which a few stunted trees struggled for survival, on their left. Grimes maintained the lead, with Maggie and Brasidus a little behind him, then Fenella, then Shirl and Darleen, the only ones with any sort of effective medium-range weaponry, as the rear guard. It was not likely that they would be followed but it was possible.

They trudged on.

They were no longer so cold; in fact they were sweating inside their heavy coveralls. The rain was easing. Now and again, briefly, the high sun struck through a break in the clouds.

But they were still hungry.

Grimes called a halt in the shelter of an overhanging cliff. He managed to light his pipe. (And how much tobacco was left in his pouch? He should have refilled it from a large container of the weed that Shirl had found for him in one of the officer’s cabins aboard
Krait
.) Fenella had an almost full packet of cigarillos and, grudgingly, allowed Maggie to take one. Neither Brasidus nor the New Alician girls smoked.

Shirl and Darleen strayed away from the shelter, saying that they were going back up the trail a little to see if there were any signs of pursuit. Grimes let them go. He knew that they were quite capable of looking after themselves.