The Brave Free Men (26 page)

Etzwane asked Ifness, "What sort is the spaceship?"

"I don't know." Ifness brought forth his camera and made a series of photographs.

On three sides segments of the hull hung open.

Standing in the apertures were creatures Etzwane thought to be either andromorphs or men; in the shadows he could not be certain.

In the Engh the battle raged, the Roguskhoi step by step thrusting toward the spaceship, the bibbed chieftains in the van, the rank and file arranged in such a fashion as to protect them from the bounding Palasedrans.

Finnerack gave a grunt of anguish and started down the hill. "Finnerack!" cried Etzwane. "Where are you going?"

Finnerack paid no heed. He broke into a trot. Etzwane set off after him. "Finnerack! Come back here; are you mad?"

Finnerack ran, waving his arms toward the spaceship. His eyes bulged wide-open, but he did not appear to see; he stumbled, and Etzwane was on him. Etzwane clutched Finnerack's waist, pulled back. "What are you doing? Have you gone insane?"

Finnerack groaned, kicked, fought; he drove his elbows into Etzwane's face.

Ifness stepped forward and struck two smart blows; Finnerack fell numbly back.

"Quick, or they'll kill us from the ship," said Ifness.

Mialambre and Ifness took Finnerack's arms, Etzwane his legs; they carried him back into the shelter of the trees. Using Finnerack's garments, Ifness tied his ankles and wrists.

In the Engh the Palasedrans, wary of the spaceship, drew back. Up the ramps marched the surviving Roguskhoi chieftains and a hundred warriors. The ports snapped shut. Like a glowbeetle, the ship took on a silver luminescence. Emitting a rasping squeal it rose into the sky and presently was gone.

The Roguskhoi remaining in the valley moved slowly to the spot where the spaceship had rested; here they formed a rough circle, to stand at bay. The chieftains had departed; of the copper horde which had almost overwhelmed Shant less than a thousand survived.

The Palasedrans, drawing back, formed a pair of lines to the right and left of the Roguskhoi; they stood quietly, awaiting orders. For ten minutes the armies surveyed each other soberly, without signal of hostility; then the Palasedrans withdrew to the edge of the Engh and retired up the slope. The Roguskhoi remained at the center of the valley.

The Chancellor made a signal to the men of Shant.'"We now adopt our original strategy. The Roguskhoi are sealed into the Engh and they will never escape. Even your blue-eyed madman must concede the Roguskhoi to be offworld creatures."

Ifness said, "As to this there was never any doubt. The purpose for the incursion remains a mystery. If a conventional conquest were the plan, why were the Roguskhoi armed only with scimitars? Can folk who fly space contrive no better weapons? It seems unreasonable on the face of the matter."

"Evidently they took us lightly," said the Chancellor. "Or perhaps they thought to test us. If so, we have dealt them harsh instruction." "These conjectures are reasonable," Ifness said. "There is still much to be learned. Certain of the. Roguskhoi chieftains were killed. I suggest that you convey these corpses to one of your medical laboratories and there perform investigations, in which I would wish to participate."

The Chancellor made a curt gesture. "The effort is unnecessary."

Ifness drew the Chancellor aside and spoke a few calm sentences, and now the Chancellor gave grudging agreement to Ifness' proposals.

In a state of sullen apathy Finnerack marched back down the valley. Several times Etzwane started to speak to him; each time, leery and sick at heart, he held his tongue. Mialambre, less imaginative, asked Finnerack: "Do you realize that your act, sane or the reverse, imperiled us all?"

Finnerack made no response; Etzwane wondered if he even heard.

Ifness said in a grave voice, "The best of us at times act upon odd impulses."

Finnerack said nothing.

Etzwane had expected to be flown back across the Great Salt Bog; the black glider, however, took them south to Chemaoue, where the man-powered carriage conveyed them once again to the dour inn at the harbor. The chambers were as cheerless as the refectory, with couches of stone cushioned only by thin, sour-smelling pads. Through the open window came a draught of cool salt air and the sound of harbor water.

Etzwane passed a cheerless night, during which he was not aware of having slept. Gray-violet light finally entered the high window. Etzwane arose, rinsed his face with cold water, and went down to the common room, where he was presently joined by Mialambre. Ifness and Finnerack failed to appear. When Etzwane went to investigate, he found their chambers vacant.

At noon Ifness returned to the inn. Etzwane anxiously inquired in regard to Finnerack. Ifness replied with care and deliberation. "Finnerack, if you remember, displayed a peculiar irresponsibility. Last night he departed the inn and set off along the shore. I had anticipated something of the sort and asked that he be kept under surveillance. Last night, therefore, he was taken into custody. I have been with the Palasedran authorities all morning and they have, I believe, discovered the source of Finnerack's odd conduct."

The rancor which Etzwane had once felt in connection with the secretive Ifness began to return. "What did they find out—and how?"

"Best perhaps that you come with me and see for yourself."

Ifness spoke in a casual voice: "The Palasedrans are now convinced that the spaceship is not a product of Earth. I naturally could have told them as much, in the process betraying my own background."

Mialambre asked irritably. "Where then did the spaceship originate?"

"I am as anxious to learn this as yourself—in fact

I work on Durdane to this end. Since the Earth-worlds lie beyond the Schiafarilla, the spaceship presumably comes from the general. direction opposite, toward the center of the galaxy. It is a sort I have never seen before."

"You informed the Palasedrans of all this?"

"By no means. Their opinions were altered by this morning's events. The Roguskhoi chieftains, if you recall, wore a protective bib; this aroused my curiosity. . . . Here are the laboratories."

Etzwane felt a thrill of horror. "This is where they brought Finnerack?"

"It seemed a sensible procedure."

They entered a building of black stone smelling strongly of chemical reeks. Ifness led the way with assurance along a side corridor into a large chamber illuminated by an array of skylights. Tanks and vats stood to right and left; tables ran down the middle. At the far end four Palasedrans in gray smocks considered the bulk of a dead Roguskhoi. Ifness gave a nod of approval. "They commence a new investigation. . . . It may be profitable for you to watch."

Etzwane and Mialambre approached and stood by the wall. The Palasedrans worked without haste, arranging the hulk to best advantage. . . . Etzwane looked about the room. A pair of large brown insects or crustaceans moved inside two glass jars. Glass tanks displayed floating organs, molds and fungus, a swarm of small white worms, a dozen un-nameable objects. . . . The Palasedrans, using an air-driven circular saw, sliced into the great chest. . . . They worked five minutes with great dexterity. Etzwane began to feel an almost unbearable tension; he turned away. Ifness however was intent. "Now watch."

With deftness and delicacy the Palasedrans extracted a white sac the size of two clenched fists. A pair of heavy, trailing tendons or nerves appeared to lead up into the neck. The Palasedrans carefully cut channels into the dark flesh, through bone and cartilage, to draw forth the cords intact. The entire organ now lay on the table. Suddenly it evinced a squirming life of its own. The white sac broke away; out crawled a glossy brown creature, something between a spider and a crab. The Palasedrans at once clapped it into a bottle and placed it on the shelf beside its two fellows.

"There you see your true enemy," said Ifness. "Sajarano of Sershan, during our conversations, used the word 'asutra.' Its intelligence appears to be of the highest order."

In horrified fascination Etzwane went to stare into the bottle. The creature was gnarled and convoluted like a small brown brain; eight jointed legs left the underside of the body, each terminating in three strong little palps. The long fibers or nerves extended from one end through a cluster of sensory organs.

"From my brief acquaintance with the asutra," said Ifness, "I deduce it to be a parasite; or better perhaps, the directive half of a symbiosis, though I am certain that in its native environment it uses neither creatures like the Roguskhoi nor yet men for its hosts."

Etzwane spoke in a voice he found hard to control. "You have seen these before?"

"A single specimen only: that which I took from Sajarano."

A dozen questions pushed into Etzwane's mind: grisly suspicions he did not know how to voice and perhaps did not wish verified. He put Sajarano of Sershan and his pathetic, mangled corpse out of his mind. He looked from one bottle to the other, and though he could not identify eyes or visual organs he had the disturbing sense of scrutiny.

"They are highly evolved and specialized," stated Ifness. "Still, like man they exhibit a surprising hardihood and no doubt can survive even in the absence of their hosts."

Etzwane asked: "What then of Finnerack?"—although he knew the answer to the question even before he asked.

"This," said Ifness, tapping one of the bottles, "was the asutra which occupied the body of Jerd Finnerack."

"He is dead?"

"He is dead. How could he be alive?"

"Once again," said Ifness in a nasal voice of intense boredom, "you insist that I render you information regarding matters either not essentially your concern, or which you might ascertain independently. Still, I will in this case make a concession and perhaps ease your agonies of bewilderment.

"As you know, I was ordered off the plant Durdane by representatives of the Historical Institute, who felt that I had acted irresponsibly. I forcefully asserted my opinions; I won others to my point of view and was sent back to Durdane in a new capacity.

"I returned at once to Garwiy, where I satisfied myself that you had acted with energy and decision. In short, the men of Shant, given leadership, reacted to the threat with ordinary human resource."

"Buy why the Roguskhoi in the first place? Why should they attack the folk of Shant? Is it not extraordinary?"

"By no means. Durdane is an isolated world of men, where experiments with human populations can be discreetly performed. The asutra appear to be anticipating an eventual contact between their realm and the Earth-worlds; perhaps they have had unhappy experiences in the past.

"Remember, they are parasites; they will try to effect their aims through proxies. First, then, they attempt an antihuman simulacrum which impregnates human females and in the process renders them sterile: a biological weapon, in fact, which man has often used against insect pests.

"Their remarkable creation is the Roguskhoi. Certainly hundreds, perhaps thousands of men and women have known the asutra laboratories: a thought to haunt your dark nights. The asutra must consider their creatures acceptable human replicas, which of course they are not; the more subtle human gaze recognizes them for monsters at once; still, biologically they fulfill their function.

"To insure a meaningful experiment, the Roguskhoi must be accorded a period of noninterference; hence the Anome has a monitor implanted in his body, and his Benevolences fare no better. By a system not at all clear the asutra control the activities of their hosts. Sajarano complained of his 'secret soul,' 'the voice of his soul'; I recall Finnerack mentioning his conscience. No doubt the asutra learned to admonish men in their laboratories.

"The Roguskhoi, as weapons, were faulty; the essential concept was a fallacy. Once the artificial passivity of the Anome had ended, the men of Shant reacted with ordinary human energy. No doubt the asutra could have supplied weapons and subjugated Shant, but this was not their purpose; they wished to test and perfect indirect techniques.

"Suppose the men could be induced to destroy each other? This concept, or so I suspect—here I am on uncertain ground—led to the planting of a control in Finnerack. His pugnacity was reinforced; he was compelled to challenge the Palasedrans—an act not at all contrary to his own instincts.

"This second experiment likewise led to failure, although in principle it seems a more reasonable tactic. There was insufficient preparation; I suspect the scheme to be a hasty improvisation."