The Unreasoning Mask (17 page)

 

"Is ship fully recovered?"

 

 

The engineer lifted his right wrist to one ear. Perhaps he was listening to
the time through his skinceiver.

 

 

"My people say she'll be fully operational in ten more minutes,
sir. There's still a residue of drug not flushed out yet. It takes
time . . ."

 

 

"Notify me the second she's ready."

 

 

Indra's face disappeared. Tenno's swelled to fill the circle. But the lift
door opened, and he was in the bridge. He at once asked the exec if he had
questioned the crew on Davis's whereabouts.

 

 

"Yes, sir. Everybody's been contacted. Three say they saw her in the port
main building for a few minutes."

 

 

Ramstan had to force himself to ask the next question. "Did they say she
was carrying a large bag? Or a box? Anything bulky?"

 

 

Tenno looked startled. Those on the bridge who had overheard gave him
expressionless glances but some looked at others as if to transmit a
silent message.

 

 

"I don't know, sir. I just asked if she'd been seen."

 

 

"Ask them if she was carrying a bag or a box!"

 

 

Tenno put ship on all-phone and did as ordered. Ramstan ordered several
search squads out. They were to cover the port and also to question
Kalafalans about Davis. Within forty seconds, Tenno made his report.

 

 

"Lieutenant Davis
was
carrying a box, sir."

 

 

"Al-Khidhr, Isa, and Muhammad!"

 

 

The exclamation was subvocalized; he had enough control not to show
his panic.

 

 

If Davis was the one who'd taken the glyfa, why hadn't she accepted his
invitation to bed? She could have seen his quarters in order to better
her plans. She could have tried to get the code words out of him. She'd
have failed, but surely she would have made the attempt.

 

 

But then she probably thought that getting into his cabin wasn't necessary.
Nor had it been.

 

 

Who had put her up to this?

 

 

He mastered his rage, sickness, and fear. He said, "Send out two more
search parties. Post two people where they can observe the Tolt ship."

 

 

A minute later, a CPO reported from the port tavern.

 

 

"Sir, a Kalafalan says she saw an Earthwoman who was carrying a box
go into the hotel."

 

 

Ramstan ordered Tenno to have two jeeps with marines armed with olsons
only ready to go within two minutes.

 

 

"I'll be in command. We're going to the hotel. Call in the search parties.
Put ship on emergency take-off status, alaraf drive. As soon as I get back,
we'll depart."

 

 

Tenno swallowed and said, "May I ask what this is all about?"

 

 

"I don't have time for explanations now," Ramstan said. "Be ready!"

 

 

He strode to the lift. If he caught Davis and brought the glyfa back
with her, what then? She would reveal what she had done and why, and he
could not deny that he had taken the glyfa from the Tolt temple. He'd
be arrested.

 

 

He stepped out of ship. The bright sun was sliding down the final quarter
of unclouded, pinkish sky. The air was delightfully fresh even though
strained through his mask. Far to the west, black was building up on the
horizon, a storm charging in from the ocean. It was a beautiful serene
view with a hint of something sinister coming -- typically Kalafalan in
scenery and psychology.

 

 

The marine sergeant in command saluted. Ramstan looked briefly at the
armed and masked men, got into the back seat of the front jeep, strapped
himself in, and said, "To the hotel." The jeep rose to an altitude of
12 meters and began accelerating.

 

 

As yet, Ramstan had not ordered that any Tolt accompanied by Davis or any
with a large box be intercepted. He was certain that an attempt to stop
them would meet with vigorous resistance. There would be shooting. Then
what? Would the Tolt ship attack al-Buraq? Probably. He would have put
ship and crew in unnecessary danger. He'd be responsible for the deaths
of many and for the wipeout, perhaps, of al-Buraq.

 

 

Why did he not just call off the search? He'd told himself that he was
fortunate to be rid of the glyfa. He should have thought of some excuse
to leave Kalafala. Branwen Davis would be marked down as a deserter.

 

 

He sighed deeply. Despite his original intentions, he was lusting for the
glyfa. He had to have it back. Yet, he couldn't explain to himself why
he must.

 

 

Perhaps, somehow, he could get the glyfa without altercation and could
get rid of Branwen. He didn't have the slightest idea how this could
be arranged nor did he genuinely believe it could be. Nevertheless,
he would try.

 

 

Then he reared up against the restraining magnetic field, his hands
pressed to his ears. The hands did not diminish the noise or his pain.

 

 

He screamed and he could hear his cry, though he should not have been
able to do so.

 

 

The vast whistling sounded as if the very fabric of space-matter was
being ripped apart.

 

 

As if the universe was crying out in a death agony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 16 ...

 

 

The jeep drivers hands were pressed to her ears; her eyes were puddled
with agony, and the face under the mask must be contorted. The jeep,
its controls released, automatically slowed down and stopped.

 

 

Ramstan strove to overcome the pain from the whistling. He looked around
for its origin but saw only that the other marines were also trying to
block out the whistling with their palms. Their efforts were as useless
as his. All around and below him, the Kalafalans on the street and the
hotel steps were clamping their hands against their own ears, their mouths
wide open as if they could ease their agony by letting the sound out from
their mouths, their eyes also wide open, and their faces twisted, as if
the whistling was a wringer through which their faces were being run.

 

 

Many were running headlong, stumbling, bumping into others, knocking them
down or themselves falling. Others stood motionless as if turned into
pillars of salt

 

 

Some of the marines were screaming and so were many of the Kalafalans.
He could hear them clearly through the whistling. Yet that awful noise
should have overridden any other sound. That it did not meant that the
whistling came from within hinself. No! He was not originating it! That
noise came from somewhere, but it was not transmissible in air or flesh;
it came from something other than vibrations in the atmosphere.

 

 

"Run, Ramstan, run!"

 

 

The words were those of the voice in the tavern, but the voice was not
the same. He did not recognize it.

 

 

He fought down the impulse to leap out of the jeep and run at top speed
to . . . where? . . . anywhere to get away from the horror and the pain.

 

 

The driver shouted, "For God's sake, what is it? I can't stand it!
I'm going crazy!"

 

 

Ramstan had no need to shout to be heard, but he roared with panic and
desperation. "1 don't know! Control yourself! Drive on! Drive on, I say!"

 

 

She took her hands away from her ears, said, shakily, "Yes, sir," and
grabbed the wheel and put her feet on the pedals. She was quivering,
and she looked as if she were about to scream back at the screaming in
her head.

 

 

"There! There!" Ramstan said, pointing. Just beyond the hotel steps were
two teardrop-shaped Tolt jeeps poised a half-meter above the sidewalk.
Six armored and armed Tenolt sat in the first, the lower part of the
prognathous faces masked, the woolly upper part between mask and helmet
exposed. Five were in the second vehicle, two in the front seat and two in
the back with Branwen Davis seated between them. Though she was masked,
she was easily recognizable. All were holding their ears, and the jeeps
had automatically stopped.

 

 

Ramstan shouted at the driver, "Get down there before they recover!"
He pointed at the Tenolt.

 

 

He turned and bellowed at the marines. "It's no use holding your ears!
Get ready to attack! Fire when I give the order! Shoot to kill!"

 

 

They might not have been able to hear him above the screams and yells
of the frantic crowd below them, but they understood his gestures. Their
hands came down, and they unholstered their olsons.

 

 

As suddenly as it had arrived, the whistling was gone.

 

 

The pain dwindled away swiftly, leaving in its wake a relief almost as
pleasurable as the pain had been agonizing. But there was no time for
Ramstan to savor it. The Tenolt drivers had resumed control; the jeeps
were moving up and towards the spaceport, though slowly. And, as was
evident from the gestures of the Tenolt, they had seen the approaching
Terrans.

 

 

A marine behind him screamed, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

 

 

Most of the Kalafalans had ceased shrieking, though their babbling was loud.
But now they started screaming again, and many were pointing upwards and
past Ramstan.

 

 

He turned and looked westward. The whistling had given him a sense of the
unreality of the world which he had not yet overcome. Now the numbness
and the feeling of being unmoored from the solidity of matter and time
made a quantum jump. He could not understand, could not accept, what
he was seeing. The thing in the sky should not exist. It was monstrous,
unnatural, and yet there it was in Nature. Vaguely, he felt betrayed.

 

 

From the valley far away drifted the bonging of thousands of gongs.

 

 

There, surely, was the thing that had caused the whistling. The bolg.
It was a sphere hanging over the planet, blotting out most of the sky,
a frightening body that looked close, close, another planet just about
to fall and crush all life, smash the earth, rip it apart, make it reel
with the inconceivable mass, melt earth and the rock beneath the earth
with the force of the collision.

 

 

But it was not falling. It was moving swiftly eastwards, though not nearly
quickly enough, if it had the mass evidenced by its size, to stay in orbit.
It should have fallen by now. It was not falling. It was moving above the
planet's atmosphere, perhaps just beyond the outer boundary, seemingly held
there by its power.

 

 

It was as round as a baseball, dark except for some paler markings
which made it look like the face of a Halloween jack-o'-lantern carved
by a palsied hand. A tiny horn, a truncated cone, projected from the
bottom. Another horn, glittering in the light of the westering sun,
stuck out from the center of the "face" like a parody of a nose. And
there was another on the near side on the equatorial line.

 

 

Ramstan clung to the back of his seat and stared as the ground westwards
raised itself and curved, undulating, towards him. The distant mountain
range shimmied. The back of the earth curved up and down like the swellings
of a heavy sea. Forests lifted up and fell. Buildings rose and exploded
and hurtled to the ground in fragments.

 

 

At the same time, a wind from the east began keening past him. The air
struck him like a fist

 

 

There was a cracking noise like a Brobdingnagian whip snapping. The ground
waves passed beneath the two jeeps, the crest of one almost touching the
bottom of the vehicles. Roaring, the hotel collapsed. In the distance,
the spaceport control tower leaned over and then broke in half. Tiny figures
spilled out of it.

 

 

He fought against withdrawing into himself and cutting off all the world
outside his mind.

 

 

The rumble caught up with the snapping, then. The entire planet was growling
and shaking -- or so it seemed to him.

 

 

The people on the ground had been hurled down. Some were trying to stand
up again but could not do it because the earth was rocking like slush
in a bowl in the hand of a terrified person.

 

 

There were more cracks and rumbles. The earth split open in a great zigzag
extending as far as he could see from the west. It sped like a crazed
snake past him, people toppling into the suddenly opened crevasse,
others, just on its edge, trying to crawl away or motionless with their
faces pressed against the ground.

 

 

The wind became stronger. Hats, pieces of clothing, branches, leaves,
and dust flew by him.

 

 

A voice was yammering from his skinceiver. Even though he held it close
to his ear, he could not understand it. There was far too much noise
from wind, screams, rumbles, and crackings. But he thought that he knew
what the voice was warning him of.

 

 

The western sky between the horizon and that sphere was on fire.

 

 

At first, there seemed to be many, thousands, perhaps, of thin, blazing
lines. They originated from above the atmosphere, no doubt, from the
truncated cone which stuck out from the bottom of the gigantic thing.
Meteorites. Missiles. Such as had swept fierily over Walisk. They were
few, comparatively few, in the beginning. But now the curving lines from
the upper air to the earth had become more numerous, seeming to expand,
and now the sky between the vast bulge overhead and the ground was a solid
curtain of fire.