The Unreasoning Mask (18 page)

 

 

The bolg was moving east, towards the Kalafalan capital, towards him,
towards al-Buraq.

 

 

The ground undulated again.

 

 

The crust of Kalafala was tortured by the gravitational pull of the bolg.
It was rising was being ripped upwards, shaking, falling apart.

 

 

The air of Kalafala was being pulled upwards, also.

 

 

So was the oceanic area. Colossal tides would follow the path of the bolg.

 

 

Vomit threatened to spew out of him. But he looked at it again and saw that
a shimmering corona, white shot with blue, surrounded it. Was that an energy
discharge?

 

 

The world was literally falling down around him, and he had to get his
marines back to the ship before that onrushing metal storm caught them.
Or before a chasm opened up beneath al-Buraq and swallowed her. Yet . . .
he could not leave Branwen or the glyfa here.

 

 

The two Tolt jeeps were moving towards the spaceport now. Their passengers
were bent over, their faces turned away from the wind smiting them. Below
them, the natives were rolling over and over, pushed by the wind though
their fingers dug into earth or they clung to pieces of rocks or fragments
of buildings blown their way. Some of the natives spun into the first
crevasse opened or into new ones which had formed afterwards.

 

 

Ramstan looked away and saw that the Tolt jeeps were accelerating.

 

 

He bellowed, "After them! Shoot them! But don't hit Lieutenant Davis!"

 

 

Even if the situation had been that expected, he would not have been sure
that they would immediately obey his orders. There had been no war on Earth
for one hundred and thirty-five years, and these marines had not experienced
even simulated combat. They had probably not expected to fight.

 

 

And now they were close to complete shock and panic. They would want to
get back to ship as swiftly as possible. He did, too, but he would not
permit himself to be diverted from his original mission.

 

 

Ramstan's skinceiver quit yaminering. The voice was replaced by a shrill
and loud series of dots and dashes. Code:

 

 

RETURN TO SHIP AT ONCE. RETURN TO SHIP AT ONCE.
MISSILES FROM USO [unidentified Space Object]
APPROACHING AT RATE OF 1999 KILOMETERS
PER HOUR. ARRIVAL HERE ETA TEN MINUTES.
REPEAT. RETURN TO SHIP AT ONCE. ALARAF IN
NINE MINUTES. REPEAT. RETURN TO SHIP AT
ONCE. ALARAF IN NINE MINUTES. REPEAT . . .

 

 

Tenno was doing what he would have done. Regardless of who was or was not
within ship, she would go into alaraf drive in nine minutes.

 

 

His mother's voice spoke. "Get back to ship! Now! Don't waste a second!
Now! If you don't, you'll die! All will be lost!"

 

 

Ramstan forgot to subvocalize. He said, "I can't leave you here!
And what about Davis?"

 

 

"Get back to al-Buraq!" the gly!a said, now switching to the voice of
his commandant at the space academy. "Now! Now! It's the bolg, you fool!
The bolg!"

 

 

Light flashed in the rear Tolt jeep, the one in which Branwen was. Three
short, bright, thin beams. Allah! Branwen had pulled her olson from its
holster or snatched one from a marine by her. She had shot the two beside
her. Another flash. She had shot the fourth.

 

 

The jeep dived, struck the ground, bounced up, half-rolled, tossing the
box out -- the box which held the glyfa, surely -- crashed on its side,
and rolled completely over, sliding until its side rammed into a tree.

 

 

The other Tolt jeep stopped, swiveled, and started back. The ship's captain
was in it, and he had great coolness and courage. He had ordered the jeep
to come back and pick up the glyfa. And perhaps to kill Davis. Or pick her
up. After all, he would probably not have seen that she had beamed her
escort. The glyfa, however, would be his overriding concern.

 

 

Ramstan yelled. His driver had slumped over. Her face was slack. The jeep
had stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he saw, but did not fully register,
that the other jeep with his marines had pulled up alongside. He raised the
driver and saw the holes, cauterized, in the front and back of her head.

 

 

A Tolt had shot her.

 

 

A hole appeared in the windshield by him. A marine in the back seat bent
over. His helmet had a very thin hole in its back.

 

 

The marines in his jeep did not seem to know what was happening. But those
in the jeep by his were firing their olsons at the Tolt jeep.

 

 

The box was a meter or so near the edge of a ragged crack in the earth.
Branwen had gotten free of the vehicle -- its security magnetic field
must have gone off when the jeep was wrecked -- and she was crawling away
from it. The ground was swelling beneath her, she was on top of a wave,
and then the torn earth collapsed beneath her. Her legs and buttocks
were buried beneath dirt.

 

 

The wave had shifted the box nearer to the crevasse.

 

 

"You damn fool!" the space academy commandant's voice said. "Get back to
ship! Leave me here! Come back and get me later! After the bolg is gone!"

 

 

"I might never find you!" Ramstan shrieked.

 

 

Something streaked fierily from the Tolt jeep. The jeep beside him
exploded, and Ramstan felt heat and some stings on his side.

 

 

He did not remember how he had done it. But the body of the jeep driver
was in the back seat and he was at the controls. His jeep shot by the
Tolt jeep. A marine fell on him. He had been hit and had fallen on top
of his captain. Ramstan ignored the corpse and directed the jeep towards
al-Buraq, which was panting a yellowish-red light. A port opened in
her, Ramstan drove the jeep into it, and slammed on the brakes. Energy
shot red-bluishly from its vents. The magnetic field cushioned him and
prevented him from dashing out his brains against the control paneL The
shock emptied him of action for a moment.

 

 

The port crew had scattered when they had seen the speeding jeep.
Now they ran out and gathered around him. The entrance closed up like
a healing wound; the illumination within the port became brighter.

 

 

"Take care of them!" Ramstan said, waving his hand to indicate the dead
or wounded in the jeep. He ran through the corridors, speaking into his
skinceiver while he did so.

 

 

"Is everybody in?"

 

 

"Everybody except your marines," Tenno said. "I mean those in the
other jeep."

 

 

"They're dead," Ramstan said. "Put ship in alaraf! Now! Destination:
the Tolt bell!"

 

 

"Aye, aye, sir," Tenno said. His face, on the screen moving along the
bulkhead to Ramstan's right, was fixed, seemingly emotionless except
for intensity on the next order.

 

 

"That's the thing that destroyed Walisk!" Ramstan said. Tenno did not reply,
but he paled.

 

 

A few minutes later, Ramstan was on the bridge.

 

 

All there were pale, and their faces were strained. A few were calling
on God under their breaths. They all stank of deep fright. Ramstan was
not sure that he had not wet his own shorts.

 

 

"We can write off Kalafala," Ramstan said. "We weren't able to get to Davis.
I'll have a report from personnel later. Did the Tenolt send any messages?"

 

 

"No, sir."

 

 

"We're going back to Kalafala. We have to check it out. But not for some
time."

 

 

"What could that thing be?" Tenno said. His voice was low and trembling.
His head shook.

 

 

"I don't know. But I think that it can detect our trail and follow us."

 

 

"Follow us?" Tenno said. "Why? How?"

 

 

"I don't know."

 

 

Ramstan called Hu.

 

 

"We all need some antishock, Doctor."

 

 

"I have it ready, Captain. I was just about to call you."

 

 

A few minutes later, Hu, followed by two corpsratings, entered. They scanned
every person to determine the amount each needed, and then applied the flat
ends of their osmosers to the skins of the "patients." Ramstan immediately
felt better; the sense of unreality and the numbness of perception faded.

 

 

Ramstan thought that it would be best if he told his officers why he was
going to Tolt.

 

 

"I want to determine whether or not that monster has attacked Tolt."

 

 

His thoughts kept slipping back to the glyfa. And near it would be what
was left -- not much -- of Branwen Davis. Unless the Tolt officer in the
jeep had rescued the glyfa and, perhaps, Davis.

 

 

He wondered if the Popacapyu had alarafed before the storm had swept over
it. Or had it waited too long for its marines to return with the glyfa?

 

 

 

 

Six days later, the pear-shaped planet of Tolt filled the viewscreens.
Clouds covered three-fourth, of it, but the heat detectors and the analyzers
showed that great fires were still raging in many areas. Al-Buraq curved
around to the nightside; here, the large areas of heat were visible to
the eye through the clouds.

 

 

"There's no use going down there," Ramstan said. "What happened is evident."

 

 

Though he had no evidence at all that he was responsible for the destruction
of so much life, for the slaying of billions of sentients, he did feel
guilty.

 

 

Tenno motioned with his finger for Ramstan to join him in a privacy field.

 

 

"I don't think we should be overheard, Captain. I'm worried, justifiably
so. It seems that the Tenolt were able to track us through alarafian space.
If they can do that, why not someone -- or something -- else? That monster
that's been destroying planets, for instance?"

 

 

Tenno paused, looking as if he did not want to say what he must say.

 

 

"What is it?"

 

 

Tenno swallowed, and he said, "If it can track us, it could follow
the path we've made from Earth back to Earth. Follow the space traces,
I mean."

 

 

"We don't know that," Ramstan said, grabbing Tenno's arm. Tenno's pained
expression made him release his grip.

 

 

"We don't know that it can't," Tenno said. "And that is what counts!"

 

 

"All right," Ramstan said. "One thing at a time. What concerns me most
just now is the thing seemingly appearing from nowhere. I realize that
anyone seeing us just come into a bell would think that we, too, popped
out of nowhere. But this thing doesn't enter a bell at its edge. I'm not
sure that it can't appear anywhere it wants to."

 

 

"If that's true, it doesn't use alaraf drive. Not the kind we know."

 

 

Tenno paused, then continued. "Also, it seems to me that that horrible
whistling might be caused by a . . . a disrupting of normal space-matter
structure. As soon as the thing is fully in normal space-matter and
space-matter has resumed its normal structure -- whatever that is -- the
whistling stops. I don't know. I'm just speculating. Whatever the thing
is . . . it's unheard of . . . horrible . . . horrible . . . whoever
would have thought . . .?"

 

 

The vast, dark shape hovered in their minds, blotting out almost all
thought except of it.

 

 

As soon as he could, Ramstan got rid of the pseudo-glyfa by sending it
via ship's peristalsis to the trash disintegrator.

 

 

While al-Buraq circled Tolt, Ramstan paced in his quarters. During mess,
he did his best to keep the conversation going and on light topics,
but he failed miserably. After the third mess, when the drinks were
brought in, he made an announcement.

 

 

"We're going to return to Kalafala."

 

 

There was silence.

 

 

"By the time we get there, that thing should be through with its . . . work.
And it should be gone on its next hellish assignment. It may be tracking us
down, though there's no proof that it is doing that. Anyway, if we do
find it, or if it finds us, we'll not run away unless we have to."

 

 

He paused and looked around at the pale faces.

 

 

"We'll test its attack capabilities. And if it looks as if we'll have
a chance, we'll attack it!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 17 ...

 

 

His plan was courageous but also probably foolish. However, the prospect
of facing the enemy instead of running away seemed to raise the spirits
of the crew.

 

 

Al-Buraq's probers searched for the bolg but could not detect it. There
was no doubt that it was gone, its work done. An object of its size and
mass could not have hidden. It could, however, and no one forgot it for
a moment, appear seemingly from out of nowhere.

 

 

There was smoke covering Kalafala, but it was much less dense than
that over Walisk and Tolt. Except for some small islands, the planet
had only one continent, which had only the surface area of Greenland,
and half of it was empty of people and vegetation. It should not have
taken long for the Destroyer to ravage all land life, but it may have
been acting automatically, a mindless thing that carried out its work
according to the surface available, not the location of life.