A Circus of Hells

Chapter XVIII

Where their ranges overlapped, Domrath and Ruadrath normally had no particular relationship. The former tended to regard the latter as supernatural; the latter, having had chances to examine hibemator dens, looked more matter-of-factly on the former. Most Domrath left Ruadrath things strictly undisturbed—after trespassing groups had been decimated in their sleep—whereas the Ruadrath found no utility in the primitive Domrath artifacts. The majority of their own societies were chalcolithic.

But around Seething Springs—Ktha-g-thek, Wirrda’s—a pattern of mutuality had developed. Its origins were lost in myth. Ydwyr had speculated that once an unusual sequence of weather caused the pack to arrive here while the tribe was still awake. The Ruadrath allowed summertime use of their sturdy buildings, fine tools, and intricate decorations, provided that the users were careful and left abundant food, hides, fabrics, and similar payment. To the Domrath, this had become the keystone of their religion. The Ruadrath had found ceremonial objects and deduced as much. It made Wirrda’s a proud band.

Flandry discovered he could play on that as readily as on territorial instinct. You may admit the skyswimmers can do tricks you can’t. Nevertheless, when you are accustomed to being a god, you will resent their not having told you about the real situation in heaven.

Rrinn and his councilors were soon persuaded to carry out the human’s suggestion: Send an obscurely worded message, which Flandry helped compose. Keep back the fact that he was alive. Have nearly everyone go to the hinterland during the time the Merseians were expected; they could do nothing against firearms, and a youngster might happen to give the show away.

Thus the village lay silent when the airbus appeared.

Domed with the snow that paved the spiderweb passages between them, buildings looked dwarfed. The winter sky was so huge and blue, the treeless winter horizon so remote. Steam from the springs and geysers dazzled Flandry when he glimpsed it, ungoggled; for a minute residual light-spots hid the whitened mass of Mt. Thunderbelow and die glacier gleam on the Hell-kettle peaks. Fast condensing out, vapors no longer smoked above the Neverfreeze River. But its rushing rang loud in today’s ice quiet.

A lookout yelled, “Trreeann!” Flandry had learned that call. He peered upward and southward, located the glinting speck, and sprang into the house where he was to hide.

Its door had been left open, the entrance covered by a leather curtain—an ordinary practice which should not draw any Merseian heed. Within, among the strewn furs and stacked utensils of a prosperous owner, sunbeams straggled past cracks in the shutters to pick out of dimness the arsenal Flandry had taken from the vehicle he stole. He carried two handguns, blaster and stunner, plus a war knife, extra ammunition, and energy charges. That was about the practical limit. The rest Wirrda’s could inherit, maybe.

The house fronted on the central plaza. Directly opposite stood Rrinn’s, where the meeting was to take place. Thus the Ruad could step out and beckon the human to make a dramatic appearance if and when needed. (That’s what Rrinn thinks.) Through a minute hole in the curtain, Flandry saw the nine males who remained. They were armed. Ydwyr had never given them guns, which would have affected their culture too radically for his liking. But those bronze swords and tomahawks could do ample damage.

Rrinn spoke grimly into his short-range transceiver. Flandry knew the words he did not understand: “Set down at the edge of our village, next to the tannery. Enter afoot and weaponless.”

Ydwyr should obey. It’s either that or stop xenologizing this pack. And why should he fear? He’ll leave a few lads in the bus, monitoring by radio, ready to bail him out of any trouble.

That’s what Ydwyr thinks.

Some minutes later the Merseians showed up. They numbered four. Despite their muffling coldsuits, Flandry recognized the boss and three who had been on that previous trip to this country—how many years of weeks ago—

A small shape, made smaller yet by the tyrannosaurian bulks preceding, entered his field of view. He caught his breath. It was not really too surprising that Djana had also come. But after so much time, her delicate features and gold hair struck through the fishbowl helmet like a blow.

The Ruadrath gave brief greeting and took the newcomers inside. Rrinn entered last, drawing his own door curtain. The plaza lay bare.

Now.

Flandry’s hands shook. Sweat sprang forth on his skin, beneath which the heart thuttered. Soon he might be dead. And how piercingly marvelous the universe was!

The sweat began freezing on his unprotected face. The beard he had grown, after his last application of inhibitor lost effect, was stiff with ice. In a few more of Talwin’s short days, he would have used his final dietary capsule. Eating native food, minus practically every vitamin and two essential amino acids, was a scurvy way to die. Being shot was at least quick, whether by a Merseian or by himself if capture got imminent.

He stood a while, breathing slowly of the keen air, willing his pulse rate down, mentally reciting the formulas which drugs had conditioned him to associate with calm. The Academy could train you well if you had the foresight and persistence to cooperate. Loose and cool, he slipped outdoors. Thereafter he was too busy to be afraid.

A quick run around the house, lest somebody glance out of Rrinn’s and see him…a wall-hugging dash down the glistening streets, snow crunching under his boots…a peek around the corner of the outlying tannery…yes, the bus sat where it was supposed to be, a long streamlined box with a sun-shimmer off the windows.

If those inside spotted him and called an alarm, that was that. The odds say nobody will happen to be mooning in this direction, you know what liars those odds are. He drew his stunner, crouched, and reached the main heat-lock in about two seconds.

Flattened against the side, he waited. Nothing occurred, except that his cheekbone touched the bus. Pain seared. He pulled free, leaving skin stuck fast to metal. Wiping away tears with a gloved hand, he set his teeth and reached for the outer valve.

It wasn’t locked. Why should it be, particularly when the Merseians might want to pass through in a hurry? He glided into the chamber. Again he waited. No sound.

He cracked the inner valve and leaned into the entry. It was deserted.

They’ll have somebody in front, by the controls and communication gear. And probably someone in the main room, but let’s go forward for openers. He oozed down the short passage.

A Merseian, who must have heard a noise or felt a breath of cold air—in this fantastic oily-smelling warmth—loomed into the control cabin doorway. Flandry fired. A purple light ray flashed, guiding the soundless hammer-blow of a supersonic beam. The big form had not toppled, unconscious, when Flandry was there. Another greenskin was turning from the pilot console. “Gwy—” He didn’t say further before he thudded to the deck.

Whirling, Flandry sped toward the rear. The saloon windows gave on the remaining three sides of the world; an observation dome showed everything else. Two more Merseians occupied that section. One was starting off to investigate. His gun was out, but Flandry, who entered shooting, dropped him. His partner, handicapped by being in the turret, was easier yet, and sagged into his seat with no great fuss.

Not pausing, the human hurried forward. Voices drifted from a speaker: Merseian basso, Ruadrath purr and trill, the former using vocalizers to create the latter. He verified that, to avoid distraction, there had been no transmission from the bus.

Then he allowed himself to sit down, gasp, and feel dizzy. I carried it off. I really did.

Well, the advantage of surprise—and he was only past the beginning. Trickier steps remained. He rose and searched about. When he had what he needed, he returned to his prisoners. They wouldn’t wake soon, but why take chances? One was Cnif. Flandry grinned with half a mouth. “Am I to make a hobby of collecting you?”

Having dragged the Merseians together, he wired them to bunks—“Thanks, Djana”—and gagged them. On the way back, he appropriated a vocalizer and a pair of sound recorders. In the pilot cabin he stopped the input from Rrinn’s house.

Now for the gristly part. Though he’d rehearsed a lot, that wasn’t sufficient without proper apparatus. Over and over he went through his lines, playing them back, readjusting the transducer, fiddling with speed and tone controls. (Between tests, he listened to the conference. The plan called for Rrinn to draw palaver out at length, pumping Ydwyr’s delegation. But the old xenologist was not naive—seemed, in fact, to be one of the wiliest characters Flandry had ever collided with—and might at any time do something unforeseeable. Words continued, however.) Finally the human had what he guessed was the best voice imitation he could produce under the circumstances.

He set his recorders near the pickup for long-range radio. Impulses flew across 300 white kilometers. A machine said: “The datholch Ydwyr calls Naval Operations. Priority for emergency. Respond!”

“The datholch’s call is acknowledged by Mei Chwioch, Vach Hallen,” answered a loudspeaker.

Flandry touched the same On button. “Record this order. Replay to your superiors at once. My impression was false. The Terran Flandry is alive. He is here at Seething Springs, at the point of death from malnutrition and exposure. The attempt must be made to save him, for he appears to have used some new and fiendishly effective technique of subversion on the Ruadrath, and we will need to interrogate him about that. Medical supplies appropriate to his species ought to be in the scout-boat that was taken. Time would be lost in ransacking it. Have it flown here immediately.”

“The datholch’s command is heard and shall be relayed. Does anyone know how to operate the vessel?”

Flandry turned on his second machine. It went “Kh-h-hr,” his all-purpose response. In this context, he hoped, it would pass for a rasping of scorn. A pilot who cant figure that out in five minutes, when we use the same basic design, should be broken down to galley swabber and set to peeling electrons. He made his first recorder say: “Land in the open circle at the center of the village. We have him in a house adjacent. Hurry! Now I must return to the Ruadrath and repair what damage I can. Do not interrupt me until the boat is down. Signing off. Honor to the God, the Race, and the Roidhun!”

He heard the response, stopped sending, and tuned the conference back in. It sounded as if fur was about to fly.

So, better not dawdle here. Besides, Jake should arrive in minutes if his scheme worked. If.

Well, they wouldn’t be intimately familiar with Ydwyr’s speech in the Navy section…aside from high-ranking officers like Morioch, who might be bypassed for the sake of speed, seeing as how Merseia encouraged initiative on the part of juniors…or if a senior did get a replay, he might not notice anything odd, or if he did he might put it down to a sore throat…or, or, or—

Flandry scrambled back into the overclothes he had shucked while working. He stuffed some cord in a pocket. A chronodial said close to an hour had fled. It stopped when he fired a blaster bolt at the main radio transmitter. On his way out, he sabotaged the engine too, by lifting a shield plate and shooting up the computer that regulated the grav projectors. He hoped not to kill anyone in his escape, but he didn’t want them sharing the news before he was long gone. Of course, if he must kill he would, and lose no sleep afterward, if there was an afterward.

The air stung his injury. He loped over creaking snow to Rrinn’s house. Closer, he moved cautiously, and stopped at the entrance to squeeze his eyes shut while raising his goggles. Charging indoors without dark-adapted pupils would be sheer tomfoolishness. Also dickfoolishness, harryfoolishness, and—Stunner in right hand, blaster in left, he pushed by the curtain. It rustled stiffly into place behind him.

Merseians and Ruadrath swiveled about where they tail-sat. They were at the far end of the single chamber, their parties on opposite daises. A fleeting part of Flandry noticed how vivid the murals were at their backs and regretted that he was about to lose the friendship of the artist.

Djana cried out. Rrinn hissed. Ydwyr uttered a sentence in no language the man had heard before. Several males of either species started off the platforms. Flandry brandished his blaster and shouted in Eriau: “Stay where you are! This thing’s set to wide beam! I can cook the lot of you in two shots!”

Tensed and snarling, they returned to their places. Djana remained standing, reaching toward Flandry, mouth open and working but no sound coming forth. Ydwyr snapped into his vocalizer. Rrinn snapped back. The Terran could guess: “What is this treachery?”

“Indeed we had him alive; yet I know not what he would seize.”

He interrupted: “I regret I must stun you. No harm will be done, aside from possible headaches when you awaken. If anyone tries to attack me, I’ll blast him. The blast will likely kill others. Rrinn, I give you a few breaths to tell your followers this.”

“You wouldn’t!” Djana protested wildly.

“Not to you, sweetheart,” Flandry said, while Ruadrath words spat around him. “Come over here by me.”

She gulped, clenched fists, straightened and regarded him squarely. “No.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t turn my coat like you.”

“I wasn’t aware I had.” Flandry glared at Ydwyr. “What have you done to her?”

“I showed her truth,” the Merseian answered. He had regained his calm. “What do you expect to accomplish?”

“You’ll see,” Flandry told him. To Rrinn: “Are you finished?”

“Ssnaga. ” No matter the Ruad was of another species; you could not mistake unutterable hatred.

Flandry sighed. “I grieve. We traveled well together. Good hunting be yours for always.”

The guide ray struck and struck. The Ruadrath scuttled for shelter, but found nothing high enough. The Merseians took their medicine with iron dignity. After a minute, none among them was conscious save Ydwyr and Djana.

“Now.” Flandry tossed her the loop of cord. “Tie his wrists at his back, run his tail up there and make it fast, then pass down the end and hobble him.”

“No!” she shrieked.

“Girl,” said the gaunt, sun-darkened, wounded visage with the frost in its beard, “more’s involved than my life, and I’m fond of living to start with. I need a hostage. I’d prefer not to drag him. If I have to, though, I’ll knock you both out.”

“Obey,” Ydwyr told her. He considered Flandry. “Well done,” he said. “What is the next stage of your plan?”

“No comment,” the man replied. “I don’t wish to be discourteous, but what you don’t know you can’t arrange to counteract.”

“Correct. It becomes clear that your prior achievements were no result of luck. My compliments, Dominic Flandry.”

“I thank the datholch. Get cracking, woman!”

Djana’s gaze went bewildered between them. She struggled not to cry.

Her job of tying was less than expert; but Flandry, who supervised, felt Ydwyr couldn’t work out of it fast. When she was through, he beckoned her to him. “I want our playmate beyond your reach,” he said. Looking down into the blue eyes, he smiled. There was no immediate need now to aim a gun. He laid both hands on her waist. “And I want you in my reach.”

“Nicky,” she whispered, “you don’t know what you’re doing. Please, please listen.”

“Later.” A sonic boom made pots jump on a shelf. In spite of the dictatorship he had clamped down on himself, something leaped likewise in Flandry. “Hoy, that’s my ticket home.”

He peered past the curtain. Yes, Giacobini-Zinner, dear needle-nosed Jake, bulleting groundward, hovering, settling in a whirl of kicked-up snow…Wait! Far off in the sky whence she’d come—

Flandry groaned. It looked like another spacecraft. Morioch or somebody had played cautious and sent an escort.

Well, he’d reckoned with that possibility. A Comet had the legs over most other types, if not all; and in an atmosphere, especially Talwin’s—

The lock opened. The gangway extruded. A Merseian appeared, presumably a physician since he carried the medikit he must have ferreted out on his way here. He wasn’t wearing an electric coldsuit, only Navy issue winter clothes. Suddenly it was comical beyond belief to see him stand there, glancing puzzled around, with his tail in a special stocking. Flandry had seldom worked harder than to hold back whoops and yell, in his best unaided imitation of a Merseian voice: “Come here! On the double! Your pilot too!”

“Pilot—”

“Hurry!”

The doctor called into the boat. Both Merseians descended and started across the ground. Flandry stood bowstring-tense, squinting out the slit between jamb and curtain, back to the captives he already had, out, in, out, in. If somebody got suspicious or somebody shouted a warning before the newcomers were in stunbeam range, he’d have to blast them dead and attempt a dash for the vessel.

They entered. He zapped them.

Recovering the medikit, he waved his gun. “Let’s go, Ydwyr.” He hesitated. “Djana, you can stay if you want.”

“No,” the girl answered, nigh too weakly to hear. “I’ll come.”

“Best not,” Ydwyr counseled. “The danger is considerable. We deal with a desperate being.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Djana said.

“Your help would be to Merseia,” Ydwyr reproved her.

Flandry pounced. “That’s what you are to him, girl,” he exclaimed in Anglic. “A tool for his damned planet.” In Eriau: “Move, you!”

The girl shook her head blindly. It wasn’t clear which of them she meant. Forlorn, she trudged out behind the tall nonhuman figure, in front of the man’s weapon.

High and distant, little more in the naked eye than a glint, the enemy ship held her position. Magniscreens would reveal that three left the house for the boat—but not their species, Flandry hoped. Just three sent out to fetch something…The gangway clattered to boots.

“Aft,” Flandry directed. “Sorry,” he said when they were at the bunks, and stunned Ydwyr. He used the cord to secure his captive and urged Djana forward. Her lips, her whole slight body trembled.

“What will you do?” she pleaded.

“Try to escape,” Flandry said. “You mean there’s a different game going?”

She sank into the seat beside his control chair. He buckled her in, more as a precaution against impulsive behavior than against a failure of interior grav, and assumed his own place. She stared blankly at him. “You don’t understand,” she kept repeating. “He’s good, he’s wise, you’re making such a terrible mistake, please don’t.”

“You want me brainscrubbed, then?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Let me alone!” Flandry forgot her while he checked the indicators. Everything seemed in order, no deterioration, no vandalism, no boobytraps. He brought the engine murmurous to life. The gangway retracted, the airlock shut. Goodbye, Talwin. Goodbye, existence? We’ll see. He tickled the console. The skill had not left his fingers. Jake floated aloft. The village receded, the geysers, the mountains, he was skyborne.

The outercom blinked and buzzed. Flandry ignored it till he was lined out northward. The other spacecraft swung about and swooped after him. Several kilometers off, she proved to be a corvette, no capital ship but one that could eat a scoutboat for breakfast. Flandry accepted her call.

“Saniau to Terran vessel. Where are you bound and why?”

“Terran vessel, and she is a Terran vessel, to Saniau. Listen with both ears. Dominic Flandry speaks. That’s right, the very same Dominic Flandry who. I’m going home. The datholch Ydwyr, Vach Urdiolch, nephew to the most exalted Roidhun and so forth, is my guest. If you don’t believe me, check the native town and try to find him. When he recovers from a slight indisposition, I can give you a visual. Shoot me down and he goes too.” Pause.

“If you speak truth, Dominic Flandry, do you imagine the datholch would trade honor for years?”

“No. I do imagine you’ll save him if you possibly can.”

“Correct. You will be overhauled, grappled, and boarded. If the datholch has been harmed, woe betide you.”

“First you have to do the overhauling. Second you have to convince me that any woe you can think of betides me worse than what does already. I suggest you check with the qanryf before you get reckless. Meanwhile,” and in Anglic, “cheerio.” Flandry cut the circuit.

At his velocity, he had crossed the Hellkettle Mountains. The northlands stretched vast and drear beneath, gleaming ice, glittering snow, blots that were blizzards. He cast about with his instruments for a really huge storm. There was sure to be one somewhere, this time of year…yes!

A wall of murk towered from earth to high heaven. Before he had pierced it, Flandry felt the thrust and heard the scream of hurricane-force winds. When he was inside, blackness and chaos had him.

A corvette would not go into such a tempest. Nothing except a weathership had any business in one; others could flit above or around readily enough. But a small spaceboat with a first-class pilot—a pilot who had begun his career in aircraft and aerial combat—could live in the fury. And detectors, straining from outside, would lose her.

Flandry lost himself in the battle to keep alive.

Half an hour later, he broke free and shot into space.

Talwin rolled enormous in his screens. Halfway down from either pole coruscated winter’s whiteness; the cloud-marbled blue of seas between icecaps looked black by contrast. Flandry waved. “Goodbye,” he said anew. “Good luck.”

Meters shouted to his eyes of patrol ships waiting for him. You didn’t normally risk hyperdrive this near a planet or a sun. Matter density was too great, as was the chance of gravitation desynchronizing your quantum jumps. The immediate scene was scarcely normal. Flandry’s hands danced.

Switchover to secondary state in so strong a field made the hull ring. Screens changed to the faster-than-light optical compensation mode. Talwin was gone and Siekh dwindling among the stars. The air droned. The deck shivered.

After minutes, a beep drew Flandry’s attention to a tell-tale. “Well,” he said, “one skipper’s decided to be brave and copy us. He got away with it, too, and locked onto our ‘wake.’ His wouldn’t register that steady a bearing otherwise. We’re faster, but I’m afraid we won’t shake him before he’s served as a guide to others who can outpace us.”

Djana stirred. She had sat mute—lost, he thought when he could spare her a thought—while they ran the polar storm. Her face turned to him beneath its heavy coif of hair. “Have you any hope?” she asked tonelessly.

He punched for navigational data. “A stern chase is a long chase,” he said, “and I’ve heard about a pulsar not many parsecs off. It may help us shed our importunate colleagues.”

She made no response, simply looked back out at space. Either she didn’t know how dangerous a pulsar was, or she didn’t care.