Big Planet

5 Capture

Around the clearing shapes froze, startled faces looked in his direction. Yelling in fury, the cannoneer sprang forward. Glystra pulled the trigger; the fan of violet light spread out, power crackled along the conductive air. The cannoneer was shattered and with him five others in the spread of the blaster’s fan.

Glystra lifted his voice. “Pianza! Cloyville!”

No reply.

He called again, as loudly as he could, and waited, watching across the sights of the blaster.

None of the soldiers moved. Abbigens stared with his pasty face flat, his eyes like a pair of olives.

There was a rustle of footsteps behind. “Who is it?” asked Glystra.

“Will Pianza—and the rest of us.”

“Good. Get around to the side, where you’ll be out of range.” He raised his voice. “Now—you Beaujolains. Move to the center, this side of the fire… Quick!” He charged his voice with the push-button crackle of authority.

Glumly the soldiers sidled into the center of the clearing. Abbigens took three quick steps along with them, but Glystra’s voice halted him.

“Abbigens—put your hands on your head, walk backwards toward me. Quick, now”

Glystra said aside to Pianza, “Get his weapon.” He snapped to the officer who was quietly shifting toward the rear of the cluster of men. “You—come forward, hands on your head.” From the corner of his mouth: “One of you—Corbus—search him.”

Corbus stepped forward. Vallusser made as if to follow. Glystra snapped, “You others stand where you are… This is ticklish.”

Abbigens carried an ion-shine, the officer a rocket-pistol.

Glystra said, “Put the guns on the ground, tie ’em up with pack ropes.”

Abbigens and the officer lay helpless. The soldiers stood swaying, muttering in the center of the clearing.

“Nancy,” called Glystra over his shoulder.

“Yes,”—in a tight breathless voice.

“Do exactly as I say. Pick up those two weapons—by their barrels. Bring them to me. Don’t walk between the blaster and the soldiers. I don’t want to kill you.”

Nancy walked across the clearing to where the weapons glittered on the ground, bent.

“By the barrel!” rasped Glystra.

She hesitated, turned him an odd wide-eyed look, the skin below the ridge of her cheek-bones tight and pale. Glystra watched her stonily. Trust no one. She bent, gingerly picked up the guns, brought them to him. He dropped them into his pouch, looked warily into the faces of his companions. Behind one of the faces was furious scheming… Behind which face? Now was a critical moment. Whoever it was would seek to get behind him, pull him away from the blaster…

He gestured. “I want all of you to stand over there, to the side.” He waited till all his companions stood to the side of the clearing. “Now,” he said to the soldiers. “One at a time, cross the clearing…”

Half an hour later the soldiers squatted in a tight circle facing inward, a sullen slack-faced group. Abbigens and the officer lay where they had been tied, Abbigens watching Glystra with expressionless eyes. Glystra watched Abbigens also, watched the direction of his glances. Would they seek out his ally?

Pianza looked doubtfully across the clot of prisoners. “This poses quite a problem… What are you planning to do with them?”

Glystra standing behind the blaster, relaxed a trifle, stretched. “Well—we can’t let them loose. If we can keep the news of this episode away from the Bajarnum, we gain a big head start.” Together they surveyed the prisoners, and above the rumpled blue uniforms eyes fearfully reflected back the firelight. “It becomes a choice of killing them or taking them with us.”

Pianza snapped his head around in alarm. “Take them with us? Is that—feasible?”

“Down the slope a few miles begins the steppe. Nomadland. If there’s any fighting to be done, perhaps we can persuade them to do it for us.”

“But—we have the blaster. We don’t need swords and darts.”

“What good is a blaster if we’re ambushed? Jumped from two or three sides at once? The blaster is a fine weapon when you can see your target.”

Pianza shrugged. “It may be difficult to manage them.”

“I’ve considered that. Through the forest we’ll tie them together. Once out on the steppes they can march ahead of the blaster. Naturally we’ll have to be carefull.”

He set the safety on the blaster, nosed the barrel down into the bracken, then strolled to where Abbigens lay. He looked down. “Think it’s about time to talk?”

Abbigens drew back the corners of his wide flat mouth. “Sure, I’ll talk, What do you want to know?”

Glystra smiled thinly. “Who helped you aboard the Vittorio?”

Abbigens looked down the line of faces: Pianza, placid, attentive; the bristling Darrot; Bishop, solemn, a man ludicrously out of place; Ketch; Corbus; Vallusser; and lastly Nancy, standing wide-eyed by Glystra’s left elbow.

“Pianza,” said Abbigens. “That’s the man.”

Pianza raised his mild white eyebrows in startled protest. Somewhere else along the line of faces there was a change of expression—a flicker so faint as to be gone even as it manifested itself.

Glystra abruptly turned away. From the corner of his eye he sensed dark shapes disappearing into the trees. The Beaujolais soldiers! How many? Two, three, four? Taking advantage of the Earthman’s preoccupation they had slipped across the clearing, disappeared into the woods.

Glystra cursed. If even one got away, the advantage of their head-start was diminished. He snatched the ion-shine from his pouch, slowly replaced it. It would be foolish wasting power on the tree trunks. The footsteps died in the distance, and then there was silence.

Glystra stood still, trying to collect his wits. At the moment there was only one person he was sure of— himself.

He pointed to Darrot and Corbus. “You two man the blaster. Neither of you trust the other. There’s an enemy among us, we don’t know who he is, and we can’t give him the Opportunity to destroy us all.” He took a step backwards, held his ion-shine ready. “I want to locate the weapons in the crowd. Pianza, you have an ion-shine?”

“Yes. One of Cloyville’s.”

“Turn your back on me, lay it on the ground.”

Pianza did so, without remonstrance. Glystra stepped forward, ran his hand over Pianza’s body, into his pouch. He found no other weapon.

In a similar fashion Glystra took the ion-shine from Cloyville, the mate’s heat-gun from Ketch. Vallusser and Bishop carried only knives. Nancy carried no weapon of any sort.

Tucking the weapons into his pouch he stepped behind the blaster, took the ion-shine from Corbus. Five ion-shines, counting Abbigens’, and the mate’s heat-gun.

“Now we’re as toothless as possible, and I think we ought to try for some sleep. Ketch, you and Vallusser take a couple of swords, stand on each side of the clearing. Make a triangle with the blaster. Don’t get in between the blaster and the soldiers, because if anything happens— you’re gone.” He turned to Darrot and Corbus. “Hear that? Use that blaster if there’s even a hint of an excuse.”

“Right,” said Corbus. Darrot nodded.

He looked at Nancy, Pianza, Bishop. “We’ll try for some sleep now and stand the second watch… Right there by the fire is a good place, out of range of the blaster.”

The bracken was soft and comfortable under the blanket where the firelight had warmed it. Glystra stretched himself down, and fatigue came rising from his bones and muscles, and for an instant he was almost dazed by the pleasant ache of relaxation.

He lay ruminating, hands under his head. Above him the white blotches still peered over the walkways, and for all he could see they had not moved since he had seen them first.

Bishop settled himself nearby, sighed. Glystra eyed him with a moment’s pity. Bishop was a student, fastidious, with no natural inclination for roughing it… Nancy returned from the forest. Glystra had watched her go with an instant suspicion and then had relaxed. It was impractical to supervise every waking moment of everyone. He must remember, he told himself, to send her home to Jubilith the first thing in the morning. He closed his eyes, opened them a crack. Languor came at him in billows, delightful warmth leaching his consciousness. He lay on his side, one arm thrown over his eyes. It was difficult keeping himself awake.

“Awake or dead,” Glystra thought. “Awake or dead.” And he forced his eyes open. Darrot, Corbus, Ketch, Vallusser. It was not that he trusted them the less, but that he was instinctively sure of Nancy, Pianza and Bishop.

There was no sound in the clearing other than the low mutter from the cluster of soldiers. Darrot and Corbus stood stiff behind the ionic blaster, Ketch paced slowly along one side of the clearing, Vallusser along the other. Behind him Nancy lay still and warm, Bishop slept like a baby, Pianza tossed fretfully.

All in all, quiet and peaceful. But the air was heavy with someone’s private tension—his misgivings, fear, vacillation. The tension permeated the clearing, held Glystra’s languor at bay.

The tension grew and Glystra tried to place it objectively. In Corbus’ tight alertness, in Darrot’s rigidity? In the feel of Nancy at his back? Some subtle wrongness in the breathing of Bishop or Pianza?… What had aroused him he could not determine, but he sensed a focus of action forming. As soon as someone could summon the courage. He tried to see whom Abbigens might be watching, without success.

Minutes passed, a quarter hour, a half hour. The air was brittle as ice.

Ketch took a couple of steps toward the blaster, signalled, muttered a few words, backed off into the woods. Glystra watched without seeming to watch as Ketch attended the needs of his body. The soldiers noting Ketch’s momentary preoccupation, reacted with a small ripple of motion. A curt monosyllable from Darrot froze them.

Ketch returned, and now Vallusser stepped into the woods. Again from the captives the quiver of alertness, and again Darrot’s soft command and the slow subsidence of blue-clad shoulders, the sinking of the grotesque black felt hats.

A sudden shape behind the blaster, a sweep of sword, a startled cry, a bubble of pure pain… Then a stamp of feet, a stabbing flash of steel.

Teeth grinding together, Glystra leapt to his feet, ion-shine in his hand.

At the blaster there was now but one man, crouching, swinging the tube toward Glystra. Glystra saw it coming, saw the elbows tense… He squeezed the handle of his ion-shine. Crackling electric streaks down the violet ray. Man’s head charred, shriveled; blaster smashed, flung askew. Glystra sprang about facing the soldiers. They had raised to their feet, stood poised, undecided whether to attack or flee.

“Sit down!” said Glystra, his voice rasping, deadly. The soldiers slumped instantly.

Glystra reached in his pouch, tossed weapons to Pianza, Bishop. “Watch ’em from here; we don’t have any more blaster.”

He strode to the shattered field weapon. Three bodies. Corbus was still alive. Darrot lay with his dead face turned up, frozen in rage. Vallusser’s body, with the head like an oversized black walnut, sprawled across Darrot’s legs.

Glystra looked down at the bent little body. “So it was Vallusser the man-hater. I wonder what they bought him with.”

Ketch had unpacked the first-aid kit and they knelt beside Corbus. A thrust through the side of his neck was bleeding profusely. Glystra applied a clotting agent, antiseptic and sprayed an elastic film over the wound, which when dry would grip the edges of the cut close together.

He rose to his feet, stood looking down at Abbigens. “Your usefulness is limited. I’ve found out what I wanted to know.”

Abbigens shook the thick yellow hair back out of his face. “Are you going to—kill me?”

“Wait and see.” Glystra turned away. He looked at his watch. “Twelve o’clock.” He tossed Corbus’ ion-shine to Ketch, turned to Pianza and Bishop. “You two sleep; we’ll take it till three.” He felt alive, refreshed. His enemy had been discovered and dealt with; the pressure of his most immediate problem had been lifted off his mind. Of course, tomorrow would bring new problems…