Earth is Heaven

Chapter Twelve

Dawn came with a scud of rain, misting the ground and beading the structures, accentuating the desolation of the area. The roofs were nothing more than shredded plastic, the windows ripped into jagged openings, wires down, lights smashed, equipment and supplies scattered all over. Among them, moving in vague indecision, the Ypsheim seemed stunned.

"Eighteen dead," said Belkner. "As many injured; most seriously. I didn't bother to count superficial wounds."

Scratches, bruises, lacerations caused as much by blind panic as the attacking angels. Their targets now lay in silent stillness or moaned as they writhed on crude beds.

Dumarest said, "The price of colonization. Did you think it would be easy?"

"It was a massacre." Belkner looked at his hands. A claw had ripped open his scalp and the bandage gave him a peculiar lopsided appearance. Other lacerations marked his cheeks, the backs of his hands and, when he walked, he limped a little. "We didn't have a chance. They caught us in the open and most were down before we knew what was happening."

"A lesson." Dumarest looked over the settlement from where he stood with Belkner at the head of the ramp. "You should profit by it." Then, as he saw the other's face, he added, tersely, "You came to take-didn't it ever occur to you that others might have been here first? If you hope to survive you have to learn how to fight. Look at those people! They should be in salvage teams while others repair the buildings. And what are you doing about guards? Food? The injured?"

"The ship," said Belkner. "I thought you'd give them shelter in the Erce."

"No."

"But-"

"You must learn to stand on your own," said Dumarest. "I took Farnham and his bunch in last night because it solved a problem. It won't happen again." As he'd made clear when they'd been driven from the vessel at gunpoint. "Anyway, I doubt if there'll be more attacks."

"One was enough." Belkner straightened, wincing. Weariness had traced his features with a pattern of transient age. "And we started it," he said bitterly. "If we hadn't gone to the hills, used that gun-" He broke off, shaking his head. "So beautiful," he said wonderingly. "They look so lovely. Who could have guessed they could be so ruthless."

Another lesson: life was never kind and too often beauty was the mask for cruelty.

Dumarest said, "Forget it. The past is dead-but if you want some advice stay well away from the angels."

"You're thinking of Farnham and his plan to sell their wings and-"

"They're human," snapped Dumarest. "Or as near as makes no difference. You heard what Ava said. Do as Farnham suggests and how long will it be before the women stop being field-slaves and become something more intimate? And the males-would your women be proof against their attraction?"

A question he left hanging as he led the way down the ramp.

A raft glided toward him as he trod on dirt, Ysanne leaning over the side, smiling. She wore her beaded leather and the thick braids of her hair gleamed as if coated in oil. Urich was behind her together with the driver. Both climbed from the vehicle as it landed.

Belkner said, dubiously, "You're going alone, Earl? Just you and Ysanne?"

"We'll manage. It's only a reconnaissance." Dumarest mounted the raft and took his place at the controls. "If anything goes wrong well radio an alarm. Urich, spell Lyle and keep an eye on our guest. Andre knows what to do." He glanced back into the body of the vehicle, noting the small bale of supplies, the guns wrapped in fabric. Ysanne had done the loading and knew what they needed. "I'll report if we find anything of importance."

Ysanne sighed as they rose and came to sit close to him.

"Freedom, Earl! God, I'm glad to get out of that ship. Gladder still to get away from those creeps. Pioneers-they make me laugh. Already they're talking of quitting."

"Going back?"

"Moving on. Trying another world." She turned to look back at the settlement. "It takes time to grow guts and they aren't willing to spend the time. Well, to hell with them. It isn't our worry." She turned again, drawing air into her lungs to expel it through her flared nostrils. "Find somewhere nice to land, Earl. I want to strip and run until I drop. Just feel the air on my skin and the dirt beneath my feet. Look for a field with a river and let's have a holiday."

"Later, maybe." He sent the raft higher. "Keep watch now. We don't want to be caught by surprise."

A reminder she could have done without, but she lifted the guns and checked their loading and set one beside him as she cradled her own. Ahead the sun flared with brightening splendor and below writhed the wendings of a valley laced with the silver of running water. Hills loomed and she caught the glint of crystal but the air was empty aside from one fountain of shimmering wings which lifted far to one side and to the north.

"Why, Earl? Why keep that thing in the ship?"

"The angel? I've my reasons."

"If there's another attack you'll be blamed, you know that? You're keeping a captive. If they come to secure it and people die they'll swear you are responsible."

"And you?"

"I'm not the Ypsheim."

Dumarest said, "If they hope to survive they must get along with the angels. Both races could help each other but before that can happen there has to be understanding. I'm hoping Andre can establish communication."

"Why bother? Once we leave we can forget the whole damned mess." Then, correcting herself, she said, "No. I'm forgetting. They could be able to tell you what happened here. Guide you home, maybe." She looked over the edge of the raft at the unrolling landscape below. "Home, the place where you were born." Her voice rose a little. "Earl! Down there! To your right! See?"

A jumble of masonry; brick, stone, a lattice of metal sprawled in a declivity between rounded hills. A broken tower, roofless dwellings, the tracery of streets.

Ruins!

Once it had been a village, a small community on the edge of becoming a town, but now it was nothing but desolation. Dumarest paused in what could have been the square, wiping sweat from his face and neck, his tunic grimed with a greyish powder. Dust from rotten mortar, crumbling brick and decaying plaster. The very air held the taint of ancient dissolution.

"Nothing." Ysanne's voice was flat as she came toward him. Dust had made her ghostlike; grey of face and hair, the ornamented leather she wore dulled and made drab. "Nothing," she said again. "No furniture, no stores or books or anything to show who lived here. The entire place has been swept clean."

Of goods and mementos and the traces of those who had built and lived in the dwellings. Dumarest turned, surveying the hills, the flat reaches beyond the village. If they had once been cultivated they had long been overgrown.

"It's crazy." Ysanne stared from side to side, eyes narrowed, brow creased in puzzlement. "If they had just up and left surely something would have been discarded or forgotten. And if they died, from plague, maybe, then everything would be as they left it. But there's nothing, no bones, no bodies, not even piles of rubbish." She shivered a little despite the afternoon heat. "When did it happen, Earl? How long ago?"

He shook his head, unable to answer.

"Centuries," she whispered. "Longer-or did something happen? The angels, maybe? Civil war? Slavers? But why is there nothing left?"

"There could be," said Dumarest. "Buried under the rubble. The rest could have been taken."

"The angels?"

"Materials to build their nests. Or they could have been curious." Or doing their best to eliminate the presence of others; destroy a man's possessions and you symbolically destroy the man. Time and weather would take care of the rest. That and the tiny scavengers always to be found on any world. Dumarest said, "We'll make a final check. You go to the left toward the market and I'll head toward the tower. Take no chances."

"If I see anything, I'll shoot." Ysanne lifted her gun, twin to that Dumarest carried. "Yell out if you come near."

A warning he would observe; tense, she would blast at anything which startled her. Dust rose beneath his boots as he headed toward the broken tower, its shadow sprawled in a bizarre pattern on the street. Another joined it, one which moved, and he looked up to see the soaring shape of an angel. A male, dark-winged, wheeling like a harbinger of death. It rose as he watched to become a tiny mote in the west.

The tower proved another disappointment. A square obelisk-like structure, one side crumbled to reveal interior chambers, all of them empty. The summit bore a platform on which men could have been stationed to watch the skies and surrounding area. Above it the pointed roof showed jagged holes and a litter of shattered tiles lay in the street below. A door gaped open; beyond lay dimness and a mound of rubble; broken shards covered with dust. Something fell as Dumarest stepped inside and more dust rose in a minute plume. Freezing, he looked toward it, seeing nothing but the dust, the path of the brick which had fallen. Another followed it and he stepped back, cautiously, aware of delicate balances which a tread could disturb. If anything lay buried beneath the rubble he had no way of finding it. To try would bring down the sagging roof above, the tiled walls to either side.

"Ysanne!" She turned, gun lifted as he called her name, lowering as she saw him. "Nothing." He answered her unspoken question. "Just empty ruins."

"Like these." She gestured to the buildings around, roofless, gaping, places which had once been shops, arcades which had once held stalls. To one end reared the bulk of what must have once been a warehouse now as dilapidated as the rest. "Empty," she said. "Gutted, swept clean." She scowled at the warehouse. "Damn them! Why didn't they leave us a clue? Damn them all to hell!"

The gun lifted in her arms to explode in noise and flame and a blast of missiles. Frustration vented in a sudden rage; the attribute of a barbarian who destroyed what could not be understood. Stone showered beneath the impact of bullets, a small avalanche which turned one corner into piled debris. Beyond the opening created, half-buried beneath rubble, showed something firm and rectangular.

"A box!" The gun fell silent as Ysanne stared. "Earl! It's a box!"

One shaped like a coffin but far too large for any normal burial. The lid and sides were ornamented with a profusion of esoteric symbols. Signs Dumarest had seen before.

"It was buried, cleared by the fall." Ysanne lunged toward it. "Maybe we can pull it free."

"No!" He reached her as she touched the box, grabbing an arm, jerking her back and away from the sudden flood of rubble which roared from above to fill the air with dust.

Rolling, coughing on the ground where the fall had thrown them, she said, "The damned thing's buried again. We'll need help to dig it out."

"Leave it."

"Are you crazy?" She rose, eyes furious in the dust-covered mask of her face. "Earl, that thing could hold treasure! We've got-"

"It's a box," he said. "One made by the Terridae. All you'd find in it would be pieces of equipment." And perhaps a body, one long since dead. A point he didn't mention. "Stop worrying about it."

"The Terridae," she said. "Like those people on Zabul. The ones you got the mnemonic from." She looked around at the crumbling ruins. "They were here, Earl. What more proof do you need? This has to be their home world. Has to be Earth. Remember the mnemonic?" She began to repeat it. "Thirty-two, forty, sixty-seven-that's the way to get to Heaven. Earth, Earl-where else?"

Dumarest said, "Let's get back."

They arrived at sunset when the air was golden with the beauty of a dying day, enhanced by the bright shimmer of wings as soaring clusters wheeled and turned high above the settlement. Aerial phalanxes ignored Dumarest as he guided the raft beneath them to a point near in the ship.

Belkner came running as the vehicle touched the ground. "Earl! You've got to help us! Those angels-"

"Are gathering for the attack." Farnham, his face ugly, shouted the other down. "You want more of us killed? Give us shelter or guns!"

"Go to the woods," said Dumarest. "Cut long branches. Point them to make lances. Set them in the ground and stay among them. Nothing in its right mind will swoop down on a forest of needles."

"Guns-"

"Guns," snapped Dumarest. "And what happens when the ammunition runs out? And remember what I told you-attack the ship and you won't do it twice."

Belkner said quietly, "The ship won't be attacked. But at least get rid of that male you're holding."

"I'll take care of the male."

Dumarest turned and strode toward the ship, the ramp the open hatch. Talion was on guard. As Ysanne passed through he said, "How about sealing the hull, Earl? I could do with some sleep."

As could they all. Dumarest nodded. "Seal us tight. Urich?"

"With the captain. I think something's up."

Batrun was in the passage, Urich at his side, both men looking haggard. Tiredness had molded them into a common pattern, age-differentials fading, so at a glance they almost seemed brothers. The illusion vanished as Dumarest came close.

"Andre? Any luck?"

"A little, but-" The captain broke off, looking at Urich. "Trouble," he said flatly. "It could be bad. Eunice is in there with the captive."

It stood against the bulkhead, tall, strong, wearing a demonic face. A thing of darkness which fitted the picture culled from ancient tales and mythical sagas. A wide metal belt circled its waist, a chain running from it to the bulkhead to restrict free movement. Before it a line slashed the deck at the limit of its reach.

A crimson warning Eunice had chosen to ignore.

"She must have been waiting her chance," whispered Batrun. "I'd been bribing it with odd foods, sugar and the like, and it seemed to respond. I went to get a recorder and when I came back she was in the cabin."

Dumarest looked at the small bowls set on the floor. "Urich?"

"Came when I was standing here wondering what the hell to do." Batrun fumbled at his snuff box. "It hasn't been long, Earl, but it seems a lifetime."

And to Urich an eternity. Dumarest reached out and gripped him by the arm, holding him as he lost his balance and staggered.

"Easy," he said. "Take it easy."

"How can you say that?" Urich's face was beaded with sweat. "Eunice-my God, can't you see?"

A tableau depicting demonic worship, the seduction of evil, the meeting of unholy partners-the scene fitted a variety of interpretations. The girl stood beyond the warning line, tall, regal, head tilted back so as to look into the angel's mask. It loomed above her, wings lifted a little to form a somber background. The hands, extended, clasped the golden beauty of her hair. Against it the vicious claws looked like metallic daggers.

"A move," said Urich. "One move and it will rip the face from her skull, tear out her throat, drive those things into her brain."

"Steady," said Dumarest. "It hasn't done it yet."

And perhaps lacked the interest. The pose could be a threat or a caress. Like the posture itself, it held more than one interpretation. Behind him he heard Ysanne's sudden intake of breath.

"Beautiful!" she whispered. "My God, how beautiful! I want-Earl!"

She was locked in the grip of a sudden passion. Dumarest looked at her eyes, the moist laxity of her mouth, the minute quiver of her hands. The heat of her feminity was a flame of urgent desire. The angel? Her eyes were directed at its shape, the spread of its wings.

To Batrun he said, "Get Ysanne out of here. Fast!"

"Earl?"

"It must be close to their mating time. She's reacting to emitted pheromones. Move her. Now!"

As the captain obeyed Urich said, "And Eunice? What about her?"

Eunice was affected as Ysanne had been but was less barbaric, slower to yield to stimulated emotion. And her own conviction that the angel was other than it was diverted her response.

"You came," she murmured. "My lord of darkness. I called and you came. Answering my summons with your legions. To send them against the Ypsheim. To destroy them!"

Rend them into sodden masses of oozing tissue, faces gone, eyes, noses. Stomachs ripped open to spill steaming intestines. Backs broken, necks, skulls shattered to release the slime of brain. Death to those who had dared to abduct her! Only in their destruction could the insult be avenged!

A moment of giddy exultation which turned the smooth contours of her face into the ugly mask of a beast.

Watching, Dumarest saw the clawed hands lift a little, the claws flex, the fingers again close on the golden skull. To Urich he said, quickly, "She's your woman-save her!"

"How?"

"The angel is responding to her emotions. You saw her face. She's thinking of death and destruction and it will react unless given something else to think about."

A male, fired with the need to breed, holding a female before him. A woman despite her lack of wings-Ava had sworn of a common humanity. An object, then, of desire, but Urich was also a male and, as Dumarest had said, Eunice was his woman.

But how to fight?

The answer came with the question. With the mind, the emotions, the emanations the angel would sense. The raw stuff of emotion which he had repressed too long, but which now must be released.

And, suddenly, Urich was young again. Standing in a shadowed street watching a drunken spacer coming toward him. One with money in his pocket-the stuff of freedom. He felt again the desperation, the fear, the false anger created to stiffen determination. The rage against a society which had driven him to crime. The fury of an animal at bay intent on survival.

And to breed was to survive.

The clawed hands would lift or there would be no hands, just bloody stumps devoid of claws, fingers, beauty. The eyes would be empty pits, the nose a gaping orifice, the mouth a thing of horror. The feet would go, the proud spurs, the genitals, the wings. Death would come with steel and fire and terror and… and…

The hands lifted from the golden hair.

"You're winning," said Dumarest. "Keep it up."

Open the pit from which Mankind had sprung and reveal the bestiality of his heritage. The endless violence; the hate and fear and cruelty, the killing and maiming for pleasure, the torture, the wars, the horror, the vileness, the consuming greed. The attributes which had given the race the stars; the arrogance, intolerance, indifference to the pain of others. The lack of mercy. The twisting of justice. The compromises, the expediencies, the self-justification. The insanity which had made Mankind unique.

The angel stepped back, hands rising to shield its face as it turned toward the bulkhead, wings falling to drape it in a cloak of red and ebon. A creature yielding to the dominance of another far more savage than itself.