Looters Of Tharn

Chapter 21

Blade led his survivors into the nearest deep cellar. He would have liked to sit down and spend hours or days with the command machine and the prisoner, digging out secrets. But to do that he and the others would have to live through whatever attack the three machines on guard outside Miros might still launch.

They stayed down there in the stifling, dusty darkness for a good two hours. After perhaps half an hour they heard the sound of three distant explosions, one after another. Then silence. After the savage violence that had thundered through its long-dead streets, Miros seemed to be returning to its former peace and quiet.

Blade realized that he was more exhausted than he had realized, both physically and mentally. His throat was as dry as the dust lying inches deep on the cellar floor around him. It got drier every time he breathed. His skin was caked with sweat and grime and his wounded hand sent a dull, continuously throbbing pain up his left arm to his bruised left shoulder. In the darkness Blade could not see the others. But their silence suggested that they were too stunned by the terrifying violence of the past few hours to even realize they had won a victory, let alone rejoice over it.

After the two hours had passed, Blade stood up, brushed off as much dust as he could, and gave his orders.

«It's time we got back on the streets and out of Miros. If the smaller Looter machines were going to move in, I think we'd have heard them by now.»

«This is true, Mazda,» said Chara. «But what if they have gone off after our comrades?»

«Then we go on managing as best we can ourselves,» said Blade. «We have done that all this day and so won our victory. We can go on doing it as long as necessary.» He bent and lifted the Looter woman onto his shoulders again.

The first living things they met in the streets of Miros were not Looters, but a party of six of their own scouts on horseback. These broke into a gallop when they saw Blade's party, and came pounding up in a cloud of dust. In the lead was Anyara. She sprang down out of her saddle and ran up to Blade.

«Mazda, the Looters are gone from here, all of them.»

«The other three machines?»

«Half an hour after the battle in the city ended, they exploded with much flame and smoke. They are nothing but pieces of black metal now, harmless to everyone.»

«Good.» No doubt the machines had been programmed to destroy themselves if they lost contact with the command vehicle. The Looters had realized that it was not wise to let their enemies capture their machines. «Are the four machines we captured in the first battle intact?»

«They are.»

«Good again. Let them be brought into the city. I want to examine the machine in which the Looters themselves rode. There may be heavy things in it we want to take away, too heavy for our horses to carry.»

«Mazda has spoken. And-the prisoner?» She pointed at the woman still slung across Blade's shoulder.

«She should not be harmed for now. If we treat her well, she may tell us much about the Looters and their machines.» Blade was determined that the woman should be well-treated at all times and never tortured. But the people would not accept this attitude toward an enemy even from Mazda unless he gave them some good reason.

Anyara's eyes wandered past Blade to the two men carrying the dead woman. Blade shook his head. «The prisoner did not do that. It was one of the two men with her. They are both dead. The woman is the only one left, the only one who can tell us anything.»

«Only three of them?» said Anyara, wonderingly.

«Yes. Their machines still did most of their own thinking. These people only gave them orders when the machines could not figure out what to do on their own.»

«It didn't help them much, did it?» said Anyara with a grin. «They lost just the same as they did the first time.»

Blade nodded. He did not point out how little they would still know about the Looters if the woman refused to talk. That would only start Anyara thinking of torture again.

Instead he said, «Three or four of the scouts ride out and take word of our victory to the others. Have them come here and bring the captured machines with them. Everyone else start making camp. We will stay here for tonight, and study the big Looter machine.»

There were uneasy looks around the streets where smoke still lay thick over piles of rubble and around ruined and mutilated buildings. Obviously no one cared for the idea of spending the night in the devastation that had been the city of Miros. But no one ventured a protest. Once more, Mazda had spoken.

Before sunset the rest of the expedition appeared, bringing all their gear and the captured machines with them. A foraging party to the lakeshore brought back firewood. Campfires crackled and sparked among the tents, driving back the darkness and some of the gnawing fear. But no one sang, no one cracked a joke, no one slipped off into the shadows to make love. This was not a time for laughter or joking, and the shadows were unfriendly.

Blade worked through the night, examining the wrecked command machine. It was one marvel after another, and he learned much. He knew that he would have learned much more with the woman helping him. But the woman still sat unsmiling and unspeaking in her closely guarded tent. She took food and water when it was given to her, and showed no sign of fear or panic. But she said nothing, and her alertness never slackened. Blade hoped she would decide to speak soon. Otherwise he would have trouble persuading Anyara and the others that she should not be tortured.

Like the other Looter machines, the command machine was obviously old, perhaps centuries old. The design and construction were such that it would not wear out for a long time unless it was very poorly maintained. But it was also obvious that for some years at least it had received very little of the maintenance it needed.

Blade suspected that the woman and the two men were of two different peoples. The woman was small and slender, with a dark complexion. The two men were both tall, large-boned, heavily muscled, pale under their tans. Their curly hair was reddish brown. They also had the callused hands and feet of men accustomed to hard work-or handling weapons-and hard walking. A people of scientists and a people of soldiers or workmen? The woman knew, certainly. But the woman wouldn't say anything! Blade felt like pounding his fists against the walls of the command machine.

He had just reached that point of frustration when he found something that made him forget it and the woman alike in a single moment. In a heavy locker sprung open by the damage the machine had taken, Blade found a long, finned cylinder. It was about eight feet long and two feet in diameter, with an unmistakable fusing mechanism at one end. On its gray metal flank was the even more unmistakable symbol of an atom, in luminous red.

This had to be one of the Looters' atomic bombs. If the woman would only talk about it-!

Blade had taken the basic nuclear weapons course at the British Army's Royal Engineer school, and all atomic bombs were more or less alike. They had to be. But the same wasn't true for booby traps or fusing mechanisms. The woman might save his life, and she would certainly save him weeks of tedious and perhaps dangerous work, by revealing the secrets of the bomb.

There was no way around it-the woman would have to speak. Anyara would be more than happy to try direct and drastic methods. Blade himself had to admit that a time might come when it would be a choice between torturing the woman and risking the existence of the people of Tharn.

But he would try other methods first. He would start by getting the woman away from the nightmarish ruins of Miros. Why not get her away from the rest of the people entirely, while he was at it? With no witnesses, he could be as gentle as he wanted to be with her. He suspected that if the woman responded at all, it would be more to gentleness than to threats or abuse.

Fortunately, he had the perfect excuse. The atomic bomb weighed nearly half a ton, far too heavy to be carried back to the lands of the people on horseback. To send for wagons or chariots would take weeks. But if the bomb could be loaded aboard one of the captured machines, Mazda could fly it swiftly back to the New City of the People. And if Mazda wanted to take back the prisoner as well, since she was almost as important as the bomb, who would object?

No one objected. Before dawn the next morning, twelve strong fighters carried the bomb to the rear platform of one of the captured machines. Then Blade carried the Looter woman, carefully bound hand and foot, into the machine.

He took off and circled three times over the battered city, watching the people in the camp below wave and brandish their weapons. He was very conscious of the burden he was carrying. It was not only the atomic bomb and the prisoner, but perhaps the whole future of the people of Tharn.

He hoped he would not stumble while he had this burden on his shoulders.