The Man Without a Planet

ELEVEN

WHEN YAKLAR FELL, the battle was over. Seeing their War­lord slain, the remaining Pelairi lost heart and surrendered. Tossing away their weapons, they lifted empty hands. Sharl took command, and herded the prisoners off to a dungeon cell, while Zarkandu summoned help for the injured.

The men crowded around Linton where he stood, the laser still clutched in one lax hand, recovering his breath. He traded jokes and compliments with them, as a leader should, and praised their fighting skill.

Zambar, the giant, ebon Faftol who was the Kahani’s own guard, grinned at him with a flashing smile.

“Did I not say he was a man, the Shakar?” he demanded of the others. “Did I not say here was a true man at last, to lead us in battle? Hu-ah! The golden sword reaped a full harvest of blood—did not mine own eyes see it?” Linton slapped him on the shoulder. “And did not my own eyes see the havoc wrought by thy great hammer, O Zam­bar? Aye! Men fell before it as full sheaves of grain fall before the reaper … thy hammer drove many souls deep into the floor of hell this day!”

Mightily pleased by the Shakar’s praise, the black giant grinned and strutted, beaming with pride.

“Drink, lord—replenish thy strength, for I too saw bright Asloth tirelessly ply through waves of men,” the deep-voiced old Shann of Kartoy boomed heartily, handing Linton a skin of cold wine. He drank deeply, gratefully, feeling warm new strength seep into his weary muscles.

Sharl came up to them, his stem face grim.

“Alas! Shame unto me that I must stand aside when such a battle is fought before my eyes!” he groaned. “No honor unto my name nor my house, this day!”

“No honor!” Zarkandu laughed, happily. “By the Seven- had not thy vokarthu magic drained the venom from their guns, we would all be wandering the cold halls of the restless dead this moment. Honor, and thrice-honor, are thine, O chieftain!”

Raul drew the Yellow-Eyed one aside.

“How did they get loose in the first place?” he demanded. Sharl shrugged.

“In truth, I know not, O Shakar! For these eyes saw them securely locked and under stout guard. Perchance some agent of the Arthon was planted amongst our men—”

“Where’s Wilm Bardry?”

“He has gone to the radar control, to see if Yaklar didst succeed in summoning his fleet. Honor to thy name, that thy hand slew the Outworlder, whose name henceforth in our memory shall he Yaklar Truce-Breaker!”

Then the battered warriors drew aside, for the Kahani was among them, slim as a girl in her white gown. Her eyes shone with triumph and her soft voice rang with pride as she praised their prowess and called them each by name.

“And you, too, Lin-ton! You more than all the others—O Sharl, how right you were! This was the man to be our Shakarl”

She gave him her hand and he took it and held it, feel­ing foolish, feeling all his manly competence fade away be­fore her bright eyes. Standing close to her, the dry and spicy scent of her in his nostrils, inhaling the heady odors of candlewood, he didn’t know what to do—to kiss her hand, or to take her in his arms—so he just stood and gawked, feeling as awkward as a boy experiencing the pangs of first-love.

But when Wilm Bardry, white-faced, was coming up to them, and the dangerous moment passed—making room for other dangers.

“Raul. They’re coming. Radar spotted them heading down the Rift. They’ll be overhead within ten minutes,” Bardry said flatly.

The Kahani paled. Sharl cursed bitterly: “Then all this was for nothing! For we have—what is the phrase?—‘won the battle, but lost the war!’ ”

Raul was not ready to give up. If defeat must come, he would make it pay dearly for every inch.

“Sharl—Innald—deploy your troops! How swiftly can we get your ships into the air, to fight?”

She said: “Too late! Too late, my Shakar! They are stored at the foot of the gorge, under camouflage. By the time my pilots could reach the ships, the Pelairi would be overhead to gun them down as they arose to do battle!”

“Then, for honor, get your people into the deepest caves —hide from the bombardment. If the fleet lands, we can fight a delaying guerrilla action—”

“Wait!” Innald cried. “I have forgotten—curse my slow wits! There is a small battery of lasers on the cliff above these caverns. I know not if they will serve to fight off a fleet, but it is better than nothing!”

“That’s better!” Wilm laughed, joyously. “Where do we find them? Raul and I have Naval training—we’ll try to hold off the fleet while you disperse your people into the deep­est caverns.”

Sharl pointed. “There is an elevator behind that door. It leads to the top of the cliff. The battery is disguised under painted tarpaulins. I will show you—”

Raul shook his head.

“No. We’ll locate them. You take command down here, chieftain. Get the pilots into their ships. Deploy the troops into the best bomb-shelters you can find. Move! C’mon, Wilm, we’ve a job of work to do upstairs—”

“Commander! I’m comin’ with you,” Gundorm Varl pro­tested, hurrying up to them.

Raul refused. “Help Sharl get the people out of here—Wilm and I can man the guns—wait! Better yet, Gundorm, get to the radar control and have the men there stay at their posts. We may need them to give us a fix on the fleet. No arguments, now—I haven’t the time!”

And then he and Bardry were racing across the cavern and into the elevator, slamming the door shut behind them and jabbing at the controls with frantic haste. In moments like this, Raul always experienced a curious sensation as if time itself were slowing down while his reactions speeded up. Every motion seemed to take three times as long to execute as was normal. This was a power-elevator, and he could feel it smash his weight down into his heels as it lifted up the shaft, but to his tense impatience, the trip seemed endlessly long—he felt as though any second they should feel the bone-shaking impact of a planet-buster bomb … or hear the supersonic shriek of guided missiles cleaving down through the thin, cold air over their heads.

Actually, it took only seconds before the elevator stopped and the doors snapped open and they were out in the open, a bitter wind lashing their cloaks and tugging at their hair, running across the great dome of rock under the tumul­tuous medusa-mane of radiance that was the mighty nebu­la. The breath burned down his throat, searing his lungs. His legs jolted to the impact of his headlong race against time—he shot a glance aloft—but the fleet was not yet with­in sight.

“There it is—that pile of boulders, over there!” Wilm shouted breathelessly. They headed towards it.

“Right!”

The nearer he came, the more the pile of rocks began to resemble a cleverly-painted canvas. With numb hands he slashed Asloth’s keen blade through the strands holding down the tarpaulin against the gale, ripping off the cover and exposing the battery of lasers. Never had cold metal looked so good to him! It was a ten-beam battery of 57-microns, smaller and less powerful than the great surface-to- space battery on Valadon, but fully competent to dispatch a few small ships.

Automatic habit-pattems imposed by endless hours of Naval gun-drill took command of his body. He slammed switches and ignited the firing-chambers, slapped wheels and watched the long glittering muzzles begin to elevate. At his side, Wilm was using the battery’s communicator.

“Radar! Radar! Give us a fix, will you?” Bardry yelled. A tinny voice crackled back at them from the speaker.

“They’re coming into range now, sir, braking for atmospher­ic entry.” It was Gundorm Varl’s voice, Linton knew.

“Give me a fix, Gundorm!”

“Right, sir! Set your guns at R.A. 14 hours, 36.2 min­utes; Dec. -60° 38”—no, cancel that! Cancel that! The bas­tards are cornin’ in too damn fast for manual. Wait a min­ute—yes! Set your battery on ‘automatic’—I see there’s a tracking-computer hookup here. We can fire the guns auto­matically from here—find the switch?”

Raul searched the panel for the switch.

“Right!” His hand went out to close it.

“Stop right there. Don’t move, or I shoot!”

Raul froze.

“Back up ten paces—come on, move, Linton! That’s it. Now turn around, slowly, slowly. Drop those weapons, both of you—” the cold, hard voice from behind him demanded. Raul let his laser pistol and Asloth slip through his fingers. He turned to see a stooping figure in dirty Rilké garments covering himself and Bardry with a neuronic scrambler. Blink­ing his eyes against tears caused by the biting wind, he sought to make out the features within the suede cowl. A lean, sour-mouthed brown face—vaguely familiar—

“Pertinax!”

The sour mouth smiled primly.

“So I was right all the time about you, eh Linton! You really were a traitor, all the while.”

Raul shook his head numbly, as if to clear his mind.

“Listen, Pertinax, I don’t know how you got here or what it is you think I’m doing, but for all the stars in space, man, let me get back to those guns! It’s our only chance—”

Pertinax spat.

“You treacherous turncoat! Enough of your lies. I came here yesterday, in disguise, with a number of other ‘re­cruits’ for this invasion. And all I heard from the dirty na­tives was how a great Shakar from the Inner Stars, a Com­mander Linton, had come to join the Kahani and lead her troops, along with those of other rebel princes from the Border-worlds, to invade and sack Omphale and the neigh­boring stars. You bloody-handed traitor! Lead a pack of grubby natives against your own people, will you? But I’ve got you now!”

“Pertinax, you’ve got it all wrong! Arion, man, if you don’t let us get at those guns, we’ll all be blasted to hell when the fleet gets here!”

A thin-lipped smile.

“None of your tricks, Linton! Keep your hands in plain view and don’t try to jump me or I’ll coagulate your brain! I don’t know how you discovered I had summoned the Border Patrol, but I’m not going to stand here and let you burn them down!”

Linton felt his mind reel.

“I don’t know anything about the Border Patrol! I didn’t even know you were here, much less that you had sum­moned the Patrol! Listen to me, Pertinax—we haven’t time for talk. Those are Pelairi ships coming—Wilm, can’t you talk sense to this single-minded idiot?”

Ignoring the unwavering pistol, Bardry shoved forward. “Pertinax! Put down that gun, man, and lend us a hand. Those ships are—”

But the Snake wasn’t even listening. His eyes widened with disbelief, then half-closed with pleasure.

“Bardry! Well, I’m—so you’ve turned traitor, too, have you? Well, wait till Brice Halien hears about this!”

Behind them, the speaker squawked sharply:

“Commander! Commander! For the love o’ life—switch the guns to automatic! The fleet’s within the atmosphere right now—hurry!”

Wilm Bardry fixed Pertinax with a level, fiercely urgent glare. He said slowly, with the ring of command like steel in his voice: “Colonel Pertinax. I outrank you, sir. I am a Captain-General in His Magnificence’s service. I command you—put down that pistol. For once in your life, man, think straight!”

It was no use. Pertinax was not even listening. His little weasel-eyes were alight with joy and his thin lips curved smugly in a self-righteous smile.

“Oh, I know you’re clever, Captain-General—very clever. You managed to fool everyone at Omphale—but not Nijel Per­tinax! I know a traitor when I see one—and I’ve got you dead to rights, this time. You and Linton, both. Oh, it will be a great day when I take the both of you back to Omphale—I’ve spoiled more ‘little games’ than any agent in the Clus­ter, but this will be my greatest triumph!”

“Great Arion,” Raul gasped. “Wilm—I bet he’s the one who set the Arthon and his gang loose!”

Wilm groaned.

“You must be right, Raul! No one else around here more stupid than the Snake—was it you, Pertinax?”

Pertinax sniffed with self-satisfaction.

“Of course it was me. Do you think you can lay violent hands on a Planetary Prince—clap him in a cell—like he was a common criminal? I was nosing about in disguise, and came upon the men who had been set to guard his highness. I told them I had been sent to relieve them and that they were urgently needed elsewhere. The Arthon told me, as soon as I identified myself, how he had come here to Ophmar in a vain attempt to dissuade the war-mongering Kahani from her mad plan to attack the Inner Stars … and how you, Linton, seized him by force and jailed him so that he could not get free to radio a warning to the Border Patrol. Naturally, I set him free!

“Don’t you realize that, renegade or not, Linton, you are still an Imperial citizen—every action you take reflects against the Imperium! I had to do some fast talking to persuade the Arthon not to sever diplomatic relations with the Imperium—he was all for lodging a full protest with the Imperator! But I assisted him and his men to freedom, gave them arms, and helped them find their way down to the hangar below, where their ship was moored—”

Bardry fixed burning eyes on Pertinax, and said in slow, deadly tones: “If ever I get free of this, I swear I’ll break you and run you out of this Cluster without a shred of honor or reputation to your name. You—incredible—blind—ignorant—FOOL!”

Above them, somewhere to the east, a shrill whine came to their ears, borne on the cold wind. The fleet! And just then, at the edge of ultimate and complete des­pair, Raul felt his heart lift with a surge of incredible joy—a thrill so intense, that he fought to keep his face rigid, and not to show the blaze of relief that tingled through him.

Across the mighty dome of rock, Gundorm Varl emerged from the elevator and came swiftly, silendy towards them, pistol clasped in one huge, capable hand, blond beard riffling in the chill wind. Impatiently waiting below in the radar room for Raul and Wilm to switch the laser battery to au­tomatic firing, guided by hookup to radar and course-computer, he finally had come up himself to see what was the matter. Now, seeing a stranger holding the two of them helpless at gunpoint, he lifted a finger to his lips and stole silently across the clifftop towards them, walking with ex­aggerated caution.

But Pertinax never noticed. He was, in fact, talking again.

“Enough of this talk. Now, I want the both of you to come with me—hands in the air and walk carefully, no sudden moves—and we’ll get down inside the base and wait for reinforcements from the Patrol—” he was saying.

Standing just behind him, now, Gundorm Varl recognized Pertinax’s whining, nasal tones. The grim expression on his face turned to blank surprise—then lit with a great glow of unholy joy. He carefully holstered his pistol, and slowly, lovingly raised another “weapon”—his riding-whip.

He lifted it high above his head, gloating down on the unconscious Pertinax who stood still with his back turned to the giant Barnassian—then brought the whip down in a swift, shrieking arc—

Pertinax stiffened as if struck by lightning.

The pistol fell from suddenly nerveless hands.

His eyes stretched wide with shock—with a horrible rec­ognition.

The whip rose—and descended again.

His dour little mouth opened in an incredible screech of indignity and pain.

Leaving that situation in firm and very capable hands, Raul whirled and sprang to the laser controls, closing the lever that switched on the automatic firing and sighting relays. Instantly the battery roared into action. Thin beams of intolerable brilliance spat from the muzzles of the guns. Above, the nebula was shadowed with the bellies of hurtl­ing ships. Abruptly, one detonated in an eye-dazzling flare of intense light.

“One!” Wilm crowed, his dirty face splitting wide in a fighting grin. Raul smiled in answer.

“Two! and—three!”

(Behind them, over the roar of the lasers, they could hear certain, curious thumping, thrashing shounds—punc­tuated with shrill yelps and squeals of unendurable pain. Grinning happily, they pretended to ignore this and focused their attention on the action aloft.)

“Four!”

“Five—by Arion!”

Now the Pelairi ships were breaking formation, dipping and swerving like mad to elude the stinging beams of superheat. But the lasers were multi-mounted, and the radar was capable of independent tracking. The beams diverged, each gun hunting down and destroying ships on its own.

The sky was full of blossoming fires. In their panic to escape, ships rammed into each other blindly. And now the sky was raining fiery masses of semi-molten metal like some hellish kind of hail.

(Behind them, the thumping and thrashing sounds came to an end, and there was nothing to be heard but muffled sobbings and dull groans.)

Rather self-consciously, Gundorm Varl strutted up to join them, massaging the tired muscles in his right arm. He gazed up at the destruction of the enemy fleet.

“Ah! That’s a beautiful sight, sir! Truly—it does my eyes good to see it. And I’m enjoyin’ it all the more, if I may say so, for havin’ had a little wholesome exercise!”

Above, the broken fleet was hurtling back into the Rift, still pursued by probing lasers.

It was all over.