Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 17

Blade tested the skill and alertness of his guards three more times in the next two days. After that he decided to make his move for real the next time. Any more tests and the guards might become suspicious enough to call for more reinforcements than he could handle.

The clock was striking the fifteenth period of Kanan's twenty-period day. Outside it would be nearly dark. He'd have the cover of night for the first stage of his travels, and that could make a difference. The Kananites certainly had the technology to track down fugitives and criminals but they had very little crime. The human skills for using the equipment might be more than a little rusty.

The food machines would produce anything Blade wanted. He dialed for three loaves of bread, a slab of cheese, and a two-foot length of sausage. When they appeared he popped them into a pillowcase, added two pairs of socks and a spare shirt from the wardrobe in the bedroom, then tied everything into a bundle. He stepped up to the living room wall, the door opened, and he was out in the hallway.

Ten steps, and a solitary guard appeared around the bend. Blade hurled his bundle with all the strength in his right arm, striking the guard in the face before he could take another step. Blade closed, twisted the hurd-ray out of the man's hand as he drew, and punched him in the jaw. Kananite men were almost as slender as the women and Blade had to pull the punch not to knock the man's head off his shoulders. The guard flew across the hallway, thudded into the wall, and slumped limply to the floor.

Blade retrieved his bundle and raised the pistol just as the second guard hurried around the bend. She trotted right into the hurd-ray from Blade's pistol, set low to stun rather than kill. Her own pistol skidded across the floor in one direction while her unconscious body skidded in another. Blade scooped up the fallen pistol without missing a step, then broke into a run.

Beyond the bend Blade found a small room, furnished with a sofa, a couple of chairs, and a small green console. A gray-haired woman sat at the console, watching the display of lights. On the sofa a young man was sound asleep.

Blade came around the bend as the woman rose from her chair and said sharply:

«Durnann, wake up! Something's-«She broke off as she saw Blade, then started to draw her gun. Blade stunned her and she collapsed on top of the young man. He woke up, saw Blade, and stared.

«Which way out?» said Blade.

The man's mouth opened as wide as his eyes, then he got himself under control enough to point to a shallow archway on the right. Blade put one pistol on a high setting and blew up the green console. Smoke swirled as he walked over to the archway and a door opened in front of him. Outside was darkness, cool night air, and a landing platform with a small dark blue flyer parked near the edge. Blade felt like cheering.

«Thank you,» he said to the young man, who still lay rigid on the couch, the woman on top of him. Blade stepped through the door and it slid shut behind him. He fused one edge of it with the hurd-ray to make sure it would stay shut. With no communications and no door, the people inside would have a little trouble spreading the word of his escape.

Then he hurried to the flyer. It was the same model that Riyannah had taught him to fly, and the gauges showed the power cells were fully charged. Behind the pack seat he found a box of hiking gear, including two canteens and some packages of concentrated food. He also found a hurd-ray rifle with a computerized laser sight and half a dozen extra power cells, obviously a military or police weapon. His luck seemed to be getting better and better.

He tossed his pillowcase full of food and spare clothing on top of the other gear, then sat down. He cut in the power, adjusted the anti-gravity, and started the propeller. The little machine shot off the landing platform and out into the night. Blade climbed until he could see the ranked towers of Mestar spread out below him, marching away into the night. Each tower blazed with lights in gold and green, purple and red, silver and blue, some dancing and twinkling, others shining steadily like the stars overhead. Blade turned the nose of the flyer toward where the ranks of towers faded away into the darkness of the wilderness. Then he increased the power and the whine of the propeller swelled.

The power cells couldn't last very long at this rate, but Blade didn't need the flyer very long either. An hour later and a hundred and fifty miles from his starting place, he buzzed a summer cabin by a small lake. Firing the rifle through the flyer's open window he knocked the top off the cabin's chimney. Lights were just coming on inside as Blade sped off a few feet above the treetops.

Now a clearing opened below him. He landed, set the automatic pilot, and dropped to the ground with all his gear as the flyer began to rise again. It rose above the treetops, then went humming off back toward the cabin. It had another half hour's power in its cells and with luck any pursuers would chase it, not him, for at least that long.

Blade wondered when those pursuers would be showing up. Sooner or later someone would notice he was missing and take whatever the Kananites considered drastic action. He wondered what that would be and how long it would take them to catch him.

He hoped it would be quite a while. He'd made a good start with his escape, but nothing more. He'd have to stay on the loose and do a good deal more before it became completely impossible for the Kananites to ignore him.

The flyer was out of sight now. Blade slung his rifle and headed into the forest. This is where I came in, he thought. Alone in the forest, on a strange world.

Blade's escape from Mestar did everything he'd hoped it would and a good deal more besides. He not only got the government of Kanan moving, he got himself into Kanan's history books for the next century.

He even had his adventures made into a popular comedy, Blade in the Forest. One of the planet's leading playwrights wrote it, and it was performed at least once a year for the next fifty years.

It was not performed in Mestar, though. When it was performed in other cities, it was always possible to tell who in the audience came from Mestar. They were the ones who weren't laughing. Blade succeeded in his plan, and also in making Mestar and its people look like bungling idiots. They managed to forgive him, but they were never able to forget the affair enough to laugh at themselves over it.

Blade roamed through the farms, the resorts, and the wilderness around Mestar for eleven days. He left behind him a trail of irritating minor damage and of thoroughly embarrassed Mestarians. Except for the people he'd knocked out making his escape not one man, woman, or child picked up so much as a bruise from Blade's work. On the other hand, none of the people who ran into him found him easy to forget.

There was the time he came on a party of six people holding a quiet little orgy in a secluded forest clearing. From two hundred yards away he carefully burned all their clothes to ashes with the rifle. Then he vanished like the smoke from the fires, leaving the six people to climb into their flyers and head for home stark naked.

There was the time he climbed to the roof of a cottage equipped with an old-fashioned woodburning fireplace and blocked the chimney. Smoke promptly started rolling out the doors and windows, followed by half a dozen furiously coughing Kananites.

There was the time he slipped on to a farm where they raised riding animals, opened the barn door, and let all the stock out. The freed animals scattered in all directions and fell on the neighbors' vegetable gardens like a plague of locusts. The farmer had to retrieve all of his stock and face the indignation of his neighbors as well.

There was the time he slipped into a deserted wilderness camp and went to work. He knocked down the approach bridge and dropped all the bedding from the cabins into the nearest stream. Then he went to the bathrooms, set the showers to produce nothing but cold water, and adjusted the toilets to back up violently if anyone tried to flush them.

After the first three days Blade had to be a little more careful. From the number of flyers he saw in the sky it seemed likely the Mestarians were finally coming after him. Now it was time to lead his pursuers on the longest and merriest chase possible.

Blade managed to stretch that chase out for a week. It wasn't always easy, because his pursuers were numerous even if unskilled. He found he had to avoid moving by day, and was never able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. His shoes wore through and he had to move on barefooted. His clothes became ragged, but he didn't dare try to capture new ones even if he could have found a Kananite whose clothes would have fit him. He ran out of emergency rations and could no longer risk approaching any campground or cabin to steal food. They were all guarded now. So he went back to eating berries and mushrooms and raw fish. He grew gaunt and grim-looking, his skin dark with sun and dirt, his beard and hair bristling in all directions.

He'd seldom had more fun in his entire life.

Eventually Blade decided that the time for fun was over. He must have a small army chasing him now, and among them were bound to be one or two hotheads who might be getting a little trigger-happy. It was time to let himself be captured and move on to the next stage of his plan.

So on the morning of the eleventh day he woke up, caught two fish, built a fire, and settled down to let his breakfast cook and his pursuers see the smoke. In less than an hour two flyers swooped low overhead, heads sticking out of their side windows. One of the flyers dashed off to the west, no doubt to call up reinforcements. The other started circling the clearing, staying carefully outside the lethal range of Blade's rifle.

Minutes passed, turning into an hour, then two. Blade began to wonder who they were calling up by way of reinforcements. The circling flyer was replaced by two new ones. Blade finished the last of the fish and began to dig a small pit for the bones and guts.

Then a shadow passed over the clearing. Blade looked up and saw a full-sized spaceship hanging in the sky over the treetops. It was at least two hundred feet long, and the half-dozen flyers holding formation on either side of it looked like pilotfish escorting a shark. Behind the first ship came a second, even larger. Blade recognized the second one as a Menel ship.

Blade backed slowly toward the trees, holding his rifle ready to fire. This was really calling up the reinforcements! Those two ships could be carrying enough firepower to blast half the forest. He wasn't sure why things were being done this way, and he also didn't want to be a sitting target in the open while he found out.

He'd just reached the trees when an enormously amplified voice boomed down from the first ship:

«Blade-come out and join us. We will listen to whatever you have to say. Come out now and nothing will happen to you.»

Blade shouted as loud as he could, hoping he'd be heard. «Who is the 'we'? What I have to say is for the Council of Kanan. Are you Council members?»

«No, but-«

Good. They could hear him. «I've been kept waiting too long already. You've been wasting time and giving it to the Targans. I won't help you waste any more time playing games. It's your world, not-«

A new voice cut in. In spite of distortion from the amplification, Blade recognized Riyannah, tense and desperate. «Blade, you'll get to the Council of Kanan. If these fools won't-«

«Shut up, you filthy traitor whore! You've already done-«the voice broke off in sounds of scuffling. A man's voice was cursing incoherently, then Riyannah screamed in unmistakable pain.

Blade hit the ground, raising his rifle and sighting on the nearest flyer as he did. «If any of you bastards lays one more finger on Riyannah, I'll start shooting.»

The man's voice was trembling with rage. «You can't hope to win, Blade. Come out now and-«

«Be burned down? What kind of a fool do you think-?» He broke off as he saw one of the flyers turn and start to drop toward the clearing.

Suddenly crimson flamed from the bow of the Menel ship. It was only a low-powered blast, but precisely aimed. Air crackled and the flyer's propeller became a puff of greasy smoke. Still supported by its anti-gravity, the machine bobbed helplessly, like a cork in a boiling pot. Then a new voice broke in.

«Richard Blade, far traveler, who would be a friend. We will let no harm come to you. We have sworn this, and we do not break our oaths. Come out, and come under our protection if you do not trust those of Kanan.»

Blade recognized the voice of a Menel coming through a Speaker. So that was why the reinforcements had come in two spaceships. They needed something big enough to carry Speakers and the computers for them. But why the Menel at all, and why this promise to him? Most important, could he trust it?

Certainly it was hard to trust the man who seemed to command the Kananites. He'd called Riyannah a traitor, struck her, been ready to order his flyers to open fire on Blade. Why Blade wasn't sure, but he'd be dead if the Menel hadn't intervened. Whether or not the Menel had sworn on oath to protect him, they'd been willing to do so-willing enough to shoot at Kananites! If he was that important to the Menel, perhaps he could trust them.

«All right,» he shouted. «I'll come out, on two conditions. First, you set Riyannah down on the ground, now!

«Second, we both go wherever we're going in the Menel ship. Any Kananite who gets within rifle range of me in the next hour is going to get a hurd-ray through his guts.»

The silence following Blade's conditions lasted so long he began to wonder if they'd ever heard him. Then a hatch slid open in the belly of the Kananite ship. A slim figure dropped through the opening, held by a sling on the end of a wire. Blade slung his rifle and sprinted across the clearing in time to help Riyannah out of the sling. She was shaking all over, and would have fallen to the ground if he hadn't told her.

After a moment she got herself under control and managed a feeble smile. Blade noticed that one eye was swollen half-shut.

«Did that bastard-?»

«He did, but don't worry about him. He was acting without orders, and when they hear what he did and what the Menel did after that-«Her smile was grim. «I suspect he'd prefer having you beat him to what's going to happen to him.»

«What-?»

«I'll tell you once we're out of here. That, and many other things.» Looking over Riyannah's shoulder Blade saw a flyer dropping from the Menel ship and heading toward them.

«All right.» He suspected what some of these things might be and knew that others would be complete surprises. None of them would be as big a surprise as the situation he was in now.

He'd fought the Menel twice, in two Dimensions. Now he owed his life and much of his hope of success to their protection.

If anyone had ever told me I'd be trusting my life to the Menel, I'd have rung for the doctor and had them taken away.

Then the flyer was landing and the pilot was sticking his head out the window, urgently waving all four arms and clicking his claws.