The 53rd Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK; Geoff St. Reynard

by Geoff St. Reynard

  “No, Rack, they’re honest men fighting a hideous corruption.” She told him rapidly what she’d seen in her father’s room. “I don’t know exactly what it means, ‘but it’s bad—degrading, horrible! I don’t want to be a gentrywoman any longer. I—I’m the Mink’s girl. Listen,” she said, leaning over to him, “he took me two days ago, and Revel is my man, hell or orbs notwithstanding. Now where is he?”

  “I’ve heard he’s alive,” said Rack slowly. “I thought he would be; he’s too tough to kill. Where he is, no one knows.”

  “Do the rebels trust you?”

  “No.” His face turned up to hers, honest and bewildered. “I’m of two minds.... I serve the gods, as any sane man must, but I have seen things....”

  “So have I. Rack, come with me. We must find the Mink.”

  He bit his lip. Then he took hold of her stirrup. She thought he was going to pull her off, and edged her toes forward toward the signal points of her roan; but he merely said, “I’ll hang on to this and run. Go ahead, Lady.”

  She tapped the horse to a canter, feeling better than she had in hours. Rack was a servant (say rather an ally) worth four other men.

  “Head for the mines,” grunted Rack. Her own idea. Surely it must be worth something. Soon they were coming into the coal valley. God-guards shone with an eerie and now-abominable golden light at the various entrances. “Which is Revel’s?” she asked.

  “Up there. He wouldn’t be there, but if I can get past the guard, and there’s no reason I should be stopped, there are men on our level, the fourth down, who might know about him. There’s no other place to check. I don’t know the meeting places. I have never been a rebel.” He seemed to brood darkly for a minute, then added, “Before!”

  * * * *

  They hobbled the horse in a nook of upended rocks, and she hid the portmanteau under some brush. They walked to the mine, she now remembering the location by certain landmarks, and Rack said, “There’s no god showing. That’s strange.”

  “I’ll go with you as far as I can. If we do meet a god, I can explain myself mentally; after all, I’m of the gentry. I’m not in danger.”

  “I hope not.” He helped her up the shelf, and they walked furtively into the tunnel. No sign of anything—till Rack stumbled over the corpse of a zanph. Bending, Nirea saw beyond it the sack and draining ichor of a globe.

  “The rebels have been here!”

  “Aye.” He straightened, his white eye shining in the light of a distant lantern. “How can a god die?” he asked, in a child’s puzzled tone. “Lady, no god ever died before. They don’t die—‘tis in the Credo. How can these rebels slay them?”

  “Maybe no one ever tried before. Come on.” She hurried to the ladders. Blue-tinged, mouth agape and eyes upturned without sight, there lay a priest, half over the lip of the shaft. He had been de-throated by a pickax.

  “This looks like Revel’s ferocious work,” said Rack. “I hope he’s alive. Yes, I do hope so.”

  “When I last saw him, riding off hell-for-leather on my nag, he was extremely alive, mother-naked and covered with blood but as alive as I am this instant.” She went down the ladder hand under hand past three levels, swung off at the fourth. Another dead man lay at her feet; this was a squire, a youngish man in plum and scarlet, very brutally slain by a pick-slash in the brain. It was a man she knew, and momentarily she felt herself a traitor to her kind; then she thought of Ewyo’s vices, corruptions, and she snorted defiantly. His gun, its stock remounted and a shell rammed home, was in her hand. She went forward, striding like a man ... and a man who knew what he meant to do.

  The end of the tunnel was illuminated vividly by many blue lanterns, and presented to their startled eyes an horrific scene of carnage. The dead lay in piles, in one and twos and fours, their brains splashed on the walls, their guts smeared across the floor, their skulls cloven and their bodies rent. Ruckers lay here, miners and gentry-servants. Squires wallowed lifeless in pools of their highborn blood. Snake-headed zanphs clawed in their rigor at the dead flesh of priests, of rebels, of squires. Here and there lay the vacant sacks that had been gods. At Nirea’s feet stretched a man built like Revel, who might be Revel, for his face was gone, burnt away by the touch of the terrible orb-aura at full strength. No, she realized even as she swayed back, it was not he, for this man’s body was unscarred, and Revel must be looking like a skinned hare if he yet lived.

  What a brawl this must have been! She was about to speak to Rack when she heard a familiar voice, booming brazenly out in the silence of the mine. It came from the black hole at the end of the tunnel.

  “Then a whole line of them came down at us, faster than a squire can put a horse over a hurdle, and the forest yet a good half mile away! I had one dagger left, and my trusty small Jerran up behind me. The squires were ashooting, but ineffectively, and the roan was carrying us well and truly; but here came the gods, may they boil in my mother’s cook-pot in Hell!

  “I looked wildly for something to beat ‘em off with, for as you’ve seen, a touch of their radiance burns your flesh from your bones if they wish it so. Well! The only thing on the whole cursed nag is the scabbard in which a squire keeps his long gun. It’s a thing some three feet long or over, of light metal, covered with satin and velvet and silk. I tore it from its moorings, and as the globes came at me, I stood up in the stirrups, naked as your hand, and started to swat ‘em. Jerran leaning forward past me, guiding the stallion, for his reach is not half mine.”

  “Brag and bounce!” said a voice that was surely Jerran’s. Lady Nirea grinned and walked toward the cavern.

  “So I swatted, I beat at them, I swiped and almost fell, I did the work of twenty men—don’t shake your head, Jerran, you know ‘tis not brag!—for half a mile, and not one globe touched a hair of our heads! They came at the last from all sides, like a swarm of angered bees, and one burnt the horse so that he streaked even faster; which saved our necks, for my arm was nearly dead by then.

  “I tell you, there is one protection only against these things, and that is quickness: for let one come within a few inches of you, and you are a dead man.”

  Nirea stepped into the cave.

  “I thought you were a dead man, Revel the Mink,” she said quietly, still with the ghost of her grin.

  * * * *

  He stared at her, while the men in the place turned and sprang up and stood uncertainly, looking from her to their leader. He was dressed in miner’s clothing again, and his skin was a perfect fright of scars and scabs and half-closed wounds. But he was whole, barring part of an ear, and he was smiling as only he could smile. “Here, men of the ruck, is the woman you owe my life to. Here is—” he cocked an eyebrow quizzically—“here is, I think I can say, the Lady of the Mink.”

  “Here she is,” said Nirea, and was stifled and crushed in a great bear-hug. “And here’s Rack, your brother, who I think may be rebel material.”

  “I think so,” said Rack heavily, staring at Revel with his good eye. “If you want me, brother.”

  “Gods, yes! We need every man we can get this night. Did you note the slaughter beyond?”

  “We did see a corpse or two.”

  “I think we kept that secret, for two of my fellows stood on the ladders and slew the gods who tried to pass. But it will soon be discovered, and the gods will do to this place what they did to eastern Dolfya, unless we can fight them some way. I think I have a clue to help us. What that is I’ll show you now.”

  “Revel, dearest,” she said, “are you all right?”

  “Of course, thanks to you. Now to business.”

  “Rack must go to my horse above for things I brought.”

  “Go then, Rack. Wait—first give me that pick you’ve got there. I think it’s mine.” Rack handed it over, a little shamefacedly, and Revel gave him the one tucked in his own belt. “I’ve missed this girl.... The chest I want to search is still here, though the gentry have carried off a great deal from the cavern.”

  �
�Wait a minute,” said Nirea fiercely. “You’d better do a few things before you start experimenting and searching. You’d better have a plan, and send men out to spread word of it among your people! There are thousands of them out there, ready to pounce at your word, to rise against the squires and priests, and take their chances of gods’ vengeance. You’d better send out the word that the Mink is leading them to war. Otherwise, you’ll have an army that’s ineffectual and headless, that can be cut to pieces in twenty-four hours. For most of them think you’re dead—the gentry spread the word.”

  Jerran said, quietly so that only the girl and Revel heard him, “I think I named the wrong person. I think Lady Nirea is the Mink!”

  Revel laughed grimly, “Haven’t I been busy? Haven’t I sent a troop for Dawvys in his hole in the coppice, and another to say in the lanes and shebeens that I’m alive? Here, Vorl, Sesker, and you three, get out! Steal horses from the mansions’ stables, and spread the news. We rise tonight! Whether or not I find what I seek, we rise! If we all perish in a god-blast, still we rise! When you’ve enough men, attack the gentry’s homes, beginning at Dolfya’s center and spreading out. Put every horse available on the road to Korla and Hakes Town and every village within knowledge. If they look scared, show ‘em a dead god! Take those out there—stick ’em on the ends of pikes, carry ‘em through the streets with torches to show ’em off! Kill every globe you can reach, send the corpses out for the ruck to see! There’s our banner, our fiery cross—a dead god on a pike!”

  CHAPTER XII

  The gods have looked upon the Mink,

  And felt his mighty hand;

  They’ve sought him through the mines and towns,

  And in the forest land.

  All-wise, all-powerful though they be,

  The Mink they cannot find;

  Afar he’s wandering o’er the earth,

  At war for all mankind.

  —Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink

  * * * *

  “Read it again,” said Revel, bending his scarred face beside the girl’s sleek one, staring hard at the printing as if by concentration on it he could learn to read right there, and drag the hidden meaning from the words. “Read slowly. Rack, you’re no slouch at thought, even though you have been in the toils of the false gods. Give this your best brainwork. Jerran, concentrate! You three men, try to cull the sense from these words. Begin!”

  In the light of half a dozen lanterns she began to read. The Mink strained all his brains.

  “Man of the 21st century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and leader of the Ninth Expedition against the Tartarian Forces in the year 2054. Held in suspended animation.”

  “Ha! I thought that’s where you got the phrase,” said Revel. “I believe it means that in this chest, and thank Orbs it was too heavy for the gentry to move today, in this very chest lies a man of the Ancient Kingdom, who still lives, though he sleeps!”

  The woman looked up excitedly, then began to read again. Most of the words were strange. “Placed here 10-5-2084, aged 64 years; this done voluntarily and as a public service to the men of the future, as part of the program of living interments inaugurated in 2067.”

  “Living interments,” repeated Rack heavily. “Buried alive. But you think he still lives?”

  “I think so. Don’t ask me why I simply do. The words burn my brain.”

  “What are the numbers?” asked a miner. “2067, the year 2054—what are they?”

  “I don’t know. Go on, Nirea.”

  “Instructions for opening the casket: spring back the locks along each bottom edge.” She felt the chest where it rested on six legs on the floor. “Here are odd-shaped things—ooh!” She jerked her hand away. “They leap at me!”

  Revel felt impatiently, said, “Those are the locks.” He unsnapped fourteen altogether. “What next?”

  “Run a knife along the seal two inches below the top.”

  “Here’s the seal,” said Rack. He took his pick, and thrusting the point of it into a soft metal strip that ran around the chest, tore it away with one long hard tug. The Mink finished the job on sides and back; “Read!” he said.

  “Lift off the top.” She glanced at Revel. “This is almost exactly like Orbish,” she said. “Only those queer words—”

  “Philosophize in the corner,” he said, pushing her aside. “Rack, lend me your brawn.” Together they lifted the top, which was about the weight of a woods lion, and with much groaning and puffing, hurled it clear.

  * * * *

  Below them, within the chest and under a sheet of the transparent stuff they had seen in other parts of the cave, lay a man. He was young-looking, though if Revel understood the words on the chest, he had been sixty-four when he was hidden away here. His skin was brown, smooth, and his closed eyes were unwrinkled. A short oddly-cut beard of brindled gray and black fringed his chin. His hands, folded on the chest, were big and sinewy, fighter’s hands.

  “What now?” panted Revel.

  “Provided that the atmosphere is still a mixture of 21 parts oxygen to 78 parts nitrogen, with 1% made of small amounts of the gases neon, helium, krypton—none of these words make sense.”

  “Skip them, then. Find something that does.”

  “Let’s see ... swing the front of the casket up, and unhinge it so that it comes off.” They figured out what was meant, and did it. The front of the metal case, very light compared with the top, fell with a clang. “Insert a crowbar under the glass that covers the man and lift it carefully away.”

  “Crowbar? Glass?”

  “This almost invisible stuff covers him, it must be the ‘glass’,” said Jerran. “Let’s try to lift it off.”

  It took Revel and Rack and two miners, but in a matter of five minutes, they had removed the plate of glass, the thin curved sheet that had protected this man of the Ancient Kingdom. “Next?”

  “Provided that it is no later than the year 3284, Doctor Klapham should revive within an hour. If not, take the hypodermic from the white case below him and inject 2cc.... Do you understand this at all?” she asked.

  “Only that the man, whose name is evidently Doctor Klapham, ought to wake up shortly.” The Mink shook his great brown head. “If only we’d found this cave in a quiet time! If only the gods and the gentry weren’t to be dealt with! Have we the time?”

  “Your work is going on above-ground,” said Jerran, rubbing his chin. “We can’t be of more use anywhere else, it seems to me, than we may be right here.”

  They sat and watched the inert form of Doctorklapham, while two of their rebels went out into the mine to round up anyone who would join them. In something over half an hour they were back. “The mine’s been cleared; nothing anywhere except this man, who was on the lowest level and hasn’t heard a thing.”

  “They missed me, I guess,” said the newcomer. “I was off in an abandoned tunnel sleeping.”

  “We’re eight, then.” The Mink scratched his head reflectively. “Not a bad fighting force. Provided they don’t smear this whole valley, I think we can win clear—after we see what this fellow is going to do.”

  “I think I see him breathing,” said the girl breathlessly. She was sitting with a book on her lap, trying to decipher the meaning of its words. “Look at his throat.”

  * * * *

  Doctorklapham made a strange sound in his chest, a clicking, quite audible noise, and unfolding his strong hands, sat up.

  “Well,” he said clearly, “didn’t it work?” Then he took a closer look at the eight people standing beside him. “Oh, my Lord,” he said, “it did work!”

  “He speaks Orbish,” said Rack, “but with a different accent. Could he be from the far towns?”

  “No, you idiot, from the Ancient Kingdom,” said Revel. “Your name is Doctorklapham, isn’t it?”

  “Roughly, yes.” The sleeper worked his jaws and massaged his hands. “Wonderful stuff, that preservative ... what year is this, my friend?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.�
��

  “What’s the date?”

  “Date?”

  “God, this I wasn’t prepared for.” He hoisted himself over and jumped down with boyish energy. “Tell me about the world,” he said. “I guess I’ve been asleep a long time.”

  “Yes, if you were put here in the time of the Ancient Kingdom.” Revel was trembling with excitement. “Why are you still alive?”

  “Friend, judging from your clothes and those picks, and the primitive look of those lanterns, which must date from about 2015, I’d say it’d be pretty useless to tell you how come I’m alive. Just call it science.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Science? Electronics, atomic research, mechanics, what have you—mean anything?”

  “I’m sorry,” said the Mink, “no.”

  “You speak quite decent English, you know. It’s funny it hasn’t changed much, unless I’ve been asleep a lot shorter a period than I figure.”

  “My language is Orbish.”

  “It’s English to me. What’s the name of your country, son?”

  “It has no name. Towns are named, not countries.”

  “Who are you, then?”

  “I am Revel, the Mink,” he said proudly. “I am the leader of the rebels, who are even now spreading through the land sending the word that the gods can die, and that the gentry’s day is done. I am the Mink.”

  He half-expected the man to know the old ballads, but Doctorklapham said, “Mink? That was an animal when I was around last.... Call me John.”

  “John. That sounds like a name.” Rack nodded. “Yes, this is better than Doctorklapham.”

  “Anybody have a cigarette?” asked John.

  “What’s that?”

  “A fag, boy—tobacco, something to smoke. You drag it in and puff it out.”

  “Your words make no sense,” said Revel. “Drag in smoke?”

  “This is going to be worse than I anticipated,” said John. “Look, can’t we go somewhere and get comfortable? I have a lot to find out before I can start getting across to you what I was sent into the future for.”