She explained to him that the village was a community of political dissidents. They had been sentenced across the Divide, not for criminal acts, though most of them had committed their share of civil disobedience, but for their political activities. Like most of those in the village, her parents were both Resurrectionists, and had been exiled here more than thirty years earlier. Lammia had been born here.
“What are Resurrectionists?” Cale asked.
“You don’t know about them?”
Cale shook his head.
“The Resurrectionists are trying to unearth and restore the remains of an alien civilization that used to live here on Conrad’s World, long before we arrived. Morningstar is actually built on top of the ruins. Some people think the first people here wiped out the aliens and destroyed their city, then built Morningstar over it to hide all traces of them, though my parents don’t think that’s very likely. The Resurrectionists just want to learn what the aliens were like, and maybe learn what happened to them.”
Cale thought about the desert village and the wall of glyphs, and the book now buried with Sproul. “Why do you need to post sentries?” he asked.
“We work hard to make a decent life here. Most of the people on this side of the Divide don’t give a damn about decent life, and would be happy to just take everything we’ve got, everything we’ve worked for.”
“Then why are you telling me all this? Maybe I’m here to steal from you.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m a fairly good judge of people. I think you’re just looking for a place to live. I think you’d like a community of your own, a place to call home.”
Maybe so, Cale thought, but it wasn’t that simple. “I’m headed for the Divide,” he told her.
“You can cross?” she asked.
“I think so.”
She nodded wistfully. “I’d like to be able to go with you. Morningstar’s a terrible place in many ways, but this . . .” She gestured expansively at the village and the valley. “This is just existing. I’d like to join the Resurrectionists, like my parents. I’d like to bring my parents back, and we could all be with the Resurrectionists.” She stopped and sighed. “But none of us will ever go back.”
A distant, muted horn sounded. Lammia turned and looked to the north, brows furrowing. The horn sounded again. She turned back to Cale, studied his face, then shook her head. “Not you,” she said. “You don’t know what this is, do you?”
Confused, he had no response for her. The horn sounded a third time, and now they both looked in its direction. At the far end of the valley, a group of twenty or twenty-five riders on ponies emerged from the trees and bore down on the village.
“No . . .” Lammia moaned, drawing it out as she got to her feet. She ran down the slope toward the village.
The villagers out in the cultivated plots hurried back to the town, while those already there ducked into buildings to retrieve weapons, then gathered behind the barriers at the northern end of the village. Lammia was already halfway to the village by the time Cale started hesitantly down the slope after her.
The riders neared the village, shouting now, arms raised and holding weapons Cale had never seen before. Trailing them was a single rider on a much larger animal, the rider dressed in a greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat—Blackburn. He appeared to be more observer than participant, riding steadily toward the village but in no hurry.
Arrows flew toward the riders, and smaller bolts from crossbows like the woman’s. The riders responded with several bursts of small explosions and crackling sounds, accompanied by puffs of smoke and arcs of colored light not unlike the lightnings that had snapped across the surface of the marsh. A crossbow bolt pierced the neck of one of the riders and he pitched from his mount. A thump shook the air, followed by a much larger explosion and screams as a section of the village barrier burst apart and two bodies flew backward.
Six riders split off from the main group and skirted the village to the west, cutting down two of the villagers who were still on their way in from the fields. Then they swung around and approached the village from the south, where there were no defenders. They rode unimpeded into the village, and moments later two of the huts had burst into flames.
Cale reached the bottom of the slope, and could no longer make out what was happening. He saw flames rising from the village, black smoke and the blurred motion of ponies and riders and men and women running frantically; he heard shouts and popping explosions, more screams and loud cracks, pounding hoofbeats and whistling, and a terrible inhuman wailing sound that came from one of the riders’ weapons. He stopped at the foot of the hill, afraid, gazing with stupefaction through the billowing smoke and swirling ash.
Off to the west, away from the fighting, Blackburn sat on the drayver and regarded the scene before him. Without thinking, Cale threw his rucksack to the ground and ran toward man and beast. He was barely aware of his surroundings. His attention was on the figure of Blackburn ahead of him, Blackburn atop Morrigan, Blackburn who now turned toward the person running at him, raised a weapon, and aimed.
Cale kept running without pause or hesitation, because he did not know what else to do. Blackburn must have recognized him, for he lowered the weapon and waited.
Breathing heavily, Cale staggered to a stop just a few paces away. The big man looked down at him and smiled. “It’s you.”
“Stop them!” Cale shouted, his voice hoarse and dry. “Stop them!”
“I can’t.”
“They’re slaughtering them!” Wheezing, doubled over with pain in his side.
“There’s nothing I can do.”
Cale turned back toward the village and dropped to his knees. He did not want to see, but he could not avert his gaze. Most of the dwellings were now ablaze, and the smoke was thick and black. Streaks of red and golden fire lanced through the smoke, and a fountain of emerald sparks shot up out of the village, climbed in several directions at once, then showered down and faded. Much of the activity was so chaotic and obscured by smoke that he couldn’t make out visual details, but the sounds were distinct and horrifying—the pounding of the ponies’ hooves, so intense at times it seemed as though an entire herd of them, sixty or seventy or more, raced through the village; the screams of terror and pain from people and animals, tearing through the air; the crackling of burning wood, and the crashes of roofs and walls collapsing; and the popping explosions of gunfire. Then, slicing through the pervasive odor of charred wood, came the smell of burning flesh and blood.
As if to confirm this perception, one of the villagers staggered out of the smoke, his left arm hacked or blown off at the elbow, blood pumping from the ragged stump and splattering across the earth. The man stumbled, righted himself for a moment, took one more step, then pitched forward and lay still.
The fighting gradually wound down. The screams abated, the gunfire became sporadic, and the terrible wailing of the mysterious weapon subsided until it silenced altogether. The riders now moved deliberately through the smoke and burning buildings. Cale saw no signs of the villagers except for the obscured forms of bodies sprawled on the ground.
One of the attackers emerged from the village and rode toward Blackburn and Cale. When he reached them, he thrust his bearded chin toward Cale and spoke to Blackburn in a language completely unfamiliar to Cale. Blackburn replied in the same tongue, and the two men spoke back and forth. Eventually the man turned his pony and rode back to the village.
“It’s over,” Blackburn said. “They won’t harm you.”
Cale got to his feet and started toward the village.
“You don’t need to see all that,” Blackburn said. “Wait here, we’ll make camp later.”
Cale ignored him and walked on.
The stench was terrible; Cale could not identify all the acrid smells, nor did he want to know what they were. The first body he saw was the man who had staggered into view missing part of his arm. The blood pooled thick and dark beside the body, already aswarm wi
th fat black flies. Farther on, the barely recognizable detached limb lay crushed and broken in a clump of blood-soaked grasses.
He wandered through the burning village like a lost and troubled amnesiac. The dead lay everywhere, a few partially inside buildings that still burned, the flesh blackening. Sound faded away, as if coming from a great distance, replaced by a ringing in his ears. Cale felt sick and weak, and his eyes stung from the smoke.
Most of the attackers were on foot now, looting the dead and those buildings that had not yet been set afire. They either ignored Cale or grinned at him, pointing and making gestures he could not interpret but which he felt certain were obscene. They all appeared somehow inhuman.
He found Lammia at the river’s edge, face up with one arm and leg in the river; blood colored the water with dissipating swirls of red. Most of her chest had been blown open. Her dead wide eyes surprisingly held neither judgment nor condemnation. Cale knelt beside her and gently tried to close those eyes, but the lids would not stay shut—her eyes remained open in silent witness to all that had occurred.
After recovering his rucksack, Cale hiked upstream and made camp beside the river. The village continued to glow orange and red in the dark gray light of dusk, and occasionally new flames would come to life, springing up from the embers to consume some stray piece of wood. The attackers had set up their own camp on the outskirts of the wasted village, gathering around two large fires to eat and drink; their laughter carried across the night air, and Cale wished he had gone even farther upstream.
He sat before his own fire, numb and unable to eat, and wondered if he would be able to sleep. He wasn’t sure he wanted to sleep, afraid of the nightmares certain to visit.
Blackburn appeared on foot after dark had completely fallen, leading a saddled pony by a set of reins. “Can I join you?”
Cale didn’t look up from the fire. “Seems to me you can do just about anything you want to do, except stop a massacre. Unless maybe you were actually directing it yourself.”
“It had nothing to do with me,” Blackburn said.
Cale looked at him, started to say something, then shut his mouth and shook his head.
“I’ll go if you want me to,” Blackburn said.
“I don’t care.”
Blackburn tied the reins to a bush just back from the fire, then sat across from Cale. “I’m surprised to see you still on this side of the Divide,” he said. When Cale didn’t reply, he went on. “The pony’s for you. They lost a few men, and have a couple of extras. She’s a good mount. You’re not that far from the Divide now, but the first bridge is a long way to the south. With the pony, you can get there in a matter of days rather than weeks.”
“You didn’t even try to stop them,” Cale said.
“How could I?” Blackburn replied. “One man against all of them. They would have killed me, too.”
“I doubt that. They seemed to come to you for counsel.”
“No. Arkon just wanted to know who you were, and what he should do with you. I told him you were a friend. I saved your life.”
Cale stared at Blackburn, then slowly shook his head. “You’re with them. If nothing else, you’re with them.”
“I’m just an observer. I told you that before. I’m out here trying to understand people, watching them, studying the full range of human behavior, even the extremes.”
“Especially the extremes.”
“It has nothing to do with me.”
“That’s shit,” Cale insisted. “You know that. And if you don’t, if you really believe what you just said, then you’re as inhuman as they are.”
“You’re young,” Blackburn said, trying to control his anger. “When you’re older, perhaps you will be wiser. Then you’ll understand.”
“I hope I don’t gain that kind of wisdom.”
Blackburn sighed heavily and nodded. “Then perhaps you will be wise enough to explain to me why I’m wrong.” He got to his feet. “Stay here for a day or two, Cale. Don’t follow us.” He turned and walked back toward the smoldering village.
In the morning, Cale lay by the cold fire and listened to the sounds of the riders leaving. When the pounding of hooves faded away, he sat up in the gray light, listening to the murmur of the river, and gazed at the smoking ruins of the village. With the uneasy sensation of events strangely repeating themselves, he felt as if his encounter with Aliazar and Harlock had been a harbinger of this very similar morning.
The moving figures of the riders could be seen to the east, not too distant yet. Cale rode the pony back to the village, following the river until he saw the hoofprints in the mud marking where the riders had crossed—a wide, shallow stretch of water. He urged the pony forward, and they entered the river.
At midday the riders appeared to be nearer, and by midafternoon Cale was holding the pony back, afraid to get any closer. He could identify Blackburn, who stood out from the others because Morrigan was so much larger than the ponies. If they knew he was following, they gave no indication.
The land became uneven, pocked with burrow holes and covered by jagged pinnacles and cones of red stone. The riders entered this labyrinth of rock formations, and soon disappeared. Half an hour later, Cale followed them into the maze, moving slowly and cautiously, tracking the disturbed earth and catching an occasional glimpse of one of the riders ahead.
An hour or more passed, and he lost their trail as the ground became rocky. He moved even more deliberately, stopping often to listen; but the muted sounds of the riders echoed off the rocks so that gauging distance or direction was impossible. He was afraid they had seen him, afraid they were lying in ambush.
He entered a long, wide clearing that was empty and quiet. Across the way was a low ridge, and he could see pony tracks zigzagging up the slope. Cale crossed the clearing and dismounted, tying the pony’s reins to a clump of thorny brush. He cautiously climbed the slope, dropped to his hands and knees, then came up slowly over the top of the ridge and stopped, awestruck.
Less than a hundred paces beyond the ridge, the land dropped away and the ground opened up as if some tremendous cataclysm had split the earth. Perhaps it had. The Divide was just what Blackburn had said it was—a great chasm—but far wider than Cale had ever been able to imagine, and from where he crouched no bottom could be seen. The walls were sheer rock spotted with clumps of vegetation and desiccated trees that grew at strange angles from the cliff face. Seeing it at last, he truly understood why Blackburn had said it was impossible to cross.
Only now did he notice the riders below him. They had dismounted, unsaddled the ponies, and now chased the animals away, driving them toward an open field to the north. Then the men gathered near the edge of the Divide and looked out across that yawning gulf, waiting. Blackburn and Morrigan were nowhere to be seen.
Nothing happened for fifteen, twenty minutes. Then a pod-shaped object rose into the air from behind a crag on the other side of the Divide, hovered for a few moments, then headed out across the chasm toward the waiting men. As the object approached, Cale could make out a kind of tail, and two angled blurs of motion atop the pod. A deep thrumming reached him, punctuated by rapid whistling sounds.
By the time the pod had crossed the Divide, Cale realized it was much larger than he had first thought. It landed on dangling runners, its side opened, and eight of the men climbed into the vehicle. It rose with a wailing not unlike the strange weapon the riders had used against the villagers, then headed back across the Divide.
Rock clattered behind him and Cale turned to see Blackburn riding Morrigan into the clearing. He tied Morrigan next to the pony, then climbed the slope to crouch beside Cale.
“You’re stubborn, Cale. I told you not to follow us.” He pulled Cale back down behind the crest. “If they see you . . .” Cale knocked his hand away, but did not stick his head back up above the ridge. “Forget you’ve seen this,” Blackburn added. “Don’t ever mention what you’ve seen, or you might just end up dead.”
Cale st
ared hard at Blackburn. “You said the bridges were the only way across the Divide. That the Divide was patrolled so no one could fly across it.”
“That’s right. And what’s happening out there right now isn’t happening. You understand?”
Cale didn’t reply. They sat crouched below the crest, silent and listening as the pod-shaped vehicle returned two more times. After the third trip, there was no sound of a return flight, and the day became uneasily quiet and still.
“That should take care of them,” Blackburn eventually said.
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every one of them is dead right now, or soon will be.”
“I don’t understand,” Cale said.
“And I’m not going to explain it to you. But you can take my word for it.” He clambered down the slope. “Now it’s time for us to head for the bridge, for the Northern Crossing.” He stood beside Morrigan, looking up at Cale. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll go alone,” Cale said. He remained squatting on the ridge slope above Blackburn, arms resting on his knees.
Blackburn shook his head. “No, we’re traveling together.”
Cale remained motionless for a long time, but gradually realized he did not have a choice. Blackburn wasn’t going to allow him one.
NINE
They rode south for six days, rarely speaking. The Divide was a constant presence on their left, usually in sight, and sensed even when not seen, as if it had its own special gravity that tugged and pulled at them. Cale still felt numbed by what had happened in the village, and disturbed by Blackburn’s company; he rode on with his own thoughts, rarely saying a word to the man.
He caught his first glimpse of the bridge when they were still two days out from the crossing—a silvery, delicate network impossibly spanning the Divide. The western terminus was hidden, but he could see where the bridge met the far side, ending in a complex of variegated structures.
The Rosetta Codex Page 8