The jeep cruised down the deserted highway. Maigrey, tense, alert, was also constantly aware of the Warlord's ap-proach. She continually glanced in the rearview mirror or turned her head, looking over her shoulder. She wasn't searching for the Adonian. Though she knew in her mind that the Warlord was light-years away, in her heart she had the eerie and unnerving impression that Sagan was creeping up right behind her.
Angrily, she shook it off One worry at a time. She couldn't allow herself to become distracted. This wasn't going to be easy.
About five kilometers from the Adonian's mansion, the highway wound through a narrow pass cut into the mountains. Her jeep topped a rise and Maigrey saw, in the distance, an ancient model tanker truck rolling ponderously down the highway, heading straight toward her.
"My, my! What a remarkable coincidence," Maigrey said, slowing the jeep. She glanced swiftly at the rock-strewn cliffs rising up on either side of her. An army could hide undetected amid the boulders, pines, and thick undergrowth.
A sudden booming sound echoed through the pass. A wheel rim and bits of rubber flew from the truck; one of its tires had blown. The truck jackknifed, swerved across the highway onto Maigrey's lane, overturned, and burst into flames. The truck lay on its side, completely blocking the highway. The fire roared and crackled. Oily smoke roiled into the air. No one climbed out of the cab.
"Really, Ohme, how dumb do you think I am?" Maigrey grumbled, driving the jeep straight off the road into a ditch.
They would be watching for her, probably had her in their sights right now. Hopefully, they would think she'd swerved out of shock or panic. Hidden behind several large boulders and a sign that read laskar 20 kilometers eat at Tracy's, Maigrey worked quickly, knowing she couldn't remain down here long or they'd come looking for her. Stripping off her black veil, she attached it by two corners to the jeep's front control panel on the driver's side. The black robes came off next. She bundled the fabric into a shapeless lump and propped it up in the driver's seat. Removing the bomb, she placed it carefully on the ground near the sign's metal legs, covered the crystal with a mass of sweet-smelling sage.
Maigrey grabbed the beam rifle, lowered the jeep's bubble top, set the drive on automatic, and sent the vehicle back out onto the highway. Fortunately, the desert air was calm; the smoke from the wreckage spiraled straight up into the sky. Those watching would have a clear view.
The wreck was about an eighth of a kilometer ahead. Crouching behind a boulder, Maigrey watched the jeep cruise along the highway toward the wreck, the black veil fluttering in the wind. Sensing devices would stop the vehicle automatically when it came to an obstacle, and they did so. It was powering down, air cushions keeping it afloat a safe distance from the jackknifed truck.
Bright flashes of laser light sizzled. The black veil went up in a rush of white flame that consumed it in an instant. The black robes burned a few seconds longer, a thin column of smoke rising from the charred bundle.
Six heads popped up, three on either side of the highway. Six forms detached themselves from the rocks and warily approached the jeep. One inspected the "body," poked at it with his rifle butt.
"There's not much left," he said dubiously, voice carrying clearly in the thin air.
"All, she was a skinny thing. Forget it. Where's the bomb?"
The six men, two of whom Maigrey recognized from the Adonian's mansion, peered into the jeep.
"It's not here. Must be in the back storage compartment."
Four began to walk toward the rear of the jeep. One remained in front, still poking at the "body."
"I don't like this! I never saw a lasgun completely disintegrate—"
Maigrey rose, raised the beam rifle, opened fire. Two died before they knew what hit them. Number three had time to swear and fumble for his weapon before he was hit, the body blown backward over the jeep's trunk. Maigrey caught number four making a vain attempt to shield himself behind the body of the third. It didn't work.
By this time, however, numbers five and six had realized they'd been duped and were returning her fire. Maigrey kept low. Their aim could only be guesswork. They hadn't had time to locate her, or so she supposed.
But she misjudged them. A boulder near her exploded, shooting splinters of rock, sharp as arrowheads, through the air. Most bounced harmlessly off the body armor, but one cut the back of her left hand and another bit painfully into her neck, just below the jaw.
"Congratulations. You drew blood," she told the other two, and, taking careful aim, finished both of them off.
Maigrey remained concealed a few moments, eyeing the corpses and the surrounding territory. She thought it unlikely that the Adonians would have been clever enough to send one group forward, keep another in hiding, but there was always that possibility.
"I can't stay here all day," she muttered, seeing no one and nothing. "Sagans coming, and Ohme's wasted enough of my time."
Cautiously, she raised herself up, beam rifle charged and ready.
Nothing. All was quiet. The only sounds were the wind howling among the rocks, the roar and crackle of flames from the burning truck. Maigrey retrieved the bomb and made a dash for the jeep.
Where they came from, she never knew. She could have sworn she had carefully inspected the area but was forced to admit that, in her haste and worry over the Warlord, she might have been careless. It seemed to her dazed mind, though, that they rose up out of the ground ... or out of their own graves.
Maigrey had reached the hoverjeep, placed the bomb back carefully in the passenger seat beside her, when movement caught her eye. Fearfully she wheeled, raised the rifle. . . .
Four humans, three men and a woman, walked toward her, small stunguns in their hands. Each differed in appearance, yet all gave the impression of being exactly alike, perhaps because the faces wore exactly the same blank expression—the eyes focused on her were totally and utterly devoid of life.
"Drop your weapon, Lady Maigrey Morianna," the woman said. She appeared to be the leader of the four.
Maigrey didn't obey, not out of courage but because her mind had locked up, refused to function. She held the weapon in her hands, but her hands had no idea what to do with it, and therefore did nothing. She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't think. The figures approaching her came not from the rocks and brush on the side of the highway, but from her past.
I am in a banquet hall, confusion rages around me. I hear the sound of explosions echo from another part of the palace. I can smell the smoke, the flame of death. Flatus, on my left, clasps my hand, mouths words I can't hear. Danha Tusca on my right. His ebony skin gleams with sweat. Sagan has betrayed us, betrayed me. He holds aloft a flaming sword and out of the flame and smoke comes . . .
"My master bids you greeting, Lady Maigrey." The woman reached out and plucked the beam rifle from Maigrey's nerveless grasp. "You will accompany us to the 'copter. Your accommodations are prepared. We have only a prefab dwelling, rather crude. Still, my master hopes your stay with us will be comfortable—"
One of the men, standing behind the woman, dropped to the ground without a sound. Maigrey heard nothing, saw nothing. She stared at the corpse—a steel bolt had pierced the man's head. The second and third fell at Maigrey's feet. They died silently, as had their comrade.
But the female leader apparently heard the sound of the bodies slumping to the ground. She grabbed hold of Maigrey, used Maigrey's living body as a shield.
A man clad in rags with tattered hair and a face out of a drug hallucination glided toward them, moving like a panther.
Maigrey saw sunlight flash off a knife blade in his hand. Instinct, years of training, impelled her to act and she lunged sideways. The knife flashed past her, thudded into her captor's body with ease and practiced skill. Death was swift; the hand holding on to Maigrey jerked in a spasm of pain, relaxed.
Maigrey lost her balance. Both she and the corpse rolled to the ground, the body falling on top of her. The man dragged it off, hurled it to one side
of the road, near its dead comrades. Confused and dazed, Maigrey crouched, waiting for the attacker to come after her, hand groping over the ground for a sharp rock, a stick—anything to use as a weapon. Her hand closed over the beam rifle.
The man came near her. Maigrey picked up the gun, watching him warily. The man halted, stood poised, hands in plain sight where she could see them. With one finger, he pointed.
"You hurt." The whispering voice was thick and rough. His fingers were dirty and covered with blood.
"Nothing serious. A flesh wound." Maigrey scrambled to her feet, keeping her eyes on the ragged man and the hoverjeep between him and her.
He moved with her, his motion fluid and graceful, reminding Maigrey again of a cat. Maigrey kept the rifle aimed at him.
"It's not quite proper form to hold a gun on someone who's just saved your life," she told him, "but I made one mistake today and I'll be damned if I'll make another. You'll just have to forgive me."
The man did not appear offended, but rather almost amused. Cocking his head to one side, he peered at her out of misaligned eyes. The unwashed, tangled hair fell forward, covered half his brutal face. "You okay to go on alone?"
"Yes," said Maigrey. "Yes, I'm all right."
The man gave a curt nod, walked to the corpse, and yanked out his knife. Wiping the blood on leather trousers that were barely visible through the rags of what might once have been a blanket or a poncho, the man thrust the blade back into the top of his boot. Without another word, he strolled off.
"Wait. Who are you?" Maigrey called out. "Where did you—? Why—?"
But the man vanished, disappearing among the rocks so swiftly and suddenly it seemed that he'd become invisible.
"Thank you," Maigrey said, rather belatedly.
She began to shake. The beam rifle seemed to weigh megagrams; she nearly dropped it.
"Stop it, you fool! You don't have time to fall apart." But she found it difficult to move, difficult to drag her fascinated gaze from the corpses of the four who'd attacked her. The female lay on her back, her eyes staring sightlessly at the smoke coiling into the sky, not a great deal of difference in expression between the eyes that had been living and the eyes now dead. Something stirred in Maigrey's mind, a hand trying to draw back a thick and heavy curtain shrouding her memory.
"Somewhere, I've seen eyes like that. ..."
The memory was gone, however, not to be discovered hiding in the shadows, leaving behind only a smell of smoke and flame and the vague feeling of dread that always kept her from working harder to find it.
And Sagan was coming.
Maigrey circled around the hoverjeep, rifle ready, keeping an almost paranoid watch. No one, nothing bothered her. She brushed aside the ashes of what had once been her black robes, climbed into the jeep, and checked on the bomb. It rested on the seat, its crystal serenely sparkling in the nauseous green glow of the Laskarian twilight.
Carefully, Maigrey removed the tracking device, tossed it down on top of the body of one of the Adonian's henchmen. Ohme would at first figure his plan had succeeded; the jeep was incapacitated. Eventually, however, he'd begin to wonder why his men hadn't returned. As for whoever would wonder about the other four ... or the other one . . .
Maigrey shook her head.
Sagan was coming.
She reprogrammed the jeep's controls, steered the vehicle around the flaming truck, sped oif down the highway. She could see Fort Laskar in the distance.
"Please, God, just a little more time. Just give me a little more. ..."
Chapter Ten
O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
"My God, Tusk! What's that?" Nola rolled over inside the sleeping bag, clutched at the mercenary lying curled up beside her.
Tusk groaned, pulled the upper part of the down-filled bag over his head. "The kid. Nightmare. He had a couple on Vangelis, after the battle."
Another scream echoed through the spaceplane. Dion shouted incoherent words and they could hear him panting for breath, as if he were running a long distance.
"Go to him," Nola ordered, shaking Tusk's bare shoulder.
"You go to him," the mercenary mumbled into the pillow. "Women are . . . better . . . comforting, nurturing."
"I can't, Tusk," Nola whispered, drawing back, staring into the darkness. "I—I'm afraid of him."
Another scream. "Shut the eyes! Why are they staring at me like that? Shut the eyes!" Dion gasped for breath.
"And I'm not?" Tusk demanded. "All right! All right! I'm going. I guess I'll have to if I'm gonna get any sleep! How the devil do you get out of this damn thing?"
In his struggle to escape the sleeping bag, Tusk sat up too quickly and struck his head on the console under which he and Nola slept. Swearing volubly, he crawled out, hands groping for a nuke lamp. He found it, turned it on, and swore again, the harsh white light stabbing painfully into his sleep-gummed eyes.
"Kid, hey, kid! Take it easy!" Tusk called, lurching barefooted through the small plane and into the cramped compartment where the pilot bunked. He played the light around until be located the bed, nothing more than a shelf that could be stowed when the plane was cleared for action.
Dion, bathed in sweat, was sitting up. His eyes were wide open; he stared straight ahead into the darkness, made frantic motions with his hands.
"Shut the eyes!" he cried feverishly, grasping at air. "Shut them shut them shut them ..."
Tusk sat down on the edge of the bunk. "Kid—"
Dion gave a yell that stood Tusk's hair on end and grabbed the mercenary by his shoulders with bruising strength.
"Dion! Ouch! Damn it! Leggo of me. C'mon! Snap out of it." Tusk clamped his hand firmly on the young man's jaw and shook his head back and forth.
Dion jerked free. Eyes wide in terror, he went for Tusk's throat. The mercenary dropped the nuke lamp. It bounced to the deck and rolled around on the uneven surface, setting the dark shadows dancing like witches at a revel. Suddenly Dion blinked, stared at Tusk in the flitting light, sobbed, and went limp in the mercenary's arms.
Tusk sighed and held the boy close, hands ruffling the sweat-damp hair. "It's okay," he said, patting the heaving shoulders awkwardly. "It was just a dream."
"I'm sorry." Dion pulled back stiffly. His face was white as the flaring light, the hair color distorted from flaming red to bronze. Purple shadows circled the blue eyes, his lips bled— he'd bitten through them. "I'm sorry. Go back to sleep. It won't happen again." He lay back on the bare bed, the pillow having slipped to the floor.
Tusk picked up the nuke lamp, glanced at a digital clock which displayed several times—space time, ground time for a particular planet . . . "Hell, it's too late to go back to bed now. It's mid-afternoon, Laskar ST."
"Laskar?" Dion propped himself up on his elbows. "You mean we landed?"
"Yeah, I brought us down last night, while you were asleep."
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"What for? Wake you up to tell you it's time to go to bed? Get serious, kid."
"But—" Dion's face flushed. He sat straight, swung his legs over the side of the bunk. "We could have gone out, started searching for—"
"No," Tusk said firmly. "No one goes roaming around Laskar in the tail end of the night unless he's good and tired of living."
"Then we'll go now—"
"Just cool down your engine, kid. We got plenty of time. Nothin' opens till after dark. " Tusk, fiddling nervously with the light, shining it up and down and everywhere except on the boy, joined him, sitting on the side of the bunk. "We got some time. Why don't you . . . tell me what happened to you in that control room on Defiant. Yeah, I know. Nothin'. Hell, kid, I saw your face when you came outta there! Blood on you from head to toe! You left bloody footprints when you walked!"
Tusk felt the tremor of the boy's shudder, put his hand on Dion's forearm. "They
say it helps, you know, if you talk about it—"
Dion sat trembling, silent. Slowly, he shook his head, drew a deep breath, and turned to look at Tusk, the blue eyes calm. "No. It wouldn't. I know what's the matter. I'm weak. A coward. It's in the blood. Sagan told me."
"That traitor! That bastard! That . . . that ..." Tusk seethed, hot words crowding into his mouth so fast he couldn't spit them out.
Dion rose to his feet. "I'm going to take a shower. I'll fix breakfast when I'm out. It's my turn."
"Breakfast? I— You— I'll tell you where—"
The young man ignored his ranting friend, squeezed his body into the tiny shower stall, and slid the panel shut. Tusk's words were drowned out by the sound of running water. The mercenary turned, kicked viciously at a storage chest with his bare foot, and howled in pain.
"That was bright," Nola commented, coming into the room, a bathrobe wrapped around her short, stocky body. She screwed up her eyes against the bright glare, crinkling the freckles spattered across her cheeks.
"Forgot I didn't have fuckin' boots on!" Tusk hobbled across the deck. "A coward! That's what Sagan told the kid, huh? That son of a— If he was here now I'd . . . I'd—"
"Kick him," Nola said softly, slipping her arm around Tusk.
He shook his head, looked exasperated, then, sighing, clasped his arms around the woman and hugged her tight. Holding her, he rested his chin lightly on her head, breathing the fragrance of her curly, sleep-tousled hair. "Why are we here, Nola? Why did we come? I tell you, I'm scared More scared than I've ever been in my life, even when I thought we were all gonna die on Defiant."
Nola tilted her head back, looked up into the dark brown eyes. "Then why don't we leave, Tusk? You know the Starlady didn't send that message! Dion'll be furious, but at least he'll be all—"
A pounding came on the outside of the plane's hull.
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