Jack of Swords dot-14

by E. C. Tubb

  "For how long?"

  Dumarest shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. An hour. A day. Who can tell?"

  Timus finished his wine and reached for the bottle. Dumarest made no objection, the man was fatigued, he would burn the alcohol for fuel.

  "A hell of a way to end, Earl. Waiting for something to smash you to a pulp or smear you like a bug on a wall. At least that would be fast. I saw a man once, in a hospital on Jamhar. The sole survivor of a ship which had been caught in a space storm. Their field had collapsed and the vessel wrecked, but he'd been in the hold and was found." He drank half the wine. "He wasn't human, Earl. One arm was like a claw and his head looked like a rotten melon. They kept him alive with machines and ran endless tests. Wild tissue and degenerate cells, they said. The basic protoplasmic pattern distorted by radiation. They should have let him die."

  "So?"

  "It could already have happened to us, Earl. We could end as monsters."

  "Maybe, but we aren't dead yet so why worry about it?" Dumarest filled an empty glass and lifted it in a toast. "To life, Timus. Don't give it up before you have to."

  "No." The engineer drew a deep breath. "I guess I'm just tired. Well, to hell with it. I knew the risks when I joined up with this expedition."

  The man had relaxed long enough. Dumarest said, "How long will it take to repair the generator?"

  "Days, Earl. A week at least. It isn't enough just to replace the units. The generator has to be cleaned, checked, the new parts tuned-say six days not counting sleep."

  "And if I help?"

  "Six days, Earl. I assumed you would be." Timus added bleakly, "It's too long. We can't push our luck that far. It's a bust, Earl. We haven't the time."

  But they could get it. Drugs would delay the need for sleep and slow-time would stretch minutes into hours. Timus blinked as Dumarest mentioned it.

  "Now why the hell didn't I think of that? Slow-time. You have it?"

  "Sufan has. You've used it before? No? Well just remember to be careful. You'll be touching things at forty times the normal speed and what you imagine to be a tap will be a blow which could shatter your hand. And keep eating. I'll lay on a supply of basic and Marek can deliver more. Get things ready-and no more wine."

  "No wine." The engineer swallowed what was left in his glass then said meaningfully, "How long, Earl?"

  "For what?"

  "You know what I'm getting at. How long are we going to look for Balhadorha? Sufan's crazy and will keep us at it until we rot I'm willing to take a chance but there has to be a limit. If it hadn't been for you we'd be as good as dead now. A thing like that alters a man's thinking. Money's fine, yes, but what good is a fortune to a dead man?"

  If a fortune was to be found at all. If the Ghost World existed. If the whole adventure was something more than a crazed dream born and nurtured over the years, fed by a feverish imagination.

  "We've come too far to turn back now," said Dumarest. "We'll keep looking. Well go to where Sufan swears the Ghost World is to be found."

  "And if it isn't?"

  "Then we'll keep going."

  To the far side of the Hichen Cloud, to a new world where he wouldn't be expected, to lose himself before the Cyclan could again pick up his trail.

  * * *

  "Up!" said Embira. "Up!" And then, almost immediately, "To the left! The left!"

  She sat like a coiled spring, muscles rigid beneath the soft velvet of her skin, hands clenched, blind eyes wide so that they seemed about to start from their sockets. Thin lines of fatigue marred the smooth contours of her features and her hair, in disarray, hung like a tarnished skein of gold.

  Standing beside her Dumarest felt the ache and burn of overstrained muscles, the dull protest of nerve and sinew. Days had passed since the repair and he had slept little since the period of concentrated effort. Timus was in little better condition, but he had rested while Dumarest had attended the girl. She had refused to work without him at her side.

  "Left!" she said again. "Left!"

  Ahead space blazed with a sudden release of energy, a sear of expanding forces which caused the instruments to chatter and the telltales to burn red. Another danger averted by her quick recognition, but always there were more and how long could they continue to escape?

  Without turning Rae Acilus said, "We're almost at the heart of the Cloud. There are five suns-which are the three?"

  Crouched beside the navigator Sufan Noyoka studied his paper and conferred with Jarv Nonach. Their voices were low, dull in the confines of the control room. The air held a heavy taint compounded of sweat and fear, their faces, in the dull lighting, peaked and drawn.

  "Those set closest, Captain. They are in a triangle set on an even plane. Head for the common point."

  An instruction repeated, more for the sake of self-conviction than anything else. And yet the captain wasn't to be blamed. During the nightmare journey all sense of orientation had been lost as the ship, like a questing mote, had weaved its way on a tortuous path.

  "Right!" said Embira. "Down! Up again!"

  Directions sharpened by her fear, but for how long would she be able to retain the fine edge of judgment without which they had no chance? Dumarest dropped his hand to her shoulder, pressed gently on the warm flesh. Beneath his fingers she relaxed a little.

  "Can you krang the planet, Embira? Is there anything there?"

  "No. I-yes. Earl! I can't be sure!"

  Another problem to add to the rest. A planet had mass and should have stood out like a beacon to her talent, but the suns were close and could have distorted her judgment.

  "There could be nothing," said the captain. "If there isn't-"

  "There is! There has to be!" Sufan would admit of no possibility of failure. "Search, Captain! Get to the common point and look!"

  The suns were monstrous, tremendous solar furnaces glowing with radiated energy, one somberly red, one a vibrant orange, the other burning with an eye-searing violet. Acilus guided the vessel between them, his hands deft on the controls, sensing more by instinct than anything else the path of greatest safety.

  "Jarv?"

  "Nothing." The navigator checked his instruments. "No register."

  "There has to be! Balhadorha is there, I know it! Look again!" Sufan's voice rose even higher, to tremble on the edge of hysteria. "I can't be wrong! Years of study-look again!"

  A moment as the navigator adjusted his scanners and then, "Yes! Something there!" His voice fell. "No. It's gone again."

  The Ghost World living up to its reputation, sometimes spotted, more often not. But instruments could be unreliable and forces other than the gravity of a planet could have affected the sensors.

  Dumarest said quietly, "Embira, we're relying on you. Be calm now. Try to eliminate all auras other than those in the common point."

  "Earl-I can't!"

  "Try, girl! Try!"

  For a moment she sat, strained and silent, then said, "Down a little. Down and to the right. No, too far. Up. Up-now straight ahead."

  The screens showed nothing, but that was to be expected, the world was too distant-if what she saw was a world. And the scanners reported nothing.

  "Only empty space," said Jarv bleakly. "Some radiation flux and an intense magnetic field, but that's all."

  "Ahead," she said. "Up a little. Be careful! Careful!"

  And then, suddenly, it was there.

  The instruments blazed with warning light, the air shrilling to the sound of the emergency alarm, overriding the cut-off in its desperate urgency. Acilus swore, strained at the controls, swore again as the Mayna creaked, opposed forces tearing at the structure.

  Large in the screens loomed the bulk of a world, small, featureless, devoid of seas and mountains, bearing a scab of vegetation, an atmosphere, a city.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was cupped like a gem in the palm of surrounding hills, small and with a central spire which rose in a delicate cone. A spire which fell to mounds set in an intricate ar
ray each as smoothly finished as the shell of an egg. On them and the spire the light of the blue and yellow suns shone with rainbow shimmers so that Dumarest was reminded of a mass of soap bubbles, the light reflected as if from a film of oil.

  "It's beautiful!" whispered Pacula. "Beautiful!"

  She stood with the others on the summit of a low mound. The ship lay behind them in a clearing of its own making, a hacked path reaching from the mound to where it stood. To either side stretched a sea of vegetation; shoulder-high bushes bearing lacelike fronds, some in flower, others bearing fruit. Underfoot rested a thick carpet of mosslike undergrowth, broken stems oozing a pale-yellow sap.

  The air was heavy, filled with a brooding stillness, the silence unbroken aside from their own sounds.

  Embira said, "Earl! I'm afraid."

  "Be calm, dear." Pacula was soothing. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

  An assurance born of ignorance. The vegetation could hold predators, the city enemies, the metallic taint in the air itself a warning of an abrupt, climatic change.

  Sniffing at his pomander Jarv Nonach said dryly, "Well, we're here. What next?"

  "We must investigate." Sufan Noyoka was impatient. "If anything of value is to be found it will be here. This city is the only artificial structure on the planet."

  Or, at least, the only one they had been able to distinguish. An oddity in itself-normal cities did not stand in isolation-yet it was too large to be called a building, too elaborate to be a village. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, studying the spire, the assembled mounds, his vision baffled by the shimmering light.

  "It's deserted." Marek lowered his binoculars and handed them to Dumarest. "Empty."

  Again an assumption which needn't be true. Dumarest adjusted the lenses and studied what he saw. The spire and mounds were featureless, unbroken by windows or decoration. The entire complex was ringed with a wall a hundred feet high, the ground around it bare for a width of two hundred yards. The soil was a dull gray, devoid of stones or vegetation, smooth aside from ripples which could have been caused by wind. The wall itself was unpierced by any sign of a door.

  "Well?" Like Sufan Noyoka the captain was impatient. "Do we stand here and do nothing?"

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  "We make an investigation." Dumarest lowered the binoculars. "Take the women back to the ship, Jarv also, and wait while we make a circuit of the city?"

  "Why me?" The navigator was suspicious. "Why not Sufan?"

  "The both of you."

  "Earl?"

  For answer Dumarest lifted his machete and cut at a mass of vegetation. Slashed leaves fell beneath the keen steel to reveal the slender bole. It parted to show a compact mass of fibers.

  "Tough," he said flatly. "And neither of you is in good condition. We may have to run for it and you'll hamper us. Timus, Marek, and I will cut a path to the edge of the clearing and make a circuit of the city."

  "We could follow you."

  "Later, yes, but not now." As the man hesitated Dumarest added sharply, "We can't all go. The ship must be watched and the women protected." He added dryly, "Don't worry. If we find anything you'll know it."

  The vegetation thickened a little as they descended the slope and it took an hour to cut a way to the clear area surrounding the wall. Dumarest halted at the rim of the clearing, kneeling to finger the soil, frowning as he looked at the clear line of demarcation. The dirt was gritty and felt faintly warm. The line was cut as if with a scythe, even the mossy undergrowth ending in a neat line.

  "Earl?"

  "Nothing." Dumarest rose, dusting his hands. As the engineer made to step out into the open he caught the man's arm. "No. We'll move around the edge and stay close to the vegetation."

  "Why? The cleared ground will make the going easier."

  "And reveal us to any who might be watching."

  "There isn't anyone."

  "We can't be sure of that."

  "No," Timus admitted. "We can't. But if there is they must have seen us land. Curiosity alone would have brought them outside or at least had them standing on the wall. Marek's right, Earl. The place is deserted."

  And old. Dumarest could sense it as he led the way along the edge of the clearing. An impression heightened by the utter lack of sound, the intangible aura always associated with things of great antiquity. How long had it lain cupped in the palm of the hills? Given time enough it would vanish, buried beneath rain-borne dust, dirt carried by the winds, the broken leaves of the surrounding vegetation drifting to land, to rot and lift the surface of the terrain.

  Thousand of years, millions perhaps, but it would happen.

  Were other cities buried beneath the surface of this world?

  * * *

  Back at the ship Usan Labria said eagerly, "Well, Earl? What did you find?" She frowned as he told her. "Nothing? Just a city with no apparent way to get inside?"

  "That's all." Dumarest drew water from a spigot and carried the cup back to the table around which they sat. The salon seemed cramped after the openness outside. "We made a complete circuit and studied the place from all directions. From each it looked the same."

  "Balhadorha!" Timus snorted his disgust. "The world of fabulous treasure. The planet on which all questions are answered and all problems solved. So much for the truth of legend. All we have is an enigma."

  "Which can be solved!" Sufan Noyoka was sharp. "What did you expect, men coming to greet us, giving us fortunes as a gift? A pit filled with precious metals or trees bearing priceless gems? Legend distorts the truth, but legend need not lie. Within that city could lie items of tremendous value."

  If this world was Balhadorha. If the man hadn't followed a wrong lead and discovered a world not even hinted at in legend. A possibility Dumarest didn't mention as he sat, listening to the others.

  "We've got to get inside and quickly!" Usan Labria was insistent. The last attack had almost killed her, the next might; she had no time to waste. "Can you lift the ship and set it down beyond that wall?"

  "On those mounds? No." The captain was blunt. "We need level ground."

  "Climb it, then?" Pacula looked from one to the other. "With ropes and pitons it should be possible."

  "A hundred feet of sheer surface?" Timus shrugged. He was not a mountaineer.

  "We could cut steps and make holds," she explained. "It shouldn't be hard. On Teralde, as a girl, I climbed higher slopes than that."

  "I've a better suggestion," said Jarv Nonach from behind his pomander. "Let's blow a way in. With explosives we could break a hole in the wall."

  "If it isn't too thick or too hard," agreed the engineer. Scowling he added, "We should have brought a raft with us. Well, it's too late to wish that now. Earl?"

  "I suggest we wait. There is too much we don't know about this world as yet. To rush in might be stupid."

  "Wait? For how long?" Usan bit at her lower lip. "And for what purpose? We aren't interested in anything aside from getting what we came to find. Blow the city to hell for all I care. Just let's get inside."

  "And out again?" Dumarest set down his empty cup. "That's important, Usan, don't you think? To escape with the wealth we hope to find."

  "Of course, but-" She broke off, making a helpless gesture. "You said the place was deserted."

  "Marek said that, and I agree it seems that way, but we can't be sure. A delay won't do any harm."

  A delay she couldn't afford, and others were equally impatient. A symptom of the danger Sufan had hinted at, the greed which blinded elementary caution.

  "I say we blast a way in. Grab what we can and leave before anything can stop us." The navigator was definite. Sneeringly he added, "I'm not afraid of what I can't see if others are."

  "I agree," said Acilus. "I didn't come here to start at shadows."

  "We have to decide." Sufan Noyoka's eyes darted from one to the other. "Earl could be right to anticipate unknown dangers, but speed could be on our side. In any case we have no choice. How else to
get within the city?"

  Dumarest said quietly, "You're forgetting Marek Cognez."

  "I'm glad someone remembered me." The man sat back in his chair, smiling. "To each his own. You, Captain, brought us here. You, Jarv, and you Sufan, guided us with some help from others. Earl warns us. I solve puzzles. And the city, as you said, Timus, is an enigma. One I find entrancing. Those who built it must have left. How? Did they have wings? The shape of the city is against it-level areas are needed for landing."

  "Birds fly," said Pacula. "They don't need flat areas on which to land."

  "True, but birds don't build cities. We couldn't spot anything which could have been a perch. And after landing, what then? Men do not walk on rounded surfaces and no creature finds it easy."

  "There could be streets."

  "True, we saw none but, I admit, they could be there. But think a moment. Imagine a city of mounds, not domes but structures shaped like eggs. Only the central spire shows straight lines. Logic tells us that the streets, if present, would be narrow and winding, overhung and unpleasant to walk on especially for a winged race. And the surrounding clearing, what of that? Earl studied it. Earl?"

  "A radioactive compound with a long half-life would have sterilized the soil," he said.

  "Yes, but why?" Marek looked from face to face. "A part of the puzzle and a question which should be answered. Given time I will answer it, but I must have time."

  "We don't need answers," snapped the navigator. "Smash the wall and go in."

  "And if the city isn't empty?"

  "Kill those inside."

  "If they can be killed. But think a moment. Does a man leave his house unguarded? If the city holds treasure it could be protected. If-"

  "There are too many 'ifs.' " Rae Acilus slammed his hand hard on the table. "Marek, you say the city is deserted. Right?"

  "As far as I can determine, yes."

  "So we have nothing to worry about from what could be inside. Our only problem is the wall. We can climb it or blow a hole through it."

  "Or burn one with lasers," said the engineer. "If it isn't too thick."

  "A hundred feet high-it has to be thick. Now…"