World of the Drone
Page 7
looked at the spider girl, then, in irresolution.
In the pitiless daylight she was still piquantly beautiful, though herpale face was still smudged with the remnants of her ceremonial make-upand her eyes were veiled, withdrawn. Yes, she was even desirable....Dworn put that thought determinedly out of his head. After all, she wasan alien and an enemy; she had sought to make a doomed slave of him.
But now that her usefulness to him was over, he didn't know just what todo about her. The sensible thing would be, of course, simply to killher. Somehow he felt that he couldn't do that. It was one thing to killin the impersonal fury of machine combat, a different matter when thevictim was helpless within your reach.... And he remembered that she_had_ helped him escape.
He could command her to return to her people, to the tender mercies ofthe Spider Mother--who would know by now of Qanya's part in Dworn'sdisappearance. Damn it, that would probably be worse than killing her incold blood! He was wasting time. Angry at himself for his unbeetlelikesoftness, Dworn postponed deciding what to do with her till he shouldhave inspected his machine and made sure it was in shape to travel.
"Come along," he told the girl gruffly. "Outside."
Once more she obeyed unprotesting. The two clambered out of the belly ofthe standing spider--Qanya staring before her with sleepwalking fixity,Dworn nervously scanning sky and horizon for hostile machines. Thesunlit waste was terrifyingly immense bright, and empty. With a physicalache of yearning he longed for the cramped security of his ownmachine's cabin.
He brushed past the girl and ran toward the upside-down beetle--he couldeasily right it with a spare emergency cartridge, and then he would beon his way in a normal world again--
He stopped short with one hand on the beetle's dull-black steel flank.The world seemed to rock around him.
* * * * *
The girl watched him without expression as his face went slack withhorror, as he completed his arrested movement and dived into the cabinto confirm the dreadful discovery that first touch had disclosed to him.
When Dworn climbed out he was white and shaking. He took a few stepsaway from the beetle and sank weakly down on the sunwarmed sand.
"What's the matter?" asked Qanya.
He turned and looked dully at her. He had completely forgotten that shewas there.
He said listlessly, "I'm _dead_."
"Of course you're dead." Her brows puckered faintly as she gazed at him."Naturally, I drained your fuel tanks last night--"
Dworn surged to his feet and took one step toward her, fists knotted,blown by a gust of fury. She stared levelly back at him,unflinching--and he halted, shoulders drooping. "Ah, what's the use?"
He should have foreseen this--not that it would have done any good if hehad. The beetle's fuel supply had been drunk up by the spider nowtowering over them; and the beetle's engine, even idling at minimumconsumption, had used up what little remained in the system, and hadstopped. And it was as if Dworn's own lifeblood had been drained and hisown heart had stopped beating.
Qanya was still watching him blankly. She said, "Can't you start itagain?"
Dworn was jolted by the realization that she genuinely didn't understandthat he _was_ dead--that there was no way of restarting an engine oncestopped. Until now he had supposed that all races were the same in thatrespect; but evidently spiders were different. In fact, now heremembered that, when they had entered the spider-vehicle, the girl hadpushed a button that apparently started the engine. Spiders, then, diedand came to life again every day--a startling notion.
But the beetles--Among the thoughts that tumbled disjointedly throughDworn's head in this awful moment was a clear vision of the night, fiveyears ago, when his machine-existence had begun: when, in the horde'sencampment by the sea a thousand miles from here, the beetle's last seamhad been welded, and its engine set going with the appropriate ritual ofbirth.... The sixteen-year-old boy's heart had beaten high and proudly,in tune with the heart of steel and fire that had begun to throb at thatmoment. And the life expectancy of the two was measured with the samemeasure, the life of flesh and that of metal indissolubly entwined....
He mumbled dazedly, "I'm dead, do you hear? Dead!"
There was a sudden howling in the sky. Flashing overhead, as the twostood momentarily petrified, went a shrieking flight of half a dozenwinged shapes--stubby vanes slanting back from vicious noses, theyhurtled low over the desert and vanished swiftly into the distance,dust-devils dancing across the ground in the whirling wind of theirpassage.
Dworn stared after them, and his eyes narrowed. A new and desperateresolve had begun shaping itself in his mind.
Of the things he had meant to do in life, it was no use thinking anymore of rejoining his people. He was dead to them, for sure--not even abeetle any more, but only what was left of one, a ghost.... But a holyduty, stronger than death, remained to him; his father was stillunrevenged.
What he could do against a foe so powerful as those who had just passedover, he had no idea--but perhaps a ghost could accomplish what a livingman might well deem impossible.
He motioned Qanya peremptorily toward the waiting spider-machine. "Comeon. We're taking your machine, and we're going to find _them_!"
For a moment she seemed to hesitate ... then she obeyed. If her face waspaler than usual, Dworn failed to notice it.
* * * * *
The spider-vehicle lurched and swayed, even its marvelous system ofshock-absorbers protesting as it climbed steeply, straddling upward fromrock to rock.
Dworn clutched at handholds inside the pitching cabin and tried tocombat the sympathetic lurching of his stomach. Qanya huddled tenselyover the controls, slim hands flashing nimbly to and fro as withincredible deftness she guided the laboring machine.
Dworn risked a glimpse from the turret-windows, then shut his eyes witha rush of giddiness. They were climbing now up the steepest part of thegreat slide, where the mountainside had collapsed in a chaos ofsplintered rock and tumbled crags that would have been utterlyimpassible for any wheeled vehicle. Below them, the sloping valley floorthey had left appeared from this height entirely flat and sickeninglyfar away. And still the cliff-heads frowning above them seemed terriblyremote.
"How ... far?" gasped Dworn.
"It can't be very far now to the top," said Qanya, without glancing upfrom her absorbed concentration. Both their lives were in her hands; aslip, a misstep, and they might fall hundreds of feet among the jaggedrocks to their death.
For seconds at a time, the walking machine poised motionless, one ormore of its clawed limbs groping for footholds. As it clamberedpainfully upward, it was hopelessly exposed to attack if it should besighted from the air.
_Dworn_, the beetle told himself savagely, _you are not only a ghost,you are an insane ghost_. _Only a madman would have undertaken such ajourney._
The cabin heeled wildly as the machine grappled a ledge and, its enginepanting at full throttle, levered itself upward a few more feet.
He had commanded the spider girl to find the route by which her peoplehad descended. But twice already they had missed the way and had arrivedat dead ends beyond which it was impossible to climb higher; twice theyhad been forced to descend and search for an easier path. It had beenscarcely noon when they started; now the sun was already sinking low.
Dworn could not even be sure that he would find his sworn enemies beyondthe Barrier. But the duty of vengeance was all he had left to live for,since what was to have been his triumphal return had ended inbereavement and catastrophe.
_And a dead man_, thought Dworn bleakly, _needs something to live for,even more than other people do_.
The world came level again, for the moment. The machine sidledprecariously along a narrow ledge girdling an unscalable wall of rock,as Qanya sought a spot to resume the ascent. Dworn winced at the thoughtthat the way might be blocked again. But, no--fifty yards further on,the wall was breached, and toppled boulders formed a perilous but notimpossible st
airway.
Just as Qanya grasped the levers which would set the spider scramblingupward once more, there was a sound--one grown hatefully familiar toDworn since the night before, the feverish buzzing of a number of lighthigh-speed engines. He opened his mouth to hiss a warning, but Qanyatoo had heard. Instantly she guided the spider-machine as close aspossible to the cliff, where the hollowed rock afforded some shelter,and twirled a knob that made it sink down, legs folding compactly.
They waited scarcely breathing. A couple of times before they hadhuddled like this, while flights of the winged enemies whistled over ...but the wingless ones? It seemed impossible that they should be up here,where surely nothing that ran on wheels could travel....
* * * * *
The head of a column of the aluminum crawlers came into view, whirringalong the ledge with a confident air of knowing where they were going.One by one,