“Wonder where those patrol ships are. They should be in plain sight by this time, diving down the eastern slope.”
He narrowed his eyes, searching the empty western sky.
Pete looked around the courtyard. Broken tiles littered the ground. Here and there, lay bricks and bits of mortar. Some freak of backblast had torn a shutter off the house and it lay brokenly a few feet from him. He looked back toward the house.
One corner of the roof had been shattered and he could see broken roof beams. A cornice from the wall had crashed into the house front and bits of it lay strewn through a gaping hole in the living room wall. Stucco littered the narrow border of shrubbery around the house, whitening the green of the leaves.
And a twisted bit of metal caught his attention. Obviously, it was part of a flier. He shook his head and looked at the sky over the western mountains.
“Quite a blast,” he said. “Look, Don, are you sure anything’s coming to back us up? A couple more of these and we’ll be standing in an open field.”
Michaels reached up to stroke his face. “Right now, I’m not too sure about anything,” he admitted. “Except that next time they try to comb us over, they’ll take a few less chances.” He frowned.
“Mr. Masterson was pretty certain about things, but—”
He spun around and walked toward the flier port.
“You know, I think we’d better play it safe,” he went on. “Right now, we’ve got clear air. That explosion put everything around here on the ground, but hard. But that won’t last. Stern’s people will be flocking around here in a few minutes to see what went on. We better not be around when they arrive. Go get your father.”
He pulled the flier door open.
“I’ll have this thing warmed and ready to flit by the time you get back up here. Make it fast, will you?”
Pete had already dived down an escape slot. As Don started through his pre-flight routine, he reappeared. Jasu Waern followed him.
“What happened?” The older man looked around the littered courtyard, then at the flier which Don had pushed out of its cover. His eyes widened.
“But I thought they would use an inductor.”
“They tried,” Don told him. “Come on. Get in.” He looked anxiously at his instrument panel.
“Little risky,” he muttered, “taking off so fast. Synchs and generators haven’t had time to stabilize. But it beats letting them get in range for some more target practice.”
He eased a lever toward him and watched the pointers on a dial as the flier lifted. The red needle started to oscillate and he reached quickly to adjust a knob. The oscillation stopped. He looked overside.
“Hm-m-m,” he said, “so far, so good. Well, let’s have at it.”
He reached out and pulled a handle toward him, watching the needles. They remained steady and he nodded and pulled another control toward him, then gripped the control wheel.
The flier leaped into the air and surged toward the mountains.
Don sighed and made a minute adjustment on the synchro knob.
“Well, we haven’t flipped yet,” he said. “We’ll stay on deck all the way. Not such a good target that way. Take a look back there, Pete. See anything in the air to the east?”
“Yeah.” Pete had been looking back. “There’s plenty back there. And they’re in a hurry.”
Don jerked his head around, then glanced at the mountains before them.
“So are we. They built this thing to win races, not lose them. Hope they knew what they were doing.” He pulled a panel lever all the way back and the flier surged forward, pressing them back into their seats.
“Hang on,” he said. “Some of these corners are going to be tight.”
The ship swung into a narrow valley between two hills, bucking and twisting as Don worked the control back and forth. As a high cliff loomed up in front of them, he pulled the flier up, then around in a screaming turn. A second later, they almost touched the tips of trees as they swung around the shoulder of a steep hill. The flier dropped abruptly, seeking the floor of a gorge, then swung violently as it followed a swift flowing stream.
Don guided it into a side gorge, then suddenly pulled up, to jump through a notch in the surrounding hills. For an instant, the flier paused, hovering in the air over a deep, wide valley, then it dropped like a stooping falcon, sweeping sideways at the end of its drop, to come to rest under an overhanging rock formation. The pilot snapped off switches and leaned back.
“We’ve got a small-sized walk ahead of us,” he said, “but it’s through some pretty dense growth and we’ll be invisible from the air.” He grinned.
“The way I dove into that first canyon, anyone with detectors on me would assume I was heading for the Doer—if he knew the country fairly well. Hope that’s the way they know it—just about that well.”
He climbed out of the ship, holding the door open.
“Come on, Pete,” he ordered, “give me a hand and we’ll shove this thing back in the cave so it won’t be too easy to spot.”
Jasu Waern climbed out after his son.
“I shall help, too,” he said resignedly. “Which of the clans do we join?”
Don put a shoulder against the side of the flier. “Kor-en,” he said. “I know them pretty well. Matter of fact, the Korenthal wanted to adopt me at one time. Dad talked him out of it.”
Waern nodded. “The Kor-en are known to us,” he murmured. “Possibly—” He added his weight to the pressure on the flier’s side.
They pushed the machine far back into the cavern under the rock, then camouflaged its smooth lines with brush and rubble. Finally, they walked over the rough ground to a nearby thicket. Don paused, looking up. Then he pointed.
“There they are,” he said, “in a search pattern. Guess they got a detector flash on us when we jumped the ridge.” He shrugged. “Well, they’ve got a tough hunt now. We’ll detour through that line of trees to keep out of the open.”
He jerked his head, to point.
“There’s a narrow break in the cliffs way over there. When we get through that, we’ll come into Korelanni.”
Halfway through the narrow crevice, Don stopped and turned aside, to enter a narrow alcove that had been carved out of the rock. Hanging inside was a long tube of wood. Don rubbed his hands vigorously on the moss which grew on the rocks, then stroked the tube.
A tone resonated from the chamber, growing louder as Don continued to stroke the tube. After a few seconds, an answering note of different pitch could be heard. Don nodded and stepped back into the path.
“It’s all right,” he said. “They’ll meet us at the head of the path.” He smiled.
“This way, we don’t have someone dropping rocks on our heads.”
Pete looked up at the towering cliffs which almost joined overhead.
“You mean they’ve got guards up there?”
“Always,” Don told him. “Day and night. Right now, they’re at peace with everybody, but they never let their guard down. We’ll have a reception committee waiting for us.” He started striding up the steep path.
At the head of the chasm, five men waited for them. In their hands, they held sticks about two feet long. At the end of each stick was a thong, with a flexible leather pad which could hold a fair sized stone. Don bowed in the direction of one of the group.
“I know you, Korendwar,” he said.
The other bowed. “Michaels,” he said. “I know you. And these?”
Don looked at him, his thoughts going into overdrive. The form of address was all wrong. Always before, he had been Donald, of the clan Michaels—they abbreviated it to Michaelsdon. But what had gone wrong now?
He tensed a little, then relaxed. At least, it was a friendly greeting. One does not “know” an enemy. He extended a hand toward Jasu Waern.
“I bring the Waerntal, Jasu. And his son, Waernpeto,” he said.
The other nodded. “The men of Kor-en know the Waernu,” he said noncommitally. “You want dealings with the
Korental?”
Don nodded. “The Waerntal would discuss clan affairs with the Korental.” he said. “I but serve as guide.”
“It is well. You and this clansman may rest by the wells.” Korendwar turned toward Jasu Waern, gesturing with his sling.
“I will conduct you to the Korental, your honor.”
Pete leaned against a mossy bank and watched one of the village women as she raised a clay pot from a well.
“Tell me, Don, why did you push my father forward to consult with the Korental? Why didn’t you go ahead and deal with him yourself? You said you knew him. Father doesn’t.”
“That’s just the point,” smiled Don. “I do know him. And I know his people, and his way of thinking.” He waved a hand to indicate the entire collection of huts.
“These people are about as formal as you can get, when business is at hand. Did you notice the way I talked to Korendwar? Migosh, I’ve hunted with that guy, rolled around in the dirt with him when we were kids, know him about as well as you’d know a brother. But he was on guard. And, friend, you don’t get informal with a clansman when he’s on guard.
“This is just like a little nation, and the Korental is just as surely a ruler as any king of a huge country,” he went on. “Even more so than most.”
He fixed his eyes on the council hut, across the narrow end of the valley.
“Everyone in his clan is his child—symbolically, at least. He tells them what to do. He tells them what to plant and when—and how much. He tells them when to hunt, and where. Governs their lives down to some pretty fine points. I mean, he’s as absolute as an absolute monarch can get.
“And if you want to get along with an absolute monarch, you treat him on his terms.” He glanced at his companion.
“Oh, I don’t mean this guy’s a tyrant or despot,” he added quickly. “These people are pretty proud. They wouldn’t like a dictator—as such. But the Korental doesn’t need force to govern his people. They do things his way because . . . well, it’s a matter of tradition. It’s the only honorable way to do things. See what I mean?”
Pete shook his head doubtfully and Don frowned.
“Pete, your family was originally a mountain clan. I should think you’d know these customs better than I do.”
Again, Pete shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly, “but I don’t. You see, my father and my uncle thought it would be better if I learned the customs and culture of your people and of the plainsmen. And they thought I should be familiar with the ways of the great cities.”
He looked across the village at the great tree which shaded the council hut.
“You see,” he continued, “my great uncle was king. And he had no children. He was getting old and it was agreed that if he died childless, his queen would then adopt me. And, of course, I would then be head of the Onaru, and king of Oredan.” He smiled wanly.
“The agreement was not made public, of course. And the queen no longer lives. But signatures and agreement are recorded at Oreladar. And they appear in the Book of the Waernu, against my name. References in the Book of the Waernu are so arranged that I may be quickly removed, to be placed in an already prepared place in the Book of the Onaru, if the time should come. This and the fact that my mother was the daughter of a brother of the king, places me in the line of kings of Oredan.” He shrugged.
“Especially since the king did, in fact, die childless.
“And this, in my father’s eyes, meant that I should know of the plains, of the cities, and of the galactics, since there, he said, lies the power and wealth of the present day Oredan.”
Don shrugged. “Wealth, maybe,” he said quietly. “I’m not so sure about the power. The pressure of History is a very real thing, and I seem to remember noticing that every time some king has gotten into a jam with one of the other kingdoms or with his own nobles, he’s had to raise the clans. And there have been times when that wasn’t easy.”
Pete nodded. “I know. The Onaru took the throne two hundred years ago, simply because the clans withheld support from the Chalenu—the Old Line.”
“Yeah.” Don picked idly at the bark of a tree. “And Stern’s been trying to get the clans into hot water ever since he took over.”
Pete looked at him for a moment, then looked about the village.
There was no orderly arrangement of houses, as could be found in town. Wherever someone had found a suitable spot, there he had embedded his poles. And there, he had erected walls, daubed them with clay from the nearby stream, and formed long, limber wands from the thickets into arched roofs, to be covered with long grass from the valley. There were isolated houses, and there were tight little groups of houses. Possibly, Pete thought, family groups.
No streets existed here, though generations of sandaled feet had beaten the ground into winding paths which led from houses to wells, and from wells to fields, and to the surrounding forest.
And there was no litter, as could be found in any city. No fallen twig or leaf was allowed to remain on the ground of the village. Grass and moss grew on unused ground and on hillsides, but before each hut, the growth gave way to the forecourt and the small garden.
Here and there, a bank by a path had been reinforced with clay cemented stones and over these grew the moss, to soften the hard outlines of the works of man. Here and there, a small, neat pile of material for building lay, to remind the onlooker that this was a still growing community. Pete leaned back.
“It’s quite a bit different from the plains,” he said, “and not as I thought it would be. I always thought the hillmen were wild and uncultured.” He turned toward Don.
“But you still haven’t really answered my question. Why is it my father has to talk to the Korental—alone?”
Don lifted a shoulder. “Simple enough,” he said. “Your father is the head of your branch of the family right now. It’s a pretty small clan branch—just the two of you, but he’s the clan head—the Waerntal. Right?”
“I suppose so. Yes.” Pete thought a moment. “Actually, I guess he’s tal over more than just the two of us. We are the senior line of the family.”
“Well, then. This is clan business. Your father wants to advance a member of his clan as a claimant for the throne of Oredan. He needs the support of other clans to do this. And this is important clan business. See?”
Pete rubbed at an ear. “I begin to get the idea, I guess, but it just doesn’t make too much sense. He could have you speak for him. Or I could plead my own case, for that matter, couldn’t I?”
“Makes all kinds of sense.” Don shook his head. “Look, you can’t talk to the Korental—not on even terms—not now. You’re just a clansman. If he accepts you as king-to-be, then you’ll be a sort of super clan head. Then you’ll be able to discuss policy with him. But even then, only as an equal—never as a superior. He actually acknowledges no superior.” He pointed to himself, pausing.
“Me? Good grief, I’m not even in this. I’m just a hired hand—not even a member of your clan. Before I could open my mouth, I’d have to be adopted into your clan and desig-
nated as a clan councilor. Even then, the tal would have to open the discussion.
“Oh, I can talk to the Korental as an individual who wants to get help from some of his people for a hunt, sure. And we can then arrange an exchange of goods. That’s between him and me. But if I tried to talk to him on this affair, he’d throw me out of the village.” He rubbed his cheek thoughtfully.
“And, come to think of it, if he thought you’d asked me to intervene, after he’d tossed me out, he’d probably feed you to the Choyneu. That, he’d regard as a selling of honor.”
Pete looked at him quizzically. “I can just see him—or any other person, monarch or no—throwing you anywhere you didn’t want to go. I’d say the throwing would be the other way.”
Don laughed softly. “Oh, that.” He shook his head. “Well, let’s just say I don’t think I’d care to try it out on a whole clan at once. Things might get a
little complicated.”
A short, heavily muscled man came out of the council hut. In his hands, he held his slender sling-stick. He paused as he got to the door, then shook out the thong. For a moment, he stood, glancing across the end of the valley, then he wound the thong about the stick, securing it at the end with a half-hitch.
Again, he looked in the direction of Don and Pete. Then he held up the stick and beckoned to them.
Don pushed himself away from the bank.
“Well,” he said, “here we go. They’ve come to some sort of a decision.”
They walked through the door of the hut, stopping as they came inside. An old man sat on a hide-covered stool, facing the entrance. Near him stood Jasu Waern. The old man got to his feet.
“Waernpeto?” he asked.
Pete stepped forward and bowed. “I am Peto of the clan Waern,” he said.
“It is good.” The Korental nodded briefly, then looked at Don.
“And Michaels. I know you,” he added.
Don looked at him curiously. There was that odd form of address again. Had he suddenly come to be regarded as clanless? What was this? He bowed.
“I know you, Korental,” he said formally.
The old man before him nodded.
“We are not now sure how to address you,” he explained. “Your father may yet be alive, so we cannot regard you as clan head. But as your father has not been found you may, therefore, be clan head in fact. The men of clan Mal-ka have joined us in searching the gorge of the Gharu, where his flier was shot down. Thus far, nothing has been found. It is a long gorge, and deep.”
“Dad?” Don blinked. “Shot down?”
The Korental nodded. “Two days since,” he said. “A flier of the Royal Guard fired upon him and his flier weaved and dropped into the gorge. No man saw its landing place.” He paused thoughtfully.
“Nor were there flames.”
Don glanced about the hut. It was the same place he had come to many times before, when he wanted to get beaters. It was familiar. And yet it was now a place of strangeness. Suddenly, he felt rootless—disassociated from people. He struggled to regain his poise and retain the formal manner expected of him. He managed a bow of acknowledgment.
Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 53