He was pulled upright again by a pair of his men, who helped him to scrape the foul muck from his uniform. Henrik dried his weapons carefully. What a place! Full of animals, snakes, insects, but seemingly empty of the one he wanted.
Yet they had found, back in the grassy verge of the meadows, a canister of field equipment marked with the Sortek sigil. There had been a clear trail crushed down through the growth, leading direcdy here. They had even found marks that looked like human tracks on a mudbank.
Sortek had to be here somewhere! Henrik told himself.
The day passed in more discomfort than even a soldier had a right to expect. Darkness came, finding them without any recourse but to climb into a slanting tree like a row of filthy and disgruntled birds, to roost there until the light came again. It was easy to lose men even in a familiar swamp. In an alien place such as this, there was no way to guard against its unknown perils.
His own group of four men had taken this route. Four more had gone the other way. Four more had struck out, as nearly as he could determine from his maps, for the center of the swampy stretch. Surely, among them all, they would find the man they sought!
The morning dragged on with terrible slowness. They slopped and crushed and slithered their way through the terrain, penetrating ever deeper into the wilderness of water and trees. The sun was dropping beyond the thick canopy overhead, when, in the distance, Henrik heard something. A shout. One of his other men? Someone.
He motioned for his group to halt. Then he cupped his hands about his mouth and yelled, "Hallooooo!"
There was a moment of silence. Then the shout again. As well as he could, he took a bearing on the direction from which it came. Then he signalled his men forward.
They moved as fast as was humanly possible, given the terrible footing. Before darkness was total, Henrik stood on a large mound of solid dirt that rose from the surrounding water to hold a stand of tremendous trees.
He saw the man first, squirming as much as his tight bonds would allow.
Two of Henrik's men dashed forward to cut him loose. A more pitiful remnant of humanity they had seldom seen. Almost naked, the man was covered with cuts, weals, bloody gashes, and the marks of the cruel cords. Enemy or not, Henrik pitied him.
The man was so covered with muck and mire that it was hard to tell what he looked like. The eyes, however, were distended, wild, disoriented.
"Folly!" the fellow was saying. "Stein's Folly! Look a-round you, will you? Did you see what I thought I saw? Or was it all in my head?"
Henrik snapped on his light-pack and scanned the surrounding trees. He almost dropped the pack, as he realized what those protuberances that he had taken for viny growths really were.
He heard gasps as his men, too, realized that they stood in the midst of many skeletal human remains. Henrik shivered. He was a soldier. Death was no stranger to him or any of his people. But this was no honest battle-dream. This was something strange and outre.
Quickly, the men rigged a litter. This might be solid ground, but no one suggested spending the night here. Only one thought occupied all their minds, including Henrik's.
They had to get out of the swamp. Whatever had done this had been intelligent. Inimical. It was something he had no desire to find or to face.
It was a terrible trek. Periodically, Henrik would pause to sound his audio-signal, telling his other searchers that the quarry had been found. That would set the denizens of the swamp to making greater efforts, and the noise that followed the signal was deafening.
The brilliance of the light-packs didn't really help much. Indeed, it brought into being terrifying shadows, and revealed myriad eyes shining malevolently about them every step of the way.
Before dawn, Henrik and his men rejoined the rest of the search party, but even that did not dispel their feeling of horror. When light came at last, bringing the misty surface of the water, the shadowy hulks of the trees, the mysterious deeps of the brush-clumps into sight, they breathed a mutual sigh of relief...and walked even faster through the nasty water and nastier mud.
They were not surprised that their captive had lapsed into unconsciousness. The thought of being alone in that swamp, tied to a tree among the remains of the long-dead, filled Henrik with an emotion he didn't examine closely.
By the time they reached the meadows, Sortek was thrashing violently in the litter, making it difficult for his bearers. He shouted and wept, by turns. Nothing in the Medkit seemed to relieve him, and so it was a relief when they finally loaded him into their land transport.
The party reached the main base without difficulty, for which Henrik was devoudy grateful. From the start, this had been the worst of assignments. He turned the captive over to Ridzik, with proper procedure, and then watched curiously as the MedTechs wheeled him away.
"I will be surprised if he lives to be useful," he said, almost to himself.
Ridzik turned with a glaring look. "Oh, he will live, Henrik. We will make certain of that. You have done well. Now prepare your unit for transport to Redfield. We will be pulling out over the next two days."
"What about him?" Henrik nodded in the direction taken by the Meds. "Sir?"
"He can't be moved. I can see that. He will be among the last to go. That will give us time..." Ridzik's voice dwindled, and he seemed to be seeing something inside his own mind.
"No time to speculate," he snapped. "Get ready, Henrik. And thank you."
Dismissed, Henrik thought about those last words. It must be important, the capture of that sick man. Ridzik was not known for thanking his subordinates.
17
"Culture thirteen, negative. Begin test of culture fourteen."
The voice seemed to be inside his head. Ardan tried to open his eyes to see who was speaking such odd words, but he couldn't. No muscle in his body seemed willing to move. Even his will was not working. He didn't want to move, to speak. Even to breathe.
He felt his chest moving. He knew that he was not expanding and contracting it...he was through with breathing. With everything. But the air pumped into and out of him inexorably.
He sank into black depths...like swamp water. He tried to scream, but nothing worked any longer. Then he was deep in the darkness, seeing swirls of light that were evil colors. Eyes with no bodies. Bodies without eyes.
Pink eyes. Eyeless skulls.
Tied to a tree was a child, its entrails dangling from a wound in its belly. A snake was trying to crawl in...to take the place of those lost intestines. And that would make the child into a monster! An alien monster, capable of any atrocity!
Ardan writhed and moaned. Hands touched him. Something burned along the vein in his left arm, and oblivion seemed to follow it Yet that turned into nightmare again.
He was walking in his Victor through a beautiful countryside. Before him were trees bearing ripe fruits, their boughs bending to touch the delicately colored flowers blooming in the grass beneath them. Houses stood in neat gardens, their walls covered with vines heavy with ripe bunches of grapes.
Croplands spread away from the road he followed. Birds sang as they flew in formations, catching insects. It was so beautiful! He took care to keep his 'Mech in the exact middle of the paved strip, so as to avoid damaging anything.
He entered a forest filled with deep green shadow. A sense of peace was upon the place, and he would have liked to stop and rest, but the 'Mech plodded onward. No matter what Ardan did, it was as though the Victor had a will of its own. He could not make it obey the controls.
At last, the 'Mech paused. It swayed...and then it turned on its metal heel.
Ardan gasped with shock. Behind him, there was complete devastation. The forest was splintered, ruined, with only stumps and charred remnants showing where it had been. The road was buckled. Weeds grew in cracks, and small trees were sprouting in the middle of it. The houses were gone. The croplands were barren, seared, brown. No fruit tree was left, no bird, not even an insect gave life to the empty landscape.
"I am a destroyer!"
he said aloud. "I am a sword, and I work havoc, wherever I go. Even the most subtle dagger is no worse than I."
And with those words, he awoke fully for the first time in two days.
He looked about, his vision a bit hazy but adequate. There was nobody in the tiny room, though the curtain over the door was still moving as if someone had gone through recently. A tray beside his bed held medications in applicators, waiting, Ardan supposed, to be used on him.
He focused his eyes with some difficulty. On the containers was the tiny green triangle, crossed with armored hand and blade, that was the mark of House Liao.
He was a captive.
The thought sent adrenalin through him. He stirred. His muscles responded.
He lay for a moment, astonished. He had been so weak for so long...how was it that he could move now? The MedTechs in charge must be masters of their craft
He squirmed and sat up very cautiously, letting the reeling in his head subside before trying for more. He glanced down to see that he was neady clad in a white smock, hospital garb that hadn't changed in millennia. Below the edge of the litter on which he lay was a pair of flat slippers.
He swung his feet about carefully. Not too bad...a bit of dizziness, but it seemed to be subsiding. The slippers fit his big feet
When he stood up, Ardan almost fell. His head began its interior rocking, like a vessel on a stormy sea. But he was determined to stand, to walk. To get away while his attendant was gone.
Even as he made his legs cooperate, Ardan wondered a-bout his situation. He was a captive. Surely the MedTechs knew what their medications could do. Why had they left him alone just when he would be regaining consciousness?
He shook his errant mind back into order. Whatever the reason, he had to get out. Find his unit again. See if his Tech could repair his Victor or scrounge parts to make a hybrid 'Mech of it. There was so much to do...and he had no idea how the attack had gone.
Beyond the curtain was an empty hallway. At the end of it, behind a closed door, he could hear voices. He crept into the corridor and turned in the opposite direction. Doors lined the way, some open into empty chambers like the one he had left, some closed. Pushing one open, Ardan found himself staring at a bandaged shape spreadeagled on an orthopedic rack.
He moved on, trying a door from time to time. At last, he found one that led into another passageway. This was dark, as if little used. Glass-windowed doors on either side let dim light into the corridor, and he stepped to the one on his left and peered through into the room beyond.
It was a big chamber, filled with unusual and somehow disturbing equipment. Glass-fronted cubicles lined the side wall, and there was the throb of motors, as if compressors were operating beneath the floor.
He leaned against a metal table in the middle of the room. His head...his head was whirling again. Pictures were forming behind his eyes. As disturbing scenes bubbled up from some hidden place inside him, he put his hands to his eyes and moaned.
The sound was echoed faintly from one of the cubicles. He turned awkwardly, frying to see through the faint frost that covered the glass.
Someone was inside. Someone...familiar...? He moved closer, pressed his hands to the glass, and set his face between them, peering hard at the dim shape. As if summoned by his attention, the light intensified around the body inside.
"Hanse!" he whimpered, scrabbling at the glass with his numbed fingers. "Hanse, what have they done to you?"
The familiar face was blank. The eyes were closed.
As he stared, he began to see subtle differences. The lines of thought and humor that marked Hanse's square face were lacking in this version of it. The unique expression that made of Hanse's features something special and precious had not set its seal upon these identical features.
This was a blank, waiting to be finished. Waiting to be used...for what?
His head throbbed, and his brain seemed to whirl, like water sloshing about in a bucket. Ardan moved away from the cubicle. He had discovered something of terrible importance. Someone, surely, could interpret it.
But first, he must get away. Find the forces of Davion, wherever they might be. He turned blindly, his tiny hoard of strength expended. In a daze, he staggered back to the room in which he had awakened.
* * * *
Lees Hamman took the assignment enthusiastically. "I'll get him out," he told Felsner. "If the spy's report was correct, I’ll find him and bring him back. But he must be in pretty bad shape, if your information is to be believed. We've done harder things than breaching the Liao base."
"According to our information, there's not much armor or staff left there," Felsner agreed. "I wonder why they took the trouble to capture Ardan, only to leave him with such a light guard? Seems strange."
"Let's be grateful for small favors," said Hamman. "I’ll take an infantry unit for backup. This calls for something more subtie than a straightforward 'Mech attack. They might kill him before we could find him."
"I agree. We have a scout available. He might come in handy." Felsner thrust out a hand to his subordinate. "Good luck, Lees. A lot is riding on this."
"I know. Let's get moving, eh?"
Hamman found the scout, a man named Rem, waiting for him with the other six men assigned to the operation. When he reached his own quarters, they knelt on the floor and spread the detailed map of the Liao headquarters compound on the floor.
"Your man is in bad physical shape. The informant saw him brought in. Delirious, dehydrated. Starved. Injured ...Broken arm, bad cuts, and bruises all over him. And the Meds think he ingested some sort of organism that is playing havoc with his body chemistry and digestion. He is not going to walk out of there under his own steam." Rem pointed to an L-shaped extension of the main building.
"That is the main hospital area. At least, that's what our commanders used it for, and it has all the necessary equipment, beds, everything. So that's what they use it for, too. Hell be somewhere along this corridor, I'm pretty certain."
Hamman measured the distance from their present position to that of the Liao base. "How long will it take us to get there? And can we slip into the area unseen?"
"Six hours, by hovercraft," Rem replied. "And we can set down in the middle of this strip of woodland... see?" He touched the map. "Right there. We can go into a drainage tunnel that ends in this stream. It is one that serves the reactors, so we'll need radiation-shielded suits and boots. They won't expect anyone to come that way—even if they know about the tunnel at all."
He grinned. "They haven't been in control all that long. I doubt they've found it, yet"
"Good," said Hamman. "Can you get the necessary equipment issued within the next two hours? That will put us in the area just about sundown. A good time for this kind of foray."
"Done," the scout said. "Oh-nine-hundred hours for set-down?"
"Just right," the subcommander said.
They didn't quite make it, but their timing was close enough. It was dark when they set their hovercraft in a clearing in the forest. They donned their rad suits, then began creeping through the trees, on the lookout for the stream. They found it gurgling between narrow banks that were half-filled with rank growths of ferns and other vegetation. The stream would hide the eight of them until they reached the point where it met the mouth of the tunnel.
They moved as silently as possible through the water until a splotch of deeper darkness loomed beside them. The tunnel mouth.
They carefully removed the grating that covered it, using the special wrenches that Rem had thought to provide for the purpose. The flow of water was shallow, once they were inside. Their rad-counters began to click faster, as they made their way up the vaulted conduit
They used little light. There was only Rem's glimmer, which provided just enough to keep them from bumping into walls when the tunnel curved.
When they reached the shield-wall from which the main artery drained, they were faced with another grating. It, too, yielded to the wrenches. This time,
they were so careful that almost no sound accompanied their work.
Then they were in the lower tier of the building. Hamman, having memorized the maps, turned to his right and climbed to a catwalk. Now was the time when luck would be with them...or not. He could only hope.
18
Ardan had somehow managed to get back into his bed before passing out. Now he began to move again, trying to speak, and a hand touched his face. A muffled voice spoke to someone outside his doorway. He strained to hear, but the sound was too garbled to make sense.
He recalled something...a solid fact that he knew he could trust. He had seen the medications. They had been marked with the Liao insignia. So he was in the hands of the enemy.
He stopped trying to speak, to warn those around him about the duplicate Hanse he had seen. His memory of wandering through the building was becoming dim and unreal to him, but the recollection of that blank face in the cubicle was sharp and clear.
A hand shook his shoulder. The voice outside the door became clearer. "Did he see?"
See what? wondered Ardan, as he joggled limply under the moving hand. He didn't want to come back to full consciousness now. He was too groggy...and he had too many questions waiting for him. He drifted deeper...
Then there was a noise outside. Not a voice. A thud. The crackle of a hand weapon. A scream that was cut off in the middle. The hand was gone. The room seemed empty, except for himself.
With a tremendous effort, he opened his eyes. They felt gummy, sticky, unfocused. He saw shapes in pale suits covering them from head to foot. Two were pushing into the room. He tried to move, to sit. One of the shapes whipped off the head-covering.
"Lees!" he whispered. "How?...Where?"
"Not now. Here, let's get you into that coverall hanging in that cupboard over there. Don't try to help me. I can see that you're out of it. Rem, you take his other side. O.K., Ardan? We're leaving now." The voice paused, and the two men lifted Ardan and bore him away down the corridor he had seen once before.
The sword and the dagger Page 13