by Various
"No. I was asking about something that is only your husband's business. I won't do it again."
He turned away, back to his cabin.
"Val--" She took a quick step after him, the proud air gone and her arms outstretched. "I didn't mean--"
He turned back, his tone politely questioning.
"Yes?"
"I only wanted--" Then her arms dropped and the life went out of her voice. "What does it matter ... what does anything matter?"
She hurried into her cabin and the door closed behind her.
* * * * *
Rockford spoke from the doorway behind Hunter:
"Well, my boy, are you ready for your day's duties?"
He followed Rockford inside, where Rockford settled down in the easy-chair and yawned.
"I had a rather busy night," he said. "Certain events occurred yesterday afternoon which forced me to change my own plans to some extent. Or to set them ahead a day, I should say."
He made an effort to put the vision of Lyla from his mind and asked, "Did you make any progress with Val Boran?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Of course, I didn't expect to." Rockford yawned again. "There was another message from Supreme Command. The situation is getting worse. Which reminds me of your Duty For The Day and the fact that if you can live through it, you will have it made."
He's my superior, Hunter thought. He's supposed to outrank a Space Patrol General--and he's amused by the situation he's here to remedy.
"Right now," Rockford said, "Lyla faces a grim future and feels like she doesn't have a friend in the world. She needs a shoulder to cry on. You will take her for a walk and supply that shoulder."
Somehow, even though the order had nothing to do with the Terran-Verdam crisis, he did not have the heart to object. She had been crying before she even reached her door. Later, after he had comforted her, he would demand that Rockford get down to determined effort on the Verdam problem. No more than an hour would be lost by that....
"Yes, sir," he said. "But in the interests of Princess Lyla's safety, I had better talk to her in her cabin. Alonzo saw Narf and Sonig bring back eight--"
"Professional killers, to dispose of you," Rockford finished. "I know all about it, and I know that Narf took time last night to spend an hour with his favorite girl friend and brag even to her that he was going to marry Lyla today before your dead body had time to get cool.
"But you just take Lyla for another walk and you will cause the beginning of the end for the Verdam Peoples Worlds. You will go down in history, my boy, as the man who saved the Terran Republic."
Hunter went out the door, again feeling a feverish sense of unreality. He was to go forth and get blasted into hamburger and by some mysterious process known only to Rockford, the Verdam empire would contritely start collapsing....
He did not knock on her door. He did not think of it as a violation of her privacy. She would be feeling too alone and unwanted to care.
She was not crying as he had thought she would be. She was standing by the window, staring down at the gray, distant desert, her eyes as bleakly empty as it.
"Hello, Lyla," he said.
"Hello, Dale. I was just thinking; this is the day that I, as a woman, should always have dreamed about"--she tried to smile, and failed, and the brass came into her voice--"my wedding day!"
"Alonzo told me about it."
It seemed to him he should add something, such as to wish her happiness--but such words would be meaningless and farcical and they would both know it.
But there was no reason why he should endanger her by obeying Rockford's insane order. He would not do it--
"Ah ... good morning, Lyla!" Rockford loomed in the doorway, jovial as a Santa Claus. "Did you know Dale wants to go for a walk in the woods with you this bright spring morning--and he's no doubt too bashful to tell you so? Do you good to get away from camp"--there was the suggestion of a pause--"while you're still free."
He turned a beaming smile on Hunter. "Don't stand there like a dummy, boy--take her by the arm and let her have a last walk with someone who cares what happens to her."
There was one thing about Rockford not compatible with his air of fond fatherliness: his eyes were hard, gray slate as they looked into Hunter's and there was no mistaking their expression. Rockford had not made a fatherly suggestion for his own amusement. He had given an order that he intended to be obeyed.
* * * * * * * * *
Hunter and Lyla walked on through the thickets of ghost trees and arrow brush, each with little to say, Hunter feeling more and more like a ridiculous fool. They had no destination, no purpose in their walk, other than to abide by Rockford's desire that a total of ten assassins get a chance to slaughter a certain expendable second lieutenant.
He did not put his arm around Lyla as they walked. If they killed him, it would have to be without their having the satisfaction of the pictures they wanted with which to blackmail her.
They came to a tiny clearing, where a cloud tree log made an inviting seat in the shade, and Lyla said:
"No matter how far we walk, I'll have to go back to face it. Let's stop here, and rest a while."
He saw that the clearing was fairly well screened, but certainly not completely so. It would have to do.
He sat down on the log several feet away from her, not wanting to take the chance of her getting hit by accident.
Not that I'm enthusiastic about getting hit by intent, myself, he thought. What a way for a Space Guard officer to die.
He wondered if Rockford would ever inform Headquarters that Lieutenant Dale Hunter had died in the line of duty--by whatever twisted logic this insane episode could be called duty--and he wondered how the Commemoration Roll would read for him.... Displaying courage above and beyond the call of duty, Lieutenant Hunter sat conspicuously on top of a hill and calmly waited for ten assassins to slaughter him....
"It's peaceful and quiet here, isn't it?" Lyla said.
He had been trying to watch four different directions at once and he realized that the constant swiveling of his neck was causing his stiff blouse collar to slowly cut his throat. And he saw that it was--for the moment, anyway--peaceful and quiet where they sat. The sun was warm and golden before them, bright flowers sweetly scented the air, and giant rainbow moths were fluttering over them, their tiny voices like the piping of a thousand fairy flutes.
"I wish I had been born a country girl," Lyla said. "I'd like to have a life like this, and not--what mine will be."
He asked the question to which he had to have the answer:
"Once you were going to marry Val and live on Jardeen, weren't you?"
"I ... so my foolishness is no longer a secret?"
"Foolishness?" he asked.
"We met two years ago when I was attending the Fine Arts university on Jardeen. I was younger and a lot more naïve then than I am now. I thought we were desperately in love and would get married as soon as I finished school and would live happily ever after, and all that."
"And it didn't turn out that way?"
"I had to make that promise to Daddy and when I wrote to Val about it, he seemed to approve. He didn't suggest I renounce the proxy marriage when the time was up, or anything. He just wrote that I knew what I wanted to do. He seemed relieved to be free to go ahead with his political career."
"I see," he said, and then, "you don't feel bad about it, do you, Lyla?"
"Feel bad? I wouldn't marry Val Boran if he was the last man on Vesta! Even Lord Narf isn't as self-centered as he is!"
"You don't have to marry Narf either," he said. "You know that."
She looked down at the ground and said in a dead voice, "I made a promise."
"Rockford told me that your father never really knew Narf--that on the few times they met, Narf put on the act of being a refined gentleman, very respectful toward the king's daughter."
She did not answer and he said, "Is that the way it was?"
"Yes. That's the way it was. But how could
I tell Daddy, as he lay dying?"
"You couldn't, Lyla. But if your father could be here today and know what you know about Narf, do you think he would want you to marry him?"
"No ... I guess not. But Lord Narf loves me in his own way, I think--and that's more than anyone else does."
Then her tone changed and she said, "I'm so glad that you're here today, Dale--I'm glad that there is someone who cares at least a little about what happens to me."
On her face was a poignant longing for someone to love and comfort her. It seemed to him, now beyond any doubt, that there could never be anything for him in his career but loneliness. How different the warm love of Lyla would be from the cold austerity of the military and its endless succession of weapons and killing--
* * * * *
He moved, to sit beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. "Lyla," he said, "I want to tell you--"
"Dale...." The word was a despairing sob as her composure broke and she held tightly to him, crying, her voice coming muffled as she pressed her face against his chest. "Help me, Dale! How can I marry that sadistic beast when it's someone else I can't live without--and he doesn't even know I love him!"
"But he does!" He hugged her closer, "He does know, and he loves you even more than you love him."
"Are you sure?" She raised a tear-stained face, hope like sunshine through clouds on it. "Are you really sure Val loves me, after all?"
"Val?"
The revelation was like the stunning concussion shock of a blaster beam passing two inches overhead. His vision blurred and there was a hideous roaring in his ears. She was still holding to him for comfort and it seemed to him that was wrong--he should be clinging to her for support....
"Dale ... what's the matter?"
"But I thought--" He swallowed with difficulty. "I thought you meant that I was the--"
Something struck the top of his head; this time, for certain, the concussion shock of a blaster beam passing close above it. There was a vicious crack as the beam split the tree beyond, then a crash and explosion of wood fragments as a second beam followed the first.
He rolled from the log; taking Lyla with him. The arrow bushes shielded them briefly, long enough for them to reach the temporary safety of a small swale.
"Dale!" Her dark eyes were wide with puzzled surprise and one small foot was bare from the loss of a sandal. "Someone shot at us!"
He thought, So Narf got his pictures, after all.
"Rootenant!" Alonzo came running. "They are that way--awr spread out to be sure to kirr you."
Alonzo motioned with his nose, a movement that seemed to cover all the high ground beyond them. At least, the enemy was not between them and camp. Not yet.
A distant shout came, an order from Narf to his men:
"All of you--down that ridge! Get between Hunter and camp!"
"It's him!" Her fingers gripped his arm. "He wants them to kill you!"
They had fired from a distance too great for his own blaster. He could not defy them from where he now stood.
"I'll have to try to get within range of them," he said. "I'll go back--"
"No!" Her grip on his arm tightened. "Don't leave me, Dale--don't let him find me here."
He looked down the length of the swale. At its lower end the ghost tree forest began, dense and concealing--but all down the length of the swale the snarevines lay in thick, viciously barbed entanglements, overlying a bed of sharp rocks and boulders. She could never get to the safety of the ghost trees in time.
Narf had his pictures, now. What would he do to her in the insanity of his hatred and triumph when he reached her?
"All right, Lyla," he said. "I'll see that you get to the trees--"
* * * * * * * * *
There was a crashing of explosions and debris leaped skyward behind them and along both sides of the swale. The firing continued, scattered but very effectively consistent, and he said as he drew his blaster, "I guess they don't want us to go away."
He set the regulator of the blaster at lowest intensity so that the beam would not clip dangerous flying fragments from the boulders. The green, tough vines disintegrated reluctantly while the precious minutes sped by; while the unhindered assassins would be hurrying to the point where the entire swale would be visible to them and under their fire.
Alonzo was following along near the top of the swale's side, ignoring the danger as he watched the progress of the enemy and reported it to Hunter: "Now they are halfway, Rootenant, hurrying faster--"
They reached the lower end of the swale. The last of the vines disintegrated and the ghost tree forest lay before them.
He touched her cheek in farewell. "Get on to camp, as fast as you can run."
The firing abruptly ceased as he spoke. There was an ominous silence. Alonzo came running, his tone almost a yelp in its urgency:
"They are awrmost where they can see us! We got to get her out of here, Rootenant--awrfur quick!"
* * * * *
"Lyla!"
It was the voice of Val, sharp with concern for her. He came running out of the ghost trees, all his cold impassiveness gone. "Are you hurt, Honey--are you hurt?"
"You came for me!" She whispered the words, her face radiant. Then she ran to meet him, her arms outstretched, crying, "Val ... oh, Val...."
Their arms went around each other.
Then the woods erupted as ten blasters laid down a barrage to block any escape to camp.
"I'll try to give you a chance to get through," Hunter said quickly. "Be ready for it when it comes."
He ran toward the firing line, taking advantage of the concealment afforded by the first fringe of ghost trees. They should be almost within range of his own weapon, now--
Again, the firing abruptly ceased, as though by some signal. There came the furious raving of Narf:
"It's that Boran she wants! Kill him, too!"
Sonig cursed with bitter rage. "Jardeen is lost to Verdam if any witness escapes--and we'll all hang, besides."
There was a second of silence, and then Narf's command:
"Kill the woman, too!"
There was a roar like thunder as the firing began. The ground trembled and debris filled the air with flying fragments. Hunter, still running toward the enemy under cover of the trees, saw Val trying to get Lyla to safety and saw them both hurled to the ground as a tree exploded in front of them. They would never live to rise and run again--
* * * * *
He saw Rockford's plan, at last, and what his own duty would now have to be. He knew why Rockford had said of this day, "If you can live through it, you will have it made."
And he had a cold feeling inside him that he was not going to have it made.
He took a deep breath and ran toward the enemy, out of the concealment of the ghost trees and in the open where they could not fail to see him, his blaster firing a continuous beam that fell only a little short of the enemy, that showed them he would be close enough to kill them within seconds if he was not stopped.
The fire concentrated upon him, giving Lyla and Val their chance for escape. He ran through an inferno of crashing explosions, twisting and dodging on ground that trembled and heaved under his feet, while razor-sharp rock shrapnel filled the air with shrill, deadly screaming sounds.
Something ripped through his shoulder, to spin him around and send him rolling. He scrambled up, firing as he did so, and ran drunkenly on.
Something struck the side of his head and he went down again. He tried to rise and fell back, a blackness sweeping over him that he could not hold away despite his efforts to do so.
It seemed to him that the firing had suddenly stopped, that in its place was the hoarse buzz of a police stun-beam. It seemed he saw helicopters overhead, bearing the bright blue insignia of the Royal Guard and then there was nothing but the blackness.
* * * * *
There was a brief, dreamlike return to consciousness. He was in a Royal Guard helicopter and Alonzo was beside him, grinning, and sa
ying, "You be O.K.--I grad! And my Princess Ryra--rook at her now, Rootenant!"
He saw Lyla, her hand in Val's, and her face was glowing and beautiful in its new-found happiness. Then she was bending down, kissing him, and saying, "Dale ... Dale ... how can we ever thank you for what you did?"
* * * * *
When the blackness lifted the second time he was lying, bandaged, on a cot in the meeting hall and the voice of Rockford was saying, "... Ready to go in just a minute."
The hall was filled with members of the royal court who had come for the wedding. He saw the white robes of Church of Vesta dignitaries who had come to officiate at the wedding. Then he saw the seven grim old men seated at the far end of the table.
The Royal Council--with the judicial power to give even death sentences in crimes committed against royalty.
Sonig, his face white and staring, was being half led, half carried, away from them.
Narf, in the grip of another Guardsman, was standing before the Council and saying in a tone both incredulous and sneering:
"Is that my sentence?"
"There is a qualification to it," one of the Council said. "It seems only just, in view of your crime, that you be tortured until death--"
The rest of the words were lost as the blackness swept back. But before unconsciousness was complete, when all else in the hall was gone from him, he heard Narf's cry; an animal-like bawl of protest, raw and hoarse with anguish....
* * * * *
"Ah ... you're coming out of it, my boy."
Rockford was standing over him. "They gave you a Restoration shot on Vesta forty-eight hours ago. It will be wearing off in a minute and your head will clear."
He sat up, and the dizziness faded swiftly away. He saw that he was in the compartment of an interstellar ship and he knew that it was Earthbound.
And that Vesta, and brown-eyed Lyla, were now part of the past....
"Don't look so sad, my boy," Rockford said. "You'll get due credit and promotion for the invaluable part you played in my plan."
"But--"
"I know. But she was never yours. You'll find life is full of heartbreaks like that, son.
"And we accomplished our mission. Narf's crime neatly invalidated the proxy marriage. Then Lyla set a new precedent by marrying Val that very day. Earth has never had two such loyal and grateful friends as Val and Lyla."