by Douglas Hill
But Os-9 panicked at the explosion of movement that he had not even been able to follow properly. He clenched his finger on his trigger, and his gun blasted three times.
One bullet whined over Keill's head. And the other two slammed with finality into the body of Mic-12, who was still stumbling backwards, trying to free himself from Keill's hands.
At the instant Keill felt the impact of the bullets on the man who was his shield, he flung the dying clone away with all his power. The body hurtled backwards, crashing in a flail of limp aims into Os-9, who was leaping from his skimmer for a clear shot at Keill.
Before Os-9 could regain his balance, Keill had hurdled the body of the dead clone in a long, raking leap, one booted foot driving forward in a murderous kick that smashed against the side of Os-9’s jaw.
Keill dropped smoothly from the kick Into a balanced crouch, but there was no need for a follow-up. Os-9 sprawled on the moss like a stringless puppet, his broken jaw askew and his head twisted in a manner that showed how cleanly his neck had been snapped.
'Keill, that was...' Tam's voice was choked with awe. 'I could never have believed...'
'Later,' Keill said curtly. 'Stay where you are – we're getting out of here.'
He tore at the uniform of Os-9, ripping away a long strip of the light material and binding it tightly round his left hand in a makeshift bandage. Then he took the clone's gun and turned towards the other skimmer, pumping the remaining bullets into the vehicle's engine till it was an unrecognisable dump of shattered metal.
Flinging the empty gun aside, he gathered up the gun of Mic-12, which had fired only the one shot, and jammed it into his belt before leaping into the skimmer seat behind Tam.
'Hold tight!' he ordered the wide-eyed youth.
The engine throbbed into life, and the skimmer shot away at full speed, as if the machine itself were some wild, hunted beast fleeing from deadly danger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The skimmer was a simple mechanism, steered by foot pedals and with a hand-held accelerator. It was speedy and manoeuvrable – and it needed to be, as Keill flung it into a winding, torturous route among the rocks, at top speed even round blind corners or on the edges of deep ravines.
Several times a yell of fear burst from Tam when the skimmer seemed certain to flip over on a careering turn, or to slam lethally into a wall of rock. But always Keill's reflexes dragged them out of danger, so that after several kilometres – though Tam had been sure at least five times that they would be killed – there was not the smallest scratch on the skimmer's shiny hull.
Keill knew that the other clones, alerted by the gunshots, would be after him by now. Even so, he guided the skimmer in the same direction they had been taking before. It was all the more urgent to have a close look at the tower that was the clones' headquarters, before working out what he was going to do next.
The skimmer engine strained as he swung it over a projecting spur of rock, at once swerving it in nearly a right-angled turn to avoid another outcrop. In the seat ahead, Tam moaned, covering his eyes.
'Keill, may we slow the speed?’ he called plaintively above the engine noise. 'My head hurts, and my stomach grows sick.’
'You'll feel worse if they catch us!’ Keill shouted back, accelerating across a patch of moss.
Tam groaned and leaned back, eyes closed. But Keill ignored him, forming a call to Glr, who he knew would now be aloft again, keeping watch with her keen vision.
'How far is the tower now?' he asked.
About three kilometres, as the Ehrlil flies,Glr replied with the ghost of a laugh. But the other humans are nearer than that to you – and they are on your course, as if they have guessed that you will move towards the tower.
Keill's mouth tightened. He had hoped that the clones would think that route the most unlikely one for him to take. But their captain was clever, a good officer. And a dangerous opponent.
He forced every scrap of speed out of the skimmer's throbbing engine. The ground seemed to be levelling off, he noticed – the rocks becoming even flatter, with broader and smoother open spaces among them. It made travelling easier -though it also made his skimmer more visible to searching eyes.
But Glr was watching, and would know the instant that he was in danger of being spotted. And meanwhile the tower must be growing closer every moment...
Then he glimpsed it, like a spike of metal rearing up in the middle distance. A short distance away he found a vantage point, and halted the skimmer, letting its engine idle as he studied the flat, open plateau before him.
The tower thrust up towards the dull sky of Rilyn, nearly two hundred metres of darkly gleaming metal, flat-sided and square-cornered. There were no apparent breaks or openings in the smooth outer walls – except for two vertical grooves, or channels, nearly as wide as the height of a man, running from top to bottom of the wall facing Keill. If the tower had windows, Keill thought, they would be flush with the walls, and polarised somehow to appear part of the smooth metal, with no edge or seam visible.
But he could see a faint seam at the base of the tower, that might mark the outline of a sizeable doorway. Yet it was hard to be certain. The tower's details were not sharply defined – as if the haze that Glr had mentioned was somehow clinging to it, slightly blurring its edges.
Tam noticed it as well, 'My wound has affected my vision,' he said worriedly. 'The building seems misty.’
'It's not your eyes,’ Keill replied, as the answer came to him. 'It must be a force field. The whole tower is completely enclosed.'
And that, he realised, was what lay behind the arrogance of building a tower on Rilyn. Deathwing technology must have adapted the known forms of force field to create an immovable barrier that would withstand even the power of the Starwind.
He looked again at the base of the tower, where the haziness seemed more dense. That, he guessed, would come from the interface of the vertical force field and the horizontal suppressor field, which also had its centre at the tower.
Keill could think of nothing that could breach those defences. Of course the force field would be shut off, he knew, to let clones out or to let the spacecraft, on top of the tower, lift off. But even then the building would be heavily guarded. From the numbered names of the clones that he had overheard, there would be more than thirty men in each of the three duplicated groups – making at least one hundred men occupying the tower.
For now, he thought sourly, he would have to stay out among the rocks, and reduce the odds by picking off pursuers a few at a tune.
As if in direct response to that thought, the tower's hazy surround seemed to flicker, then faded –
showing Keill not only that it was a force field, but that it had just been shut off. Now he could clearly see the seam of the wide doorway at the base.
As he watched, it opened. Out slid twenty of the two-man skimmers – forty men, in squads often men each. They spread out in a semi-circular formation, and began to sweep across the plateau, while behind them the haziness of the force field sprang back into life.
Keill swung his own skimmer around, back among the rocks. So Miclas, the clone captain, was getting reinforcements. It would give Keill that many more to set up ambushes for – but first he had to find a safe place to leave Tam during the dangerous game of hide and seek.
As their skimmer sped among the rocks, he raised his voice to explain to Tam what was to happen,
'But I wish not to hide!’ Tam protested. 'I would come with you, and fight! I have no fear of them!’
'Your courage isn't the question,' Keill replied. 'I know about this kind of fighting – you don't.
We'll both be safer if you're out of it.'
Tam nodded sadly. 'I see it. I would hamper you.’
'Something like that,' Keill said. 'Don't worry. You may yet get your chance to fight.'
'You will see,’ Tam said, eyes glowing. 'I will prove worthy.’
Keill didn't reply, because he had spotted what he had been search
ing for. A black smear of shadow, at the base of a low wall of rock, had to be the mouth of one of the caves that honeycombed the region. He cut power at once, sliding the skimmer to a halt.
'There's your hiding place,' he told Tam, pointing to the cave mouth. 'Stay inside, and if you hear skimmer engines, get as far into the cave as you can.’ He grinned tightly. 'With a little luck, we'll both survive.’
Tam stepped out of the skimmer, looking dubiously at the cave. 'What of the stonewhips?'
'I told you before – they're slow-moving creatures. Just stay out of their way. Stay out of the way of everything.'
He unfastened his belt pouch and took out a vial of dear liquid from the medikit. Peeling away the ragged red cloth from his injured hand, he dabbed some of the liquid on to the angry gash. At once the throbbing pain – which he had not let himself acknowledge, during the wild flight through the rocks –
eased to a distant ache. He flexed his fingers, to be sure he had full use of the hand, then rewrapped the bandage before passing the vial to Tam.
'Smear some of that on your head wound. It'll stop the pain and the swelling.’
Tam was staring at him wonderingly. 'Your hand is not smashed? How...’
'Just luck.’ Keill said lightly. To change the subject, he handed Tam his belt pouch, and the gun that he had taken from the clone. 'There's food concentrates and water to keep you going. And if our friends in red find you, get some good use from the gun.’
Tam hefted the weapon, looking worried. 'What will you do, unarmed?'
'I’ll get another,' Keill said quietly, 'the way I got that one.'
And he gunned the skimmer away.
---
In my opinion,Glr said, you are in trouble.
Wordlessly, Keill agreed. In the half-hour since he had left Tam, he had been doing little but running and hiding. He had tried to swing out to the right, hoping to get behind the wide arc of skimmers that had come from the tower. But the first six clones, led by Miclas, had changed direction – and Glr had warned him only just in time before he had driven straight into them.
Now they were close behind him, like predators on a blood-trail. And their forty 'brothers’ had tightened their arc, and were closing from the other direction.
Too many to fight, and too many to run from, Keill thought to himself. But maybe not too many to deceive.
'Can you see a deep gully or ravine nearby?'he asked Glr.
For a moment Glr was silent. About thirty degrees to your left, not far, she said at last. What are you planning?
'I'm going to kill myself,'Keill replied. 'It might slow them up a little.’
Keill...Glr said worriedly. But by then he had seen the gully that she had located – a narrow, deep ditch gouged in the rock, within a profusion of the tough shrubbery.
He pointed the skimmer towards it, gauging distances and timing. At the last instant before the machine plunged over the edge, he flung himself clear in a low, flat dive, tucking into a forward shoulder roll and coming to his feet.
The skimmer crashed into the gully in a crunch of metal, followed by a heavier explosion as the fuel blew up in a fountain of flame and metallic fragments. That explosion was a nice touch that he hadn't counted on. The searchers might be all the more likely to think that he had crashed the skimmer and died – and would waste valuable time examining the wreckage for his charred body.
Now what he needed was a cave of his own, where he could stay hidden until nightfall. If the search continued after dark, he would have all the cover he needed to start reducing their numbers. And he wouldn't have long to wait, for the daylight was already beginning to fade a little.
On impulse he turned back to the edge of the gully. The tough shrubbery was dry enough to burn, and much of it was merrily blazing where the skimmer had exploded. Keill ripped up an armful of the greenery, and with it a substantial bunch that was already aflame. Then he sprang away, running sure-footedly through the crumbled, uneven rock.
From a distance, as the light waned, he could not easily tell whether shadowed areas in the rocks were only clefts or wrinkles, or actual openings. Over there, for instance – could that narrow strip of darkness be a cave mouth?
He found that it could, and was. Inside, the flame in the handful of shrubbery flickered enough to show him that the cave was low-ceilinged, and apparently cut deep into the rock. He moved deeper, glad to see no sign of the stonewhip creatures. Then he halted abruptly.
An odd feeling – like a current of air. And moving towards him – out of the dark interior of the cave.
He moved forward again, guarding the flame, and saw that the cave extended itself to become a tunnel – low, narrow, but roomy enough for him to move along.
Keill, beware. Glr's voice was anxious in his mind, A skimmer has stopped outside the cave you entered. One of the humans is looking in, with some sort of flame-lamp in his hand.
The clones were good trackers, he thought with annoyance. And, of course, they would have torches not affected by the suppressor field.
An idea struck him. 'Glr, can you keep a mental fix on my position, and look for another opening out of this tunnel that you can guide me to?'
I will try.The nervousness in her voice was stronger. But I cannot stay in your mind for long. I can sense the darkness, the stone around you – it is like being in a cave myself.
'No matter,'Keill said reassuringly, remembering her overpowering fear in the cave before. 'Just make quick contact every few minutes, in and out. And look for an exit.’
As Glr hastily withdrew, he moved on, carefully setting a fresh portion of the shrub alight from the first one, now nearly burned away. The tunnel curved and twisted as it progressed, and now and then there were smaller tunnels branching off to the side. But Keill kept to the main passage, still led by the faint movement of air that he could feel. It had to come from an opening; he only hoped it would be large enough to let him through.
He moved as swiftly as he could, his flickering flame cupped behind one hand. At times, in the smaller side tunnels or in. crevices carved into the walls, he caught sight of faint, obscure movement. They could only be lurking stonewhips – but he was past each hiding place before any of the ugly helmet-heads thrust itself out into view.
He did not let himself think about what might happen if all his store of shrubbery had burned before he had found a way out of the tunnel.
Keill, I have not yet seen another opening.Glr's voice was tense and strained. But you are now moving under the plateau where the tower stands – almost directly towards it.
'I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.’ Keill said dourly.
And the human who entered the case behind you has not emerged,Glr added. He may be following you.
Again her mind withdrew. Keill glanced back, but there was no sign of light or movement in the blackness behind him. Knowing there was no choice, he strode on.
The tunnel seemed unchanging. It did not widen or narrow to any great extent, nor did its level alter. The faint waft of air was no stronger or weaker. The almost inaudible slither of stonewhips still came from crevices here and there. Only his supply of the dry shrubbery changed – dwindling steadily as he walked on.
Soon he was lighting the last fragment of it, with no end in sight to the tunnel yawning in front of him. And the fragment seemed to last only a few steps before it had burnt down to a stub, scorching his fingers. When he let it drop, the blackness reached out and swallowed him.
Gritting his teeth, he kept moving. But now his advance was heartbreakingly slow – one step at a time, his right hand thrust out ahead to keep him from walking into solid rock if the tunnel curved in the impenetrable dark. He blocked out of his mind the skin-crawling thought of the stonewhips that might be lining the walls, invisibly, waiting to strike out. Grimly, steadily, he moved on.
His out-thrust hand brushed against cold stone, and he drew it back sharply. The tunnel had begun another curve. Even more cautiously, he groped forward. Agai
n his hand touched stone – a projecting bulge of rock, rough and seamed...
Under his hand, the bulge moved.
He flung himself forward, stifling a yell, hearing the hiss as the stonewhip's sting lashed out. He had no idea how near it had come – or how many others were gathering...
And then, around the tunnel's curve, his unbelieving eyes. saw a taint gleam of light.
Not from behind him, where the pursuing clone might be. From ahead. And a dull, reddish light, not the yellow glow of flame.
As he moved closer the shape of the tunnel regained vague form in the blackness. Rapidly he covered the remaining metres, until he reached the source of the reddish light.
The realisation was crushing.
The tunnel had opened out, into a broad and high-roofed cavern. But the far side of it, where the hazy redness gleamed, was a wall of smooth, polished metal.
The tunnel had led to the foundations of the tower itself. And the reddish light was obviously from the force field, being emitted directly from the walls themselves, even below ground.
It was a dead end. All the more so when he saw a tiny patch of grey in the high vault of the cavern, and recognised it as a small slit opening in the rock. That was the source of the current of air that he had detected – but it was far too narrow to let him out.
For a moment his mind went as blank as the smooth metal of the tower, as he stared at it, wildly trying to think of a way out of the trap.
And then he saw his own shadow flung large against the metal by a glow of yellow light behind him.
He whirled – to confront a red-uniformed clone with a flaming torch in one hand and an unwavering gun in the other.
But not just any clone. Peering past the brightness of the torch, Keill saw that it was the captain –
the older Miclas-clone.
'You make a fine quarry, Randor,' Miclas said with an ugly grin. 'Good training for the young ones. But I'm too wise a head to be fooled by a crashed skimmer – and too good a tracker to miss the signs you left.'