by E. C. Tubb
"Earl!" She moved toward him, arms searching, finding, binding him close. The contours of her body were warm with feminine heat. "Earl, my darling! My love!"
Passion to which he responded; mounting heights of ecstatic abandon to drift into the valley of satiated desire. Against him the woman snuggled close, the impact of breasts, hips and thighs, points of sensuous intimacy. Her fingers were scented petals caressing his naked flesh.
"Love me, Earl?"
"Yes."
"Really love me? You aren't just saying it?"
For answer he stroked the mane of her hair, the long curvature of her back, the mounds of her buttocks. A reply which caused her to rear at his side, face hovering over his own, lips pressed against his mouth in a sudden, possessive hunger.
"You're mine! You're mine, Earl-remember that!"
"I won't forget."
"I'd kill any other woman you looked at!"
"Easy," he said. "We don't need to fight." And then, to lighten the moment, "You should try to be more civilized."
"Like Eunice? You want her?"
"No. She belongs to Urich." The fruit of his victory over the angel. "Now they can be really close."
"A happy ending," said Ysanne. "He'll soon drive that nonsense of spells and charms from her mind. I suppose the next thing will be for him to ask Andre to marry them." Abruptly she kissed him again. "How about us, Earl?"
"Marry, you mean?"
"Why not? You're home now and you need a woman to stand beside you."
Dumarest said, "I never thought you'd want to settle down."
"I didn't. Not at first. Now things are different. You've found what you were looking for and have no reason to keep traveling. This could be our world. Ours and our children's. Earl?"
"There are things to be settled first."
"What? The Ypsheim? Let them rot. They aren't your responsibility and we have ourselves to look after. There must be more ruins to the north. Treasure, palaces, gems-damn it, the legends can't all be lies. Even allowing for exaggeration there must be a fortune waiting to be collected. The biggest damned fortune ever known. And it's ours, darling. All ours!"
A thought which triggered her desire and drove her against him, lips seeking, hands searching, body a sudden vibrant flame.
Then the intercom sounded its demand for attention.
"Earl?" Batrun's voice was strained. "I've spotted something odd. You'd better get up here."
The control room was alive with winks and glimmers, flashes and flickers from the blips on the screens. It was early dawn, the direct vision ports filled with a nacreous luminescence which barely illuminated the settlement.
"Angels." Batrun gestured at the screen. "They've been wheeling all night. No sign of an attack, though."
"So why sound the alarm?" Ysanne, robbed of her pleasure, was curt.
Dumarest, more patient, said, "What did you spot, Andre?"
"Something. You'll see it in-" He checked the chronometer, "-thirteen seconds." Time for him to take a pinch of snuff. As the lid of the box closed with a snap he said, "There!"
A mote traversing a screen. One limned with a scintillant haze. They all knew what it had to be.
"A ship!" Ysanne was bitter. "Of all the damned luck! Strangers are the last thing we want. Well, to hell with them. We were here first. This is our world and if they want to argue we'll do something about it."
"Fight?" Dumarest shook his head. "What would we be fighting for? Some dirt? Hills? Ruins?"
"Our dirt, Earl!" Anger quivered her voice. "Our hills! Our ruins! I don't care if all we've got is a heap of garbage-no bastard's going to take it! What we have we keep!"
Their lives-the only thing of real value. To the captain Dumarest said, "Prepare the ship for immediate flight."
"It's being done, Earl. I alerted Talion before you got here."
"Good. Have Sheiner give him a hand." On the screen the mote slowed, began to grow in size. "Tell them to hurry."
"Run?" Ysanne was incredulous. "You're going to run? But-"
"What else do you suggest?" Dumarest was savage in his interruption. "Arm the Ypsheim and hope they'll take our orders? Kill for us? Die for us? Use your brains, girl-once they get guns we'll be their first target. Andre?"
Batrun studied the screen, read the message of his instruments. "They've checked orbit and are coming in to land. They'll be here soon."
And trouble would come with them. Dumarest stared at the mote, feeling the old, familiar tension which warned of danger. The stranger could be anyone; a slaver, a trader, a vessel on an exploratory voyage, but he sensed what it would be.
A ship of the Cyclan. Following him-but how?
"Make contact," said Ysanne. "Find out who they are."
"No." Dumarest was firm. "Maintain silence." To ignore an innocent vessel would do no harm but to reveal themselves to an enemy was to act the fool. His hand slapped the intercom. "Lyle? What's keeping you?"
Sheiner answered. "Not long now. A couple of minutes will do it."
Time they didn't have.
The strange vessel landed with a crack of displaced air; thunder which scattered the wheeling angels and filled the air with transient dust. The shimmer of the Erhaft field collapsed to reveal the shape and bulk of the vessel, one of unfamiliar design, but there was nothing strange about the sigil it bore, the snouts of laser-cannon threatening the Erce.
"The Cyclan! They'll burn us from the sky if we try to leave!" Ysanne turned to face the captain, looked at Dumarest. "We can't run," she said bitterly. "And we can't fight. So what the hell do we do now?"
It was a problem which held an enticing complexity, one Avro pondered as, around him, the ship came to quiescent rest, enhancing the mental euphoria attending the proof of a calculated prediction. And yet even while he relished the success he was aware of possible complications which could render it void.
The ship was before him, the Erce-but was Dumarest with it?
Logic told him that vessel and man had traveled together and yet the possibility they had parted remained. It was a low order of probability and yet no detail, no matter how small, could be ignored, and if Dumarest was with the Erce was he inside it? And if he was…
"Master!" Weitz bowed as he came to make his report. Though young, the acolyte had the face of an old man; the voyage had been wearing to those denied the use of the amniotic tanks. "Scanners have marked all sources of infrared radiation to the horizon, the Erce appears to be sealed. Laser-cannon have been set to fire at any sign of flight." He added, "Points of aim have been selected to damage the structure only."
Unnecessary loquacity; the strain of the journey had done more than age his body. His mind too had been affected and he would never aspire to the scarlet robe. Avro felt no pity; the man had served and that in itself was sufficient reward.
He said, "What is the present situation of the crew?"
"The Erce's? I-"
"You are relieved." Avro's even modulation didn't change but the acolyte cringed as if he had been struck. "Report to the captain for menial duties. Send Amrik to me."
Another acolyte, but one who had ridden in an amniotic tank as had Avro himself and a few others. A precaution against the unknown and one proved justified.
"Master!" The bow was a matter of ceremony, a mere inclination of the head. "Sixty percent of the crew has been incapacitated by the journey. Premature aging caused by the stress of the cascade-field together with an attendant loss of mental faculties."
The price paid for gaining velocity against which the speed of a normal ship was small. One predicted and accepted; the risk had been unavoidable. But it added another dimension to the main problem.
"Scanners show a concentration of heat sources at the area beyond the Erce. More are in the air. The former are probably humans while the latter are human-type organisms of an avian nature. The probability is-"
"High." Avro gestured with one thin hand. "Any individual sources noted?"
"None beyond t
he areas specified."
Which meant that if anyone was absent from the Erce they must be within the settlement or beyond the horizon. It was barely past dawn. On a strange and possibly hostile world it would be natural to stay within safe confines. If Dumarest had stayed with the ship he would now be in it or with those in the settlement. The latter probability was low but still high enough to be a factor of importance. One easily checked.
"Dumarest?" Ulls Farnham scowled as he looked at the cyber. To him Avro meant little, but he had come in a vessel and was obviously of importance. "Is he a friend of yours?"
"Answer my question."
"Why should I?"
On a myriad of worlds the question would have been ridiculous, but the Ypsheim knew nothing of the Cyclan and its power. But the ignorance was not mutual. Avro recognized the type; the one who had thrust himself forward to gain prominence when Amrik had asked for a spokesman. A man with ambition and greed who could be manipulated like wax in a flame.
He said, "To cooperate will be to your advantage. Dumarest is a dangerous man who will bring you harm. You have already had proof of that."
"Death, injuries, destruction-and the bastard left us to it!" His burst of anger verified Avro's statement. The condition of the settlement had told him all he needed to know. Weakness always blamed strength for its own failings and Farnham was weak. He said, "He could have given us weapons and the shelter of the ship, but refused both. He brought the angels down on us and is keeping them here. A male he's holding as a prisoner-why the hell doesn't he let it go?"
And why wasn't Dumarest dead and buried with the Erce in his possession, the hold stuffed with severed wings and their crippled owners busy at work in the fields? A fortune waiting to be collected. An empire to be made and all his if only he'd been given guns. Still his if this stranger could be talked into helping.
Ambitions and desires which Avro read as clearly as if they had been printed words on a page.
He said, "Is Dumarest within the ship? I see. Describe him."
"But-"
"You will be helped. Now describe the man you know as Dumarest."
Details which fit despite the other's obvious bias and Avro studied the situation as the man was ushered from the vessel. Dumarest was within the Erce. The Erce was sealed. To blast a hole in its hull would be simple-but how to guarantee that no harm came to the man?
An overstatement; the man didn't matter, only his brain was important and that because of the knowledge it held. He could be crippled, rendered immobile, stunned, blinded, paralyzed, anything as long as the brain remained undamaged. But how to be sure? How to be certain?
Avro moved uneasily in his chair. Nothing could ever be certain; always there was the probability of some unknown factor affecting the situation and the fact he had entertained the concept was disturbing. Had he also been influenced by the long and arduous journey? The stress fields set up within the hull were of a high order of magnitude and new drive had yet to be fully tested. More than half the crew had succumbed. Had the amniotic tanks given less protection than calculated?
"Master!" Amrik was back and waiting for orders. Avro gave them, ending, "Establish contact with the captain of the Erce."
It was time to claim his quarry.
"Well?" Ysanne was impatient, snapping the question as Batrun turned from the now-dead radio. "Well?"
"You heard," he said mildly. "What more is there to say?"
Surrender Dumarest or the Erce would be damaged-ruined if the delay was too long. Holes seared through the hull and men to feed in numbing vapors. An electronic field established to jar sensitive nerves with unremitting agony. Death as the reward for disobedience. She remembered the face which had appeared on the screen, the cold, robotlike impression it had made. Even the voice, while bland and devoid of irritant factors, had somehow held a frigid menace.
"We could fight," she said. "Go outside and-"
"Be shot down as we left the hatch." Batrun shook his head. "We're in a trap, my dear, and you know it."
Not them, Dumarest-the thought sent her to pace the deck. Surrender him or be destroyed; a fact Avro had made clear.
She said dully, "So what's the answer? Are you going to hand him over?"
Batrun took a pinch of snuff and sat looking down into the opened box. As it snapped shut he said, "Earl saved my life. He gave me this command. Need I say more?"
"You're with him all the way." Relief lightened her eyes. "That makes two of us. Enough to make a decision. If the others don't like it then too damned bad. So what now?"
"We see Earl," said Batrun. "And find out what he wants to do."
Dumarest was with the angel.
It was standing pressed back against the bulkhead, hands lifted to waist level, head poised, eyes following every movement the man made. Small movements, slow and gentle, every muscle linked in the subtle harmony of the dance.
And, as the movements, so the voice.
A man soothing a horse, thought Ysanne as she halted at the open door of the cabin. But it wasn't as simple as that; the angel was too human to be subjugated like a beast.
"Earl?" Batrun spoke softly over the crooning voice. "Earl-we have to talk."
He added, but the soothing drone of the voice did not alter and the rhythm of motion was maintained as Dumarest stooped, picked up a bowl of sugary fragments, advanced to place it within the clawed hands.
In the passage he said, "The cyber made contact, right?"
"Avro knows you're here, Earl. Farnham told him." Ysanne added, bitterly, "Trust that bastard to sell you out!"
"The deal?" Dumarest nodded as she told him. "He means it-you realize that?"
"Yes, but we've decided what to do."
"Which is anything you want, Earl," said Batrun. "Fight, run, cheat, lie-you name it."
The first two were out. The rest?
Ysanne said, "We could pretend to hand you over then cut loose when we get the chance. Kill the cyber and as many others as we can. Once Avro is dead-" She saw the shake of his head. "No?"
Dumarest said, "You're up against the Cyclan."
"So?"
"Don't underestimate them. That cyber is probably the cleverest man you've ever met. His crew are dedicated to his welfare; kill him and they'll lose all restraint. None of you would survive."
"It's a chance, Earl." Ysanne was restless. "And what have you to lose?"
His arms, his legs as, turned into a basket case, he would be sealed into amniotic sac. To ride drugged and helpless to a place where horrors would be done to his body and brain. Garbage to be used and disposed of once they had won the secret he carried.
He said, "The cyber spoke to Farnham? Are you sure?"
"We saw it in the screens," said Batrun. "It was Farnham all right. He came out grinning, shaking his fist at the sky. I guess he'd had good news."
Promises, flattery, the tantalizing lore of his greed- Dumarest knew how the cyber would use the man's weakness against himself. His weakness and his fears. And Farnham was terrified of the angels.
"Avro's using the Ypsheim against us, I'd swear to it." Ysanne was positive. "Using them for the attack if one is made. I guess he regards them as expendable." She looked at the angel in the cabin, now eating the sugary fragments. "Avro's crew and the Ypsheim-we're well outnumbered. If we could get the angels to fight for us we might stand a chance. But how to bribe them?" She paused, thinking. "Earl?"
"We're afraid of the angels," said Dumarest. "That's why we can't leave the ship. We hold a male and the others are waiting to attack us on sight. They're still circling, I take it?"
"They reformed after the cyber ship landed, but-" Batrun narrowed his eyes. "We're afraid of them?"
"That's what you're going to tell Avro. The male has to be released before we can come out. Once the sky is clear I'll surrender."
Ysanne said, "No! No, Earl, you can't!"
"You prefer the alternative?" Dumarest shrugged as she made no answer. "We've no choice. Just do as I s
ay."
Alone again he stepped into the cabin and advanced toward the captive. One hand was behind his back, the other extended in a gesture of friendliness. His voice was a wordless croon, soothing, comforting. His thoughts were directed pleasantries.
Freedom-the empty skies-the mates waiting for you. I'm going to release you-set you free-no tricks-you won't be hurt. Just work with me-help me-together we'll be free.
His hand rose to touch the dappled shoulder, moved to rest on the base of the neck. Beneath his fingers the angel jerked, jerked again as the rope Dumarest had hidden behind his back fell in a tightening loop over its wrists.
"Easy," soothed Dumarest. "Just take it easy."
The belt fell free, the chain attached to the bulkhead holding it suspended inches from the deck.The angel, taller than Dumarest, reared even taller, wings lifting to spread, to snap close as he tightened the rope holding the wrists.
"Easy," he said again then, as claws slid from the fingertips, snarled in sudden rage. "Easy, damn you! Do as I say!"
A blast of fury against which Sheiner's had been a candle against a roaring furnace. The claws retracted, the wings coming to rest, the angel slumping as Dumarest led it through the door toward the hold. The hatch was now open, clear sky showing through the panel, blueness ornamented with a host of shimmering wings.
"Home," said Dumarest. "You're going home."
He felt the sudden tension of the creature, saw the tilted head, the elongated eyes lambent as they stared at the sky and the wheeling angels. Distraction which he used; lifting the bound hands, dropping them over his head, locking the creature's arms under his own. Against his back he felt the surge of corded muscle, the lifting of a calloused knee.
"Do it and I'll kill you!" His thought was a lance of fire. Then, softly and aloud, he murmured. "Home. You're going home now-and you're taking me with you."
He ran, forcing the angel to follow, to match his step as he lunged toward the open hatch. Reaching it to dive through, ignoring the ramp, hearing above his head the sudden thunder of wings. A moment of strain during which the ground came close then, slowly, it fell away as air blasted past his face and the noise of the wings pulsed in his ears.