by E. C. Tubb
Nadine flinched as more explosions tore the air. Alarms, not fireworks. Cazele had lied and Dumarest guessed why.
"Give me your gun. Run to the ship and have the captain sound the recall. We leave when I give the word." He turned to Zehava as Nadine obeyed. "Have our people spread the word then get to the ship. Hurry!"
He ran down a narrow alley and halted at a door beneath a swinging sign. One depicting hands clasped in friendship. The door was locked.
"Open!" His boot crashed against the panel. "Open this door or I'll smash it in! Open!"
The gun in his hand blasted lead and flame, bullets tearing into the panel, ceasing as it swung open to reveal a scared face, the dim shape of a body. Both vanished as Dumarest lunged through the opening. Beyond lay tables and chairs, the hunched bodies of natives, the arrogant figures of Kaldari.
"Emergency!" The rasp of his voice demanded attention. "Return to the ship. Pass the word to those who need to know. Move!"
A second tavern then a place filled with soft scents and seductive music, the roar of his gun destroying the sensual atmosphere, his snapped command rising above feminine screams. Then he was running towards the field as the strident blast of the recall rang through the air. Zehava was at the port.
"Stand by to seal," said Dumarest. "When I give the word don't hesitate. We'll be taking off immediately."
In the bridge Chapman turned, scowling, from his controls. "What's this all about?"
"Trouble." Dumarest looked at the screen, the dark smear depicted on it, now closer than before. 'They tried to trap us. The reason for the delays. If they hadn't fired the alarms we wouldn't have stood a chance."
"I don't understand."
"The pylas aren't what they seem. Neither are the people. We offered them something new." Dumarest frowned at the screen, the figures between the town and field. Too few and moving too slowly. "Get ready for take-off."
"Now? Those people will never get here in time."
"I'll give them all there is." Dumarest added, savagely, "Damn it, captain! Do as I say! Do you want to lose the ship?"
Nadine was with Badwasi at the firing controls. His screens also showed the spreading cloud of darkness. One now almost covering the sky.
"It gives me the creeps," he said, as Dumarest joined them. "It's like a hand reaching for us. Something from the unknown."
"Can you hit it?"
"I can blast the air where it is. You want that?" His hands danced over the controls, converting the screens to register infra-red, sucking in his breath at what they showed. "Hell! Look at that!"
A cloud of scarlet flecks, moving, dancing, creatures whose body heat registered in burning hues. A host of winged bodies spreading and glowing as if with inner fire. Even as they watched it came closer, becoming a collection of individual points, a blizzard of scarlet snow.
"We can fire," said Badwasi, "but it wouldn't do any good. It would be like trying to stop rain by shooting the drops from the air. What the hell is it?"
A swarm. The pylas moving from their nests in the hills. Obeying the instinctive directive which governed their survival.
"They're social insects," explained Dumarest. "Like ants or bees, one queen able to lay a multitude of fertile eggs. The natives have become hosts of a kind. The things take blood and give something in return. A symbiote, perhaps, an exchange which gives a doped tranquillity. That's why the people are so vague. But it's more than that. Sometimes they inject an egg. Maybe to breed a new queen. It grows in the stomach. When ready it breaks free. That's why the natives are so scared and hide when they hear the alarm."
Nadine said, "Is that what happened to Nigel and the dead girl?"
"The cabin was sealed," said Dumarest. "Zehava thought the creature must have slipped inside when Tighe took his walk. That wasn't possible. The cabin was designed to prevent it. The pylas had to have come from inside. The rip in the girl's stomach gave the answer."
That and the creature he had seen in the case, the serrated mandibles, the wings, the needle-like proboscis, the tail-assembly. Many social insects built nests of seeming stone. Others sealed potential dangers beneath layers of extruded material. The towers, the walls, a ship if it should be too tardy in escaping. They would coat the hull, enter the ports, clog the machinery, block vents, ruin the delicate balance essential for flight.
Dumarest wondered what type of vessel lay within the enigmatic cone on the field. How long it had rested there. What had happened to the crew.
"Captain!" His hand slapped the communicator as the cloud came dangerously close. Scarlet flecks which tore savagely at those still in the open and smeared the hull with liquid stone. "Let's go! Zehava! Close the port!"
"Earl! You can't. There are people out there. Give them a chance!"
They'd had their chance and wasted it.
"Now!" His voice rose above the staccato blast of the siren, the warning to those outside to stay clear. "Do it or be sucked out! Captain! Save the ship! Hit space! Now, damn you! Now!"
To send it into the relative safety of the void, leaving helpless victims behind. Sacrifices to his overwhelming need to complete his journey to Earth.
Chapter Twelve
The metal of the ship held more than the quiver of the Erhaft field. There was a continual susurration from the bulkheads, the hull, the decks and stanchions. Vibration trapped from a multitude of sources, traveling the confined world of the vessel, using it's structure as diaphragms.
Lying on his bunk, eyes closed in sleep, Dumarest was laved with whispers which held the sound of a woman crying, the deeper tones of a curse, tapping, clicks, rustles, laughter, the echoes of what could have been desperate prayer. Ghost-voices. Phantoms which created dreams to haunt the sleeping confines of his mind.
He stood on an endless plain wreathed in swirling mist facing a soaring range of mountains from which came all the sounds there ever could be. Voices which promised paradise, threatened hell, offered delights beyond imagination, warned of dangers yet to come. Tones voiced by men long dead, women now dust, all long dispersed in space and time. Other sounds; the whimper of a starving baby, the pleading wail of a terrified child, the snarl of hate from a man, the frenzied screaming of a beaten woman.
Echoes of what he had once known as home.
Figures surrounded him, hands extended, voices demanding that he give what he held. The body of a small rodent killed by a stone from his sling. His prey and hope of life, the nourishment which would sustain him through another day.
Running he escaped them to be faced by other shapes. Sombre figures, gaunt, faceless, menacing in scarlet robes. Their hands were concealed within wide sleeves, but their demands were the same. For him to give them the secret he held. One passed to him by a woman who had demonstrated to him the true meaning of love.
Other faces, other hands, the demand always the same. For him to give…give…give…
Still others – those wanting to take his life.
Dumarest jerked, rolling from the bunk, body tensed for combat. But he was alone, the cabin secure, no visible threat evident. A dream. A nightmare. He had known them before but rarely with such intensity. Seated he fought to slow the rapid gusting of his lungs, the tattoo-liked drumming of his heart. His thoughts swirled as if driven by a fountain of bubbles.
Why had the monk warned him against finding Earth?
Why had Cazele?
In imagination Dumarest saw his face limned on the bulkhead, old, hard, the vapour from the tisane giving him the appearance of a brooding idol. A shrewd and cunning man who worked for his own ends. One who could have intended to provide subtle clues.
He knew the creed of the Original People – were they to be found on Fionnula? How had he known that Earth had been proscribed? What had he meant by saying the Church knew more than it told. As did others. Which others?
What other organization matched the Church in its world-spanning influence?
There was only one. Was it possible the Cyclan could be worki
ng in unison with the Church? Did they know where Earth was to be found? If so why had they wasted so much time and effort hunting him from world to world?
Logic demanded they would have allowed him easy passage to the planet of his birth – and the trap they would have set to close around him once he had arrived. So they could not know of Earth or, if they did, they wanted to keep him from it.
Why?
A question as yet beyond solution, but another was not. Cazele had been emphatic in his savage condemnation of Earth. Had he been acting or had he been sincere? Nadine would know.
"Earl!" Her eyes widened as she saw him. "This is a surprise. Is anything wrong?"
"No. May I come in?"
She was dressed for bed, wearing a black chiton which left one shoulder bare, the thin fabric held at her waist by a silver cord, the lower edge falling to just above her knees. Her feet were bare. Her hair unbound, the thick tresses falling over her shoulders to blend with the color of her raiment accentuating the pallor of her skin. Her face looked younger than her years. The cabin held the scent of her perfume.
"I was trying to sleep." She gestured at the bunk, the rumpled cover. "I couldn't. You?"
"I had a nightmare."
"I can guess what about." Her voice hardened. "That Cazele! We should have destroyed his town!"
"What good would that have done?"
"None," she admitted. "But the Kaldari believe in revenge."
A bloodbath of the innocent of which he wanted no part nor, he guessed, did she.
Dumarest stepped past her into the cabin, looking around, seeing the small, feminine touches which made the place uniquely hers. A print of a kitten stuck to a bulkhead, a scrap of rich fabric which softened the contours of a stanchion, a tiny doll sitting on the table at the head of the bunk. Next to it a thing of crystal turned and bathed the compartment with swathes of delicate color.
"Brak gave it to me when I was a child," she said, noting his interest. 'There are chimes, too." She touched a stud and soft tintinnabulations filled the cabin with the music of elfin bells. "Pleasant, isn't it? I loved it as a child but now I prefer silence." The bells died as, again, she touched the stud. "Why don't you sit?"
She watched as he settled himself close to the pillow then sat on the bunk beside him, tucking her legs beneath her, her shoulder leaning against his arm.
He said, dryly, "You remember the last time we sat like this? What happened?"
"It won't happen again. Zoll's made sure of that." She lightened her weight against his arm so as to meet his eyes. "You want to talk," she said. "To ask me something but I'm not sure what. You mask your feelings. Is it something to do with the ship? The journey? Why is it taking so long?"
"We have a long way to go."
"I know. Niall told me. So what's the problem?"
"Cazele. You heard him talk and you must have read him. You knew he was lying about the alarm. Was he lying when he claimed to know of Earth?"
She frowned, trying to remember, then said, slowly, "I can't be certain. I wasn't really watching him that closely. Raw lies are obvious but other things aren't. He could have been telling the truth as he knew it."
"When he spoke of Earth?"
"The legend, yes. He wasn't lying then. Not deliberately. But how could he have been so wrong? Earth is a paradise."
Not the world Dumarest had known but it hadn't been what Cazele claimed either. He had repeated a distorted variation of the popular legend. One which could have been designed and propagated for a desired purpose. But why should Earth be so reviled?
"Damn!" Nadine voiced her annoyance as the crystal lamp ceased to revolve. "It's stuck again. I'll have to get it fixed. If you'll just lean back a little."
He felt the impact of her body as she leaned across him to correct the instrument. The chiton made a soft rustle as it mounted the columns of her thighs, one matched by the sliding contact of her flesh. The mounds of her breasts flattened against his torso.
"There! That's done it!"
She smiled as the lamp began to turn, bands of color touching her face, her hair, the long column of her throat. Turning her eyes into kaleidoscopic gems, her mouth into a demanding rose of passion. One which moved closer to his, to touch, to lock with iron determination.
Fear had ridden with them to Fionnula. Hate had joined it to lurk like an unseen passenger in chambers and compartments, in the salons, the holds, the places where people gathered. Lief Chapman could sense it. Something as real to him as the glowing instruments on his panels. Emotional stress had no meter but it was as detectable as the flow of current through a wire.
"Captain." Niall from the communicator. "Course change in fifteen. Mark!"
"Noted."
The sequence had already been incorporated. An instrument flashed as he pressed a button, electronic relays poised to move the ship from one path to another. Routine. Another bite taken from the journey.
Relaxing Chapman stared at the numbing majesty of the universe. It had, for him, a special attraction. One he had missed when tending his farm but that episode was over and now he was where he belonged. In tune with his command, in harmony with the flow of energies within the hull, at one with the invisible.
Sensing the pulse of electrons, the surge of impatient ions, the thrust and flurry and atomic particles. Forces which created a sub-aural music which could be stronger than any drug.
Entering the bridge Dumarest looked at the lax figure in the big chair and wondered if the captain had fallen victim to the siren lure. Many captains had, using drugs and symbiotes to ease the crushing burden of infinity.
Chapman opened his eyes. "I wasn't asleep, commander."
It wouldn't have mattered if he had been. Stinging electrical impulses would have woken him in case of need. Something they both knew as Dumarest recognized the reason for the use of his title. Formality had virtue when coupled to discipline.
"Where are we now, captain?"
"On the last leg of the journey." Chapman stretched. "I'll be glad when it's over. Some things last too long. I hear that you've tested the slave panel again."
"With perfume. There's some leakage but we can live with it."
"If they guess what's on your mind they won't like it," warned the captain. "I'm not sure I like it myself. You don't gas your crew."
"It isn't for the crew. It's for the others. You'd rather they mutinied?" Dumarest didn't force an answer. The word alone was repugnant to any captain. "I'm simply taking precautions. Zehava tells me that hotheads are stirring up trouble. Nadine reports there have been changes in cabin-partners and group-assemblies. You know what that means."
"Polarization of attitudes. Some want to wait others to act. Most of them lost friends on Fionnula. If they'd had quick action things would be different. They've had too much time to sit and brood."
Niall looked up, nodding a greeting as Dumarest entered his domain. A litter of charts lay on the desk before him together with a scatter of books, and navigational data. A computer screen was blank.
"Another student after knowledge? If you want to know just where we are ask Zehava. For some reason she's become interested in navigation. That and communications or maybe she and Schell have a special affinity for electronics. My guess is that like everyone else their patience is running out."
"And yours?"
"I've a different problem. Earth could be where you say it is but I can't find proof. I've checked the oldest almanacs I can find. It isn't listed. There's no entry for Earth on world listings either." He slapped one of the books. "So I tried a different tack. Stars follow a closely related pattern of distribution. The trouble is that when you get close to the Rim the distribution shows widening variables so we can't be sure a sun is where one could be expected. Or the reverse. There's also the problem of identification. Would you know your sun if you found it?"
"Yes," said Dumarest. "I'd know it."
Niall said, shrewdly, "There's only one way you could be certain. No two stars are
the same though some come close. To be absolutely certain you must have a spectrograph. It's like a fingerprint. Once we match the Fraunhofer lines we'll be sure. You know that. Would you also know why Earth isn't listed?"
"That's easy. Someone wanted it lost."
Dumarest watched the navigator's face, saw the stunned look of incredulity, the beginning of a smile then, as Niall met his eyes, the smile vanished.
"You're serious," he said. "By God, you mean it! But why? Why would someone want to lose a world?"
"Someone or something. I don't know why."
"How then? How the hell could it be done?" Niall shook his head. "No! It's crazy! You just can't lose a world! It's impossible!"
"No," said Dumarest. "It would be easy." He picked an almanac from the desk and held it in his hand. "A book which lists all known worlds. If a planet isn't listed then it doesn't exist. Right?"
"It isn't known," corrected the engineer. "But, basically, it's what you say."
"So we take a world." Dumarest flipped through the pages. "Kaldar. We erase the entry. Now the planet no longer exists. Right?"
"Wrong!" Niall was emphatic. "Kaldar exists! I know it!"
"Could you prove it? If it isn't listed in this book or any other almanac? Would you be able to find anyone who would agree with you?"
"Erasing an entry doesn't eliminate a world."
"True, but how could anyone find it? There would be no listed coordinates. How could you convince anyone it was real? Especially if they believed it was only a legend. A myth which no sane man would credit. What then?"
The navigator said, slowly, "You're talking about Earth."
"Yes." Dumarest lifted the almanac in his hand. "To you and to every navigator this is the most important book in the universe. Without it you're lost. Where do you get it from?"
"Shops, repair yards, depots, traders – they're all over the place. Anyone can buy a copy."
"Good business for those who print and distribute them," said Dumarest. "But anyone can do that. The importance lies with those who compile the information. The point I'm making is that it all comes from a single source. Now tell me what would happen if someone at that source failed to include an entry."