Rachad pulled off a helmet. The man inside was Boogle and he was dead, his neck broken.
More men were stirring, climbing to their feet groaning and looking about them with awe. Rachad straightened, and then he heard a familiar noise—a whistling noise, the interference effect of a ship sailing too close to the ground.
Something long and dark went hurtling by overhead. It was the dragonfly, sails outstretched, its pointed tail trailing like a sting. It executed a neat turn, swooped, and put down with poise and precision on the gravelly soil.
Between them Zhorga and Rachad had by now checked all the bodies that still lay motionless on this side of the ship, and had found three who breathed and three who did not. Rachad, retreated toward Zhorga, as did most others who were able to walk. The air captain glowered at the alien craft as a ramp dropped from the side of the dragonfly. A party of about eight to ten men, marching with springy step, emerged and advanced in a squad.
All but the leader, who carried a holstered pistol, bore long-barreled guns with bell-shaped muzzles. And they wore spacesuits—elegant garments, slim as cat-suits, made of some silky, deep purple material, the backpacks molded into them and making only slight humps, an armorial device—a rampant star beast—stitched on each man’s breast. The helms were likewise close-fitting, the faceplates a single curved piece of tinted glass.
The squad halted. The leader stepped forward, and with a flick of his wrist slid back his apparently flexible faceplate.
The face that stared at Zhorga with steady blue eyes was of a man about thirty. A confident, military sort of face, sporting a neat brush moustache. “Why did you ignore my instructions?” the officer inquired incisively, in a guttural but fluid accent unfamiliar to Zhorga. “Why did you open fire on me?”
Zhorga spluttered his indignation before answering. “Ignore?” he said in a strangled voice. “How in hell could I—”
He took a hold on himself. “What do you mean by shooting down a peaceful merchantman?” he said angrily. He spread his arm to indicate the scene of destruction. “Just take a look at what you’ve done! Do you know who we are? We are Earthmen! We’ve just completed the crossing from Earth—the first to do so for two generations. And the first thing that happens when we finally make it is that we get smashed up by you!”
“From Earth?” the officer echoed. He looked suspiciously at Zhorga, and seemed puzzled. “The sunward planet? I would hardly have thought your vessel fit for such a journey. I was sure you were Martians, trying some stupid attack on the Bucentaur.”
He sauntered past Zhorga, suddenly noticing the bottles, chests and bales that were scattered over the ground. He kicked at a cask. He raised his eyebrows.
“Trade goods,” he remarked on a note of surprise.
Zhorga was silent The officer returned to him. “Well, I suppose anything is possible. At any rate, we’ll soon get the truth out of you. I’m taking you all up to the Bucentaur. Baron Matello’s ship,” he added, seeing Zhorga’s frown.
Bruge, his temple discolored and swollen by a massive bruise, moved closer to Zhorga. “Tell these murderers to get lost, Captain. All we want is to be left to go about our business.”
The officer bristled. Zhorga, nervously aware of the bell-muzzled weapons he faced, coughed ostentatiously. “I have many dead and badly hurt,” he complained.
“All the more reason to cooperate with me,” the officer said briskly. “On the Bucentaur your injured will be attended by the baron’s excellent physicians.” Suddenly he became impatient. “Come now, Captain—you are hundreds of miles from any settlement. Just what do you think you are going to do? Mars is not a hospitable place, I assure you.”
Zhorga, in fact, was attracted by the prospect of seeing the fabulous starship at close quarters. “What about my trade goods?” he demanded.
The officer laughed. “We are not in the shipping business, Captain. The baron will decide what will become of you. Now—”
Zhorga hurriedly deliberated, then nodded, trying to give the proceedings an air of negotiation. “We’ll come with you,” he said.
The star officer regarded himself as a gentleman. Without argument he allowed time to bury the dead, which was done in shallow graves, heaped over with the crumbly Martian soil.
Litters for the badly injured were improvised from bits of planking. Of more than forty who had set out with Zhorga from Olam, twenty-six men limped or were carried into the hold of the dragonfly. On entering the craft, Zhorga realized that it was actually an armed lighter for ferrying men or goods between the starship and the ground, for the hold was more roomy than he would have guessed from outside. He peered up a ladder that led to the foremost of the two transparent domes, and was surprised to see that the coxswain was seated, and worked an elaborate arrangement of wheels, levers and pedals.
Could one man alone really fly a craft of this size, he wondered? Where would he find the strength to warp all the sails and hold them against the ether?
A star soldier nudged him along. Captors and captured alike hunkered down with backs braced against the walls, gripping handholds set into the floor while the injured were strapped down to similar holds. Almost before they had settled themselves the ramp was closed and the floor lifted under them, subjecting them to the ear-piercing shriek of the ether (though it was somewhat less shrill, Zhorga noticed, than it would have been on Earth) before they shot aloft and streaked spaceward.
Why, this Vessel was practically crewless, Zhorga told himself; How ‘was it done? Presumably with the help of very ingenious mechanical devices, he deduced. Reduction gears and! multiple pulleys, ratchets, escapements and slip-levers. The running rigging was probably controlled by mechanisms as complicated as the inside of a clock.
After a while the rush of air against the hull ceased. They were in space. Perhaps half an hour later there was a series of thuds and shocks that told Zhorga the lighter was docking.
They were aboard the Bucentaur.
Chapter SEVEN
Baron Goth Matello, Margrave of the Marsh Worlds, Protector of the Castarpos Moons, and a loyal subject of his liege-lord, His Most Majestic King Lutheron by whose leave he held all his titles, raised a gold goblet to his lips. Ingeniously designed for free-fall, the goblet was capped by a gold cupola punctured with scores of tiny holes like a pepper-pot. The cover prevented the sharp-tasting wine from floating away as a liquid sphere; the wine’s own surface tension, on the other hand, prevented it from seeping through the perforations.
The sucking action of drinking, however, easily overcame this weak restraint Baron Matello sucked, drained the goblet, and tossed it to the serving maid who had handed it to him.
He turned to Captain Veautrin. “Have they been down in interrogation?”
“Yes sir,” Veautrin replied. “They all tell the same tale, right down to the details. The inquisitor is satisfied that their story is true. They really did sail from the third planet.”
“All right, let’s see this captain of theirs. Things are so boring around here that anything is a diversion.”
Veautrin walked to the door in cling-slippers. He opened it, and beckoned. A burly, bearded man entered, moving awkwardly in the cling-slippers he also now wore (like everyone else aboard the Bucentaur for as long as she remained in orbit). On his head was a battered cap displaying a tarnished badge of rank; he stood chewing his beard, gazing uncertainly at the baron, who reclined against a high-backed chair, legs carelessly out-spread.
Zhorga saw a man some ten years younger than himself, with a broad face framed by a close-clipped fringe beard. The baron bore that direct look of someone used to exercising authority. But there was also a certain ruffianly quality about him—it was a fighter’s face.
His eyes were brooding and restless, brown in color but with a luminous orange tint Zhorga had never seen on Earth. He avoided meeting those eyes directly. This was a man one did not trifle with—indeed the whole power and massiveness of the interstellar ship, its unabashed grandeur,
was such that Zhorga felt overawed. He knew that he must tread carefully with the baron. It was true that he and his men had been received civilly enough so far—ten men, in fact, were currently in the ship’s sick bay. But on the either side of the coin Zhorga recalled his recent interrogation. The interview had been entirely verbal, but the instruments of persuasion—ready in case his words lacked the ring of truth—had been clearly on view.
“Well, Earthman,” the baron said in a loud voice, “what do you call yourself?”
Zhorga cleared his throat “Captain Zebandar Zhorga, sir—at your service.”
“You are an air captain, I believe.”
“In the main, that is true,” Zhorga nodded. “I can now, however, claim some experience in space.”
“Yes—I am curious about this exploit of yours.” The baron smiled patronizingly. “Something of a pioneering flight, I gather.”
Zhorga saw no reason to hide his pride in the fact. “The first space voyage from Earth in nearly two generations!” he boasted.
“I can believe it,” said Matello dryly. He signaled to the nearby serving girl, holding up two fingers. She did something with a peculiarly fashioned carafe that rested on a magnetic tray, and approached with two full goblets. Matello took them both and tossed one through the air to Zhorga.
Zhorga caught it and stared at it in puzzlement.
“Drink—it’s a goblet of wine,” Matello said patiently. He demonstrated the use of the cupola, as though explaining something to a savage. Zhorga followed suit, then as he got the hang of it swallowed the wine greedily, emptying the goblet with gusto. The baron signaled the girl to refill it for him, then relaxed, sipping at his own.
“How did you drink in space on your own ship?” he asked.
“Oh, we just stuck a tube in a water cask. We had a bit of weight most of the time, anyway.”
“Spatial travel generally needs careful preparation. Evidently you had to improvise a great deal. Tell me about this voyage. Begin at takeoff.”
Zhorga did not need telling twice. Mentally he had rehearsed this scene many times, though the imaginary setting for it had been the taproom of The Ship in Olam. Down in the bowels of the Bucentaur the inquisitor had already once cut off his flowing narrative with an irritated “that’s enough.”
Bearing in mind that the baron was also unlikely to look kindly on any long-windedness, Zhorga tried to keep his story concise. He recounted the perilous ascent into space, described the difficulties of keeping the galleon trim and maintaining a course; told of the brush with the vortex and the encounters with alchemical monsters. Captain Veautrin stood by impassively, showing no reaction even when Zhorga, with some bitterness, described how the lighter commanded by himself had effectively destroyed the Wandering Queen.
The baron listened in fascination. When Zhorga had finished, he chuckled.
“Don’t blame Captain Veautrin too much,” he said. “He was only doing his duty. You, no doubt, mourn the loss of your galleon—so think how I feel about a threat to my Bucentaur! An odd-looking ship like yours, appearing out of nowhere, was bound to arouse suspicion. But there’s something you haven’t told me. What were your reasons for embarking on this venture? They must have been pressing.”
“They were simple enough,” Zhorga said gruffly. “We came to Mars to trade. The merchants on Earth are running out of ether silk with which to ply the airways, and it is our hope to obtain some here.”
At this the baron threw up his hands and uttered a half-horrified, half-delighted exclamation. “But my dear fellow! Your efforts have all been for nothing! It is absolutely certain there is no silk to be had here!”
Zhorga stared at him blankly. “My lord—”
“There can be no doubt of it. This wretched planet has declined almost to a state of savagery. The people are barely capable of plowing the dirt—there are so few of them, anyway.” He shook his head, smiling with amusement. “No, I’m certain you won’t find a shred of silk. We’ve been here for nearly a month now, and yours is the first flying ship we’ve seen.”
Zhorga was dumbfounded. Somehow this possibility had simply not occurred to him. It was as if his mind had unconsciously put a block on the subject.
He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. What a farcical joke he had played on himself! What a fool he would look in the eyes of the men he had dragged with him across space! Momentarily Zhorga’s spirit was crushed. He stood with his back ramrod straight, gazing emptily ahead.
“I may pay a visit to Earth myself, when I am finished here,” the baron was saying lightly. “It is reputed by some to be the birthplace of space travel, not to say of mankind itself. If, that is, it is the same planet I am thinking of.”
“I seriously doubt it,” Zhorga rumbled absently. “Ether silk cannot be manufactured there; the sun is too close. So it cannot be the origin of space travel. Or of mankind, either, for the same reason. Both must have arrived there from outside.”
Matello shrugged. “Not worth a visit after all, then. Well, Captain, what are you going to do now? No ship, no silk to buy.”
“Hmmmmm …” The sound, a combination of chagrin and reappraisal, came from deep within Zhorga’s chest.
What, indeed, was he going to do? He was crushed, defeated, his plans destroyed.
He glanced wildly about him, sensing the vast bulk of the Bucentaur all around. He thought of the Wandering Queen; thought of the ships he had grown up with and struggled with all his life.
Suddenly it seemed to him that he had not really appreciated what it could mean to him to be standing on a starship. True, he had lost the Wandering Queen—but was it not ridiculous to be still obsessed with the need to take ether silk to Earth, a dilapidated backwater? Ridiculous—when this great ship could take him to a new life among the stars!
He took a deep breath. “My future lies in your hands, my lord. You have destroyed my ship. You have left me stranded. It lies in your power simply to abandon me here, or—”
He stopped. Matello frowned, looking dangerous. “Or?”
“Earth was never the place for a man of adventure.
Swear me into your service. Permit me to wear your lordship’s coat of arms.”
Captain Veautrin’s rigid expression told Zhorga that he had committed a considerable faux pas. The baron tossed away his goblet, which went spinning across the room.
“And your men? You would desert them?”
“Any who want to grub on Mars, let them,” Zhorga said, blinking. “As for the others, swear them in, too.”
“To serve with the Margrave of the Marsh Worlds,” the baron said harshly, “is accounted an honor. It is not something to be handed out to any passing rabble of merchants and air sailors.”
Zhorga persisted. “I’ve been a fighting man in my time,” he claimed. “I was a midshipman on the Victorious— one of Earth’s last fighting ships.”
“Oh, you’re a fighting man!” Matello echoed mockingly. “What weapons do you know?”
“I prefer the cutlass or the broadsword.”
Matello had not lost his good humor; he sensed an opportunity for sport, of which there had been precious little since his departure for Mars. He rose and crossed the room to open a wall cupboard. Within, weapons were clipped to a rack—swords, pistols, long-barreled shooters.
He selected a pair of matched blades and returned to hand one apiece to Zhorga and Veautrin, before stepping back to lounge once more in his chair, though there was little need for it in the null gravity, the special cloth of his garments adhering crepe-like to the thick-piled upholstery.
“Match yourself against the good Captain Veautrin here,” he drawled. “He’ll be only too pleased to accommodate you.”
Zhorga tested his sword for balance, difficult though it was to assess in free-fall, and probably immaterial anyway. The weapon was broad-bladed and somewhat longer than he was used to. The metal, however, was excellent—much springier and tougher, he judged, than anything to be found on Earth.
He turned to Veautrin, who stared expressionlessly back at him, his sword pointing military-style at the floor.
“To what limit?” Zhorga asked the baron.
“’Til one of you yields.”
Veautrin took a step back, saluted Zhorga, and took up a formal stance, one arm extended behind him, his sword thrust forward and down, and apparently expecting Zhorga to do the same. His was obviously an impeccable kind of swordsmanship.
Zhorga was trained in a rougher school, however. With a growl he charged at Veautrin, wielding his blade in a whirl of savage strokes. Veautrin easily parried the flurry, stepping neatly in his cling-slippers—while Zhorga found himself tromping clumsily like an elephant.
Then Veautrin’s blade found an opening. Its tip hacked at Zhorga’s cheek, narrowly missing his ear. Zhorga knocked the sword aside with a bellow and a clang of steel. His blood spilled into the air, forming floating globules which he batted with his free hand, splitting them into a fine mist of droplets.
He regarded the waiting Veautrin with a more cautious eye. The fellow was used to free-fall swordplay; Zhorga was not, and besides he was out of practice. Just the same, he told himself, he had better put up a good show or he would be booted off this ship and onto the red desert below.
Cunning would be required.
He charged again at Veautrin, apparently in the same manner as before, but at the last moment changed direction. As he had anticipated, Veautrin was impeded by his cling-slippers and was unable to take advantage of Zhorga’s momentary defenselessness. As he lunged past the starman, Zhorga swung round and kicked him behind the knee—a trick he had learned on the Victorious. Veautrin buckled and in the next instant Zhorga’s whole bulk collided with him. In a moment the star captain was knocked to the floor, his sword arm pinned down by Zhorga’s knee, and Zhorga, teeth bared, held aloft his own blade in both hands, directing the point at Veautrin’s throat.
“Yield,” he grunted.
Veautrin twitched his sword arm. Too late, Zhorga realized that he lacked the planetary weight to hold his opponent to the floor. Already he had made the mistake of lifting one foot from the carpet, and the other remained attached only by the sole. Now the remaining inches of grip-felt came free, and Veautrin sent him floating into the air, spinning slowly, unable to reach his adversary and feeling ridiculous.
Star Winds Page 9