This time the women who had not escaped before did not come running out. When Chuluun stepped inside, he found them huddled at their bunks, waiting to see who was entering.
“Chuluun!” Tuya cried out. She ran to him, already wearing her thick coat, with her small booted feet thumping on the plank floor and two long braids of black hair dancing behind her.
The other women hurried forward, too, rushing past them to the outside.
Chuluun embraced Tuya, lifting her off the ground for just a moment. “We must hurry. Come on!” With one arm around her, he jogged out of the barracks.
Near the door, Bataar was still turning on his mount and shooting his rifle at the towers.
Chuluun lifted Tuya onto his mount and then jumped up behind her. Other men had followed him, and they drew the women away with them. At a trot, he rode for the warehouse. They met no resistance on the way.
Even the towers, with spotlights still shining down, had gone quiet. The guards who been shooting from them were either dead or long gone.
Six wagons had been hitched. Some men threw supplies into the back as others stood guard. Men who had ridden double had found more horses and muskylopes in the stables. The raiding party gathered, preparing to leave.
“The guards abandoned the camp,” Chuluun said to Bataar. Still on the roan mare, he held his arms around Tuya, clutching the reins and his saber, while she held the rifle. “But I expected to find more horses and muskylopes. I’m worried about a trap. Where are they?”
“They must have gone for reinforcements and ammunition in Redemption,” said Bataar. “More patrols will come from nearby camps to help out. At first light, they will start their pursuit, but some of them may be watching the road into town. So we must avoid the main gate.”
“We’ll send scouts,” said Chuluun. “They can find the safest route away from here.”
“Don’t waste time. The wagons will slow us down as it is.”
Chuluun nodded, seeing the old man’s wisdom. “We’ll go out the way we came in. The wagons can go overland through the break in the fence. But what about the journey to the steppes? Only you know the way. Can the wagons travel where we have to go?”
“The way is marked,” said Bataar. “The time has come to tell you. From the place where I dug the fire pit, I have marked blazes on the trees. I spent more than a year marking the way. We will rest near the fire and go at first light. The wagons must go slowly in some places, but they will go.”
And you will lead, Chuluun thought to himself. Once the raiding party was out of the breech in the fence, he would slip away in the darkness with Tuya and ride for Redemption. He would travel overland to avoid any guards and slip into the spaceport to dicker for a ride back to Earth for both of them. Somehow, somewhere, among the con artists, thieves, and company rats in the town, he would find someone who would make the deal he wanted. For a moment, he touched the steel box through his shirt.
Chuluun called for the men to hurry, but he knew he had to be the last to leave. As each wagon was loaded, men and women who knew how to drive a team started out the way. Some riders trotted along each wagon as an escort. Chuluun ordered most of the raiding party to wait. They would act as a rear guard.
At last, when the final wagon began to roll, Chuluun waved his saber, sending the rear guard into motion after them. Chuluun and Tuya, with Bataar riding alongside, took up the end of the column.
While many riders turned on their mounts to watch the camp behind them with wary eyes, they followed the last wagon through the opening in the fence. Chuluun looked into the darkness, wondering where he might slip away from the other riders. First he planned simply to trot forward alongside them, leaving Bataar behind in the crowd. At some point, then, he would drift off to one side with the darkness as cover. Before anyone knew he was gone, he would be riding with Tuya for Redemption and a new life.
The loud crackling of gunfire rose up on his left. Small lights, seeming to float in the air, appeared on both sides. Many hoofbeats, now faint, grew louder.
“Torches,” said Bataar. “They’re coming!”
“Wagons forward!” Chuluun shouted. He wished he could rise up in stirrups, but of course he was still riding bareback. “Wagons, go! Escort riders, go!”
Bataar shouted the orders again and again, always in Chuluun’s name. Farther ahead, other men called out, sending the orders up the line.
Chuluun realized the guards were closing a trap after all. The guards had not pulled back to Redemption. After the fugitive miners had returned on their raid, the guards had been withdrawn out the front gate to circle back and ambush their quarry. The wagons, supplies, and mounts had been left in the camp as bait.
The Anaconda commander was not a fool; he had allowed the wagons and escorts to pass, knowing they could be caught later. Instead, the guards, at nearly full strength, had waited for the rear guard, made up of the bulk of fighting men who posed the only true danger.
“Riders, follow me!” Aware that he was still visible where the distant light from the towers faded into the night, Chuluun swung his saber high. “To the left!”
Chuluun charged forward, his arms still around Tuya. The tough young daughter of Dongbei leaned to the right and shouldered the rifle. She began firing.
The torches, nearly upon them, gave them excellent targets.
Just behind them, Bataar whooped and fired his rifle as he rode.
In moments they had closed with the guards, who were shooting both rifles and side arms. Some held torches aloft in one hand with the reins, and guns or swords in the other. As the horses whinnied in the torchlight and dancing shadows,
Chuluun swung his saber and felt it connect with a man who screamed. Riders behind him, some using hoes and shovels as hand weapons, shouted and clashed with the guards.
As Chuluun fought to control his mount, Tuya fired blindly, point-blank into the shadows before them. Chuluun slashed with his saber, sometimes striking an enemy and often missing in the stumbling and shifting of the horses. Near him, Bataar fired with his rifle again and again.
Chuluun could feel, rather than see, that he and his riders were slowly being forced back by sheer numbers. They were falling back into the light, back through the opening in the fence. Tuya stopped to reload and Chuluun used his saber to knock aside the barrel of a guards rifle pointed just a few feet from her. Then he ran through the guard who had dared to try shooting her.
As Chuluun, Bataar, and their men were pushed into the faint light, they became specific targets instead of vague shadows. The bullets whizzed closer, and increased in number. Around him, more of the miners fell to bullets.
“Yaah!” Bataar yelled, swinging a sword he had acquired during the fight. With a deft backhand stroke, he slashed the throat of a guard, then reached out and yanked him from the saddle to let him fall to the ground. “Chuluun! Here!”
Chuluun grabbed the bridle of the free mount and took the rifle from Tuya. He held his horse steady as Tuya leaned toward the other horse and then flung herself into a kind of crouch onto its back. She gathered the reins and settled into the saddle, too short to reach the stirrups with her feet. Then she drew up to Chuluun, her eyes glittering in the light as he handed her the rifle.
However, the miners had been forced back again, with even more of their own falling to rifle shots or sabers. Now most of them were in the light, back onto the compound grounds. They made easier targets than ever.
Suddenly a newly arrived patrol of mounted guards poured through the fence breech on Chuluun’s left. They now outnumbered the remaining miners and came on fast. Chuluun’s rear guard was blocked from escape through the fence breech. Flight back through the camp and out the front gate might work for some, but many would be shot down from behind.
Tuya drew up next to Chuluun. “I would rather die out here than go back,” she called to him. “What shall we do?”
Chuluun was no leader. He was not a khan. Truly, he had no idea what to do.
As the guards formed up ahead of them, preparing to charge, Chuluun pulled the steel box out of his shirt and opened it all the way. The shimmer stone pulsed in the faint light as they both stared at it.
“A shimmer stone,” Tuya said breathily. She leaned forward, gazing at it.
“It will buy us luxury for the rest of our lives,” said Chuluun. “We must take it to Redemption and make the jump back to Earth. We must flee.”
“What luxury?” Tuya asked innocently, looking up from the stone into his eyes. “Freedom back on the steppes of Dongbei?”
Startled, he gazed back at her. He remembered the wild, wonderful freedom of riding across the steppes beneath the open sky. When he was toiling deep in the mines, he had often dreamed of taking two strong mounts out on the steppes with Tuya, for the sheer joy of riding together at a full gallop. That was the luxury he sought deep in his soul.
Suddenly a mounted guard rode at them at a canter, and aimed his rifle at Tuya.
Before Chuluun or Tuya could react, the short, blocky form of Bataar drove his mount forward. The rifle cracked, but Bataar’s sword slashed across the guard’s chest, and the guard fell from his muskylope. Bataar hit the ground and rolled.
Chuluun rode up to protect his fallen mentor. Without thought, without doubt, he held up the steel box in both hands, high over head. “See it! See it!” He moved it so the light from the distant towers caught it.
The men in the first ranks of the guards stopped and stared first. Then even the men in the rear lines looked up. One by one, the fighting men drew apart to stare at the pulsing light in the steel box over Chuluun’s head. In a few moments, no one was moving.
Tuya slipped from her horse and tried to lift Bataar. Another man jumped to her aid, and they lifted him face-down across the withers of her mount. She swung back up into the saddle.
“You want it?” Chuluun shouted. “You want it? You know you want it!” He took the shimmer stone in one hand. Then he reared back and threw it as high and far as he could above the open space dividing the two sides, toward the guards. The shimmer stone glittered through the light from the towers.
The shiny, pulsing stone seemed to fly slowly through the thin air, arcing and glistening in the faint light. Then, in the far end of its arc, it began to descend.
With screams and shouts, the mass of guards rode after it.
Chuluun kicked his mount. “To the steppes!” Chuluun shouted. “Chuluun Khan commands you--to the steppes!”
“Chuluun Khan! Chuluun Khan!” The men took up the chant once again.
With Tuya bringing Bataar, they cantered through the fence breech one more time. Some of the miners undoubtedly chased the shimmer stone also, he supposed, but he heard the hoofbeats of many others following him.
Soon they entered the safety of darkness and rode on, with no one in pursuit.
By the time dawn began to glow in the sky, Chuluun, Tuya, and the remainder of their rear guard finally had caught up with the last wagon in the column. The wagons had slowed, as Bataar had predicted, and the final wagon had been forced to stop and wait for those ahead.
Chuluun slipped from his mount and stepped up to Bataar, as he lay across Tuya’s horse. “Is he alive?”
“He is still breathing,” said Tuya. “He does not have long to live. Chuluun, he took the rifle bullet for me.”
“Yes.” Chuluun drew the stocky old man down into arms and carried him to the back of the last wagon. Two men unhooked the back wall of the wagon and took out bags of grain to make room. Tuya dismounted and joined them. Chuluun laid the old man down at the back of the wagon.
The white-haired, white-bearded man opened his eyes and spoke in a dry rasp. “I saw it, Chuluun Khan. I saw the stone fly through the air.”
Chuluun nodded. “Crazy old man,” he said quietly.
“You are truly Chuluun Khan, a leader of men. You will lead our people to the steppes by the trail I blazed?”
“Someday the story will be told by our grandchildren’s grandchildren,” said Bataar. “The story of a new tribe of free hunters and herders--yes, and farmers, too. The story of Chuluun, first khan of the steppes.”
“No,” Chuluun said gently. “They will tell the story of Bataar, son of Timur, the first khan of the steppes. I will see to it.” He drew himself up, not for himself but for Bataar. “I--Chuluun Khan, second khan of the steppes--I will see to it.”
Tuya clutched Chuluun’s arm, not fully understanding, but understanding enough.
Bataar looked at him for a long moment. “What is a joke for a cat will be death for a mouse,” he said, quoting an old Mongol proverb. He closed his eyes. His breaths grew faint and finally stopped.
“Take him in this wagon,” said Chuluun. “We will bury him in the steppes he wished to call home.”
The men at the wagon nodded.
Chuluun mounted his horse again. When Tuya was in the saddle, he drew close to her.
“When we have a son, I should like to name him Bataar,” said Chuluun. “Bataar, meaning hero. He will never labor in the mines. He will never know a shimmer stone, and he will never care.”
“We will have a son named Bataar,” said Tuya. “We will have other sons and daughters, too, in our new life.”
Chuluun, second khan of the steppes, simply nodded. He rode forward along the line of wagons, with Tuya behind him, to lead his new tribe to a land beneath open sky.
14. Down The Rabid Hole or The Report on Lost Colony 4a Charles E. Gannon
2057 AD. Earth
Hagman grazed his fingertip across the secure activation switch: the recorders status panel illuminated. “Ready,” he said.
Funakoshi, the paralegal assigned by the out-system Extraterritorial Arbitration Court, cleared his throat. “This convenes the in absentia deposition of all representatives and employees of the Kennicott Metals Corporation, LLC, in regard to the events surrounding the establishment, and subsequent loss, of the limited-shareholder prospecting post officially designated as ‘Colony 4 a’ by the CoDominium Colonial Registry office, and situated on the so-called Eastern Continent of ‘Haven,’ the fourth moon of the gas giant Byers II, colloquially known as ‘Cat’s Eye,’ in the Byers System.”
Hagman wondered how Funakoshi could say all that in one breath. “Let’s get started,” he grunted, hitching his round belly closer to the table.
The words were no sooner out of Hagman’s mouth than a spare, almost gaunt woman with high cheekbones and sunken eyes jumped upright. “I protest the legitimacy of these evidentiary proceedings. My clients have the explicit right to--”
“Ms. Dumaskaya, this is not a court of law; this is a class-action arbitration. And in this circumstance, there is nothing irregular about not having relevant witnesses available for examination.”
“There is ‘nothing irregular’ about this hearing only because most clients inexplicably tolerate this flagrant violation of their rights. However, as the legal representative of the settlers of Colony 4a, and through them, their heirs and assigns, I insist upon exercising my right to make my own inquiries of the parties who served on board the CDSS Stellar Bourse during the incident.”
“We can’t accommodate your request for access to the Stellar Bourse, Ms. Dumaskaya, but you’re welcome to head through about a dozen Alderson Point Jumps to find her ‘last’ known location.” That ‘location’--as all three people in the room already knew--was probably half-a-year out of date, itself.
“It is not our concern that summoning the relevant parties for a live deposition would be an expensive and lengthy proposition. It is our right to demand access to them.”
“Actually, Ms. Dumaskaya, you are dead wrong about that. Under the terms of the Compensatory Labor Contracts signed by all the parties from which the plaintiffs in your case derive their ostensible claim, evidentiary depositions taken in absentia are admissible in the proceedings and are accorded full legal and official status if the deposition was taken under the direct auspices of--and I quote--’a duly rec
ognized court officer of any CoDominium court or a commander (or above) in any CoDominium naval service.’“ Hagman flopped a contractual binder the thickness of the Domesday Book on the table. “Have a look for yourself, if you don’t believe me. Otherwise, please sit down. Now.”
Ekaterina Dumaskaya snapped her eyes off Hagman, fixed them on a less noisome blank spot on the far wall; she sat down with an indignant huffing noise.
Hagman sighed. There was no way this could be over soon enough. He cleared his throat and read: “For entry into the record--”
Deposition of Captain Delmore Seurault, Master and Owner of the CDSS Stellar Bourse. Taken by Ensign J. T. Muhlenberger, Acting Yeoman of the CDSN Fort De Soto, DDE, under the supervision of Lt. Commander Beryl Tedesco, commanding. Recorded September 19, 2056 AD (sidereal). Relevant excerpts included for entry into the record; transcript of full deposition available in archives.
DS: So we got to Byers [System] about half a month later than we had contracted. No fault of ours, though: like I said, you Navy boys commandeered us to move those nukes from--
JM: Yes, fine: please, stay on the topic of the events at Byers II d.
DS: Byers II d...? Oh, right. Haven. So, during our trip out there, it turned out Kennicott had underestimated the comestibles requirement for its workers. The more sparse the rations in steerage became, the hotter the tempers. With each other, with my crew, with the universe in general. In all fairness, they were the strangest group of labor-slaves I ever saw--white collar Norwegians, Uzbeki gastarbeiters, oilfield workers from Siberia, miners from South Africa. They had one thing in common: debt. Some had probably been living beyond their means--so they deserved being there. The rest--damn, they just got caught up in the market failures when the commodities values on gold and platinum went through the basement during the Asteroid Extraction Deregulation Interval. I felt real sorry for ‘em: they were just folks who’d lost everything and took a chance on the stars instead of staying at home and starving, waiting for handouts that were never going to come. Hardly fair if you ask me.
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