Homecoming y-2

by John Dalmas

  Ahmed stood tensely, staring through the transparent hull at the indistinct group in the darkness.

  “Whatever the star woman told them that time,” Yusuf said quietly, “it made them very angry. Not at her, but very angry.”

  Listening to them, Ahmed didn’t need telepathy to know they were angry. Grim and angry. At last the one who spoke Anglic addressed him with a deadly voice.

  “We will fight your enemy. He has put out the eyes of our Yngling. We will ride from here at the second dawning. You will tell us how to know your soldiers from the others so we do not kill them by mistake. And when your enemy is captured, he is ours to settle with. Ours. Do not forget that. Be very careful that you do not forget that.”

  Alpha sledded swiftly through the night sky.

  “Indeed, my Lord, I was surprised at their rage,” Yusuf was saying. “I’d read them as a hardheaded people, men with control of their passions, or indeed with little that we ordinarily think of as passion at all. I tell you frankly, I never expected that they would agree to your offer. That act of Draco’s cut some very deep taboo.”

  Ahmed’s mood swelled with grim pleasure. “They’ve shown a weakness. I see them differently now. Perhaps when it is over we will stay after all. At any rate the die is cast.”

  Yusuf withdrew into contemplation and they rode briefly in silence. “My Lord,” he said finally, “let me offer unasked advice. Be careful of the Northmen. When the star woman told them what had been done to their hero, their anger was not ordinary rage that destroys wit and logic, however reckless their decision seems. There was a terribly deadly intention; they reeked of danger. They felt like the storm from the steppe that sucks up men and horses and spits out broken rags.”

  Ahmed pursed his lips in the darkness. “You are always somber, my friend, but now you dramatize. That’s not like you. The Northmen are nothing to trifle with, I grant you. That’s why even their small numbers will make the difference and assure us victory. But angry men, vengeful men, make mistakes.”

  Yusf stared gloomily into the night as if watching something. “It wasn’t hot anger to thicken the wits. Their rage was cold, with an edge like a razor.”

  Now Ahmed brooded also. After all, Yusuf was psychic, and there were many dangers. What whisper might he hear from the future?

  The barbarians had grinned in battle-laughed and crowed aloud and fought with the strength and vigor of the possessed. And they always won. Now perhaps they were possessed. Gooseflesh rose on his arms and crawled across his scalp. He wondered if they’d grin in the battle to come, and what their laughter might then be like.

  Yusuf was right. He would take no liberties.

  XXI

  Her world was bright and clear and detailed. Her senses were more than sight and hearing, more than touch, taste, heat and smell, more than awareness of orientation and gravitic vectors-the usual data sources. With her, even the ordinary senses were more sensitive, more aware.

  Her mind lacked some of the usual barriers; she was less constrained by past pain and hurtful emotions, more open to data at variance with general beliefs.

  Hers was a world of discovery and growth. Possibilities became accessible to her.

  Her eyes had closed; she felt no need for visual input just then. The fetus moved within her body, shifting uncomfortably in the cramped quarters, found a new position and became quiet again. She was aware of it but gave it no attention.

  She did not grieve at the blinding of Nils, although at first the knowledge had shocked her. And she did not worry over what might happen next, although she was by no means indifferent. Simply, she would see what she could do. Now her attention focused on a question and remained there, examining.

  Celia Uithoudt knocked lightly on the cabin door, waited, then knocked again.

  “Ilse?”

  Her waiting reflected uncertainty. By now the whole crew knew what the young Earth woman had reported to the surface. After a moment Celia turned the knob and looked in. Ilse sat on a small folded rug, her straight back to the door. Celia’s eyes rested on her briefly. Softly she closed the door again and went down the corridor to the dispensary.

  As a safety margin the Phaeacia carried two physicians. So far they’d had little to do. She leaned back in the dispensary reading chair, punched in the novel she’d begun, and relaxed. For a while she read quietly with only the small movements normal to sitting, but before long became restless. Finally she put the tape on hold and turned to scan the room. She was alone.

  She got up, stepped hesitantly to the door of the small laboratory-pharmacy and peered in, then looked into surgery. No one. Shaking her head she went back to the chair and began reading again.

  The possibility had occurred to Ilse and she’d tried it. It turned out not to be difficult for her. She’d done something a bit like it before, in healing, when she would focus her attention on the sick or injured part and concentrate on its wholeness and normal functioning. In this case she’d focused on Celia, concentrating on being beside her. Suddenly she’d been there, surrounded by white enamel and stainless steel, next to the woman who’d become her friend.

  She’d been surprised when Celia sensed her presence. Although the woman had shown no sign of being even a latent telepath, she had sensed the psychic presence.

  Then Ilse was back in her own cabin, in her still erectly seated body. It had remained upright, the heartbeat slow and regular. But it seemed to her that, without her attendance, the body might not long survive.

  And Celia had felt her, although she had not known what it was she felt. So presumably would almost anyone except the totally psi-deaf. Apparently the psyche was sensed more strongly when away from the body.

  Again she put herself in the dispensary with her friend. Celia’s mind was composed, absorbing the lines of print. Gradually Ilse impinged more strongly, until the mind beside her showed hints of disturbance. The eyes did not scan as rhythmically. A grain of unease irritated the mind, which tried to shut out the irritation.

  Ilse withdrew again to her body and examined results. She could enter the space of a non-psi and be noticed or not noticed at will, according to impingement, intention. But could she enter the presence of telepaths and be unnoticed? Or be noticed selectively, by one and not another? Nils would probably be guarded by a telepath.

  Ram was the only telepath on board besides herself, a fitful and very limited one who could provide only a limited test. Subconsciously he still tended strongly to reject what his talent picked up.

  Carefully, lightly, she focused on him. He sat in his command chair, glancing back and forth from computer screen to keyboard as his index finger moved deliberately, punching out questions from a checklist. His mind was restless, only a trivial part of it occupied by the routine task. It reflected a sense of futility, and the tinge of paranoia she had noticed.

  His unconscious awareness of her was so vague that she recognized it only because she was looking for it. It was not an awareness of another being in his space, but simply of something not quite right, warily ignored.

  She withdrew to her body again, for a few moments monitoring its functioning, then focused her attention away again, this time on a place. The tent was gone, and she was on its site, in a circle of yellowed grass around a bull’s eye of wood ashes. Tiny huts hunkered around her, low and drab in the long rays of evening sunlight. There were no voices or any trace of human minds.

  She hadn’t tried to move about disembodied before in any way analogous to walking. She found now that she could, and looked into a nearby hut. It was stripped, as she knew it would be.

  She conjoined again, instantaneously but softly, raised her body from the rug and drank at the washbowl. So she could project to a distance, to either familiar people or familiar places, and “move around” while there, but she did not feel safe to stay away from the body too long.

  She needed experience, she decided, and to test herself against competent psis. Perhaps Hannes was still alive; she hadn’t h
eard of her brother since the battle at Doppeltanne, a thousand miles and eight months ago. He was an excellent telepath, as sensitive as almost anyone, and no harm would be done if he discovered her.

  XXII

  It was dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as the alternatives. And if it worked-if it worked he’d have a double victory, over Ahmed and over the Northmen.

  The greatest danger was now. Draco ground his teeth unconsciously. Where was the gloomy fool? The consul’s irritable jumpiness did not lessen the intentness with which he monitored. To be caught here on Ahmed’s territory… A centurion’s helmet and breastplate made a thin disguise for a well-known man, even at dusk. And he couldn’t be sure the note had gone through unintercepted. Carried in the mouth it was safer than a spoken message, if the bearer didn’t know what was written on it and remembered to swallow if stopped. But if the swallowing was seen and interpreted, a slit gullet would quickly give it up.

  More sets of orc boots approached the alley mouth, but this time it was Kamal who strode past, accompanied by his psi-aid and one other. A quick thought flicked, and when Kamal was a dozen meters farther on, Draco and his companion fell in behind them. Two hundred meters farther and Kamal turned, strode up a low flight of entry stairs, and entered a building. Draco followed.

  Kamal was waiting just inside. Otherwise the hallway was deserted, but Draco sensed frightened awareness behind thin wooden doors, a listening to the sound of iron heel plates. Slaves were slaves, whether like these they had status and an apartment or were common drudges crouching in a slave barracks. He spit. They lived powerless and in fear-bloodless, breath-in-throat, honorless fear.

  Kamal paused at a door, shoved it open and strode in. Those inside had interpreted the sounds and pauses, and stood waiting. The man was middle-aged, the woman young. They exuded propitiation and submission toward their user-protector. The man hesitated, then bobbed his head and disappeared through an inner door while the woman remained.

  Draco grinned. Old Kamal! She was a beauty, and certainly never showed herself in the streets. A dancer, by her looks, who probably performed for her neighbors. One of them had no doubt reported her beauty and grace to Kamal in hope of some reward.

  She was undoubtedly an exceptional lay, with something of a hold on the hard-bitten legionary, if he let her live here with her husband instead of taking her into his harem. Or perhaps he found pleasure in humiliating the man by using her here in his presence.

  Yes, she was a good one. It showed less in her aura than in Kamal’s irritation now in having business to transact instead of pleasure. But it was a good place for it.

  “Get out,” Kamal said drily to her. “We want to talk.”

  She stood confused.

  “Take her out of here,” he snapped at his orderly. “And I don’t want them listening at the door.”

  The man nodded, gripped her arm and led her to the door through which her husband had passed.

  “And Dmitri! Do not molest her! Remember who she belongs to.”

  The soldier turned, saluted, and closed the door behind him.

  Kamal looked at Draco and spoke in an undertone. “This had better be important. Meeting you secretly like this could mean my bones.”

  The consul smirked, and kept his voice low too. “It’s important, all right. But first, before I forget, Nephthys instructed me to give you her warmest greeting. I can’t, of course. She hopes you’ll be our guest soon.” He turned and clapped the shoulder of the soldier who’d accompanied him. “And now, Artos, I want you to tell my friend what you’ve learned.”

  Artos was small for an orc, but sinewy and shrewd-looking. “As a centurion in the Second Legion,” he began, “I was known as one of the most sensitive telepaths in the army. So when this happened-” he held out a wrist with no hand-“my Lord Draco made me the monitor of his psi tuner.

  “I came to have a feeling for the tuner, a feeling I can’t describe. So with my Lord’s permission I removed the crystal from it. I’m not free to say what experiments were made or what I did, but the crystal has been recut and reground so that my mind is now in resonance with it.”

  Draco interrupted. “It no longer looks like an esper crystal.” He grinned widely. “It’s just another stone in a jewelled goblet now, in Ahmed’s wine pantry. It’s been there for weeks, and in his room several times, but until last night it told us nothing worth knowing.” He nudged the maimed telepath with his mind. “Tell us what you read last night, and keep your voice down.”

  The man nodded. “It was about midnight,” he murmured. “Ahmed had wine and a girl brought to him. He was preoccupied, and finished with her rather quickly, but the goblet stayed while he sat and thought.

  “He’d been away in his sky chariot. He’d used his, um, radio, you see, to talk to the Northmen. They have a star woman hostage, the Northmen, and her radio; the star people are total cretins. And Ahmed knew about the radio.

  “So after dark he’d flown to a meeting he’d set up with the Northmen scum, and sitting safe in his chariot he made an agreement with them. They are to send their army here and Ahmed promised to use his sky chariot to protect them from attack in the open, in case my Lord learned of their approach. When they reached the City, they’re to join with Ahmed’s legions to attack us.

  “And he promised that when he’s the master he’ll take the army away to Egypt and leave this country to the Northmen. The City of Kazi a barbarian sty! That’s to be their reward. And it’s uncanny, but he really means to do it, give the country to them!”

  “Garbage!” Kamal snorted, then lowered his voice. “I know him better than that. Your story’s a fable.” But as he said it he turned questioningly to his psi aid. It was almost too preposterous to be a lie.

  The aid looked at him squarely. “The man left his mind wide open to me while he told it,” he answered flatly. “He told truthfully what he read in Ahmed’s mind, altering nothing and holding nothing back. There is no question about it.”

  Kamal scowled thoughtfully for a time. “What is it you want me to do?” he asked at last, and his voice was as hard as his eyes.

  “Take Ahmed prisoner for me. Trusted as you are, you can move the men you need close to his apartment. I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out how; you know the situation much better than I.”

  Kamal’s flinty eyes fixed on the consul’s and he made no answer.

  “All right,” Draco spat out, “kill him then, if you think he’d be too dangerous as a prisoner. Then announce his crime-treason against the Master-declare yourself commander of his troops, and join me against the Northmen.”

  The legionary continued to stare wordlessly at Draco, his eyes glittering now.

  “She remains mine,” Draco growled at the unspoken demand, “but you will be our guest from time to time.”

  For a moment Kamal still stood motionless, then nodded and drew his sword.

  “Dmitri!”

  The door opened quickly at his call.

  “Kill them in there,” he murmured. “I must be sure there is no leak.”

  The orc turned, pulling at his hilt. There were no screams, but they heard the husband grunt, and the woman whimpered briefly. When the orderly reappeared he was wiping his sword on a piece of her gown. As soon as he’d sheathed it, Kamal cut him down.

  “No leaks,” he said meaningfully.

  The one-handed Artos darted for the door but Draco was on him, thrusting with his short sword.

  “No leaks,” Draco husked. “What about him?” He nodded toward Kamal’s psi aid.

  Kamal shook his head. “He’s as close to me as my own breath. Whoever kills him answers to me.”

  Draco’s response was inward and screened. Already you grow insolent, old friend. I’ll kill him myself when the time comes, and you’ll watch. Then I’ll kill you.

  The audience chamber of Timur Karim Kazi had been unused since he’d left to conquer Europe. It was small-six meters square and four high-with walls of glossy obsidi
an and carpeted with thick black furs so cleverly joined they looked like a single huge pelt. There was only one seat, the throne on its dais, but pillows lay around the other three walls. Tall narrow windows let in light.

  So he’s using the Master’s audience chamber already, Kamal thought. That arrogant filth. If he sits on the Master’s throne I’ll kill him here and now.

  Draco, sensing his anger and suspecting its cause, did not approach the high seat.

  “I’m told you did the job with your own hand and he gave you no trouble,” he said. “I appreciate the gift of Yusuf. I prevailed on him to tell everything he knew. I never imagined the Turk could be so talkative, so co-operative. The Northmen should be leaving their mountains at daybreak. I’ll observe them from the pinnace, which they think of as their protection. The young men who flew it for Ahmed are happy to fly it for me.

  “I’m appointing you field commander and leave the final say on tactics to your judgment. I suggest though that you plan to meet the Northmen at least two day’s ride from here.”

  Kamal nodded. “Four or five days from now, depending on how fast they travel. I’ll let them ride into a sack and pull the drawstring on them in the morning to have as many hours of daylight as possible. Otherwise some of them might lose themselves in the darkness and escape. It should be easy to time it, with you sitting in the sky keeping track of them. I suggest you attack them before I do, from the air, as soon as they’re aware of us. That should disorganize them and we’ll chop them to pieces with minimum losses of our own.”

  Draco smiled and held out his hand. “It sounds beautiful-more like slaughter than battle.”

  And when it’s over, old comrade, I’ll drop down and pick you up-to take you where none of your men are at hand. You’re too dangerous-and too powerful now, and possibly ambitious after all. You’ll give me the pleasure you denied me from Ahmed.