Treasure of Tau Ceti

by John Rickham

  X

  I REMEMBER SHUTTING off the beamer and laying it carefully down, then shambling dazedly to where Carson stood staring down at Lowloo with a fierce intensity while she tried to talk. It wasn’t until I got within touching range that the shock got right through to me, and I started to shake with rage. I heard the gist as if through a red fog. Fiona had been stretched out in the warm light, dozing. Two men had grabbed her. Fortunately they hadn’t noticed Lowloo, and, more fortunately still, she’d had the sense to keep quiet and hidden until the men had dragged Fiona away, down the mountain. Then she had slipped down through the water and hurried hack to us as fast as she could.

  “Good girl!” he said, very softly. “You did last right. Now you stay here. Alan and I will bring her back.”

  “What are we waiting for?” I demanded, and he gave me a hard stare.

  “Come on, but keep your head. This is no time to panic. This way!” and he called me as I would have gone back to the water-slide. “They will take her to Zeb, that’s for sure. That little craziness on my part was enough to pull me Out of my blind rage and clear my head. We ran to the entrance, he with our only available beamer in his hand. “I know how to use one of these,” he said, “so it’s best that I have it.”

  “Keep it. All I want is the chance to lay my hands on whoever manhandled her. That’s all Just my hands.”

  “Mind the trips!” he warned as we ran out, and it was as well he did, for I’d forgotten them. And then we were in the light and air again, just as before, black and intent, but now there were only two of us. And if that first expedition was hairy, this one was ten times worse, because we couldn’t wait to plan strategy, and we didn’t. We ran like goats until we were hack to our original spy spot, to see that Hovac, with one of the Orientals, was messing about with the diving suit. Just as we crouched to stare, there came a shout, another Oriental on the run, then two more, between them dragging Fiona, and she struggling every step of the way. I suppose I must have made a noise, for Carson hissed at me.

  “Easy. She’s in no danger yet. They’ll want her to talk.”

  “Which she won’t.”

  “But Zeb will try it. This must be a baffler for him.”

  It helped me a little, to see that he was quite right. Fiona, naked as Eve and just as lovely, was better disguised than any clothing could have made her, and Zeb must have been startled, to say the least, at her sudden appearance here, out of the blue. Her captors dragged her to within about seven feet of his shelter, and stopped as I heard him spit some incomprehensible words at her. He tried again, various languages by the sound of it, and then English.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  To my surprise she put her head back and howled in Verlan fashion, a warning to Lowloo to keep clear, to get help.

  “That was an error.” Zeb’s voice, clearly pitched, carried an overtone that chilled me. “You are human, visibly, not a canine primitive. You will talk human. In fifteen seconds!”

  "I wish I had my watch,” she retorted, “just to see if you cheat.”

  “Indeed!” Just the single word, but it had razor-edges. Zeb turned and issued an order to Hovac, and Carson did the same with me.

  “They are going to persuade her. It will take time, which we can use. See that ledge almost directly above Zeb’s shack? To the left? Get there. Get the biggest rock you can handle. Stand by to drop it smack in the middle of his roof when I signal. Right?”

  “That’s clear. When?”

  “You’ll hear a scream!” he said savagely. “Not hers. She won’t. It will be your cue to drop your rock and get down there fast.”

  We parted, left and right—me to gain that ledge, and find, on the way, a loose slab that was all I could do to lift; then wait and see what they had in mind. It was simple, obvious, and fiendish. They had bound a rope’s end to each wrist and each ankle. They had laid her back against the corner of an upright slab about ten feet clear of Zeb’s shelter. The ropes went around it and joined, and then ran over the drum of a winch they had set up not too far from the sinkhole. They tightened ropes until she was spread-eagled helplessly. Hovac had supervised it. Now he galloped happily back to his evil master. Zeb spoke, still as clear and steady as ever.

  “You will talk,” he said. “In a moment I will signal Tan Sen to run the winch, very slowly. It is very powerful. It will not stop until after you have told me what I want to know.”

  I never saw his signal, but I did hear the winch start up, and saw Fiona’s head go back against the rock as the tension came on to tear her apart. Then there was a scream to freeze the blood. I grunted my rock high, heaved it, and flung myself down the slope without waiting to see it hit, the sound of the rupturing alloy and plastic was joy enough. On the flat and running, I dodged the shambles I had made, saw Hovac’s great legs kicking, and galloped to where Fiona was hauling in the slack, trying to get free. I reached to help, but she shook her head and shouted, “Watch your back!” and I spun around to see one of the Orientals coming for me, bewildered but determined. There was no time for fancy work. I bunched a fist and hit him as hard as ever I could, catching him full in the face and jarring my wrist and arm. He went back and down, dazed and bloody. I would have turned back to Fiona, but now Hovac reared up enormously from the crackling wreckage of the shelter, and I knew that if he got into the fray we were all done. Not stopping to work it out, I went forward, grabbed my battered Oriental, heaved him up and threw him bodily at Hovac. The pair of them went down in a great shouting heap.

  Again I went to turn, and staggered under the impact of a wiry body on my back and murderous fingers at my throat. I reached back and grabbed, but that heave had cost me a lot, and there wasn’t much strength left in my grip. I saw the red of strangulation fogging the scene. Then Carson grunted, “Come up!” and the stranglehold went away, so that I could gasp in air and swing around. He had a bight of the rope around my attacker’s throat and his knee in the man’s back. He heaved mightily, spun around, let go and kicked, and the helpless Oriental flew head-on into the same rock that had been planned to break Fiona’s back— and stopped dead, then folded to the ground. She was free and dancing tigerishly around another man, feinting at him until she lured him near enough to grab, and heave, and twirl—and he, too, flew. And landed on his head. And lay still.

  “Let’s get!” Carson snapped, and we got, as fast as we could go, not stopping until we were within our booby-trapped doorway. Then we stood and shook, and grinned like fools.

  “I don’t think”—Carson gasped—”that we were followed. We came out of that damned well, considering. The cat is out of the bag, of course, but it has cost Zeb quite a bit to get that much.”

  I was trying to count up the score. “What about the man who was on the winch?” I asked. “Just bent, or completely broken?”

  “The past tense is accurate,” Carson said grimly. “When I set you away, Alan, my aim was to stop that winch, to wreck it if possible. I did. The man driving it was badly placed, for me. I had to burn him down too. And then the ropes.

  “I see what you mean,” I said. “Two dead men, at least, one winch busted, ropes cut, his lordly pavilion in ruins. Zeb is getting hurt.”

  “Right. He may know, now, that we’re on the job, but he also knows that we can bite if prodded. And he doesn’t know who we are or what we’re doing.”

  “Wait.” I demurred. “He must surely be able to guess who we are.

  “Yeah? One naked female that he didn’t recognize—and two black men that he never saw at all, and his men only saw in motion. Does that sound like us, like Alan Noble, and Fiona Knight, and me? And where are we now?

  “I’d rather not think where we might have been if any of those men had been armed.”

  “The defects of despotism,” he said. “Zeb dared not arm his men before. I imagine he will now, and send them to search for us.

  “I wish them luck.” Fiona stood and stretched her arms. “I’d hate to try and fi
nd a hole in this black nightmare. All the same, we’d better get on with it. My turn to carry, I think.”

  It was only then that I realized just how absolutely exhausted I was. It was all I could do to stand up.

  “I hate to break a rule”—Carson grinned at me—”but I’d advise you not to dawdle too long over your bathing. At the outside, we have only nine feet to go, possibly less. We may cut through any time.”

  That supported me as nothing else could have, as I went up the passage to the water and clean coolness. Lowloo came with me, as always, and this time she was full of questions.

  “Those were bad men?” she asked, and I had to admit they were.

  “There are many bad men, Lowloo. We humans may be a little higher than your kind, but we are standing on the same ladder, and the top is a long way off yet.” I went on to explain to her just what those bad men, and others of the same style, would do if ever they discovered there was a fortune in gems to be gained by robbing the Verlan people. “We have to try and stop that, somehow,” I told her, “and the only good way is to make your people known to the great and powerful ones among our people, so that you will be treated properly, and protected, and become our friends.”

  “You are my friend,” she said.

  “I count it an honor, my dear, but it needs more than that. Somehow we have to show the authorities that you, the Verlan, are people just like us. It won’t be easy. The place where you live is not very pleasant for us. It’s too hot, too humid, for many people to go there. You probably find it cool, here.”

  “Not unpleasant,” she contradicted me. “I like. You found us in bad season, when all is very wet, with strong winds. Is not like that in good season, is hot and dry, like this.”

  For some reason that struck me as one of those significant remarks that ought to mean something important, only I couldn’t think of it. Then we came to the water, and the coolness, and I dismissed it in the joys of getting cool and fresh again. There was something to remind me of Carson’s hint not to linger. As I took hold of the line to scramble up, I found that Fiona’s power-pack was still fast to it. I stared at it stupidly for a long time, working it out. If she had followed routine, she had washed, then climbed up, hoisted up her drained pack, hooked on the charged one, lowered it down—this one—and then dozed off and been caught. And I had my discharged one with me. All three power-packs were here! But the cutting had to go on!

  I thought I knew what Carson would do, what I’d have done in his place. Rather than waste time waiting, he would use the beamer’s own power-pack, which would disable our only weapon. I didn’t like that idea, so I freed the charged pack from its cover, thrust it at Lowloo, and told her to run with it, back to Carson. Then I tackled that rope, hooked my battery to it, and started to climb. What made me look up I don’t know, but to that chance glance I owe my life, for it showed me that the sky-glow from outside was obscured. And that could only mean there was someone up there, casting a shadow on the surface.

  I hung a moment, trying to think, but there was nothing else to be done. I took a deep breath and went up. As my head broke the surface, there he was, up to his knees in water and sluicing himself happily. I had the advantage of surprise, but he was quick with his kick at my face. I only had time to grab his foot and hold on. And I was stuck. I needed the other hand to cling to the rope. Or did I? He was kicking furiously by this time, and staggering. I let go of the rope, clapped my other hand on his ankle, and let myself fall, hoping to drag him down. But, somehow, he jammed up in the hole, and I swung there from his leg with the water-flow dwindling to a trickle around me. After a while I knew he was dead, and I could let go and drop back down the slide.

  But then, like it or not, I had to go back up that rope and shove him free. And the longer I waited, the greater would be the head of water against me. So, weary but desperate, I climbed that line again, got my head solidly against the body, and heaved. And heaved. And heaved again, until it seemed my arms must come out of the sockets at my shoulders. And he came free. Went surging soggily away, letting the water smash down on me again. I went on up because I had to, because if I fell hack I could never do it again. And, somehow, I got my weary form out of the water and onto the dry rock, and lay there, pumping for breath, and nagged all the time by the thought of Carson cutting away with just a beamer-pack power unit. So I drove myself to scramble up and get the charged unit, to swap it for my discharged one, to lash it to the line—and then to stand up and sneak a glance down there to see what the opposition was doing. And what I saw scourged away all my fatigue, sent me scrambling back down the rope to grab my fresh battery and run like hell all the way back to where Carson was working. It had never seemed so far before. I had just come in sight of the glowing lights when I heard the quick bleat of a buzzer. The entrance-alarm! Carson and Fiona came boiling out of the cut, black and glistening, as I drew level with it— he frantically ripping the pack from the working beamer.

  “Zeb!” I panted. “Got to be. The others are busy!”

  “Zeb in our doorway.” He growled, running, jamming the power-pack into our only remaining useful weapon. “God grant it is. We have him cold!”

  We ran to within one turn of the straight, then he waved us to hold, and sidled on gingerly. I saw him as a dark hulk against the outside glow, then he stiffened, sprang out into the passage and aimed. I beard the beamer sing in his hand. Then he heaved a sigh, and sagged.

  “Was it Zeb?” Fiona and I closed up on either side of him.

  “It was. He got away. Those damned bracelets. I should have known!”

  “Bracelets?” He had me stopped now. Fiona knew.

  “Energy shields! Of course!”

  “I should have taken him in the legs. He was stunned. I had him!” There came a clatter from out there, and a silver sphere bounced into sight. I heard Carson yell. “Down! Flat!” and his beamer rang again. Then the whole world blew apart in an explosion that caved in the top of my head. Ages later, as the bells stopped ringing, I was still alive. Blind, and deaf. but I could smell a vile stink. Then Carson’s voice came as if through a tin box lined with felt.

  “Are we all right? Back up if you can.

  We gathered in our hiding hole, and we were a mess. Fiona looked as shocked as I felt, and Carson seemed to have aged ten years.

  “How did you know it was Zeb?” he asked, dully, and I told him.

  “I saw Hovac lowering somebody in that diving suit. And I accounted for the only other man, so it had to be Zeb. Maybe he got caught in the blast?”

  “Not him. He doesn’t make that kind of slip. You realize we can’t get out now? Not that way, anyhow!”

  “Neil!” It was Fiona, with teeth in her voice. “Three of them and four of us, and we do have a way out, the way we’ve been slaving at all this time. Damn the diving suit, the bars will stop that caper. We’ve only about nine feet to go!” It got him. He straightened, tried a grin.

  “All right,” he said. “Come on, we’re not licked yet.”

  No shifts now. We three worked together, me doing the cutting and the other two cracking and hauling away the blocks—and none of us wanted to say the obvious thing, that the bars would be just as hard for us to pass as for the opposition. We just kept on, verticals and cross lines and crackings, foot by foot. And the damned wall was still solid. The power began to fail. Eight feet, and still solid. Carson fumbled with the leads to the last remaining power-pack, and I started again, my hands shaking and my throat like a lime kiln. Lowloo brought me coffee, and the first three swallows went down like warm paste. I cut more. Another foot. Another, and my arms flagged so that. I could hardly lift the beamer. Beside me, his face creased with fatigue, Carson fumbled with the chisel-bar, and it struck the roof. He stopped shivered, did it again. Hollow!

  “By God, we’re under it. Gut into the roof! Here!” I heaved my weary arms up, and aimed—and it wavered, and I cursed—and it cut the rock like a knife through bread.

  “Two inches thi
ck, at the outside!” Carson muttered. “Cut back here. Two feet will do. That’s enough. Back the other side! Now, hold it!” He stood under the area I had outlined, placed his hands against it, and then nodded to me. “Cut the fourth side, steady!”

  The slab came down into his hands. I shut off the beamer and leaned against the wall, shaking with relief.

  “Stay like that,” he ordered and ran heavily back to collect our only lethal weapon. He returned, and I made a step for him with my hands so that he could go up, and struggle, and then disappear from our sight. In a moment he called to us, “All clear. Fiona next!”

  I held out my hands for her but she pressed past them to offer her face, and lips, to me. “We haven’t had time for much of this,” she whispered, “but there’ll be lots of time in the future.” Then she stepped into my palms and went up like an eel through the hole in the roof. Then Lowloo scrambled up, and Carson showed his face.

  “Give me a moment to brace myself, then take my hands,” be said.

  We were inside the chamber Fiona had told us about. It measured about twelve feet in each direction and was walled, except on one side, with the same glassy stone we had first cut into. That odd side, the “plate glass” that she had mentioned, was furthest away from us, and between us and it lay a pile of shadowy things that sprang into fantastic and dazzling glowings as we turned our headlights on them.

  After a moment of staring, Carson found his voice and said, “Let’s cut off our lights or we’ll be blinded for anything useful. Lowloo, you’re the lightest of us all. I have to ask you to drop down again, and bring bags. You know the heavy plastic ones that we’ve been using to carry the power-packs? Those. Bring four!”

  As I straightened up from lowering her down into the cutting, he tapped my shoulder and made a gesture in the direction of the “glass” wall.

  “The pretty things won’t run away. I vote we inspect that last barrier there. As Fiona said, it’s not likely to be glass.”