by John Norman
Misk seized me and with the harrowing speed of the Priest-King leaped across the room, buffeting the case I had occupied ten yards across the chamber, bent down and flung up the trap and, carrying me, darted into the passage below.
My senses were reeling but now in the distance I could hear cries and shouts, the screaming of the dying, the unutterably horrifying noises of the broken, the torn and maimed.
Misk clung to the wall below the trap door, holding me to his thorax.
"What is it?" I demanded.
"Gravitational disruption," said Misk. "It is forbidden even to Priest-Kings."
His entire body shook with horror.
"Sarm could destroy the Nest," said Misk, "even the planet."
We listened to the screams and cries. We could hear no fall of buildings, no clatter of rubble. We heard only human sounds and the extent and fearfulness of these were our only index to the destruction being wrought above.
29
Anesthetization
"Sarm is destroying the Ur bonding," said Misk.
"Lift me up!" I cried.
"You will be slain," said Misk.
"Quickly!" I cried.
Misk obeyed and I crawled out of the trap and to my wonder gazed on the patterns of desolation that met my eyes. Misk's compartment was gone, only powdery stains marking the place where the walls had been. Through the very stone of the tunnel which lay outside Misk's compartment, now opened like a deep window, I could see the next large Nest complex which lay beyond. I ran across the flooring of the tunnel and through the swath of nothingness that had been cut through the stone and looked on the complex. Over it hung ten ships, perhaps of the sort used for surveillance on the surface, and in the nose of each of these ships there was mounted a conelike projection.
I could see no beam extend from these projections but where they pointed I saw material objects seem to shake and shudder and then vanish in a fog of dust. Clouds of particles from this destruction hung in the air, gray under the energy bulbs. The cones were methodically cutting geometrical patterns through the complex. Here and there where a human or Priest-King would dart into the open the cone nearest to him would focus on him and the human or Priest-King, like the buildings and the walls, would seem to break apart into powder.
I ran toward the workshop where Misk and I had left the ship we had fashioned from the transportation disk.
At one point I was faced with a ditch, cut by the disruption cones with geometrical precision in the very stone of the Nest. It lay across my path, perhaps thirty-five feet wide, perhaps forty feet deep.
I cried out with dismay but knew what I must do, and retraced my steps to try the ditch. Gor is somewhat smaller than the earth and, accordingly, its gravitational pull is less. If it were not for that what I intended to hazard would possibly have been beyond human capacity. As it was I could not be sure that I could make the leap but I knew that I must try.
I took a long run and with a great bound cleared the ditch by perhaps two feet and was soon speeding on my way to Misk's workshop.
I passed a group of huddled humans, crouched behind the remains of a wall which had been sheared away about two feet from the floor for a length of a hundred feet.
I saw one man who lacked an arm, lying on the floor, groaning, the limb having been lost to the unseen beam of the ships above. "My fingers," he cried, "my fingers hurt!" One of the humans by the wall, a girl, knelt by him, holding a cloth, trying to stanch the bleeding. It was Vika! I rushed to her side. "Quick, Cabot!" she cried, "I must make a tourniquet!" I seized the limb of the man and pressing the flesh together managed to retard the bleeding. Vika took the cloth from his wound and, ripping it and using a small steel bar from the sheared wall, quickly fashioned a tourniquet, wrapping it securely about the remains of the man's arm. The physician's daughter did the work swiftly, expertly. I rose to leave.
"I must go," I said.
"May I come?" she asked.
"You are needed here," I said.
"Yes, Cabot," she said, "you are right."
As I turned to go she lifted her hand to me. She did not ask where I was going nor did she ask again to accompany me. "Take care," she said. "I will," I said. There was another groan from the man and the girl turned to comfort him.
Had it truly been Vika of Treve?
I raced to the workshop of Misk and flung open the double doors and leaped into the ship and secured the hatch, and in a moment it seemed the floor dropped a foot beneath me and the doors rushed forward.
In less than a few Ihn I had brought the ship into the large Nest complex where the ten ships of Sarm still followed their grim, precise, destructive pattern, as placidly and methodically as one might paint lines on a surface or mow a lawn.
I knew nothing of the armament of the ships of Sarm and I knew I had only the silver tube in my own craft, a weapon far outclassed in destructive potential by the gravitational disrupters mounted in the ships of Sarm. Moreover, I knew that the cage plastic with which my own ship was protected would be no more protection than tissue paper against Sarm's weapons, the nature of which was not to pierce or melt but, from a given center, radiating outwards, to shatter material gravitationally, breaking it apart and scattering it.
I broke into the open and the floor of the complex shot away from beneath me and I hung near the energy bulbs at the very apex of the dome. None of the ships of Sarm had apparently noted me.
I took the lead ship into my sights and dropped toward it, narrowing the range to increase the effectiveness of the silver tube. I was within two hundred yards when I opened fire, attacking from the rear, away from the destructive cone in its bow.
To my joy I saw the metal blacken and burst apart like swollen tin as I passed beneath it and began to climb rapidly toward the belly of the second craft which I ripped open with a sizzling burst of fire. The first craft began to turn slowly, uncontrollably, in the air and then plunged toward the ground. I hoped Sarm himself might have been in that flagship. The second craft shot wildly toward the ceiling of the complex and shattered on the stone ceiling, falling back to the ground in a shower of wreckage.
The other eight craft suddenly stopped their destructive work and seemed to hover in indecision. I wondered if they were in communication with one another. I supposed so. Undoubtedly they had not expected to be met with opposition. They may not even have seen me. While they seemed to hang undecided in space, almost like puzzled cells in a droplet of water, I dove again, and the third ship broke apart as though it were a toy beneath a falling cutlass of fire, and I climbed once more, the flame of the silver tube stabbing ahead of me, hitting the fourth ship amidships and flinging it burning a hundred yards from my path.
Now the remaining six ships hovered closely together, disrupter cones radiating outward in different directions, but I was above them.
This time, should I dive again, I knew it would be impossible to conceal my position from them, for they would then know I was below them and at least one of the ships would be almost certain to cover me with its weapon.
It would be but a moment before they would discover my position.
Even now two of the ships were moving their place, one to cover the area beneath the small fleet and the other above. In a moment there would be no avenue of attack which would not mean sure death.
The ceiling of the complex leapt away from above me and I found myself in the very center of the six ships, surrounded on the four sides, and above and below.
I could see the scanners mounted in the nose of the ships probing about.
But I was nowhere to be found.
From this distance I could see hatches in the ships, on the top, and there was sufficient oxygen in the complex to permit exposed visual observation, but none of the Priest-Kings peered out of any of the hatches. Rather they continued to concentrate on their instruments. They must have been puzzled by the failure of the instrumentation to detect me.
Two hypotheses would seem most likely to explain thi
s phenomenon to them, first that I had fled the complex, second that I was nestled among them, and I smiled to myself, for I was certain that the second hypothesis would never occur to a Priest-King, for it was too improbable and Priest-Kings were too rational a kind of creature.
For half a Gorean Ahn we hung there, none of us moving. Then for a full Gorean Ahn did we remain there, motionless above the complex. Again I smiled to myself. For once I was sure I could outwait a Priest-King.
Suddenly the ship beneath me seemed to quiver and then it blurred and disappeared.
My heart leaped!
Ground fire!
I could imagine Misk hastening to his tools and the vast assemblage of instrumentation in his shop, or perhaps sending an outraged Priest-King to some secret arsenal where lay a forbidden weapon, one to which Misk would never have had recourse were it not for the hideous precedent of Sarm!
Almost immediately the remaining five ships fell into a line and raced down toward one of the tunnel exits that led from the complex.
The first ship to near the exit seemed to burst into a cloud of powder but the next four ships, and myself, who had fallen into line with them, pierced the veil of powder and found ourselves coursing through the tunnel back toward Sarm's domain.
There were now four ships ahead of me in the tunnel, fleeing.
With satisfaction I noted the width of the tunnel did not permit them to turn.
With grim decision I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and there was a shattering burst of fire and I heard and felt branches of steel and tubing flying back against my armored transportation disk.
Some of the materials flew with such a force that gashes were cut in the obdurate cage plastic and the ship was buffeted and jostled but it cut its way through this jungle of flying parts and found itself again streaming down the tunnel.
Now the three ships were far ahead and I thrust open the speed valve on the armored transportation disk to overtake them.
Just as the three ships burst into the open of another huge complex I caught up with them and opened fire on the third ship but my fire seemed less effective this time and though I gave it a full burst the charging of the tube seemed at last almost exhausted. The third ship moved erratically, one side black and wrinkled with the scar of my attack. Then it seemed to come under control and turned like a cornered rat to face me. In an instant I would be within the firing radius of the disrupter cone. I took my ship up over the craft and tried another burst, which was even weaker than the last. I tried to keep above the ship, staying away from the disrupter cone on its bow. I was dimly aware of the other two ships now turning to bring me within range.
At that moment I saw the hatch on the injured but threatening ship fly up and the head of a Priest-King emerge. I suppose that some of the scanning instrumentation had been damaged in the ship. His antennae swept the area and focused on me at the same time that I pressed the firing switch, and it seemed the golden head and antennae blew away in ashes and the golden body slumped downward in the hatch. The silver tube might be draining its power but it was still a fearsome weapon against an exposed enemy. Like an angry hornet I flew to the open hatch of the injured ship and blasted away into the hatch, filling the insides with fire. It tumbled away like a balloon and exploded in the air as I dropped my ship almost to the ground. I was quick but not quick enough because the plastic dome of my ship above me seemed to fly away in the wind leaving a trail of particles behind. Now, in the shattered rim of the plastic dome, scarcely protected against the rushing wind, I fought to regain control of the craft. The silver tube still lay intact in the firing port but its power was so considerably reduced that it was no longer a menace to the ships of Sarm. A few yards from the flooring of the plaza I brought the craft again into order and, again throwing open the speed valve, darted into the midst of a complex of buildings, where I stopped, hovering a few feet above the street passing between them.
The ship of Sarm passed overhead like a hawk and then began to circle. I would have had a clean burst at the ship but the tube was, for all practical purposes, no longer an effective weapon.
A building on my left seemed to leap into the air and vanish.
I realized there was little I could do so I took the ship up and under the attacker.
He turned and twisted but I kept with him, close, too close for him to use his disrupter cone.
The wind whistled past and I was almost pulled from the controls of the ship.
Then I saw what I would not have expected.
The other ship of Sarm was turning slowly, deliberately, on its fellow.
I could not believe what I saw but there was no mistaking the elevation of the disrupter cone, the calm, almost unhurried manner in which the other ship was drawing a bead on its fellow.
The ship above me seemed to tremble and tried to turn and flee and then sensing the futility of this it turned again and tried to train its own disrupter cone on its fellow.
I flashed my ship to the ground only an instant before the entire ship above me seemed to explode silently in a storm of metallic dust glinting in the light of the energy bulbs above.
In the cover of the drifting remains of the ship shattered above me I darted among the streets of the complex and rose behind the last ship. This time my own craft seemed sluggish, and it was only too clear that it was not responding properly to the controls. To my dismay I saw the last ship turning slowly toward me and I saw the disrupter cone rise and focus on me. It seemed I hung helpless in the air, floating, waiting to be destroyed. I knew I could not evade the wide-angle scope of the disrupter beam. I savagely hurled my weight against the controls but they remained unresponsive. I floated above the enemy craft but it tipped, keeping me in the focus of its beam. Then without warning it seemed the stern of my craft vanished and I felt the deck suddenly give way and as half of the craft vanished in powder and the other half crumbled to the buildings below I seized the silver tube from the firing port and leaped downward to the back of the enemy ship.
I crawled to the hatch and tugged at the hatch ring.
It was locked!
The ship began to bank. Probably the pilots had heard wreckage hit their ship and were banking to drop it into the streets below, or perhaps they were actually aware that I had boarded them.
I thrust the silver tube to the hinges on the hatch and pressed the firing switch.
The ship banked more steeply.
The tube was almost drained of power but the point-blank range and the intensity of even the diminished beam melted the hinges from the hatch.
I wrenched the hatch open and it swung wildly out from its locked side and suddenly I hung there, one hand on the rim, one hand on the silver tube, as the ship lay on its side in the air. Then before the ship could roll I tossed the tube inside and squirmed in after it. The ship was now on its back and I was standing inside on its ceiling and then the ship righted itself and I found the silver tube again. The inside of the ship was dark, for its only intended occupants were Priest-Kings, but the open hatch permitted some light.
A forward door opened and a Priest-King stepped into view, puzzled, startled at the sensing of the open hatch.
I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and it gave forth with a short, abortive scorching blast and was cold, but the golden body of the Priest-King blackened and, half sliced through, reeled against the wall and fell at my feet.
Another Priest-King followed the first and I pressed the firing switch again but there was no response.
In the half darkness I could see his antennae curl.
I threw the useless tube at him and it bounded from his thorax.
The massive jaws opened and closed once.
The hornlike projections on the grasping appendages snapped into view.
I seized the sword which I had never ceased to wear and uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba rushed forward but as I did so I suddenly threw myself to the ground beneath those extended projections and slashed away at the
Priest-King's posterior appendages.
There was a sudden fearful scream of odor from the signal glands of the Priest-King and he tipped to one side, reaching for me with his grasping appendages.
His abdomen now dragged on the ground but he pushed himself toward me, jaws snapping, by means of the two forward supporting appendages and the remains of his posterior appendages.
I leaped between the bladed projections and cut halfway through its skull with my sword.
It began to shiver.
I stepped back.
So this was how a Priest-King might be slain, I thought, somehow here one must sever the ganglionic net in mortal fashion. And then it seemed to me not improbable that this might be the case, for the major sensory apparatus, the antennae, lie in this area.
Then, as though I were a pet Mul, the Priest-King extended his antennae toward me. There was something piteous in the gesture. Did it wish me to comb the antennae? Was it conscious? Was it mad with pain?
I stood not understanding and then the Priest-King did what he wished: with a toss of his great golden head he hurled his antennae against my blade, cutting them from his head, and then, after a moment, having closed himself in the world of his own pain, abandoning the external world in which he was no longer master, he slipped down to the steel flooring of the ship, dead.
The ship, as I discovered, had been manned by only two Priest-Kings, probably one at the controls, the other at the weapon. Now that it was not being controlled, it hovered where the second Priest-King, probably its pilot, had left it when he had come to investigate the fate of his companion.
It was dark in the ship, except in the vicinity of the opened hatch.
But, groping my way, I went forward to the controls.
There, to my pleasure, I found two silver tubes, fully charged.
Feeling what seemed to be a blank area of the ceiling of the control area I fired a blast upward, using the simple expedient of the tube to open a hole in the craft through which light might enter.
In the light which now entered the control area I examined the controls.