He saw Foxy approaching and grabbed him. The little instrument man was startled by his expression but even more so by the subject of their whispered conversation. In the end, Foxy agreed, spurred on by his emotions concerning Jerry's fate and by the no-search restriction of Pike.
Two minutes later, Danny was talking to the Monk.
"You need something to trigger Ravano and I've got it. His crisis need is to emigrate to the mainland, eight-hundred miles to the north. His barrier is the sea – no boats. Foxy's a boat nut. He was raised in a family of boat builders. Tell Ravano to run with us and give us a military alliance. In exchange we'll organize his forces into a real army, and we'll help him build a fleet. Tell him maybe that's what Ramor was trying to say the other night, that his oracle is true. At least some of the Star Sons are turning on!"
There had been untidy threads left dangling as an aftermath of the Forum hearing, at least for Danny and his confidants. There were such unsolved coincidences as the timely theft of all of Frederica's tapes and the burning of Boozie's test spools. Where had Philo Bates gone in such a pale-faced hurry before he died or was murdered, and if the latter, by whom and why?
The Duke and the Skipper were either brainwashed or still on their slabs, Danny told himself. But his own duty blindness was gone. His work wasn't here anymore. It was out there somewhere beyond the arm of the Mastermind who was obviously somebody like Poyntner or Stockton. In fact Boozie had checked data control and found that months before the explosion the two alleged suspects were at the top of the list for requisitioning computer time. They could have strobed Fritters to get him to alter the Pit programs. It was enough to go on, for now. He knew that somewhere in star ship regulations there must be something to cover his actions. There had to be an emergency in which a staff officer might be justified in overriding the commands of his superiors.
He waited all day for the results of his message to Ravano. The Monk couldn't always get to him or even Akala in spite of his legitimate assignment to work on the hieroglyphics in the temple. The militia was on edge. Every move now would be suspect. A lot of amateur dissenters were compounding the rumors of subversion.
Late that afternoon he told Fitz and Boozie of his decision, merely confirming what Foxy had come running to tell them. Boozie gave him a small package and told him not to lose it.
"It's self-explanatory, buddy. Just open it when you're out on safari."
"We're behind you, Danny lad," said Fitz. "But not all that far. We'll be holding the fort."
Boozie had a warning for Danny. "You'd better try to be scarce. There's a new scuttlebutt. The Forum hearing against you is tomorrow. It's possible the gendarmes may come before that to take you into custody. That would really ground you!"
It meant that the best time for Noley's breakout would be this very night, thought Danny. Later, he learned it was the worst time. Everybody involved was keeping a low profile, and there was still no word of Ravano's reaction. Danny felt the walls closing in. Yet he still thought of poor Jerry and prayed somewhat agnostically that he might have been saved by a miracle. Jerry Fontaine, who only wanted peace and freedom, with a dreamer's foot in fairyland, was gone to find his own God.
* * * *
When it happened it came all at once. He had started up the temple steps, hoping to find the swami for a possible final chat. A land rover squealed brakes at the foot of the staircase and a stabbing spotlight held him. The bullhorn said, "Stay where you are, Troy. You're under arrest!"
He froze, watching the gendarmes get out of the wheeled vehicle, combat helmets and all. Their beamers were pointed at him. Just then, however, he heard a crackling of gunfire at the southwestern edge of the square, followed by screams and savage yells. The alert horns started to bellow, and roborgs started to move. Several laser shots streaked from armored cyborg bellies into a milling mass of half-naked barbarians.
The P.A. blared, activated from the security hut. "Mode one! Mode one! We are under attack by savages! Unarmed personnel retreat to nearest shelter!" This meant the ship or the temple.
"It's the Golaks!" shouted a man who was running across the square. "Jesus! There's hundreds of them!"
The guards below returned to the rover without a word and drove back toward the developing massacre. Crowds began to come up the steps in a panic. Suddenly, somebody grasped him powerfully by the arm. He turned to see Axel Bjornson, who was more florid-faced than usual.
"Now!" said the Swede, breathing heavily. "While they've got their hands full!"
Ravano had given his consent. The break was on. Now it was the best time, as if Ramor had answered his heathen children. It was almost too smooth but he recognized the computer mind of the Monk behind it. It had been a ready plan, only waiting for the right moment to press the button. The Golak raid could not have been better designed to provide that moment. The main searchlight activity was on the south side of the temple facing the square. The two newly assembled air cars landed on the second terrace on the quiet north side, which was covered. The scout ship had been "fixed" so that there would be no pursuit.
As for getting the royal captives to the rendezvous point, there was Kenny Makart from security. He and several other of Pike's men had come over, along with an armload of weapons and ammunition. It was undramatically simple. All available fighting men were out in front with the roborgs. All attention was focused in that direction. The two air cars rose quietly from the dark side of the towering temple and disappeared into the night.
To Danny, the "package" imported across the Barrier had shattered. He thought of Boozie's quote: "All's well that ends well," and he wondered. This was only another beginning. Who could see the end of it? As for gods and star quests, he recalled a line from the ancient Shakespearean play:
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven...
THE THIRD CYCLE
"The sky voices spoke of war. When men rode the three-horned beast, and the winged vessels of Kimbu Dyota crossed the Yena-Miyus (World of Waters). Then entered the Krias into Na-Thitasu (the Call). And this was the Third Cycle."
–Stanza 64, Vol. 16 – The Lahayana
CHAPTER XII
The long-haired, bearded figure stood poised on the rock like a wilderness creature, motionless, instinctively wary, keenly attuned to his environment. He wore a patched and frayed fatigue jumper. In his work-hardened, sunburned fist he held a 2K-66 machine rifle.
A long siege of monsoon weather had left the rain forest gleaming with a primeval green vitality. As if to demonstrate Holy Sam's plant-consciousness theory, the entire jungle seemed to breathe in a dream sentience of its own in the bright new warmth of the morning sun. Two miles to the north gleamed the high silvery dome of the star ship's life-pod. This and the towering temple marked the site of Terra Nova, which was now a sprawling settlement. The chained Talavat slaves and the hypno converts were bending their coppery backs in the tilled fields like lay brothers serving a monastery. This wasn't far from the truth considering the Bishop's World Apostolic Church and his new so-called Cistercian order.
Gray-black smoke was already rising from the steel mill and the ore-processing plant. Industry was feverishly attuned to the imperatives of survival in a world that was still unaware of time's illusion.
Danny extracted a glittering device from his pocket and switched it on. It reminded him of the moment three years ago when Boozie had given him a small package and told him to open it when he was on "safari." The micro-transceiver had been their lifeline of communication ever since.
"Mongoose to Buzzard's Roost," he said into the mini-mike. "What's the latest?"
Boozie's familiar, cynical drawl returned to him over the secret frequency band. "You tell us. The militia is out there after them on the South Road. You'd better move in. Sam took the Lily with him."
"Lalille? What the hell!"
"For some spooky reason, the swami needs her. She's had it with the Bishop since the inquisition bit."
<
br /> Danny hesitated. There was a naked bitterness in his gray-blue eyes as he stared at the distant settlement. "What about Freddie?"
"Stiff as a wooden indian. She's playing mother hen to Tallullah now. The Big M has flipped on religion like she's running scared, trying to convert the whole damned camp." When Danny remained silent, he added more swiftly: "I kid you not, soldier. You'd better get in there fast!"
"I see the runner now. I'll get back to you later."
Danny pocketed the transceiver and leapt from the rock. Axel Bjornson emerged from hiding, also bearded and deeply bronzed by the tropical sun.
"Looks like trouble," said the Swede.
The native warrior reached them, still breathing lightly from his long run. He pointed back down the trail and spoke swiftly. Danny's Talavat was fluent whereas the Swede was still having difficulty with the melodiously flowing language.
"He says the escape party was captured. He's talking about a 'devil dragon', and Golaks..."
"Christ!" exclaimed Bjornson. "That means an armored rover! And with those doped-up Golaks."
"Don't forget the plan. Let's go!"
The Axe turned his mighty frame and lifted his rifle. Out of the scrub jungle behind the rock emerged a group of fifty Talavats. They were tall, long-haired, beardless, and powerful, all armed in accordance with the new Law of Ravano. In addition to spears, stone knives, and bolas, they carried quivers and crossbows on their backs. The latter inventions had been an earthman contribution.
"Let's hope it works," Axel mumbled.
Silently, the war party trotted down the trail with Danny in the lead. As Danny jogged along the deeply shaded trail, his mind swiftly scanned events of the past few years. He was wondering what they added up to and where they were leading. Certainly the dragon seeds mentioned by Boozie had yielded their poisonous fruit. The Hellenistic system of the colony had more than fulfilled Noley's prediction. It was an almost feudal system using slave labor and backed by an ecclesiastical camouflage for tyranny, with chained heathens, drugged and strobed Golak troops, and an embyronic industrial machine that was tooling up for war. According to Boozie and Fitz, Lyshenko had gritted his teeth and gone along with the church trappings and the Bishop's monastic order because they helped him in the rising emergency to "hold the binding on his rulebook." As for Alonso, he had pointed to history as the best counsel. There were, said the Duke, traditional precedents for their situation.
A crisis had recently occurred in Terra Nova when the clash finally came between the Bishop and Sam. Not that the swami openly opposed him, but too many confused colonists had come to him in his flowering ashram on the temple terrace, seeking words of quiet wisdom instead of the confessional. He had told them that instead of being sinners they had been born into a bondage of Illusion but that such bondage could be lifted when Man acquired a "single eye." Of course, such men were politically dangerous. There had been enough defectors, and more than enough contraband tools and supplies had been smuggled out to the insurgents.
The ancient deadly weapon of the Holy Inquisition had reached out for the Indian sage. In an open challenge concerning charges of heathenism and idolatry, he had been questioned with regard to his so-called multi-consciousness faculties. He had made repeated reference to a presence here which the natives had deified as Ramor. Was he, then, a paganized convert to this false deity?
Sam had attempted metaphysical honesty, saying that the name of God was legion, whether He was called Ramor, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Brahman, Adonai or Krishna. Accused of the vilest heresy, he had countered by pointing to the "convenient bigotry" of imprisoning female captives as a substitute for Pit use by the men. It was all based, he said, on the invented dogma that the Talavat innocents were heathen savages and therefore soulless animals. He had quietly told Auguste Saussure that he was gravely misusing his "assumed apostolic position" by acting the part of an anti-Christ.
"Actually, my son," he had concluded with serene confidence, "your task before God is to turn and face an overshadowing obsession, which is your own Dweller on the Threshold."
When it became known that Holy Sam was to die a martyr's death there had been an uprising. Apparently it had been fairly well planned. A diversionary fire in the grange barns had camouflaged the breakout, aided by more defecting militia men. Sam had taken Lalille with him for urgent reasons of his own.
It was this escape party that had just been recaptured. Fortunately, however, the insurgent forces had foreseen this possibility. They had a plan that must now be put swiftly into operation.
* * * *
The nyanyos were described by Bjornson as a cross between a prehistoric horse and stag. Owing to a frontal three-horned bone structure that emphasized the white central horn, Noley had pointed out that on Earth similar creatures were in the Memory of Nature and that they had given rise to the so-called myth of the unicorn. So the earthmen castaways had called them that. After all, the Raks were the cyclopes or Titans, the Moals were the forest naiads and nymphs, and the dog-faced man-creatures called dakshas were the satyrs. Why shouldn't there be unicorns in Boozie's "anywhere world"?
One of the first tasks of the insurgents had been to show the Talavats how to tame the unicorns and ride them bareback. Within three years, Ravano's forces had thus been strengthened by a fairly effective cavalry. Danny had called the mounted troops the Lancer Corps. The present rescue plan included the lancers. Their silent fleetness and capability of rapid dispersement provided the advantage that was needed.
The lancers had scouted the militia unit and their captives. Taking game trails parallel to the South Road, they had kept out of sight or silently dispatched Golak sentinels who blundered into their way. They had long since ridden ahead and swiftly completed their work. By the time Danny's unit arrived at its destination, the head of the militia column was in sight. They all took cover in the copious underbrush and waited. The lancers were strategically deployed on either side of the narrow jungle road. In all, the insurgent forces outnumbered the militia unit in a ratio of two to one.
However, there was the rover to contend with. The bulky six-wheeled vehicle was equipped with armor-plated sides in which there were pillbox slits bristling with high-speed automatic guns. Some of the defecting men were manacled and tied by ropes to the slow-moving vehicle, but Sam and Lalille were no doubt riding inside. Behind the rover and the bound captives came a rear guard company of at least fifty Golak warriors. These were Neanderthals in size, savagery and stupidity, but they had been hypno-strobed and dulled to obedience by an induced addiction to the dhura leaf, a native drug similar to coca. They were armed chiefly with stone axes and cudgels, although some of them preferred their enormous hunting spears.
Suddenly, Bjornson's heavy hand gripped Danny's arm. "Jesus!" he whispered. "Look at the two on the end!"
Danny looked, and froze. The two Golaks bringing up the rear of the column were more erect and intelligent looking. In their powerful hands they carried old-fashioned bolt-action rifles. This in itself did not constitute the menace. It was where the rifles had come from that was history making. The feared rumors were true. Terra Nova's infant industry had begun to turn out rifles!
It could be the death knell to all insurgent planning. Three years had been needed to build up the counter-forces this far, but guns for the Golaks threatened to stop the clock. Once more, time was running out. And once more, Ravano was their point of impasse.
"Let's get this over with," muttered Danny. "Axel, you'll know when to knock out those two on the end, in about thirty seconds now."
The Swede grunted as all eyes followed the lumbering rover. To attempt an open attack on those shielded automatic weapons would be suicide for all of them. The ponderous vehicle suddenly broke through a camouflaged dirt covering and plunged into a pit that had not been there two hours before. The rear guns were the only weapons not blocked by the dirt walls, but the gunners inside only had a choice of shooting sky or birds and foliage.
At first
, Danny only heard the flat-toned murderous chatter of Bjornson's heavy 2K. He himself charged out and blasted the rover's radio antenna. Then he was aware of savage war cries mingling with cheers from the manacled prisoners. The Talavat infantry joined the lancers against the Golaks who had survived the Swede's merciless fire. A huge spear barely missed him as he jumped onto the hatch of the canted vehicle and banged his rifle barrel against the cover.
The problem with these savages, he thought swiftly, was that they didn't know what to do with prisoners. This was why the Talavats revered the pacifist laws of the Lahas. War was no game. It was an unwanted rite of extinction. And the Golaks didn't know the meaning of death. Ravano's surviving warriors would soon be chanting their holy mantras, seeking forgiveness from Ramor for the blood on their hands. Until then, however, they were as blind to death as their more primitive brothers. This had been a strategy stopper in their training. Casualties could be brutally high. To prevent too great a toll on the insurgent side, Axel had also been brutal.
The pressure was already being relieved. A dozen lancers loomed over him and Axel on their snorting and prancing unicorn mounts as the hatch began to move. The prisoners lay flat on the ground to be out of range of the rover's tail guns, but this did not suppress their enthusiasm.
"We knew you'd do it, Danny boy!"
"By God, the Axe sure trimmed the gorillas down to size. Look at those Tallies ride!"
* * * *
Five sullen militia men climbed out of the hatch and surrendered their weapons, after which Axel lined them up along the roadside. Danny gave a hand to Lalille who was helped out by the swami. Native scouts had freed the prisoners on the rear edge of the pit, and the latter were now avidly clambering into the rover to claim the heavy automatic weapons.
"You can walk from here to the base," Danny finally told Pike's men. "You can come back later for the rover." He met the narrow-eyed gaze of his erstwhile superior in Flight Engineering. "We're not guerillas, Happy. Your side shot up the air cars for us, but we don't destroy priceless equipment. How come you're with Adolf's chain gang wardens?"
Star Quest Page 15