During the half-mile journey, Freddie had time to whisper fragments of information. Lalille had been the surprise package, aided by Akala. Since her Oracle experience, her lost faculties had awakened to a startling degree. She had not only been able to vaguely see what was happening by means of her clairvoyance but had also been in some kind of telepathic communion with the Krias and Nolokov.
As for Tallullah, she had not been one of the hostages. However, she had been doing everything in her power to protect the other three women. Apparently, even without the Bishop, the Cistercian order wielded an influence with the crown. Like a prioress, Tallullah had used the friars skillfully to obtain every advantage possible.
"If the Lily is such a crystal gazer," Danny managed to ask, "what does she see in the immediate future?"
"I hate to think of it," Freddie whispered back. "Visions of fire and destruction!"
"That's one part of the prophecy we've got to beat. Our main objective now is to find the scoutship and disarm the bomb."
"What bomb?"
When he told her of Alonso's nuclear weapon and the threat to the fleet, she tensed noticeably. "But that's what Lalille's been so frightened about – the Sun Death!"
"And she sees that?"
"Like a blinding flame, she says. Oh God, Danny, do you think–"
"I'm wondering if she telepathed that to the Krias, and if Ravano knows about it."
She had no answer. They could only hurry along after the others while Danny still wondered about Holy Sam's allusion to higher "intervention." If prophecy was an actual glimpse of events already extant in the eternal Now, could the static structure of time itself be changed? He'd seen a few miracles already today. Why not keep playing the numbers and spinning the wheel for more? It was still a no-limit game.
When they emerged into the so-called monastery, the morning sun was casting its rays between the great, roofless beams overhead. It was the first time Danny had ever seen the interior in a clear light. It was a vast rectangular basilica that still revealed the remains of colonnaded aisles marking the nave. The east wall had been mostly rebuilt by the friars to provide an arched entrance. The other three original walls were cracked open in places. The western face was half crumbled away, but it was still richly decorated with bas-relief figures and ancient hieroglyphics. At the west end was a raised, semicircular chancel, actually a pantheon where niches were provided for statues of ancient deities. The curved chancel faced a gaping natural fissure in the ground that was surrounded by a low stone railing interspersed with altar-like benches. Evidently this was a sacellum where sacred rites of burial had consisted of dropping the bodies of the deceased into the pit.
There was no time for any further observation other than to note the presence of about forty of the white-robed and cowed figures of waiting friars. Evidently they had taken refuge here. At least, thought Danny fleetingly, Tallullah and the other women would be relatively safe here until the conflict was at an end. The men descended on him for decisions, all trying to talk at once. They were unanimous on one thing: what had happened was the same as a miracle. Some were grudgingly hopeful, while others were overly optimistic.
Hap, Fitz, Bjornson, and Poyntner worked with him on the immediate practical logistics. Two thrusts were necessary. Happy and Fitz would get back to the Flight-Com regulars and organize a takeover of the temple and the ship. It was assumed that the Tallies and the Raks had taken care of the roborgs and routed most of the Golaks. There was a high probability that Alonso and his staff were trapped in their own bomb shelter and would be forced to surrender. The Flight-Coms could round up the remaining royalists, if there were any survivors.
Meanwhile, Danny and Bjornson, plus Poyntner, would take a detail to search for the scoutship.
"As soon as you can," Danny told Hapgood, "you'd better start getting people into the life-pod for evacuation to the mainland. If we don't stop the bomb, things could get rough around here. Let's not take any chances."
"You've already had your last chance!" said Adolphus Pike. He was still under guard but was leering at them.
They had failed to attach any significance to the apparent interest of the friars who had slowly encircled their group. When Freddie called out a warning and the Lily screamed, it was too late. Each cowled figure produced a machine pistol from under his robe. The biggest shock of all was when Danny shot a questioning glance at Tallullah. She stood on the chancel, surveying them all in lofty contempt.
"Gentlemen, you are looking at the real elite guard," she announced coldly. "You will surrender your weapons or die."
Thus, the mastermind of the secessionist plan, Tallullah Marsh, pillar of propriety and plotter par excellence, the executioner of Hahnemann, Fraters, Verga and Bates. As it quickly turned out, she had secretly married Alonso and was queen of Terra Nova. Her mother-hen concern for her girls had been a Catherine de Medici plot to set each of them on a separate throne of the future empire, espoused to men of her choosing.
Most of this information came from Pike as he supervised the disarming. He openly claimed to Tallullah that it was time for his promised payoff: a viceroyalty over New Andragoya. Added to this was his taunting revelation that the Bishop had been a carefully developed tool who never realized that his so-called Cistercian order was a perfect camouflage for the hard-line royalist militia, held in reserve for just such an emergency as the present one.
There was a sudden commotion as a female scream echoed through the basilica. A nearly naked figure charged savagely toward the pantheon. It was Akala, apparently intent upon killing Tallullah with her bare hands.
"Hold your fire!" ordered the queen calmly.
Beside her was a lectern from which she extracted a stun gun. The crackling electronic beam shocked the priestess into unconsciousness. She fell across the steps of the chancel and lay still. Several friars came with ropes to bind her.
"This one is still a needed hostage," said Tallullah. "We've yet to deal with Ravano."
Lalille sat on the base of a fallen pillar, apparently lost in concentration, perhaps using her awakened gift of telepathy. Freddie was only aware of present place and time. She stood before the chancel, stiff and rapier straight in her unclinical blue jumper, hair down, chin up, amber eyes blazing.
"Tallullah Marsh," she exclaimed fiercely, "you should be frightened by what you are! Most people are led to crime and deception by personality problems. That's human! But you have done this on a premeditated intellectual basis. Only a warped psyche would be capable of such a thing!"
Tallullah met her challenging glare with narrowed eyes and a faint smirk of amusement. "My dear, your own mother and father were victims of a world of unintellectual male chauvinists. Here, you are going to help found a matriarchal dynasty."
"You can go to hell! I'll be no queen bee for your stupid drones! You've twisted a great quest for truth into a hideous atavism. Here you've turned ancient hallowed ground into a Babylon! For that you don't belong to the human race. You're a monster, and may you be damned!" She was pulled away by the robed militiamen, still shouting her condemnations.
What was worse was what Pike was telling Danny by way of savoring his triumph. Tallullah had long since been carefully choosing her drones in her own inimitable way. He mentioned the tea party years ago on the ship. "You were too dumb to see it, soldier, but the big M was making a pass. You got the treatment like Jerry, you know, the sunlamp bit in her private quarters and the accidental come-on. He turned her down, too, and she never forgave him for it."
Danny struggled to hold onto his sanity as well as his temper. "What the hell is she doing?" he asked, fully alerted now to Tallullah's dangerous capabilities. He saw her pull a field phone from the lectern.
"That's her direct line to Alonso down in his battle station," Pike explained smugly.
"Then she's in for a surprise," growled Fitz. "That son of a bitch may be buried alive by now!"
Pike shrugged. "That won't phase the Big M. Who needs him?"
>
"Are you crazy?" asked Hap. "Your side is all washed up. It's over with!"
Pike grinned. "It's just getting started." He indicated the gaping hole in the wall beyond the chancel. Several robed figures were leading in an army of semi-drugged Golaks. The huge brutes filed in and formed several ranks around the front end of the vast room. "There are plenty more where those came from," he added.
Tallullah hung up the phone and calmly called for order. "There's a slight inconvenience. The line has been intercepted by your signalmen, Captain Troy, or should I say Commander? Of course they suspect nothing of the true situation here. They were merely relieved to know where you were. I told them the friars would bring you their message and that you'd be answering them in a few moments. The king, it seems, is trapped. The entrance tunnel to the bunker is blocked and it will take heavy equipment to free him and his staff."
Danny took a few steps forward in spite of the threatening friars. "Tallullah, you've lost your mind! Why don't you give up and save us all a lot of time?"
She ignored his suggestion. "What you will tell your men at the base is that you are all going to make a conditional surrender."
"Up your–" Fitz started to shout.
Danny silenced him with a hasty signal. "That's interesting," he countered warily. "Why don't you tell us the rest?"
"Oh, I intend to, Commander! I am going to prove to you in a moment that you have no choice except to surrender, particularly when you hear the overly generous conditions. You see, we needed a formative period of just a few years' time to get the basic technologies going again, and to acquire a nuclear capability. All hands were required for that, and this has succeeded in spite of your insurgents. Now a smaller number of us can carry on. So the rest of you will go from this planet. Take the ship and leave us in peace. The world we make here will be of our own choosing."
Danny exchanged glances with Poyntner, Hap, Fitz, and Bjornson. "I don't quite follow you. If only six of us make the hiber trip–"
"Not a hiber trip, Commander! I mean all of you who haven't the courage and conviction of true secessionists."
"But–"
She waved her hand to silence him. Behind her was a stone case that looked like a sarcophagus. She signaled to four of the friars who came to remove the lid. "I told you I would prove you have no choice in the matter." When the lid was pushed aside she reached into the coffin with both hands and, with obvious effort, pulled out a long, gleaming object of plastic and metal.
"My God!" said Hapgood.
Danny could only stare, recalling again those words of Noley long ago. He had said something to the effect that when the mastermind was unmasked the S-link would be found!
"You're a bitch!" snarled Bjornson. "You had it all the time!"
Tallullah smiled. "As an ultimate bargaining point, what else would logic dictate? Well, Commander? Here you are, the key to salvation for your quivering flock. Would you care to take the phone now and instruct your men at the base? They are to free Alonso, of course, as well as his scientific staff. We need those brains, you know."
"Just a minute!" Danny argued. His mind was racing again. Here was more of the prophecy. It had inferred that the star ship's return journey would not be merely a hiber trip. Could he depend on it to be totally valid? "There must be a catch, Tallullah, considering your kind of operation. Have you stated all the terms?"
She placed the priceless S-link on top of the lectern. "There is one added stipulation," she answered. "You will make sure that no ships ever return to this planet. We are not interested in preparing ourselves against punitive expeditions."
"How could I keep a promise like that? It isn't up to me!"
"Oh, but you'll find a way," she answered confidently.
"Otherwise your dear Frederica will cease to be a queen of the realm. Instead–"
"You mean to say you're keeping the girls?"
"Of course!"
Danny was deaf to the angry shouts of rejection from his men. His eyes followed Pike as he strode purposefully to Freddie and Lalille and roughly pulled them with him onto the chancel. Freddie struggled at first but then merely submitted to the treatment in silent contempt.
"All right, it's time!" Pike announced, apparently taking over for his queen. "Her majesty is far too generous. Make up your mind, Troy. We can kill you here and still go on with our plans. You've got just one minute to decide."
Lalille called out. "Danny, you mustn't consider us! Go while you can! I see fire and destruction soon!"
For a moment, Danny's gaze was fixed on Freddie. She was pale and tense, but she signaled him with her eyes, urging him to comply, to take the S-link while he had a chance, and to get out, obviously for the sake of the majority and the mission itself.
"No!" he heard himself saying. "It won't be that way!" In one sense he felt asinine in making such an empty declaration, yet a conviction not his own seemed to give him a driving strength to hold to the commitment: all or none.
For an answer, Pike picked up the heavy S-link and stepped toward the pit before the chancel. A cry of alarm went up.
"Fine!" he sneered. "I take that as your answer. So it'll be this way!"
Illusory time and the eternal Now seemed to mix, throwing the scene into surrealistic slow motion as Danny and the other captives gaped, watching the glittering S-link spin through the air toward the yawning fissure.
CHAPTER XXII
The second miracle of the day occurred in that moment, so startling that it forced even Pike and Tallullah to stare in uncomprehending amazement. The S-link paused in midair, then swiftly settled onto one of the altar benches. Finally, all eyes turned to the newcomers who had come through the crack in the south wall. The tall, bearded figure of Noley was there, the Mad Monk, plus Khyatri and some of the Krias who had followed Lalille's telepathic call. They had saved the S-link with their combined psychokinesis.
A number of the friars raised their guns but arched suddenly in pain as rigid shafts pierced their chests or throats or lodged in their skulls. On top of the south wall was a line of Tally warriors, all of them swiftly fitting new arrows to their crossbows. Before the sluggish Golaks could set into effective action, Happy, Bjornson, and Fitz led the men into a tangle with the friars. Freddie had darted forward to retrieve the S-link. She passed it on to Danny who gave it to Poyntner. The girl gave him a questioning look, and he signaled her to follow the astrophysicist who was heading for the opening in the south wall.
"Get!" he yelled, swatting the tight blue curve of her fanny, and he snatched up a fallen gun.
She backed away toward the Krias but pointed beyond the milling Golaks to the chancel where some of the friars were retreating. Pike was gone but they were covering Tallullah while pulling Akala and Lalille along with them. Noley charged heedlessly after Akala, and Danny followed him. Tallies were pouring through the front and side entrances to meet the bellowing Golak attack. Several huge hunting spears were ripped from brutish hands by telekinesis as the Mad Monk pushed among them. However, he went down suddenly under a glancing blow. The massive front presented by the Golaks blocked Danny's passage. Bullets and arrows raked the huge savages, and they fell in droves, but those behind them kept coming through the broken wall of the pantheon in countless numbers. Tallullah and her friar escort were getting away with their two female captives.
"The scoutship must be out there somewhere!" thundered Bjornson. "Head them off!"
Suddenly there was an impact in the basilica as if an express train had arrived. Startled shouts rang out, and the giant Golaks bleated in terror as a ponderous blur shot past the earthmen and Tallies into the pack of savages. It was Jerry riding a chaitla.
The tiger-dragon literally ripped a path through the troglodytic mass and was gone through the gap in the back wall before a shot could be fired. The Golaks were routed. Their torn and bloodied ranks thinned out as earthmen and Tallies pushed through the last resistance and reached the jungle behind the monastery. Another reason for the G
olak panic was the presence of a number of Raks. The giant brutes were milling about among the savages, wreaking havoc in general, apparently covering Jerry's maneuvers yet dangerously disorganized, almost running amok.
Two things happened simultaneously, but only one event was of prime importance now. As Danny caught sight of a scarlet-faced cyclops carrying a familiar figure away, the roar of engines overrode the shouting and sounds of conflict.
"The ship!" yelled Hapgood.
Pike had managed to get the cumbersome scoutship into the air. When they saw the egg-shaped bomb attached to its belly, they raised their guns and opened fire, but it was too late. The convertiplane dipped away out of range, flying low over the trees, and was soon racing skyward under power of its main thruster engines.
"Good God!" shouted Bjornson as he shot a lone Golak who had charged at him from the underbrush. "Pike's heading for the fleet!"
Miracle three: Danny's transceiver was buzzing. When he switched it on he heard Boozie yelling through the intervening static.
"Danny! There's something big out here! I think the cosmo-scope got through to somebody!"
"What do you mean there's something out there? We're in trouble, Boozie!"
"That's what I mean! It looks like–"
A flying cudgel knocked the transceiver out of his hand.
A Tally crossbow took care of the Golak attacker but the communication device was shattered.
Suddenly, Danny and his men were surrounded by lancers on their unicorns, and there was Ravano, staring a blazing question. He evidently knew about the ship and the bomb. Makart came stumbling back from the jungle with Akala in his arms. Following him came Jerry, also on foot, leading Lalille by the hand. On her face was an expression of wondering amazement.
Star Quest Page 27