Return to Fanglith f-2

by John Dalmas

  Some of the customers there didn't look very savory, either. But we were bigger than any of them, and we wore shortswords, so no one bothered us. If they had, I'd have tried first to bluff our way out of it, using our stunners only if we couldn't avoid it. Hand-foot art wasn't promising. Being as big as we were, we'd hardly be attacked with less than swords, and it seemed to me that using our own swords would be suicidal. We had no training, no technique.

  In a sense, our swords were a lie, because we weren't the swordsmen they implied. But in another sense, they told a truth in a way these people could accept: We were armed and deadly, our weapons more dangerous than swords in anyone's hands. I just didn't want to use them.

  We left the city a little before the gates closed at sundown. There was also a small gate by the main west gate, no wider than an ordinary door, where we could have been let out after the big gate was closed and barred. But neither of us had any desire to see what Marseille was like after dark. Together we backtracked the same route we'd walked that morning, ending on the beach, where we took off our shoes and leggings and waded until it was starting to get dark. It was starting to cloud up, too, the thin sickle of moon low in the west adding little or no light to the evening, even when there wasn't any cloud in its way. I'd call Deneen down as soon as it was full night, then feed my recording to the computer when we were aboard.

  We'd have three days to use the learning program, and to relax on the surface in some place remote from people. Somewhere we could set the scout down and not be seen. An awful lot of Fanglith was like that.

  And that's what we did the next morning-or rather, what Deneen did. At daybreak she headed north to find the place we'd first landed, in the high mountains. But the ground in that district was buried deep in snow, so she headed westward to islands the infrascanner had charted when we'd been surveying for signs of Imperial forces.

  The island we picked was beautiful-sandy beaches, old volcanic mountains green with forest, and narrow valleys that ran down to the ocean. From the air, there was no sign of people at all, or of large animals that might be dangerous.

  The day was as beautiful, and as peaceful, as the island.

  We landed where a small stream ran into a little inlet, and Deneen got out and walked on the solid surface of a planet for the first time since that night on Evdash when she'd run up the ramp in a fury of gunfire some sixty days earlier. The sky was a towering blue vault, and there were none of the bad smells of Marseille. Nor any threat-at least nothing evident and immediate. A volcano could erupt, of course, or a comet could strike the planet, but the odds were minute. There were no swordsmen or bowmen around, and no reason to expect, say, an Imperial corvette.

  We did find the remains of a small stone hut, not a hundred feet from where we'd landed, its walls so tumbled that we didn't recognize it until we almost stumbled over it. A large and ancient tree had grown up within the square of fallen walls, hiding it from the air.

  Even so, after an initial walk on the shore of the inlet, we set a watch schedule. One of us would stay in the ship. The radio monitor was set to detect any traffic on communication bands, and it would trigger the honker if it picked up anything.

  I started out by insisting that the ship be kept closed, in case there was something dangerous we'd missed on our overflight scans. But Bubba hadn't picked up anything telepathically, either, so I backed down on that. We could even have activated an energy shield around the scout, but it would have been a needless drain on the fuel slugs.

  I assigned myself the first watch, and after a half hour on the learning program, spent the time reading a long article in one of dad's library cubes, about naval tactics on primitive field worlds. None of the worlds discussed had been as primitive as Fanglith, but it was something interesting to do.

  Then Tarel replaced me on watch. They'd hiked inland, so Deneen and I went for a walk on the beach, Bubba was hunting. He preferred his dinner fresh-caught. It was beautiful, with a light surf breaking, washing up on the sand, the forest lustrous green in the sun, the sky a deeper blue than I seemed to remember over the Entrilias Sea and Lizard Island.

  We didn't talk much for a while, just walked. I should have been enjoying it, but walking on the beach made me think of Jenoor. I let myself slide into a silent swamp of "if only," and "we should have…"

  I was aware enough, though, to know that Deneen had something on her mind, too. But I'm not much for asking personal questions unless I've got a good reason to, and besides, I was busy feeling sorry for myself. After a little bit it was Deneen who broke the silence.

  "A seething for your thoughts," she said.

  I shook my head. "No point in both of us being depressed."

  She nodded, and we kept walking, right about where the larger waves reached. The biggest washed over our feet and wiped out our tracks behind us. "You know what?" she asked after a while.

  "No. What?"

  "Tarel told me he loves me and wants to marry me."

  "When was that!?"

  "Today. While we were hiking up the stream."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him maybe someday. I do like Tarel, a lot, but I definitely don't love him. And even if I did, the level of medical services on Fanglith has got to be near zero, we aren't set up to take care of babies on the Jav, and we don't have any anti-conception drugs."

  I nodded. That was my little sister – look at the angles and avoid regrets. What would we have done if Jenoor had gotten pregnant? But we hadn't planned then to go to a planet as primitive as Fanglith. We'd expected to be on Grinder, wherever that was.

  "How'd he take it?"

  "He said he'd already seen the problems, but thought I ought to know what was going on with him."

  I walked along a little troubled. It wasn't surprising that Tarel was interested in Deneen, and he was a good guy. I hoped this wouldn't get to be a problem for anyone. We definitely didn't need complications on a planet like Fanglith.

  She broke that train of thoughts, too. "Do you know what's going on with Bubba?" she asked.

  "No. What?"

  "I don't know either. But something is. Now and then he gets absolutely glum, and that's not like him."

  "I figured the lousy food's been getting to him," I said. "It had to be tougher on a carnivore than on us. He ought to be getting over it now."

  "It's more than the food. He's got something on his mind."

  "He's worried about Lady," I suggested. "And the pups."

  "No, we talked about that, he and I. He feels they'll do okay wherever they are. And you know Bubba; he just files things like that. If you can't do something about something, don't worry about it, and he's the kind that can really make that work. "

  Why are you bringing up these things? I wondered. I just want to enjoy this place for a couple of days. But I knew that wasn't fair. I hadn't been enjoying it; I'd been wallowing around feeling pathetic. I was the captain now, I reminded myself. Everyone's problems were mine, at least to a degree, and I needed to take responsibility for my crew and how they were doing.

  We didn't talk any more about Tarel's proposal, if you could call it that. He didn't seem inclined to make a problem out of it. But she'd opened my eyes a bit by telling me.

  Tarel had been attentive to Deneen, helping when it was her turn to fix meals or wash dishes. He really was a good guy, had been ever since we'd known him. Courteous and considerate, aware and intelligent… Even reasonably good-looking. And as I said before, surprisingly strong-one of those people who seems to have been born strong. I couldn't help but wonder what Deneen might have said if he wasn't so darned serious about things. He just very seldom laughed or

  even smiled very widely.

  As for Bubba, we didn't see much of him till just before we were ready to leave. He seemed cheerful enough when he got back, but he was different from the way he'd been at home on Evdash. There wasn't the sense of openness I'd always felt from him before. It was as if he was withholding himself a little,
as if there was something he was keeping to himself. Sometimes it was really noticeable, particularly now that I was paying attention.

  Our vacation lasted three days and two nights. The third night we spent parked above Marseille again. At dawn of the fourth day, a raw, breezy, overcast morning, I was waiting at the town gate.

  Two hours later I was on one of Isaac ben Abraham's ships, heading east through a choppy sea, a following wind pushing us along. And briskly, considering how small our triangular sail was, and how blunt the ship's broad bow.

  Somehow, I felt glummer than Bubba at his glummest, as serious as Tarel. And a little seasick from the ship's pitch and roll, although I got over that pretty quickly. Tomorrow maybe it'll clear up, I thought, and we'll have sunshine. Maybe I'll feel better then.

  THIRTEEN

  The ship had been one of the larger in Marseille, all of sixty feet long. Loaded as she was, her gunwales amidships were only about four feet above the water. The full length was decked. Below deck there were dozens of bales of what they call "wool" on Fanglith- the curly and remarkably thick hair of an animal called "sheep." One of the other passengers told me the fur is cut off the sheep's entire body, right down to the skin, and grows back to be recut the next year. The hairs are so tangled together that when they cut them off, they hang together in a mat.

  Below deck were also thousands of ingots of copper, silver, and lead-especially lead-which were mainly what made the ship ride so low in the water. Besides the cargo of wool and ingots, there were nine passengers, all men. We slept on the bales of wool below deck and ate the same food as the ship's crew.

  Before long I was sharing my clothes again with minute biting insects, called lice and fleas, that seem to be ever-present pests on Fanglith.

  The next day was nicer-clear, though still chilly- the wind continuing from the west. For a while, a school of very large fish swam alongside us, more or less in formation. Their smooth-looking gray bodies moved along in a series of arcs, curving clear of the water and then back in. The sailors called them porpoises.

  In late afternoon we saw a headland to the southeast, a high ridge. One of the passengers told me it was the north end of a large island named Corsica, which the Saracens had once held but had been driven from years before. Before dark we'd rounded it and were heading south, more slowly now, with the wind and the island on our right. With the wind from the side we not only went slower, we also roiled heavily, and for a while I felt a little seasick again.

  At dawn the next day we were out of sight of land once more. The wind had eased quite a lot, but was still from the west, arid our progress was slower yet. I spent a lot of the day asking questions of the other passengers, secretly recording our talks, but I got tired of that after a while and went below deck to kill time napping.

  I was wakened by loud, excited talk. A pirate ship had been spotted, and I followed other passengers up onto the deck to see what it looked like. Head on, I couldn't see how long it was, but even seeing it from a distance it seemed to be more slender, and probably rode less deeply in the water. It had a sail, triangular like ours, and I thought I could make out oars hurrying it along. Our captain had turned us to run ahead of the light wind, but after watching for a while it was obvious that the pirate ship was gaining on us.

  I was standing by the rail beside a merchant passenger who'd been to sea a lot. "How can you tell they're pirates?" I asked him.

  He looked at me as if I was dense. "Because they're using oars. Only warships and pirates use oars. And because, by their lines, they're Saracens. Plus, they changed course toward us as soon as they saw us."

  "What happens if they catch us?" I asked.

  "They board us." He drew a shortsword and tested its blade grimly with a thumb. "And it's not if, it's when. Our only chance is that some warship, Pisan or Genoese, will show up. Don't hold your breath."

  "What happens when they catch us?"

  "We fight until either they kill us all or we surrender. Any of us taken alive will be held for ransom or made slaves. If you have no one to ransom you, you'll do well to die fighting."

  "How much is the ransom?"

  He looked me over, appraising my clothes. "More than you have," he said sourly, and turned away to watch the pirate ship again.

  I watched, too-long enough to estimate that we had less than an hour, maybe half an hour, before they caught us. The sun was already down, the light beginning to fade a bit. If we could stay ahead of them long enough, I thought, maybe we could hide in the darkness. But no. I scanned the sky and there was the moon, half full now, pale in the early evening. The way they were closing the gap, they'd be close enough to see us by moonlight if they hadn't actually caught us before dark.

  Of course, I could always use my blast pistol. I couldn't imagine them trying to board us after I'd fired a few charges into them. But that would make me a lot more conspicuous than I was ready to be-or rather, the wrong kind of conspicuous. Which didn't leave much for me to do but call in my one-ship space fleet, the biggest in the system.

  I went down the stern ladder below deck again, among the ingots. Three of the passengers were down there, sitting near the ladder, talking quietly. I passed them and sat down amidships.

  They were watching me now, the strange foreigner with all the dumb questions, so when I put the remote in my ear, I made it look as if I was scratching. Fanglithans do a lot of that. Then I took my communicator off the belt inside my cape, palming it, and when I took it out, I pretended to raise my crucifix with the same hand and kiss it.

  "Jav, this is Larn," I murmured in Evdashian. "Jav, this is Larn. Come in please. Over."

  "Larn, this is the Javelin," It was Deneen's voice in my ear, also in Evdashian. "There seems to be a bogey chasing you. He's gaining on you. Over."

  "Right," I answered. "They're pirates. I don't want to shoot them up myself if I can help it; I'm not ready for that kind of publicity. So here's what I want you to do. If we can stay ahead of them till it's pretty much dark, I'd like you guys to sink them with your heavy blaster. Got that?"

  "Sure. If you can stay ahead of them till it's pretty much dark, we're to sink them with our number one blaster. What if they catch you while it's still fairly light? Are you going to take care of them yourself then, or do we step in?"

  Apparently the three passengers watching me could hear me faintly. Two of them crossed themselves and began to pray. They probably assumed that praying was what I was doing, and decided it was a good idea.

  "I'm not sure yet," I answered. "I'll have to play it by ear. I'm going back up on deck in a minute to watch, but meanwhile, as it stands now, I don't want you to shoot them up till it's too dark for anyone down here to see what's doing the shooting. It's all right if they see something up there, but not what the something is. Got that?"

  "Got it. Why don't you just call and tell us when to start?"

  An idea had been just out of sight, nudging my mind. Now I saw it. "Good idea. I'll call you in Provencal. And listen…"

  When I finished explaining what I had in mind, I put my communicator back inside my cape and went up on deck. The other three had watched me the whole time, so I crossed myself before I left, and nodded at them soberly as I went to the ladder.

  The pirate ship had gained quite a bit on us, and the evening seemed hardly any darker than when I'd gone below. It didn't look as if we'd stay ahead of them long enough. Besides which, there was no safety or hope ahead of us that I could see, and it occurred to me that our captain might decide to turn back and fight-get it over with.

  So I went to him. He was manning the heavy steering oar himself, his eyes sternward toward the pirates. "Captain," I said, "I've been praying to the Angel Deneen. She told me that if we stay ahead of the Saracens till darkness, they'll be destroyed with fire from heaven."

  His eyes narrowed. I wasn't sure what he was thinking. "Can we?" I asked. "Stay ahead of them till dark?"

  "It is in the hands of God," he said after a few seconds.
>
  "Good," I told him. "We must leave it there, in the hands of God, and not defy him by turning to fight, for he will surely save us."

  The captain scowled without saying anything more to me, as if he thought I was crazy. I leaned against the rail to watch the pirates gaining on us.

  After a few minutes it seemed to me they weren't gaining on us as fast as they had been. I suppose their oarsmen were getting tired. And the light was noticeably less, though it was still more like daylight than night. Maybe it would get dark before they caught us.

  "Larn."

  It was the remote I'd left in my ear.

  "There are more than forty pirates, not counting the guys who are rowing. And they look really tough. If you change your mind about when, we're ready to put them out of commission."

  I didn't take out my communicator and answer her; it wasn't the time or place for that. She'd liave to assume I got it. But I nodded anyway, in case they had me in the viewer under magnification.

  There were eleven in our crew, and ten passengers including myself, just about all of us on deck now. Several had shortswords already in hand, but I doubt that any one of them would really qualify as a warrior. Gradually the distance shrank between the pirates and ourselves, and gradually it got darker. It began to look as if it might get dark soon enough after all. And looking upward I could see the scout; it had come down to maybe four or five hundred yards and was barely visible against the darkening sky. You had to look for it-know it was up there-to see it.

  The pirate ship was only about two hundred feet behind us. I stepped away from the rail a little and took out my palmed communicator, raising it as if I was lifting up my crucifix. Then I bellowed out as loudly as I could: "Don't be afraid! The Angel Deneen will save us! She has promised!"

  Just about everyone on the ship looked at me. None of them looked actually scornful; stories about divine intervention were common on Fanglith. But none of them looked very convinced, either. And the pirate ship came on. After another couple of minutes I looked up again. I could sort of make out the Jav; she was maybe two hundred yards up now, and the pirates not more than eighty or a hundred feet behind. I switched on my communicator. "Angel Deneen!" I shouted. "Save us from the Saracens!"