“Neither he nor the captain seem to need much.” Ayrlyn yawned.
“Where’s the captain?”
“In number two with Merrin, sorting through the grow-paks,” answered the engineer, returning with a full bucket of water. “She wants to get started on laying out fields and planting.”
“We’ve been down less than an eight-day, and she wants us to be field hands?” asked Saryn.
“What about Gerlich? Where’s he gone?” inquired Ayrlyn.
“He’s got the one bow and the arrows-out hunting. He claims there’s something like a wild boar out there.” Nylan gave a short laugh.
Saryn shook her head.
The captain and the junior officer emerged from the shell of lander two and walked toward the fire. Mertin ducked to avoid the line of smoke that seemed almost to seek his face.
From lander four emerged Fierral. The red-haired marine commander and the two ships’ officers converged on the fire, stopping well back.
“Why the fire?” asked Fierral. “We’ve still got firm cells.”
“Cooking. We’re saving the cells for things we can’t duplicate locally,” answered Ryba.
“Such as?”
Two more marines eased up toward the fire.
“Powering the combat laser, if we need to.” Ryba adjusted the makeshift hairband to keep the short and thick black hair totally away from her face.
Nylan emptied half the water into the kettle and swung it out over the fire on the makeshift crane. He frowned as he set aside the bucket.
“You don’t approve, Ser Engineer?”
“I hope we can avoid that. The combat laser gobbles power. The more power we can use for constructive purposes the better.”
“I take it you have some ideas?”
Nylan stood. “I’ve been studying the geology. There’s something that looks like black marble, except it’s not. It’s tougher, but it’s not as hard as granite, and I hope it cuts more easily-with a laser.”
“Houses?” asked Saryn.
The silver-haired man shook his head. “A tower, something like that. It makes more sense. That’s what I staked out-good solid footings there.”
“How long ‘fore we start building something, ser?” asked one of the younger marines standing behind Ayrlyn.
“That’s not the first priority,” snapped Ryba. “The lander shells are fine for now. What we need to get in the ground is food. We also need to survey the forest and the meadow here to see what’s likely to be edible, while we still have the analyzer and some power.”
Nylan nodded.
“And… we’ll still need timber of some sort to roof, floor, and brace the engineer’s tower.”
“We might not need planks except for flooring and bracing,” Nylan volunteered. “There’s a dark gray slate that splits into sheets pretty easily.”
“Good… I think.”
“What’s in the emergency grow-paks?” Saryn leaned back on the flat stone, stretching out the leg with the cast.
“Maize, although I don’t know about whether the stream will supply enough water… potatoes that ought to do well in a cold climate, some high-protein beans.”
“Get the potatoes in first,” suggested Nylan.
“Potatoes?” asked Mertin, stepping up beside Ryba.
“They grow just about anywhere, and we could exist on them with only a few supplements. The ground seems all right.” The engineer poured the rest of the water from the bucket into the pot. “They keep better than some of the other plants, although you could dry and grind the maize into a flour, I think.”
“Seems?” asked Saryn.
Nylan shrugged. “It might take generations to determine if all the trace elements are there, but I’d bet they are.”
Ryba looked at him.
“If it’s not perfectly planoformed, it’s a natural duplicate of a hot humanoid world. It feels right.”
“Are we going to rely on feel?”
“We’d better figure out something to rely on besides high technology that won’t be around much longer.”
“Feel…” Ryba frowned. “Let’s finish eating and get to work on those fields. The growing season can’t be very long here. Once we get everything we can planted, then we’ll worry about game and timber and longer-range priorities.”
Fierral nodded, stiffly, like the marine force leader she remained.
Saryn straightened on the rock where she sat and winced.
Nylan glanced uphill across the starflower-strewn grass and bushes-and rocks-to the staked outline of the foundations of what he hoped would be a tower… if they could get to it. If the locals didn’t show up in force first… If… He clamped his lips together, ignoring the sidelong look from Ryba.
VIII
THE EARLY-MORNING sun glared out of the blue-green sky and bathed the sloping meadow, and the figures who toiled there, glinting off the few exposed metal sections of the lander shells and off the small spring that fed the stream.
Ryba stood above it all, on the top of the rocky ledges above the dampness of the meadows in the wind that blew steadily from the northwest. With her stood Fierral and two marines. All four looked to the northeast, down the rocky ridge line.
“There… you can see them, at the base of the ridge there. It’s almost as good as a road.” Fierral pointed. “They’re pretty clearly headed here. And there are a lot of them.”
“I’d expected a little more time before anyone found us. I wonder how they knew.” Ryba frowned, then shrugged. “I suppose that’s not the issue now.”
“What do you want us to do?” asked the blue-eyed force leader.
“Act innocent. Keep the sentries in place and use the mirrors to signal me when they get close. Position the rifles there in the rocks where you can sweep them if you have to. Try not to use them until you really have to. I’d rather save the ammunition. Make sure the rest of the marines have their sidearms with them. We only have the pair of rifles?”
“Just the two,” Fierral affirmed.
“Give one to each of your best snipers-besides you- and put one where you are and the other on the far end of that downhill clump of rocks.”
“Not a bad cross fire.” The force leader nodded.
“Then set up the rest of the marines where they can take cover quickly if they have to. They might have archers or something.”
“I didn’t see anything like that through the glasses,” Fierral said slowly. “You don’t think they’re peaceful?”
“With more than fifty horses in a primitive culture? That’s the equivalent of a half-dozen mirror towers.” Ryba snorted. “No… they’re not peaceful, but we’ll pretend they are, and I’m betting they’ll be trying for the same impression, too.”
Fierral raised her eyebrows, just as flaming red as her hair, but said nothing and waited for Ryba to explain.
“It’s simple. The way the approach runs here, you have to come up the ridge, and that’s exposed. Nylan was right. It’s a good spot for a tower-or a castle. The rocks behind there are too sharp to bring horses through, and too steep. So”-Ryba shrugged again-“without modern weapons, it would be hard to take. But first we have to survive to build it. Anyway, they’ll pretend to come in peace, unless we attack first, just to get close, and they think we’ll be drawn in.”
“Men,” laughed Fierral.
“They may be transparent, squad leader, but they’re still dangerous.” Ryba turned. “The engineer will be doing the prep work for his tower, and I’ll keep a handful busy with the ditching. We might as well do something while we’re waiting. It will be a while. They’ll walk the horses up here so that they’re fresh for the battle they’re pretending they don’t want. Try not to kill the horses. We’ll need them.”
“Besides you, who can ride?” asked Fierral.
“You’ll all have to learn, sooner or later. This way, we won’t have to buy mounts.”
The other two marines looked from the hard face of their squad leader to the harder
face of the captain.
IX
“LORD NESSIL, THE ang-the strangers are just over the rise, not more than twenty rods beyond the tips of the gray rocks.” The armsman in brown leathers keeps his voice low and looks up to the hatchet-faced man in the heavy purple cloak. Blotches of moisture have soaked through the armsman’s leather trousers, and green smears attest to his crawling through underbrush and grass.
Lord Nessil brushes back a long lock of silver and black hair, then smiles. “Are they as attractive as the screeing glass shows?”
“Pardoning Your Grace, but I wasn’t looking at them that way.” The armsman’s eyes flicker to his right as another trooper leads his horse back to him. “They don’t seem bothered by the chill. They wear light garments, like they were in Lydiar in midsummer, but I wasn’t looking beyond the clothes, more for blades, and only the black-haired wench bears one. A pair she has.”
“A pair of what?” asks Nessil.
Lettar looks down at the grass.
“For that, Lettar, you shall have one to enjoy.” Nessil laughs softly. “Women warriors, and only one has a blade. I shall enjoy this.” He turns toward the wizard in white. “What do your arts show, Wizard?”
“There are less than a score that I can scree there, eighteen in all, and but three men. They bear some strange devices that radiate some small measure of order, and others that bear some measure of chaos. They have set up a spindly windmill that will be ripped apart in the first good wind.” Hissl inclines his head.
“What would you have us do, Wizard?”
“I would like your men to preserve their devices. We might learn something from them. I cannot advise Your Grace on tactics, My Lord. You are the warrior. I can but say that they are likely to be more formidable than they appear. I cannot tell you why.”
Nessil laughs again, still softly, but more harshly. “You caution me that they could be formidable, but not why. Thus, if I succeed in capturing them all, I will be pleased.” His face darkens. “If I fail, you may claim you warned me. Wizard’s double words! Ride beside me, Ser Wizard.”
“Pardoning Your Grace, but what shall we do? Ride down on them?” asks Lettar.
“No. We will be civilized. We will ride up and demand their surrender for trespass. That way, we might get them all. We do outnumber them more than three to one.” Nessil looks at Hissl. “And we get the wizard close enough to use his firebolts if need be.”
“What about the men?”
“If they resist, kill them. If not, we can always use them somewhere. Try to save as many of the women as you can. I’ve never had a silver-haired wench-or one with fire-red hair.” Nessil offers a boyish grin and looks along the line of threescore mounted troopers. “Shall we make our appearance? Bring out the banners. After all, we do come in peace, one way or another.”
Hissl’s eyes glaze slightly, as if he is no longer quite within his body.
Then the horsemen ride toward the low rise, over which looms the ice-needle peak that dominates the Roof of the World. The banners flap in the brisk wind that blows out of the north and spins the windmill beyond the crest of the hill.
The starflowers left in the meadow on the far side of the ridge-those that have not been destroyed by the cultivation or wilted as their season has passed-bend in the wind.
X
ABOVE THE PLOT where Gerlich and several marines half toiled at ditch-digging, partly sheltered by a line of boulders, Nylan studied the laser, and the array of firin cells in the portable rack. He mumbled and made another adjustment to the powerhead on the laser.
“Why don’t you just try it, ser?” asked the stocky blond marine behind him.
“Because, Huldran, we can only replace a fraction of the power.”
“What about the emergency generator?” Huldran nodded her head toward the man-sized but flimsy-looking windmill set near the crest of the hill. Beneath it was a small array of solar cells. Both the cells and the generator fed through a converter into a single firin cell.
Nylan laughed. “The laser uses more energy in a few units than the generator supplies in a day.” After another readjustment to the powerhead, he straightened and wiped his sweating forehead. “It gets hot here in the day.”
“Yes, ser.” Huldran wiped away the sweat from her fair-skinned forehead.
“I heard that, Ser Engineer,” said Gerlich from the plot. “It’s frigging hot here. It would have been hard to try to live any lower. I’ll bet those lowlands are like the demons’ hell.” The shirtsleeved Gerlich blotted his brow and handed the makeshift spade to one of the marines. “Your turn.”
“Yes, ser.” The dark-haired marine took the shovel and continued digging the ditch that would divert stream water through the plot. Her eyes continued to scan the rise to the north as she slowly dug.
Three other marines grubbed at the ground with makeshift implements resembling hoes to clear away the mixture of what appeared to be grass and a high-altitude clover bearing occasional reddish blooms. Their eyes occasionally darted toward the top of the ridge or toward one of the rock formations. The shortest marine wiped her forehead, her hand unconsciously touching the slug-thrower at her belt.
“How long do we have to play at being innocent would-be peasants, anyway?” asked Gerlich.
“Until our visitors arrive,” responded Ryba from the end of the small plot. “In any case, you’ve proved you can toil with the best, Gerlich.” She motioned to the former weapons officer. “You can even bring in game with a bow-even dangerous game.” Her eyes flicked to the rack where another marine had stretched out the hide of what appeared to be a cougar and studied a small manual. “No one knows what to do with the hide. What do you know about making bows and arrows?”
“Not much. I use them. Others make them.”
“We’re all going to have to do some making here.”
Gerlich smiled lazily and shrugged.
Ryba’s hand flicked, and, as if by magic, the tip of one of the steel blades appeared at the brown-haired man’s throat. Her eyes met his, as they stood there, the captain almost equal in height to the husky weapons officer, and in breadth of shoulders.
Gerlich swallowed.
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m not only captain, but I’m tougher than you are-and so are most of the marines, in case you get any ideas.” Ryba’s blade vanished back into the scabbard. “Now… do you want to try to figure out how to make something useful?”
“You’ve made it clear I have little choice.”
“None of us do, not if we’re going to survive. I intend to make sure that we all do.”
A light flashed across Ryba’s face, and she squinted, then turned toward the sentry up in the rocks. After a moment, she called, “Ready! Stand by for visitors.”
“Ready, Captain,” responded Fierral, squaring her broad shoulders.
To the north of the plot, but to the right of the rockier ground where Nylan’s crude stakes marked the tower that might never be built, Saryn sat in the shade of a boulder and used one of the three survival knives to pare down a fir limb into the shaft of what would be another shovel. At Ryba’s command, she eased her own slug-thrower out of the holster and onto the flat rock. She stopped peeling and carving, but still held the knife loosely.
Beyond her, still partly sheltered by a line of boulders, Nylan made yet another adjustment to the powerhead on the laser. He straightened, then frowned as he both heard Ryba’s command, and somehow felt the presence of horsemen beyond the ridge.
Was it just his imagination?
Ryba walked uphill toward the rocks until she was less than a dozen paces from where Saryn and Nylan worked. “Company’s about to arrive.”
“Wonderful…” mumbled Nylan. “We’re barely planet-side an eight-day, and someone has decided to start a fight. Humans are such peaceful creatures.”
“We’re angels,” hissed the dark-haired Saryn.
“Same same,” muttered the engineer back.
“High Command wou
ld have your head for that,” pointed ‘ out the second pilot.
“We’ll never see High Command again.”
Saryn shivered.
“Keep your slug-throwers ready,” added Ryba. “Aim for the body.”
The ground vibrated slightly as the horsemen crossed the top of the ridge. In the van were two young men bearing purple banners, followed by a man in a purple cloak thrown back to reveal an iron breastplate and a large hand - and - a - half sword worn in a shoulder harness.
Ryba reached for the slug-thrower at her hip.
“That won’t do much,” observed Nylan. “They’ll just think it’s magic of some sort. I suspect that they only recognize blades and arrows as weapons.”
“I don’t care what they call it. We have to stop them.”
“Will it hurt to talk?” Nylan asked. “They look too like us not to be human.”
“I suppose not, but if they’re really human, they’re here to fight.” Ryba’s eyes flicked toward the ridge where the head marine stood. The snipers remained hidden. “Fierral has her troops ready to gun down the whole mass of them if I give the order.”
“All of them?”
“If necessary.” Ryba’s face was hard. “People don’t like facing the unknown. If they’re hostile, I’d rather have them all disappear. We could plead ignorance in the future. It’s hard to plead ignorance when there are witnesses.”
The three studied the riders as the horsemen rode down toward the angel encampment. Beside the purple-clad leader rode a man cloaked totally in white, and Nylan could even feel a sense of whiteness, tinged with red, emanating from the man, who was the only one not carrying visible weapons. That lack of weapons bothered the engineer.
“Watch out for the one in white,” he said quietly as his hand drifted to the standard-issue sidearm that he had never used against the demons of light or their mirror towers.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ryba kept her broad shoulders square as she stepped forward and somewhat away from the rocks.
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