“So you decided to become a mertzer.”
She shrugged diffidently. “Sure. Why not. I was lucky and managed to get signed on. Beats walking to all these damn villages. And by the time anyone checks their life savings, we’re all long gone.”
Daenek shook his head. This wasn’t turning out the way he had planned. But, he admitted to himself, at least I’m not alone now. As strange and mercenary as this girl is . . . “All right,” he said. “If we find money as well, then you’re entitled to it.”
Rennie grinned. “Just my share. And maybe a little more.”
“Now when we get to the Capitol—”
“Wait a minute. You’ve got problems to take care of before you start planning that, you know. Like staying alive, and undiscovered, long enough to get there.”
He started at her blankly.
“Look,” she said patiently. “We probably don’t have to worry about that subthane and his bunch any more. They’re too fuddled up to accomplish anything more, and they’re sure not going to report to the Regent that they lost you. But what about the sociologists?”
“All right, what about them?”
“There was one on board here the day before you got picked up. Just asking the usual dumb questions. But still, I’ve got my suspicions about those creeps. They pop up everywhere and they’re always writing everything down. I really wonder what would happen if one of them saw you and recognized you. Or even some oldtimer on board or in the villages—what if you’ve got enough of your father’s face in your own to make ’em guess who you are? Somebody might think it worth while to let somebody else know—like the Regent. No, we’ve got to make sure nobody does find out who you really are.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” said Daenek.
She leaned back against the metal column. “The caravan just left the Capitol a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s heading for the mertzers’ home village. Then, after they rest up and visit their families for about six months, the convoy will start on its route through the villages again—”
“Hey,” broke in Daenek. “That means it’s going to be another two years before we reach the Capitol!”
“Didn’t you know?” She looked at him in surprise.
Daenek’s shoulders drooped as he sat on the box. “That’s a long time,” he said after a moment.
“Best thing,” said Rennie. “Gives you a better chance to get forgotten about. Anyway, when the caravan gets to the mertzers’ village, we can hike over to the busker village—it’ll only take a couple of days. None of the mertzers will miss us while we’re gone.”
“What’s the point of going there?”
“You’ll see,” she said. She replaced the seeklight and the gold pieces back in her pockets, then picked up the pack of cards.
“Why don’t you go check those gauges again, while I deal a couple hands?”
“We’ve got a long shift ahead of us.”
Chapter XI
“What’s that?” Daenek sat up in bed and looked around the darkened room. He scraped a crust from the corner of one eye as he tilted his head, straining to hear whatever noise had awoken him.
“Hey.” He rapped on the screen dividing the little room in half. “Hey, Rennie. Did you hear something?”
Muttered grumbling, then the sound of her turning heavily onto her other side. “For god’s sake,” she said disgustedly. “Go back to sleep. The engines shut off, is all.”
That was it. Daenek touched the wall behind him and realized that it was the sudden stopping of the vibration that he had become so used to, that had startled him from sleep. The engines’ constant noise permeated everything, became as much a part of one as the sound of one’s own breathing. And now that noise wasn’t there.
Wait a minute, thought Daenek. He scratched his chin, carefully nursing himself back into full consciousness. We’re still a week away from the mertzer village. So if the engines aren’t running right now, it’s because they can’t. Something must have gone wrong.
He rapped on the screen again. “Hey. Rennie. We’d better get down to the engine room.”
A groan answered him. “What for? We just finished our shift a couple of hours ago.”
“Come on.” The engines are stopped. It’s an emergency.”
“Let ’em fix it themselves.”
Daenek gave up and set about retrieving his scattered clothing on the floor. When he was dressed, he strode across the room and slammed the door after himself as loudly as he could.
On the caravan’s deck it was bright daylight. Daenek winced and shaded his eyes with one hand as he headed along the main walkway.
“Daenek,” a voice called from above. “Hey, what’s up?”
He looked overhead and saw one of the young cargo-handlers, named Mullon, perched on a strut of one of the cranes. The youth’s beard-stubbled face grinned down at him.
“Beats me,” Daenek called up to him. “I just woke up.”
“Well, at least it didn’t sound like anything exploded down there.”
“That’s good, I suppose.”
Mullon’s grin grew wider. “Maybe it’s just waiting ’til you get there.”
“Thanks.” Daenek resumed his way towards the stairwell that descended to the caravan’s bottom levels. The entire crew of mechanics was assembled in the engine room; waiting while the head mechanic stood talking into the ’phone mounted on the wall. A couple of the men nodded at Daenek as he emerged into the crowded space from the forest of grease-covered machinery.
Benter hung up the ’phone and turned around to face the men. “I told the captain we could fix it ourselves,” he announced.
“He’s sending the other caravans on to the village, instead of having them wait for us.”
Daenek waited and listened as the head mechanic divided the men into groups of three and four, detailing what had to be done. In a few minutes, Daenek found himself following one of the groups into the dark recesses on the other side of the illuminated open space.
“Hey,” he said, “what happened, anyway?”
“One of the damn torque shafts ripped loose,” answered one of the men. “It’s got to be bolted into place, and then splined in with the rest.”
He didn’t bother asking for any further explanation. The nature of a torque shaft was no more mysterious to him than everything else with which the mechanics concerned themselves.
A metal ladder dangled precariously through a circular hatchway in the floor. It creaked with Daenek’s weight as he descended after the others, finally emerging onto a small metal grid that hung by struts from the bottom of the caravan.
Several meters away, towards the rear of the caravan, he could see daylight. The view to the sides was blocked by the innermost of the gigantic treads. Other groups of mechanics were visible, working from similar metal platforms that hung suspended from the caravan’s enormous metal belly.
That must be it, thought Daenek. A long shaft, thicker than a man’s height, dangled from one end into the dirt of the roadway below. Its loose end had dug a trench a couple of meters deep into the rocky soil before the caravan had come to a halt.
Another group of mechanics was busy fastening to the shaft a chain that lowered from a winch on a platform above them.
“Look here.” One of the mechanics on the platform with Daenek crooked a finger at him. “This here is one of the auxiliaries,” the mechanic said, tapping a much smaller shaft that ran alongside their heads. “It’s got to be loosened so that the main shaft can be re-splined. Think you can hold it up at this end while we work the other?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He started to ask how heavy it was, then stopped himself. Putting his hands in position underneath it, he waited until the other mechanics finished unbolting the shaft’s flanged end from its connections, then carefully eased its weight onto his shoulder.
“Got it?” Without waiting for an answer from him, the other mechanics headed single-file down a narrow suspended catwalk towards another
platform further on beneath the caravan.
The shaft soon grew heavy upon his shoulder. His palms began to sweat, the skin itching against the rough-cast metal surface. He could feel the vibrations travelling to him from where the other mechanics were working on the shaft’s other end.
“You sure look stupid holding that thing.”
Daenek strained to get a glimpse over his shoulder of whomever had spoken. It was Rennie, with an expression of amused contempt on her face.
“What are you doing here?” He lifted the shaft a little off his shoulder, bearing the- weight in his hands for a moment.
“Couldn’t sleep after all. Too quiet.” She stood on the edge of the metal platform with her back to him, gazing out at the other scattered groups of mechanics working. Sliding her hands into her hip pockets, she rocked back nonchalantly on her heels.
“Thought I’d come down here and see what was going on.”
“You want to give me a hand with this?”
She turned her head around and cooly eyed Daenek and the shaft. “Not particularly,” she said.
Daenek was about to say something in reply when he heard a distant voice, one of the mechanics, yelling something at them.
At the same moment the shaft lurched heavily out of his grasp.
The end he was holding jerked up into the air as the far end came loose from the other men and fell towards the ground.
“Look out!” he heard one of the men yell again.
The shaft’s end stopped and then gracefully, as though the air had thickened and slowed its motion, fell to the platform. It sped into a blur and struck between Daenek and Rennie, the vibration from the blow knocking them from their feet. Daenek held himself upright by grabbing one of the metal struts by which the platform hung, but he saw Rennie land jarringly upon her knees and hands. With a small noise, two of the struts opposite Daenek gave way and the platform tilted beneath his feet. He held on to the one strut but both Rennie and the shaft end slid away and fell out of sight.
Leaning out over the uptilted edge of the platform, he spotted her below. She had fallen only a few meters on her back in the crevice between two of the massive tractor tread plates. The impact had dazed her momentarily—her hands pushed feebly at the metal surfaces pressing against her on either side.
Then Daenek saw the shaft. It hadn’t fallen to the ground—the one end had landed against the tread plates as well. But now the shaft was sliding diagonally across the vertical ends of the plates, pivotting on the other end that had plunged into the roadway, as it continued its fall to the ground below. As the shaft’s speed increased, it would smash right into Rennie’s head, dangling into air from the crevice between the plates.
Daenek hesitated only a second before swinging himself over the edge of the swaying metal platform. He lowered himself by his hands into space and then dropped the rest of the way onto the tread plates. His legs went out from under him when he landed on the smooth metal surface. He regained his footing just as he saw the shaft, moving very fast now, slide across the end of the last tread plate before the space where Rennie was outstretched. Diving full-length onto his side, he caught the shaft in his hands, slowing it for a moment. Rennie, only semi-conscious, moaned beneath him as he bridged the span over her torso.
The shaft’s weight began to push him backwards. There was nothing on the tread plate’s wide surface for him to catch onto.
He tried to get his hands between the shaft and the end of the plate on the other side of Rennie, with the idea of pushing it away and out into the open space below the caravan. Instead, his fingers were caught painfully, the skin tearing against the plate’s sharp edge as he struggled vainly to push at the shaft without leverage. Another few inches of the shaft’s downward travel and the slight drag caused by his hands would be lost as it swung through the empty space between the treads and into Rennie’s skull. His eyelids squeezed tight with the pain grating across his fingers.
Suddenly he heard feet running across the plates. The pressure on his hands lifted. Other hands caught him below the arms and lifted him away from the space between the plates. The shaft fell in a blurring arc to the ground as another pair of mechanics pulled Rennie’s limp, but intact, form out of the crevice.
“You all right?” asked the mechanic who had pulled Daenek upright. “You’d better get those bandaged.”
Daenek nodded, looking dumbly at the torn skin of his fingers.
“Get your hands off me!” It was Rennie’s voice, raised in petulant anger. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
Turning his head, Daenek saw her shaking off the two mechanics who had pulled her from between the tread plates.
Her face flushed with annoyance, she stalked away from them, heading for one of the metal ladders that led up into the caravan.
“Here,” said one of the mechanics, handing Daenek a rag with only a few grease spots. “Wrap your hands in this until you get to the infirmary.” He turned back to the others. “Come on, let’s get going. We’ve got more work now than before.”
The orderly who bandaged his hands was the one who had been the first person Daenek had ever seen aboard the caravan.
When he was done, Daenek headed back to his sleeping quarters.
Can’t do any work like this, anyway, he reasoned, examining the wrappings on his fingers.
Rennie was waiting for him inside the room. She still looked irritated as she sat on the edge of the bed. “That was a dumb thing to do,” she snapped.
“What was?” asked Daenek, closing the door behind himself.
“Rescuing me. Like you were some big hero. If you’d played it smart and done nothing, you’d have been rid of the only person who knew you weren’t really what you said.”
Daenek laid down on his bed. “Sorry,” he said, feeling increasingly tired. “Just lost my head, I guess.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “God, I hate it when people do stuff like that without any good reasons. It gives me the creeps. I just can’t figure it out.”
“If you’d get knocked off,” said Daenek drowsily, “I’d have never found out what it is you’re planning to do for me. Going to the busker village and all.”
“That’s not smart enough.” She reached behind herself to the switch on the wall and flicked off the room light.
He held his bandaged hands up to his face in the darkness.
Sometimes, he told himself, I’ve just got to laugh at all this—
Chapter XII
It felt good to be walking on the land again, after the weeks on board the caravan. The mertzer village was far behind Daenek and Rennie. The men had been too busy greeting their wives and children, including the babies born during their absence, to take much notice of their two newest members heading out into the open countryside beyond the village.
The sun was just setting when the two of them came within view of the busker village. Daenek could see a few dim lights come on in the windows of the buildings clustered near a sluggish river. He and Rennie hitched their packs higher upon their shoulders and hurried their footsteps along the river’s sandy bank.
“Are you glad to see it again?” said Daenek.
“This dump?” A corner of Rennie’s mouth curled. “Naw, I never cared very much for it.” She lowered her head and trudged on in stony silence.
When they reached the outskirts of the village, Rennie stopped in front of one of the squat wooden buildings. The windows were unlit. “Wait up,” she told Daenek, then stepped to the door and pounded on it. She waited a few seconds, then struck it again with her fist, but no answer came.
“Come on,” she said, rejoining Daenek, “well go ask at the inn.”
Daenek followed her to the village’s central building, an inn two stories high with its windows spilling yellow lamplight into the darkness. Inside, Rennie pushed through the knots of buskers, men and women, with Daenek trailing in her wake. She turned once and saw him studying the drinking, goss
ipping crowd—he had learned their language from her while on board the caravan. “Yeah,” she said over her shoulder with a thin smile, “just like real people.”
She stopped at the side of a table near one of the side walls. A fat man wearing an apron splotched with grease and beer, looked up at her from his conversation.
“Gerd,” said Rennie, “how’s it going? What’s the news around here?”
“Right bad,” wheezed the fat innkeeper. “The bad priests creeping about everywhere. Seems like a new one near every week.”
“So what are you doing about ’em? Don’t tell me anybody’s grown brave enough to hunt one down.”
“Huh.” The man’s jowls mottled in indignation. “Right cowardly maybe, but not stupid at least. We just don’t go wandering about in the hills when there’s one about, and after a while it goes away like its others. As though they had just been passing through all along.”
Rennie smiled and leaned down closer to the innkeeper.
“Hey,” she said, “where can I find Uncle Goforth?”
The fat man grunted. “Cost you.”
“Bull.” But she rolled a small coin across the table to his waiting hand.
“He moved out of his shack.” The fat man dropped the coin into an apron pocket. “I gave him a room upstairs. End of the hall.”
Without saying anything more, Rennie turned away from the table and headed for a sagging stairway in the back of the inn.
Daenek followed her through the crowd.
Upstairs, a low-ceilinged hallway was lit only by a candle guttering in a bracket on the wall. The bare planks of the floor creaked under their steps. Most of the doors they passed were silent but from behind a few came voices or the sound of laughter. Rennie pushed open the last door without knocking.
“Uncle Goforth?” she called.
Daenek stepped behind her into the small room, lit only by the candlelight from the hallway. The room’s windows were shuttered tight.
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