Mayday Orbit

by Poul Anderson

  She blinked incomprehension and plunged on: “I heard today that a Terran envoy was landed. I thought, perhaps, he came on a hint of what Oleg Yesukai readies against the Mother of Men. Or if he does not know, he must be told! I found out what woman would be lent to him, and arranged that I myself should be substituted. Ask me not how I did that! In the past year I have wormed secrets out of more than one harem guard and thus gotten power over him. Oleg is a fool to believe it suffices to load them with antisex hormone on such a tour of duty. I have the right. No method is dishonorable for me. Oleg Khan is my enemy and the enemy of my dead father. All means of revenge on him are lawful. But worse, Holy Terra lies in danger. Listen, Terra man . . .”

  Flandry awoke. For those few seconds, the situation had been so fantastic that he was paralyzed. Like a character in a bad stereodrama, employing a girl (it would be a girl, too, and not simply a disgruntled man!) who babbled her autobiography as prologue to some improbable revelation. Now suddenly he understood that this was real: that melodrama does happen once in a while. And if he got caught playing the hero, any role except comic relief, he was dead.

  He drew himself erect, fended Bourtai off, and said in haste: “My dear young lady, I have not the slightest competence in these matters. Furthermore, I’ve heard far more plausible stories from far too many colonial girls hoping for a free ride to Terra. Which, I assure you, is actually not a nice place at all for a little colonial girl without funds. I don’t wish to offend local pride, but the idea that a single backward planet could offer any threat to the Imperium would be funny if it weren’t so yawn worthy. I beg .you, spare me.”

  Bourtai stepped back. The cloak fell open. She wore a translucent gown which revealed a figure somewhat stocky for Terran taste, but nonetheless full and supple. He would have enjoyed watching that, except for the bewildered pain on her face.

  “But my lord Orluk,” she stammered, “I swear to you by the Mother of us both—”

  You poor romantic, it cried in him, what do you think 1 am—a visiting god? If you’re such a yokel that you never heard of planting microphones in a guest room, Oleg Khan is not. Shut up before you kill us!

  Aloud, he got out a delighted gaffaw. “Well, by Sirius, I do nail this thoughtful. Furnishing me with a beautiful lady spy atop everything else. But honestly, darling, you can drop the pretense' now. Let’s play some more adult games, eh, what?”

  He reached for her. She writhed free, ran across the chamber, dodged his pursuit and shouted through swift tears:

  "No, you fool, you blind, brainless caclder, you will listen! You will listen if I must knock you to the floor and sit on your head—and tell them, tell them when you come home, ask them only to send a real spy and leam for themselves!”

  Flandry cornered her. He grabbed both flailing wrists and tried to stop her mouth with a kiss. She brought her forehead hard against his nose. He staggered back, shocked with the pain, and heard her yell:

  “They are Merseians: great, green-skinned, long-tailed monsters, the Merseians, I tell you. They come here in secret from a secret landing field. But I have seen them myself, walking these halls after dark. I have heard from other girls to whom this or that drunken orkhon babbled. I have crept like a rat in the walls and listened myself. They are called Merseians—the most terrible enemy your race and mine have yet known, and—”

  Flandry sat down on a couch, wiped blood off his mustache, and said weakly: "Never mind that for now. How do we get out of here? Before the guards come to shoot us, I mean.”

  Bourtai fell silent, and he realized he had spoken in Anglic. He realized further that they wouldn’t be shot unless their capture looked impossible. They would be questioned gruesomely.

  He didn’t know if there were lenses as well as microphones in the walls. Nor did he know if the bugs passed information on to some watchful human, or merely made a record that would be studied in the morning.

  He sprang to his feet and reached Bourtai in a single bound. She reacted with feline speed. A hand cracked toward his larynx. He had already dropped his head, and took the blow on the hard top of his skull. His own hands gripped the borders of her cloak and crossed forearms at her throat. Before she could jab him in the solar plexus, he yanked her too close. She reached up thumbs to scoop out his eyeballs. He rolled his head and was merely scratched on the nose. After the Danish kiss he had just got, that hurt. He yipped, but didn’t let go. A second later, her breath clamped off, she went limp.

  He whirled her around, got an arm lock, and let her sag against him. She stirred. So brief an oxygen starvation had brought no more than a moment’s unconsciousness. He ^ buried his face in her dark, flowing hair, like a lover. It had a warm, somehow summery smell. He found an ear and breathed softly:

  "You little gristlehead, did it ever occur to you that the Khan is suspicious of me? That there must be listeners? Now our forlorn chance is to crash out of here. Steal a

  Betelgeusean spaceship, maybe. First, though, I must pretend I - am arresting you. That may put them off guard. They may not arrive here too swiftly and alertly for us. Understand? Can you play the part?”

  She grew rigid. He felt her almost invisible nod. The supple young body leaning on him eased into a smoothness of controlled nerve and muscle. He had seldom known a woman this competent in a physical emergency. Unquestionably, Bourtai Ivanskaya had had military training.

  She was going to need it.

  Aloud, Flandry huffed: "Well, I’ve certainly never heard anything more ridiculous! There aren’t any Merseians in this stellar neighborhood. I checked very carefully before setting out. Wouldn’t want to come across them, don’t you know, and spend perhaps a year in some dreary Merseian jail while the pater negotiated my release. Eh, what? Really now, you’ve been talking perfect rot, every word.” He hemmed and hawed a bit "I think I’d better turn you in, madame. Come along, now, no tricks.”

  He marched her out the door, into the pillared corridor. One end opened on a window, but there was a sheer twenty-meter drop to a night-frozen fishpond. The other end stretched into dusk, lit by infrequent bracketed lamps. Flandry hustled Bourtai in that direction. Presently they came to a staircase, sweeping wide and grandly downward. A pair of sentries stood posted there in helmets, leather jackets, guns and knives. One of them took aim and barked, "Halt! What are you doing?”

  “This girl, don’t you know,” panted Flandry. He nudged Bourtai. She gave some realistic squirmings. "Started to babble all sorts of wild nonsense. Who’s in charge here? She thought I’d help her overthrow the Kha Khan. Imagine!”

  “What?” The other soldier trod dose.

  “The Tebtengri will avenge me,” snarled Bourtai. “The Ice People will house in the ruins of this palace and kick your bones from underfoot, you scum!”

  Flandry thought she was overacting, but the guards both looked shocked. The nearer one sheathed his blaster. “I shall hold her, Orluk,” he said. “Boris, run and fetch the commander.”

  As he stepped close, Flandry released the girl. With steel on his pate and stiff leather on his torso, the sentry wasn’t very vulnerable. Except—Flandry’s right hand rocketed upward. The heel of it struck the guard under the nose. He lurched backward, caromed off the balustrade, and flopped dead on the stairs. The other, who had half turned to go, spun about. He snatched for his weapon. Bourtai put a leg behind his ankles and pushed. Down he went. Flandry pounced. They rolled over, clawing for a grip. The guard yelped. Flandry glimpsed Bourtai over his opponents shoulder. She had taken the knife off the first warrior and circled about, looking for a chance. Flandry relaxed and let his enemy get on top. Bourtai grabbed the man under the chin, yanked his head back, and slashed.

  Flandry scrambled from beneath. “Get their blasters,” he gasped. “Here, give me one. Quick! We’ve made more racket than I had expected. Do you know the best escape route? Lead on, then!”

  Bourtai raced barefooted down the steps. Her gold cloth cloak and frail gown streamed behind her. Insanely, Flan
dry followed her down one flight, two flights.

  Boots clatted on marble. Rounding yet another spiral curve, Flandry saw a squad of soldiers quick-stepping upward. The leader hailed him: “Do you have the prisoner secure, Orluk?”

  So there had been a human operator at the bug. Of course, even if he surrendered Bourtai, Flandry could not save his own skin. Harmless fop or no, he had heard too much. But they didn’t realize he realized that.

  The squad’s eyes registered the girl’s blaster even as their chief spoke. Someone yelled. Bourtai fired into the thick of them. Ionic lightning crashed. Flandry dropped. A bolt sizzled where he had been. He fired, wide-beam, the energy too diluted to kill even at short range but scorching four men at once. As their screams lifted, he bounced back to his feet, overlapped the fallen frontline, stiff-armed a warrior beyond, and hit the landing.

  From here, a wide bannister curled to the ground floor. Flandry whooped, seated himself, and slid. At the bottom was a sort of lobby. Class doors opened on the garden. The moons and rings were so bright out there that no headlights were used on the half-dozen varyaks roaring toward this entrance. Mounted guardsmen were attracted by the noise of the fight.

  Flandry stared around. Two meters up, the doorway was flanked by arched windows. He signaled Bourtai, crouched beneath one and made a stirrup with his hands. She climbed to the sill, broke the window glass with her gun butt, and fired into the troop. Flandry took shelter behind a column.

  The remnant of the infantry squad came stumbling down the stairs in pursuit of him. He blasted. In a hopelessly exposed position, they retreated back upward, out of sight.

  A varyak leaped through the doors. The soldier aboard shielded his face against flying glass with his arms. Flandry shot him before he had uncovered himself. The varyak veered, crashed into the jamb, and toppled across the entrance. The next one hurtled over it. The rider balanced himself with a trained body while he blazed at the Terran. Bourtai got him from above.

  She sprang down unassisted. “I got two more when I first fired,” she said. “A third pair escaped. They’re out there somewhere, calling for help.”

  “We’ll have to chance it. Where are the nearest gates?”

  “They will be closed. We cannot bum through the lock before—”

  “I’ll find a means. Quick, help me right these two varyaks here. . . . Up in the saddle with you. Can you guide the other one also? Follow me, then, slowly. I’ll draw their fire and we’ll see what happens.” Flandry hastened out into the garden. He didn’t feel the cold. He dragged the corpses from the varyaks near the palace, put both machines back on their wheels, and mounted one himself. Bourtai put-putted near. He gestured her to take along the fourth vehicle. By leaning low, she could reach the steering bars with her hands. They accelerated down the path.

  So far, energy weapons had fulfilled their traditional military function, giving more value to speed and purposefulness in action than to mere numbers. But there was a limit.

  Two people couldn’t stave off hundreds for very long. He must get clear.

  Flame sought him. He lacked skill to evade such fire by tricky riding. Instead, he crouched low in the saddle and plunged straight forward, hoping he wouldn’t be pierced. A bolt singed one leg, slightly but savagely painful. He glanced behind. From two side paths, the surviving pair of patrolmen steered in pursuit.

  Ahead loomed a high-arched little bridge. His cycle snorted up and over. Just beyond the hump, he left the saddle. He hit the planks, judoka style, with relaxed muscles and face cushioned by one arm. Even so, he bumped his nose. For a moment tears blinded him and he used bad words. Then he crouched in the gloom along the railing.

  His varyak careened on without him. Unsuspecting in this dim light, the two guardsmen roared by. Flandry shot them both as they went past.

  The uproar was rising throughout the garden, up on the walls. One by one the palace windows lit, until scores of dragon eyes glared into the night. Flandry ran from the bridge and disentangled the three crashed varyaks from a hedge. “Bring the rest!” he shouted to Bourtai. She came, not with the two machines beside her, but trailing behind. Tethers ran to their guide bars. He realized, of course, that would be standard equipment. If these things were commonly used by nomads, there’d be times when a string of riderless pack vehicles was required.

  “One for you and one for me,” he muttered. Here, beneath an overleaning rock, they were a pair of shadows. Moonlight beyond made the garden a fog of coppery light. The outer wall reared against that view and cut it off, brutally black, merlons raised across Altai’s rings like bared teeth. "The rest we use to ram down the gates. Can do?”

  “Must do,” she said. With quick skillful fingers she set the varyak control panels and hauled stuff from the saddlebags. “Here extra clothing and helmets are always kept. If a man got wet and tried to drive far across the steppe without changing clothes, he’d breeze. Just put on the helmet now. We can dress properly later.”

  “We won’t need clothes anyway, for a short dash to the spaceport.”

  “Do you think that field is not now crawling with Yesukai men?”

  “Oh, hell,” said Flandry.

  He buckled on the headgear, snapped down the goggles, and mounted anew. Bourtai ran along the varyak line, flipping switches. The riderless machines took off. Gravel spurted from their wheels, into Flandry’s abused face. He followed the girl this time.

  Three warriors raced down a crosspath. Briefly they were stark under the moons. Then the murk ate them again. They had not seen their quarry. The household troops must be in one gorgeous confusion, Flandry thought. He must escape before that hysteria faded and a systematic hunt was organized.

  The gateway loomed before his vision. Heavy bars screened off a plaza that was death-white in the night radiance. He saw his runaway varyaks only as meteoric gleams. Sentries atop the wall had a better view. Blasters thundered and machine guns raved. But there were no riders to drop from those saddles.

  The first varyak hit with a doomsday clangor. It rebounded in four pieces. Flandry sensed a chunk of red-hot metal buzz past his ear. The next one crashed, and the bars buckled. The third smote and collapsed across a narrow opening. The fourth flung the gates wide. “Now!”

  At 200 KPH, Bourtai and Flandry made for the gateway. They had a few seconds before the men above recovered enough from their astonishment to start shooting again. Bourtai hit the toppled wrecks. Her machine climbed the pile, took off, and soared halfway across the plaza. Flandry saw her balance herself as precisely as a bird, land on two wheels, and vanish in an alley beyond the square. Then it was his turn. He wondered fleetingly what the chances were of surviving a broken neck, and hoped he would not. Not with the Khan’s interrogation chambers waiting. He knew he couldn’t match Bourtai’s performance. He slammed down the third wheel in mid-air. The impact when he hit the ground was less violent than expected. For an instant he teetered, almost rolling over. Then he came down on his outrigger. Fire spattered off stone behind him. He retracted the extra wheel and gunned his motor.

  A glance north, past the Tower toward the spaceport, showed him airboats aloft in a hornet swarm. He had no prayer of hijacking a Betelgeusean ship. Nor was there any use in fleeing to Zalat in the yamen. Where, then, beneath these unmerciful autumnal stars?

  Bourtai was a glimpse in moonlight, half a kilometer ahead of him down a narrow, lighted street. He let her keep the lead and concentrated grimly on avoiding accidents. It seemed like an eye-blink, and it seemed like forever, before they had left the city and were out on the open steppe.

  IV

  Wind lulled in long grasses, the whispering ran for kilometers, on and on beyond the world’s edge, pale yellow-green in a thousand subtle hues rippled by the wind’s footsteps. Here and there some frost-nipped bush thrust up red spikes; the grasses swirled around them like a sea. High overhead reached the sky: an infinite vault full of wind and deep-blue chill. Krasna burned low in the west, dull orange, painting the steppe w
ith ruddy light and fugitive shadows. The rings were an ice bridge to die south. Northward the sky had a bleak, greenish shimmer which Bourtai said was reflection off an early snowfall.

  Flandry crouched in grass as tall as himself. When he ventured a peek, he saw the airboat that hunted him. It moved in lazy spirals, but the mathematics that guided it and its cohorts wove a net around this planet. To his eyes, even through binoculars taken from a saddlebag, the boat was so far as to be,a mere metallic flash. But he knew it probed for him with telescopes, ferrous detectors, infrared amplifiers—every means known to Altaian technology.

  He would not have believed he could escape the Khan’s searching craft for this long. Two planetary days, was it? Memory had faded. He knew only a fever dream: bounding north on furious wheels, bleeding skin from the air; sleeping a few seconds at a time in the saddle; wolfing jerked meat from the varyak’s emergency supplies as he rode; stopping to refill canteens at waterholes Bourtai found by signs invisible to him. He knew only how he ached, to the nucleus of his inmost cell, and how his brain was gritty with weariness.

  But the plain was unbelievably huge. Between the northern and southern ice caps, it covered almost twice the land area of Terra; for Altai had no oceans. The grass was not everywhere as tall as in this immediate vicinity, but it was always high enough to veil prey from sky-borne eyes. The fugitives had driven through several herds of grazing animals to break their trail. They had dodged and woven under Bourtai’s guidance, and she had a hunter’s knowledge of how to confuse pursuit.

  Now, though, the chase seemed near an end.

  Flandry glanced at the girl. She sat crosslegged, impassive. Her own exhaustion was shown by little except the darkening under her eyes.- In stolen clothes, hair braided under the helmet, she might have been a boy. But the grease smeared on her face for weather protection had not much affected her haughty, good looks.