Treasure Of The Stars rb-29 Page 4

  It was also obvious that the two gray machines were losing the battle. They were badly outnumbered and one of them was already in trouble. It was slowly losing altitude, its sides were scarred and blackened from several hits, and smoke trailed from the base of its fin.

  The other machine was flying a tight formation on its wounded comrade. From the way it whipped around in impossibly tight turns, Blade suspected the crew wasn't entirely human. Riyannah's people, no doubt. He was sure the second machine could have shown its tail to all the triangle-marked planes, and got safely away long ago. Instead it was staying to fight, almost certainly dooming itself as well.

  It wasn't entirely a one-sided battle. The crimson beams weren't always accurate, but when they hit they were deadly. Blade saw a feeble flicker from the nose of the damaged machine reaching out and taking one of the disks under its left wing. The wing curled up and tore loose, while the disk lurched, then spun wildly down to smash itself on the rocky hillside. The whole mouth of the valley vanished for a moment in a wall of smoke and flying wreckage, and Blade staggered as the concussion reached him.

  That was the last victory of the gray machines. As its victim crashed, a pattern of four missiles bracketed the damaged one. Two hit, one blowing off the fin. The machine tipped up on its tail, pouring out blue smoke and white flame, then plunged vertically to the ground.

  This time the explosion was so violent Blade wondered if it was atomic. The concussion knocked both him and Riyannah off their feet. Not only the valley but half the hills vanished behind the smoke, while chunks of metal and stone the size of a man's fist rattled down all around Blade.

  The victors scattered in all directions, climbing, diving, making tight turns. One of the delta-wings turned a little too tightly. A wingtip grazed a hilltop and the machine flipped end over end, then vanished down the far side of the hill. Another pillar of smoke marked its end, but the half-deafened Blade never heard the explosion.

  He was able to drag a weeping, unresisting Riyannah safely under the cover of the trees before the battle flared up again. The attackers circled at a safe distance from the mass of smoke. Twice disks passed so low overhead that Blade froze. He half-carried Riyannah the last few yards and laid her down on the softest patch of ground he could see, her rifle beside her. As he did, the second gray machine staggered out of the smoke.

  It was still under control but it was rapidly losing altitude, belly and fin looking as if they'd been chewed by mice, and one side as black as if it had been painted. The machine fired a last feeble crimson beam, making a patch of rock on the hillside smoke. Then the beam generator seemed to explode, gushing yellowish smoke. Somehow the crew of the machine still kept it under control. Nose high, it floated down and struck the ground. It skidded for a quarter of a mile, lurching from side to side, trailing smoke and sparks. Then it slewed around and came to a stop barely two hundred yards from Blade.

  Instantly two troop carriers popped over the hills and came whirring toward the fallen machine. The remaining jets formed a close umbrella over their victim as the troop carriers closed with it.

  The fallen machine lay still and silent. Blade noticed that the smoke was diminishing, as the fire burned itself out or the crew got it under control. A hatch opened on the undamaged side of the machine, just ahead of the fin. Blade saw movement in the hatchway, and a moment later the first of the crew climbed out and dropped to the ground.

  After so many trips to Dimension X, Blade was about as hard to surprise as a sane human very well could be. This Dimension had given him even more than its share of the unexpected. Yet he still found himself gaping as the crew of the gray machine climbed out.

  There were four-beings-in the crew. They were nine feet tall, and resembled nothing so much as gigantic stalks of asparagus. Each had four double-jointed arms, ending in lobster-like claws. They swayed like trees in the wind as they moved.

  They were called the Menel, they came from interstellar space and Blade had met them twice before. Both times they'd been enemies. Once he'd found them helping a scientist with a twisted mind create monsters called Ice Dragons, terrorizing and conquering. The other time they'd been trying for conquest on their own, using a Dimension's birds and animals as their weapons.

  Both times Blade had tried his best to avoid killing the Menel except when absolutely necessary. He refused to slaughter intelligent aliens when there might be some hope of eventually communicating with them and establishing peaceful relations. He wasn't optimistic. The Menel seemed to be a race bent on conquest, skilled, efficient, brave, in some ways worthy of respect, but also thoroughly dangerous. If the humans of this Dimension were fighting the Menel, what should he do? He still couldn't like the soldiers, but it might not be a good idea to fight them. At least they wouldn't need his help, not if they could always do as well against the Menel as he'd seen them do today.

  By now all four Menel were well clear of the crippled machine. Three of them had belts around their bodies just below the arms and various bags and boxes slung from the belts. The fourth was obviously wounded. It staggered more than the others, there was a wide bandage on its head, and every so often one of its comrades would reach out a couple of arms to help it over a patch of rough ground. One Menel was carrying a heavy black tube, one of the portable projectors for the crimson ray. That was the only recognizable weapon in sight.

  The four Menel came to a stop, halfway between Blade and the crashed machine. He considered moving Riyannah deeper into the trees, but was afraid of missing even a moment of the Menel's actions. He still knew far too little about them.

  The long silence brought Riyannah back to awareness of the world around her. She sat up, shook her head, picked up her rifle, and started to get to her feet. Blade held a finger to his lips and motioned her to stay put. She shook her head, but stayed low as she came out to lie beside him, watching the Menel.

  Then a great many things happened in what seemed like only a few seconds. The Menel carrying the black tube lifted it high with two arms, then smashed it down on the ground. All four Menel spread out, the three unwounded ones raising all their arms over their heads. It was as unmistakable a gesture of surrender as Blade had ever seen.

  The two troop carriers landed and their hatches opened. A dozen soldiers climbed out of each one, rifles at the ready. Then all the soldiers aimed at the Menel and opened fire. From a turret on top of the second carrier, a heavy laser joined in.

  The four Menel were not only dead before they hit the ground, they were almost torn to pieces. The blast of heavy bullets and laser beams smashed into them like some deadly machine. Bags of gear, chunks of flesh, whole arms flew into the air. A brief silence after the first burst, then the roar and crackling came again as bullets and lasers ravaged the fallen bodies.

  Riyannah bounced to her feet as if on springs. She let out a madwoman's shriek, then raised her rifle and sighted in on the soldiers. Blade was just in time. Her finger was squeezing the trigger when he grabbed her by both ankles and jerked her feet out from under her. The rifle fired a short burst as she crashed to the ground, the noise fortunately lost in the heavier firing of the soldiers.

  Blade tried to grab the rifle and found himself having to fight to keep Riyannah from sticking the bayonet into him. Her eyes were wide, her face was gray, and she babbled things which could not have been words in any sane language. She used all her strength and there was more in her slender frame than Blade would have suspected. He could no longer hope to be gentle with her. He could only hope to get her under control before she did something to attract the attention of the soldiers and doom both of them.

  Riyannah let go of the rifle and clawed at Blade's face, leaving deep scratches on both cheeks. He gripped her wrists, and she bit his right hand hard enough to draw blood. She opened her mouth and he clamped a hand over it, gripping one of her hands with the other and pinning her remaining arm under his body. He could feel all her muscles taut and quivering against him, and he began to wonder if he w
as going to have to knock her unconscious before she'd stop fighting. They had to get out of here fast! The soldiers might be searching the area before long.

  Then the whole world turned glaring white as the light from an explosion swamped Blade's vision. The ground heaved under him, and a massive fist of shock-driven air picked up him and Riyannah and slammed them against a tree. For a moment Blade's world was black instead of white, and the roar in his head drowned out the roar of the explosion.

  As Blade's hearing returned, he heard trees going over, branches falling, and chunks of metal pattering, clanging, and crashing down all around him. Something small hit him in the shoulder, searing through the cloth of his tunic into his skin. Something larger bounced off the helmet he'd wisely left on. Blade lay where he was, covering Riyannah with his body, until things stopped falling. She was sprawled on her back, unconscious but apparently unhurt. He shifted his weight off her without rising and looked toward the open ground.

  He could barely see it. Where the Menel machine had been was a black crater pouring up smoke and surrounded by grotesquely twisted pieces of blackened metal. Some were larger than a man.

  The four Menel were only scattered patches of ash, with a few recognizable bits here and there. The soldiers hadn't been so lucky. They'd been alive when the blast struck them, and some of them still were, crawling blindly around and making animal noises. The two troop carriers lay on their sides, broken and burning. The smoke from them mixed with the smoke from the crater to lie like a sooty fog across the battlefield.

  Blade got to his feet and started gathering his equipment. He was sure there was nothing more to be learned here, and he was even more sure he didn't want to stay around here any longer. Each act of violence he met in this Dimension seemed to be bigger and bloodier than the last one. Sooner or later he'd meet one big enough to swallow him up. A lone man had no place in a battle against the Menel, at least not when he didn't know any more than Blade did now.

  He'd been lucky this time. Even so, every exposed inch of skin prickled as if he'd got a mild dose of poison ivy. Some sort of radiation from the explosion, no doubt. Well, the damage was done, and if he was going to drop down dead after a few steps there was no point in worrying about it beforehand. At least the explosion had wiped out the soldiers and thoroughly eliminated any danger of pursuit.

  Blade finished adjusting straps and buttoning flaps. He slung Riyannah's rifle across his chest along with his own, then bent down and lifted her on his back. With all their weapons and gear plus her weight on his back, he felt like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders.

  He managed to get into a regular stride, and in a few minutes they were deep inside the forest. He kept going, stubbornly putting one foot in front off another in spite of sweat pouring into his eyes and screams of protest from every muscle in his body, until he'd covered about two miles. Then he lowered Riyannah to the ground, caught his breath, went back, and brushed out the last hundred yards of his trail with a fallen branch. Finally he sat down, drank some water, and tried to make sense of what he'd just seen.

  He didn't do very well. Obviously the Menel were trying to conquer this world, as they'd tried with the other two Dimensions where he met them. Just as obviously, the soldiers and airmen of this Dimension were putting up a stiff fight. They were being cruel, ruthless, and unpleasant about it, but they were fighting hard. Certainly they had reason to fight hard, and perhaps they had some reason to be ruthless, at least toward the Menel. What about Riyannah and her human friends?

  Blade remembered Riyannah's hysterical rage at the sight of the Menel's defeat and death and her suicidal urge to avenge them by opening fire on the soldiers. That had to mean the Menel were friends, allies, perhaps soldiers of her people. In turn that meant her people were trying to conquer this Dimension, and her human allies were in fact traitors to their own people.

  Blade found his thoughts taking an ugly turn. If Riyannah's people and the Menel were allies in an effort to conquer this Dimension, would he have to join the side of those brutal soldiers? Would he even be allowed to, or would they shoot him on sight? Should he turn Riyannah over to them after all, winning good treatment for himself and striking a blow against the Menel? Or should he just leave Riyannah somewhere and fade into the forest, saying «a plague on both your houses» to this whole damned Dimension?

  It was a confusing situation, to say the least.

  A man less tough-minded than Blade would have been paralyzed by the confusion. Even Blade had to sit longer than he'd intended before it became clear what he should do.

  He would turn back the way he'd come, cross the mountains, and hide himself in the wilderness beyond them. The soldiers didn't seem to come there on foot, and he hadn't seen the Menel there at all. He'd be safe enough, at least for a while.

  He would also take Riyannah with him. He would take her with him, if he had to tie her hand and foot and carry her every inch of the way! He had to keep her with him until he could learn her language or she could learn English. He wasn't sure how far he'd be willing to go if she was stubborn, but he suspected he'd be willing to go farther than usual with a woman.

  He had to learn who she was and who were her people. He had to learn about everybody else involved in the war in this Dimension, the Menel above all. This was the first chance he'd ever had to find out exactly where the Menel came from. It might be his last.

  It was no longer just a matter of satisfying his own curiosity, or even Lord Leighton's. It could be a matter of life or death-his own, and that of hundreds of millions of people in many different Dimensions.

  Blade sighed. It seemed that the stakes got bigger every time he traveled into Dimension X.

  Chapter 6

  Riyannah was a dead weight on Blade's aching back as he tramped towards the south-east. He could only make a rough guess about directions, but he thought he could get them back to the river. Then it would be easy to follow it back upstream to the canyon.

  As the woman remained unconscious, Blade began to worry. Could she have serious internal or head injuries which might not show on the surface? Or could she be pretending to be seriously hurt in order to get him off his guard? That would make sense if she now thought he was an enemy. Did she? Without being able to talk to her, it would be almost impossible for him to know until it was too late. Certainly she'd had her doubts about him, a man who killed her enemies but looked very much like them and spoke no language she could understand. She'd been willing to travel with him so far, but did she have any choice? Would she realize that he'd only prevented her from firing on the soldiers who'd killed the Menel to save her own life? A fine string of unanswerable questions!

  Blade could be sure of only one thing. He'd have to learn to talk to Riyannah as quickly as possible, and in the meantime he'd watch her closely. He didn't want to make her so suspicious she turned into an enemy. He also didn't want to get a knife stuck into his ribs some night because Riyannah thought she was avenging her dead Menel comrades that way.

  About twilight they reached a small stream. Blade lowered Riyannah to the ground, took a blanket out of the pack, and wrapped her in it. She woke up about the time Blade felt his muscles returning to normal. She lay there looking steadily at Blade. It was impossible to tell what she was feeling or thinking. The huge green eyes and the delicate features were totally without expression.

  Her silvery hair was as tangled as a hedge, full of leaves and needles. Blade took a comb from his pack, washed it in the stream, sat down beside Riyannah, and gently began to comb out her hair. She flinched at the first touch of his hand, winced several times as he accidentally pulled her hair, but otherwise lay still. When he'd finished, she reached up, ran her fingers through her hair, then smiled faintly.

  Blade smiled back, then picked up a canteen. «Drink,» he said, raising it to his lips and going through the motions of drinking. Then he poured a few drips on the ground. «Water,» he said.

  Riyannah nodded and reached for the canteen. «W
ater,» she said, splashing some on her face. «Drink,» she said, and did so.

  Blade would have continued the language lesson, but Riyannah soon drifted off to sleep again. Blade recognized the healthy sleep of a totally exhausted body. Carefully he gathered up the rifles, the knives, and everything else that might be used as a weapon. He strapped them all to his pack or put them inside it. Then he lay down, pulled a blanket over him, and pulled his pack under his head. The arrangement looked natural enough for Riyannah not to suspect anything, but she could hardly get at any of the weapons without waking Blade.

  So far so good. Blade had the feeling he was going to be saying that to himself quite a few times before his trip through this Dimension was over. Then he stopped thinking about anything and fell asleep.

  Blade returned to the wilderness beyond the canyon faster then he'd left it. Now he had clothes on his back, boots on his feet, and something beside raw fish and fruit in his belly. He also had a companion, but she didn't slow him down.

  Once Riyannah slept off the shock and exhaustion of the fighting, she showed surprising strength. She couldn't carry as heavy a load as Blade, but she kept up with him every foot of the way. She would stagger the last few hundred yards of each day's march, but she always stayed on her feet to the end.

  Riyannah also learned the English Blade taught her with surprising speed. She remembered practically everything, seldom had to be corrected, and even managed to pronounce most of the words correctly. By the end of the second day on the march, Blade had taught her nearly all the basic words they'd need for survival in the wilderness. The lack of communication between them was no longer so dangerous.