Treasure Of The Stars rb-29 Read online

  Except-

  «What about you, Riyannah? The cold's already getting to you, isn't it? Can you survive a night march?»

  «If we get to the ship, I'll be all right. The cabin is warm, and there will be food and hot drinks.»

  «We may not have time to prepare any food. With that troop carrier around-«

  «There are some drugs too. They'll do everything that's needed.» She lurched to her feet, and they were off again.

  Afterward, Blade would have given a good deal to be able to forget that night's march across the mountainside. Unfortunately most of the details stuck in his memory and would not leave.

  The slow gnawing of the cold at his fingers and toes, turning them first into burning twigs, then taking away all feeling.

  Riyannah's face turning paler and more pinched with each passing mile, until there was nothing alive in her face except the great eyes staring ahead.

  His own breath freezing on his dirt-caked beard, until he could see a layer of silver-white frost over the dark hair. The frost seemed to be exactly the same color as Riyannah's hair.

  Riyannah's stumbling and falling, and his holding her feet against his stomach until enough warmth crept back into them for her to move on.

  The chill light of the stars and the crescent moon, and the warm orange glow of the lights of the Targan camp. There were moments when Blade could almost imagine those lights were distant campfires where he and Riyannah could find warmth and comfort. Then the effort of taking another step would snap his mind out of the fantasy.

  In the end that was what kept him and Riyannah going-taking that one more step, another after that, then still another. Blade knew that if they didn't keep moving, it would all be over within a few minutes. They were staggering along in summer clothes through temperatures that couldn't be far above zero.

  They were still on their feet and still moving when the eastern sky began to turn pale. By the time the dawn was pink and the camp's lights went out, they were within sight of the streak of black rock.

  The mountain dawn was beautiful, but there wasn't much warmth in it and Blade was too cold to appreciate beauty. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt his fingers or toes, and vaguely wondered if the ship's medicine chest had any remedies for frostbite. Then he felt Riyannah's hand clutch his shoulder, and turned to see her raise the other hand and point upward.

  «There it is.» Blade saw a faint line of shadow in the dark rock.

  «It looks too small. You're sure?»

  «Yes. The cave-makes a bend inside the mouth-gets wider.» Riyannah shaped each word slowly and painfully, as if she was carving them out of the ice. Then she turned toward the cave and stepped ahead of Blade. He put out a hand to steady her. As he did, the silent dawn was shattered by the swelling roar of jets.

  There were three of the flying disks, and they swung out from between the peaks of Mount Grolin in a slow turn. They had plenty of time to scan the slopes below them-and see the two figures silhouetted against the snow.

  Blade's hopes that the planes hadn't seen them vanished as one of them peeled off from the formation and swept down toward them. Flame winked under its nose and snow spurted up a hundred yards downslope from them. As the plane pulled out of its dive, Blade saw the undersides of the wings. The weapons racks were empty. As the other two planes came in, he saw the same was true with them.

  As the roar of the guns died away, Blade raised his head and shouted to Riyannah, «Run! Get into the cave and start up the ship. I'll stay out here and give them a target.»

  «Richard-«

  «Damn it, get moving! If you're on the black rock before they come in again, they may not see you!»

  Riyannah stared at him for a moment that to Blade's distorted senses seemed to last an hour. Then she kissed him, two pairs of half-frozen lips meeting numbly. She turned, unharnessed her pack, tossed Blade her rifle, and scrambled furiously toward the black rock.

  Blade watched her reach it. Then he saw the planes coming in and turned to face them-one man with two rifles and a handful of grenades against three jet fighters.

  Chapter 11

  On their second pass the planes laid down three lines of fire, parallel like the tines of a fork. Smoke and snow, rock fragments and ricocheting pieces of metal sprayed in all directions. Blade couldn't have seen to aim at the planes, even if he'd dared stand up.

  As the planes banked away, Blade looked up the black rock toward the mouth of the cave. He could barely make out a small figure scuttling upward, now less than a hundred feet from the cave mouth. If he could barely see Riyannah, the pilots could hardly spot her as they flew past at four hundred miles an hour.

  Blade quickly pulled Riyannah's ammunition out of her pack and stuffed it into his own. Then he slung her rifle across his back and rammed a fresh magazine into his own. The five grenades were in a pouch on his hip.

  The howl of jets swelled again. Two of the planes were coming at him while a third seemed to be hanging back, aiming off to one side. Blade's breath caught in his throat as he saw the line of flying snow leap toward the black rock. Then he breathed again as it crossed the rock a hundred yards above the cave mouth. He looked for Riyannah, saw her crawling up the last few yards of steep rock just below the cave, and a warmth he hadn't felt in many hours flowed through him. Before the planes could come in again she'd be safe inside the cave.

  The burst of fire from the other two planes was shorter this time but also closer. Blade felt rock dust and driven snow blast his exposed skin, while something larger drilled through his trousers into his thigh. It felt like a dozen wasps stinging him at once, and as he rolled over he saw blood soaking through torn cloth.

  As Blade rolled, he saw that one of the planes would pass directly over him only a couple of hundred feet up.

  He continued to roll until the rifle was pointing at the sky, then squeezed down on the trigger. Jet planes were full of fragile moving parts in this or any other Dimension. Rifle fire could bring them down and often had.

  Blade couldn't have aimed better if he'd been using a radar-directed antiaircraft gun. The plane flew straight into the burst of heavy slugs. Suddenly the smoke coming from one engine was heavy and black. It flew away without trying to turn, and now smoke was coming from the belly as well as the engine. It started to turn, leaving a black smoke trail like an immense question mark scrawled across the blue sky. The other two planes banked, trying to stay with it.

  Then suddenly one whole wing and the belly were blotted out by greasy black smoke. A torch of orange flame licked through the smoke. Then the plane pulled up, the sun glinted on the canopy as it flew off, and white smoke gushed out of the cockpit. Two dark shapes soared out of the smoke, the pilots in rocket-boosted ejection seats. Then the plane's nose rose still higher, it stalled, whipped into a tight spiral, and plunged down toward the mountainside.

  Snow, smoke, flame, and flying wreckage erupted where it struck. A gray-black fog spread half a mile wide, cutting off Blade's view of the camp. Above the smoke the white canopies of two parachutes blossomed, as the pilots pulled their ripcords and started their drift down to safety. One plane down should throw a scare into the others and gain some precious time.

  Before the smoke cleared, Blade dashed across the bullet-pocked snow and scrambled up onto the black rock. The best cover he could find there was less than two feet high, but that should gain him still more time. When the Targans got close enough to see him against the rock, they'd be within easy range.

  Now the troop carrier was lifting out from the camp. It hugged the ground all the way to the foot of Mount Grolin, then landed about half a mile from Blade. He strained his eyes, trying to count the men climbing out and forming a skirmish line. It was hard to be sure, but he thought there were only about a dozen. Were they leaving some to hold the camp, or-?

  The carrier took off again. Instead of climbing it hovered low as the men on the ground began their advance up the mountainside. Now Blade could count them more accurate
ly. Definitely fewer than a dozen, and where were the rest? Blade began to wonder what the Targans might be planning. His thoughts grew unpleasant as the carrier came closer and he saw the guns in its nose and side doors.

  Now the men on the ground were only a quarter of a mile away-rifle range for someone who had plenty of ammunition. The Targans did. Blade didn't. He tried to hunch down even lower behind his cover, kept his eyes on the carrier, and wondered what was keeping Riyannah.

  Then the carrier was climbing. It swept past Blade to the left, and he could see the door facing him crowded with helmeted heads. He could have hit it easily, but the number of guns sticking out of it kept him frozen in place. He realized what the Targans were up to.

  They were going to hit him from both above and below. The men on the ground were already in position to shoot if he showed himself. Now the carrier was going to drop the others upslope from him. Then they'd work their way down the mountain until they could hit him from behind-and also hit the mouth of the cave.

  Blade knew he had to move up to the cave now, when it would be just risky instead of suicidal. He had to last as long as possible, to keep all the Targans as far as possible from the cave. They'd certainly have weapons which could cripple the ship at close range.

  As for his own chances of getting out of here, they hardly seemed worth considering. It looked like a question of how many Targans he was going to kill first and not much else.

  Blade rose to a crouch and dashed upward, zigzagging wildly. Someone in the carrier spotted movement, and so did someone below. A laser beam from the carrier crackled down fifty yards to Blade's left, turning snow into steam. A rocket soared up from the men on the ground, sailed clean over Blade's head, and went off just above the mouth of the cave with a kwumpph and a cloud of green smoke. It hit close enough to the carrier to rock it. Blade could almost hear the curses as the men in the door struggled to keep from being pitched out on the rock below. The carrier's next laser beam went so wide Blade could barely see it.

  Blade kept moving but felt a little better. If the Targans got nervous enough about hitting each other, it might slow them down a little more. Time, time, tame! Damn it, Riyannah, you don't have all day to get that ship moving!

  As the carrier moved out of their line of fire, the men on the ground opened up with their rifles. Bullets and an occasional rocket hit all around the mouth of the cave. Someone down there must have realized Blade was heading for it. If Riyannah stuck her ship's nose out of the cave and straight into a rocket-

  A high-pitched whine tore at Blade's ears, louder than the whine of the jets and far more painful. He clutched the rifle, although he wanted to drop it and clap his hands over his ears.

  The ground shuddered. Chunks of rock and ice spewed out of the cave mouth like shot from the muzzle of a gigantic shotgun. The shockwave tore through the air and knocked Blade flat. He fell on top of the rifle and rolled to bring it back to firing position. As he did, Riyannah's spaceship swept out of the cave.

  It looked like a fat silvery tadpole, fifty feet from nose to tail. A small canopy was perched on the nose and a hurd-ray projector stuck out of the belly. The projector swiveled, crimson fire sprayed the mountainside, and the soldiers below disappeared in smoke and steam. Their screams were loud enough to penetrate even Blade's half-deafened ears.

  Then the ship was drifting toward him, the air shimmering blue around its tail, a hatch open in its belly. A metallic cord with a handgrip on the end unwound itself from the hatch and struck the ground yards from Blade. He dropped his rifle and lunged for it. He barely had time to take a firm grip before the ship rose again. For several long seconds he dangled in midair, bullets whistling past below him, feeling like the daring young man on the flying trapeze and hoping Riyannah would remember to reel him in.

  Then the cord jerked up violently and Blade flew in through the hatch, slamming down on the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The hatch clanged shut behind him and the floor tilted wildly. Blade went head over heels and crashed into a bulkhead. «Riyannah!» he shouted. «Get this crate under control or let me get to a seat! You're going to splatter me all over the place!»

  If anything the ship climbed more steeply, but Blade heard an enormously refreshing sound-Riyannah's laughter. Then:

  «All right. I'll level off, but hurry! The other two planes are coming after us!»

  Blade practically leaped through the door in front of him. On the other side was a compartment about fifteen feet square and eight feet high. Padded seats took up most of the floor and control consoles most of the front end. Riyannah was perched on a high seat in the middle, head thrust up through the canopy and hands resting on a small black box suspended from the roof of the compartment. She was stark naked except for a silver G-string and sandals, her hair tossed wildly, and Blade could have sworn her green eyes were glowing. For a member of a peaceful race she looked astoundingly warlike, a silver-haired goddess of battle.

  As Blade dropped into the nearest seat the ship lurched violently. Riyannah jumped and said something, probably unprintable, in the Kananite language. Several of the consoles glowed all the colors of the rainbow, and from aft Blade heard a noise like a toilet backing up.

  Riyannah cursed again and pointed to a console with something like a radar screen over it and a face-covering helmet hung beside the screen. «Blade, take the hurd-ray. We've been hit and it's all I can do to control the ship!»

  «How do you-?»

  «Put on the helmet, turn on the screen, and look at it. When you're looking straight at the plane on the screen, a red light will go on. Push the button under the red light.»

  Blade vaulted into the seat nearest the console and snatched up the helmet. The ship took another hit as he pulled it on, and the jolt nearly made him cut off an ear with the edge of the helmet. Then the ship swung in a tight circle, squashing Blade down into the seat. One of the Targan planes appeared on the screen. He stared at it, saw the light go on, and pushed the button.

  The screen glowed crimson as the hurd-ray fired, then it was blotted out by smoke and flying wreckage as the plane exploded. Riyannah let out a banshee's scream and Blade's own roar of triumph echoed her.

  Then Riyannah flung herself backward in her seat. Blade had just time to imitate her. Then acceleration flattened him into his seat until he thought his bones were going to collapse and let his flesh and internal organs spread like jam.

  How long the acceleration lasted, Blade never found out. He only knew that it eventually came to an end. As he drifted back to full awareness he realized he was floating against the straps of his seat. The ship was clear of Targa and plunging out into space in free fall. The screen he'd used to aim the hurd-ray showed nothing but blackness and a few stars.

  Riyannah was floating around the cabin, still wearing only the G-string and sandals. Her eyes half-shut and dull, but she pulled herself briskly down to look at Blade. When she'd satisfied herself he was all right, she drifted over to one of the panels and began pushing buttons.

  «I've got to drop the power plant,» she said. «The Targans hit it too often, and it will become unstable in a few more minutes.»

  Blade found he could speak. «What are we going to use for power?»

  «We're already on a course that will take us within radio range of the asteroid belt. The patrol ship will come out to get us when they pick up our radio signals.»

  «What about the Targan ships?»

  «We're traveling too fast for anything except Dark Warrior herself to catch us. Even if they could come after us, they'll think we blew up when the power plant explodes.» She punched a complicated sequence of buttons. Something clicked under the floor and something else rang like a great bell in the tail of the ship. The jolt threw Blade against his straps.

  Now Riyannah pulled something pistol-shaped out of a drawer under one console and began running it through her hair. As she did she revolved gently in midair. Blade saw that in spite of her cheerful, brisk manner, the la
st few days had left their marks on her. The red-brown skin was dark with bruises in half a dozen places and seemed stretched even more tightly than before over her delicate bones. She must be running on nerves and drugs, and perhaps also on the happiness of being back in a familiar place, safely on the way home.

  Riyannah had just finished cleaning her hair when a soundless explosion of raw light burst on the screen, flooding the cabin. Half-dazzled, Blade reached out for Riyannah's hand and felt her fingers close on his wrist. Lying side by side, Riyannah in midair and Blade still strapped in his seat, they watched the screen.

  Far behind them an expanding globe of purple fire hung in space fading slowly. Sparks of red and gold trailed out of it to drift off into the blackness. It was something as violent as an atomic explosion but definitely not the same. That purple glow was fading too slowly. Some sort of energy-generating reaction was still going on back there, minutes after the explosion. Blade watched the purple glow shrink and fade, still throwing out sparks. Then he could see the planet they were leaving behind; and he instantly lost interest in the explosion.

  Targa was-Earth. There was a little more dust in the atmosphere, so the clouds were more gray than white and the outlines of the continents weren't always clear. That was a minor detail. Everything else Blade could see, down to the smallest cape and bay, was what he'd seen in photographs of Earth taken from space.

  It was a big universe, and no doubt it was possible that somewhere a planet existed which could look this much like Earth. Such a planet was only a theory, though, and Dimension X was a fact. Blade knew he'd been shifted sideways through the Dimension, not across light-years of space to another world in the same Dimension. That was the only reasonable explanation now. Targa and Kanan and the Menel were fighting their interstellar war across the light-years in Dimension X.

  That thought was awesome, but it was also something of a relief. It was awesome, because it implied that each Dimension was a whole universe, not just a whole Earth. It implied an infinity of infinities, an idea even Lord Leighton might have some difficulty grasping.