Deathworld (35 page)

Telt hummed to himself hoarsely as he drove. He broke off suddenly
and looked at Brion. "What you want the dead Dis for?"

"A theory," Brion answered sluggishly. He had been half napping in
the chair, taking the opportunity for some rest before the attack.
"I'm still looking for a way to avert the end."

"You and Hys," Telt said with satisfaction. "Couple of idealists.
Trying to stop a war you didn't start. They never would listen to
Hys. He told them in the beginning exactly what would happen, and
he was right. They always thought his ideas were crooked, like him.
Growing up alone in the hill camp, with his back too twisted and too
old to be fixed when he finally did come out. Ideas twisted the same
way. Made himself an authority on war. Hah! War on Nyjord—that's
like being an ice-cube specialist in hell. But he knew all about it,
though they never would let him use what he knew. Put granddaddy
Krafft in charge instead."

"But Hys is in charge of an army now?"

"All volunteers, too few of them and too little money. Too little
and too damned late to do any good. I'll tell you we did our best,
but it could never be good enough. And for this we get called
butchers." There was a catch in Telt's voice now, an undercurrent of
emotion he couldn't suppress. "At home they think we like to kill.
Think we're insane. They can't understand we're doing the only thing
that has to be done—"

He broke off as he quickly locked on the brakes and killed the
engine. The line of sand cars had come to a stop. Ahead, just
visible over the dunes, was the summit of a dark tower.

"We walk from here," Telt said, standing and stretching. "We can
take our time, because the other boys go in first, soften things up.
Then you and I head for the sub-cellar for a radiation check and
find you a handsome corpse."

Walking at first, then crawling when the dunes no longer shielded
them, they crept up on the Disan keep. Dark figures moved ahead of
them, stopping only when they reached the crumbling black walls.
They didn't use the ascending ramp, but made their way up the sheer
outside face of the ramparts.

"Line-throwers," Telt whispered. "Anchor themselves when the missile
hits, have some kind of quick-setting goo. Then we go up the
filament with a line-climbing motor. Hys invented them."

"Is that the way you and I are going in?" Brion asked.

"No, we get out of the climbing. I told you we hit this rock once
before. I know the layout inside." He was moving while he talked,
carefully pacing the distance around the base of the tower. "Should
be right about here."

High-pitched keening sliced the air and the top of the magter
building burst into flame. Automatic weapons hammered above them.
Something fell silently through the night and hit heavily on the
ground near them.

"Attack's started," Telt shouted. "We have to get through now,
while all the creepies are fighting it out on top." He pulled
a plate-shaped object from one of his bags and slapped it hard
against the wall. It hung there. He twisted the back of it, pulled
something and waved Brion to the ground. "Shaped charge. Should blow
straight in, but you never can tell."

The ground jumped under them and the ringing thud was a giant fist
punching through the wall. A cloud of dust and smoke rolled clear
and they could see the dark opening in the rock, a tunnel driven
into the wall by the directional force of the explosion. Telt shone
a light through the hole at the crumbled chamber inside.

"Nothing to worry about from anybody who was leaning against this
wall. But let's get in and out of this black beehive before the ones
upstairs come down to investigate."

Shattered rock was thick on the floor, and they skidded and tumbled
over it. Telt pointed the way with his light, down a sharply angled
ramp. "Underground chambers in the rock. They always store their
stuff down there—"

A smoking, black sphere arced out of the tunnel's mouth, hitting at
their feet. Telt just gaped, but even as it hit the floor Brion was
jumping forward. He caught it with the side of his foot, kicking it
back into the dark opening of the tunnel. Telt hit the ground next
to him as the orange flame of an explosion burst below. Bits of
shrapnel rattled from the ceiling and wall behind them.

"Grenades!" Telt gasped. "They've only used them once before—can't
have many. Gotta warn Hys." He plugged a throat mike into the
transmitter on his tack and spoke quickly into it. There was a
stirring below and Brion poured a rain of fire into the tunnel.

"They're catching it bad on top, too! We gotta pull out. Go first
and I'll cover you."

"I came for my Disan—I'm not leaving until I get one."

"You're crazy! You're dead if you stay!"

Telt was scrambling back towards the crumbled entrance as he talked.
His back was turned when Brion fired. The magter had appeared
silently as the shadow of death. They charged without a sound,
running with expressionless faces into the bullets. Two died at
once, curling and folding; the third one fell at Brion's feet. Shot,
pierced, dying, but not yet dead. Leaving a crimson track, it
hunched closer, lifting its knife to Brion. He didn't move. How many
times must you murder a man? Or was it a man? His mind and body
rebelled against the killing, and he was almost ready to accept
death himself, rather than kill again.

Telt's bullets tore through the body and it dropped with grim finality.

"There's your corpse—now get it out of here!" Telt screeched.

Between them they worked the sodden weight of the dead magter
through the hole, their exposed backs crawling with the expectation
of instant death. No further attack came as they ran from the tower,
other than a grenade that exploded too far behind them to do any
harm.

One of the armored sand cars circled the keep, headlights blazing,
keeping up a steady fire from its heavy weapons. The attackers
climbed into it as they beat a retreat. Telt and Brion dragged
the Disan behind them, struggling through the loose sand towards
the circling car. Telt glanced over his shoulder and broke into
a shambling run.

"They're following us!" he gasped. "The first time they ever chased
us after a raid!"

"They must know we have the body," Brion said.

"Leave it behind ..." Telt choked. "Too heavy to carry ... anyway!"

"I'd rather leave you," Brion said sharply. "Let me have it." He
pulled the corpse away from the unresisting Telt and heaved it
across his own shoulders. "Now use your gun to cover us!"

Telt threw a rain of slugs back towards the dark figures following
them. The driver of the sand car must have seen the flare of their
fire, because the truck turned and started towards them. It braked
in a choking cloud of dust and ready hands reached to pull them up.
Brion pushed the body in ahead of himself and scrambled after it.
The truck engine throbbed and they churned away into the blackness,
away from the gutted tower.

"You know, that was more like kind of a joke, when I said I'd leave
the corpse behind," Telt told Brion. "You didn't believe me, did
you?"

"Yes," Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against
the truck's side. "I thought you meant it."

"Ahhh," Telt protested, "you're as bad as Hys. You take things
too seriously."

Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing
sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of
the sand car. Killing like this was too personal. Talking
abstractedly about a body was one thing, but murdering a man, then
lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an
entirely different matter. But the magter weren't human, he knew
that. The thought was only mildly comforting.

After they had reached the other waiting sand cars, the raiding
party split up. "Each one goes in a different direction," Telt said,
"so they can't track us to the base." He clipped a piece of paper
next to the compass and kicked the motor into life. "We'll make a
big U in the desert and end up in Hovedstad. I got the course here.
Then I'll dump you and your friends and beat it back to our camp.
You're not still burned at me for what I said, are you? Are you?"

Brion didn't answer. He was staring fixedly out of the side window.

"What's doing?" Telt asked. Brion pointed out at the rushing darkness.

"Over there," he said, pointing to the growing light on the horizon.

"Dawn," Telt said. "Lotta rain on your planet? Didn't you ever see
the sun come up before?"

"Not on the last day of a world."

"Lock it up," Telt grumbled. "You give me the crawls. I know they're
going to be blasted. But at least I know I did everything I could to
stop it. How do you think they are going to be feeling at home—on
Nyjord—from tomorrow on?"

"Maybe we can still stop it," Brion said, shrugging off the feeling
of gloom. Telt's only answer was a wordless sound of disgust.

By the time they had cut a large loop in the desert the sun was well
up in the sky, the daily heat begun. Their course took them through
a chain of low, flinty hills that cut their speed almost to zero.
They ground ahead in low gear while Telt sweated and cursed,
struggling with the controls. Then they were on firm sand and
picking up speed towards the city.

As soon as Brion saw Hovedstad clearly he felt a clutch of fear.
From somewhere in the city a black plume of smoke was rising. It
could have been one of the deserted buildings aflame, a minor blaze.
Yet the closer they came, the greater his tension grew. Brion didn't
dare put it into words himself; it was Telt who vocalized the
thought.

"A fire or something. Coming from your area, somewhere close to
your building."

Within the city they saw the first signs of destruction. Broken
rubble on the streets. The smell of greasy smoke in their nostrils.
More and more people appeared, going in the same direction they
were. The normally deserted streets of Hovedstad were now almost
crowded. Disans, obvious by their bare shoulders, mixed with the
few offworlders who still remained.

Brion made sure the tarpaulin was well wrapped around the body
before they pushed the sand car slowly through the growing crowd.

"I don't like all this publicity," Telt complained, looking at the
people. "It's the last day, or I'd be turning back. They know our
cars; we've raided them often enough." Turning a corner, he braked
suddenly, mouth agape.

Ahead was destruction. Black, broken rubble had been churned into
desolation. It was still smoking, pink tongues of flame licking over
the ruins. A fragment of wall fell with a rumbling crash.

"It's your building—the Foundation building!" Telt shouted.
"They've been here ahead of us—must have used the radio to call
a raid. They did a job, explosive of some kind."

Hope was dead. Dis was dead. In the ruin ahead, mixed and broken
with other rubble, were the bodies of all the people who had trusted
him. Lea ... beautiful and cruelly dead Lea. Doctor Stine, his
patients, Faussel, all of them. He had kept them on this planet,
and now they were dead. Every one of them. Dead.

Murderer!

Life was ended. Brion's mind contained nothing but despair and the
pain of irretrievable loss. If his brain had been completely the
master of his body he would have died there, for at that moment
there was no will to live. Unaware of this, his heart continued to
beat and the regular motion of his lungs drew in the dreadful
sweetness of the smoke-tainted air. With automatic directness
his body lived on.

"What you gonna do?" Telt asked, even his natural exuberation
stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated.
What could he do? What could possibly be done?

"Follow me," a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of
a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could
turn. Aware now, Brion saw a native move away from the edge of the
crowd and turn to look in their direction. It was Ulv.

"Turn the car—that way!" He punched Telt's arm and pointed. "Do it
slowly and don't draw any attention to us." For a moment there was
hope, which he kept himself from considering. The building was gone,
and the people in it all dead. That fact had to be faced.

"What's going on?" Telt asked. "Who was that talked in the window?"

"A native—that one up ahead. He saved my life in the desert, and
I think he is on our side. Even though he's a native Disan, he can
understand facts that the magter can't. He knows what will happen
to this planet." Brion was talking to fill his brain with words so
he wouldn't begin to have hope. There was no hope possible.

Ulv moved slowly and naturally through the streets, never looking
back. They followed, as far behind as they dared, yet still keeping
him in sight. Fewer people were about here among the deserted
offworld storehouses. Ulv vanished into one of these; LIGHT METALS
TRUST LTD., the sign read above the door. Telt slowed the car.

"Don't stop here," Brion said. "Drive around the corner, and pull up."

Brion climbed out of the car with an ease he did not feel. No one
was in sight now, in either direction. Walking slowly back to the
corner, he checked the street they had just left. Hot, silent and
empty.

A sudden blackness appeared where the door of the warehouse had
been, and the sudden flickering motion of a hand. Brion signaled
Telt to start, and jumped into the already moving sand car.

"Into that open door—quickly, before anyone sees us!" The car
rumbled down a ramp into the dark interior and the door slid shut
behind them.

"Ulv! What is it? Where are you?" Brion called, blinking in the
murky interior. A grey form appeared beside him.

"I am here."

"Did you—" There was no way to finish the sentence.

"I heard of the raid. The magter called together all of us they
could to help them carry explosive. I went along. I could not stop
them, and there was no time to warn anyone in the building."