Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (53 page)

Somehow he reached the mouth of the tunnel once more. He felt a tug on his left hand and discovered that he still gripped the arm of the wounded Rumon and had pulled the unconscious soldier back with him.

Smoke stung his eyes, and he became aware of a tingling sensation in his right hand. He glanced down and saw his hand burning where it gripped the throw-probe of his weapon. He released the gun and stared in disbelief at his hand. There was no pain, but the palm was seared and his fingers burned bloody.

A blast ripped the dirt beside him. He felt the heatflash pass over him. The battlefield grew blurry, and his head buzzed. Treet gritted his teeth and crawled backward to the tunnel, still clutching the body of the soldier and dragged it with him.

He reached the tunnel and pulled the soldier in. People rushed by him, and he heard Tvrdy yelling for reinforcements. Then the daylight began to flicker and the tunnel to spin. Treet flung out his arms and tried to hold on.

“Please,
Asquith, I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think it very important. We need you.”

Pizzle scowled at Yarden in the fading twilight and said, “How come when you want something it's 'Asquith, please. Asquith, we need you,' huh? The rest of the time it's 'Shut up. Pizzle,' 'Get lost. Pizzle.' Just leave me out of it this time, okay? I mean, I gave at the office.”

Yarden's eyes flashed. “That woe-is-little-me act won't work this time, mister! You've used it once too often with me. Now, here's the deal: we're going back to Dome to pick up Treet. I want you to come.”

“You make it sound like a promenade in the Easter Parade. It isn't a Sunday fete we're going to.”

“Then you'll come?”

“I didn't say that. Why do you need me anyway? You said the Fieri are sending a whole fleet.”

“They're sending the balons, yes. But they're mostly just for backup and in case we can bring any people out. We're going to be a little short of manpower.”

“A
lot
short it sounds to me.”

“Pizzle, quit being such a baby. You're going, and that's that.”

“Sure, you get to make the grand magnanimous gesture—play Florence Goodheart. All I get is orders, aggravation, and ulcers.”

“Ulcers my eye! Nothing penetrates that colossal selfishness of yours. You wouldn't know a magnanimous gesture if it slithered up and spit in your eye.” Yarden rolled her eyes in disgust. “This is just like you, Pizzle. I give you a chance to do the decent thing, and you throw it back in my face. I should have known better!”

She stomped off. Pizzle shouted after her, “Don't worry about hurting my feelings.”

“You don't have any!” Yarden disappeared behind one of the tents.

Pizzle looked around, feeling ashamed and foolish. The whole camp probably heard the ruckus, he thought. Now they'll all think I'm a coward. He ducked into his tent and flopped down on his sleep mat.

It isn't that I'm afraid. It isn't ... not really. It's just that now that I have Starla, I've got something to live for. I mean, I don't want to die before I really get a chance to live.

Is that so selfish?

If it is, it's just too bad. Treet made his own decision to go back to Dome. He knew what would happen, and he took his chances. I don't see why we all have to throw ourselves into fits now just because Yarden gets all excited. She didn't care all that much when he left.

But things can change. Hearts can change.

Yarden has had a change of heart, he thought. Would Starla also have a change of heart if she thought he was a coward?

The idea chilled him. Would Starla think less of him if he stayed behind? Would she think him a hero if he went?

Pizzle tossed on his mat. This is all your fault, Treet! Why can't you leave people alone?

Treet heard the sound
of voices talking above him and pushed himself up on his elbows. The movement brought pain which cleared the cobwebs from his head. He was lying in the tunnel, far back. He could hear the muted roar and rumble of thermal weapons in the distance. There were bodies lying around him, some disturbingly silent and others moaning softly in the darkness.

He sat up gingerly and took a quick physical inventory. Except for his hand, which throbbed mightily but numbly, he was not hurt anywhere that he could tell. He climbed to his feet, careful not to step on anyone near him.

Someone was moving down the tunnel with a hand-held lantern. He crept toward the light.

“Does your hand hurt?” asked Ernina, holding the light to his face. She examined the pupils of his eyes, and then gave him the lantern and took up his bandaged hand.

“No, it's okay. I feel fine. Do you need help?”

“I'll manage. Some of the Dhog women have come. They're ignorant, but they do what they're told.”

“Just tell me what to do. I'm here to help.”

She shook her head wearily. “Tvrdy wants to see you. He told me to send you as soon as you woke up.”

“What happened to me? Besides the burn, I mean. I didn't feel a thing.”

“Concussion.” She reached up a hand and touched his head. “Tender?”

Treet winced. “A little.”

“Thermal shock wave. You were fortunate. Any closer and you would have been burned.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Not long. Two hours, maybe three.” She took the lantern from him and made to move off. “Tvrdy's waiting for you down there.”

Treet gripped the physician's shoulder with his good hand. “Thanks, Ernina.”

“I did nothing. Worse wounds than yours demanded my attention.”

“And I suppose this bandage just wrapped itself around my mitt?” He gave her a hug and stepped away. “Anyway, thanks; I appreciate it. I'll come back when Tvrdy's finished with me.”

He hurried off down the tunnel toward the sound of the fighting, following the curve of the large conduit with his good hand outstretched. He arrived a minute later at the improvised command post a few dozen meters inside the mouth of the tunnel.

Bright globe lights burned from the ribbed ceiling. Tvrdy stood in the center of a group, bathed in white light. He acknowledged Treet when he came up. The others shifted to allow Treet a place to stand. Treet did a quick mental roll call: there was Kopetch, and Cejka, several Tanais and Rumon commanders, Piipo, and next to him the squat Bogney, looking disgusted and angry.

In fact, now that he noticed it, everyone wore the same expression: as if they were holding something old and rotten on their tongues and didn't like it one little bit.

“Where's Fertig?” he asked.

“That's what we'd like to know. Did you see him this morning?”

“My day got off to kind of a rocky start. I don't remember much of anything.”

“No one saw him,” said Kopetch. “He sneaked out last night.”

“Maybe he got killed in the attack,” offered Treet without much conviction.

“It's possible,” Tvrdy allowed, although his tone implied that he thought the possibility exceedingly remote. “No one recalls seeing him before the attack or at any time after.”

“But if he died early on, that would explain it.”

“It doesn't explain the Invisibles finding us so fast,” replied Kopetch acidly.

The bile rising in his throat told Treet that Kopetch was right. He forced down the bitter taste. We trusted Fertig, he thought. He saved my life. Was it just so he could turn traitor?

The shock of the betrayal stung like the smack of a brick between the eyes.

“The point is,” Tvrdy was saying, “we must assume he told them where the exit of this tunnel lies. They will have begun searching for it, and they will find it.”

That's it then; we're trapped like rats in a sewer pipe, thought Treet. He felt sick to his stomach at the duplicity, the treachery, and the futility of their position.

“I have sent men to the other end of the tunnel in Bolbe. They should return shortly with a status report.” Tvrdy continued the briefing matter-of-factly, although to Treet it sounded as if the heart had been gouged out of the man; he spoke in a strained and hollow voice. “I doubt if the Invisibles will have had time to locate the exit in Bolbe. If it is still open, we can escape into Hage.”

“And then what?” asked Piipo. “Wait for the Invisibles to pick us up? There's a Purge going on. We'll be arrested for interrogation as soon as we set foot in Bolbe.”

“He's right,” said another. “It would be the end of the rebellion. We'd have to split up our forces and go underground.”

“Maybe that's just what we need to do,” shouted Tvrdy angrily. “We have not been successful in any other way. If the rebellion is to live, we must also survive.”

“How long can we hold them off at this end?” Cejka asked.

“A day. Perhaps two.” Kopetch shook his head slowly. “We are well protected here, but powerless to mount an attack. We can only defend. Meanwhile, the Invisibles are strengthening their position. If we stay here, they will eventually overrun us.”

Talk continued like this for some time as options were examined and discarded. When the briefing broke up, Treet started back to offer the help he'd promised Ernina. He felt a tug on his arm and turned to see Bogney glowering at him.

“Fieri man promised Giloon to be taking Dhogs to Fierra,” the Dhog leader said.

“That's right. But there's not a lot I can do about it now.”

“You promised!”

“What do you want me to do—walk through walls? I can't take you now. And believe me, if I had my choice right now the desert seems a better bet. But in case you hadn't noticed, we're stuck here for a while. No one is going anywhere.”

Bogney spat, and his face twisted into a greasy sneer. “Dhogs going,” he announced, and stomped off.

Yarden
could not get over the blandness of Crocker's expression, the blankness in his empty gray eyes. She had never seen an amnesiac, but Crocker came close to fleshing out her mental picture of one, right down to the fleck of spittle gathering in the corner of his slack mouth.

“Crocker, it's me, Yarden. Do you remember me?” she asked as she came into the tent where he sat, freshly groomed and clothed in a brown shirt and trousers. The pilot appeared not to notice her at first, then, as she sat down across from him, turned his head and looked at her without interest.

“Yarden,” he said. He might have been a bird mimicking a new sound.

She turned to Anthon, who had followed her in, and gripped his hand as he sat down beside her. “I don't think I can do this,” she whispered.

“He's making progress,” Anthon said. “You'll see. Go on.”

“Crocker, I brought you something.” She unfolded a cloth she carried and held out a piece of sweet herb bread. “Here, taste it. I think you'll like it.”

The man took the bread and looked at it, raised it to his mouth, and took a bite. He spit the bite out at once and put the cake aside—all without the slightest reaction or expression.

“Now what do I do?”

“Just talk to him,” Anthon urged. “Eino says that his periods of lucidity come and go, but mostly they come when you force him to respond to you.”

“Crocker, look at me,” Yarden said. “I have something important to tell you.” She spoke slowly and with exaggerated care, as if speaking to a child too young to comprehend a grown-up problem.

“I am going away for a little while. There is trouble, and I must go see what I can do to help. Do you understand?”

Her question brought no response. She looked helplessly at Anthon. “Make him respond,” he told her.

“Do you understand what I said? Answer me if you understand.”

She saw a tiny glimmer of recognition in Crocker's dead eyes. His features quickened. It was as if the man was surfacing from a deep sleep underwater and resuming consciousness. “Yarden,” he said softly. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, Crocker. We've been worried about you. How are you feeling?”

The man's lips drew back from his teeth, and a noise like creaking bones came from his throat. Yarden realized it was meant to be laughter. The sound sent a chill through her heart. “Feeling good. Feeling fine. Crocker's feeling all right.”

Yarden shivered. Anthon slipped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Go on, you're doing well.”

She drew a deep breath. “Crocker, I'm going away—”

“You just got here.”

“No, I mean soon—tomorrow. Treet is in trouble, and we're going to help him.”

Crocker shook his head, and a vague expression of confusion passed over his features. “Treet.”

“You remember Treet. He was with us, one of us. He went back to Dome, and we have to get him out.”

“Dome,” said Crocker. His face contorted in a ghastly smile. “Do you remember Dome?”

“I remember, Crocker. Why don't you tell me what you remember? I'd like to hear it.”

He stared at her.

“What do you remember, Crocker?”

“Dome was a very big place. Very old.”

“Yes, it was. But what about the people? What happened when you and Treet and Calin went back? Do you remember going back?”

“It was night. I saw them sleeping there. I should have done it then, gotten it over with.” Crocker seemed to be speaking to someone else. His eyes were unfocused and hazy. “I knew there would be trouble with that girl along.” He paused and then growled out, “She was trouble. I should have done it then when I had the chance.”

Yarden kept her voice level. “Done what, Crocker?”

“Killed them, of course. What do you think I'm talking about? I was supposed to kill them both—would have, too. But that stupid slut of a magician interfered. She made me miss.” He laughed creakily while Yarden covered her face with her hands. “I fixed her though. I shoved that thing in her throat, and that fixed her.”

Yarden stifled a cry and turned away, sobbing. Anthon comforted her. “Now you know what happened. The worst is over. You're doing fine.”

Presently she dried her eyes. “Crocker, listen to me very carefully.” Yarden leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, gripping it hard as if willing him to understand what she was about to say. “Anthon,” she indicated the Mentor with a nod, “believes that you will get better. I believe so, too. You
can
get better, Crocker.