The Fugitive Worlds (38 page)

The Vadavaks are upon us!
Greturk took one futile step backwards.
And so close!

Toller glared down at Greturk. "Are they armed?"

Armed?

"Yes!
Armed!
Do they carry weapons?"

Greturk had begun to shiver, but his telepathic response was clear and well controlled.
The Vadavaks are equipped
with enervators
—
instruments of social correction specially
designed by Director Zunnunun. The enervators are black rods
with glowing red tips. The slightest contact with one of the
tips will cause intense pain and paralysis for several minutes.

"I have heard of more fearsome weapons," Toller sneered,
squeezing Vantara's hand before releasing it and putting an encouraging arm around Steenameert's shoulder. "What do
you say, Baten? Shall we teach these bumptious pygmies a
lesson or two?"

Contact with
one
enervator rod causes pain and paralysis
,
Greturk added.
The Vadavaks carry an enervator in each
hand
—
and simultaneous contact with two rods causes pain
and death.

'That is a more serious matter," Toller said soberly,
staring at the blurred smear of white on a drab grey-green background which was the enemy's sole manifestation thus
far. "How long does it take for death to occur?"

Five seconds. Perhaps ten. Much depends on the size and
strength of the individual.

"Much could be achieved in ten seconds," Toller replied,
a dryness developing in his mouth as he saw that the Vada
vaks had already begun to advance at speed. "If only. . . ."

Your sword is in the possession of Director Zunnunun and can never be retrieved
—
but one of our number holoviewed it
well enough for copying.
Greturk nodded to one of the other
Dussarrans who moved forward dragging a sack made of a
seamless grey material.
We had hoped that the Vadavaks
would not make contact with us
—
in which case we would
have destroyed these weapons without ever showing them to
you
—
but now we have no alternative.

The Dussarran opened the sack and Toller felt a surge of
fierce gladness as he saw that it contained seven swords of
the distinctive late Kolcorronian pattern. He dropped to his
knees and eagerly reached for the familiar weapons.

Be careful!
Greturk warned.
In particular, do not touch the
blades with your bare hands
—
they now have monomolecular
edges which can never be blunted, and they will penetrate your
flesh as easily as they would sink into fresh snow.

"Swords!" Jerene's rounded features bore an angry ex
pression as she stepped forward. "What do we want with
a collection of antiques? Could you not have copied our
pistols?"

Greturk shook his head again.
There was no time
. . .
their
interior mechanisms were not readily visible to us
...
all we
could do in the limited time available was to produce five
scaled-down versions of the sword for use by the smaller and
weaker females of your race.

"That was most considerate of you," Jerene exclaimed sarcastically, "but you may be interested to learn that any
woman here could. ..."

"The enemy has taken to the field!" Toller put all the power of his lungs into the shout. "Are we to squabble
among ourselves or go out and do battle?"

He pointed to where the gleaming white motes which represented the Vadavaks were spreading across the field of
view, becoming larger collectively and individually, each
advancing speck developing arms and legs, a face, the capa
bility of inflicting death. On the horizon behind the Vadavaks
the sun was appearing as a needle-spray of blinding fire, casting a fateful and melodramatic glow over the
natural arena in which the fates of three worlds were to be
decided.

Toller took the sword of his fancy from the sack and tried
it in his hand to make sure that the balance had not been disturbed by alien machinations. The feel of the familiar
weapon was comforting—the spirit of his grandfather was
with him again—but it was less reassuring than he had hoped and expected. Seven humans, only one of whom was trained
with the sword, were going against at least fifty well-armed
aliens. By all accounts, his fabled namesake would have
gloried in such a situation—but, no matter how many ver
sions of the forthcoming battle the present-day Toller conjured up in his mind, he could not find one in which there
were no deaths among his companions. Some of them, if not
all, were bound to die—and Toller could see no glory in
that fact. It was degrading, brutal, depressing, obscene,
terrifying. . . .

But, even as the adjectives paraded through his mind,
he was forced to acknowledge another diamond-hard fact.
Unless the Dussarran machine was successfully defended for
another three to four minutes, until it performed its vital
task, every man, woman and child on Overland would be
annihilated in an unimaginable pulse of energy.
That
—above
all else—had to be the single truth which governed his actions
in the trial which lay ahead.

He looked around his little group of warriors, wondering
if his face was as pale as theirs. They had taken their swords
in hand and were gazing at him with expressions which
seemed to convey complete faith in his leadership. Their
trust was probably a legacy from all those times when he had
swaggered and boasted of his prowess in combat—and now
he was appalled by the responsibility he had taken upon
himself. These people knew they were facing death, and they
were afraid, and in the moment of ultimate tribulation they
were turning to the only source of hope they could find. It
was quite likely that they now regarded Toller as a pillar of
strength, and he was numbed with guilt and regret as he realized the extent of his unworthiness to play that role.

"If we advance too far to meet the enemy they will be able
to outflank us and overturn the machine," he heard himself
say in a firm, clear voice. "We must form a defensive line
outside the radius of safety—and take a solemn vow that
none
of the Vadavaks shall pass.

"There are many more things I would like to say—"
Toller's eyes locked fleetingly with Vantara's and he repressed an urge to reach out and touch her face—"but now is not the time. We have important work to do first."

Toller turned and ran on a curving path to a point which
placed him exactly between the impeller and the oncoming
force of Vadavaks. Within a few seconds the other humans
had taken up stations on either side of him, at spacings which

they instinctively felt could be protected by the sword. The
Vadavaks were now only a hundred yards or so away, running
fast, and the sound of their feet swishing through the grass
could easily be heard by the defenders. Pinpoints of red light
danced before them in a horizontal swarm.

Toller tightened his grip on his sword as he saw that the
Vadavaks, in place of the rag-like garments of the ordinary
Dussarran citizen, wore white helmets and armor. The
latter was of a glistening material which seemed to have no
effect on the wearer's mobility in spite of covering torso and
limbs. The livid, black-holed faces glaring from under the
rims of the alien helmets gave the attackers the semblance
of an army of corpses, indefatigable because they were
already dead.

Toller raised his sword to the first readiness position and
waited. I
beg of you, Beloved Creator,
the Xa's words
threaded down from the remoteness of the sky,
do not kill
me.

One of the Vadavaks outdistanced the others, nominating himself as Toller's first individual opponent, and dived for
ward with twin black rods outstretched like stings. The alien
must have been totally accustomed to routing docile and
unarmed civilians, because he came at Toller with head and
torso quite unprotected. Toller struck down into his thin
neck and the alien went down and backwards in a fountain of blood, his head connected to his body by only a narrow
strip of tissue. The rods he had been holding fell close beside
each other at Toller's feet.

Toller stamped on them, extinguishing the crimson glow
at their tips, and his momentum took him into immediate
conflict with two more Vadavaks. The pair apparently had not enough time to learn anything from the fate of their
companion, because they remained close together and lunged
at Toller with enervator rods held only a few inches apart.
He took their arms off below the elbows with two transverse
strokes which sheared the white armor as if it were paper.

The aliens dropped to their knees, their mouths black circles
of silent agony, and doubled over the stumps of their forearms.

Toller paid them no further attention—they had ceased to
be combatants—and ran his gaze along the line of battle.
The Vadavaks were throwing themselves into the fray with undiminished vigor and ferocity, but Toller was heartened to notice that not one Kolcorronian had been laid low. Their lack of experience in handling swords was being more than
compensated for by the incredible sharpness of the blades, and the Vadavaks were being cut down as quickly as they
advanced. The defense line had lost its regularity, but it was remaining intact, and the white wave of alien attackers was
now liberally stained with red as its members collided with
and stumbled over their wounded.

Can it be possible?
Toller wondered.
Are we all to be spared, after all? There can be very little time left before the
impeller does its work, and if the Vadavaks are stupid enough
not to change their tactics.
. . .