The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid (10 page)

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Althea gave a little shriek. She half-turned to run, when Gorchakov’s roar brought her attention back again. He had a pistol in his hand.

Yuruzh had half-drawn his sword, but at the sight of the gun he slowly sheathed it again. Gorchakov swung the muzzle so that it pointed in turn at everybody near him.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” he said. “Well, everybody be good, or you know what happens. Althea, you come with me.”

“I won’t.”

“Then you get shot.” Gorchakov raised the pistol.

Althea glanced around frantically. Bahr had disappeared; Yuruzh and Kirwan were standing by helplessly. She appealed to the clerical man. “Are you Bishop Harichand Raman?”

The small man spoke accented English. “Yes, my child. I was making a sarcuit of the Sadabao ports. Hearing from Mr. Gorchakov that you were on Zesh, I came ashore with him to see.”

“But can’t you stop him or something? I hate and loathe him!”

“I am sorry, my dear, but there is nothing I can do. I pfear we could no longer carry you on our mission roll in any ewent—”

“Why not?”

“Because since your arrival on Krishna, you have managed to put yourself in a—well, a very compromising light. Pfarst you get intoxicated and marry Mr. Gorchakov—”

“But he was the one—” cried Althea.

“I daresay there were extenuating sarcumstances, but the central fact remains. Then you run away with Mr. Kirwan and Dr. Bahr, telling people they are your lovers.”

“But that was only to get us across the ferry—”

“I suppose so, but the story is still sarculating, and we must avoid even the appearance of evil among our personnel. And lastly I find you on Zesh, hardly clad in accordance with the dictates of the inspired Getulio C&aTilde;o.”

Althea had forgotten about being unclad, since so many others around her were naked also. She could have given Raman an explanation for this state of affairs, too, but it seemed hardly worthwhile.

“So,” concluded the bishop with an oleaginous smile, “it is better for you to return to your lawful husband. At least he vill farnish you with support, and no doubt you will in time learn to adapt your parsonality to his.”

“Exactly,” concurred Gorchakov. “Now come along,
byednyashka.”

“Devil ye say!” cried Kirwan. “D’ye think the great Brian Kirwan’ll stand by to see our little American rose carried off by a crass gorilla from the steppes, assisted by a mealy-mouthed, toadying heretic of a bishop? Be damned to you!”

Kirwan stooped and picked up a large safq shell, about the size and weight of a full-grown Terran conch. As he drew back his arm to throw, Gorchakov’s pistol roared.

Kirwan tumbled backward as if struck by a mighty blow. His chest was blown open, fragments of lung and bone showing whitely through the bubbling blood.

Althea, like the others, jumped at the explosion. She tensed herself to run, but a bark from Gorchakov stopped her. The security officer was still in command of the situation.

“Is good,” he said, looking at Kirwan’s corpse. “I would have killed the other, too, only he ran into woods when he saw me getting out of the boat. Now come, quick!”

How like Gottfried Bahr, thought Althea, beginning a slow march toward the boat. But then, if he hadn’t run, he probably would have been killed, too. She looked back desperately at Yuruzh, still standing with his hand on his sword hilt but not otherwise moving. All other organic sounds—the hammering and chatter of the Záva—had ceased. All the tailed men were looking at Gorchakov. The surf boomed and swished in the silence.

Yuruzh said, “Oh, Mr. Gorchakov!”

“What is?”

“As security officer of Novorecife, how did you violate your own regulations to let yourself carry a gun out of the port?”

“Regulations are what I say they are. Me, Afanasi Gorchakov. You mind your own business, or you get shot, too. Hurry up, Althea.”

“Can’t I put on some clothes first?”

“They wouldn’t stay on long enough to be worthwhile. Get in boat.”

The bishop said, “Mr. Gorchakov, there isn’t room for three passengers in the dinghy.”

“Hokay, you stay behind.”

“But, my dear man!” bleated the bishop, “I can’t possibly—”

“You want to get shot? All right then, shut up.”

“You could at least send the boat back for me . . .” wailed Raman.

Ignoring him, Gorchakov herded Althea into the dinghy. As if in a nightmare, she saw the Krishnan sailors push off and row out between a couple of Daryao hulks. The figures on the beach receded and shrank until they were hidden by the ships. The dinghy pulled up beside the roundship. Gorchakov gestured with his pistol to indicate that Althea should climb the rope ladder. The people of the merchant ship stared as she clambered over the rail.

“Come with me,” said Gorchakov, swarming up after her.

He shouted to the captain to get under way and led Althea aft. The dinghy was hoisted aboard, and the sails filled.

Down a short flight of steps he took her, bending to avoid hitting his head, and into a stern cabin. He pushed her roughly in and closed and bolted the door.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“You will see.” Gorchakov glanced out the cabin window in the stern. Althea recognized the change in the ship’s motion that betokened its getting under way. Gorchakov said, “With this wind, we ought to reach Ulvanagh before tomorrow morning. That is, I will get there. You won’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Gorchakov hauled a length of rope out of a wall cabinet, grabbed Althea, and tied her to a post that supported one corner of the bunk. She tried to struggle, but Gorchakov’s strength, vastly greater than Kirwan’s, made it futile.

“I mean you will be dead.” Gorchakov examined one of his knots and retied it more securely. “I am going to kill you.”

He laid his pistol on top of a wall cabinet and peeled off his shirt. Then he took a bottle of kvad out of the cabinet, sat down, and drank a gurgling gulp from the bottle.

“But why?” Althea tried to keep back the tears. “I’ve never hurt you.”

“Such foolish questions you ask!” Another gulp. “I told you once you would learn the Russian hate. Well, now you got a lot more of it to learn. You not only run away; you make me look like a fool with those two.

“So, now comes the time. I will kill you, but only a little by little.” Gorchakov thrust his face forward, teeth bared. “First I will beat you. Then I will pull your hair out. Then I beat you some more. Then I break some bones, or maybe gouge out an eye. Then I beat you some more. Then I bite some pieces out of you, or maybe I skin you with my knife. And so it goes.”

He took another drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and continued, “If I do it just right, I can make you last till we almost reach Ulvanagh and then push you out through that window. I made sure the window was big enough when I bought passage.” He laughed loudly. “How do you like that, eh? That will teach you to spit on a man who offered you honest love.”

For the next hour, Gorchakov sat in his chair, alternately drinking and telling Althea the things that he meant to do to her. Althea cried and pleaded with him, which only made him laugh. Then he got sentimental and wept with self-pity over the cruel and faithless treatment that he had sustained from his beloved bride. He wept over his impending widowerhood. Then back to threats and curses.

At last the bottle was empty. Gorchakov looked around for a wastebasket. Finding none, he walked to the cabin window, unlatched and opened it, and threw the bottle out. Without bothering to close the window, he strode back and slapped Althea’s face.

“Just a beginning,” he said. “Where did I put my whip?”

He rummaged until he found it. He cracked it a couple of times, then hauled off and let fly.

The lash hissed and cracked against Althea’s skin, plowing a diagonal red welt from her left shoulder down between her small breasts to her lower right ribs. Althea shrieked.

A metallic streak shot across the cabin. A thrown knife struck Gorchakov in the right upper arm, penetrating the biceps.

With a yell, Gorchakov dropped the whip and snatched the knife out of the wound. As he did so, Yuruzh catapulted into the cabin.

Gorchakov hesitated, glancing from the knife in his left fist to the pistol on top of the cabinet. With a second’s more warning, he could have reached the pistol and blasted the life out of his assailant. With Yuruzh hurtling toward him, he did not have time. Instead, he struck at the tailed Krishnan with an overhand stab.

Yuruzh blocked the stab, caught Gorchakov’s wrist, and twisted. They reeled around the cabin, fighting for the knife, and several times knocked the wind out of Althea by bumping into her. Then she was confusedly aware that Gorchakov had dropped the knife and was lunging for the cabinet on which lay the gun. Yuruzh caught him around the waist from behind and threw him against the opposite wall. Then as they came together again Gorchakov tried to strangle Yuruzh. The latter seized one of Gorchakov’s choking fingers and bent it back until the joint cracked and gave.

They blundered about, punching, kicking, wrestling, gouging, biting, banging into the walls of the narrow space and falling over the furniture. Then Yuruzh had Gorchakov pinned. Both were kneeling, facing into a corner, with Yuruzh behind Gorchakov. Yuruzh gripped the wrist of Gorchakov’s left arm with his own right, twisting it behind Gorchakov’s back. Yuruzh’s left arm was employed in trying to keep Gorchakov’s chin up so that the Russian would not bite him. Gorchakov’s right arm, now nearly useless between the wound in the upper arm and the broken finger, made feeble clawing motions.

Behind Yuruzh on the floor lay the knife. Yuruzh glanced back, then reached out with his tail. Although the organ was not truly prehensile, the Zau chief managed to sweep the weapon forward until a quick snatch with his right hand secured it. He prodded the point into Gorchakov’s ribs until he found a likely spot and pushed slowly, moving the blade about as it sank centimeter by centimeter.

Gorchakov screamed.

Yuruzh pushed further. Gorchakov coughed bloody froth. When the blade had sunk to the hilt, Yuruzh withdrew it, found another spot just over the kidneys, and thrust it in again. And again.

Gorchakov relaxed. As Yuruzh let go, Gorchakov slid to the floor, eyes rolling upward and limbs twitching. Yuruzh examined the body, then carefully placed the point over Gorchakov’s heart and made a final thrust. Gorchakov gave a last shudder and lay still.

Yuruzh looked up at Althea, saying, “Well, young lady, I seem always to meet you when you’re tied to a post and some villain’s about to do you in. Are you hurt?”

“No,” said Althea. “Not seriously. How about you?”

“Just a few contusions and abrasions.”

He cut her loose. Although Althea had never fainted in her life, she came close to it now. She swayed and fell forward into Yuruzh’s arms. He held her against his broad, hairy chest. When she looked up, he unexpectedly bent and kissed her: not wildly and brutally as Kirwan had done, but gently and tenderly.

“You’re amazing,” said Althea. Dizzy and breathless, she sank down upon the bed.

Yuruzh went over to the washstand to remove some of the blood with which he was smeared. Much of it came from his own cuts and scratches. Althea asked, “How did you get here?”

Yuruzh smiled. “As soon as you boarded the
Ta’zu,
I put to sea in one of my galleys and hung off this ship’s quarter. When the skipper signaled, asking what we wanted, I flagged him back to go on and pay no attention. As we had a catapult loaded with a fifty-kilo rock, aimed at his waterline, he was glad to comply.

“When nobody shot at us, I figured Gorchakov must have taken you below. I’d brought Bishop Raman along, pretending I’d meant merely to put him on his ship, and he told me he and Gorchakov had the two passenger cabins aft. He didn’t realize Gorchakov didn’t want him aboard at all, because he didn’t wish any Terran witness to your murder.

“So, knowing the lay of the land, I rowed my ship in close, threw a grapnel over the
Ta’zu’s
rail, and swung over to the ledge below the stern windows. I got the idea from a motion-picture I saw on Terra, something about pirates.

“I didn’t dare warn Gorchakov so long as he carried that gun; not even I can fence or wrestle a bullet. I originally meant to climb in Raman’s window, but then Gorchakov threw that bottle out—just missing me—and left his window open. So here we are.”

Yuruzh wiped himself with the bloody towel and glanced at Gorchakov. Althea asked, “What shall we do with him?”

Yuruzh jerked a thumb toward the stern window. “Out.”

“That’s what he was going to do with me.”

“Ironic justice, eh? Let’s hope he’s not too big to go through.”

Before Althea had left Earth, she could not have imagined that she would someday be helping to dispose of a corpse in this manner, let alone the corpse of a husband slain in a brutal brawl. The mere idea would have made her sick. Now she grasped a wrist and an ankle with no more revulsion than one has about picking up a chicken leg. She helped Yuruzh to drag the body to the window, heave it up, and shove it through.

Splash!

She glimpsed the body bobbing in the ship’s wake, then turned away from the window. Yuruzh picked the pistol off the cabinet.

“This will be useful,” he said. “I wonder if the scoundrel didn’t have a second bottle of kvad?”

“Look in that cabinet, lower right,” said Althea.

“Ah, here we are! Good old Afanasi. Have some?”

Althea was about to say that, as a missionary, she couldn’t when she remembered that she was no longer a missionary. The feeling was both of desolation and of relief. Now at last she could believe, as Bahr had taught her to do, what the evidence showed, not necessarily what Getulio C&aTilde;o said. If anybody ever deserved a drink, they did now.

The liquor burned her throat and made her cough. Soon, however, the throb of her welt and the aches in her limbs subsided.

Yuruzh drank deeply and said, “What are you going to do now? Your mission job seems to have blown up, and Bahr won’t be on Zesh more than a few ten-nights taking his tests. What’ll you do then?”