The midday meal which Quars had presided over before they left was pretty much like that last dinner at Ernie’s living space before the journey through the desert, somewhat less cheery than a Gaelic wake.
The Colonel obviously never expected to see them again. Retha, her eyes intermittently filled with tears, hardly touched her food. Marjetta was charming but tense. The ugly, oily, heavy-browed Fourth Secretary radiated charming geniality, like an undertaker at a wake.
“It will be,” he insisted, “a quick and pleasant trip. Nothing like the last one.”
Babbling about music and poetry on Zylong, O’Neill matched him cliché for cliché. It was the kind of battle of wits Seamus O’Neill loved, especially since he was convinced he was smarter than the Fourth Secretary by several light-years. The contest would continue out in the desert, too, and Seamus knew he’d win there. This little gombeen man is no match for a commandant in the Wild Geese. At all, at all.
The nice thing about a battle of wits between a gombeen man and an officer in the Wild Geese was that there was nothing about love or women involved. It was merely a game, a deadly serious game admittedly, in which two men tried to deceive each other.
Unfortunately there might be a woman as a prize: the Fourth Secretary did not bother to hide his lascivious examination of Marjetta. He wanted her and proposed to have her before the sun rose again.
Well, we’ll just see about that, my good man. She’s mine, you see. And while I have no idea just now what to do about her, I’ll not be after letting you have her.
So they were fighting over a woman, among other things, but the woman was only an object of the battle and not a person whose erratic moods, alternating between laughter and fury, both equally unexplained, had to be seriously considered. When it came time to act on the desert, she’d follow orders. She’s a good soldier, if nothing else.
Go ‘long with you, Seamus O’Neill. She’s more than that.
Don’t bother me with such considerations. I must worry about the game with this gombeen man here.
The Fourth Secretary announced that it would be appropriate for everyone to retire to their rooms for some sleep before their departure after sunset.
Marjetta stopped O’Neill on the way to his room. “How will we escape? Have you figured it out yet?” she asked, her voice strained by tension.
“Don’t be so impatient, woman. We have seven or eight hours yet. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. We’ll probably be safe until we get to the large transport. They won’t try anything while we’re riding and carrying our own guns. Also they won’t try anything until we’re beyond the range of Quars’s monitoring system. So we should make our move sometime about midnight. I have stolen one of the good Colonel’s maps; we’ll be able to find our way with it. This clown thinks he’s got us fooled. It’s Quars he’s worried about. If we seem dumb and innocent, they’ll lower their guard. When I whistle like this—” he hummed the first few bars of the “Whistling Gypsy” “—you turn to the right and gallop like hell. I’ll give them something to remember us by and follow after you.”
She nodded. He didn’t bother to tell her he had also filched powder grenades from Quars’s arsenal.
O’Neill moved again toward his room, then stopped and looked at Marjetta. “You’re sure that they’ll not harm Retha and the rest of my … our troops.”
“Of course not. She’s now known to be a heroine. If all of us died, the Committee would not be able to prevent discussion. And if I disappear, perhaps into Narth’s harem when the Secretary is finished with me, they will not consider her or any of the Young Ones a threat.”
“We’ll see about a few wee changes in that scenario. So they really are that impressed with you?”
“I’m sure that seems inconceivable to you, Major O’Neill, but yes, the Committee seems to think I am brilliant and dangerous. And myself a woman too.”
She was even imitating his idiom.
“Women are all right in their place.” Dear Brigid, would he be in trouble for even thinking that on the Iona.
“Well, you needn’t worry about your little friend Retha. She’ll be in her man’s arms in a few days.”
“Ah, sure you wouldn’t be telling me that they’re lovers. She’s a mere child.”
“You should see him.” She smiled faintly. “He appears to be about fourteen of our years. I am certain she was the aggressor. They are, ah, quite passionate about each other.”
“Breaking the rules?”
“As you must know by now, the rules have been discarded by many. They do not even receive nominal obedience out here.”
“West of the Pecos.”
“What does that mean?”
“A mythological reference. Why do they break the rules that young?”
“It is simple.” She shrugged and made a distasteful face—at him, he supposed. “They are young. They love each other. They expect to die. Is that not enough reason to be in the same bed?”
“Well, I suppose so. I never thought it would happen here.”
“Tarans are bigots,” she snapped and turned to leave him.
Right enough, my dear. We know all there is to know about cultural diversity. Our Rules demand that we be tolerant of it and not meddle in other cultures, like I’ve been doing since you talked me into it. But still, there are only a few of us on a small planet and fewer still on our monastery ships. So we’re narrow and tight and convinced that our ways are the best. Which they are. And we look down on everyone else as poor benighted heathens. Which they are. But you’re a heathen, my darling, and I love you. I’m not going to let that greasy goat lay his hands on you, not at all. At all.
“Marjetta…”
“Yes?” She jumped as though she had been shot.
“Don’t forget those pills.” He swatted her rump.
She turned and faced him. “Will I like her?”
“Who?”
“Deirdre.”
“Not at all, at all.” He was in so much trouble now, what did a few more lies matter. “Well, maybe after a while. Sure you might become as thick as thieves.”
The woman was already assuming that she was going to come with him. He’d never told her that. Not exactly, anyway.
“Will she like me?”
“Ah, now that’s the question.”
Dusk had already begun to settle at this end of the continent. Soon they would have to leave.
“Well now, I think she’ll delight in you, Margie me girl. You’re the kind of woman that Tarans of both sexes adore. The men will all fall in love with you, like I was after doing, and myself seeing you for the first time, and the young women will all identify with you, and the old women, even the real old women like the Lady Deirdre—” he mentally made a sign of the cross “—will want to mother you.”
“Thank you very much, Seamus O’Neill, Poet and Soldier.” He glanced to one side and saw her warmly smiling at him. “That was very nice. You are very nice too. Some of the time.”
“A man tries.” He turned away, stunned by the loveliness of her smile.
No, that greasy gombeen man isn’t going to get one of his filthy paws within half the galaxy of you. Not if I can help it.
* * *
Later that night, Hyperion long since lost in the darkness and its scanners probably out of range, O’Neill gripped the reins of his horse tightly. For the tenth time that night, he cursed the Zylong moons.
They had risen early. He had not figured their rotation cycle properly. Now every grain of sand on the wide beach seemed visible as the silent column trotted across it. The high mountains toward which they rode stood out clearly in the moonlight, their snow-covered peaks gleaming. Chances for a successful escape in this light were poor.
You were so besotted with the woman that you weren’t thinking clearly. You’re still not.
His throat tightened. He’d never played the game for such a prize before. It changed everything.
O’Neill’s danger sense was much higher than it ought to have been this early in the ride. Maybe the Fourth Secretary’s boys weren’t planning to wait until they arrived at the transport. He was a more clever gombeen man than Seamus had thought. “Never, I repeat, never, allow yourself the luxury of underestimating the enemy”: Carmody’s first rule. And he’d broken it. Along with a lot of other rules.
So get ready for battle, he warned himself. Shape up, O’Neill.
But the problem was not so much battle as trickery. He was alert, ready, physically and mentally eager for battle. He sniffed the cold desert air, a soldier now, not a spy. But he wasn’t able to activate the crafty part of his mind. Away from other Tarans too long.
Well, if you want me back, he informed herself, in the unlikely event she was listening, you’d better come up with something good really quick. Like ten minutes ago.
Despite the silence of the marchers, he tried to keep the Fourth Secretary in conversation. “Tell me more about this fellow Narth who everyone at the fort was talking about. Where is his ‘empire’?”
The Fourth Secretary chuckled. “I’m afraid, Poet O’Neill, that you have been taking our folk stories literally. A long time ago a member of the Committee, a brilliant man—perhaps the most brilliant we ever had—became mentally disturbed from overwork. He asked permission to go out of the City and live in the countryside until he regained his health. Poor man, what could the Committee do? Obviously he would not survive in the outer reaches of our planet. He would hear no argument, so we let him go. No one has seen him since; it is presumed that he died long ago. Most Zylongi have a very superstitious fear of the countryside; legends grow fast in such circumstances. Occasional attacks from hordi bands on caravans like yours don’t help.”
It sounded like an official party line. O’Neill persisted. “I also heard tales of ‘the Hooded Ones’ and the Young Ones.’ Who are they? More legends?”
The Secretary dismissed them with a wave of his fat hairy hand. “Complete fables. I regret that the garrison at Hyperion has filled the mind of an important guest of Zylong with such nonsense. Even in as well-organized and efficient a society as ours, there are occasional accidents—a construction collapse, a crash of small vehicles, a fight between people who have had too much of the wrong kind of la-ir, a less than satisfactory harvest.…”
“A monorail accident?” He watched out of the corner of his eye for a reaction.
The Fourth Secretary’s thick lips tightened. His answer was a fraction of a second too late.
“Yes, those do happen, too, though very rarely. The computer program … In any case, it suits the superstitious needs of some of our less educated people to create explanations for these chance events. So they imagine completely fictional bands of terrorists. Every older generation is dismayed by their young and their ‘radical’ ideas. Our young people are exemplary citizens—like our good and brave Captain Marjetta, who earned the favor of the people as well as her promotion by her brave actions at a time of great personal loss.”
“Thank you, Honored Secretary,” Marjetta said, politely staring straight ahead into the desert.
“My dear.” He nodded at her, then continued. “The Guardians eliminated supernatural demons from our culture at the time of the Reorganization. There are some residual needs that are served by these natural if fictional demons. While we are dismayed by their persistence and confidently expect that we will eliminate them by proper genetic controls in the future, the fact remains that they do persist. They are socially of no importance.”
“I suppose that the stories about the Festivals are also largely fictional?” He was pressing his luck a bit. The Secretary might get suspicious. But this time he didn’t hesitate a moment.
“My dear man, surely a widely traveled person like yourself is familiar with the carnival week syndrome that exists in almost every society? You know how people love to exaggerate their misbehavior at a time when the social norms collapse. If you could remain with us, you would find that our carnival time is a time of quite innocent relaxation, despite the wildly exaggerated tales which have grown up around it. It is a very mild period of rest and refreshment after the hard work of harvesting. Our Guardians quite rightly insisted that all honored citizens of our democratic society would participate in the harvest work. I hope you will discount any exaggerations you have heard about the Festivals. Ours is a small and very provincial planet. Stories have a way of getting beyond all proper bounds. They do no great harm, but they certainly would disturb a visitor with less sophistication than yourself.”
The so-and-so is plausible enough, O’Neill thought. If I didn’t know better, I might well have swallowed the whole line.
The attack at the first campsite and the sight of Narth, Imperial Guard surrounding him, were not imaginary, and neither were those killers in the monorail station. The prickling at the back of his neck that meant danger was not imaginary, either—although, oddly enough, the danger seemed to come from outside the marching column. Something was drawing closer every minute.
What’s going on in Margie’s pretty head? She has not looked your way once during the ride. But surely she trusts in you. Completely. Has to, poor woman. Is she scared?
Of course she is. So are you, Seamus O’Neill, admit it.
Well, there’s a lot to be scared about.
Once he had thought her solid rock. Now he knew there was fire under the rock, disconcerting animal passion and patriotic fervor. And beneath the fire, he was beginning to discover gentleness and fragility. And wit, too, even if she laughed at him.
When she was in his arms, he lusted for her. At other times he feared her but couldn’t quite understand why. Would she be reliable in combat, now that some of the fire had erupted? The back of his neck warned him not to be too certain, good soldier or not.
Well, he’s still not going to get his greasy paws on her.
They rode on for several more hours. The danger feeling did not abate. But it seemed farther away, as though it weren’t in the Fourth Secretary’s troop at all, but somewhere else. They were approaching the mountains. He had misjudged where the Zylongi parked the transport, so that they were much farther away from the pass that would lead them out of the desert. Fortunately, two moons had set; the desert was darker. At the leader’s guttural command the column wheeled left and began to descend a sloping ravine in the rocky, uneven desert floor.
O’Neill’s sense of danger shot up. They’re going to do something now. I don’t know what it is, but now’s the time. We are going to redeploy instantly. Which means run like hell.
As they entered the ravine he began the “Whistling Gypsy” tune an instant before shoving the Fourth Secretary from his horse. The sound of screams and shots exploded behind him as he galloped up the slope. He didn’t see or hear Marjetta. It was a trap—not for O’Neill and Marjetta, but for their Zylongi escorts.
Out of rifle range, O’Neill stopped to look for Margie. She was there, bless her, right behind him. “What is going on?” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Just as you rode away the head of the column came under fire. The ravine was filled with Narth’s cavalry. O’Neill, how did you know?”
“I didn’t. I just knew there was something wrong with that ravine. It’s a little trick we Tarans have. I’ll tell you about it someday.”
The two rested their horses while they surveyed the scene spread out below them. Their breakaway had saved the column from complete and immediate destruction. Narth’s pony soldiers had started shooting as soon as they saw the commotion caused by O’Neill’s and Marjetta’s escape. This gave the rear of the column time to dig in behind the rocks at the mouth of the ravine. Narth’s cavalry were caught inside, and despite the sharpshooters stationed along the rim, it looked like there would be quite a long battle.
“Our friends on both sides will be busy. Let’s put as much distance between them and us as we can before they decide they have one aim in common and we’re it.” He spurred his horse forward and they raced across the sands toward the towering mountains gleaming in the ghostly moonlight.
An hour and a half of hard riding later, they came up against a sheer cliff face.
“Is not the pass that way?” asked Margie, pointing north.
“It is, but I’m trying to figure out what to do. Narth is that way too. We might try to head back to the fort. But I think the Committee will want us even more after tonight; it might not be all that safe there.”
“Poor Retha. She will lead her troop through that.” She pointed to the now quiet and sinister desert.
“There’s nothing we can do about Retha,” O’Neill said, shrugging his shoulders. “Quars is a good soldier. He will know what’s happened out here. He may take matters into his own hands and lead an expeditionary force.”
They picked their way slowly along the edge of the mountain wall. The horses were tired now. There seemed little danger of pursuit but much danger of stumbling into someone they did not want to meet.
Suddenly the night air was rent by a tremendous explosion. A ball of light shot up from the desert floor, sending a giant mushroom cloud into the darkened sky.
So they have those kinds of things here too, Seamus thought, remembering the worn-out video tapes on the Iona. Nuclear weapons. And they’re not afraid to use them.
O’Neill and Marjetta struggled to calm their frightened mounts.
“What was that?” Marjetta exclaimed, terror choking her words.
“What do you want to bet that it was some sort of self-destruct charge on the large transport? Narth must have launched an attack on it too. It would be a nice toy for him to have. The Committee probably had it rigged so that it could be destroyed on command of the Central Building. This has not been a good night for the Fourth Secretary and his staff. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about him again.”
She shivered with disgust but bravely replied, “With you protecting me, I did not fear him.”
“I may not deserve that praise, woman.” He sighed loudly. “But from yourself. ’tis good to hear it.”
“It’s only the truth.”
Well, she’s not laughing at me now. I’d better change the subject. “Do you think he was really the boss behind the Committee?”
“That gives him too much credit, Geemie.” She patted her horse reassuringly. “He was the one who accomplished things, the only one who was not an ineffectual old man. But he did not have complete power.”
“So there’ll be a vacuum—into which you and your friends can rush?”
“That seems a long way from here, doesn’t it? And highly improbable?”
“I don’t know. I’m only a wandering poet. Come to think of it, however, it’s not been an especially good night for Narth. He must have lost his best troops in that explosion. Come on, let’s see if we can find this pass.”
They found it at first light. It didn’t look low. The natural trail wound up through the mountains steeply, losing itself in mists and snow near the top.
“Are you game?” Seamus looked over at Marjetta. She was tired already, too early for a dependable officer.
“I have always wondered what the mountains were like. I have never felt snow.” She grinned at him, her brown eyes sparkling like a sky of stars. He lost a heartbeat or two in the light of her grin.
So they began to climb. It was arduous at first. Sometime after sunrise the path up the mountain widened to a broad avenue of rock, becoming less steep. It was an ascending canyon with tall walls on either side. Seamus was relaxed, so occupied with looking at Marjetta and spinning dreams that his psychic sense completely failed him this time. They rounded a bend and were astonished to see, waiting not twenty yards away, Narth and a half dozen of his guard. They were trapped.
“So,” boomed the crimson-clad, black-bearded “Emperor” of Zylong. “The lovely young leader of the foolish radicals and the inestimable Major O’Neill from the Iona. You two have caused me a good deal of trouble. I think you will shortly learn about real revolution instead of café-table talking. Dismount from your horses. Do not try to move your weapons. Try nothing foolish. O’Neill, you are a dead man, but the woman might make an interesting mate, with the proper training and experience. She will need the kind of discipline in which I am expert. She will perhaps even come to enjoy it. Don’t risk her life with stupid heroics.”
“Ah, now, why would I do anything foolish?” Seamus temporized as he and Margie slowly dismounted. He managed to loosen what he wanted to as he got off the horse. “But since you know about the Iona, can’t we be after making a wee deal, just you and me? I don’t care about the woman. You can have her if you want. She’s not much in bed anyway. Your beautiful military types tend to be frigid, as I’m sure yourself knows.”
“That’s a very interesting suggestion.” Narth’s thick white teeth flashed in a crooked grin. “Send me the woman and we’ll talk.”
“You heard what the man said.” O’Neill shoved her in the direction of the Emperor and his Guard—a badly battered little crowd. All that was left from the explosion. Not very alert. Well, we’ll see. He slipped a few inches closer to the canyon wall, drawing his horse with him.
Poor Marjetta stumbled toward Narth. Out of the frying pan into the fire. You’re going to have to be mighty quick, woman, if I’m going to get away with this.
She stood in front of Narth, obedient and abject. He fondled her for a few moments. She did not resist or respond. Seamus stepped a couple of feet closer to the wall. One of the guards raised his weapon a few inches, but no one else seemed to notice.
“Like I said, your military women really don’t have much to offer.”
“I will enjoying educating her,” Narth slobbered over his captive. “As with so much else in life, it is the process that brings the satisfaction, not the end result. Don’t you agree, O’Neill?”
“Sure, the process with that one will not be any picnic.” He was almost in position, an angle where the slope of the canyon was behind Narth and his troops. “Now about the Iona…”
They should have rushed him and tied him up at the first moment. But it was a surprise encounter, as much a shock to them as to Margie and himself. And they were still battered from the explosion. And for all his tough talk, Narth, like everyone else on Zylong, was a bit in awe of the red-bearded giant from outer space. Who knew what might happen if they got too close to him? Better to keep him at a distance with their guns aimed at him.
“Indeed.” Narth smiled genially. “I doubt that you can deliver the Iona to me, but it might be useful to explore ways of cooperation in any case. Moreover I wish to know more about her. There are ways of finding out, as you may imagine. Need I say that they are in themselves amusing, although neither you nor the lovely Captain would find them such.”
“Ask away.” Just a few more seconds.
“First of all, what is the complement of the ship? And again, Major O’Neill—” he must have seen the light of battle in O’Neill’s eyes “—let me warn you against doing anything foolish. There are easy and there are painful, terribly painful ways to die.”
“Ah, sure what is there foolish I can do?”
O’Neill then did something very foolish. Snatching his smoke grenade from its fastening on the saddle, he lobbed it up the canyon wall. Like a ball thrown on a slanted roof, it rolled up the wall, hesitated, and then began to slide down again.
Surprised and startled, Narth and his guards turned to watch the round object accelerating toward them. Seamus grabbed his carbine. Marjetta broke away from Narth and began to run toward him. Seamus raised the weapon, ready to fire as soon as she was clear. She jumped behind a rock.
Just as he opened fire, the Imperial Guard did something equally foolish. Apparently they had never seen a grenade before, so they shot at it as it lumbered toward them. One of them was a pretty good shot. O’Neill, blazing away now with his own weapon, just had time to shout “Hit the ground!” before he was assisted off his feet by the detonation.
A long, long time later he fought his way back to consciousness. The sun was now high in the sky and shining brightly. The canyon was dead quiet—indeed, it was filled with death.
Was he the only one alive? Ahead of him on the canyon floor were the remains of the Emperor Narth’s Guard. The imperial robe was now rust-colored with dried blood. Sure enough, the robe itself hadn’t burned. So these robes were not flammable. Like a man on a binge, Seamus considered his own robe. Nope, it hadn’t burned either.
Now what was I supposed to be thinking about?
Oh yes, there’s no body in Narth’s robe. Now, isn’t that interesting. Has Narth escaped? Maybe carried off on a frightened horse?
Sure, if he had, he wouldn’t fall for that trick the next time.
So I’ll think up a better trick.
Anyhow, if the blast blew him out of his robe, he’s probably dead.
There’s something else I should be thinking about. No, someone else. Someone real important. Now let’s see, who is it?
O’Neill checked his own limbs; everything seemed to be in working order. Well, now he and Marjetta could resume their travels.
Marjetta! Where is she? He stumbled to his feet. Their horses had disappeared, racing back in terror, no doubt, to the lowlands where they belonged. Near the bodies of Narth’s guards sprawled grotesquely on a rock slide against the canyon wall, Marjetta lay, apparently as lifeless as the rest of them.
His ears ringing, his legs unsteady, he stumbled to her and turned her over. She appeared to be sleeping, except there was a thin line of blood tracing down her face from a wound above the hairline. Running to the supply pack, which his horse had shed in the rush to escape this place of strange noises, he found a syringe of life serum. With shaking hands he managed to inject it into her arm.
At first there was no reaction. He felt for a pulse. Still there, but very weak. If some life serum is good, would more be better? Sammy had never told him. Her pulse was slowing down. He dashed back and removed the two remaining vials of life serum and injected them clumsily into her arm.
Slowly color returned to Margie’s pale face. A few moments later when she opened her eyes he was holding her in his arms. He busied himself fixing the scratch on her head. She clung to him, fighting for self-control; then grinned again. “Quick thinking, Major,” she said with a wink. “But how do you know what I’m like in bed?”