Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (41 page)

Dakin smiled wearily. "We don't know."

Marshall put his hand up, to turn the screen off, saying, "I'll hurry." Dakin faded from sight. Willem muttered, "Shit!" and sat at the deadened screen for long minutes.

The dean camped by the belly of the shuttle, claiming it for protection as much as anything else. He emerged in the first gray-purple hours of dawn and took a deep breath. Ketchum had been sitting nester-style by a waning campfire and stood up to greet him.

His nation had claimed the mesa top. Below, at the foot of the gradual rise, he could see the campfires of the Mojavans. He rubbed his hands together with immense satisfaction. The longshippers would help him remove the Mojavans. Then nothing could stand between him and the counties. Nothing Blade could say or do would save or protect any of his people. Then the dean would be free to return to his people, the longshippers, true humans, and the nesters would serve as the brute strength they would need to develop the earth. Many hands and strong backs.

Ketchum had been staring into his face as though reading his thoughts. He turned his face away as the dean looked keenly at him.
Still animal,
thought the man.
Still unable to meet my stare.

The nester said flatly, "Do we fight?"

"Undoubtedly. But we don't attack first. Let the Mojavans come to us."

An uphill offense would slaughter most of the troops early on. The dean smiled in anticipation. He laughed at Ketchum's hesitation. "Don't worry so much. I have allies in those troops. They'll carry the fight to us. I have the longshippers in the palm of my hand. They'll defend us if necessary. Today, we will carve a hole in the gut of the Mojavan nation, one that Denethan will not be able to survive. Then, the counties. Water, Ketchum. All the water and fertile land we deserve.''

The shuttle began to open with a faint whine, the ramp coming down. The dean smiled broadly and went to greet them.

Marshall had worn his dress suit, beige uniform contrasting sharply with his coffee-colored skin. He was flanked by Reynolds and Dubois. He inclined his chin off the mesa, in the direction of the Mojavan army.

"What is this?"

"Strength in numbers, Commander Marshall." The dean brightened his expression. "We can always hope they came to parlay.''

"And if not?"

"Then," and the dean bowed graciously, "my clans and I will defend you to our last man."

' 'What do you suggest we do?''

"Ah," the dean said. "I suggest we wait and let them make the first move."

A sharp whistle broke the morning air. Ketchum bounded to the edge of the mesa, looked down across the plain toward the mountains. There was sudden activity among the Mojavans.

"What is it?" the dean asked sharply. He had given no signals yet.

"I don't know. Two riders, I think. The Mojavans are giving way to them."

The dean, joined by Willem and the crew, left the shelter of the shuttle to watch. Reynolds held a pair of binoculars out to Marshall even as the dean lifted his from under cover of his robes and they scanned the plains below. The nesters moved restlessly about their campfires.

"My God!" Marshall said. "He's got Dusty with them!"

On the grass plains, the Mojavans were getting to their knees, bowing low before their prince, son of their ruler. He acknowledged their obeisance with a salute of his own. It was his shrill whistle which had pierced the stillness after dawn. Halfway through the ranks of the army, he reined to a halt.

"Shankar is dead!" Drakkar said. "His followers are known to me. Those of you within these troops have but one chance left to live. There will be great happenings this day. Follow my orders and live. Betray me and betray your very existence!"

In one throat, the Mojavans roared back. "DRAK-kar!"

Dusty stirred in Thomas' arms. "A bit feudal, isn't it?"

"Feudal?"

"Kings, peasants, that sort of thing."

"Oh," he said. His voice buzzed pleasantly in his chest. "Like Macbeth."

"Very
like Macbeth," Dusty answered. "Now what do we do?"

"We hope that the dean makes the nesters let us get within striking distance. He should, with you as hostage, even if only to get me close enough to kill."

"He wants you that bad?" Dusty asked.

Thomas laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, yes. He wants me that bad. And I want him."

She squirmed a little, uncomfortable on the horse. They had been riding double, most of the night to reach the mesa and her bumps and bruises from the river were sharp as thorns. She could not have told either man the correct direction, but they'd recognized her description of the site. There was a fatalism in Thomas Blade that she could only describe as predestiny. She thought he would have known his way here regardless.

Drakkar looked at them, his crest full and his face lit by a savage joy. "They'll let us through now."

Thomas said laconically, "All the same, watch your back, boy," as he reined past Drakkar.

The Mojavan prince took pause for just a moment, then rode after them. Thomas had been holding his longknife comfortably at her chest. Now he raised it to her throat as they paused at the mesa's base.

"Be very careful," he said. "It's got an extremely sharp edge."

Dusty could feel its prick at her skin, where the enviro suit could not protect her. "I'll remember that," she answered.

"Do that."

She felt his broad chest inhale deeply. "Commander Marshall!" he bellowed out. "I have someone of importance to you. Give me passage to come up and talk with you."

Marshall had been looking intently through the binoculars. He knew the man had Dusty. He lowered them long enough to look at the dean. "Who the hell is that?"

"That," the dean answered tensely, "is Sir Thomas Blade." He lowered his glasses as well. Ketchum inclined his head and evaporated at an invisible signal from the dean. Then he turned to Marshall as the commander spoke again.

"Will he kill her?"

"He," the dean said flatly, "is capable of slitting her throat and eviscerating her before you can draw three breaths."

Marshall took one of those breaths. He studied Dusty through the glasses. Her face had a placid, resigned expression to it.

"Let him come up," the dean urged. "I've got Ketchum placed with a rifle. Get the girl loose and we'll drop him in his tracks."

At this, Marshall dropped his glasses and turned full face to look at the dean. "Just who is this man and how badly do you want him?"

The dean hesitated, then also dropped his binoculars upon his chest, letting them dangle from their cord. "This is the man," he said, "who destroyed the College Vaults. This is the man who sent a party of children to destroy us. This is the man who, because he wears a mark upon his forehead, can frighten an entire nation of nester clans. Don't be fooled by whatever he says."

Yet Marshall hesitated. Shipborn justice was swift and sure, with the threat of being airlocked to those who trespassed the law. Quibbles were minor, though sometimes debated through generations. But the crimes of their ancestors—rape, murder, maiming—were not among their sins. He felt like Reynolds trying to deal with her fear of wide-open spaces.
If this is my fellow man,
he thought,
I am frightened to death of the consequences.
He remembered the
Challenger
and shouted back, "Let her go, first."

The rider's horse took the last bucking stride and halted at the edge of the mesa. Marshall could see Dusty clearly now, with the blade of the knife to her white throat. Her hair, already the color of fresh blood, hung about her face. The man who held her had taken in the number of nesters upon the mesa and placed him and most of the Away Team as well. Marshall felt his intent gaze sweep past him a second time, linger on the dean, and return.

The commander thought he'd seen everything the shattered Earth had to offer when the lizard men had attacked, but the young man who rode to Blade's flank stopped him in surprise. He wore a feathered headdress, or perhaps it was part of him, and as his horse came to a halt beside Blade's, he stripped off his gloves, revealing spurs as large as talons on his wrist.

The dean made a noise between his teeth and turned away from Marshall.

"Who the hell is that?"

"I'm not sure," the dean said. "I think that is Dene-than's son. His heir apparent. Evolution beyond the reptile, eh?"

Blade moved in his saddle. "Seen enough?" he called out. "Let us approach and you'll get the girl back. She's a little waterlogged, but I've seen worse." He smiled tightly at the dean.

Marshall cleared his throat. He said to the dean, "Let them come in.''

With a glitter deep in his hooded eyes, the dean held up an arm and waved the riders closer. The nesters were already moving back, however, and Marshall could hear the whispered words, "The Marked Man. The mark of Shastra,'' as the nester warriors retreated to their original defensive front, protecting the mesa from the troops below.

The commander said, "Everybody get aboard the shuttle."

Reynolds began a protest.

"Everybody,
I said. I'll bring Dusty in."

Reluctantly, they left him alone. The sun had come up enough, at the shuttle's back, to cast its shadow and he stood in the tip of it. He knew the dean would use him if he could. He had not yet figured out how.

The riders came within ten paces of Marshall. He could see the tiny line of blood welling up from Dusty's throat. He wondered if she even knew she'd been cut.

"Put the knife down," he said.

The man in the brown leather jacket with a white scarf wrapped and tucked in about his neck relaxed the knife blade a touch but shook his head with a rueful smile. "I intend to ride back out," he said. He looked Marshall up and down. "So you're human."

The commander was startled. "And you're not?"

"No. None of us are, really. You're the foundation stock. We're the selective adaptives." He reached up with a free hand and ripped away the scarf. "I'm gilled. Drakkar here displays attributes which astonish even those of us used to the aberrations of the eleven year plague—a virus which mutates us beyond imagination. I will not apologize for our lack of purity."

Marshall looked to Dusty who remained placid and quiet within the man's armhold, most unlike her. There was more here than met the eye. She did not look up at him. He heard the dean move restively at his side. The dean whispered, "Don't listen to him. The Countians have telepathic powers. He can sway a mob, he can convince you.''

Marshall frowned. "Why are you here?"

"To bring you back one of your own. And to convey to you a welcome from the Seven Counties where we try very hard, with sometimes spectacular failures, to be civilized."

"A civilized man does not hold a knife to the throat of another.''

"Not even in the midst of two armies?" Blade's thin smile flickered on and off. "I must remember that." He lowered his knife hand from Dusty's throat and rested it lightly on the horn of the saddle. Marshall didn't feel much better. The knife point was now just below her rib cage, where an upward thrust could send it into the heart. Thomas now said, "You were met by a scoundrel, Commander Marshall, a man who self-destructed an invaluable repository of human knowledge because he did not wish to share it with mutants. A man whose obsessive desire to gain vengeance led him to enslave an entire people. Nesters are free people. They are outcasts who have chosen to live outside our community. Because of their choice, they are often contaminated. Mutated further than any being should have to suffer. They are often deprived of pure water and careless about the pollution of the water they do have access to. What you see around you—those you see around you—have chosen their own punishment by moving outside county boundaries. There's little I could do to them to make them more miserable."

Blade raised his voice. "But I could enslave them with promises, if I wanted to. Drive them off their campgrounds and mold them into an army. Promise them water rights and farms and herds once the Countians are driven away—those who are left alive, that is."

"You lie," the dean said impatiently. He, too, raised his voice. "He lies!"

"Do I? I was sent here by the new Director of Water and Power. He wants to remind you of your clan treaties. He wants to sit with you and forge new treaties if you're unhappy. He wants to ask why you're so eager to fight with the Mojavans and with us." Thomas' voice dropped and he looked at Marshall again. "And I was given permission to remove any obstacle in my way."

Ketchum moved out of the shadow of the shuttle, where he had been all but obscured. His rifle lay across the cradle of his arm. He said, "Is this true? New treaties?"

"Yes. We're aware that some of us have encroached your pastures, taken away your wells, raided the weaker clans. We're human, more or less. We're all on this land together. We will not deny any man or woman water."

Dusty moved slightly. She lifted her eyes to look upon Ketchum. "You tried to kill me," she said.

The nester went to one knee on the ground and bowed his head. "I was told to," he said.