"Are these words true?" Ulv asked.
"Yes," Brion said.
"They are perhaps true," Gebk said, "but there is nothing that we
can do. I was with my brother when these word-things fell out of the
sky and he listened to one and took it to the magter to ask them.
They killed him, as he should have known they would do. The magter
kill us if they know we listen to the words."
"And the words tell us we will die if we listen to the magter!" Ulv
shouted, his voice cracking. Not with fear, but with frustration at
the attempt to reconcile two opposite points of view. Up until this
time his world had consisted of black and white values, with very
few shadings of difference in between.
"There are things you can do that will stop the war without hurting
yourself or the magter," Brion said, searching for a way to enlist
their aid.
"Tell us," Ulv grunted.
"There would be no war if the magter could be contacted, made to
listen to reason. They are killing you all. You could tell me how
to talk to the magter, how I could understand them—"
"No one can talk to the magter," the woman broke in. "If you say
something different they will kill you as they killed Gebk's
brother. So they are easy to understand. That is the way they are.
They do not change." She put the length of plant she had been
softening for the child back into her mouth. Her lips were deeply
grooved and scarred from a lifetime of this work, her teeth at the
sides worn almost to the bone.
"Mor is right," Ulv said. "You do not talk to magter. What else is
there to do?"
Brion looked at the two men before he spoke, and shifted his weight.
The motion brought his fingertips just a few inches from his gun.
"The magter have bombs that will destroy Nyjord—this is the next
planet, a star in your sky. If I can find where the bombs are, I
will have them taken away and there will be no war."
"You want to aid the devils in the sky against our own people!"
Gebk shouted, half rising. Ulv pulled him back to the ground,
but there was no more warmth in his voice as he spoke.
"You are asking too much. You will leave now."
"Will you help me, though? Will you help stop the war?" Brion asked,
aware he had gone too far, but unable to stop. Their anger was
making them forget the reasons for his being there.
"You ask too much," Ulv said again. "Go back now. We will talk about it."
"Will I see you again? How can I reach you?"
"We will find you if we wish to talk to you," was all Ulv said. If
they decided he was lying he would never see them again. There was
nothing he could do about it.
"I have made up my mind," Gebk said, rising to his feet and drawing
his cloth up until it covered his shoulders. "You are lying and this
is all a lie of the sky people. If I see you again I will kill you."
He stepped to the tunnel and was gone.
There was nothing more to be said. Brion went out next—checking
carefully to be sure that Gebk really had left—and Ulv guided him
to the spot where the lights of Hovedstad were visible. He did not
speak during their return journey and vanished without a word. Brion
shivered in the night chill of the air and wrapped his coat more
tightly around himself. Depressed, he walked back towards the warmer
streets of the city.
It was dawn when he reached the Foundation building; a new guard
was at the front entrance. No amount of hammering or threats could
convince the man to open until Faussel came down, yawning and
blinking with sleep. He was starting some complaint when Brion cut
him off curtly and ordered him to finish dressing and report for
work at once. Still feeling elated, Brion hurried into his office
and cursed the overly efficient character who had turned on his air
conditioner to chill the room again. When he turned it off this time
he removed enough vital parts to keep it out of order for the
duration.
When Faussel came in he was still yawning behind his fist—obviously
a low morning-sugar type. "Before you fall on your face, go out and
get some coffee," Brion said. "Two cups. I'll have a cup too."
"That won't be necessary," Faussel said, drawing himself up stiffly.
"I'll call the canteen if you wish some." He said it in the iciest
tone he could manage this early in the morning.
In his enthusiasm Brion had forgotten the hate campaign he had
directed against himself. "Suit yourself," he said shortly, getting
back into the role. "But the next time you yawn there'll be a
negative entry in your service record. If that's clear—you can
brief me on this organization's visible relations with the Disans.
How do they take us?"
Faussel choked and swallowed a yawn. "I believe they look on the
C.R.F. people as some species of simpleton, sir. They hate all
offworlders; memory of their desertion has been passed on verbally
for generations. So by their one-to-one logic we should either hate
back or go away. We stay instead. And give them food, water,
medicine and artifacts. Because of this they let us remain on
sufferance. I imagine they consider us do-gooder idiots, and as long
as we cause no trouble they'll let us stay." He was struggling
miserably to suppress a yawn, so Brion turned his back and gave him
a chance to get it out.
"What about the Nyjorders? How much do they know of our work?" Brion
looked out the window at dusty buildings, outlined in purple against
the violent colors of the desert sunrise.
"Nyjord is a cooperating planet, and has full knowledge at all
executive levels. They are giving us all the aid they can."
"Well, now is the time to ask for more. Can I contact the commander
of the blockading fleet?"
"There is a scrambler connection right through to him. I'll set it
up." Faussel bent over the desk and punched a number into the phone
controls. The screen flowed with the black and white patterns of the
scrambler.
"That's all, Faussel," Brion said. "I want privacy for this talk.
What's the commander's name?"
"Professor Krafft—he's a physicist. They have no military men at
all, so they called him in for the construction of the bombs and
energy weapons. He's still in charge." Faussel yawned extravagantly
as he went out the door.
The Professor-Commander was very old, with wispy grey hair and
a network of wrinkles surrounding his eyes. His image shimmered,
then cleared as the scrambler units aligned.
"You must be Brion Brandd," he said. "I have to tell you how sorry
we all are that your friend Ihjel and the two others—had to die,
after coming so far to help us. I'm sure you are very happy to have
had a friend like that."
"Why ... yes, of course," Brion said, reaching for the scattered
fragments of his thought processes. It took an effort to remember
the first conflict, now that he was worrying about the death of a
planet. "It's very kind of you to mention it. But I would like to
find out a few things from you, if I could."
"Anything at all; we are at your disposal. Before we begin, though,
I shall pass on the thanks of our council for your aid in joining
us. Even if we are eventually forced to drop the bombs, we shall
never forget that your organization did everything possible to
avert the disaster."
Once again Brion was caught off balance. For an instant he wondered
if Krafft was being insincere, then recognized the baseness of this
thought. The completeness of the man's humanity was obvious and
compelling. The thought passed through Brion's mind that now he had
an additional reason for wanting the war ended without destruction
on either side. He very much wanted to visit Nyjord and see these
people on their home grounds.
Professor Krafft waited, patiently and silently, while Brion pulled
his thoughts together and answered. "I still hope that this thing
can be stopped in time. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.
I want to see Lig-magte and I thought it would be better if I had
a legitimate reason. Are you in contact with him?"
Krafft shook his head. "No, not really in contact. When this trouble
started I sent him a transceiver so we could talk directly. But he
has delivered his ultimatum, speaking for the magter. The only terms
he will hear are unconditional surrender. His receiver is on, but
he has said that is the only message he will answer."
"Not much chance of him ever being told that," Brion said.
"There was—at one time. I hope you realize, Brion, that the
decision to bomb Dis was not easily arrived at. A great many
people—myself included—voted for unconditional surrender.
We lost the vote by a very small margin."
Brion was getting used to these philosophical body blows and he
rolled with the punches now. "Are there any of your people left on
this planet? Or do you have any troops I can call on for help? This
is still a remote possibility, but if I do find out where the bombs
or the launchers are, a surprise raid would knock them out."
"We have no people left in Hovedstad now—all the ones who weren't
evacuated were killed. But there are commando teams standing by here
to make a landing if the weapons are detected. The Disans must
depend on secrecy to protect their armament, since we have both
the manpower and the technology to reach any objective. We also
have technicians and other volunteers looking for the weapon sites.
They have not been successful as yet, and most of them were killed
soon after landing."
Krafft hesitated for a moment. "There is another group you should
know about; you will need all the factors. Some of our people are in
the desert outside of Hovedstad. We do not officially approve of
them, though they have a good deal of popular support. They are
mostly young men, operating as raiders, killing and destroying with
very little compunction. They are attempting to uncover the weapons
by sheer strength of arms."
This was the best news yet. Brion controlled his voice and kept his
expression calm when he spoke. "I don't know how far I can stretch
your cooperation—but could you possibly tell me how to get in touch
with them?"
Kraft allowed himself a small smile. "I'll give you the wave length
on which you can reach their radio. They call themselves the 'Nyjord
army.' When you talk to them you can do me a favor. Pass on a
message. Just to prove things aren't bad enough, they've become
a little worse. One of our technical crews has detected jump-space
energy transmissions in the planetary crust. The Disans are
apparently testing their projector, sooner than we had estimated.
Our deadline has been revised by one day. I'm afraid there are only
two days left before you must evacuate." His eyes were large with
compassion. "I'm sorry. I know this will make your job that much
harder."
Brion didn't want to think about the loss of a full day from his
already close deadline. "Have you told the Disans this yet?"
"No," Krafft told him. "The decision was reached a few minutes
before your call. It is going on the radio to Lig-magte now."
"Can you cancel the transmission and let me take the message in
person?"
"I can do that." Krafft thought for a moment. "But it would surely
mean your death at their hands. They have no hesitation in killing
any of our people. I would prefer to send it by radio."
"If you do that you will be interfering with my plans, and perhaps
destroying them under the guise of saving my life. Isn't my life
my own—to dispose of as I will?"
For the first time Professor Krafft was upset. "I'm sorry, terribly
sorry. I'm letting my concern and worry wash over into my public
affairs. Of course you may do as you please; I could never think of
stopping you." He turned and said something inaudible offscreen.
"The call is cancelled. The responsibility is yours. All our wishes
for success go with you. End of transmission."
"End of transmission," Brion said, and the screen went dark.
"Faussel!" he shouted into the intercom. "Get me the best and
fastest sand car we have, a driver who knows his way around, and two
men who can handle a gun and know how to take orders. We're going to
get some positive action at last."
"It's suicide," the taller guard grumbled.
"Mine, not yours, so don't worry about it," Brion barked at him.
"Your job is to remember your orders and keep them straight.
Now—let's hear them again."
The guard rolled his eyes up in silent rebellion and repeated in a
toneless voice: "We stay here in the car and keep the motor running
while you go inside the stone pile there. We don't let anybody in
the car and we try and keep them clear of the car—short of shooting
them, that is. We don't come in, no matter what happens or what it
looks like, but wait for you here. Unless you call on the radio, in
which case we come in with the automatics going and shoot the place
up, and it doesn't matter who we hit. This will be done only as
a last resort."
"See if you can't arrange that last resort thing," the other guard
said, patting the heavy blue barrel of his weapon.
"I meant that
last
resort," Brion said angrily. "If any guns go
off without my permission you will pay for it, and pay with your
necks. I want that clearly understood. You are here as a rear guard
and a base for me to get back to. This is my operation and mine
alone—unless I call you in. Understood?"
He waited until all three men had nodded in agreement, then checked
the charge on his gun—it was fully loaded. It would be foolish to
go in unarmed, but he had to. One gun wouldn't save him. He put it
aside. The button radio on his collar was working and had a strong
enough signal to get through any number of walls. He took off his
coat, threw open the door and stepped out into the searing
brilliance of the Disan noon.
There was only the desert silence, broken by the steady throb of
the car's motor behind him. Stretching away to the horizon in every
direction was the eternal desert of sand. The keep stood nearby,
solitary, a massive pile of black rock. Brion plodded closer,
watching for any motion from the walls. Nothing stirred. The
high-walled, irregularly shaped construction sat in a ponderous
silence. Brion was sweating now, only partially from the heat.