Land and Overland - Omnibus (102 page)

Bartan waited only a few seconds and said, "What is the verdict?"

"She wants to send a fleet."

"Did you tell her there aren't any ships available?"

"She told me not to vex her with minor details." Cassyll gave a humourless laugh. "Details!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I have promised to find out exactly how many ships can be made airworthy, by cannibalizing others if necessary, and report the situation to her. Many engine parts will need to be repaired or replaced, and there is a dearth of balloon fabric. It could take as long as twenty days before we can send anybody aloft, and…" Cassyll fell silent, twisting the gold ring he wore on the sixth finger of his left hand.

"And you were hoping Toller would have returned long before then," Bartan said sympathetically. "He probably
will
be back … with that countess hanging around his neck … It takes a lot to deflect that young man from his course."

"Excellent choice of words—I took some fresh readings early this foreday and I'd say that the barrier is now almost a hundred miles across. It means that no ship could possibly fly around it."

"There you are then!" Bartan said with a display of cheerfulness. "Toller
has
to come back soon!"

"You're a good friend," Cassyll replied, trying to smile. "I love you, Bartan, but I would love you even more if you could tell me why that blue world appeared in our system and caused a crystal wall to be built between us and our ancestral planet."

"You think the two are related?"

"I'm
sure
they are related." Cassyll glanced up at the sky, at the enigmatic disk of white light which hovered at the zenith. "Just as I'm sure that neither bodes us any good."

"I am going to have much to occupy my mind in the hours to come," Toller said to Divivvidiv, omitting the now-ritual insult about the colour of the alien's face as a sign that he was speaking unemotionally, dealing in cold facts.

"Therefore I take this opportunity to make your position absolutely clear to you," he went on. "it is incumbent on
you
to preserve your own life, and you can best do that by giving me your full support in our venture. If I find you lying to me, or giving me tricky answers to questions, or allowing me to blunder into a danger of which you could have given me a warning—I will kill you. Your execution may not be instantaneous—because you are valuable to me—but, if I believe that you have gone against me in any of the ways I have just mentioned … and if subsequently there is a move against us from any quarter … you will die immediately.

"You know how readily I act in such matters. At all times I will keep myself prepared to lop your head from your shoulders, and may be so keyed up to do so that any sudden disturbance—even as little as a sneeze from you—could precipitate your demise. I know how great the odds are against me. As far as I am concerned I am practically dead already, so do not delude yourself that you can exert leverage on me in any circumstance. If you want to remain alive you must make yourself an unquestioning instrument of my will.

"Have I made myself clear?"

Very clear,
Divivvidiv replied.
Your tendency to belabour the point shows no sign of fading.

Toller frowned at the alien, wondering if such a craven creature could summon up the nerve to be insolent while in a position of extreme danger. He finished tying all the thongs on his own skysuit, then took the pistol from Steenameert to allow him to do likewise. Divivvidiv had already encased himself in his silver garment, making his general appearance more acceptable to human eyes, and now there was nothing to prevent the small group setting out on the journey to the alien's home planet. Toller tried not to think about what lay ahead. The future he had engineered for himself was filled with inconceivable menace, but he dared not try to anticipate the dangers in case he should become prey to self-doubts which might weaken his hold over Divivvidiv.

"A question before we leave, and before you reply think of the warnings I gave you," he said to the alien, glancing around the strange and inhospitable room. "Will the very fact of your quitting this place alert or in any way give advantage to those who will oppose us?"

It is most unlikely,
the alien replied.
The entire facility is operating automatically. It is most unlikely, at this stage, that anybody on Dussarra will try to communicate with me in person.

"Most unlikely? Is that all the assurance you can give?"

You demanded the truth.

"Fair enough." Toller nodded to Steenameert and the trio moved towards the door by which they had entered the room. The alien progressed confidently, sliding his feet on the perforated floor, while Toller and Steenameert walked with a top-heavy roll as though balancing on narrow beams. When they reached the pressure lock Divivvidiv unclipped the grey metallic box of his personal propulsion unit from the wall. He began to fasten it to his waist with gleaming clamps.

"Leave that," Toller ordered.

But you have seen it before.
Divivvidiv spread his hands in an oddly human gesture.
It is only my transporter.

"A device which gives you the speed of an arrow—I seem to remember that you approached with uncanny speed when Baten and I were trapped in your glass cage." Toller prodded the box with his sword, sending it drifting away from the alien. "It would be quite pointless for you to burden yourself with the temptation to try escaping—especially as I intend to escort you to my ship in regal style."

Toller unfastened a coil of thin rope from his belt, passed the free end around Divivvidiv's body and tied it with a hard-drawn knot. He pulled Divivvidiv into the pressure lock with him and Steenameert, and signalled the alien to operate the controls, which resembled blue tablets set in the seamless grey wall. The inner door slid shut in magical silence, and a few seconds later the outer hatch opened to give a view of the metallic grey plain and glittering crystal sea beyond it. Icy air billowed inwards. Toller drew his scarf up over his mouth and nose, glad to be escaping from the oppressive architecture of the station's interior, and went forward into the familiar skyscapes of the weightless zone.

The sun had moved closer to Overland, and in doing so had crossed the datum plane, rising above the artificial horizon created by the vast disk which Toller now knew to be an incomprehensible machine. Rays of sunlight, striking billions of crystals at a shallow angle, created barricades of prismatic fire which dazzled the eye. So great was the brilliance that even Overland, a hemicircle of luminance which spanned the sky directly above, was dim and ghostly in comparison.

Toller paid out his line a short distance, activated his propulsion unit and set off for the Inner Defence Group with Divivvidiv being dragged in an undignified slow spin in his wake. The trio flew out over the rim of the alien station, the sound of their exhausts greedily absorbed by the surrounding void. Toller kept silent during the flight and concentrated on remembering all the steps involved in taking a spaceship outside the air bridge. During his two obligatory training sessions everything had seemed very simple and obvious, but that had been years in the past and now the complexities appeared enormous.

The group of wooden vessels eventually showed up in the brilliance ahead as small yellow, orange and tan silhouettes which did not assume any proper coloration until Toller had swung in a curve past them and got the sun behind him. Close by was the skyship in which he had made the ascent, its balloon beginning to look puffy and wrinkled as the gas inside it contracted through loss of heat. At the planetary surface the weight of the collapsing envelope would have expelled the gas, but in the absence of gravity the balloon simply puckered like the skin of some moribund creature of the deeps.

Toller shut down his microjet and coasted to rest, twitching the line to bring his silent prisoner into place beside him. Steenameert expertly drifted himself to a halt nearby, a few yards above the fantastic conglomeration of huge crystals. Two miles away across the burning sea the alien station was outlined like a castle against the darkest part of the sky, where occasional meteors made furtive dashes to oblivion.

"A rare sight, Baten," Toller said. "One that not many can claim to have seen. One that you will no doubt remember."

"I expect I will, sir," Baten replied, a puzzled expression appearing in his eyes.

"I want you to take two messages back with you—one for my father and one for Queen Daseene. I have no time to write them out, so I want you to listen carefully and—" Toller broke off as Steenameert violently crossed and uncrossed his arms in a gesture of disagreement.

"What are you saying to me?" the younger man cried out. "Have I not served you well?"

It was Toller's turn to be puzzled. "Nobody could have done better. I intend to include a citation in my message to the Queen so that you…"

"Then why are you dismissing me at this most crucial moment in the venture?"

Toller pulled down his scarf and smiled. "I am moved by your loyalty, Baten, but things have reached a pass at which I have no right to expect anything further from you. The voyage to the intruders' home world will almost certainly result in my death—I am not deluding myself on that score—but that is an acceptable prospect to me because it is a matter of my personal honour. Having set out with the avowed intention of rescuing the Countess Vantara, I could never return to Prad and admit that I had abandoned the attempt simply because—"

"And what about
my
personal honour?" Steenameert demanded, his voice trembling with emotion. "Do you think that honour is a prerogative of the aristocracy? Do you imagine that I could ever hold my head up again, knowing that I had cravenly forsaken my duty at the first whiff of danger?"

"Baten, this goes beyond duty."

"Not for me." Steenameert's voice had a new edge of hardness which made it almost unrecognizable. "Not for
me
!"

Toller paused for a few seconds, his eyes prickling painfully. "You may accompany me to Dussarra on one condition."

"You have but to name it, sir!"

"The condition is that you cease addressing me as 'sir'. We will go into this thing as private citizens, leaving the Sky Service and all its ways behind us. We will undertake the venture as friends and equals—is that understood?"

"I…" Steenameert's new-found assertiveness seemed to have deserted him. "That would be difficult for me … for one of my upbringing…"

"Your upbringing counted for little a moment ago," Toller interrupted, grinning. "It is a long time since I have been chastised so vigorously."

Steenameert gave a sheepish grin. "I fear I may have lost my temper."

"Keep hold of it until we reach Dussarra—then you may say good riddance to it forever." Toller turned his attention to his alien captive. "What do you say, greyface?"

I say it is not too late for you to abandon this pointless exercise,
Divivvidiv replied, breaking a long silence.
Why don't you try to use what little intelligence you have?

"He hasn't understood a word of our discourse," Toller said to Steenameert. "And
he
calls
us
Primitives!"

Without speaking further Toller activated his propulsion unit and manoeuvred himself and the alien close to the nearer of the spaceships. The varnished, straight-grained timbers of the hull glowed in the sunlight with warm shades of brown. The ship had been assembled in the weightless zone from five cylindrical sections hauled up from Overland by skyship. It was four yards in diameter—and in the past had been regarded by Toller as a massive structure—but now, in comparison with the alien station, it seemed totally inadequate for its purpose. Reminding himself that his grandfather had successfully crossed the interplanetary void in a similar vessel, Toller thrust his doubts aside.

He examined the circlet of crystal which bound the ship to the glassy plain, and turned again to Divivvidiv. "Is there any strength in that manacle? Is there likely to be any damage to the ship if I simply blast off?"

The crystal will fracture easily.

"Are you sure? Perhaps it would be better if you were to instruct the being in the machine to release its hold."

It is best if I do not communicate with the Xa at this time.
The alien's face was hidden behind a reflective visor, but to Toller his words carried conviction.
Remember that I will be with you inside that barbaric contraption
—
it is in my interests to see that no harm befalls it.

"Very well," Toller said, unfastening from his belt the coil of rope which tethered the alien and allowing the end to drift free. "My fellow Primitive and I have certain chores to carry out which demand our uninterrupted attention. I am going to leave you here for a short time—with a request that you do not stray. You will comply?"

I promise not to move an inch.

Toller had made his request with mock courtesy, knowing that the alien was incapable of changing his position, and had not expected a reply which seemed to match his own style of humour. It occurred to him, fleetingly, that the little exchange might have had some significance for the future if there had been any prospect of normal contact between the Dussarran and Kolcorronian cultures. As it was, he had more pressing concerns on his mind.

The rear section of the vessel was actually a specially designed skyship in which the customary square gondola had been replaced by a cylindrical spaceship section. Folded within it was a full-size balloon which gave crewmen the capability of taking the section down to a planetary surface and of rejoining the mother ship while it waited aloft. Toller had no use for the detachable module in the forthcoming mission because descent by balloon was both conspicuous and painfully slow.

"What do you think, Baten?" he said as they drifted in the thin cold air. "Is it worth trying to rid ourselves of the tail section? We have plenty of jacks, and I have no relish for the idea of lugging an extra engine and all those extra control mechanisms."