Starship Home (31 page)

‘Harold!’ Zachary yelled, but again there was no response.
Where was he?
And then his unspoken question was answered.

‘I’m down here!’

Zoe, Zachary and Meg moved to the edge of the rock on which they were standing and looked down to find Harold and Marlowe looking up at them, Marlowe now in possession of Harold’s Slarnstaff. Zachary was as unimpressed as if Harold had brought a snake from his pocket. ‘Found a new playmate have you?’

‘I’ve found Slarnbase 35,’ Harold said, ‘and it turns out that Mr Marlowe lives there.’

‘And this means?’ Meg asked, hoping that it didn’t mean another offer of an arranged marriage for either her or Zoe.

‘It means,’ Marlowe said, ‘that you want Zyglan and I want certain things and the time has come to bargain.’

Zachary wasn’t crazy about this. ‘Why should we trust you?’

‘Because first, it’s in your interests to, and second, because I have a hostage. So come down, step into my base and we can discuss things.’

Zachary’s doubt was written on his face, and Meg intervened before he could express it. ‘Coming right down, Mr Marlowe,’ she said.

Zachary leaned in and whispered to her. ‘This warlock or whatever the hell he is, he’s been trying to sell us out since before we even knew him, and now you’re going to trust him?’

‘No,’ Meg replied, ‘now I’m going to bargain with him.’

‘Move, Zachary,’ said Zoe, and her glare got Zachary’s feet moving. They climbed down the slope, and joined Harold and Marlowe. Marlowe led the way along the tunnel to the entrance to Slarnbase 35. Zachary fell into step with Meg and ‘We have three Slarnstaffs to his one,’ he whispered.

Marlowe spoke without turning. ‘Zachary, if what you’re whispering back there is “we have three Slarnstaffs to his one” then understand that in any firefight the boy dies first.’

Just my luck,
Zachary thought,
I have to get a warlock who’s also a mind reader.

‘Ha-bra-ka-dah!’ cried Marlowe, and the door at the end of the tunnel slid open, revealing the now brightly lit chamber within.

They filed in after him, and for a moment all that Zoe, Zachary and Meg could do was look around. Parts of the base were familiar because they were produced by the same culture and technology which had produced the hard engineering and smooth design of the starship. But the parts which showed that the base was lived in, the clothes, the tools, the utensils, were literally from another, barbarian, world, the world of planet Earth 90 years post the Great Exit.

‘Nice,’ said Zachary, ‘love what you’ve done to it.’

Marlowe looked at him with his one eye and his one glittering metal orb. ‘I have no sense of humor,’ he said. ‘My enemies have often remarked on this fact just before they died.’ He gestured at the screens. ‘The Slarn are back, which means your situation is not good. However, if we join forces, we may be able to make a deal with them.’

‘Join forces?’ Zoe was staring at him in amazement.

‘That’s what I’m offering. I provide the Zyglan to save the starship’s life … if I can join you.’

Meg frowned. It was the last thing she expected. ‘Join us why?’

‘I’ve roamed the world for a lifetime, seeking knowledge. Now I want to know the worlds beyond. Possession of a starship may be the key to that.’

Zoe snarled in rage. ‘No one possesses Guinevere! No one!’

‘I agree. I merely speak as the Slarn may see the situation.’

‘You’re the same guy who told the Don to sell us up the river!’

‘And I saved you and you,’ and he nodded at Zachary and Harold, ‘from the Looters. If you want the Zyglan you take me with it.’

They looked at each other for a long moment and then Zoe said, ‘Without it, Guinevere’s going to die.’

And that was the clincher. ‘You’ve got a deal,’ said Harold.

Marlowe moved to a corner of the room where there was a stack of leather-bound journals. ‘Help me move these,’ he said to Harold. Harold walked over and started moving the journals, wincing as he first encountered the weight of them. ‘What are these?’

‘My father’s work. And mine.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘Knowledge of mankind. What happened since the Great Exit.’

‘So it’s history? Anthropology?’

But Marlowe did not answer, and soon the journals were moved aside, revealing a door. Marlowe pressed a place on the wall and the door opened, revealing a shelved storeroom. Half the things in it were from the barbarian present: jars of preserved food, flitches of bacon, legs of ham hung up to dry. And then there were other things, things of Slarn manufacture, tools, spare parts and, standing on the floor in one corner, a Zyglan pack similar to the one Guinevere had shown them schematically before they set out: a metal cage containing a white crystal shot with pulsing scarlet veins. Harold sat on his heels, staring at it, and ‘That’s it!’ he cried.

It was Marlowe who insisted on carrying the Zyglan crystal all the way back to the starship, as if he feared betrayal by them, but other than that his manner seemed open, even interested. ‘You’re from the time of the Great Exit, aren’t you?’ he said, and although Zachary and Harold were in a mood to tell him nothing, Zoe saw no harm in it. ‘We were picked up with everyone else,’ she explained, ‘and Guinevere, the ship we were on, was damaged in space and we were left aboard her. We got back and we’ve been trying to mend her ever since. So no big mystery, no big deal. Now who are you?’

‘Me? I am Marlowe,’ he replied and lapsed back into silence. Zoe glared at him, like
what do you do with this guy?
and Harold wisely suppressed a snicker knowing that if he let it out he would pay for it in a hard coin.

On reaching the clearing in front of the starship, Zachary left the others in hiding while he carefully approached. ‘Guinevere?’ At first there was no answer, and then he added, ‘the shaman’s come along with us. It was the price for getting the Zyglan.’ Another pause, and then the hatch opened, and he waved the others through.

In the feeding area, Marlowe dropped the Zyglan, metal cage and all, into the pit. Mist rose, Guinevere gave a ladylike burp, and then the hatch closed on the pit again. Marlowe turned to the others and with a scarcely repressed excitement asked to be shown the bridge.

When he saw it, he was appalled. First of all there was the sight of Maze playing ball with the Wyzen, and then there was the washing hanging everywhere, and then there was the garbage basket. This was nothing like the way he had always imagined the bridge of a starship of the Slarn Confederation! As he stood, glaring at the mess, Maze looked up from her game with the Wyzen and said, ‘Hello Uncle,’ and then batted the ball back to the Wyzen. Marlowe simply nodded in return and said, ‘Great-grand-niece.’

‘Welcome aboard,’ said Guinevere, ‘and I thank thee for the Zyglan. But if thou dost any ill to these my friends, I shall smite thee.’

Zoe was still trying to get a handle on Maze calling Marlowe “uncle” and Marlowe calling Maze “great-grand-niece”. ‘You two are related?’ she said.

Marlowe had other things on his mind. ‘You’re a starship of the Slarn Confederation,’ he expostulated, ‘and you’ve let these primitives turn you into a garbage dump!’

‘I find it most homelike,’ she answered, ‘I wist they would put straw upon the deck.’

Zoe hunkered down by Maze. ‘Tell me I’m not related to him.’

‘Of course you are. He’s Our Mother’s son. That makes you his aunt.’

‘I am going to throw up. I am seriously going to throw up now!’ yelled Zoe, looking at Marlowe and making a face to express her disgust. ‘He is not my nephew!’ She turned on Zachary who was quietly cackling at her horror. ‘Does he look like a nephew to you?’

‘Sure he does,’ Zachary replied, ‘I’ve got nephews who don’t even look human. By comparison, Marlowe’s a prince, aren’t you Marlowe?’

‘I’ve warned you before,’ said Marlowe, ‘I have no sense of humor,’ and looked around again in disgust at the state of the starship’s bridge.

On the bridge of another starship, parked in a stationary orbit far above Earth, armored Slarn sat at their consoles, watching screens which were being fed images from spy satellites closer in. One of them was currently tracking across South Australia.

On board Guinevere, the party listened as Guinevere explained the situation. ‘I have hidden my shape so that from orbit I look thus,’ she explained, throwing up a screen image of unending forest. This drains my energy but must be done. Now, I pray you all, return the Slarnstaffs to their rack, for if one be used, the Slarn will verily track it to its source.’

Both Zoe and Harold were suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. As Zoe, Harold, Zachary and Meg racked their weapons, there was still one empty slot in the rack. They were looking at each other in silence, and then Harold made a clean breast of it. ‘I dropped one. It was when I got stunned on the trip back with the salt. I’d know it again, it’s got ‘H.L’ on it in texta.’ They were all looking at the rack. There, standing out from the others, was a Slarnstaff with ‘H.L.’ texta-ed on it. Harold pulled it from the rack and looked at it. ‘This is mine. The one I thought I’d lost.’ And he looked at Zoe accusingly.

She shuffled her feet, and then admitted it. ‘Sorry Harold, I left mine and I sort of liberated yours on the trek back, okay?’

‘It’s not okay. I felt bad about it and you let me go on feeling bad.’

Meg stepped in. ‘If it was dropped in the forest, it won’t be found, surely?’

‘And even if it is,’ said Zachary, ‘a Sullivan wouldn’t know how to use it.’

Guinevere was unhappy. ‘I pray thou art right. For, if used, the Slarn in orbit will hear, and track it like a fox unto its earth.’

Guinevere’s fears were justified for, as she spoke, the Sullivan Himself was examining the Slarnstaff that Zoe had mislaid. Around him were some of his henchmen, and a little distance away stood a row of four slaves, dressed in rags and chained both hand and foot. The Sullivan Himself pressed the white button on the Slarnstaff and was intrigued when light poured out of one end. Now he tried the red button, and flame belched out. Now he looked up and pointed the Slarnstaff in the direction of the four slaves, and his index finger toyed with the red button, then changed his mind, and he wavered for a moment between the black button and the blue. He settled on the blue, and pointing the Slarnstaff at the first of the slaves, he pressed the blue button. The slave dropped as if hit on the head with a mallet, and the Sullivan Himself grinned and still with the blue button depressed, he panned the Slarnstaff across the other three slaves, who also fell to the ground unconscious. He strolled over and looked at them, and then dropped to one knee, and checked the throat pulse of one of them. Satisfied that the slave was still alive, he stood, and said, ‘The Skygods deliver the Trollmen into my hands. With this I will destroy them. The Don Costello’s jugular is mine!’

And on the bridge of the Slarn starship orbiting high above, one of the screens was showing a pulsing light, indicating the position where the Slarnstaff had been fired. A gauntleted fist slammed down on a control, a klaxon began to sound, and the command
Boarding Stations
began repeating in Slarn battle language.

Guinevere’s image on the screen was looking progressively degraded and her musical voice was beginning to sound scratchy. Harold faced her, seated at the console, checking the menu of her required diet. Marlowe sat with him, an interested spectator. ‘What do you need next?’ Harold asked.

‘Iron. Iron and charcoal,’ she replied weakly, as her screens flickered.

Harold was concerned. ‘What’s the matter, Guinevere?’

In her now stressed and fading voice, she replied, ‘The Zyglan worketh apace in me. It speedeth my heart and all goeth faster.’

Meg moved to the console. ‘It’s not going to speed up the clock on the self-destruct mechanism?’

‘Aye. That it will.’

Now Zoe was involved. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘The risk was needful. Iron will slow my system down again.’

Harold was thinking fast. ‘We can get roofing iron from Oldtown.’

For Zachary, Harold, as usual, was thinking too fast. ‘This being the same Oldtown inhabited by Looters who eat people?’

Marlowe stood. ‘I can deal with the Looters,’ he said, preparing to quit the bridge. ‘They respect me. They’ll gladly bring iron for the starship.’

Harold, always one for questions, was frowning. ‘Why gladly?’

‘The ship ate their god. So they think the ship is their god reborn. They’ll bring her anything she needs.’ He left the bridge and a moment later they saw him quit the starship and stride off across the clearing and into the forest. As soon as he was out of sight, Guinevere spoke again. ‘Quickly, while the warlock Marlowe’s gone, for I trust him not. Someone hath used the missing staff. Even now, my friend the starship Charles de Josselin hath lifted up from Bretagne in France and cometh apace to hover in the sky some seven thousand leagues above our heads.’

Harold turned to the others. ‘Seven thousand leagues that’s 21,000 miles, close to stationary orbit.’

They ignored him as Guinevere went on: ‘Slarn marines will come to search for the staff but also for me.’

‘They know you’re on Earth somewhere? How?’ Zachary was beginning to wonder how much else Guinevere had not told them.

‘Any craft arriving on this Earth disturbeth lines of force in the charged layer of the aerie sphere,’ she answered.

The others were confused but Harold was onto it. ‘They’ve got an alarm system in the ionosphere? In case ships come? And when we arrived, we triggered it?’

‘‘tis so.’

Zachary’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘And thou didst not think to tell us this because we didst not think to ask, didst we?’

‘Please, dear Zachary, be not angry with me, I durst not burden ye all with knowledge that would distract ye from your tasks.’

Harold was already cutting to the issue at hand. ‘Okay, so the Slarn starship called Charles de Josselin is going to be in stationary orbit above us, but we’re camouflaged, but there’s someone running round firing off the Slarnstaff we lost? Correct?’

Meg chipped in. ‘And meanwhile the clock on the self-destruct is speeding up until the Looters arrive with iron for Guinevere. Is there any other disaster we need to know about?’

‘Only that the missing staff is being fired again. And again. It’s being used in a battle somewhere.’

And it was, on the border of Troll territory. The Sullivan Himself, pleased with his new acquisition, had decided to use it to invade the Don’s kingdom, and his first thrust had been met by a party of Trolls led by Ulf. The melee was happening in open forest where the Sullivan horse barbarians were technically at a disadvantage. The Trolls were fighting from trees or on foot, and the Sullivan Himself was in the thick of it, using the Slarnstaff to good effect. The shouts of the combatants and the cries of the wounded blended with the ringing clash of steel, but the deadliest weapon of all was the silent Slarnstaff and it was taking its toll on the Troll warriors.

Ulf, in a berserker rage, ran toward the Sullivan Himself, who turned in the saddle and fired the Slarnstaff at him. Ulf fell like a forest giant, and two Troll warriors moved in and dragged him to safety. Their leader lost, the Trolls began a fighting retreat, leaving the Sullivans standing in their stirrups, jeering and catcalling at them. The Sullivan Himself was looking at the Slarnstaff. It had passed its first test, and one could almost hear him purr.

Back in the castle, the Don, who had been seated on his throne, stood in a fury. ‘They were using what?’ he bellowed.

Ulf stood before him, hanging his head in shame, still groggy from the stunning effect of the Slarnstaff. ‘The coward’s weapon that Zachary of the Ironcastle uses. I was dragged from the field of battle, I have lost honor…’

The Don was already moving for the door. ‘To horse!’ he shouted, and his men followed.

A short time later, with the jingle of harness and the tramp of hooves, the Don and his party rode into the clearing. He slid from the saddle and strode to the starship’s hatchway and began to beat against it with his mailed fist. ‘Open up!’ The hatchway opened and ‘Prithee enter, dear Don,’ Guinevere said. The Don was not in the mood for courtesy, and stalked in without another word.

But once on the bridge, the time for silence was over. ‘The Sullivans,’ he said, ‘have one of your coward’s weapons, and the only reason, as far as I can make out, that they didn’t use it to kill my men is that they’re too stupid to make it work properly!’

Zoe stepped forward. ‘Don, I’m sorry. But I lost it on the trek back with the salt.’

‘Lost it.’

‘I’m truly sorry.’

Ignoring her, he turned to the flickering image of Guinevere on the screen. ‘I need one to match the one my enemies have.’ His eyes moved to the rack of Slarnstaffs. ‘Otherwise it’s all over for the Troll kingdom, and you’ll find yourselves in Sullivan territory with all the horror that brings with it.’

‘The more the staffs are used, the easier it will be for the Slarn to find us,’ Guinevere replied. ‘I durst not give it thee.’

The Don looked at Zoe. ‘Do you want your sister’s tribe under Sullivan rule? Do you know what that means?’

‘I can guess,’ Zoe said, in an agony of knowing that her sister and her people would pay a dire price for her mistake.

The Don looked again at Guinevere’s image. ‘Well?’

‘Don, again I say I cannot give it thee.’

‘Then we’ll win without it. ‘ He turned to Meg. ‘I can’t protect you here. Come back to the castle with me now. The maid Zoe too if she wishes.’ Meg stared at him without replying. ‘Stubborn woman! Stubborn to the end! The Sullivans are loose inside our borders and no one’s safe. I will not have the woman I love …’

‘At liberty? You want to lock me up?’ Her face was pale with anger.

‘For your own protection.’

‘No!’

‘You think I can’t protect you? You feel safer here with Zachary?’

‘That’s not it!’

‘Enough! All of you, nothing but trouble. Ever since you came within my borders you’ve brought the infection of change, the disease of novelty. You come from the past? Go back to it! And good riddance!’ And with that he turned on his heel, and strode out of the bridge.

There was silence for a moment and then Zachary said, ‘that was the best offer you had all day, Meg.’

She looked at him coldly. ‘I don’t leave my friends at the first hint of trouble,’ she said, and then, blinking back tears, ‘anyway who needs him? Who needs some barbarian warlord clanking around in armor?’ Zoe moved to her, put her arms around her for comfort.

‘It sounds like you do,’ Zachary said, ‘but let it pass.’

Before Meg could reply, Harold, who for the past moment or so had been looking around, suddenly said: ‘Where’s Maze?’ They looked around and realized that at some time during the Don’s visit she had quietly sneaked away.

By now, Maze was in the forest, moving toward the village, when she heard the sound of voices and the clank of iron. Swiftly, she left the path and burrowed into the surrounding undergrowth and lay there, waiting and watching. Soon, along the path came Marlowe with the Eldest Looter, followed by the Looter tribe, carrying broken sheets of rusted galvanized iron roofing. Maze now moved silently through the forest, tracking them and listening to their conversation.

‘Dark One eat iron. Dark One strong,’ the Eldest was saying in tones of the greatest admiration.

‘And charcoal. Dark One need charcoal,’ Marlowe reminded him, in case the old maniac managed to forget.

‘Charcoal,’ the Eldest reasoned. ‘Maybe burn Forester village, eat foods, give charcoal to Dark One.’

Marlowe was notoriously hard of heart, but this stopped short of allowing the Looters to eat his own mother. ‘Dark One need charcoal tomorrow. No time to burn village.’

The Eldest nodded sagely. ‘Later maybe. When village foods are fatter.’

Maze, having heard her uncle Marlowe save her village from a Looter attack, turned and headed for home, but as she ran, flickering before her eyes, were ghostly images of Sullivans attacking her village. She put on pace. Her Talent had warned her, and she must warn Our Mother!

As she ran, on open grassland some miles away, there was the humming of powerful subsonics, and then a domed Slarn skimmer materialized out of thin air and slowly came to rest. Then a shimmering surrounded it as its protective force field stabilized. And it waited, but it did not wait unobserved. In one of the Troll observation posts, high in a tree overlooking the grassland, its arrival had been seen. One of the Trollwarriors slid down a rope to the ground and set off for the castle. The Don must be told.

On the bridge of the starship, Guinevere reported this new development. ‘The Slarn have sent down a skimmer with three marines aboard. They’re getting close.’

In Helena’s hut, Maze was reporting to Helena. ‘And then I saw with my inner eye, sometime soon, maybe today, Sullivans in the village. They have a Slarnstaff the Ironcastle people lost.’ Then they turned to the doorway at the sound of horses. The Don entered. ‘The child has told you?’ he asked.

Helena nodded, and with a heavy heart she said, ‘the Ironcastle people have to go. They bring disaster on us all. And now the anointed one sees trouble coming from the Sullivans.’

The Don’s eyes went to Maze, and he made the sign of the Cross. ‘Sees?’

‘She has the Talent. You know that. It’s the Talent the Slarn look for and use to make pilots for their starships. Maze is my successor and the Clan needs her, and I’ll not have her taken away.’

‘Witches,’ said the Don. ‘You and the child are both witches.’

‘Call us what you will,’ said Helena, ‘but Maze must stay. Imprison the Ironcastle people, give the Slarn back their starship, and end this chaos.’

‘One of them, the girl Zoe, is your own sister?’

There was pain in the ancient woman’s eyes, but her tone was merciless. ‘I am blood kin to half this clan,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with you Don? Your father would have put them to the sword long since.’

‘My father? He put his own father to the sword.’

Helena smiled in memory of a man she had once known. ‘Your grandfather, Robert The Beautiful? Now there was a man. One of the good Costellos. Your family tree grows two kinds of fruit, Don, the sweet and the poisoned. You and your grandfather the sweet, your father and elder brother the poisoned.’

‘My brother is gone into exile and has no name.’

‘Your fate too if you don’t act.’

‘You must understand. The woman I love …’

Helena rose to her feet like a woman half her age. ‘Don’t babble on to me like a child about the woman you love! Act, or I shall!’

The Don’s face turned to steel. ‘The woman I love is on that starship. Harm her, witch, and I’ll burn this village down around your head!’

Helena was about to respond when from outside came the sound of tramping hooves, and shouts of ‘A Sullivan!’ and ‘Trollturf! Walk tall!’ Without waiting for Helena’s answer, the Don drew his sword and ran out.

What he ran into was a melee involving his own men and a Sullivan raiding party led by the Sullivan Himself. Both parties were mounted and engaged in sword play while the villagers had retreated among the trees and were cutting off occasional individual Sullivans, dragging them from their horses, and dealing with them with the aid of hoes, spades and pitchforks. The Don leapt on his horse and joined the fray, spurring toward the Sullivan Himself who was in the process of unlimbering his Slarnstaff. He fired, dropping a Troll, and then fired again, this time at the Don, but missed. He aimed at the Don again, this time at closer quarters and was about to fire when three armored Slarn materialized out of thin air, forming a triangle around him. Before he had time to react, they simultaneously fired their Slarnstaffs at him, knocking him from his horse and then they moved in, two of them covering the opposing sides with their Slarnstaffs. One marine recovered the Slarnstaff dropped by the unconscious Sullivan Himself, and the third dragged the Sullivan Himself to his feet and slung him across one shoulder in a fireman’s lift. And then all three, plus the Sullivan Himself disappeared as swiftly as they had materialized.

For a moment, the others were left staring at the space where moments before the Slarn marines had been, and then the Don recovered from his surprise and took the initiative. ‘At them!’ he shouted, ‘Trollturf!’ And the Trolls regrouped and charged, and the leaderless Sullivans broke, and turned and fled. ‘Walk tall!’ shouted Ulf as, honor regained, he rode alongside his Don, driving the foe from the village.