The Cache (17 page)

Now that they could see within, they hung back. The interior was dark and silent, dark and silent with a thousand years and the dangers of beings from a star so distant it made the head reel to think about it.

Lezpet looked about her, looked at the awe they made no effort to disguise. Then, turning, she stepped into the entrance. If she was as reluctant as they, she did not show it.

Benoni took a torch from a man and followed her. The torch showed a small chamber with nothing in it except some buttons and a metal bulb on the wall. Beyond was a corridor; it joined another at right angles that seemed to run the length of the ship.

Lezpet stopped and said, “I will go forward with three men to the room that we saw through the window. You, Rider, will go to the rear with three more. Colonel, you send two men each to each chamber. Pick up everything that can be carried and bring it outside. Look for anything that might be a weapon. But, for the sake of the First, do not do anything but carry it outside. We do not want to be releasing unknown powers.”

Benoni led his men down the main corridor to the rear. At the end of the corridor was a huge room. The walls were lined with great metal boxes, twice as tall as himself. On the sides of these were little windows of glass and needles pointing to strange symbols. He did not know the use of the boxes, but it was useless to examine them. They were stuck to the floor. In any event, they were too large to carry in a wagon or galley.

He directed each man to enter one of the rear chambers. He went into another. This was a large room with many chairs and tables bolted to the metal floor. A narrow platform ran along one wall, and a white sheet of metal above the platform covered the wall.

On a metal table in the middle of the room was a large metal box. This was bolted to the table. It had several buttons on the side and a circular metal window at one end. The window pointed towards the white metal sheet on the wall.

Benoni looked into the window but could see nothing except blackness. What could this strange device have been used for? Perhaps, if he pressed one of the buttons on the side, the device might be activated, just as pressing the indentations on the side of the vessel had activated the door.

But Pwez, with good reason, had forbidden them to experiment.

Benoni did not see how this box could be a weapon. In the first place, the chairs and tables, and the scattered debris, showed that this might have been some sort of lounge. Or, perhaps, a lecture room. The lecturer could have stood on the platform.

Unable to resist, Benoni pushed in on one of the buttons, then sprang back. Nothing happened.

Shakily, he extended his hand and pressed on another button. And sprang back. Nothing.

There was a third button. Almost, he decided to forget about it and continue his search in another room. But he had taken no more than two steps before he turned back to the box. This time, when he pressed the last button, he got a response that almost sent him running out of the doorway.

A light shot from the eye in the box, and a square of brightness appeared on the white metal sheet against the wall.

Benoni froze, his finger over the button. If this were some horrible weapon, if the wall started to melt, he had to stop it.

But the brightness was suddenly changed, and it became a configuration of shadows.

For a moment, because he had never seen such a thing, he did not make any pattern, any sense, out of the shadows on the wall. Then, as if somebody had pressed a button within him, he saw that the shadows were moving pictures!

And what pictures! Great buildings that made even the giant structures of Kaywo look like ant heaps. Men and women in strange clothes. And the Hairy Men bestial looking with the shaggy reddish fur, the pointed ears, and monstrously prominent cheeks.

The pictures seemed to be of fighting in the streets. Evidently, they had been made during the taking of a city by the Hairy Men. There were many types of devices that made the fronts of stone buildings go up in dust. But the one that interested him most was a hand weapon. The Hairy Men pointed it at their enemies, and the enemies disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Hearing voices down the hall, Benoni hastily pressed on the button that had activated the picture box. The pictures on the wall continued moving. He pressed down on another button; the pictures speeded up in their action, became a blur.

Sweating, in an agony because he might be detected in disobedience, he pressed the third button. The light blinked out, and the pictures disappeared.

Benoni went out into the corridor and asked the lieutenant he found there if he had discovered anything of value. The lieutenant shrugged and said they had found many portable objects. Who knew if they were of value? Doubtless, they must have been to the Hairy Men, but they would have to be evaluated after they were taken to Kaywo.

Benoni located the three men he had sent to search and questioned them. One took him to a large room which was obviously a storeroom. Here, in a bin, Benoni found about two hundred of the handweapons he had seen in the moving pictures. And, in a bin next to the first, thousands of metal cylinders. These, he knew from the pictures, were placed in the weapons and discharged.

Benoni stood before the bins for several moments in an agony of indecision. A few Kaywo, equipped with these, could defeat an army. If the Skego showed up in force at this moment, they could be blasted apart. If the weapons were taken back to Kaywo, the wise men might be able to analyze their workings and even manufacture more like them. Which would mean that Kaywo would soon conquer the entire land. They would not need the Eyzonuh. In fact, it was inevitable that his people would be defeated and enslaved.

Yet, he had sworn to be loyal to Pwez, to save her from harm if it meant giving up his own life.

If he kept his oath, he would be betraying his people. If he carried out his duty to them, he broke his oath.

Finally, he saw his way clear. For the moment, at least. There was nothing he could do to prevent the weapons being taken to Kaywo. But he could put off the moment of knowledge about the weapons by keeping silent. Sooner or later, the Kaywo would know. Every moment of ignorance on their part, however, meant another moment of survival and hope for his people.

If he took a weapon and the cylinders back to Eyzonuh, they might be duplicated there. That would give the Eyzonuh a fighting chance against the Kaywo. His loyalty to the Pwez went only as far as the literal words of the oath. He would fight for her against Skego or any enemies that arose during their return to her country. And, if he must, he would give his life to protect hers.

But no-one, not even Jehovah, could expect him to betray his own people. And, first chance he got, he would finally renounce the oath. That was the only way out.

On the pretext that he wanted to bring others into the room to start carrying out the artifacts, he sent the Kaywo out to get them. As soon as the man stepped into the hall, Benoni dropped two of the weapons and several hundred or so of the cylinders into his knapsack. He returned to the room with the picture box and inspected the box. At its rear was a door that swung open when he pulled on its handle. Inside was a smaller aperture; a handle protruded from its middle. He pulled on the handle, and a little black box came out. At the front of the box were two short metal prongs; these had fitted into two receptacles at the far end of the chamber into which the little box fitted.

Benoni planned to drop the box some place where the Skego would not find it. He did not know its purpose, but he hoped that the larger box would not operate without it. To test, he pressed on the starter push-button, and the box did not project any pictures.

Quickly, he searched the room, found a locker full of small boxes with two prongs and just the size of the one he had removed. He stepped out into the hall and ordered two soldiers to remove these. Now, the Skego would not know how to operate the handweapons even if they should succeed in capturing them.

The ship was looted of all detachable objects, and the objects were transferred to three wagons. Just as the last load was being taken out of the vessel, an officer rode up the hill and reported to the Pwez.

“We have just sighted an immense fleet of galleys coming around the bend,” he said.

“They are only a few miles away. And the first of the Skego cavalry have appeared out of the forest road. If we don’t hurry, we will be cut off from the valley.”

Lezpet rode to the top of the bluff to see for herself, Benoni behind her. The officer’s report was true. Over a hundred galleys filled the river, their long oars rising and dipping in a frenzy. Also, the first of a long line of horsemen were racing towards the beached galleys of the Kaywo, only a mile away.

“There will be a very large force between us and the galleys before we can get down there,” said Lezpet. “Enough to delay until the Skego gallies have arrived. We could never make it.”

She turned to her cousin, the Usspika. “We’ll have to escape by land. We’ll take that forest road you were telling me about, the one that leads along the bluffs for a while, then dips down to the river road.”

“We can’t make any time if we carry our wounded along,” said the Usspika.

“I hate to do this to men who have fought so bravely for me and for Kaywo,” said Lezpet. “But we can’t lose everything they fought for. Kill all those who are too wounded to ride. Tell them their names will be inscribed forever on the Column of Heroes, and their families will never have to go hungry or be without a roof over their heads.”

The Usspika saluted and rode off. Tears appeared in Lezpet’s eyes. Seeing Benoni look at her, she wiped them away and shook her head angrily.

“Kaywo comes first,” she said. “Those men will die with the name of their motherland on their lips and blessing me.”

She rode to the head of the hastily assembling column. Of the nineteen hundred who had ridden up the bluff to the Pwawwaw fort, less than half could now sit a horse.

“A high cost,” she said. “But it will be worth it.”

An officer reined in his horse before her. “The Skego are already beginning to climb the bluff! Do you want some of us to attack, to hold them and give you more time?”

“You could not hold them very long,” she said. “It would not be worth it. Your swords will be more valuable later on.”

She looked around to make sure that the bloody business of dispatching the wounded was done. Then, she gave the signal to ride. And she spurred her horse into a breakneck gallop. Behind came the cavalry and the three wagons, piled high with the artifacts from the ship.

The road was a dirt track, hemmed in by the thick growth of trees, wide enough for two horses abreast. It wound in and out over the bluff for three miles, then suddenly went down the bluff and toward the river. At the crest of the hill, Lezpet stopped her horse and looked northwards. Far down below and to the north was a long line of horsemen galloping on the dirt road that followed the river.

“We are about three miles ahead of them,” she said. “And our horses must be much fresher than theirs. I think we have more than a good chance.”

They rode down the bluff slowly, for the road was steep. From the foot of the bluff, the road angled off towards the river road. Two miles of dirt, and they reached the river. Here, the track lay between the bluffs to their right and the river to their left. They could not see the pursuing horsemen, but they could see the first of the galleys, still churning water.

“If we took to the woods, we might lose them,” said Lezpet. “But we could never get the wagons through the forest. No, we’ll keep on running until we find a good place to make a stand. Perhaps. . . well, never mind. Forward!”

At one of the stops they made to give their horses a short but absolutely necessary rest, Benoni slipped into the woods. Here, he opened the back of the handweapon as he had seen with Hairy Men do in the moving pictures. The cylinders, which tapered slightly at one end, he slid one at a time into the twenty receptacles of the revolving chamber inside the weapon. He closed the lid and then sighted along the barrel of the weapon. There was a little projection near its far end; this, he supposed, was to aid in aiming. A button on the inside of the butt in his hand must, he reasoned, be pressed to activate the weapon. It was the only external projection. He would have liked to test the weapon, but he was afraid that the result would alarm the Kaywo. If they found out he he was concealing knowledge. . . .

He rejoined the column and mounted his horse. The Kaywo resumed the march with a canter; there was no use running the horses until they foundered.

After two miles, they came to a point where the road swung to the right and entered a narrow valley formed by two steep cliffs. The makers of this rough road had been forced to take this path, for the bluff on the left abutted the riverbank.

Lezpet stopped her horse. “This would be a good place to leave a holding force,” she said.

The Usspika said, “What will keep the Skego from going around, on the other side of this bluff?”

“Nothing will keep them from trying,” she said. “But they will have to go through very dense forest and take a long time getting around. I think they will try fighting their way through this valley before they try that. By then, we will have the wagons miles away, and they will never catch up.”

A scout galloped down the length of the column and reined his horse sharply before the Pwez.

“The Skego galleys are less than half a mile away!”

“They must be working their slaves until they foam at the mouth,” said Lezpet. “If we can keep ahead of them long enough, we can tire them out.”

She called for volunteers to station themselves at the entrance to the valley. Every man raised his sword to indicate his willingness. Benoni was among them. Not that he was so willing to fight what would have had to be a fatal battle—under ordinary circumstances— but that he felt that he could fight his way out with the Hairy Men’s weapon and then, having been left behind by the Pwez, desert with a good conscience.