The Cache (19 page)

Benoni, screaming, came up behind Joel, grabbed him around the neck with one arm, and punched with his fist into the small of his back.

Joel’s breath whoofed out of him, and he tried to strike backwards, over his shoulder, at Benoni. The flat of the blade struck Benoni on the back and hurt him, but he refused to let go. Filled with the strength of his hate at Joel and with fury because he thought Zhem was dead, he reached around with his left hand. Found the open mouth, plunged his fist into the mouth, deep, deep, and closed upon the tongue.

Joel choked, waved his arms, dropped the sword, and tried to close his mouth upon the fist. He was helpless. Strong as he was, he was in the grip of a man temporarily given superhuman force by his rage and grief.

Benoni jerked once with a savage cry. Joel threw his hands up and fell backwards into the water as Benoni released him. He did not try to rise but floated a few feet, then sank. A great stain of blood spread out from where he had gone down. Benoni was left standing in the water, staring at the thing, so like a headless fish, in his hand.

Finally, Benoni opened his hand and dropped the tongue into the river. He waded to Zhem, who was leaning against the bank. Zhem’s eyes were open, but they were fast becoming glazed.

“You got him? Good,” he whispered. He slumped down and would have gone under the surface if Benoni had not caught and held him.

“Listen,” he murmured. “You . . . tell my people . . . I died like a . . . man?”

“I’ll do that if I get a chance,” said Benoni. “But you aren’t dead yet.”

“My debt. . . paid. So lo . . .”

He slumped forward, and his heart quit beating.

Benoni, though suddenly drained of his strength, managed to get Zhem up on the bank. He sat there, panting, wondering what to do next. Only when he heard the hooves of horses on the underbrush and the scrape of branches against armor, did he realize that all was not yet over.

He rose to see the Pwez approaching on horseback. Behind her, the rest of Kaywo.

Without thinking he stepped forward, picked up the fallen weapon, and reloaded it. He placed it in his belt.

“We wondered why you three wild-men suddenly dropped out of sight,” she said. “I would not have bothered coming after you, but when I heard the explosions I got to thinking. Could the so-called intervention of the First have been you, using one of the devices we took from the Hairy Men’s ship? It did not seem likely that a simple savage could have discovered something we haven’t. However, you are not simple. After all, you were the one who found out how to enter the vessel.”

Her face contorted and became an ugly red. “You traitor!” she screamed. “You found out how to use that thing at your belt! And you did not tell me! You were planning on taking it to the Eyzonuh!”

“That is true,” said Benoni. “But I am no traitor. I was going to see that you got back to your country safely.”

“Traitor! Ugly stinking wild-man!”

She pointed at him with a shaking finger and shrilled, “Kill him! Kill him!”

Benoni felt tired, very tired. He had had enough of blood to last him for a lifetime. And these men were brave men, great warriors. They should not have to die, here, in this alien forest, far from their homes. Especially, since they had fought so well and were so close to success.

But he did not want to die. So, he must do what he had to do.

He emptied the weapon and reloaded it, taking his time now and not fumbling. He fired half of it the second time, then waited for the smoke .to clear. And for the few survivors, their courage broken, to flee on foot or on horse.

Lezpet had not run away. At the first explosion, her horse had reared violently and thrown her to the ground. She did not get her senses back until it was all over. When she looked around and saw the carnage, she wept.

Benoni pulled her to her feet, turned her around, and tied her hands behind her with a rope taken from the saddle on a dead horse. Docile, the fight taken from her, she submitted without a word. After tying the end of the rope to a tree, Benoni mounted his horse and went after a horse for her. It took about five minutes for him to find one of the animals that had bolted and to rope it. He returned, loosed her from the tree, and lifted her into the saddle. Holding the reins of her horse in one hand, he saw the three wagons waiting by the roadside. The drivers and about twenty soldiers were standing by them.

Seeing their ruler with her hands tied behind her, they raised a cry and began to mount their horses. Benoni did not want any witnesses left, so, reluctantly but carefully, he shot.

Not carefully enough, for one of his shots, the force, or whatever it was that was projected by the weapon, must have struck one of the wagons. And the wagon must have contained a powerful explosive of some sort. Perhaps, the cylinders stored there all went off at once.

Whatever was responsible, a tremendous cloud of smoke with a pillar of fire blossomed, and a blast roared down the road and knocked over Benoni’s horse and Lezpet’s.

Luckily; neither was hurt, beyond some bruises and deafness, and the horses managed to get back away and reveal a crater thirty feet wide on the side of the road. Of the three wagons, the teams of horses, and their riders, there was no sign.

If he had not been so stunned, he would have wept. All his dreams of burying the artifacts of the Hairy Men and of returning some day with the Eyzonuh and digging them up, all his dreams were gone. He was left with two handweapons and perhaps fifty cylinders.

“I hope you are satisfied,” said Lezpet. “Now, why don’t you kill me and complete your bloody work?”

“I have sworn an oath not to harm you,” said Benoni.

Lezpet began laughing shrilly and uncontrollably. Benoni did not find it difficult to understand her behavior; his statement seemed foolish to himself. But he had kept the literal terms of his word. He had protected her from others, and he had no intention of harming her. Besides, when she ordered her men to kill him, she had released him from his vow—as far as he was concerned.

Finally, Lezpet quit laughing. She stared at him with her great blue eyes, reddened with tears and smoke, and she said, “What do you intend to do, wild-man?”

“I can’t take you back to Kaywo,” he said. “They would kill me. So, I will take you to Fiiniks. I think that my people can use you as a hostage, a lever with which to pry some sort of treaty out of the Kaywo.”

“The journey will take many months,” she said. “I will get loose, and I will kill you.”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

He was as good as his word. Three months later, just as spring was beginning to melt the snows, he and Lezpet paused on the line where the plains left off and the desert began. They were on a high hill which gave them a view for miles ahead. Benoni was examining the group of horsemen about half a mile away at the bottom of the hill. From time to time, he shifted his gaze to the great cloud of dust rising some miles beyond the horsemen.

Finally, he smiled, and he said, “Those are not enemies. They are Fiiniks. Look at the flag! A scarlet fiiniks on a blue field!”

Shouting with joy, he spurred his horse down the hillside. The men below looked up alarmedly. Seeing only one man, and he without a sword in his hand, they reined in their animals to wait for him.

One of the group suddenly recognized Benoni, for he rode toward him. Benoni burst into tears. His father!

There was much confusion, shouting, and crying after that. The others crowded around him and all tried to question him at once. When order and comparative quiet was restored, his father said, “It makes me happier than I can say to see you alive, Benoni, for I had thought you were dead! But where is the scalp you were to bring back?”

Benoni flinched as if he had been struck on the cheek, but he said, “You would think I was mad, father, if I told you I have killed over a thousand men. I would not blame you. But I have a witness to that.”

There was more clamor. Finally, Benoni managed to tell them something of what had occurred. And he learned why his father was here and what the cloud of dust in the distance meant. The Eyzonuh had left their valley after a new volcano had begun forming only two miles from the city. This was a scouting party; the dust behind them was being raised by the main body: women, children, mules, horses, wagons.

“We are looking for a new land,” said Benoni’s father.

“There are many,” replied Benoni. “You will have to fight to take one and fight to hold it.”

He paused and then he said, “Tell me about Debra Awvrez. Is she back there?”

His father tightened his lips and hesitated. “Like the rest of us, she thought you were dead. She married Baw Chonz, one of the boys who went out on the warpath with you. She is carrying his child.”

He watched his son closely, waiting for the explosion. Then, he smiled as he saw Benoni shrug and heard him say, “It was to be expected. Now, I do not care. I would not have wanted her.”

His father asked for an explanation. Benoni said he would give it later. As of now, he wanted to ride back to the main group and see his mother, brothers, and sisters.

Four days later, Benoni entered the tent that had been given to Lezpet as her own. She looked coldly at him and said, “What do you want?”

“I wanted to tell you that I have been made a member of the Council of Kelbek,” he said. “It is a great honor. Never before has one my age been so honored. The Council feels that, in view of my knowledge of the land and of my experience, and also of my possession of the Hairy Men’s weapon, I should be a leader.”

“So?” she said.

“Lezpet, I know you hate me. But, I do not hate you. On the contrary, having known you, I could never be satisfied to marry a lesser woman. I intend to make you my wife. I will not force you. You will come to me willingly.”

She spat in his face. Eyes wide and blazing, she said, “I will kill myself first! Marry you, a wild-man and a traitor! You disgust me!”

“I have sworn an oath to marry no woman but you,” he said. “You and I will some day rule the Kaywo and the Eyzonuh; they will become one nation.”

He patted the weapon stuck in his belt. “I have sworn by Jehovah and by this weapon that I will marry you. And, as you know, I have never broken my oath.”

He left the tent but stood outside for a moment, listening to her rage within. Never in all his life had he felt so strongly that the world would some day be his. And that she, part of the world, would also be his.

RASTIGNAC THE DEVIL

I

After the Apocalyptic War, the decimated remnants of the French huddled in the Loire Valley were gradually squeezed between two new and growing nations. The Colossus to the north was unfriendly and obviously intended to absorb the little New France. The Colossus to the south was friendly and offered to take the weak state into its confederation of republics as a full partner.

A number of proud and independent French citizens feared that even the latter alternative meant the eventual transmutation of their tongue, religion, and nationality into those of their southern neighbor. Seeking a way of salvation, they built six huge space-ships that would hold thirty thousand people, most of whom would be in deep freeze until they reached their destination. The six vessels then set off into interstellar space to find a planet that would be as much like Earth as possible.

That was in the 22nd Century. Over three hundred and fifty years passed before Earth heard of them again. However, we are not here concerned with the home world but with the story of a man of that pioneer group who wanted to leave the New Gaul and sail again to the stars . . .

Rastignac had no Skin. He was, nevertheless, happier than he had been since the age of five.

He was as happy as a man can be who lives deep under the ground. Underground organizations are often under the ground. They are formed into cells. Cell Number One usually contains the leader of the underground.

Jean-Jacques Rastignac, chief of the Legal Underground of the Kingdom of L’Bawpfey, was literally in a cell beneath the surface of the earth. He was in jail.

For a dungeon, it wasn’t bad. He had two cells. One was deep inside the building proper, built into the wall so that he could sit in it when he wanted to retreat from the sun or the rain. The adjoining cell was at the bottom of a well whose top was covered with a grille of thin steel bars. Here, he spent most of his waking hours. Forced to look upwards if he wanted to see the sky or the stars, Rastignac suffered from a chronic stiff neck.

Several times during the day, he had visitors. They were allowed to bend over the grille and talk down to him. A guard, one of the King’s mucketeers,
¹
stood by as a censor.

When night came, Rastignac ate the meal let down by ropes on a platform. Then another of the King’s mucketeers stood by with drawn epee until he had finished eating.

When the tray was pulled back up and the grille lowered and locked, the mucketeer marched off with the turnkey.

Rastignac sharpened his wit by calling a few choice insults to the night guard, then went into the cell inside the wall and lay down to take a nap. Later, he would rise and pace back and forth like a caged tiger. Now and then he would stop and look forwards, scan the stars, hunch his shoulders and resume his savage circuit of the cell. But the time would come when he would stand statue-still. Nothing moved except his head, which turned slowly.

“Some day I’ll ride to the stars with you.”

He said it as he watched the Six Flying Stars speed across the night sky—six glowing stars that moved in a direction opposite to the march of the other stars. Bright as Sirius seen from Earth, strung out one behind the other like jewels on a velvet string, they hurtled across the heavens.

They were the six ships on which the original Loire Valley Frenchmen had sailed out into space, seeking a home on a new planet. They had been put into an orbit around New Gaul and left there while their thirty thousand passengers had descended to the surface in chemical-fuel rockets. Mankind, once on the fair and fresh earth of the new planet, had never again ascended to revisit the great ships.