The Creatures of Man (41 page)

"Then we're to blame," whispered Eanna.

"Child, everyone and no one is to blame," Jonker retorted crossly. "The question is, what do we do now?" asked Basdon.

"Forge ahead, as best we can," the magician said, with meager hope in his tone. "Try to reach the River Heralple."

Basdon nodded and started his horse moving down toward the swirling dust storms. It was futile to assume, he knew, that the Heralple still flowed, but it would serve as a meaningful destination.

"And where from there?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Probably south," hazarded the magician, "into the tropical wilderness. That, I suppose, is where other survivors of Nenkunal will try to go."

Late the following day they passed the site of Haslil's cottage. No trace of the house remained, and Eanna permitted herself to find relief in tears as they pushed on toward the lowlands.

"I did not know there was so much sand in the world," muttered Basdon when they reached the first valley.

"Perhaps there wasn't until now," replied Jonker.

All next day they journeyed southeastward over the dry gritty earth, often having to dismount when the horses floundered in a loosely packed drift. There was little breeze, or the going would have been more difficult by far.

When they stopped, they shared their supply of sweetroot with the horses, since forage was nonexistent. Fortunately, Jonker's water-purification charm had survived the universal geas, and they could make use of the muddy, rapidly stagnating pools they occasionally discovered.

The next day was different in that the heat was becoming stifling. They stopped frequently to rest and cool their mounts, and were glad when night brought a swift chill to the air.

They were awakened by a rising wind at dawn.

"Shall we try to travel through this?" yelled Basdon, holding his arm in front of his face to shelter his eyes and nose from the painfully cutting grit in the air.

"Our supplies are not plentiful enough for us to wait out the blow," replied Jonker. "We have to move on."

So they walked, leading the horses, throughout the day, cloths over their noses and mouths, and eyes open only enough to glimpse what lay ahead. All day the dust swirled so densely that visibility was limited to a few yards.

"I hope you know which way we're going!" the swordsman yelled once.

"I do, within a reasonable margin of error," answered the magician. Basdon did not want to take more dust into his mouth by asking what a "reasonable margin of error" amounted to.

As the growing darkness of the sandstorm finally spoke the coming of night, they found themselves, rather to their surprise, in the sheltering bend of a low cliff thrown up by one of the earth tremors.

"We had better stop here," said Basdon. "Eanna and the horses can go little further."

"Very well. Get the girl settled in what comfort you can find for her while I unload the mounts," said Jonker.

Basdon led Eanna into the narrowest niche in the bend of the cliff, seated her, and helped her remove the cloth which had been protecting her face. Her bare feet and legs looked near to bleeding from the abrasion of the sand, and he hoped Jonker had some quick healing for them.

"You shouldn't treat me like I'm a baby," she protested. "Go help Jonker. I'm a grown-up woman."

He smiled at her. "So I know." He kissed her and turned to go just as Jonker came waddling up with a look of consternation on his face.

"Basdon! My saddle is gone!" he exclaimed.

"Oh?" Basdon frowned thoughtfully. None of them had ridden that day, but the saddles had been on the horses. "I suppose all this blowing sand worked between the straps and gradually wore them through," he surmised. "Well, you can use my saddle when we can mount again. I can ride bareback."

"But that's not the point!" sputtered the magician. "The
talisman
 . . . it was in the saddle-pack!"

Basdon sat down, feeling tired at the very thought of trying to cover the day's back-trail in search of the saddle and its contents. "We'll never find it," he muttered. "We'll never even find our own trail, more than ten yards back from this spot!"

"I admit it appears hopeless," replied Jonker, sounding stubborn, "but we've got to try. Although the way this sand is blowing, the saddle could well be concealed by now. And we'll have to wait until morning, but then we'll search very carefully . . ."

"It's
hopeless!"
Basdon bellowed angrily. "We could spend days hunting that thing without finding it! And look at my poor darling's legs! Do what you wish, magician, but I'm getting her out of this deadly land as soon as possible!"

Jonker looked from one to the other, and his heavy old shoulders slumped. "It is hard to accept defeat, after coming so close to success," he muttered sadly. "But you are right, swordsman. I fear the talisman is hopelessly lost."

"But isn't that what you wanted it to be?" asked Eanna.

Jonker blinked and stared at her. "By my long-suffering spirit!" he exclaimed, "
So it is!
The talisman of favoring destiny now lies beneath the earth of Nenkunal! And I, who lost it, haven't the foggiest notion within twenty leagues of where it lies!"

"The sand will keep piling up?" asked Basdon.

"Yes! It's safe!"

"And good riddance!" said Basdon. He moved to Eanna's side and hugged her closely. "In the morning, then, we can turn toward the south, to see what hope and comfort the wilderness has to offer."

Jonker nodded and heaved the sigh of a man suddenly at peace. "Yes . . . but our real hope lies somewhere under the sand in a saddle-pack . . . and twenty thousand years in the future."

Renson broke warp a proper five million miles from Nexal. The radiation of the planet's Sol-class sun felt pleasantly warm on his exposed face, chest and limbs, and momentarily opaqued his eyeball shields until he turned his head away from the glare.

The shields cleared immediately, and he had no trouble spotting the gleaming disk of the planet, the capital world of the Lontastan Federation. He went full-inert and promptly streaked toward the planet, feeling a touch of satisfaction with his astrogational skill. His warp-exit coordinates had placed him where his inert momentum would carry him precisely to his destination.

He tongued his toothmike and messaged: "Calling Nexal Arrivals Control. This is Fait Linler of Stemmons arriving with due prior notification. E.T.A. two hours. Please ack."

The acknowledgment was slow in coming. Renson was beginning to frown uneasily before the response rang in his right ear:

"Linler of Stemmons, this is Nexal Arrivals. Maintain inertia. You will be escorted down."

"Escorted?"
Renson demanded, surprised. "I really don't see the necessity of—"

"Maintain inertia!" the voice interrupted. "Nexal Arrivals out!"

"But . . ."

He did not complete his protest. This business of an escort had to mean that, for some reason, the Lontastans were suspicious. Had he given himself away with a false move?

He was—technically speaking—an enemy here, even though he had no intention of causing, or seeking, trouble. However, if trouble waited, his best bet was to warp out while he had the opportunity.

He went semi-inert, preparatory to setting a warp vector, then was stopped by a thought.

Why had Arrivals Control
told
him he would be escorted? Why hadn't the escort simply arrived and surrounded him? Was he being baited into a guilt-revealing action? What should . . .

The hesitation probably save his life. Zerburst terminals flared suddenly in scorching brilliance on every side, bottling him at a distance of only hundreds of miles in an almost unbroken shell of death. As it was, his skin-field went total reflect to block out the fierce radiation. If he had tried to vector in any direction, one of those terminals would almost certainly have caught him.

A harsh voice barked in his ear: "Fait Linler! Go inert and STAY inert!"

Renson obeyed.

Within seconds the escort of Nexali Guardsmen closed in on him. He watched expressionlessly as they spiraled around. They were a tough-looking squad—doubtless barbarian types of the sort usually found performing such duties. With their zerburst guns held in readiness, their black shorts and their overpolished boots, they looked very military and very murderous.

In short, a goon squad—one of the uglier features of the endless Primgranese-Lontastan war. As long as human society had a use for such barbs as these, Renson mused grimly, their genetic strain would remain intact.

"Take off your belt and throw it!
^"
ordered the harsh-voiced Guard officer who had spoken before.

Renson did so, not bothering to protest that his belt contained no weapons. A Guardsman snagged the belt as it drifted away and examined it cautiously.

Then Renson's sight was cut off. The escort had thrown a blindfield around him. He would see nothing during the rest of his journey to Nexal.

Time passed. When they entered the lower atmosphere he knew of it only from the relaxation of his pressor field and from the change of his breathing mode. The sensors of his life-support system, having detected suitable air around him, automatically deactivated the gas-conversion macromolecules in the linings of his throat and nasal passages, and he went on external respiration. What sounds filtered through the blindfield were muffled and uninformative.

When the field lifted Renson saw he was in a small windowless room. He had been left carrying sufficient momentum to slam him backwards into a chair, in which he was immediately confined by a restrainer belt across his stomach.

After a dazed instant he saw the escort was gone. Only one other man was in the room, facing him across a desk.

"I'm Arkay Delton of Anti-Espionage," the man informed him mildly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Fait Linler, from Stemmons," replied Renson. "Look, what's all this about?"

Delton's eyes had lowered to something Renson could not see on the desktop. Now he looked up and repeated, "Who are you?"

Renson blinked. Obviously Delton had an emo-monitor focused on him, and his use of a false name had registered; else Delton would not have repeated the question. Renson had lived with his assumed name, Fait Linler, for five years, and had hoped that, if he were ever emo-monitored, it would register clean. Plainly, it had not.

I
AM
Fait Linler, he assured himself. That's my real identity. Grap Renson is no longer real. I accept that as true without reservation.

But in reply to Delton's question he said, "Nobody you need concern yourself about. I'm not a spy, nor an enemy."

Delton glanced up and said, "Thank you," which probably meant the answer registered clean. "Who are you?"

Annoyed, Renson replied, "Fait Linler."

"Who are you?"

"Fait Linler, of Stemmons."

"Who are you?"

Renson consciously relaxed himself. This interrogation setup—a mild, friendly-faced man repeating a question at him from across a desk—had a strong and intentional resemblance to a psych-release therapy session. Psych-release was a major landmark in the life of every child, opening the way to a sane adulthood.

Thus, the temptation was to regard Delton as a therapist and cooperate fully.

Renson wriggled under the restrainer belt into a more erect position. "Fait Linler," he said.

"Who are you?"

"Look, I told you I'm nobody of concern to you! I'm not a participant in the econo-war at all! In fact, my sole purpose for coming to Nexal is to try to discover why this nonsensical war exists in the first place!"

Delton considered this outburst a moment before saying, "Thank you. Who are you?"

"Fait Linler!"

"Who are you?"

"Fait Linler."

"Who are you?"

The repetition of question and answer went on for half an hour . . . and Renson was beginning to think it could continue forever. Delton would tire, and be replaced by another interrogator, who would tire and be replaced by—

It was futile to go on.

"Who are you?"

Renson sighed. "I've been Fait Linler for five years. Who I was before that isn't important."

Delton smiled. "Thank you. Who were you six years ago?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Who were you six years ago?"

After a pause Renson shrugged. "I was Grap Renson, an engineer with Sol-Veg Systems Corporation in the Commonality of Primgran."

"Thank you, Mr. Renson. What grade engineer?"

"Junior first."

Delton looked impressed. "And you're not here as a spy or a saboteur, or otherwise as an agent of the Commonality or of a Commonality enterprise?"

"No."

"But you are not here as a defector, either?"

"That's correct," Renson said stiffly.

"Thank you." Delton shifted slightly in his seat for the first time. "After your long trip from Stemmons you're probably ready for some bulk food."

Renson nodded.

A tray slid out of the wall to pose a breakfast over his lap. He dug in with good appetite. During warpflight it was necessary to subsist on food-concentrate pills, with a stomach-balloon countering the empty sensation the pills left. This prevented severe pangs, but the human body had other means of recognizing hunger. And that, Renson realized as he grew more comfortable, was one reason why he had found the idea of a prolonged interrogation so hard to face.

He looked up between mouthfuls. "What alerted your security to me?" he asked.

Delton shrugged and grinned. "Several things. It seemed likely, when I first read the query on you from Arrivals Control, that you were either a rank amateur at infiltration, or that some Primgranese spy-boss was taking a shot in the dark with an utterly naive approach." He chuckled, "It was foolish of you to expect that a mere five-year record of residence on a low-security planet like Stemmons—where nothing of economic significance is going on—would lead to your unquestioned acceptance as a first-class Lontastan citizen. Notification of arrivals on Nexal are always checked out, and yours was obviously fishy."