The Sterkarm Handshake (28 page)

Above them the Sterkarms murmured and nodded and argued. Toorkild sat down behind them and made himself into a support for Per's back.

“Every Elf has an Elf-Cart,” Per said, “and some of these Elf-Carts, some of 'em can go over water! Aye, water!” Men began to settle down on the grass, sitting, lying, leaning on each other. Sweet Milk passed Per a bottle of small beer.

Look at them! Andrea thought incredulously, as smoke and sparks and smut continued to fly from the burning of her only way home. They're settling down for a good listen. Food and drink were being passed around.

“They have Elf-Carts that gan over any ground, over rock, over bog—and they have cannon at front. They use 'em to break down buildings.” He pointed across the valley to where the top of the tower could be seen poking above a hill spur and didn't need to say more. The Sterkarms growled.

“I saw it on a far-see. That be an Elf thing. It be like—like a window, but through window you see things that be happening far, far away. In London! Or Ireland!”

Men who'd been lying down sat up. They turned to each other, gaping.

Toorkild had his hand on Per's head, and Per irritatedly shook it off. “Elven have these far-sees everywhere, watching always. If we let them come here, they'll bring far-sees with them and watch
us
, and they'll always ken when we ride—we'll never be able to ride again! And they have—listen! Listen!”

Per's audience had begun to exclaim and chatter. Toorkild raised his voice and yelled, “Listen!”

Per put his hand to a deafened ear, but went on. “They have far-speaks too. They be like a—like a stick that goes from your mouth to your ear, and you speak to them and it carries your voice to someone else's ear, and you put your ear to it, and you hear someone else's voice. I've done this: I've heard one speak.”

Toorkild hugged him and said, to everyone, “He put his ear to one, my bairn. He listened to—”

“Quiet, Daddy! You can—”

“What do they sound like?” a man asked. “Be it shouting from far off?”

“It sounds like someone standing at thine shoulder. Listen, listen!” His listeners had all begun to talk among themselves again. “With these far-speaks you can talk to people in Ireland like they were next to you—” Another outburst of exclamation and chatter. “Listen, listen! They'll bring far-speaks here, but they will no gift 'em to us. They'll use 'em against us! They'll see us ride on their far-sees, and they'll talk to their friends on their far-speaks, and we'll ride into an ambush!”

A silence fell over the hillside as the men considered it all.

“On their far-see,” Per said, “I saw bodies, dead bodies—women and children too, piled in heaps like leaves in a drift. More folk than in Carloel, all killed. Elven love to kill. They had a creature in their land; they called it a tigger. It was like a—like a big—a big—big cat—a beautiful, beautiful beast, all yellow and striped like a wasp. Big and fierce and beautiful. And Elven, they killed all tiggers. All. Killed them and killed them until there was never a one left.” He pointed around them, at the hills and the black sheep that wandered on them. “They want to come here and kill our sheep, and all our deer, our wolves. Elven love to kill. Not Entraya.” Realizing that Andrea might be blamed along with the other Elves, Per turned to her and put both arms round her. “I should have trusted thee,” he said.

In a spurt of affection, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. The men around them set up a chorus of half-joking jeers and coos. Andrea wished that the affection she felt for Per weren't so mixed with relief at the protection he offered from the other Sterkarms.

“
Other
Elven,” Per said, his cheek still leaning against Andrea's, “they love killing so much, they have their far-sees look at women and children they've killed and heaped up, so all can see. They' be proud of it—of killing children.”

The Sterkarms shook their heads.

“No!” Andrea said. “No, they're not
proud
of it. It's on far-see so that people will know about it and—well, stop it. Not do it anymore.” She looked around at the faces that stared at her. It was plain they would rather believe Per than her. Thinking over what she'd said, and of how much television had done to stop wars, she wondered if he wasn't right.

Per half turned to look at his father. “Thy wee white pills and thy burned wine! Elf-Promises! They took me away to heal my leg—they said! But they meant to keep me a hostage. Entraya will tell thee! A hostage, Daddy!”

Toorkild wrapped his arms around Per again. From within the embrace, having fought an arm free, Per continued. “Chyo there, he's one of our own, and they took him into Elf-Land long ago, and how did they treat him? I found him begging in streets of Carloel. Elven gave him nothing, not a place by fire, not a mouthful of beer, not a piece of bread. Daddy, when those Grannams were lost, tha took 'em in, fed 'em, gave 'em a bed—”

“Aye, he did,” men in the audience were saying.

“Bad weather that year, deep snow.”

“Three days they stayed. Grannams.”

“Grannams,” Per said. “We owed 'em nowt but blood. But, see, Elven—they take Chyo to Elf-Land, he's their guest, and they leave him to live like a master-less dog, like a wet fox on the hill. And their guest-promises to me! They made me a prisoner and a hostage. There's no trusting the promises of Elven. They promise us burned wine—aye, to make you all drunk and stupid. They promise you potions to take away aches and pains—aye, to send you all to sleep, like Irish witches send their enemies to sleep. Let them in—” Fighting off his father, Per got to his feet. “Let them in, and they'll cast us out and down. They'll take our tower from us, and all our kine, and we'll be out on moor, crying like curlews, while cold wind blows and rain comes down. There'll be no fighting 'em, not with their far-sees and their far-speaks. Their carts'll outrun our horses, and it'll be their pistols and cannon against our lances. They'll call us friends, but they'll take our all and thrall us—so I ran 'em back into their own place and burned their house and closed their gate. That's why I did it. To save us from 'em.”

The men were silent. Many of them got to their feet as if wishing to stand ready. Toorkild got up, wrapped Per in his cloak again, kissed his head, patted his back and said, “My clever, canny lad.”

Andrea got up too and stood beside Per and Toorkild, feeling at a loss. She couldn't think of anything to say. She'd never thought the Sterkarms stupid merely because they were from a time five hundred years before her own, but still, she was astonished at what, and how much, Per had noticed in the 21st, and how he'd put it together. Things she'd mentioned to him casually while trying to keep him amused in the hospital, and which she thought he'd forget. He'd understood some of it in his own way, but he hadn't forgotten much at all.

Joe had edged through the crowd to Andrea's side and nudged her. “What did he say?” He'd caught the odd word here and there, but most of Per's impassioned speech had been too fast for him to follow.

Andrea shook her head, feeling such a mixture of things that she didn't think she could explain anything coherently. Besides being astonished at Per's perception, she was unhappily aware that his assessment of FUP's aims was right on the money. A few of the details might have been skewed or misunderstood, but he had the big picture framed just right. Then her feelings would whip angrily around, and she'd think: Wouldn't the Sterkarms be better off if the constant raiding and petty warfare were ended? Wouldn't they be richer, better fed, better off altogether under FUP's management? She was embarrassed to find herself feeling indignant on behalf of FUP, but after all, they were People Like Her. Weren't they? Certainly more like her than savages like the Sterkarms. Savages? Is this me thinking this? she asked herself in amazement. And she'd better learn to love these savages, and she'd certainly better act as if she loved them and keep on their good side.

She saw, with a shock, that Toorkild was pointing at her. “Thee! Tha knowed they meant to keep my bairn hostage.”

“No!” she said, and took a tight hold on Per's arm.

“It was thee talked us into letting him be taken away, and all the time tha meant to make him hostage.”

“He was dying! Remember? I wanted to save his life!”

Per pushed his father away, holding him off. “Entraya helped me to escape—and if I'd trusted her more, I think I'd have been home sooner.”

“She knew all this tha've told us,” Toorkild said, “these far-sees and far-speaks and magic cauldrons, but she told us nowt of 'em. It seems she be no friend to us.”

“She'll be one of us,” Per said, “when we wed.” Feeling Andrea start, he put his arms around her. “I've captured my Swan-May. Tha no want to fly away, dost?”

Andrea put her arms around him and thought: No, at exactly the same time as her mind was screaming: Yes!

“I'll hide thy wings where tha'll never find 'em,” Per said.

Toorkild pulled at his shoulder. “I'll see thee dead afore thee wed that Guthrun!”

Per swore and moved around Andrea, out of his father's reach. He was opening his mouth to shout at Toorkild, and they would soon have been into another argument, if Andrea hadn't pulled at his arm. Per looked at her.

“I'll tell you all this as a friend,” she said. “You think you've got rid of Elven. I think not so. I no think they'll stay away just because you've closed gate. They'll open it again and come back, and they'll come back with—with pistols.” To the Sterkarms, “guns” meant cannon. “And guns too probably. And other things—worse weapons than you can imagine.”

Toorkild glowered, and she clung to Per's arm and wondered why she was helping them. Wouldn't it be better for her if they were taken by surprise? But then Per might be hurt or even killed. And scowl at her as he liked, she didn't want Toorkild hurt either. Even with the bodies of the security guards lying in the compound, she still liked these people—she couldn't help it. They'd always been good to her.

And she was afraid that people were going to be hurt. Bullets were going to tear through flesh and shatter bones into vein-piercing splinters. Arrows were going to break jaws.

A cold, damp wind blew across the hillside. A little below them Bedes Water ran, and the herdsmen rode among the cattle. Above and beyond rose the hills, to the moors and the sky, and up on its crag Toorkild's tower overlooked it all.

“You no ken what you've done,” she said, knowing it would mean almost nothing to them. “You've just declared war on twenty-first century.”

13

21st Side: A Short, Sharp Shock for the Sterkarms

By the time security called Bryce from the meeting, things were out of control, and there was nothing he could do except stand and watch. He certainly wasn't going to threaten Windsor's life by further panicking an already panicked and dangerous Per Sterkarm.

He'd felt his caution was vindicated when Windsor, at least, was released. “Nobody move!” Bryce yelled above the excited chatter that immediately broke out. He didn't want any heroes chasing Per Sterkarm through the Tube and straight into a Sterkarm ambush—not that the security guards showed any disposition to be heroic, despite Windsor's ranting.

Bryce looked to the security monitors, to try and get some idea of what exactly was going on 16th side. One showed a distant corner of the compound fence, one the sky and the others various shots of the Sterkarms outside the compound. While he was still cursing, a couple of guards from the 16th side came running to safety through the Tube. Bryce's hopes rose.

But then smoke came drifting through the Tube and the control room shook to a crash so loud that Bryce ducked forward, clapping his hands to his ears. A sound like an immense car crash, of metal wrenching and shearing, of concrete cracking and falling.

The shaking stopped, and Bryce straightened, realizing that the control room was still standing. People had fallen to the floor, but a quick look around showed him none who seemed to be seriously hurt. As his numbed hearing recovered, he heard people whimpering, computers bleeping, and debris still falling.

The Tube had torn in half. People grabbed fire extinguishers to deal with the flames. Bryce moved through the control room and out onto the platform in front of the shattered Tube. The facing of its curved inner wall was in tatters, like wallpaper in a demolished house. Circuit boards hung out of cavities on wires. The cement of the roadway was cracked. Scaffolding was twisted and sheared. The whole farther end of the Tube, the half that had once opened into the past, was missing. Smoke drifted about them.

Windsor's voice rose above the other noise. “How was this
allowed
to happen? I want answers!”

Windsor was a sight. His hair, usually combed and oiled into place, had fallen in a tangle about his face. He had buttoned his shirt and put his tie straight, but both still looked mussed and wrinkled. Blood from his cut ear had dried on his face and run down his neck, marking the collar of his shirt with an ugly stain.

“Where were you?” Windsor said. “You're head of security, where the hell were you? What use are you?” Windsor's heart was still racketing within him, from the many shocks and humiliations he'd undergone—the sight of Bryce, calm and unmolested, was enraging. So was the sight of the wrecked Tube. He pointed at it. “I want that up again! Up and running! By the end of the day!”

No one was listening to him. Several of the technicians were talking to Bryce. “The fire—it's shorted out—”

“There's been a temporal-spatial dislocation—”

“They've got Andrea—”

“And serve the bitch right!” Windsor said, which at least shut everyone else up and made them look at him. “She helped him, she brought him here, she put him up to this! Serves her right!”

“Okay,” Bryce said. “So Andrea and four men are 16th side. Where are the two who came through? The med room? I'll talk to them.”

“That's nice!” Windsor said. “Have a chat!” Anger was replacing his fright, swelling his heart and brain, reddening his face and making him clench his fists. “In the meantime, the Tube's destroyed, billions down the drain …” He ran out of breath and saw them looking at him, staring at him in surprise and disapproval.

Bryce said, “James, get a grip on yourself.”

Windsor's mouth clamped shut. He breathed through his nose, breathed deeply, and yet still seemed to be stifling. The anger inside him was beginning to scald, to roll in his guts. And it was Andrea's doing.

Andrea and her murderous toy-boy. All their doing. “Don't tell me to get a grip.”

“James, I only meant—perhaps you should come across to the med room with me?”

“I'm not interested in your opinion! I want to know when the Tube's going to be up again.” He shoved his hot, angry face into the face of the supervisor. “When?”

Her degrees in physics didn't, he was glad to see, prevent her from shrinking and stammering. “I. Don't. It'll be. We shall have to—”

“The end of today! I want it running by the end of today! Understand?”

“That's. I'm sorry. That's—”

Windsor took the woman by the arm and swung her away from her friends, out into the middle of the platform. She gave a cry of shock.

“Don't give me excuses!” Windsor said. He could hear young Sterkarm laughing at him. Five centuries away, but he could still hear him. “Don't just stand there staring at me with cow eyes, you stupid mare! Get moving!” The effort of shouting swelled his brain in his skull until it was an uncomfortably close fit. He felt veins pop in his eyes. He was pulling at the woman's arm, to shake her, when Bryce stepped up to them. Bryce prized Windsor's fingers from the woman's arm and pushed him away from her.

“James, that's enough,” Bryce said. “Go to the med room.”

The intervention, and the silent stares of the technicians, infuriated Windsor. He took another deep breath, and it made his mind spin. The blood beating through his head said, “Make them, make them, make them do it!” He wasn't able, clearly, to think anything else. He wanted to hit somebody. He could feel his muscles moving in that thrust of the fist—

Bryce said, “Don't! Take me on!”

He and Windsor stared at each other. It made Windsor want to hit him more, but some faint little voice at the back of his mind cried out to him that he'd be a fool, a big, egg-splattered fool, to do it.

“Go to the med room,” Bryce said.

Windsor turned and walked away down the ramp to the gravel drive below. At the bottom he turned and, pointing, yelled, “I want it up and running by the end of the day, or a lot of people around here will be looking for jobs!”

Bryce looked around the door. “Can I come in?”

“Come in, come in!” Windsor said, and waved him toward an easy chair. “Want a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, we both need it.”

“Whiskey, then.” While Windsor poured the drinks at the bar in the corner of his office, Bryce wondered at the man's good temper. It was after six now—no getting home early that night—so he'd had a couple of hours to recover. Still, he'd practically been frothing at the mouth. Now he'd cleaned himself up, combed his hair back into place, put on a fresh shirt, and seemed as smooth as ever, except for the dressing on his ear.

“And what have you managed to establish?” Windsor asked, as he brought Bryce his drink.

Bryce drew a long breath while he ordered his thoughts. “The two men who got back to our side are okay. I saw them to the hospital, but they aren't hurt, just badly shaken up. The Tube, by the way—not strictly my business, but I thought you'd like to know—is a mess. Best estimates for getting it up again are a—”

“A week,” Windsor said. “I know. I've been looking into that. I've given them three days.”

Bryce said, “I'm concerned for our personnel who were 16th side when the Tube went down.”

“There's no need to worry about our Miss Mitchell.”

“Oh?”

“She's where she wants to be, with her bit of rough! She set it up, and—never mind.”

Bryce left a short silence. “I'd like to hear her word for it. And I'll tell you now, so you know. I'm putting in a report, and it's going to say what I've been saying all along, that security isn't being taken seriously enough, and not enough's being spent on it.”

“It's your department.”

“And I have a budget! There's bloody thousands spent on painting offices and that kind of nonsense!” He pointed to the beautiful framed photograph of Toorkild's tower hanging on the wall. “But they expect me to run security on a shoestring, because—oh, the Sterkarms, they're only a lot of ignorant bumpkins …”

“You sound like you need a drink,” Windsor said, smirking as though he'd never gone scarlet in the face and threatened employees with the sack.

“James, you could have supported me more on this. If you pay night watchmen's wages, you get night watchmen. You can't expect a night watchman to deal with the Sterkarms.”

“Yes, yes.”

“It's no good giving men guns if you don't train them to use them. The Sterkarms have been training with their weapons since they were children, and they've no hesitation about using them. Our men didn't know what to do. They weren't confident, and FUP's policy isn't clear. They didn't know if they were
allowed
to shoot. Not that it would have done them much good if they had, with only one bullet each, and they'd probably have—”

“All right!” Windsor said. “I take your point.”

“Do you?”

“Absolutely. We've tried asking the Sterkarms nicely. We've tried bribery. This is the result.” He pointed to the dressing on his ear. “To say nothing of the Tube being in ruins. And,” he added as an afterthought, “personnel stranded 16th side.” He pointed to his ear again. “This was done by a—a lout, whose life I'd personally gone to a lot of trouble to save. Ungrateful, treacherous—I think it's time the Sterkarms got a short, sharp shock.”

Bryce raised his brows.

“When the Tube's up again, I want you to take some men through. Armed. And show the Sterkarms exactly where they stand vis-a-vis the 21st.”

Bryce, his hands clasped as he leaned on his knees, pursed his mouth and nodded. “You realize this could get a bit outrageous? I'll do it if you authorize it, but I want you to know what you're asking. People are going to get slotted.”

“Slotted?”

“Killed,” Bryce said.

Windsor wavered. The picture Bryce called up was rather brutal, like something from a news report. It would be bad publicity, and Head Office would be on his back—but no, who would ever hear of it? There weren't many investigative journalists 16th side, and, personally, he could tolerate a good deal of brutality being dished out to Per Sterkarm. If Andrea Mitchell caught a smack or two, he wouldn't complain.

“So long as none of our people are—slotted. If the ringleaders among the Sterkarms get hurt, well, they chose to play hardball. But let's not get carried away here. We don't want any massacres.”

With a slight effort, Bryce kept his face expressionless. Typical civilian reaction! Wanted him to go in and do the dirty work, but didn't want anyone to get hurt. “James, I'm not into massacres myself. I won't be leading any atrocities. But let's be clear about this from the start. If we go in there armed, I can't give you any guarantees about who gets hurt, and who gets killed and who doesn't. I shall aim to get in and out as quick as possible, with as few casualties as possible, but once we make contact, anything could happen.”

Windsor spread his hands. “So be it.”

Bryce looked across at the photograph again. “Take the tower. It's their stronghold. Take it and use it against them. Psychologically, devastating.”

In the photograph the tower looked grim. “Could you do it—with a small force?” Windsor didn't want Bryce to get expensively carried away.

“If the aim is to beat the Sterkarms, we have to take the tower. It's well sited, but the defenses haven't been built to withstand our kind of weaponry. I'll need maps.”

Windsor nodded. “We have some maps that the research teams made. They're not complete because they kept being interrupted by the Sterkarms. I could put you in touch with some of the team members. They may be able to tell you more.”

Bryce nodded. “That would be useful.”

“I'll get Beryl onto it.”

“Good. Thank you. Ah—I don't know how seriously you meant that about getting the Tube up again in three days, but I could really do with a week—better still, a fortnight.”

“Why?” Windsor asked.

“To put out the word. To call in the men I need.”

“You've got your men,” Windsor said. When Bryce looked at him, he said, “On your payroll. Pay them double time, and they'll be fighting each other for the chance.”

“Security?”
Bryce said. “James, what was I just saying? I'm talking about professionals. I need time to recruit.”

Windsor shook his head. He was taking a risk in even suggesting this expedition. If it was successful, if the Sterkarms were cowed, FUP would be suitably grateful. If it failed, FUP would probably cover the cost, to keep the whole story in house. But Windsor would be looking for a job himself. “This has got to be kept small, cheap and fast. I don't see the point of holding things up, and paying for professionals when you could use the men we already have on our payroll.”

There was a short silence from Bryce, as he remembered how Windsor had “taken his point” earlier. “It's rough country 16th side. We need men who've got some experience of crossing that sort of country and avoiding an enemy while doing it. Because the Sterkarms—”

“Are peasants, armed with sticks,” Windsor said. He remembered the severed head, and determinedly turned his thoughts away. “You'll have automatic rifles. I don't think we have to worry too much about the Sterkarms.”

Bryce was silent. Everything he'd said to Windsor had been forgotten as fast as he'd said it. His feelings about the situation were getting worse by the moment. “Rule number one, James: Never underestimate your enemy. The Sterkarms are guerrilla fighters. The worst kind to go up against. They know their country a damn sight better than we do. They move fast and light, come out of nowhere, hit you hard and run away before you know they're there.”