The Horse Barbarians tds-3 Page 6

  Jason could well understand the shock of battle and dogged resistance behind her matter-of-fact words. It must have been brutal.

  “Come to the launch,” she said, putting his arm across her shoulders so she could bear part of his weight. He did not protest. “They must have been concealed on all sides and reinforcements kept arriving. They are very good fighters and do not ask for quarter, nor do they expect it. Kerk soon realized that there would be no end to the battle and that we could not help you by staying there. If you did succeed in escaping — which he was sure you would if you were still alive, it would have been impossible for you to reach the ship. Therefore, under cover of counterattacks, we placed a number of spyeyes and microphones, as well as planting a good store of land mines and remote-controlled gas bombs. After that we left, and the ship has set up a base somewhere in the northern mountains. I dropped off at the foothills with the launch and have been waiting ever since. I came as soon as I could. Here, into the cabin.”

  “You timed it very well, thank you. I can do that myself.”

  He couldn’t, but he wouldn’t aclniit it, and made believe that he had climbed the ladder instead of being boosted in by a powerful push from her feminine right arm.

  Jason staggered over and dropped into the copilot’s acceleration couch while Meta sealed the lock. Once it was closed, the tension drained from her body as her gun whined back into its power holster. She hurried to his side, kneeling so she could look into his face.

  “Take this filthy thing off,” she said, hurling the fur cap to the floor. She ran her fingers through his hair and touched her fingertips lightly to the bruises and frostbite marks on his face. “I thought you were dead, Jason, really I did. I never thought I would see you again.”

  “Did that bother you so much?”

  He was exhausted, his strength stretched well beyond the breaking point so that waves of blackness threatened to obscure his vision. He fought them away. He felt that, at this moment, he was closer to Meta than he had ever been before.

  “It did, it bothered me. I don’t know why.” She kissed him suddenly, hard, forgetting the condition of his cracked and battered lips. He did not complain.

  “Perhaps you are just used to having me around,” he said, far more casually than he felt.

  “No, it is not that. I have had men around before.”

  Oh, thanks, he thought.

  “I have had two children. I am twenty-three years old. While piloting our ship, I have been to many planets. I used to think that I knew all there was to know, but now I do not believe so. You have taught me many new things. When that man, Mikah Samon, kidnapped you, I found out something I did not know about myself. I had to find you. These are very un-Pyrran things to feel, for we are taught to always think of the city first, never of other people. Now I am very mixed up. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” he said, fighting back the threat of overwhelming darkness. “Quite the opposite.” He pressed his cracked and dirt-grimed fingers to the resilient warmth of her arm. “I think you are more right than any of the trigger, happy butchers in your tribe.”

  “You must tell me. Why do I feel this way?”

  He tried to smile, but it hurt his face.

  “Do you know what marriage is, Meta?”

  “I have heard of it. A social custom on some planets. I do not know what it is.”

  An alarm buzzed angrily on the control board and she turned at once to it.

  “You still don’t know, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe I’ll never tell you.” He smiled, his chin touched his chest and he fell instantly asleep.

  “There are more of them coming,” Meta said, switching off the alarm and glancing into the viewscreen. There was no answer. When she saw what had happened, she quickly tightened the straps to secure him in the couch, then began the takeoff procedure. She neither noticed nor cared if any attackers were under the jets when she blasted skyward.

  The pressure of deceleration woke Jason as they dropped down for the landing. “Thirsty,” he said, smacking his dry lips together. “And hungry enough to eat one of those moropes raw.”

  “Teca is on the way,” she told him, flipping off the switches as the launch grounded.

  “If he is the same kind of sawbones his mentor, Brucco, is, he’ll put me under for recovery therapy and keep me unconscious for a week. No can do.” He turned his head, slowly, to look as the inner port opened. Teca, a brisk and authoritative young man, whose enthusiasm for medicine far exceeded his knowledge, climbed in.

  “No can do,” Jason repeated. “No recovery therapy. Glucose drip, vitamin injections, artificial kidney, whatever you wish as long as I’m conscious.”

  “That’s what I like about Pyrrans,” Jason said, as they carried him from the launch on a stretcher, the glucose-drip bottle swinging next to his head. “They let you go to hell in your own way.”

  Meta saw to it that it took a good while for the leaders of the expedition to gather. Jason, whose eyes had closed in the middle of a grumbled complaint, spent the time in a deep, restorative sleep. He woke up when the hum of conversation began to fill the wardroom.

  “Meeting will come to order,” he said in what was intended to be a firm, commanding voice. It came out as a cracked whisper. He turned to Teca. “Before the meeting begins, I would like some syrup for my throat and a shot to wake me up. Can you take care of that?”

  “Of course, I can,” Teca said, opening his kit. “But I think it unwise due to the strain already imposed on your system.” However, he did not let his thoughts interfere with the swift execution of his duties.

  “That’s better,” Jason said as the drugs once more wiped away the barrier of fatigue. He would pay for this, but later. The work must be done now.

  “I’ve found out the answers to some of our questions,” he told them. “Not all, but enough for a beginning. I know now that, unless some profound changes are made, we are not going to be able to establish a mining settlement. And when I say ‘profound,’ I mean it. We are going to have to change the complete mores, taboos and cultural motivations of these people before we can get our mine into operation.”

  “Impossible,” Kerk said.

  “Perhaps. But it is better than the only other alternative, which is genocide. As things stand now, we would have to kill every one of those barbarians before we could be assured of establishing a settlement in peace.”

  A depressed silence followed this statement. The Pyrrans knew what this meant because they were themselves unwilling genocide victims of their home planet.

  “We will not consider genocide,” Kerk said, and the others unconsciously nodded their heads. “But your other alternative sounds too unreasonable.”

  “Does it? You might recall that we are all here now because the mores, taboos and cultural motivations of your people have recently been turned upside down. What’s good enough for you is good enough for them. We bore from within, utilizing those two ancient techniques known as ‘Divide and rule’ and ‘If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em!”

  “It would help us,” Rhes said, “if you explained what the mores exactly are that we are supposed to be disrupting.”

  “Didn’t I tell you yet?” Jason searched his memory and realized that he hadn’t. In spite of the drugs, he was not thinking so clearly as he should. “Then let me explain. I have recently had an involuntary indoctrination into how the locals live. ‘Nastily’ is one word for it. They are broken up into tribes and clans, all of whom seem to be perpetually at war with the others. Occasionally two or more of the tribes will join together to wipe out one of the others whom they all agree needs wiping out. This is always done under the leadership of a warlord, someone smart enough to make an alliance and strong enough to keep it working. Ternuchin is the name of the chief who organized the tribes to destroy the John Company expedition. He is so good at his job that, instead of breaking up the alliance when the threat was over, he kept it going and has even added to it. The anti-city taboo appears
to be one of the strongest they have, so it was easy to get recruits. He has kept his army busy ever since, consolidating more and more area under his control. When we arrived, it gave his recruiting an even bigger boost. Temuchin is our main problem. We can get nowhere so long as he is leading the tribes. The first thing we must do is to take away his reason for this holy war, and we can do that easily enough by leaving.”

  “Are you sure that you are not feverish?” Meta asked.

  “Thank you for the consideration, but I am fine. I mean we must convince the tribes that we have left. Another landing must be made on the same site and some sort of digging in got under way. Trouble will arrive quickly enough and we’ll have to fight them off to prove that we mean business. At the same time we will try to talk to them through loudspeakers, apparently to convince them of our peaceful intent. We’ll tell them all about the nice things we will give them if they let us alone. This will only make them fight harder. Then we will threaten to leave forever if they don’t stop. They won’t stop. So we blast off, straight up, and drop back to a hiding place in the mountains on a ballistic orbit so we won’t be seen. That is stage one.”

  “I assume there is a stage two,” Kerk said with marked lack of enthusiasm, “for up to now it looks very much like a retreat.”

  “That’s just the idea. In stage two we find an isolated spot in the mountains that simply cannot be reached on foot. We build a model village there to which we transplant, entirely against their will, one of the smaller tribes. They will have all the most modem sanitary conveniences, hot water, the only flush toilets on the entire planet, good food and medical aid. They will hate us for it and do everything possible to kill us and to escape. We will release them, when this affair is over. But in the meanwhile we will utilize their moropes and camachs and the rest of their barbaric devices.”

  “What in the world for?” Meta asked.

  “To form our own tribe, that’s what for. The fighting Pyrrans. Tougher, nastier and more faithful to the taboos than any other tribe. We’ll bore from within. We’ll be so good at the barbarian game that our chief, Kerk the Great, will be able to squeeze Temuchin out of the top job. I know you will be able to get the operation rolling before I return.”

  “I did not know you were going,” Kerk said, his baffled expression mirrored by the others. ‘What are you planning to do?”

  Jason plucked an invisible string in midair. “I,” he announced, “am going to become a jongleur. A wandering troubadour and spy, to sow dissent an4 prepare the way for your arrival.”

  7

  “If you laugh or even smile, I’ll break your arm,” Meta said through tightly clenched teeth.

  Jason had to use every iota of his gambler’s facial control to maintain his bland, slightly bored expression. He knew she meant it about the broken arm. “I never laugh at a lady’s new clothes,” he said. “If I did, I would have split my sides many, many planets ago. I think you look fine for the job.”

  “You would,” she hissed. “I think I look like some furry animal that has been run over by a ground car.”.

  “Look, Grif is here,” he said, pointing. She automatically turned toward the door. It was a timely entrance because, now that she had mentioned it, she did look like.

  “Well, Grif, come in, my boy!” Making believe that the wide grin and hearty laugh were for the grim-faced nine-year-old.

  “I don’t like this,” Grif said, flushed and angry. “I don’t like looking funny. No one wears clothes like this.”

  “All three of us do,” Jason said, aiming his remarks at the boy but hoping they would register with Meta. “And where we are going, it is the usual dress. Meta here is in the height of fashion among the plains tribes.” She was wrapped in stained leather and furs, her angry face scowling out from under a shapeless hood. He looked quickly away. “While you and I wear the indifferent motley of a jongleur and his apprentice. You’ll soon see how well we fit in.”

  Time to change the subject from their ludicrous apparel. He looked closely at Crif’s face and hands, then at Meta’s.

  “The ultraviolet and the tanning drugs have worked fine,” he said as he took a small leather bag from the sack at his waist. “Your skins are about the same color as the tribesmen’s, but there is one thing missing. As protection against the cold and wind, they grease their faces heavily. Wait, stop!” he said as both Pyrrans clenched their fists and death fluttered close. “I’m not asking you to smear on the rancid morope fat they use. This is clean, neutral, odorless silicone jelly that will be good protection. Take my word for it, you’ll need it.”

  Jason quickly dug out a glob and rubbed it onto his cheeks. Reluctantly, the other two did the same. Before they were finished, the Pyrran scowls had deepened, which Jason had not thought possible. He wished they would relax, or this game would be over before it began. In the past week, once the others had approved, their plans had moved on teflon bearings. First the planned “retreat” from the planet, then the establishing of a base in this isolated valley. It was surrounded by vertical peaks on all sides and completely inaccessible except by air. Their resettlement camp was in the mountains nearby, a bit of plateau that was really only a large ledge set in a gigantic vertical cliff, a natural escape-proof prison. It was already occupied by a clean and embittered family of nomads, five males and six females, that had been caught away from their tribe and quieted by narcogas. Their artifacts and clothes, suitably cleaned and deloused, had been turned over to Jason as had their moropes. Everything was ready now to penetrate Temuchin’s army, if Jason could only get these single-minded Pyrrans to cooperate.

  “Let’s go,” Jason said. “It should be our turn by now.”

  With its capacious holds and cabins, the Pugnacious was still being used as a base, though some of the prefabs were almost erected. As they went down the corridor toward the lock, they met Teca coming from the opposite direction.

  “Kerk sent me,” he said. ‘They’re almost ready for you.”

  Jason merely nodded and they started by him. Relieved of his message, Teca noticed for the first time their exotic garb and grease-covered faces. And the fierce scowls on the Pyrrans’ faces. It was all very much out of place in the metal and plastic corridor. Teca looked from one to the other, then pointed at Meta.

  “Do you know what you look like?” he said, and made the very great mistake of smiling.

  Meta turned toward him, snarling, but Grif was closer, standing just next to the man. He sank his fist, with all of his weight, deep into Teca’s midriff.

  Grif was only nine, but he was a Pyrran nine-year-old. Teca had not expected the attack nor was he prepared for it. He said something like whuf as the air was driven from his chest, and sat down suddenly on the deck.

  Jason waited for the mayhem to follow. Three Pyrrans fighting, and all of them angry! But Teca’s mouth dropped open as he looked, wideeyed, from one to another of the furry trio who surrounded him.

  It was Meta who burst out laughing, and Grif followed an instant later. Jason joined in out of pure relief. Pyrrans rarely laugh, and when they do it is only at something broad and obvious, like a man’s being knocked suddenly onto his backside. It broke the tension and they roared until their eyes streamed, laughing even harder when the redfaced Teca climbed to his feet and stalked angrily away.

  “What was all that about?” Kerk asked when they emerged into the frigid night air.

  “You would never believe me if I told you,” Jason said. “Is that the last one?”

  He pointed to the unconscious morope that was being rolled into a heavy cable sling. The launch, with vertijets screaming, was hovering above them and lowering a line with a stout hook at the end.

  “Yes, the other two have already been delivered, along with the goats. You go out in the next trip.”

  They looked on in silence while the hook was slipped through the

  rings in the net and the launch was waved away. It rose quickly, the legs of its unconscious burden dangling
limply, and vanished into the darkness.

  “What about the equipment?” Jason said.

  “It has all been moved out. We set up the cainach for you and put everything inside it. You three look impressive in those outfits. For the first time, I think you may get away with this masquerade.”

  There were no hidden meanings in Kerk’s words. Out here in the cold night, with a knifelike wind biting deep, their costumes were not out of place. They certainly were as effective as Kerk’s insulated and electrically heated suit. Better perhaps. While his face was exposed, theirs were protected by the grease. Jason looked closely at Kerk’s cheeks.

  “You should go inside,” he said, “or rub some of this grease on. It looks like you’re getting frostbitten.”

  “Feels like it, too. If you don’t need me here any more, I’ll go and thaw out.”

  “Thanks for the help. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Good luck then,” Kerk said, shaking hands with them all, including the boy. ‘We’ll keep a full-time radio watch so you can contact us.”

  They waited silently until the launch returned. They boarded quickly and the trip to the plains did not take very long, which was all for the best, as the interior of the cabin felt stuffy and tropical after the night air.

  When the launch had set them down and gone, Jason pointed to the rounded form of the camach. “Get inside and make yourselves at home,” he said. “I’m going to make sure that the moropes are staked down so they don’t wander away when they come to. You’ll find an atomic power pack there, as well as a light and a heater to plug in. We might as well enjoy the benefits of civilization one last evening.”

  By the time he had finished with the beasts, the cainach had warmed up, and cheering light filtered through the lashings around the door flap. Jason laced it behind him and took off his heavy outer furs as the others had done. He rooted an iron pot from one of the hide boxes and filled it with water from a skin bag. This, and the other bags, had been lined with plastic which had not only leakproofed them, but made a marked difference in the quality of the water. He put it on the heater to boil. Meta and the boy sat silently, watching every move he made.