The Edgar Pangborn Megapack Read online

  “Alone!” Dorothy was astonished. “I had you. Doc’s a fine medical man, whatever he says. Don’t you remember how Mijok held out his arm for me to grab when it got tough? He said, ‘I am a tree.’” Now she was holding his look with an indestructible smile until the rest came and Paul had to back out of the cramped cabin to give them room; then had to stand aside while the bright relic of twenty-first-century man spat its green flame and hot gases at the lake and leaped to soaring and slid into moonless darkness above the hills. The drums wept, raved, obscenely whispered.

  Paul did not know Sears Oliphant was with him till he heard the voice: “I think, Paul—the drums defeat their purpose. They make me sore instead of scared. I think you won’t need to worry about me, Paul.”

  “I never have.” He glanced at the fat man’s holstered automatic, remembered the cleanness of the rifle hanging in Sears’ room. “My father used to say most men are good watchdogs, who know they’re scared but stand guard in spite of it; only a few are rabbits and possums.” Paul turned his back on the hills. Nothing was there to see, nothing at all. “I wish you’d known my father. He was a tall man. Nuts about animals—always brought ’em into the talk—illustration, example. Couldn’t stand to see even a wasp beating against the glass; you never knew when a deer mouse would climb out of his pocket and run down his pants leg.” Paul laughed. The drums fretted in 5/8, passionate, soft, cruel.

  Sears watched blue fireflies over a lake so peacefully still that the sapphire reflections were as real as their cause. “A teacher, wasn’t he?”

  “For a while, till he settled in New Hampshire. They wouldn’t let him teach nineteenth and twentieth-century history as he saw it. He saw it in terms of ethical conflict, the man versus the state, self-reliance versus the various dreary socialisms, enlightened altruism versus don’t-stick-your-neck-out, and he didn’t give a good god-damn whether the first atomic submersible was built in 1952 or ’53. Doc would have loved him too: he knew what was meant by a government of laws. He made his students search out not only theory but the actual dismal consequences of the doctrine that the end justifies the means—Alexander, Augustus, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler. That was regarded as ‘wilfully minimizing the significance of technological advance.’ He didn’t minimize it; he just recognized that other matters were vastly more important, and he didn’t care to see the machine built up into one more mumbo jumbo. So he sent me through college by breeding children’s riding ponies and selling hatching eggs. Not a bad life, or so he said.… Jocko, will Pakriaa come back?”

  “I believe so.… Ah, Chris—nice evening for the month of Charin.”

  Wright was a paleness in the dark; stern, weary, tall, watching the lake, talking to himself: “The month we named for ourselves—end of Year One—oh, I do call that a pardonable vanity.… Paul, I was wholly selfish in choosing you. I’ve given you a burden no one should have to carry.”

  “We’re all carrying it.”

  “Thank you, son.” Wright moved away to stand alone at the rim of the lake, listening to the crawling thunder of the drums. Twice, Paul heard him speak, with an intensity beyond pain: “No one is expendable. No one is expendable.…”

  Sears exclaimed, “Look!” There were five white cloud-like shapes at the edge of the woods. “Oh, they’ve never done this before. Susie! What’s the matter? There now, girl, come tell the old man—”

  Paul followed him. “It’s the drums—don’t you think?”

  The five had been complaining softly, but that ceased as Sears moved among them, patting their legs, soothing them. “But Paul—their grounds are mostly north of here—there now, Mister Smith, you old bastard—so why didn’t they travel away from the sound? Take it easy, Millie, Miss Ponsonby—”

  “The wild ones probably did. But these had to come to you.”

  “Oh … That detachment of Lantis—the one in the northeast—”

  “Don’t think so, Jocko. Pakriaa’s spies are all around up there—we’ll have warning. Elis is posted half a mile north of us—he’d know—smell ’em if he didn’t hear ’em. However, I’ll go talk with him.…”

  The depth of forest muted the drums—a little; they were still a cumulative torture of anger in the inner darkness of the mind. Paul saved the fading power of his Earth-made radion flashlight by following his sense of the trail. He had learned to move as softly in the jungle as any Charin could hope to do—more softly than Spearman, softly enough to steal within spear range of the asonis. There was not much danger here, unless it might be from the uskaran, a beast Paul had glimpsed alive only once and then dimly, a striped thing slipping snakily out of his vision in a sun-striped afternoon; the rug in his and Dorothy’s room could almost have been a tiger pelt. The black reptiles were lovers of hot sun and shallow water, never going inland. The squeak and rustle of a kaksma horde, it was said, could be heard far off except during the rains, when all noises were smothered in the long rush and whispering of waters. For all his silence, black Elis was aware of him before Paul knew he had reached the sentry post. “Paul—isn’t it?” The night vision of the giants was better than the Charins’ but not like a cat’s; they hunted at night only if the moon was strong.

  “Yes. Everything quiet?”

  “Quieter than my heart.”

  Paul still could not see him. “Saving my flashlight. Where are you?” Elis chuckled and slipped an invisible hand around Paul’s. “The olifants came to the meadow. We wondered what disturbed them.”

  “Drums. Nothing in the northeast yet. But a great many of the pygmies are moving from the upper villages. I heard, and smelled the red flowers.” The people of Lantis, Pakriaa said, never wore those flowers, and it would not be the nature of Elis to exaggerate his powers of smell and hearing.

  “I think the animals wanted Sears. Could that be, Elis?”

  “Alojna—” Elis murmured the old word for them: it meant “white cloud.” “Two things nobody knows—the thoughts of Alojna and the journeys of the red moon and the white moon when we cannot see them. So we used to say. You give us a hint of knowledge of both things, and more than a hint of much greater mysteries.” Elis had always been tireless in questioning Wright; more than Mijok, he was haunted by a need to grope after intangibles, push outward the uneasy border between known and unknown. “So there’s never an end of mystery?”

  “Never.” The hand was warm. “What is the nature of courage?”

  The giant’s breathing was too quiet to be heard. “To go out, away from a world, in a little shell—that must have needed courage.”

  “Perhaps only a response to a drive of uncomprehended forces. But I think courage is a known thing, Elis, an achievement of flesh and blood—to hear the drums in the dark and stay at the post as you are doing, as I hope I can do myself. I must go back. Lisson will come and relieve you soon.…”

  Pakriaa had returned, with her five equals. Wright had lit one of the clay lamps. It burned pleasantly with an oil from the carcasses of the same reptile that had once nearly destroyed Mijok, a thing which pleased Mijok, for he liked to think that a creeping danger could also be a source of light; and the use of this oil had been taught them by the pygmies, who made almost monthly expeditions to marshy regions and butchered the beasts by the dozens for the oil alone.

  Pakriaa was almost meek. Her smile for Paul could have been a Charin smile; there was a tremor in her hands, and once they flew up to cover her ears. The drums, he thought, might be a worse pain for her than for his own breed. There was unconscious pathos in the precision of her English: “I did not make clear that I will obey you. I may have been angry; for that I am sorry—it is past. My sisters have agreed.”

  Squat Abro Samiraa; lame, thin Abro Kamisiaa; sober Abro Brodaa—these three Paul had met before. Abro Duriaa and Abro Tamisraa were from the farthest villages, and shy; Duriaa was fat, with a foolish giggle; Tamisraa had a feral furti
veness—the painted bones of her necklace looked like human vertebrae. In Abro Samiraa Paul saw competence as well as smoldering violence: the green of her eyes was dark jade; she was a flat pillar of muscle from shoulder to hip. Paul guessed her to be a devil of bravery, good in the front line and intelligent. Lame Kamisiaa’s bravery would be shrewd, vicious, and careful. In fat Duriaa he thought he saw a politician, not a fighter; in Abro Brodaa—there might be a thinker, even a dreamer, in Abro Brodaa.

  The princesses had brought news. A scout from Brodaa’s village had succeeded in locating the northeastern detachment of Lantis’ army; it was camped twelve miles to the northeast, on the far side of a deep but narrow stream. The scout had shown the kind of nerve the pygmies took for granted: she had crossed the creek to listen in the reeds and had drifted downstream the entire length of the encampment. The Vestoians were careless, overconfident, their dialect enough like her own so that she could grasp the essentials; their unit was six hundred strong, with no bowmen. The scout had heard discontented soldiers’ talk: the spearwomen missed their subject males, who were camp followers as well as second-line fighters. Returning, the scout had located and stalked a Vestoian sentry, stunned and gagged her, and brought her to Brodaa’s camp, where she was made to talk. Brodaa had been about to describe this when Pakriaa glanced at Sears and interrupted: “They plan to cross the stream before daylight, move straight west, and try to push us down into the open ground, where the rest of the army will roll over us.”

  The sentry is probably dead. I don’t want to know, not now.… The machine in Paul took charge of the council of war, rejecting compassion, rejecting everything beyond immediate need. “Abro Samiraa—take the soldiers of your village and of Abro Duriaa’s. Abro Duriaa, you will be in command of your own people, but accept Abro Samiraa’s orders as if they were mine.” Pakriaa intervened to translate for the fat woman, who showed no hostility but rather relief, and placed her hands formally under the spread fingers of Abro Samiraa in token of subordination. “Abro Samiraa, take those three hundred and the bowmen to the stream as quickly as you can with silence, and attack. The important thing is to scatter them before they are ready to move. If they retreat, follow them only enough to confuse them and then return here at once. If you can take prisoners, bring them here, unharmed. But do not be drawn into any long pursuit. There are still eleven hours of darkness. I hope to see you return long before sunrise.”

  “Good!” Pakriaa exclaimed, and Samiraa grunted with pleasure. Brodaa said, “Take my scout, sister. I have given her the purple skirt; she is Abroshin now, and my friend.” Duriaa waddled behind, and Paul sent Abroshin Nisana to relieve Abara from sentry duty. Nisana was glad to go, for Pakriaa still sent her sour glances, remembering the election.

  Sears was fretting: “My pets. Damn it, Paul, I dunno—they’re huddled out there in the meadow—just get in the way, get hurt.”

  “Would they follow Abara?”

  “I think so.…” Abara slipped in and puffed with pride when he learned what was wanted. “Certainly they will follow Mister Johnson, and Mister Johnson will follow me.”

  Pakriaa laughed. She caught him by a prominent ear and hugged him to her leanness, grinning at Brodaa over his head. “So ugly!” Pakriaa nibbled his neck. “And he leads olifants! Don’t be afraid, little husband—I was never angry with you. Look at him!” She spun him around for the lewd admiration of the other royalty. “I couldn’t do without him. When the war is over I’ll have him back in my bed. But now he leads olifants. Hurry, Abara—and don’t hurt yourself.” And she sent him off with a pinch.

  “Keep them in the woods,” Paul told him. “And stay with them.”

  “Good.” Pakriaa sobered. “He could do nothing. He never learned the bow.… Ah, look!” The red dot of the lifeboat had caught her eye. “Look, Abro Tamisraa—you never saw it fly at night.” It moved with apparent slowness, like a mad star, not toward them but toward the lake, perhaps ten miles away; it was still high when the searchlight beam stabbed down, probing from northeast to southwest, and vanished. “It’s all right,” Paul said, “I suggested he scout the lake on the way back.…” The red eye silently tumbled; Wright gasped. “Still all right,” said Paul. “A dive. He can make it talk.” But the moment dragged out into an ugliness of waiting.

  Then orange fury glared against the underside of clouds and the clamor of drums abruptly ceased. Paul said loudly, mechanically, “I think he gave ’em the jet—set a few boats afire. I didn’t order it, Doc. And wouldn’t try it myself.…” Now the red dot was shooting upward, disappearing as the boat circled once, then growing larger. Briefly the searchlight illuminated the meadow, and Spearman came in, overshooting slightly, driving almost to the moat before he checked. He swaggered in, satisfied. “See it?”

  “Uh-huh. What did you learn?”

  “Those were drum boats. Why, my God, they opened out like little orange flowers…! Well—the main fleet is ’way behind them, say thirty miles down the lake, coming slow. Couldn’t spot the land army—no campfires.”

  “All right. Sit in on this, Ed.…” And the plan was drawn up, so far as there could be a plan when the odds were ten to one in a world that never asked for them.

  Paul, with Mijok and Pakriaa, would lead three hundred spearwomen and a hundred bowmen south before daylight, in the hope of disorganizing the advance with surprise and gunfire, but unless the Vestoians were demoralized beyond expectation, this could be only a skirmish. They would fall back, try to avoid losses. The remainder of the army would stay at the edge of the woods until Lantis was in sight: Wright at the fortress with the giant women, now only four, who could handle rifles; Abro Kamisiaa and Abro Brodaa in the center; Sears and Abro Tamisraa on the right flank in the west, with Elis and Surok. Spearman in the lifeboat would follow the advance party at first-light. Paul said nothing of the second drive, to the southeast, the retreat that would seem like attack. When the time came for that, he must have in one unit all that remained after the first wrath had spent itself—and even then the pygmies would have to believe that they were attacking single-heartedly, or they could not reach the southern end of the range, but would probably be driven into the trap of the kaksma hills.

  The drums began again. They began after the council was ended and Sears had gone to take charge of his command on the right flank, with Elis and Surok and shifty Tamisraa. The other small red sovereigns had gone too, and Wright had stalked into his room—to sleep, he said—and Paul had followed Spearman out to the boat, where Spearman would sleep until it was time to go. Spearman tapped his elbow. “You’re surprising me, boy. Better than I could have done, I think. We’ll knock ’em over.” And the drums began.

  Spearman stared off at the lake; after a while he grinned, and the lamp burning in the fortress caught the grimace. “Yeah,” he sighed, “well, I knew I only singed ’em.” He climbed into the boat and glanced down with a half salute, which Paul answered mechanically. But as Paul walked away the thought stirred: That was like goodbye.…

  Paul went along the path at the edge of the woods. It was wide and easy, broadened during the Year One by much travel between the camp and Pakriaa’s village. There were occasional small-voiced greetings from the woods: these were Kamisiaa’s and Brodaa’s people, who knew him. Brodaa cherished a painting he had made of the singing waterfall above her village in return for that uskaran pelt. Many of these soldiers would be chosen by Pakriaa to bring up the number of the advance party to four hundred.

  There was no red moon tonight. The white moon was half the size of the planet Earth, so far away that its glow was scarcely more than that of a star, but Paul knew that by what light it gave the pygmies could see him smile in response to their greetings. They would be studying him, trying to weigh the tone of his answer. One of them might save my life tomorrow; certainly I shall have to see some of them die. They are people.

  There were two visible pl
anets to follow the wandering of the no longer alien star that was the sun. One was hidden tonight; the other, red like Mars, hung over the eastern jungle in tranquillity. A little shape detached itself from the trees to meet him. Abro Pakriaa. “Will you not sleep tonight, Paul, before we go?” It was a human question, sweetly spoken and meant kindly.

  “Later, I think.” He stood by her awhile; in the blackness from which she had come there was a steady mumbling, and Paul knew what it was: the witches also had their part to play in these heavy hours, although long before battle was joined they would be cowering in the villages. Somewhere in the tree shadows they were squatting, muttering the antique prayers. He wondered whether to go on and visit with Sears awhile. No: Elis is a rock, better company than I would be at the moment.… There was much, he thought, that would be good to talk about with Pakriaa tonight; there ought to be words that would reach her. Perhaps on this night a glimpse of Wright’s vision would meet with something better than amusement and distrust. But in the end he only said, “We’ll always be good friends, you and I.”

  He thought she might take hold of his hand in the Charin gesture. She did not—undignified perhaps. But she said, “Tocwright says we are all one flesh.” She said it thoughtfully, without contempt.

  “Yes. We are all one flesh.” And lest he become a true Charin and spoil a moment of truth with unnecessary words, Paul turned back to the camp, seeing that she remained there in the open, looking south, the grumbling witches behind her, before her the long night of drums and no red moon.

  Mijok was not asleep. He sat cross-legged by the lamp. “I wanted to thank you. Doc’s gone to sleep at last, and before I could find the words I wanted. It will be difficult to talk in the morning.”