Homecoming

XXIV

Kniven lag i slappa sommen, sov pa sidan a sin stridshass, sov iblann sin dromna kjamper slumranne pa stilla sletten i d’ lagren trygg a sikker, slutan om a vakna posser

a a smylla hasspatryller.

I knivens panna pette viske, snydde va a blaste dromen bort, da satt han upp a starde.

Ingen vaken sag de onar.

Plyssli i d’ morka natten, nagon vita, jenomsynli, vista sej t’ Knivens springor.

Sag han makti Jarnhanns spoke, kjennte Ynglingen i annen viskanne i sjaanli stillen.

[Listi lay relaxed and sleeping, lay beside his horse in slumber, lay among his dreaming warriors sleeping on the silent prairie in their war camp strong, protected, guarded round by watchful sentries and by stealthy scouts on horseback.

In his mind there came a whisper, touched and broke his fragile dreaming, sat up then and looked about him.

Nothing waking caught his vision.

Then within the darkness flickered something thinly white, transparent.

As he stared with eyes thin-slitted, saw the ghost of mighty Ironhand, saw the spirit of the Youngling whispering in the starlit stillness.]

From THE JARNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation.

“Nils! Have you seen her?”

“Yes, through Ram’s eyes before I slept. She’s beautiful. Not all red like many newborns.”

Ilse held out her hands and he took them, smiling down at her. “Darling,” he said, “you are as remarkable at growing a baby as at every other thing.”

Celia left them, closing the door behind her while the two conversed silently in a rich and subtle mixture of images, feelings, and unspoken words. After a bit Ilse showed him how to leave his body. He lay down on the deck of the small sick-room and after a minute she could not detect him; only his body was there. Then he returned.

“Was he aware of you at all?” she asked.

“Not consciously.”

“His mind is tense and inward,” she said, “and easily threatened. Mostly he allows his psi to function only with verbalized thoughts, and that only guardedly.

“And your sight-could you see when you were out of the body?”

“Better than with eyes. More finely, and in every direction at once.”

She nodded. “And now?”

“I’m going to the two star men, Matthew and Mikhail, and see how things are with them-what the situation is.”

Concentrating but without effort he edged into thereness until he could see Matthew. He sensed at once the familiar feel of Draco’s dungeon, which he had not expected. He’d assumed they were Ahmed’s prisoners, and it had been clear earlier that Draco and Ahmed were enemies. Scanning, he sensed Mikhail nearby, the still catatonic Chandra, and a female with Chandra, desolate and in pain, that had to be the one called Anne Marie. The hostages had been brought together.

A dungeon captain, ill-at-ease, psi intent, was moving sword in hand down the alleyway between the rows of cells, and Nils withdrew. For only a minute he stayed in his body, sensing Ilse’s awareness, then left again.

Nephthys was alone at her loom, looking critically at a half-completed tapestry. She was conscious of him almost at once. Carefully she looked around, saw nothing meaningful, and took her lip thoughtfully between her teeth.

“I’m not asleep,” she thought. “Is it you? Can the dead return?”

He acknowledged that it was him. “Is the one called Ahmed still alive?” he asked.

“No. Draco had him killed and rules the entire army now.” She hesitated. “Do you know about your people?”

“What about them?”

“Ahmed made an alliance with them. Oh Nils, I heard they’d blinded you but I didn’t know you’d been killed.”

“They blinded me.” His mind was gentle but persistent. “What about my people?”

“They sent out an army to help Ahmed overthrow Draco. Ahmed had promised to protect them with his sky chariot if Draco tried to attack them in the open. They believed if Ahmed won he’d take us all to Egypt and leave this country to them. But now… ”

She paused and he finished for her. “And now Draco has the sky chariot and the whole orc army and plans to destroy us.”

Mentally she nodded.

“When?”

“I don’t know. As soon as his army reaches them. It left this morning.”

She looked around her again.

“I can see you now, barely, as if you were made of pale light. Can you let me see you better?”

He made a stronger facsimile of his body until it appeared almost like flesh. Nephthys reached toward him and touched… nothing. “Can’t you take me in your arms then?”

Gentle negative.

“You have sons. Two of them.” She walked to a slender silvered cord and somewhere a bell rang. Nils withdrew to near absence, and in a moment a servant entered.

“Bring the babies,” Nephthys ordered.

The slave girl curtsied and left. In three minutes she was back, pushing a large-wheeled crib of simple elegance, and left it. Somewhat, Nils reappeared.

“They are not light-skinned like you,” Nephthys said, “but they have hair.”

Nils smiled softly in her mind.

“I wish they could have known you.” She was suddenly forlorn. The response she read in him had nothing of regret or unhappiness, only a soft awareness akin to love. He began to fade.

“When Draco comes back from killing your people, he will die,” Nephthys thought alter him. “I promise you.”

He was gone.

Nils conveyed to Ilse what he had learned, then got up from the deck. “I need your help to bathe,” he said. “I smell of injury and old sweat.”

Ilse sat up and put her feet on the floor. “I’ll take you to a bathing place; they call it a ‘shower.’ It is very pleasant; you can have the water as warm or cold as you want. Come, I’ll help you.”

For lack of clothes to fit him, someone had cut and hemmed a sort of toga from a bed sheet until something better could be sewn. The man looked, Ram thought, like an artist’s conception of Alaric, the Visigoth chief, after his barbarians had sacked Rome. Alaric with his skull shaved and grown to disreputable stubble. Alaric with empty sockets ugly in his face. He’d have to have eye patches made.

“It’s time we talked about getting Nikko Kumalo back from your people,” the captain said brusquely.

“It’s time to get all your people back.”

Easily said, Ram thought cynically, then reminded himself that this was a man who had escaped a dungeon while naked, unarmed, and blind.

“Get them back? How?”

“Land your pinnace on the root where you picked me up, close to the air chimney so it will be inside your shield. Then send men down on a rope and bring the prisoners up.”

“Aren’t there armed guards down below? I can’t risk sending men into that!”

“Let some of my people go down. It’s their nature and pleasure to fight.”

“It’s no one’s nature to fight-not in mortal combat!”

“It’s some people’s nature.”

“And what if the orcs come in the Alpha and attack us while we’re sitting on the roof? We wouldn’t have a chance. All we could do would be to sit there inside the shield. And the orcs would think of things, like attacking the commast to make us pull it in, and then sending smoke up the ventilator. Then we’d have to deactivate, and they’d hit us with grenades from the Alpha before we could get away.”

Nils flowed admiration at the man’s quick mind, but Ram could not accept admiration now, so the Northman eased off, saying, “That couldn’t happen if you captured or destroyed the Alpha first.”

Ram stared at him.

“There were two or armies,” Nils continued, “one ruled by Ahmed, the other by Draco. The two men were deadly rivals. Ahmed made an offer to my people: if they would help him attack Draco, then when he’d won control, he’d take the orcs to another land and leave the country to us. Now, my people wouldn’t willingly meet a large army in open grassland where orc numbers could overwhelm them. But Ahmed promised to use the Alpha to keep Draco from riding out against them.

“And they agreed.

“But somehow Draco overthrew Ahmed, and the entire orc army left the city today to attack my people, and the Alpha will also attack them.

“The men in the Alpha will be looking and thinking downward, not upward. They think of you as cowardly and will hardly expect you to attack. That would be a good time to strike with the Beta. If you succeed, you could borrow warriors from my people to raid the dungeon.

“You are not used to war and violence, and ruthlessness is foreign and terrible to you, so naturally you feel uncertain and afraid. But you are a man who’s faced and overcome difficulties before. You helped build this star ship, and that was not easy. If you concentrate on how to take the Alpha, you may very well succeed. The advantage is yours, because you know what your, your science, is able to do.”

Ram’s face reflected a hardening commitment now, a decision made. “All right,” he said, “I’ll do it. I think I already see how; I just need to work out the details. Meanwhile I’ll have someone take you down to your people to warn them.”

“No, I can go myself without a pinnace, the way Ilse went to help me and the way I went back to the city today and learned what I just told you.”

Ram was jarred inwardly by Nils’s words. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder how this man had gotten his information. Damn! I shouldn’t have overlooked that, he told himself. In this world of savages I’m a baby, credulous and naive.

But I’m damned well also a first-class engineer, and there’s no one at all down there to match what I can do with that.

At 3,500 meters the pinnace cruised slowly, as if gloating, checking the progress of the Northman army. It was a loose assemblage of mounted platoons covering many hectares of plain, conspicuous to the naked eye even though yesterday’s rain had laid the dust.

A second pinnace sledded out of the sun behind the first, braking sharply as she approached; her pilot was not an experienced gunner and couldn’t expect a second chance if he wasted his first. A shimmer in the target told him its hull was on one-way transparent, increasing the risk that he’d be seen. Even so he continued slowing, relying on the sun to hide him. At thirty meters his sights would coincide exactly with his line of fire. He rode his sights in, thumb poised, until at thirty-five meters their focus sharpened suddenly. He hit the makeshift firing stud, sticked back and banked sharply.

A hundred meters to starboard now the Alpha still floated as she had.

“We did it!” the pilot said. “We must have! Otherwise she’d be taking evasive action. Ivan, get ready to board.”

Ivan nodded, pulled a mask over his face and adjusted the straps. “Okay, Willi, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I just hope this mask works like it’s supposed to.”

“It will. Dr. Uithoudt tested it herself.”

“Okay. But let’s be careful with me, huh? I’m a motor tech, not a bloody daredevil.”

The Beta moved delicately alongside Alpha, matching speeds. Ivan Yoshida leaned far out, reaching, the other hand gripping tightly to a rail, slapped a magnetic disk on the hull alongside, and then another. A line ran from each disk to his belt. “There must be a better way to do this,” he muttered, then called, “Move a little closer-half a meter.”

Willi gave him a few centimeters. After taking up the slack in his safety lines, Ivan jumped, landing with his feet against the Alpha’s hull, and Beta drew away, ahead and to starboard. Some highly toxic gas would come out of Alpha when Ivan activated the door.

They saw the panel slide back, and after a short pause to peer inside, Ivan pulled himself in. A minute later his voice came from the radio. “All dead in here except me. You not only socked her in the air intake; you must have put her right down the nostril. The way the fan sounds, she penetrated the control unit and rammed part of it into the circulator. I turned it off so she wouldn’t burn out.”

“Okay. Better leave the door open then, speed her up, and fly around for a few minutes before you start down. That’ll blow her out more than good enough. And it wouldn’t hurt to run up the commast and turn the snorkel on. Just don’t be in any hurry to take off your mask.”

Willi turned to the silent Northman seated by the aft bulkhead. “I’ll call the ship now, Nils, and tell them we’ve got Alpha back. That’ll make the skipper happy. Then, if you’re ready, we’ll go down and get on with it.”

The Northmen stopped and sat their horses casually as they watched the two pinnaces settle half a kilometer ahead of the lead elements. Then Kniv Listi, Sten Vannaren, and four others walked their horses toward the landing spot.

Beta touched down and Willi Loo activated the door and landing steps. “Help Nils, Charley.” The other man guided the blind warrior, although he no longer needed help.

“That’s sure a pretty prairie,” Willi said to no one in particular. “I wish my dad could see it. He loves good land.” He touched the send switch again. “Ivan, when you set Alpha down, activate your shield, drag the bodies out, shift a hundred meters or so and reactivate. Then check out the damage to the circulator, and any other possible damage the rocket may have done.”

Charles DuBois was coming back up the steps and Willi activated his shield. Six Northmen were riding up to Nils, and the audio pickup brought the tonal unintelligibility of their speech. One dismounted and led his horse while he walked beside Nils; all seven went to the Alpha and watched Ivan unload. When he’d lifted again they inspected the corpses.

He’d heard they scalped their enemies, but they did not bother with these.

Meanwhile a second party of six Northmen had ridden up to Beta’s shield. Five dismounted and tied their reins to a leather rope held by the sixth. The five wore swords but had left their shields attached to their saddles. These must be the ones, Willi thought, the rescue commando. They were grinning as if they really looked forward to it; there was no trace of grimness.

Nils and the group with him were returning now, and they too grinned. Willi eyed Kniv Listi and guessed it was he who commanded this army; but the insignia he wore were his eyes, his body, his bearing, and maybe subtle things. He looked not cruel, not even unfriendly. But hard. I wouldn’t want to tangle with that one, Willi thought. He looks like he could disembowel a man with his fingertips.

“One of the dead men is Draco, the orc ruler,” Nils called. “Maybe Ram would like to know that. Send Charles out to us now. I’m going over the plan with the rescue party, and he should listen. Sten will translate for him. Then, if Ivan is ready, we’ll load and get started. And tell Ram I’ll fly with you instead of in the Alpha.”

“With me? Then who’ll guide the rescue party?”

“I can leave my body with you as surety and still guide the raiders. I will project my spirit so that they can see it, and hear my thoughts. Ram has misgivings, because once our warriors are aboard the Alpha, they could take it over if they decided to, and your people with it. But if I’m with you in the Beta, then I am his hostage.”

It all sounded strange to Willi, regardless of which pinnace Nils was on. He’d heard how Nils was supposed to have escaped, and that he’d come down in the spirit to plan with the Northmen, but that didn’t make it feel real. On the other hand it didn’t distress him. Willi was a very practical engineer; his ultimate criterion was not how well something fitted his pre-existing notions, or its explainability. It was its workability that counted. And this blind man, by whatever means, had escaped a guarded dungeon.

“Ivan,” he said into the radio, “come over and be ready to take on the troops. Nils will stay with me, but he says he’ll still be able to guide you.”

There was a pause. “Huh! Well, I guess that’s not much weirder than if he was here with me, considering… How’s he going to manage that? I’m no telepath.”

“You’ll have to wait and see, I guess. He seems totally confident about it. Captain Uithoudt, have you followed this transmission?”

“Affirmative. What was that about Nils staying with you?”

“He says you’ll feel better having him in our control when his warriors are occupying Alpha with some of our people.”

Ram grunted. He had felt concern, but he wasn’t sure how much this relieved it. “All right,” he said. “Just make sure you are in control.”

Of one thing Ram was certain. He was committed, done with waiting, and he wasn’t going to back down now.

When the two pinnaces had taken off, the Northman army began to move. They didn’t continue eastward however. Two platoons of warriors turned back in the direction they’d come from. The remainder, roughly eight hundred warriors and one thousand bowmen, divided into two equal forces. Half rode north, the other south.