Hour of the Horde

10

Miles slowly straightened up. He rubbed his aching head with a forefinger and tried to clear the hoarse vocal cords of his painful throat.

“You’re wrong,” he answered Luhon.

“No,” said Luhon evenly.

“Yes,” said Miles. His weary legs began to tremble, and he sat down in the control seat Luhon had just vacated. “Do you know what I did the first day I was here? I looked around the ship, and then I looked around the platform. And then I took that small courier ship from its cradle on the platform and went in it up the line toward the big ships where the Center Aliens are.”

Luhon’s pointed ears suddenly pricked and turned forward toward Miles.

“You went in and saw the Center Aliens?” he asked.

“I didn’t get as far as I’d planned to go,” said Miles. “All of a sudden I found one of them sitting beside me, and he turned the ship around and brought it back. But he answered my questions. He told me why this ship is never intended to fight the Silver Horde. He told me he only wants us for feedback purposes on the total weapons of the total battle line, if it comes to fighting. He told me that one of them is worth more than all twenty-three of us in this ship put together.”

Miles stopped talking. Luhon stared at him for a long moment.

“You took that little boat,” said Luhon, almost wonderingly. “And you went in—you tried to get in up to where the Center Aliens are. You did that?”

“None of you ever did anything like that, is that it?” he demanded suddenly of Luhon.

Luhon made the negative gesture of his race. It was only a slight twisting of his upper body, but the aura of emotion around him carried the meaning behind it clearly to Miles’ emotional sensitivity.

“But you asked him,” said Luhon, staring brilliantly at Miles. “And he gave you the answers.”

“Yes,” said Miles. He struggled to his feet. “Only, I don’t believe him. I don’t agree with him. I think we can fight the Silver Horde—in this ship, the twenty-three of us, working her alongside all the other ships that go out to fight the Horde when the time comes.”

Once more Luhon looked at him for what seemed a long time. Then he made a negative twist of his body again; only this time there was something like a shrug in it.

“So you believe that?” demanded the gray-skinned alien. “And that’s why you fought your way up to just below me? You wanted to take over this ship to make it into something that could fight the Silver Horde?”

“That’s right,” said Miles. He added, brutally. “None of the rest of you seemed to have the guts for it.”

He tensed, bracing himself for a sudden attack by Luhon.

But the gray-skinned alien only stared at him for a moment longer, then turned half around so that he had both Eff and Chak’ha in the doorway within his field of vision as well as Miles. Then he took a step backward.

“I didn’t believe we could fight the Silver Horde,” he said. His eyes fastened brilliantly on Miles. “I still don’t. Also, I know that you could never beat me, no matter how many times you try. Do you understand that?”

Miles shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You can’t kill me. So in the end I’ll beat you. No matter how long it takes or how many times I have to try.”

Once more, Luhon made that body-twisting movement of negation. But this time it was nearly all shrug.

“You can’t beat me, but you’ll keep on trying,” he said, almost to himself. “You’ll keep attacking me until you win, you say. And we all know you can’t make this ship into a fighting vessel which the Center Aliens will let go against the Silver Horde when it comes. But you say you’ll keep trying until you do.”

He took another step back. He looked at Miles, and once more Miles braced himself for a lightning attack. But no attack came.

“All right, then, in that case,” said Luhon, “I am defeated.”

Miles stared at him. It seemed too sudden, too easy a victory. What had been, dimly but certainly, in the back of his mind was that he would keep on attacking Luhon until he exhausted the other. He had hoped only to be able to bother the gray-skinned alien until Luhon would buy peace at the price of stepping down from the number one position. This sudden admission of defeat made Miles cautious.

“Just like that?” he said, narrowly watching Luhon. “Why?

“Because,” answered Luhon softly, “I did not take the little boat and try to talk to the Center Aliens. Because I did not plan to fight my way up to the top in this ship for any purpose other than to be on top. Because I, even now, don’t believe you can make this ship into something that will go out to fight the Silver Horde. But most of all, because I want to fight the Silver Horde as much as you do.”

He turned his brilliant gaze toward Eff and Chak’ha.

“All of us aboard here,” he said slowly, “have dreamed about fighting when the time comes. Isn’t that so, friends?”

For a moment, Eff and Chak’ha stared back at Luhon as if in astonishment at finding themselves directly addressed by him. Then together they made the individual body movements that were the equivalent of a human nod.

“Yes,” said Eff. The rough frankness of his usual voice was slowed and more solemn now. “For me—yes. And Chak’ha, here, says yes. If we four feel that way, I’d think the others would feel that way, too.”

“They will, I think,” said Luhon. “We’re a great deal alike, all of us on this ship—more alike than we like to think, considering the differences of body and mind among us. But at least we’re alike in being different from those Center Aliens. They don’t have feelings, as we do.” He turned to Miles. “Isn’t that true, friend Miles?”

“They don’t feel the way we do, that’s certain,” said Miles grimly.

“Then it’s settled,” said Luhon. “I abdicate in favor of you, Miles. For the rest, I think they’ll all be glad to join us. If not”—he did not smile (perhaps he could not with the muscles in his gray face), but a touch of humor sped from him like a ripple over the surface of a pond to break against Miles’ emotional perceptions—“we’ll make them. If there’s anything I can do to make it more sure that my people at home survive the Horde, I won’t stop at knocking a few heads together here.”

“I don’t believe it’ll be necessary,” said Miles. “But let’s see.”

It was just beginning to sink into him now that Luhon had actually given way, had stepped down and allowed him, Miles, to take top position aboard the Fighting Rowboat. The reaction had begun a warm glow that seemed to spread out from the center of his body, soothing all his hurts and aches and clearing his head amazingly. “Let’s get them all together in the lounge now and talk to them.”

“Yes,” said Luhon, “let’s go to the lounge.”

They went. As they entered the lounge, with Eff and Chak’ha abreast, followed by Luhon beside Miles, and moved to stand together in one corner from which they could survey the rest of the room, the eyes of everyone else there turned to them.

“Get everyone here,” said Luhon, raking the room with his eyes. His gaze fastened on Vouhroi, who was closest to the corridor leading back to the crew quarters. “You, Vouhroi, go back and bring everybody else up here.”

Vouhroi went. The silence in the lounge continued unbroken. The eyes of those there remained fixed on the four standing in the corner. For the first time a small doubt crawled through the lower level of Miles’ mind. They were four combined now—three who were the top three in physical abilities aboard the ship plus Chak’ha, who was least. But with the breakdown of the old pecking order anything was possible. What if, seeing this combination of four, the others of the nineteen remaining moved to combine themselves in an opposing group? Suddenly, he was glad of Luhon’s willingness to fight for their plans if necessary.

Five other crew members, followed by Vouhroi, filed into the lounge and filled up the empty chairs, with the exception of those chairs belonging to Miles and his three companions. They sat still, looking at Luhon.

“Miles just conquered me,” said Luhon. “So he’s on top now aboard this ship. He believes, and we with him here agree, that from now on things are going to be different.” He glanced aside at Miles. “Tell them, Miles.”

“There isn’t going to be any more fighting among ourselves,” said Miles, looking around at the different alien faces. “From now on we’re going to work together, and we’re going to make the Fighting Rowboat into a ship that can actually go into battle against the Silver Horde when it comes.”

A small sound came murmuring from the rest of the crew members, like the sound of wind through the swaying branches of a grove of trees. It was a combination of sounds, in many verbal ways, of astonishment and disbelief.

“I know!” said Miles swiftly. “The Center Aliens don’t think we can do it. But I think we can. Have any of you gotten close to those weapons and felt what they’re like with the sensing part of your minds? They’re cold ! We’d have to work with them to warm them up. But who knows what they’d be like if they were warmed up?”

He looked around at them.

“We come from fighting races, all of us,” he said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have fought among ourselves the way we did. Now, who among you doesn’t want to fight the Silver Horde if you get the chance?”

All through the lounge there was silence. No one moved; no one replied.

“None of you!” said Miles. “Of course, if that’s the case, what’ve you got to lose by going along with me? Let’s see if this ship and all of us, working together, can’t make a fighting unit that the Center Aliens will let join them when the time comes to face the Silver Horde.”

He paused. They still looked at him, neither assenting nor dissenting.

“All right,” said Miles slowly. “Is there anyone here who won’t go along with the rest of us in doing this?”

Beside and behind Miles, Luhon, with Eff and Chak’ha, moved forward a step.

No one spoke. For a moment Miles was tempted to let it go at that. Then some inner instinct warned him that he needed to force his listeners into a positive statement of agreement, rather than just a passive acceptance of his plans.

“Those who’re ready to go to work at once,” he said, “take a step forward.”

There was a pause, a rustle of movement; then Vouhroi stood up. One by one and in groups they all rose from their chairs and stepped toward Miles.

“Good!” said Miles. He kept his voice calm, but triumph sang inside him. “Now let’s find out what it takes to operate this ship and her weapons!” he said. “I’ll go to the control room. With me will be Luhon as my second-in-command and Eff as my third-in-command. Chak’ha will join the rest of you on the weapons. Scatter around the ship now, find yourselves weapons, and try to warm them up.”

Without waiting for any sign of assent from them, Miles turned and strode from the room toward the passageway, the corridor leading to the control room in the vessel’s bow. He heard footfalls behind him and knew that Luhon, Eff, and Chak’ha were following, while a general confused sound of voices and movement behind him indicated that at least some of the rest of the crew were obeying. He led the way up into the control room and paused before the central of the three seats that faced the control console under the large vision screen with its view of the blackness of intergalactic space.

“We’ll have to practice, too,” he muttered, as much to himself as to the three others, who had followed him in.

“Shall I show you how, friend Miles?” murmured the soft voice of Luhon in his ear. Miles turned sharply to face the gray-skinned alien.

“Do you know something about this I don’t?” Miles asked. “The information about these controls was evidently put into me by the Center Aliens when they first took me over.”

“So it was in me—in all of us,” answered Luhon, unperturbed. “But you have to remember I’ve fought with the ship thousands of times, and you haven’t.”

Miles stared at him. Another ripple of amusement sped from Luhon to break against Miles’ perception.

“What do you think I’ve been doing up here all alone, all this time?’ asked Luhon. “Thousands of times, in my imagination, I’ve fought this ship against the Silver Horde—never believing it would actually ever happen, that I would really fight her. You know the controls, friend Miles, as well as I do,but I know the ship better than you do.”

The breath sighed suddenly from Miles’ lungs. An empty feeling came to dwell suddenly in the area of his stomach. It had never occurred to him that they would not all be starting out as equals. How was he to keep Luhon as his second-in-command when the gray-skinned alien was not only his physical superior but his superior in experience of controlling the vessel, as well?

“No, friend Miles,” said Luhon. Miles turned to see the brilliant eyes regarding him and realized that Luhon had read his emotional reaction with the same perceptiveness with which Miles and evidently everyone else aboard the ship had been equipped by the Center Aliens. Luhon’s sensing of Miles’ emotional reaction, plus a shrewd guess, could be tantamount to Luhon’s reading Miles’ mind. “Remember, you’re the one who believes that we can get good enough to be allowed to fight the Silver Horde in our own persons. I still don’t believe it, and if the power of this ship is really psychic rather than physical, that power is going to depend on someone who can believe.”

Miles nodded. He sat down in the central control seat. Luhon took the seat to his right, and Eff slid into the seat at his left, as if at the order of some unspoken command.

“Suppose we lock in together as a single pattern, just the three of us to start,” said Luhon calmly. “And I’ll take the two of you on a computerized version of one of my imaginary battles.”

His fingers flew over the controls of the console before him, and Miles found his own fingers flying as well. The consoles were identical—he already knew that from that information the Center Aliens had earlier planted in his mind. Each of them could control this ship independently, but there was a triangular reinforcement of purpose and strength if one individual and one console led and the other two followed and reinforced. Now, with Luhon leading but with the master controls still in off position so that the vessel did not actually fly or fight, Miles followed Luhon into the gray-skinned alien’s imaginary battle against the Silver Horde. The ship, Miles realized as his fingers flashed over the controls, could be flown. But the weapons were dead—and not only because the crew of the Fighting Rowboat had ignored them all this time. Some master control of the Center Aliens held the weapons locked and useless.

But the psychic patterns, the emotional reflexes of Miles and his two companions, were joined together now into a single reacting unit. Their thoughts were not joined, but they reached in unison and with an automatic understanding of one another. They were welded into a single purpose and action. It was a strange feeling to Miles, for within Eff’s share of that pattern Miles could now sense the direct, open, and vital quality of the bearlike alien, and in Luhon, at his right, he could sense the deep, dark-running feelings beneath the gentle exterior of soft voice and swift, silent movement. Just so, Miles now understood, the other two would be sensing him to a greater degree than they ever had previously.

Meanwhile, computer-created before them all, there had appeared on the vision screen before them the shape of a silver crescent in the light of the artificial sun over the battle line. A silver crescent, horns forward, pointing toward them. It was, Miles’ Center Alien-implanted knowledge told him, a reconstructed image of what the Silver Horde had looked like attacking this galaxy a million years before.

Their fingers moved automatically on the consoles in response to their wishes. The instruments recorded the Fighting Rowboat as lifting from her position—even while in reality she still stayed where she was. In mock action, she was recorded as drifting outward to join the vanguard of other ships from the Battle Line advancing against the invaders.

Now the screen showed that advance. At the far left end of the advancing line was the tiny shape of the Fighting Rowboat. Even the ship next to her—the smallest of the great round ships of the Center Aliens—was many hundred times her size and mass.

Together, the galaxy’s ships joined in formation, and faster now—and then faster—they plunged together toward the oncoming silver crescent of the attacking Horde.

The silver crescent shape was pulsing and swelling rapidly on the screen. Now it began to be visible in depth, if not in thickness, like a great flat scimitar swung at them in the same plane as their own battle line’s formation. A few moments more, and its front edge began to fuzz, to reveal itself—as the two opposing armadas approached each other in shifts that must be many times the speed of light—as an incredible multitude of individual vessels.

Luhon stepped up the magnification on the screen. The view of the approaching front line of scout vessels of the Silver Horde jumped at them. They were small ships—even smaller than the Fighting Rowboat herself, which would have made three of them—but there were literally millions of them in this first line of invaders alone. A feeling of berserk joy leaped from the imagination of Luhon and communicated itself to Miles and Eff. In his imagination the little Fighting Rowboat suddenly thrust with extra energy ahead of her huge partners until she alone was drawing away toward the enemy in advance of all the rest of the front line of galaxy ships.

On and on she plunged, faster and faster, now so far in advance of her former linemates that the big ships would not be able to support her during the moment in which she would first make contact with the oncoming scout ships of the Horde.

Their imaginations locked together with the imagination of Luhon, neither Miles nor Eff cared, as Luhon himself did not care. The white fury of battle lust that had flamed within each of them during their fights among themselves aboard the ship was now unified in the locked psychic pattern and was lashing them on against the Horde. To die was nothing. But to cut and slash and kill among the silver vessels—that was everything, no matter what the personal cost.

Now they were almost upon the scout ships. Now they were suddenly among them, striking right and left with their weapons—paralyzing the psychic opposition of the smaller invader vessels long enough to slash open the silver ships with the physical edge of their combined weapons. Like a wolf among a pack of weasels—in the imagination of Luhon—they raged right and left, up and down the oncoming wave of Horde scout ships, snapping, shaking, slashing, and killing.

But now the larger ships of the invaders, their second wave, were almost upon the Fighting Rowboat. It would take a miracle to manage their escape. But the imagination of Luhon had programmed the miracle into the exercise. In the nick of time, the Fighting Rowboat flung free and raced away—just as the heavy vessels of the Center Aliens came up to engage with the second wave of the Horde.

But the little vessel was not finished. Safe behind her own dreadnoughts, she turned again and hung around the outskirts of the conflict, snapping up those smaller vessels of the enemy that reeled hurt from the battle. She was still among the fury of it all when the Horde’s crescent began to break up, began to drift away and reform, moving in a different plane and line away from the galaxy. Mixed with the huge dreadnoughts of the Center Aliens, the Fighting Rowboat joined in harrying and driving away the defeated ships of the Silver Horde.

Suddenly Luhon’s programmed battle ended. Suddenly the pattern of the three minds broke apart. Miles sat back exhausted in his seat and, looking about, saw Luhon and Eff slumped on either side of him.

For a long moment, even as he sagged exhausted in his seat before the console, the feeling of the imagined victory continued to glow inside Miles. But slowly that glow dwindled, flickered, and went out.

Of course, it was not true. It would not be like that. It could never be like that except in the self-indulgent imagination of one of them, like Luhon. Only in imagination could pygmies join in battle with giants without being destroyed. The lucky chances that had saved them time and again in Luhon’s visualization of the attack in actual fact would not be. The Fighting Rowboat would get her chance to fight only at the price of almost certain destruction. That was something they all had to face.

Miles found himself facing it with a cold and settled determination. As the feeling of that determination solidified like some hard and massive diamond within the very core of his being, he felt the minds of Eff and Luhon linking with his in pattern once again, and he felt a comparable hardness of decision and determination in them.

Good. It was settled then. Now the center point of the three-mind pattern, Miles began instinctively to reach out. He reached out and drew into the pattern of three the fourth mind, that of Chak’ha, then that of Vouhroi, and so on down the line of weapons on each side of the ship, as the psychic pattern reached out to enclose all those aboard her.

The skill with which he did this was clearly another of the abilities that the Center Aliens had given him. He had not suspected that he had it until he used it. But now that he had used it, he became suddenly conscious of how little the Center Aliens had expected it to be used in this way before the moment in which the larger pattern of the total battle line should activate them all as part of itself. Now, however, the pattern had set itself up alone in the minds of them all as one unit aboard the ignored and overlooked tiny Fighting Rowboat. A fierce and angry pride kindled within the pattern, and Miles was not sure whether he was its kindling point or not. But as the heat of that feeling spread out among them all, it illuminated within each individual the same hard, diamondlike core of decision to fight, even at the cost of dying, that Miles had found in himself, Luhon, and Eff.

They were barbarians in the sight of the Center Aliens. A thousand bloody, primitive battle cries out of their near and savage ancestry clamored in the mind and memory of each one of the twenty-three who was now locked in the pattern. They clamored also in the brain of Miles, at the leading point of that trianglelike pattern. Out of that welter of recalled sound a single phrase he had once read leaped clear and plain into his mind. No proud and noble speech of the battlefield, but the grim and sordid chorus rising from the bloody sand of the arena. The onetime salute of the gladiators of imperial Rome to Rome’s Emperor: Morituri te salutamus!

“We who are about to die salute thee!”