Return To Kaldak

Chapter 8

Sparra's legs clamped hard around Blade, and she let out a long groan of delighted release. A moment later Blade echoed her.

They lay locked together until the sweat dried off. Blade raised himself on one elbow and looked along Sparra's solid, well-curved brown body. Then he traced with one finger the path his eyes had followed.

«I'm going to miss you,» he said. This was quite true. It was equally true that he'd got used to a life which was just one good-bye after another.

«And I you,» said Sparra, gripping his hand and pulling it against one breast. «Were things otherwise, I would gladly take you for my man. But it would not be seemly, even though Chyatho was killed more by his own rage than by your hands. Also, it would make more danger for you.»

It would probably be damned close to signing his death warrant, Blade knew. Aloud he said, «It might make Chyatho's friends turn against you as well. Without me around, they may not risk angering Monitor Bekror.»

«I will save the money you have given me,» she said. «It will be enough to let me start in another part of the land in case Chyatho's friends cause trouble for me and I must leave Sclathdon.»

The Monitor had given Blade a year's pay that morning. Blade promptly gave three-quarters of it to Sparra. He was also leaving his gear with her. She didn't want it, but he wouldn't need it in the Fourth Battalion. Also, the farther it stayed from Kaldak and its curious scientists the better.

«Good luck,» he said.

«I wish you the same. You are more likely to need it.»

Blade grinned. «In the Sitting Regiment?»

«There will be more fighting in the next few years than there has been since the Great Doimari War, I think.»

«Others do not think so,» said Blade cautiously, to draw her out on the military situation.

«Others do not see even what jumps up and hits them in the face,» said Sparra. She sat up, arms crossed over her breasts, eyes wide with indignation. «They say that Feragga of Doimar is old and wants peace. Perhaps they are right. But can they be sure that what Feragga wants is what Doimar will do? She may be so old that they ignore her. A whole generation of Doimari has grown up since the war. They have shame to avenge, and we do not have the Sky Master Blade this time.»

«You seem to have much of what he taught you,» said Blade. So that shrewd amazon Feragga had survived! He'd last seen her in the arms of a Fighting Machine, being carried away over the hills while her War Leader Nungor covered her retreat at the cost of his own life. She must be well into her seventies now. He could easily believe that she wanted peace.

Unfortunately, he could also believe that she no longer had enough power in Doimar to bring it about. The arming of the Tribesmen was certainly no peaceful gesture!

«Yes. But will it be enough?» said Sparra grimly.

Since he had no answer to that, Blade kissed her, and they wound up making love again. Then they slept until late afternoon, when a servant came to summon Blade to the waterfront. As the sun set, he boarded the steamboat as Recruit Private Voros of the Fourth Battalion, City Regiment of Kaldak.

To make it easier to feed and house them, each Battalion of the City Regiment was based in a different city. Since each Battalion had its own balloons, hovercraft, and Fighting Machines, each one could fight a fair-sized battle all by itself. If more than one Battalion was needed, it could be called by radio and quickly moved by balloon and riverboat. Apparently no one in this Dimension had invented the railroad.

The Fourth Battalion was quartered in Gilmarg, the city where Blade found the vast hoard of power cells which helped Kaldak start its climb back to civilization. It was a strange and not a completely pleasant sensation, wandering the streets where he'd met the first of the Doimari Fighting Machines and dueled to the death with the arrogant warrior Hota.

It was definitely not pleasant to stand by the site of the building where the power cells had been hidden. Far below it was the underground shelter where he and Kareena first made love. In the busy street on either side of him the Doimari ambushed and captured them, raping and torturing Kareena. Then the Doimari set off the booby traps Blade left behind, and the building collapsed on its treasure house of Oltec.

The Kaldakans dug it all out many years ago, and built on the site. You could even take a guided tour of the underground shelter if you wanted to. Blade didn't, and after one visit he stayed away from the street altogether. He wasn't sure if it was the ghosts there or the feeling that he was a ghost himself, but either way he didn't like it.

He didn't have that much time for playing tourist, in any case. The training was rigorous, although Blade quickly passed out of the Recruit's course and was sent on to the Advanced Infantry School. Everyone knew that he'd been a soldier before he lost his memory, so no one saw anything particularly odd in this.

He still had to keep his wits about him. Working with the new Fighting Machines, for example, wasn't quite like working with Home Dimension tanks. The Fighting Machines were miniature hovercraft, each armed with a grenade launcher and a powerful laser. Some also had machine guns. On the march, a man rode in each one and steered it. In combat, the Fighting Machines were controlled by radio, or could even be programmed to operate on their own.

Otherwise, Blade led the usual life of a new recruit in any well-run military outfit. He had plenty of time to listen to the talk around him. Bit by bit, he filled in the gaps in his knowledge of what had happened in Kaldak and which of the people he'd known had survived.

He knew Kareena was dead in battle. Her father, Peython, was also dead, apparently of pure old age. Sidas had married Kareena, then remarried after her death. He was still alive; in fact he was the High Commander of the armed forces of Kaldak. Blade was glad to hear that. Sidas had a rare combination of ingenuity, courage, and common sense.

Kareena's brother, Bairam, had married the merchant Saorm's daughter, Geyrna, and produced a fine family. Then after his father's death he got into some sort of trouble-Blade couldn't learn the details. In any case, he was now in polite exile in a remote part of Kaldak's empire. Geyrna divorced him and was now a member of the Council of Nine, the highest political body in Kaldak.

Blade was glad to discover that so many of his friends had survived and done well. He was sorry about Bairam, but «trouble» sounded like just the sort of thing he might have expected. Bairam probably never did learn to keep his mouth shut!

Still, it would be wiser to stay out of Kaldak as much as he could. If he couldn't do that, he could at least avoid making himself conspicuous. He realized he'd been very lucky with his heroism at the estate. It only got him a chance at anonymity in the City Regiment, instead of a call to Kaldak for public honor.

The lie detectors and computers in Kaldak sounded much too good for Blade's comfort. If they once got the idea that travel into other Dimensions was possible…

However, nothing could make Blade stop looking for opportunities. A good secret agent needs among his other qualities the persistence of an ant or a door-to-door salesman, and Blade had been one of the best. He kept his eyes and ears open. He wasn't optimistic, particularly about doing anything to find Cheeky, but he declined to curl up into a little ball.

The thing he hoped most to learn was the fate of his child- by Kareena. «Kareena's daughter» was mentioned occasionally, but quietly and cautiously, as if she'd committed some disgraceful crime. It was impossible to tell who her father was, the Sky Master Blade or Commander Sidas.

Before Blade could learn more, the Fourth Battalion was off to war again.