Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 10

Toward dawn Riyannah fell asleep. Blade wanted to but found he couldn't. His mind was still whirling too fast from what Riyannah told him. She'd answered some of his questions, but left many others open and raised some completely new ones.

The most important question was also the least easily answered. Was she telling the truth? If she wasn't, what if Blade went with her to Kanan? He might be signing his own death warrant, as well as helping the wrong side in a war. He would be alone, against the resources of a whole planet. He could be eliminated as easily as a swatted mosquito-more easily, if they didn't teach him the Kananite language.

That wasn't the only problem he might face if he went to Kanan and found its people hostile. So far Riyannah seemed to believe his story about being the survivor of a wrecked spaceship. What about the Kananites back home? With the resources of their home planet, they might probe his brain, prove he was lying, reveal the truth, and perhaps even discover the Dimension X secret. Then what? Blade had a vision of the Kananites unleashed on the whole universe, like the Looters who'd also discovered inter-Dimensional travel and used it to destroy one civilization after another until Blade met and defeated them in Tharn.

Even assuming the Kananites didn't get the Dimension X secret, they still might get the location of Earth from him. Then a swarm of Menel and Kananite ships might descend on Earth, drawing it into a Kananite empire.

So much for what could happen if Riyannah was lying. There wasn't much he could hope to do against it, except keep alert and be ready to put himself out of reach of the Kananites. He doubted they could get much out of a corpse.

What if Riyannah was telling the truth? It would probably be safe to go to Kanan, although the less they learned about Dimension X the better. After that, what he ought to do would depend on the answer to another maddening question.

Where was he? Had he been hurled across the Dimensions to an alternate Earth, so that none of the people here could be any menace to Home Dimension as long as they could only travel in space? Or was he on another world in the same Dimension as the Earth he knew, separated from it only by light-years of space? He remembered the moment of cold and star-studded blackness all around him. Was that a leap between Dimensions, or across light-years within a single Dimension?

Just to make things more confusing, what about the other two times he'd met the Menel? Why had he now met them three times in three different Dimensions, or worlds, or whatever? What had happened to him the other two times? Did the Menel perhaps have the ability to travel among the Dimensions and hadn't told the Kananites?

Blade laughed softly. As far as finding out where he was, talking to Riyannah hadn't helped at all. If he got back to Home Dimension with this load of mysteries, Lord Leighton was going to drop dead from sheer frustration at so many unanswerable questions!

If he got back. Soberly Blade faced that unpleasant little word. If Lord Leighton's computer had twisted space as well as his senses, hurling him across light-years, could it reach out and grip his brain as usual? Or was this going to be a one-way trip into wherever he'd ended up?

Blade decided to call it Wherever instead of Dimension X until he knew a little more. The only way to learn that little more was to go with Riyannah to Kanan. The underground people couldn't help him. Loyun Chard's people would almost certainly kill him, whether or not they could be any danger to Home Dimension Earth. Out among the stars he might find a greater treasure than he'd ever found before, the treasure of Kanan's scientific knowledge.

A great weight seemed to lift from Blade's mind with this decision. Part of the relief was simply knowing what came next. Another part was knowing that he'd be traveling on with Riyannah. They'd been through too much together for him to feel comfortable about leaving her.

After breakfast that morning, Blade asked Riyannah how far it was to her spaceship.

«About three or four days, if we walk as fast as you like to.» She wrinkled up her face in comic dismay at the idea.

«I'm afraid we'd better walk that fast, Riyannah. Chard's planes might be searching for the ship.»

«It won't be easy for them to find it. We have it hidden well inside a cave at the foot of the Mount Grolin. The mountain has three peaks, so it's easy to recognize.»

The slopes of a high mountain would give little cover from Chard's air force, but it couldn't be helped. «You can fly the ship yourself?»

«Oh yes. It practically flies itself, and all of us who came in it learned how to handle it. But it will help if you can manage the hurd-ray controls.»

«I should be able to do that. I was in charge of the weapons aboard my ship.»

«Are you of the War Goran of your people?»

«No. We are not like the Menel. We prefer to have each of our people able to learn to fight.»

«Like the Targans?» said Riyannah quietly.

«I do not think we have much else in common with the Targans. Many years ago, a man like Loyun Chard tried to conquer our world. We fought a terrible war to stop him. In the end he was defeated and killed himself. We don't care for people like Loyun Chard. So I am coming with you to Kanan to help you fight him. Now let's stop talking and start packing.»

They were on the move by noon, taking only what they needed for the march. The load was still enough to make Riyannah grunt as she slung on her pack, but she was smiling as she picked up her rifle. She was on her way home, however rough and long the road might be. Blade wished he could be so cheerful.

After a while he was. It was a beautiful day, just cool enough to keep them both comfortable, with the sun striking golden through the leaves. Once Riyannah stopped to pick some blue flowers and stick them in her silvery hair. There was always a bird singing somewhere nearby, and Blade found it almost too easy to forget this wasn't a picnic or a vacation.

They slept that night in their blankets, curled together for warmth, rifles in hand. In the morning they refilled their canteens from a spring and Blade climbed a tree to study the route ahead. He thought he saw a mountain with three peaks far off to the northwest, but couldn't be sure.

That evening he climbed another tree, and this time the three-peaked mountain stood out unmistakably. When he described it to Riyannah, she almost danced with delight.

«That has to be Mount Grolin!» she said. «There's nothing else like it. If you can see what you've seen, we'll be there the day after tomorrow!»

Riyannah was right. They hadn't gone far on the fourth day before the trees began to thin out. By noon they had the three snowcapped peaks of Mount Grolin continuously in sight. By mid-afternoon they were out on the bare mountainside, with nothing growing around them but wiry grass and gray-blue lichens. If the spaceship was much higher, they'd have to spend a night in the open without the warm clothing they'd need.

At least the ground ahead offered plenty of cover. It was rugged and scarred, with enough boulders and ravines to hide a small army. It would be rough going, but it would also take a lot of luck for a pilot to spot them.

They spent the night huddled in the shelter of a boulder. Blade stuffed handfuls of lichen into their boots for extra insulation, and somehow they managed to not only survive but even sleep. They both woke feeling stiff, half numb, and generally wretched, but the first few hundred yards of climbing thawed them out and limbered them up.

A mile farther on, they spotted the enemy camp.

Fortunately they spotted it from a particularly rugged stretch of mountainside, one where Blade would have been glad to have some climbing gear. Taking off his pack and boots he crawled silently forward until he could get a good look at the camp. Then he returned to Riyannah.

«It could be worse. I saw only one complete shelter. They must still be setting the camp up. I don't think there will be more than twenty soldiers.»

Riyannah tried to smile, not very successfully. «Do you think this camp means they've found the ship?»

«I don't know. Did you put any traps or weapons at the mouth of the cave to stop anyone trying to get in?»

Riyannah shook her head. «We don't have anything like that on Kanan. We haven't needed it,» she added in reply to Blade's frown.

Blade shook his head slowly. He was going to have problems on Kanan even if the people were friendly. The Kananites seemed to be rather naive and innocent when it came to the practical little details of war. This wasn't necessarily a vice, just as his own skill in killing wasn't always a virtue. Right now, though, the Kananites' innocence could mean victory for Loyun Chard.

«Since we can't know if they've found the ship, we'll have to go on. Where on the mountain is the cave?»

«You can't see it from here,» said Riyannah. «It's just around the ridge of the peak farthest to the east. There's a streak of black rock running down from the summit. The cave is at the bottom of the streak.»

«All right,» said Blade. «We'll swing wide around the camp to the west. The ground to the east is too flat to hide us. We should still get to the foot of the mountain by midnight. Then a few hours' sleep, and we can make a final push just after dawn. Think you can make it?»

«It would be foolish to give up now, when we're so close,» said Riyannah. She started to get to her feet.

Blade said nothing, but he didn't like the weariness in her voice or on her face. Her lips were cracked and her eyes were red, with great dark circles around them. As he gripped her shoulders to help her up, Blade could feel her shivering.

They'd covered more than half the distance to the foot of the mountain when Blade stiffened and pushed Riyannah behind a rock. Then he lay down, rifle ready and eyes searching the sky toward the Targan camp.

The whirring sound he'd heard grew louder, and the dot he'd seen in the distant sky took shape. It was one of Chard's troop carriers, heading straight for the camp. Blade waited until it landed and the dust raised by the propellers settled. Then he crept behind the boulder and told Riyannah what he'd seen and what it meant.

She stiffened as if he'd jabbed her with a needle and one hand clenched until the nails drew blood from the palm. «We'll have to go straight on to the cave,» she said. «I notice you've been staying where the rocks hide us. Well, there aren't any rocks like that around the foot of the mountain. It's all smooth and open there. The climb up to the cave is even worse.»

Blade nodded, realizing what Riyannah was trying to say. They couldn't risk crossing a wide stretch of open ground in daylight, not now. If they kept moving all night, though, they'd be crossing the open ground under cover of darkness. They'd be much harder to see.

Except-

«What about you, Riyannah? The cold's already getting to you, isn't it? Can you survive a night march?»

«If we get to the ship, I'll be all right. The cabin is warm, and there will be food and hot drinks.»

«We may not have time to prepare any food. With that troop carrier around-«

«There are some drugs too. They'll do everything that's needed.» She lurched to her feet, and they were off again.

Afterward, Blade would have given a good deal to be able to forget that night's march across the mountainside. Unfortunately most of the details stuck in his memory and would not leave.

The slow gnawing of the cold at his fingers and toes, turning them first into burning twigs, then taking away all feeling.

Riyannah's face turning paler and more pinched with each passing mile, until there was nothing alive in her face except the great eyes staring ahead.

His own breath freezing on his dirt-caked beard, until he could see a layer of silver-white frost over the dark hair. The frost seemed to be exactly the same color as Riyannah's hair.

Riyannah's stumbling and falling, and his holding her feet against his stomach until enough warmth crept back into them for her to move on.

The chill light of the stars and the crescent moon, and the warm orange glow of the lights of the Targan camp. There were moments when Blade could almost imagine those lights were distant campfires where he and Riyannah could find warmth and comfort. Then the effort of taking another step would snap his mind out of the fantasy.

In the end that was what kept him and Riyannah going-taking that one more step, another after that, then still another. Blade knew that if they didn't keep moving, it would all be over within a few minutes. They were staggering along in summer clothes through temperatures that couldn't be far above zero.

They were still on their feet and still moving when the eastern sky began to turn pale. By the time the dawn was pink and the camp's lights went out, they were within sight of the streak of black rock.

The mountain dawn was beautiful, but there wasn't much warmth in it and Blade was too cold to appreciate beauty. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt his fingers or toes, and vaguely wondered if the ship's medicine chest had any remedies for frostbite. Then he felt Riyannah's hand clutch his shoulder, and turned to see her raise the other hand and point upward.

«There it is.» Blade saw a faint line of shadow in the dark rock.

«It looks too small. You're sure?»

«Yes. The cave-makes a bend inside the mouth-gets wider.» Riyannah shaped each word slowly and painfully, as if she was carving them out of the ice. Then she turned toward the cave and stepped ahead of Blade. He put out a hand to steady her. As he did, the silent dawn was shattered by the swelling roar of jets.

There were three of the flying disks, and they swung out from between the peaks of Mount Grolin in a slow turn. They had plenty of time to scan the slopes below them-and see the two figures silhouetted against the snow.

Blade's hopes that the planes hadn't seen them vanished as one of them peeled off from the formation and swept down toward them. Flame winked under its nose and snow spurted up a hundred yards downslope from them. As the plane pulled out of its dive, Blade saw the undersides of the wings. The weapons racks were empty. As the other two planes came in, he saw the same was true with them.

As the roar of the guns died away, Blade raised his head and shouted to Riyannah, «Run! Get into the cave and start up the ship. I'll stay out here and give them a target.»

«Richard-«

«Damn it, get moving! If you're on the black rock before they come in again, they may not see you!»

Riyannah stared at him for a moment that to Blade's distorted senses seemed to last an hour. Then she kissed him, two pairs of half-frozen lips meeting numbly. She turned, unharnessed her pack, tossed Blade her rifle, and scrambled furiously toward the black rock.

Blade watched her reach it. Then he saw the planes coming in and turned to face them-one man with two rifles and a handful of grenades against three jet fighters.