Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 5

The tangle of bushes and young trees stretched for several miles. No one could have seen Blade and Riyannah from the air, or for more than twenty feet away on the ground. As for trailing them-certainly not these soldiers!

Riyannah was obviously not much more at home in the woods than the soldiers. Her feet caught in roots, snapped twigs, sometimes got tangled up enough to bring her to her knees. Somehow she always got to her feet again and kept on going. Sweat poured down her face, her hair became a sodden, tangled mess, blood trickled from thorn scratches on her hands, a stone left an ugly mark on one knee. Blade helped her whenever he could, but half the time she shook off his hands. Pride, or didn't she trust him?

Whatever was driving Riyannah, it kept her going until they'd left the underbrush behind them. A stream flowed past the fringes of the brush. They stopped and refilled their canteens, then Riyannah pointed off to the right and put a finger to her lips. Blade nodded and they moved off again, this time doing their best to move silently as well as stay under cover.

Less than a mile farther, on they came to another clearing at the foot of a hill. The clearing was now a good deal larger than it had been and the hill somewhat smaller. The cause of both changes was clearly visible beyond a fringe of blown-down trees-a crater in the hillside, a hundred feet wide and a third that deep. The hillside, the clearing, and the trees for half a mile around the crater were littered with bodies, parts of bodies, smashed guns, flattened helmets, and bits of metal, leather, and cloth which might have been anything.

Blade counted three of the propeller-driven flying troop carriers in sight. One lay broken into three twisted and blackened pieces, on top of a pile of trees turned into charcoal by burning fuel. From it Blade caught the too familiar stench of freshly-roasted human flesh.

The second carrier lay at the foot of the hill just beyond the trees, tipped on its side, one stubby wing crushed out of shape and the cockpit a shambles of blood, twisted controls, and powdered glass. Several blanket-wrapped bodies lay on the grass beside it.

The third machine stood safely on top of the hill, soldiers standing almost shoulder to shoulder around it. Blade made out two large guns mounted on tripods and something else which looked like a rocket launcher. As he watched, a fourth troop carrier floated in to land on the hilltop and started pouring out more soldiers. Some of them joined their comrades, while others unfolded stretchers and began making their way down the hill toward the two wrecks.

Blade looked at Riyannah. Tears were running down her cheeks, making trails in the dirt. She was biting her lip to keep from sobbing out loud, and both hands were gripping a fallen branch so tightly her knuckles were white. She kept looking at the rifle on the ground beside her, then at Blade, then shaking her head. Each time she did that, the tears seemed to come faster.

It wasn't hard for Blade to understand the situation and what Riyannah was feeling. There'd been a base of some sort here, for people fighting the soldiers. The soldiers attacked the base, and somehow it blew up. That was the explosion Blade heard and saw. Most of the people in the base died in the blast or were killed by the soldiers. Riyannah and a few of her comrades escaped, only to be caught as they fled through the forest.

So no wonder Riyannah was weeping. Her cause, whatever it was, had taken a costly defeat. Dozens of her friends and comrades lay dead in the forest or buried under tons of earth and rock. The soldiers had taken heavy losses, but there were still too many of them around, alive and with guns in their hands. All Riyannah could hope to do was crawl away, leaving the soldiers crawling over the wreckage of the base like maggots, and hope to win her vengeance some other time.

Blade suspected she'd have his help when that time came. He wished he could be sure, but there were still too many unanswered questions. Who were the soldiers, who were her friends, and what were the two sides fighting over? How many of Riyannah's friends were human, and bow many were of her race? There were a dozen more questions, all of them needing answers. Like Riyannah's vengeance, they'd have to wait. There was nothing more either he or Riyannah could do here.

Blade pointed at the forest and looked at Riyannah. She nodded and pointed to the north. Biting back a groan, she heaved herself to her feet, and Blade followed her.

As they left the clearing behind, three jets went over, so high they were only metallic gleams at the heads of white vapor trails. As the forest swallowed up Blade again, he heard another jet, this one flying low.

They headed north for several hours. The trees began to thin out and it became harder to keep under cover. Several times Blade tried to suggest to Riyannah that they should use another, more protected route to wherever she wanted to go. Each time she merely shook her head and kept going. Either Blade's sign language wasn't getting through to her, or she was determined to get where she was going as quickly as possible.

Eventually they stopped to rest, under cover of a clump of bushes that reminded Blade of giant tulips with spiky blue leaves. They had to stop, because Riyannah was beginning to stagger with fatigue at almost every step. She lay quietly, eyes staring blankly at the sky, gasping for breath, while Blade washed her face and massaged some of the worst kinks out of her muscles.

Blade rummaged through his pack until he found the salvaged emergency rations. They were plastic-wrapped reddish-brown bars, and tasted about as Blade expected. Somewhere in the universe there might be a maker of emergency rations with a sense of taste, but so far Blade hadn't run into one. These bars tasted like laundry soap mixed with shellac.

They did quiet his rumbling stomach and give him some fresh energy. Riyannah was too exhausted to eat more than half of one bar, but it seemed to help her also. After another drink of water she was able to get to her feet and continue the march.

By now it was mid-afternoon. Before too much longer they should start looking for a place with water and plenty of cover, to spend the night. Blade wondered if he could get this message through to Riyannah. The woman looked determined enough to march to the end of the world, if her legs held out that long.

They made a detour to the east down a long, heavily wooded slope. By the time they came out of the trees at the bottom the sky to the west was beginning to turn red. Across a shallow river lay a range of hills, with a broad valley opening toward Blade and Riyannah.

Blade sat down and pulled off his boots to massage his feet. The scavenged boots weren't quite a perfect fit. He was going to have blisters on his blisters if this march lasted more than a few days. For the tenth time he considered trying to ask Riyannah where they were going, and for the tenth time decided it was impossible. The question simply involved too many ideas no one could handle in sign language.

He was taking off his left boot when he saw light gleaming on metal, far off in the sky over the hills. At the same time he heard the distant rumble of jets and a crackling sound, so faint and irregular that at first he thought he might be imagining it.

The noise of the jets grew louder. Blade heard the crash and roar of sonic booms, and the metallic glints turned into a number of darting shapes. He saw a crimson glow leap across the sky, like a distant flash of weirdly-colored lightning. A little later he heard the crackling again.

Riyannah's eyes widened and she staggered to her feet, her numbness and exhaustion apparently gone in a moment. She stared at the sky as if by sheer willpower she could bring the distant machines closer.

They were moving steadily toward the two watchers on their own. The crimson flashes now came two or three times each minute. Blade saw smoke trails from jet exhausts and what looked like guided missiles. Several times he saw large grayish powder puffs of smoke, and once a huge black blossom with flame in its heart. Bits of debris trailed more smoke down from the explosion. He was seeing an aerial battle, but who was fighting?

Riyannah seemed to know, and she also seemed to care desperately. She stood as if turned to iron, eyes fixed on the battle, hands gripping her belt, face a frozen mask except for lips which moved silently, praying or cursing or doing something else outside Blade's understanding. He put a hand on her shoulder and spoke her name. He wanted to get both of them under cover before the battle got much closer and they were flattened by a stray missile.

It was no use. Trying to move Riyannah was like trying to move a statue. Before Blade could make up his mind to use brute force, the battle was almost on top of them. It took on a pattern, and then it was Blade's turn to freeze and stare at the sky.

He saw three different kinds of flying machines overhead. Two of them wore the red-bordered green triangle of the local government. One kind was the winged disks, the other was needle-nosed delta-wings, small and painted a glossy blue all over. Blade counted about half a dozen of each.

There were only two of the third kind. These were blunt-nosed arrow shapes, with a high tail fin but no wings, canopies, or engines Blade could make out. They were a dull gray all over, except for a black spot under the nose. As he watched, he saw the crimson glow dart out from the black spot, tracing a path through the air but dying out just short of one of the blue delta-wings. Some sort of energy weapon, obviously. Seen close up, it looked vaguely familiar. Blade had the distinct feeling he'd seen it somewhere, but he couldn't have said where to save his life.

It was also obvious that the two gray machines were losing the battle. They were badly outnumbered and one of them was already in trouble. It was slowly losing altitude, its sides were scarred and blackened from several hits, and smoke trailed from the base of its fin.

The other machine was flying a tight formation on its wounded comrade. From the way it whipped around in impossibly tight turns, Blade suspected the crew wasn't entirely human. Riyannah's people, no doubt. He was sure the second machine could have shown its tail to all the triangle-marked planes, and got safely away long ago. Instead it was staying to fight, almost certainly dooming itself as well.

It wasn't entirely a one-sided battle. The crimson beams weren't always accurate, but when they hit they were deadly. Blade saw a feeble flicker from the nose of the damaged machine reaching out and taking one of the disks under its left wing. The wing curled up and tore loose, while the disk lurched, then spun wildly down to smash itself on the rocky hillside. The whole mouth of the valley vanished for a moment in a wall of smoke and flying wreckage, and Blade staggered as the concussion reached him.

That was the last victory of the gray machines. As its victim crashed, a pattern of four missiles bracketed the damaged one. Two hit, one blowing off the fin. The machine tipped up on its tail, pouring out blue smoke and white flame, then plunged vertically to the ground.

This time the explosion was so violent Blade wondered if it was atomic. The concussion knocked both him and Riyannah off their feet. Not only the valley but half the hills vanished behind the smoke, while chunks of metal and stone the size of a man's fist rattled down all around Blade.

The victors scattered in all directions, climbing, diving, making tight turns. One of the delta-wings turned a little too tightly. A wingtip grazed a hilltop and the machine flipped end over end, then vanished down the far side of the hill. Another pillar of smoke marked its end, but the half-deafened Blade never heard the explosion.

He was able to drag a weeping, unresisting Riyannah safely under the cover of the trees before the battle flared up again. The attackers circled at a safe distance from the mass of smoke. Twice disks passed so low overhead that Blade froze. He half-carried Riyannah the last few yards and laid her down on the softest patch of ground he could see, her rifle beside her. As he did, the second gray machine staggered out of the smoke.

It was still under control but it was rapidly losing altitude, belly and fin looking as if they'd been chewed by mice, and one side as black as if it had been painted. The machine fired a last feeble crimson beam, making a patch of rock on the hillside smoke. Then the beam generator seemed to explode, gushing yellowish smoke. Somehow the crew of the machine still kept it under control. Nose high, it floated down and struck the ground. It skidded for a quarter of a mile, lurching from side to side, trailing smoke and sparks. Then it slewed around and came to a stop barely two hundred yards from Blade.

Instantly two troop carriers popped over the hills and came whirring toward the fallen machine. The remaining jets formed a close umbrella over their victim as the troop carriers closed with it.

The fallen machine lay still and silent. Blade noticed that the smoke was diminishing, as the fire burned itself out or the crew got it under control. A hatch opened on the undamaged side of the machine, just ahead of the fin. Blade saw movement in the hatchway, and a moment later the first of the crew climbed out and dropped to the ground.

After so many trips to Dimension X, Blade was about as hard to surprise as a sane human very well could be. This Dimension had given him even more than its share of the unexpected. Yet he still found himself gaping as the crew of the gray machine climbed out.

There were four-beings-in the crew. They were nine feet tall, and resembled nothing so much as gigantic stalks of asparagus. Each had four double-jointed arms, ending in lobster-like claws. They swayed like trees in the wind as they moved.

They were called the Menel, they came from interstellar space and Blade had met them twice before. Both times they'd been enemies. Once he'd found them helping a scientist with a twisted mind create monsters called Ice Dragons, terrorizing and conquering. The other time they'd been trying for conquest on their own, using a Dimension's birds and animals as their weapons.

Both times Blade had tried his best to avoid killing the Menel except when absolutely necessary. He refused to slaughter intelligent aliens when there might be some hope of eventually communicating with them and establishing peaceful relations. He wasn't optimistic. The Menel seemed to be a race bent on conquest, skilled, efficient, brave, in some ways worthy of respect, but also thoroughly dangerous. If the humans of this Dimension were fighting the Menel, what should he do? He still couldn't like the soldiers, but it might not be a good idea to fight them. At least they wouldn't need his help, not if they could always do as well against the Menel as he'd seen them do today.

By now all four Menel were well clear of the crippled machine. Three of them had belts around their bodies just below the arms and various bags and boxes slung from the belts. The fourth was obviously wounded. It staggered more than the others, there was a wide bandage on its head, and every so often one of its comrades would reach out a couple of arms to help it over a patch of rough ground. One Menel was carrying a heavy black tube, one of the portable projectors for the crimson ray. That was the only recognizable weapon in sight.

The four Menel came to a stop, halfway between Blade and the crashed machine. He considered moving Riyannah deeper into the trees, but was afraid of missing even a moment of the Menel's actions. He still knew far too little about them.

The long silence brought Riyannah back to awareness of the world around her. She sat up, shook her head, picked up her rifle, and started to get to her feet. Blade held a finger to his lips and motioned her to stay put. She shook her head, but stayed low as she came out to lie beside him, watching the Menel.

Then a great many things happened in what seemed like only a few seconds. The Menel carrying the black tube lifted it high with two arms, then smashed it down on the ground. All four Menel spread out, the three unwounded ones raising all their arms over their heads. It was as unmistakable a gesture of surrender as Blade had ever seen.

The two troop carriers landed and their hatches opened. A dozen soldiers climbed out of each one, rifles at the ready. Then all the soldiers aimed at the Menel and opened fire. From a turret on top of the second carrier, a heavy laser joined in.

The four Menel were not only dead before they hit the ground, they were almost torn to pieces. The blast of heavy bullets and laser beams smashed into them like some deadly machine. Bags of gear, chunks of flesh, whole arms flew into the air. A brief silence after the first burst, then the roar and crackling came again as bullets and lasers ravaged the fallen bodies.

Riyannah bounced to her feet as if on springs. She let out a madwoman's shriek, then raised her rifle and sighted in on the soldiers. Blade was just in time. Her finger was squeezing the trigger when he grabbed her by both ankles and jerked her feet out from under her. The rifle fired a short burst as she crashed to the ground, the noise fortunately lost in the heavier firing of the soldiers.

Blade tried to grab the rifle and found himself having to fight to keep Riyannah from sticking the bayonet into him. Her eyes were wide, her face was gray, and she babbled things which could not have been words in any sane language. She used all her strength and there was more in her slender frame than Blade would have suspected. He could no longer hope to be gentle with her. He could only hope to get her under control before she did something to attract the attention of the soldiers and doom both of them.

Riyannah let go of the rifle and clawed at Blade's face, leaving deep scratches on both cheeks. He gripped her wrists, and she bit his right hand hard enough to draw blood. She opened her mouth and he clamped a hand over it, gripping one of her hands with the other and pinning her remaining arm under his body. He could feel all her muscles taut and quivering against him, and he began to wonder if he was going to have to knock her unconscious before she'd stop fighting. They had to get out of here fast! The soldiers might be searching the area before long.

Then the whole world turned glaring white as the light from an explosion swamped Blade's vision. The ground heaved under him, and a massive fist of shock-driven air picked up him and Riyannah and slammed them against a tree. For a moment Blade's world was black instead of white, and the roar in his head drowned out the roar of the explosion.

As Blade's hearing returned, he heard trees going over, branches falling, and chunks of metal pattering, clanging, and crashing down all around him. Something small hit him in the shoulder, searing through the cloth of his tunic into his skin. Something larger bounced off the helmet he'd wisely left on. Blade lay where he was, covering Riyannah with his body, until things stopped falling. She was sprawled on her back, unconscious but apparently unhurt. He shifted his weight off her without rising and looked toward the open ground.

He could barely see it. Where the Menel machine had been was a black crater pouring up smoke and surrounded by grotesquely twisted pieces of blackened metal. Some were larger than a man.

The four Menel were only scattered patches of ash, with a few recognizable bits here and there. The soldiers hadn't been so lucky. They'd been alive when the blast struck them, and some of them still were, crawling blindly around and making animal noises. The two troop carriers lay on their sides, broken and burning. The smoke from them mixed with the smoke from the crater to lie like a sooty fog across the battlefield.

Blade got to his feet and started gathering his equipment. He was sure there was nothing more to be learned here, and he was even more sure he didn't want to stay around here any longer. Each act of violence he met in this Dimension seemed to be bigger and bloodier than the last one. Sooner or later he'd meet one big enough to swallow him up. A lone man had no place in a battle against the Menel, at least not when he didn't know any more than Blade did now.

He'd been lucky this time. Even so, every exposed inch of skin prickled as if he'd got a mild dose of poison ivy. Some sort of radiation from the explosion, no doubt. Well, the damage was done, and if he was going to drop down dead after a few steps there was no point in worrying about it beforehand. At least the explosion had wiped out the soldiers and thoroughly eliminated any danger of pursuit.

Blade finished adjusting straps and buttoning flaps. He slung Riyannah's rifle across his chest along with his own, then bent down and lifted her on his back. With all their weapons and gear plus her weight on his back, he felt like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders.

He managed to get into a regular stride, and in a few minutes they were deep inside the forest. He kept going, stubbornly putting one foot in front off another in spite of sweat pouring into his eyes and screams of protest from every muscle in his body, until he'd covered about two miles. Then he lowered Riyannah to the ground, caught his breath, went back, and brushed out the last hundred yards of his trail with a fallen branch. Finally he sat down, drank some water, and tried to make sense of what he'd just seen.

He didn't do very well. Obviously the Menel were trying to conquer this world, as they'd tried with the other two Dimensions where he met them. Just as obviously, the soldiers and airmen of this Dimension were putting up a stiff fight. They were being cruel, ruthless, and unpleasant about it, but they were fighting hard. Certainly they had reason to fight hard, and perhaps they had some reason to be ruthless, at least toward the Menel. What about Riyannah and her human friends?

Blade remembered Riyannah's hysterical rage at the sight of the Menel's defeat and death and her suicidal urge to avenge them by opening fire on the soldiers. That had to mean the Menel were friends, allies, perhaps soldiers of her people. In turn that meant her people were trying to conquer this Dimension, and her human allies were in fact traitors to their own people.

Blade found his thoughts taking an ugly turn. If Riyannah's people and the Menel were allies in an effort to conquer this Dimension, would he have to join the side of those brutal soldiers? Would he even be allowed to, or would they shoot him on sight? Should he turn Riyannah over to them after all, winning good treatment for himself and striking a blow against the Menel? Or should he just leave Riyannah somewhere and fade into the forest, saying «a plague on both your houses» to this whole damned Dimension?

It was a confusing situation, to say the least.

A man less tough-minded than Blade would have been paralyzed by the confusion. Even Blade had to sit longer than he'd intended before it became clear what he should do.

He would turn back the way he'd come, cross the mountains, and hide himself in the wilderness beyond them. The soldiers didn't seem to come there on foot, and he hadn't seen the Menel there at all. He'd be safe enough, at least for a while.

He would also take Riyannah with him. He would take her with him, if he had to tie her hand and foot and carry her every inch of the way! He had to keep her with him until he could learn her language or she could learn English. He wasn't sure how far he'd be willing to go if she was stubborn, but he suspected he'd be willing to go farther than usual with a woman.

He had to learn who she was and who were her people. He had to learn about everybody else involved in the war in this Dimension, the Menel above all. This was the first chance he'd ever had to find out exactly where the Menel came from. It might be his last.

It was no longer just a matter of satisfying his own curiosity, or even Lord Leighton's. It could be a matter of life or death-his own, and that of hundreds of millions of people in many different Dimensions.

Blade sighed. It seemed that the stakes got bigger every time he traveled into Dimension X.