Zone Yellow

Chapter 19

It was hot, dusty, buggy and stinky as well as crowded under the tarp, and I seemed to be lying on gravel. The big thing, I realized immediately, was not to fidget and not to sneeze. With that settled, I went to sleep.

I awoke to the sounds of high-pitched Ylokk voices, yelling: “―told you no more slave-services to the bloodsuckers!” one harangued. “―the Folk’s food!” another yelped. Old Bnk was replying spiritedly: “―shall I not see the needs of the great Grgsdn? He, too, requires nourishment, and his selfless dedication to the Folk allows him no time to forage! Would you have him starve?”

After a little more of this wordplay, the alert guardians of other people’s business decided to let him pass. One of them jagged at the tarp with a pole or a spear-butt and gave me a bruise on the shoulder. Then we were bumping along, every jolt driving sharp gravel-bits into my flesh like thumbtacks. I peeked out through my spy-hole and watched the guard detail recede around a curve.

“OK,” I said to the others, “from here we walk awhile.”

Fresh air never smelled better. After a few busy minutes of flea-chasing, aided by a bottle of stuff Bnk produced from the box under his seat, we set off in the dusty wake of the cart, enjoying breathing, moving freely, the absence of aged fecal matter, and no pain except for our blisters. This lasted for a good two minutes. Then Bnk halted the cart and made frantic “down” motions.

We took to the ditch and watched until they’d passed, ten of them, dowdy-looking fellows looking more like stragglers than a disciplined squad.

“What do you think, Andy?” I asked the wiry old devil I was still used to thinking of as young Lieutenant Helm. He edged forward to get his face close to my ear. “I want that sucker with the blue stripe,” he replied.

“We’ll have to take two apiece on the first pass,” I said. He nodded. I spoke quietly to Gus and Marie, who insisted she’d like a piece of the action. Doc Smovia was game, if not eager. He put Minnie in back of a bush and told her to stay put.

“We stand up and move quietly to the trail,” I told them. “I’ll take the last two. Andy, you handle the next pair; we have to hit fast and hard.”

We selected heavy, two-foot clubs from among the lengths of hard fat pine lying all around. I sneaked out of the fringe of brush and closed in on tail-end Charlie. I didn’t do it very well, because he turned around just in time to see the club coming; he ducked, not far enough, and managed a yelp, which the fellow in front of him heard, and that one turned and went down under a solid blow between the eyes. Andy went past me and took his blue-stripe and another one, and then it was free-for-all.

One of the rats tried to run for it, but I tripped him and hauled him upright and took the starch out of him with a short jab to that glass gut.

He was simultaneously snapping at my wrist and trying to say something. Finally I caught a few words: “―three-Law. We’re not hunting you, humong! I am Major Lst, and I am of the Loyal Opposition!” He twisted in my grip and yelped at Gus, who was throttling a rat nearby, and bleeding from bites on his bare forearms.

“Mister Guz! It is I, your benefactor, Lst!” He was struggling to free himself, but I held on.

Gus, red-faced and furiously intent on what he was doing, ignored the major, but Ben came over and yelled over the din of screeching rats and cursing men. “―mistake!” he was saying. “These fellows are on our side!”

I threw Lst down and put a foot on him. He tried to bite my ankle. I kicked him under his receding chin and said “Naughty!” He stared up at me balefully, then shifted his attention to Ben and started a long, yapping speech I couldn’t follow.

Ben said, “Colonel,” then interrupted himself to fell Gus with a haymaker. “These fellows are what’s left of the royal garrison,” he told me. “They oppose the Two-Law scum, of course, and disapprove of the big slave raid. The major here”―he was helping the now passive officer to his feet―”helped us escape. They’ll help us get into town to attack the thugs.”

I took his word for it when Marie came over and confirmed what he said, taking his arm possessively, and smiling up at him. She was no beauty, but she did have a nice smile, and her club had rat-hair clotted on it. A useful trooper.

“Major Lst unlocked the cell door,” she told me quickly. “At first we didn’t trust him; we thought it was a trick to kill us while attempting to escape’ or something. But when we saw him club down the Two-Law captain, we knew he was with us. After all, he has reason to hate them; I know he’ll help us attack the rebels.”

It took a couple of minutes to restore order, with Lst’s boys, a little the worse for wear, lined up in ragged ranks, and our side, surrounding them. Smovia got busy disinfecting bites, and then I let him patch up a few scalp wounds that were leaking blood into rats’ eyes. Andy was the last to let go; then Smovia reminded him this was the same bunch they’d seen pass by their cottage in the woods and ignore it.

Lst spoke up: “I had to make a show of searching for you, after you fled the town,” he explained. “The Two-Laws suspected I’d helped you―as I indeed had. I reported no sign of you, and then, later, I helped the other slaves to escape. You may trust me.”

“Do you know General Swft?” I asked him.

“Indeed I have that honor!” he declared. “Have you seen the general?”

“He’s out of the picture at this time,” I said. “He was gravely injured by a mob at the road-house up the way. We have him with us, but I don’t know how much good that is.”

“I had hoped to make contact with the general,” Lst said. “It was our plan―I speak of the loyalist troops―to rally on him and retake the capital.”

“We can still do it,” I told him. “Any ideas?”

“I meant to recruit any escaped slaves I could find, march them back, and then, when the Two-Laws turned out to formally receive the runaways, to fall on them all together,” Lst said. “Would you have the general checked and a report of his condition made?”

“Sounds all right to me,” I said. I asked Andy and Smovia if they saw any flaw, from what they knew of the situation in town.

Smovia couldn’t think of any and went over to check on the general still unconscious in the cart.

“The Two-Laws always make a big thing of parading recaptured slaves,” Helm told me. “The whole gang will be there, intent on strutting around, showing how superior they are. Lst is right: that’s the time to take them, from both sides at once!” He was so full of enthusiasm that he forgot to apologize for expressing his opinion.

Smovia returned and told me we were on our own for a while, as the general was going to be out of it for a while longer.

I asked Lst if he thought Bnk could get Swft to safety with other loyalist troops, while we carried his plan out.

Lst talked to Bnk for about ten minutes, then assigned two troopers to him and sent them off. He explained to me that there were loyalists on the grounds of the Jade Palace, and that they would be safe there, and have Swft taken care of, by morning.

We withdrew into the woods for a little R and R, prepared to do or die at dawn.

Cheerful old Gus came over and muttered for a while until I told him that if he had something to say, to speak up.

“You ain’t trusting these here rats, are you?” he demanded. “I say let’s slit their throats while they’re asleep.”

“You,” I told him, “will, by God, shut up and get busy following your orders. I have neither the time nor the inclination to bother with your neuroses, Gus. Go get some sleep and don’t hatch any dumb ideas.”

After he’d lumbered away, Smovia spoke up: “You could have been a bit more diplomatic, Colonel. Gus is a lout, but we’ll need him in a fight.”

“Did you notice him during the last fracas?” I asked Doc. “He tackled one fellow and got knocked down. He didn’t try again. I think he’s as gutless as loudmouths usually are.”

Smovia let it go at that. After what seemed like a very short time, Marie woke me for my turn at guard duty. She was cold to the bone and so was I, but we couldn’t risk a fire; the Two-Law constabulary would be patrolling the area, Ben assured me. Finally dawn came, and five minutes later we were on the march―not on the road, of course, but following trails Andy showed me. We passed houses, built low and usually partly dug-in, showing neglect. I saw a party of humans in the distance, headed into the woods for another day of doing the Two-Law people’s work for them; their Ylokk escort was close on their flank. We lay low until they were well past.

I asked Andy how many slaves were in the town. He estimated fifty. The Two-Law cadre was about the same size. I asked him if he thought the humans would rally to us when they saw what was happening. He was dubious. “They’re a long way from home, sir,” he explained on their behalf.

“They’re apathetic. I managed to talk to a couple of them, but they didn’t seem interested.”

“I’m wondering,” I told him, “why you and Doc weren’t pressed into a work gang as soon as you appeared in town.”

“We got there ahead of the Two-Law rebels, sir,” he told me. “Doc had his kit and he treated a couple of sick pups and they recovered. Their folks protected me from the Two-Laws when they arrived; everybody seemed to know about the slave-raids and they knew we were the species being enslaved, but they didn’t approve. They were expecting the Royal Guard to show up at any moment to run the rebels off. They hid us and fed us and treated us as well as they could under the circumstances.”