Zone Yellow

Chapter 24

The equipment in the big, echoic shed wasn’t entirely unfamiliar; at least the feel of the place was the same as that of the Net Garages erected on the same spot back home. I was again, for the thousandth time, aware of how strong the affinities were that existed across all the continua, tying together the multitude of alternate realities arising from a single primordial source. Evidently, the pattern was set in the instant of the Big Bang. I went to the nearest traveler, a twin to the one Swft had lost back in Sigtuna. The first batch of enslaved human captives were already on hand, perhaps a hundred people standing in a confused huddle by a big mass-transfer unit. Gus and I went over and I waved away the instant bombardment of questions in a dozen languages.

“We’re going home,” I told them, while Ben conferred earnestly with some of the slaves with whom he and Marie had worked. They quieted down, and I went on to tell them that the war was over and there was no need to kill the Ylokk technicians working nearby, and that they were, in fact, preparing our transport. A small, ferretlike fellow in a yellow smock came over and introduced himself as Technician-in-Chief Plb, and asked if I would care to inspect the transport. I would. I told Andy to keep our passengers together and quiet, and I went and looked over the big, boxy machine, just like the one I’d seen back in Stockholm Zero-zero, discharging Ylokk troops into the city streets. It wasn’t luxurious, but there was room for all on the padded benches, and the front office was manned―or Ylokked―by a competent-looking fellow who reported all systems go. I waited until the rescuees were loaded and then waved our party into the smaller unit I’d picked for our own use.

“What about all the others?” Smovia wanted to know. “I heard you talking to Swft about repatriation, but failed to gather the gist of the matter.”

“In return for the lessons you gave to the volunteers,” I told him, “Swft agreed personally to see to the orderly return of all captive humans to their respective points of origin. The last traveler will carry a cargo of gold bars as partial compensation to them for their inconvenience.”

“Do you think we can really trust Swft, once we’re gone?” Helm wondered.

“I’m certain of it,” I answered him, “and so is Minnie.” I looked at Smovia and the others.

“Sure,” they agreed. “Her Majesty will see to it.”

“But what about this Grgsdn?” Andy demurred. “He could still start trouble.”

I wasn’t paying much attention; I was looking at something over in a roped-off corner of the big shed. I strolled over for a closer look. Tarps were hung from some ropes to afford a half-hearted gesture toward privacy. I went between the tarps and was looking at an old-fashioned (maybe twenty years out-of-date) model Net Shuttle. It was partly disassembled, apparently under study by the Ylokk. It was thickly covered with dust, so it had been here the best part of that twenty years.

“Wonder what that is,” Gus muttered beside me. I had noticed him trailing along and said nothing. He went past me and peered into the warped interior.

“No room in there for a man to breathe, hardly,” he commented.

I went over beside him. “Time to tell all,” I informed him. “Start with how you deserted from a probe mission after it had blundered into Zone Yellow, and how the closest the Ylokk could come to pronouncing ‘Gunderson’ was ‘Grgsdn.’ ”

“Crazy as hell,” old Gus remarked. “You seen yourself, I was a slave here, just like all the other folks. Ask Ben and Marie. They’ll tell you.”

“We wondered about Gus,” Marie spoke up. “Come up to us the day after we slipped off into the woods, all important and bossy, he was. Had a rat with him, but he sent it away. Acted like he was capturing us. In good with the rats, too. Acted like he hated ‘em, but we could tell he’d thrown in with them. Damn traitor!”

For gentle Marie, that was quite a speech. Ben was nodding his head, but didn’t say anything. Old Gus took a swing at Marie that missed because I left-hooked him in the gut.

“Got no call―” he gasped. “I done nothin’. ’Cept brain as many rats as anybody else!”

“You found a peaceful gathering society here,” I told him. “You started trouble by telling them they were fools to work when they could have all the work done for them. You hatched the idea of a mass invasion of your home locus, to scoop up as many slaves as possible in a hurry, and settle back and watch them do all the work.”

“Plain sense,” Gus grunted. “Plenty of idle folks back home never had no use for me; jest set around and enjoyed life while the likes o’ me broke my back doing all the hard labor. Same thing here. This damn ‘Jade Palace’ stuff, and the big shots living high―and then I seen a chance. Rumors started about no heir to the throne: I never started em, but I give ‘em all the help I could. Lotsa folks listened when I first started making speeches. I was a curiosity, you see, they never seen a critter like me before. Thought I knew it all. Revered me, like. There’s always folks’ll listen to somebody telling ‘em they got a bad deal. Then I went underground and left it to my followers. And I got even with alia the fancy folks treated me like dirt!”

“Overthrowing a government in Zone Yellow is hardly a punishment for the educated classes back in the Zero-zero line,” I told him. “Most of them have never heard of Zone Yellow.”

Gus grunted. “Damn blood-suckers!”

“The Ylokk were quick studies,” I reminded Gus. “They duplicated the shuttle circuitry and began their own exploration of what they decided to call the Skein.”

“Not my fault,” Gus muttered.

“You saw your chance for what seemed to be the perfect revenge on society,” I went on, ignoring his head-shaking and dismissing motions. “You’d lead the Ylokk back home, and they’d loot and enslave the very people who had rejected you.”

He came closer, a sorrowful look on his blunt features. “Naw, feller, you got that wrong. I never―” He interrupted himself to try a sneaky right jab, which I blocked with my left; then I hit him on the point of the chin hard enough to put a glaze on his eyes. He dropped like a sack of meal. Funny thing about old Gus, he always complained when I socked him, but he never hit back. This time he was out cold.

The others had gathered around to ask questions. I gave them a brief explanation, and Ben and Marie nodded knowingly. “Explains a lot of things about Gus,” she said. “He knew all about the invasion, and a lot of other stuff. Asked him how he knew so much about what the rats were planning, and he just laughed.”

“We thought maybe he was a spy for the rats at first,” Ben added. “He walked in on us when we were hiding out, and just sort of took over, noisy. Wasn’t much scared of the rats finding us. Said he had their number. We finally got him quieted down, and once we got into the woods he didn’t have much to say. Marie and I were thinking about ditching him when we ran into you folks.”

“Colonel,” Andy said, in an uncertain tone, “how much time has passed? How long have we been away? Doc and I were in that hut for a good ten years, but you said―”

“To me, it seemed like perhaps a couple of weeks,” I told him. “I don’t know. When we begin meddling with the time/space/vug equations, strange things can happen. In normal Net travel, if I can use the word for something as out-of-the-ordinary as the M-C drive, temporal parity is carefully retained. The circuits are balanced specifically for that purpose. But we’ve ducked in and out of temporal stasis, changed machines―we don’t know how temporally stable the Ylokk transports are―so we’ve probably built up at least a slight discrepancy. Not too great, I hope.”

“There’s no telling what’s been happening back home,” Andy remarked. “Who do you think is winning, Colonel?”

“I’m sure we are,” I told him. “Especially since we cut off the supply of reinforcements.”

We trussed old Gus up like a Christmas turkey and got back to the business at hand.

“Do we take him along, Colonel?” Andy asked. I told him Gus would get a fair trial if the Palace faction found him here. We stowed him out of the way in the cargo bin.

“You’ll be comfy here for a few hours, Gussie,” Helm told him. “Until the Palace guards find you.”

He couldn’t answer with the gag we’d tied in his mouth, but he rolled his eyes a lot.

I made a final check of the alien instrument readings, not all of which I understood, and threw in the big main drive lever.

I had warned everybody they’d feel a strange sensation as the field took hold, but they’d all felt it before and lived through it, and in a moment it passed.

All these machines had been designed for the sole purpose of travel between Zone Yellow and the Zero-zero line, so there was no navigation to worry about. We watched the red line on the big chronometer as the needle moved closer, and when they coincided, the drive cut automatically.

“Home!” Helm said reverently. I tried various controls, trying to activate the external-view screens, but got nothing. The only thing left to do was open up.

Helm did that, and I said “Hold it!” before he stepped out. The next instant a shot whang!ed off the outer hatch, followed by a fusillade. Helm stepped back, looking bewildered.

“My mistake, Lieutenant,” I said. “By now NSS has surrounded the warehouse the Ylokk were using as a reception depot, and are in position to attack any arriving Ylokk transport before it can discharge its troops. They don’t know who we are, of course.”

We rigged up a flag of truce and stuck it out. It was shot to pieces at once.

Then the firing stopped and I called: “Lay off! We’re friends!”

“Brion?” a voice called back. “Brion! Is it possible?” I recognized Manfred’s voice, but he sounded weak and uncertain. I stepped out into the big, empty warehouse. Armed NSS men stepped out of concealment, keeping me cornered. An old man rushed forward, and just before he embraced me I recognized him as Manfred.

“How long?” I managed to get out as he talked excitedly.

“―when you didn’t return after the agreed two weeks―”

“I don’t remember that,” I cut in. “But how long has it been? Barbro―”

“Brion, after…”

“Yes? After . . . what? How long?” I couldn’t seem to get through to him. He had aged; he was an old, old man, with bleary eyes and a few wisps of white hair. But after all, he’d been in his eighties when I saw him last. Clearly, he was having a hard time assimilating what was happening.

“ ‘How long?’ you ask, Brion,” he said at last, when he’d apparently accepted the reality of our presence. “It was eleven years, this month,” he told me, “since I sent you off to a terrible fate in Zone Yellow.”

“I have a lot to tell you, sir,” I said, “but first I want to see Barb. Where is she? Here in the city, I hope.”

“Of course you do,” he said, more calmly, giving my shoulder one final pat, as if to reassure himself I wasn’t an illusion. “Brion,” he said brokenly, “I must tell you; as well to do so at once. The lovely Barbro is not here.

“I apologize, Brion,” he went on, “for the rude reception. But you must understand―”

“Pretty dumb, barging in here unannounced,” I confessed. “How’s the war going?”

“The last, isolated pockets are surrendering as fast as we can get to them,” he said. “They seem disinclined to pursue the invasion.”

“It wasn’t really an invasion, sir,” I told him, “in the sense of seizing and holding territory. It was a slave raid.”

Richtofen gave me a strange look. “Then they’re not executing their captives…?”

“No, just putting them to work. What’s this about Barb not being here?”

“Tak Gud,” the old man sighed. I was surprised he’d be so emotional about it.

“I have nearly a hundred of the captives with me,” I said, hoping to relieve his distress, but he only gave me a wild look.

“I don’t suppose…?” he started, leaving me to wonder what he didn’t suppose.

“I’d like to go home, General,” I said a trifle impatiently. “I need a hot bath, and―”

“Brion,” he cut me off, “I have not been entirely candid with you. Barbro is not at home. She was captured, only a few days after your departure, while leading a raiding party to attack the Ylokk HQ. We had assumed she was dead. Brion, I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve made no effort to rescue her?” I demanded, sounding sharper than I meant to. He shook his head sadly. “After your supposed failure, Brion…” he said, and let it go at that. “But―” he resumed, brightening, “since you did not, in fact fail, we can―”

“General,” I cut in, impatient with all this conversation, “please prepare a two-man scout with armament B. I’m going alone. I know what to do.” Saying that reminded me of the little Empress, advancing so confidently to meet her fate. Manfred was protesting, and at the same time assuring me that a fine new shuttle would be at my disposal in an hour.