CHAPTER II
She was the loveliest creature Craig Nesom had ever seen.
Or perhaps that was only the hunger gnawing in him—the Earth-hunger, the aching loneliness that comes to all men who dare to roam the far void to the stars.
Yet here he stood, on this strange, mediaevalish world of Lysor.
And here she stood before him, smiling.
Suddenly, to Craig Nesom, it didn't matter that they were met in an alien city called Torneulan, or that she was Narla, daughter of Lord Zenaor, whose rule here he had come to question. The crowd's clamor, the bizarre costumes, the twin suns blazing like green balls of fire against an emerald sky—what did they count now? For gazing into this slim girl's eyes, he could almost forget duty and the Federation and the starship, the darkling dreams of friends and homeland.
She said, "Tarata, fodal.... Welcome, voyager," and he was glad that she paused and smiled and spoke ... glad for the psychmen's hypnoscanner treatment that let him understand her words, her meaning.
He matched her pleasantry. "This drink called taxat—will you join me for one?"
"A taxat—?" Her eyes danced. She took his arm. "Of course."
Only then, though her lips still curved, the grey eyes seemed to shadow. Her voice dropped and now, all at once, it held a note of bitterness, of tension: "If death stays its hand long enough for us to drink it."
He stared. "What—?"
The shadow vanished. His companion laughed softly; tossed her head in a gesture old as woman, so that the shimmering blonde hair swirled and rippled. Only in her whisper did the dark undercurrent still show through: "Please, come! Do not let your face betray us!"
For the fraction of a second Craig hesitated, weighing her with his eyes. Of a sudden he was acutely aware of alien sounds and smells and voices.
Only then the girl whispered, "Please...." again. Her eyes held mute entreaty.
Stiff, wordless, Craig let her lead him through the throng and din of the assembled barons and their ladies ... out of the emerald sunlight, along the shadowy porticos of the tower itself.
The Central Tower. The Tower of Zenaor.
The girl darted a quick glance back over her shoulder, then whispered, "Hurry! We must get out before they realize that we are missing!" Catching Craig's hand in hers, half-running, she pulled him through the nearest door, into the massive building.
There were corridors, then, and stairs and ramps, all leading downward, till at last they moved along a dusty, dim-lit passageway that seemed to stretch forever, echoing and empty.
Abruptly, Craig pulled the girl up short. "It's time for explanations," he clipped flatly.
The grey eyes rose to meet his, cool and steady. "You came to Lysor on complaint of Tumek, did you not?"
"Yes."
"And he charged that my father planned aggression that might endanger even your Federation?"
Again, Craig nodded.
The girl leaned close. "Do you realize what that means, Craig Nesom? Can you imagine to what lengths the barons will go in order to keep you from reaching Tumek?"
"But—"
A sudden echo of distant voices cut short Craig's answer. The girl went rigid.
"Quick!" Her voice hissed taut, now; ragged. "This may be your only chance to contact Tumek—if it is not too late already!"
After that there was no more time for words; only a hurrying through the silent passage, till at last a ramp loomed before them and they came out into the day once more.
Here the tower loomed distant and forbidding, a stark shaft lancing up like a spear-head into the emerald sky. Here were the slums, the quarters of the Baemae, with noise and filth and sweat-drenched bodies that stank rank enough to turn the stomach of any Kukzubas baron.
Wordless, still gripping his hand, the girl who was Zenaor's daughter led Craig into a low, cramped wineshop. Dirt scuffed up under his feet. Boisterous voices rang out in shouts and curses, and the stench of stale liquor hung all-pervasive. A couple reeled past, clinging to each other for support. The woman's brief halter hung loose. She was laughing drunkenly, and her near-naked body shone slick with sweat. Beyond her, a man prodded a huge, weird, spider-like lifeform into a shuffling dance atop a table.
Craig's jaw tightened. What was he doing in a place like this? How foolish could even a Federation agent get?
But the girl's grey eyes still pleaded. Tense, raw-nerved, Craig, followed her through the crowd and din to a table in the wineshop's farthest corner.
A gaunt, stoop-shouldered oldster paused beside them. He wore the tabard of the serf-class. "Yes?"
"Taxat." The girl spoke for Craig. Her fingers pressed hard against his arm. Her whisper held a note almost of panic: "Quick! Smile, Craig Nesom—before the baron's men suspect the truth and sweep down on us!"
Craig flicked a glance across the room. For the first time he became aware of the presence of solitary loungers—cold-faced, tight-lipped men who stood close by the walls, nursing stale drinks.
Their eyes were on him.
The back of his neck prickled. He bared his teeth in a thin, bleak grin. "I might play better if I knew the game," he murmured beneath his breath.
"Oh—?" the girl exclaimed, too loudly. She shot Craig a low-lashed, coquettish glance and pushed closer, sliding her hand over his. Her lips barely moved. "Later, you madman! For now, look at me as men look at woman!"
She drew back as she spoke, flaunting her slim young body's charms before him in a sinuous, sensuous motion. Her face was a pale oval cameo of loveliness. Temptation, incarnate, came to life in the lithe twist of her torso.
Craig caught his breath. "You devil—!"
The red lips quivered. "You see? You learn quickly!" The girl relaxed, leaned against him. "Make love to me, voyager. Your arms—put them about me. Kiss me...."
A numbness gripped Craig. His hands trembled.
But the girl's bare leg and hip pressed hard against him. Her hair brushed his cheek, soft as perfumed silk, and her skin was smoother than any satin. "Are you afraid of me, then, Craig Nesom?"
"Damn you!" he choked.
Only then her cool fingers slid beneath his uniform jacket, and all at once his heart was pounding, pounding. The room, the noise, the cold-eyed loungers—they faded till he could think of nothing but the ripe lips and their invitation.
It was the loneliness, he told himself; the old Earth-hunger.
And here was this woman, Zenaor's own daughter, the antidote, his for the taking.
He would have strained her to him, then, in spite of all his doubts and thoughts of Federation rules and duty. But now the serving-serf was back, bearing twin silver cones of taxat.
The girl pushed away from Craig, smoothing her tousled hair. Her face was flushed. Her eyes dodged his.
A sort of senseless fury gripped him. "It's you who are afraid!" he lashed. "You bring me here. You tempt me. But then you push away again—"
The girl's eyes flashed. Once more, she leaned close. Her voice was suddenly edged and brittle. "My task is to help you get to Tumek, Earthman. To that end, and in order to help dispel suspicion, I have no choice but to act like any Kukzubas woman who would rendezvous with a lover in the Baemae quarter. But it goes no further. Now that I have brought you here, a courier will take you on to Tumek. When he comes—"
She broke off sharply, eyes flaring sudden panic. "Craig—!"
Craig half-turned in his seat.
A man stood framed in the wineshop's doorway—a tall broad-shouldered man who wore a high-crowned metal helmet like none that Craig had ever seen before. His sweeping shoulder-cape bore the blaze of brocaded heraldry of Lord Zenaor's service, and his eyes, his mouth, were cruel and grim.
Now he paused on the wineshop's threshold, sweeping the place with a glance that held no mercy.
A hush fell over the echoing, low-ceilinged room—the hush of fear. Men's faces paled, and women shrank back as if to hide behind their partners.
Beside Craig, Narla whispered, "That man—he is my father's chief of guards, the master of the rollers! They must already guess you're on your way to Tumek—"
Once more, Craig glanced round at the doorway—and found himself staring straight into the guard-chief's eyes.
For a taut, vibrant moment the silence echoed. Then the man in the doorway lashed, "On your feet, Earthling!"
Craig felt Narla's nails dig into his arm. Her whisper hissed so faint it might have been imagination: "Window—room behind this...."
A knot drew tight in Craig Nesom's belly. Stiffly, he rose ... side-stepped out from behind the table.
The hush of the room was deafening now. The wineshop revelers sat like creatures frozen.
"You die now, Earthling!" snarled the guard-chief. "Here, beneath the rollers, by Lord Zenaor's own orders."
He stepped aside as he spoke. A great, bulbous sphere rolled slowly past him through the doorway.
Instinctively, Craig fell back a step.
"Stop him!" barked the guard-chief.
The words crackled. Two hard-faced loungers by the rear wall sprang forward.
Inside Craig Nesom, something snapped. It came to him, of a sudden, that here lay the answer to all his tension and loneliness and homeland hunger. Here, channeled into rage and bruising violence....
With a curse, he smashed a fist square into the face of the foremost of his assailants. A hoarse cry of anguish burst from the man's throat. He crashed back across the nearest table.
Like lightning, the hand of the second flashed to an ornate belt-dagger.
Craig lunged for him in chill, surging fury. Savagely, he drove his elbow into the soft flesh below the other's rib-casing.
The man reeled—retching, knife forgotten.
Craig caught him from behind by belt and shoulder ... half-hurled him into the path of the roller that now spun forward.
Man and sphere came together with a thud of flesh against flesh.
Man went down, screaming.
But now other guardsmen were charging in. Whirling, Craig dashed for the door to the back room. In another instant he was through it, racing for the window.
A bolt of green fire seared past his head.
He ducked.
But in the same instant, something struck his shoulder a hammer blow from behind. He sprawled on his knees. Through a strange, blurred haze of pain, it dawned on him that now his right arm hung limp and useless.
Only then hands gripped him and dragged him forward, on to the window. Incredulously, he discovered that it was the serving-serf, the grey, stoop-shouldered oldster who had brought the taxat.
"Hurry—!" the man panted. "Climb up! I am not strong enough to lift you...."
With a tremendous effort, Craig dragged himself erect. Clutching the high sill, he tried to pull himself up to it.
The panting serfman heaved and boosted. "Hurry! Hurry—!"
A final surge. Momentarily, Craig sagged on his belly on the sill.
The serf tugged up the hanging legs and swung them through the opening.
From behind Craig came a crash of splintering timbers, a ring of curses. He threw a dazed glance back.
Someone—the serf, perhaps?—had slammed shut a heavy door between this rear room and the wineshop proper.
Now its bolt tore loose. The door burst inward. One of Zenaor's men clawed past it, whipping up a weapon that might have been a pistol.
The old serf threw himself upon the guardsman.
Green fire blazed. The serf fell back.
Craig dropped from the window-sill into an alley. The haze of pain was clearing now. He could run again, though his right arm still trailed useless at his side.
Desperate, a hunted thing, he plunged off down the passage.
More cries behind him. More green fire blazing.
But these ancient alleys were like a maze, a rabbit-warren. Given ten seconds' lead, a man had at least a gambler's chance to lose himself, find safety.
And Craig had ten seconds ... ten seconds a grey-thatched serving serf had bought with his own life.
The knowledge brought new sickness surging through Craig—a sickness that drew no fragment from the pain of his wounded shoulder.
But he had no time for thoughts or bitterness or brooding. Not now. For him, there were only the shouts behind and the blackness of the alley.
Only then, from his backtrail, a new sound rose ... the whisper of a roller's leathery pads spinning over the cobbles.
Craig whirled.
Running blind, caroming from wall to wall as it sped through the narrow alley, the sphere raced towards him.
Craig threw himself into the angle of the nearest doorway.
The sphere missed him by inches; hurtled on beyond.
Sweating, shaking, Craig stepped out once more.
But now the shouts came closer as guardsmen ran towards him, following up the roller.
Pivoting, Craig stumbled on once more.
Before he had taken a dozen steps, the whispering of the roller drifted to him.
The sphere was hurtling back again.
Panting, Craig wedged himself into the chimney-like shaft between two buildings.
Again, the roller passed him. The guards' shouts echoed ever-louder.
It dawned on Craig that the crevice in which he stood stretched upward, clear to a tiny wedge of emerald sky.
At least, up there, there'd be no rollers.
Wincing with pain at each movement of his wounded arm, bracing himself with feet on one wall, back against the other, he worked his way slowly up the shaft.
The roller again. Guards below him now.
Craig held his breath.
But they passed on without an upward glance. Painfully, he worked his way still higher, till the emerald wedge widened into a shining vista.
Then—of a sudden, it seemed—he was out on a flat, sagging roof, drinking in air in great, greedy gulps.
In the same instant, a shout hammered at him. He whirled.
A guard was running towards him across one of the nearby roofs. While he watched, another appeared, then another.
Ring-like, they surrounded him, hemming him in with a circle of death.
And him with no weapon but the rooftop rubble.
Savagely, he cursed aloud—Zenaor, and Lysor, and the Federation, and his job, and duty, and the girl called Narla; baron and Baemae, Earth-worlds and aliens.
Why should he die here, alone and forgotten?
Yet die he would: he knew that now.
But at least, it would cost them.
He fumbled up a brick-sized stone ... took his stand against the roof-edge, spraddle-legged.
The guards closed in—warily, now, but moving ever closer.
It was in that moment that the shadow fell across him.
At first Craig thought it was a cloud that had drifted between him and the twin emerald suns.
Then he glimpsed the guards' faces, and knew it was not.
Dropping to one knee, left arm held high to shield his face, he stared up at the thing now skimming towards him.
It was a disc—a shining, circular chip somehow suspended in the sky. A man in a Baemae tabard balanced lithely on it.
Now, while Craig watched, the disc tilted and raced towards him.
A guard shouted. As one, he and his fellows lunged forward.
Craig hurled his stone. By more luck than good judgment, it caught the foremost guard square in the forehead.
The man went down like an axed ox. His fellows stopped short.
In the same instant the disc whipped round in a tight spiral close by Craig's side. "Get on! Flat between my legs...." The rider's voice rasped raw and urgent.
Craig threw himself aboard.
Angry cries from the guards. Green fire spurting.
A shout from the discman: "Hold tight!"
Barely in time. Craig caught the disc's rim.
For as he did so, the disc's Baemae rider shifted weight sharply. With startling suddenness, the saucer tilted to a forty-five degree angle.
Another shift. The disc cartwheeled round in a fast spin that had Craig clinging with teeth and toenails.
Then the strange craft was climbing and spinning at once, faster and faster. Even the Baemae pilot dropped to his knees and gripped the disc's edge.
They cleared the roof ... peeled off in a wide arc that carried them out and away from the building, still climbing.
The guards' shouts welled to a furious chorus of frustration. Craig glimpsed more streaks of flame.
But they burned out far short of their target. The disc wheeled on, the whole of the ancient Baemae quarter spread out below it.
The serf's fingers dug into Craig's shoulder. He was laughing now—a fierce, bubbling chortle of triumphs. "You see, Earthman? These discs will free Lysor of its thrice-cursed barons! With your aid, Craig Nesom—"
Craig started. "You ... know my name—?"
"Did you think I came here to save you by mere chance?" The discman chuckled. "No. I was your contact, to help take you to Tumek. But Zenaor's guardsmen got to you before me. So I stood by and waited, in hopes I could save you."
Craig nodded slowly. "Then you can give me some answers, too—about this whole business."
"A few." The discman straightened. "But that can wait till we have landed...."
Skillfully, he guided the disc off, away from the city; brought it down on a tiny, brush-clotted river island. Stepping clear, he helped Craig up and gripped his hand. "They call me Bukal."
"And you know me already."
They both laughed. Then the discman's broad, bronzed face sobered. "You seek explanations...."
"At least, they'd help me," Craig nodded, grinning wryly.
"Then they must be brief. That Zenaor's a devil. He'll trace us in minutes, on a daylight landing." Bukal kicked the disc. "Do you know what this is?"
Craig eyed it curiously. Flat, polished, of plastic or metal, it measured a good six feet across. Beyond that, he could tell little, save that it had neither moving parts nor control equipment, so far as he could see.
"It flies, and it saved my neck," he said finally. "That's all I know about it."
Again, Bukal laughed. A grim laugh without mirth. "Then I'll tell you rover. This thing is a weapon—a weapon of peace, one that can't kill; yet it's going to break the cursed Kukzubas barons' power forever."
"But how—?" Craig groped for words.
"How does it work, you mean?" The bronzed, stocky Bukal chuckled. "Magnetic waves—you know about them?"
"Yes, after a fashion."
"Then think of them flowing from pole to pole like some great river."
Craig stared. "You mean—these discs of yours ride the current—?"
"As chips ride a stream," the other nodded. "The secret lies in the alloy's basic pattern, its molecular structure. It serves as a filter—a trap that catches enough wave-power to lift and carry."
"And to maneuver—"
"You tilt the disc. That breaks the flow-pattern." Shifting, Craig's rescuer peered out through the brush that fringed the river's edge. He gestured. "When our visitors get closer, I'll show you."
Craig followed the other's movement: saw a boatload of men in guards' regalia cutting swiftly toward the islet from the river's near shore.
"They're quick," he acknowledged. And then, prompting: "You said discs were weapons."
Bukal's eyes went dark, brooding. "How much do you know of our ways here on Lysor?"
"Only that you have two groups, barons and Baemae—"
"Do you know how the barons hold their power?"
"No."
"They do it with a weapon—a barrier ray, they call it—" Bukal's mouth had a bitter twist—"It sets up zones of death around the cities, the great estates—binds us to our serfdom."
"And the discs—"
"They give us a bridge across the barrier—a highway to freedom to end our thousand years of bondage!" Of a sudden a tight wolf-grin wiped the bitterness from Bukal's broad face. He surged to his feet. "Here. Let me show you!"
A cry of excitement rose from the guardsmen out on the river. The boat arced towards Craig and bronzed Bukal.
The Baemae laughed aloud. Bending, he seized the disc and lifted it on edge. "You see? It is light!"
Craig brought up his own hand beneath it. For all its size, the thing seemed hardly heavier than balsa.
Gesturing him back, Bukal swung the disc clear of the ground, holding it waist-high, plate-flat. "Now, I spin it...." He whipped it round as if its center were mounted on a pivot, pulling through with his right hand, guiding with the left.
The boat was almost to the island now. The guards were readying their weapons.
Faster, till the wave-flow catches.... The disc was spinning like a top now, parallel with the ground.
Craig threw a quick glance at the guard-boat. A trickle of sweat rilled down his spine.
He looked back to Bukal and the saucer.
Suddenly, there was the slightest of jerks. The disc seemed to vibrate.
Bukal dropped his hands. For a moment the disc hung in the air, spinning free.
And then, incredibly, instead of falling, slowly it began to rise!
Open-mouthed, Craig stared, still not quite believing.
But already, Bukal, was moving. Nimbly, he threw himself forward, flat on the disc.
The plate stopped spinning. As if by magic, it hung suspended in the air, swaying gently.
Bukal clambered to his feet, balancing on the polished surface as a bather might upon a surfboard. Tilting skillfully, he sideslipped the strange craft down a fraction lower. "Get on!"
Sucking in a breath, Craig slid aboard.
Bare yards away, the boat beached. Guards swarmed ashore, cursing and shouting.
Nonchalantly, Bukal threw them a salute, and brought the disc round in a lazy, climbing spiral.
Green fire, falling short. Fuming rage, wild curses.
"You see—?" The elation of triumph rang in Bukal's voice. "It's the end of the barons, Earthman! How can any barriers hold back the Baemae, when with discs like this we can sail above them? To the south, there's the whole djevoda range and freedom! Already, we've colonies of our own down there, free colonies, spread out so the barons can't strike at them. We're turning out these discs by hundreds—emptying the cities, stripping the estates to their last serfman—"
Frowning, narrow-eyed, Craig stared down at the panorama spread out below them, then off to the glittering towers of Torneulan.
"Why send for me, then?" he cut in on the other. "Who's Tumek? What made him call for help from the Federation?"
The discman's face sobered. "Why—?" He shrugged. "That I can't tell you; it's still Tumek's secret."
"And ... who is he?"
"Tumek?" Light came back to Bukal's bronzed face. "Call him genius: that says it."
"But—"
"A statue-caster by trade; old, now; one of the free Baemae craftsmen. These discs—he devised them. The colonies, too—they're part of his plan."
"Yet he sent for help...." Craig's frown deepened.
"He heard rumors of some new scheme of Zenaor's." Bukal shifted, glanced up into the darkening sky. Tilting the disc, he crept it in towards the outskirts of the city's bleak Baemae quarter. "When the green day suns, Boh and Koh, set, and night comes, I'll drop you off near him. He's hiding in the shop of a friend, Notal, in the Street of Arts, waiting for you."
Craig nodded slowly. Thoughtfully, he looked away to the west, where the nose of the starship showed above the buildings like a slim silver lance-tip. "Good. Meantime...."
"Yes?"
"Meantime—"
It was a sentence never finished. Suddenly, out of a gap in the roof of a ruined building below them, a blurred bulky mass vomited towards them. Spreading as it hurtled upward, it stretched into loose-patterned cordage.
Bukal went rigid. "A net-gun—!" He sideslipped the disc. It careened low over the hovels.
But green flame speared up in their path—a great, roaring gout of it, ten times the size of the blast that might come from any hand weapon.
Bukal jerked back. The disc spun crazily.
Then they were falling, men and disc alike, clinging precariously. Barely in time, the craft leveled off a fraction, then tilted once more to spill both Craig and Bukal to the ground, a jarring, ten-foot fall.
Guardsmen lunged up from cover, converging upon them.
Craig lurched to his feet, trying to shake the haze from his eyes.
But Bukal was ahead of him—shoving him bodily back into an alley. "Run for it, you fool! I'll hold them—"
Staggering, half-falling, Craig fled into the shadows.
The starship. That was the answer. If he could only reach the starship! This thing was beyond any one man's handling....
Panting, he crawled up a crumbling stair, searching the skyline for some glimpse of the silver prow to guide him.
Then there it was, off to the west.
Craig's jaw tightened. That slim silver craft represented the strength of the whole Federation. One word from it, and a fleet would come roaring down upon Lysor.
But first, that word must be spoken.
He phrased the message in his mind: "DETAILS LACKING BUT NO DOUBT OF ZENAOR AGGRESSIVE INTENTIONS AS SHOWN IN ATTEMPTS TO KILL ENVOY...."
He started to turn, to make his way back down the stairs.
But in that instant the sky went suddenly bright with a blaze of light ... a light so dazzling that it left Craig blind and shaking.
A light that centered on the starship.
Craig clapped his hands across his eyes. A wave of sudden panic gripped him.
Grimly—desperately, almost—he fought it down.
Slowly, his vision cleared. He let his hands fall.
Then he wished he had not.
For now the starship's silver prow no longer stood silhouetted against the distant western sky. As if by magic, it had vanished, its passage marked only by a slowly settling dust-smoke haze.
So this was Zenaor's answer to the Baemae challenge. He had destroyed the Federation starship.
Craig Nesom stood on Lysor alone.…