Fire Time

The bridge was blade-edge thin. It trembled and glimmered above that canyon where the ocean plunges roaring into hell. They who stood on it radiated dread.

“We’ll have to take them by a rush,” Arnanak decided, Larreka agreed. When they were armored, he took steel in his left hand. In that wise they two went shield by shield, warding each other.

Arnanak threw his spear. It burned in among the enemy. He and Larreka followed. Hew! They cast their foes down to the mist and querring of the waterfall, and passed over.

On the far side was a vast and tilted land, mountains athwart heaven, valleys scorched raw, silent under the suns. Its fieriness smote the bones. “Now do you understand why this has to be set free?” Arnanak asked. “But come. I know the way.”

They were all there in the hall at Ulu to bid riotous welcome, sons, comrades, loves, strength after strength embracing him. He led Larreka to the place of pride. Here the air lay cool, a little dusky though lamplight gleamed off weapons hung on the walls. That whole night, merriment rang aloud. They feasted, drank, boasted, made love, swapped stories, wrestled, played games, clamored forth songs, never grew weary, and remembered— remembered—remembered.

At dawn the males took arms again, said their last farewells, and streamed outside. Ohai-ah, what a valiant sight! Spears leaped among banners, plumes tossed, blades and axheads clanged on shields, as with a single deep shout the host hailed its two captains.

“It is the time,” Arnanak called, and, “Yai” Larreka said. Joyous, every Tassu and legionary who had ever fallen in battle followed them, upward on the windy ways to where the huge red chaos of the Rover awaited their onslaught.

TWENTY-FOUR

Jill wept. Sparling held her close, on the bench they had in the rear of the command cabin. His face was a helmet’s visor, save that an edge of his mouth twitched downward, over and over, and his eyes smoldered coal- dry.

Slow tears coursed along Dejerine’s cheeks, bitter across his -tips. From time to time a shudder possessed him. Somehow his hands walked steadily over the console and his brain measured what the scanner screens revealed.

The blast crater gleamed black, soil turned to glass. It was not unduly wide. The missile had been a precision instrument, shaped to cast its force in a cone and give off minimal hard radiation. This couldn’t be perfect. A ring of unvaporized casualties lay around. For penance he magnified the view at random spots. Part of that meat moved, which was worst of all.

Abruptly he could take no more. He brought the energy gun into play. Bolts raved, forms charred, for a minute or two until the ground lay in a smoking peace. Maybe a few could have been saved, given proper medical care. But where was that?

Father, forgive me, he would have begged if he had been able, for I knew not what I did. He had never before seen combat. But it was as if he dared not pray. Instead, there belled through him:

For now thou numberest my steps; dost thou not watch over my sin?

My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.

And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.

The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.

Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth; thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.

But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

Jill ceased crying. Small and shaky, her voice nonetheless marched: “I, I’m okay. Thanks, darling. The sight was horrible, I’d no idea how horrible. But I’m only shocked, not killed, not crippled.”

“Take it easy,” Sparling said.

“No. Can’t do that yet, laren.” The soldier’s girl rose. Dejerine heard her boots on the deck. Her arm crossed his shoulder. “Here,” she said. In her hand were the knives she and Sparling had held, flanking him in the copilots’ seats while he did their bidding. “Take them.”

“I don’t want them,” Dejerine protested.

“For appearances’ sake when we get back.” Jill tossed them at his feet. The blades rang together.

He looked up out of his helplessness into her blue gaze. “What should I do?”

She came around her chair and sat down, no longer bothering with safety harness, “First, let’s take a scout around,” she said. More life resounded in every newspoken word.

Dejerine felt Ishtar’s gravity in his fingertips. The aircraft obeyed just the same. Lazily spiraling, it searched across kilometers. The screens showed barbarians in blind, panic flight, on land and water alike. Meanwhile Sparling took the third seat, drew pipe and tobacco pouch from his tunic, loaded and lit and puffed. The odor was like a dream of Earth. Calm had descended on him.

At last, impersonal of accent, he inquired, “How many do you suppose we accounted for?”

Dejerine swallowed twice before he wrenched forth:

“Two or three thousand.”

“Out of, hm-m, didn’t we estimate fifty thousand minimum?”

Laughter cackled from Dejerine. “Six per cent. They got off easily. We took a mere thousand lives apiece.”

“They’re rather more extravagant on Mundomar. And the garrison here numbers well above three thousand —each of whom would’ve been killed, or suffered out a few years as a slave before the most brutal kind of overwork did him in.”

Sparling leaned closer. His tone gentled: “Do believe, I’m not happy about what we’ve done. I don’t feel righteous. But neither do I feel guilty. And we’re in your eternal debt. Yours, Yuri. You suggested a single big shot. I thought we’d have to hunt them with machine guns.”

“What’s the difference, in Christ’s name?”

“None morally, I reckon. However, this took fewer of them, and most died too fast to know it. Besides”— Sparling paused—“they’re a warrior breed. Bullets or clumsy chemical bombs might’ve checked them, but I don’t think would have stopped them for long. They’d have found tactics, made inventions, stolen weapons from us, copied them… come back to battle endlessly, till our final choices would have been to kill off their whole race or give in—throw civilization on Ishtar, if not ourselves, to them and their mercies. This today—I don’t think they’ll ever return against this.”

“And,” Jill said low, “a trivial point, no doubt, but now our people needn’t make that raid out of Primavera. They can restore the stuff they, hm, borrowed. You’ll close the case then, won’t you, Yuri?”

Dejerine jerked a nod. “What shall we do next?” he asked them.

“Why, you’re the boss,” Jill replied, as if astonished at the emptiness in him. Her voice quickened, even brightened. “Well, let’s radio the legion, reassure them, consult—In fact, could we possibly land? Spend the night? Check out the barbarian camp? Who knows, we might find that object from Tammuz. Or a few dauri. They’d sure need help and comforting, poor dears.”

Things in the largest tent indicated that strange little starfish figures had indeed huddled there. But they were gone, fled in a terror and bewilderment beyond the horde’s own. From what Jill told him, Dejerine imagined them scuttling through this country that for them held only hunger, and was surprised at how deeply he wished they would make it alive across the Desolations.