Ling squeezed his hand fiercely as they caught a passing glimpse of something shiny and round-shouldered — a slick, elongated dome, uncovered by retreating waters. Even under pale predawn light, they recognized the Rothen-Danik ship, still shut within a prison of quantum time.
Then the armored portal sealed with a boom and hiss, cutting off the all-too-fleeting breeze. Trapped inside, they stared at the cruel hatch.
“We’re heading north,” Lark said. It was the one last thing he had noticed, watching the ravaged valley pass below.
“Come on,” Ling answered pragmatically. “There must be someplace to hide aboard this bloated ship.”
Nelo
STILL A FEW LEAGUES SHORT OF THEIR GOAL, THE zealots realized they were surrounded. They spent the night huddled in the marsh, counting the campfires of regiments loyal to the High Sages. Squeezed between militia units from Biblos and Nelo’s pursuing detachment, the rebels surrendered at first light.
There was little ceremony, and few weapons for the rabble to give up. Most of their fanatical ardor had been used up by the hard slog across a quagmire where mighty Buyur towers once reared toward the sky. Already bedraggled, Jop and his followers marched in a ragged column toward the Bibur, enduring taunts from former neighbors.
“Go ahead an’ look!” Nelo pushed the tree farmer toward a bluff where everyone could look across the wide river at shimmering cliffs, still immersed in dawn’s long shadows. Oncoming daylight revealed a vast cave underneath, chiseled centuries ago by the Earthship Tabernacle. Two dozen huge pillars supported the Fist of Stone, hovering like a suspended sentence, just above a cluster of quaint wooden buildings, each fashioned to resemble some famed structure of Terran heritage — such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and the Main Library of San Diego, California.
“The Archive stands,” Nelo told his enemy. “You wanted to bring the Fist crashing down, but it ain’t gonna happen. And in a couple o’ years I’ll be makin’ paper again. It was all for nothin’, Jop. The lives you wasted, and the property. You achieved nothing.”
Nelo saw Jop’s bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaphore station, set up directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket attack, the destruction of one Jophur ship, and the rumored damage of another. Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night’s distant “thunderstorm” had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races, taking vengeance for the poor g’Kek.
A few older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win.
Nelo refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana’s name on the single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes waited.
And sleep, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away, leaving him a virile warrior of long ago.
Leaning against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while, his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill.
Our first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right, this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power output. As long as I’m at Biblos, I might as well look into copying some designs.…
Nelo’s head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dolo shouted his name. The lad had been reading last night’s semaphore messages, affixed on the wall of the relay post.
“I just saw your daughter’s name,” the young man told him. “She’s on Mount Guenn!”
Nelo took three jerky steps forward … as Jop did exactly the same thing. The farmer’s expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted with Nelo’s joy at hearing that one of his children lived.
Sara! The papermaker’s mind whirled. In the name of the founders, how did she find herself on Mount Guenn?
He hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of Dwer and Lark, as well!
At that moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaphore hut. While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo’s message, the receiver burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper covered with hurried scrawls.
“Mess … mess …” She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently.
“Message from lookouts,” she cried. “The Jophur … the Jophur ship is coming this way!”
It did not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that.
A haze of suspended dust accompanied its passage above forest or open ground, but when the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went ominously still. The glassy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow.
Keep going, Nelo prayed. Just pass us by. Keep going.…
But the great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive.
Now it was Nelo’s turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pass over Jop’s face. Someone must’ve snitched, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries, establishing outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information. Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this place.
No slashing rays fell from the mighty battleship. No rain of bombs, taking vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before.
Instead, a few small portals opened in its side. About two dozen robots descended, fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos.
A second wave emerged from the great ship, floating down more slowly on wide plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet.
Even before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the space dreadnought began moving again, turning its massive bulk to head back the way it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining altitude at an accelerating pace. By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had climbed above the highest clouds.
Crowds gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite shore. Biblos still lay immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they passed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters.
After that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through binoculars, to relate what was happening.
“Each Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use the front door … but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go in that way.
“They’re all inside now … and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens … there’s a g’Kek … his left wheel is smoking. I think he’s been shot.”
The crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could do.
“I see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They’ve got rifles … the new kind with mulctipped bullets. They’re running toward the Science Building!
“They’re splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides at once.”
Nelo clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered why the great battleship would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the center of Jijoan intellectual life.
I guess the cruiser had other matters to attend to Anyway, it’ll be back to pick up their foray party.
There was one hope. Maybe there are some rockets left after last night. Perhaps they’ll catch the cruiser, before it can return.
There was always that hope — though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a second time.
Across the river he could see a flood of refugees — scholars, librarians, and students — pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren’t many g’Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared
