The T'ang ship was dead, its horse riderless. 'What do you think of that, Koka?' Alp cried gleefully. 'This is just like old times, when I came up behind the Kirghiz—'
He paused, glancing at the girl who had not answered.
Kokachin was unconscious, and he knew she was Game-dead. The beam that had struck his back must have been in line with her head.
She had had such exuberant notions, and perhaps she might have made good on them. She had already gotten him to go along with a proposition of marriage! Now she was out of the Game.
Chapter 11
TRUST
Uga and Pei-li survived the battle; they had checked their own equipment and discovered the traitor spools. Eleven of the fifteen riders came through it also. Nomad strategy and sheer fighting ability had prevailed over T'ang deception. Comparison of notes brought the conclusion that there had been thirty T'ang horsemen, thirteen of which had been dispatched. Alp himself had accounted for three: Game-vengeance for the death of a Game-friend.
'Not bad for a Uigur action,' Uga muttered, 'but not good. Better to have wiped out every one of them.'
They were, at any rate, now in the clear. The Emperor would have no chance to set up another ambush before they won free of his territory—and the Chinese troops would not be eager to fight again after sustaining such a reverse. They had thousands more available horsemen, but such loss of face hurt them severely.
Alp was tired. He had not slept since arriving in the galaxy, and he had been hard-pressed before coming to the gorge. The partial stuns he had sustained weakened him also. But he could not relax yet.
They raided a T'ang depot for fresh horses, and Alp left the pseudo-dead pseudo-princess at the planet for recovery by the Game Machine. He hoped she had the resources to make it back into the Game, even if her new part lacked promise. He had known her hardly an hour, objectively, and of course she had been only a child, but she had also been a lively person and he had liked her. Perhaps it was the probability that he would never see her again that made the abrupt separation so poignant. Perhaps it was her evident nomad traits. But he decided it must be her naive ambition, so like his own though less desperate. He
Uga now divided his small fleet into three groups, each of which would post its own lookout while maintaining visual contact with its own members. That was an extremely tight formation, but since each group would be maintaining a random-variation course and staying off the communications screen it seemed safe enough. Near the Chinese capital such proximity of horses would have been suicidal, as one barrage of arrows could have knocked out all of them.
Alp assigned his lookout, gave his horse its head—i.e., locked on to the group course—and turned to internal problems. He had to sleep—but he also had to view the remaining history of Steppe. He also had to divert his mind from the unmanly sadness that congested his chest since Koka's loss. He remembered how his wife had passed; that had been a different world, but not different enough.
He turned on the cartoon history, stretched out in the ship, and set the sleep helmet over his head. Suddenly he was dreaming.
Hsien-pi was now a full-fledged giant. He took over all the territory Northern Hun had had, and fired a few arrows at Alan for good measure. Alan just stayed where he was, avoiding trouble.
Han had uplifted Hsien-pi, but the new steppe giant was of inferior character. Soon he was trading blows with his benefactor. Han beat him back—but Han was getting old. His strength declined as his corpulence increased; he grew ill, his head fell off, and three new heads tried to grow in its place. One head won out by Day 285, and the Chinese giant was called Chin.
Alp turned his head in sleep, and the dream faded in a tumble of dwarves and beheadings and internecine conflict. After a time he turned back—and found himself in a struggle with a giant insect. No, it was only a giant, Juan-Juan, whose name in Chinese meant 'unpleasantly wriggling insect,' and he had taken it too literally. But there was no doubt this giant had power!
Alp was Uigur, and now he recognized the other giant as Avar—and he was a Mongol! It galled Alp to be subservient to this inferior breed, but he had no choice. Avar controlled the old Hunnic empire. So Alp's attention flitted westward, seeking Western Hun and Attila.
After Hun had lost his head around the beginning of the Christian era he disappeared into the western reaches for a year or so, recovering his strength. An Indo-European giant named Goth came down from the far northwest and occupied territory to the west, while Alan lived south, with several dwarves around. Beyond these, farther to the west was the huge civilized giant Rome, who had taken over all the territory once occupied by Greek and Egypt and Hittite and Philistine and others.
Alp remembered the indignities he had suffered at the hands of old Han a Year before. Rome was another rich, fat, civilized nonsteppe giant encroaching on the prerogatives of the true nomads. Alp's own land was drying up and his cow was thirsty—but he couldn't move his Hun body west into the fertile lowlands because Rome selfishly barred the way. Well, this time Alp was in charge, and Hun would not suffer such indignity a second time!
He moved west and beat Alan, who broke into two parts. One Alan-dwarf agreed to serve him; the other fled westward. Then Alp-hun attacked Goth, who fell into three parts, each a small giant: Ostro in the east, Visi in the west, and Gepida. Ostro-Goth and Gepida submitted to Alp, while Visi-Goth fled west along with Alan. Alp could have caught them, but it suited his purpose to let them go.
Visi and Alan charged right into Rome's territory between 350 and 400—and lo! Rome had become too flabby and confused to stop them. After that, all the other small giants charged in, hacking chunks out of big Rome—and Rome himself fractured into two halves! In the process of fleeing from Hun, the fugitives had done Alp's work for him.
Now it was time. Alp marched into Rome's territory himself. The half named East Rome couldn't stop him and had to hand over a big chunk of land. Then Alp moved on into West Rome's section, for he knew from the Chinese experience that no part of a civilized giant could be trusted not to make mischief eventually. Alp tore things up, battering Rome heavily, until Rome landed a lucky counterblow that made him pause. Ah well, and next Day Alp raided another section.
But on the third day after that Alp's bold Attila-head fell off. He was blind—and in that moment of incapacity his subject-giants revolted and beat him up. 'Oh no! Not again!' Alp cried in anguish, reliving the battering fat Han had given Hun so long ago. He retreated a couple of steps in order to grow a new head in peace—and two heads grew instead, and before he knew it he had split into two dwarves, Kutigur and Utrigur, who immediately started fighting each other. Avar, meanwhile, watched from the east, ready to move over and subdue them both once they had weakened each other sufficiently.
