I scrambled out of the scrub onto the open, moonlit
crest and straightened, gasping for breath. Then I
heard hooves and turned. A rider had been coming
along the crest in my direction and, seeing me, had
spurred his horse into galloping attack. Ignoring his
lance, he drew his sword, leaning sideways to strike.
My hand seemed to move in slow motion - drawing my
stunner, raising it, pointing, thumbing. His horse
nose-dived, hitting the ground so heavily I swear I
could feel it through my feet. The Saracen hurtled
over its head in a billow of robe, moonlight flashing
on sword. I zapped him too, as he skidded. He stopped
not ten feet from me.
He was dead of course. On high intensity at such
close range, I'd really curdled his synapses. I took
his shield; I'd need one when daylight came.

PART ONE

ESCAPE FROM EVDASH

ONE

I wasn't actually undernourished, but we'd been on
tight rations, and more or less hungry, for
fifty-seven days. Which is something you can get used
to, but not what I think of as ideal. In space you
can't stop off at a friendly nearby restaurant or
food store. The nearest planets are likely to be
parsecs* away, and have a couple of Imperial frigates
flying sentry around them, with chase craft ready for
launch. We'd had more than enough of those.

Now Fanglith lay beautifully blue and white,
primitive and savage, only 40,000 miles off our
starboard window with, so far no sign of a picket
ship on our instruments. Which were good ones, as
you'd expect on a stolen naval patrol scout.

I wasn't sure what we could hope to accomplish there;
we had no plans. But just then, food was what I was
mainly interested in.
"I never expected to see this place again," I said,
more to myself than to Deneen or Bubba or Tarel. We'd
been lucky to get away alive the first time. But
sometimes fate-whatever "fate" is-hits you when
you're least prepared. And when it does, it can be
with three or four punches, one after another.

We'd been 646 parsecs* from Fanglith, on a wilderness
trek in the Snowy Range Preserve, when the first
punch hit. Bubba was the first to notice. At that
point, all that the rest of us noticed was Bubba. His
big wolf's head raised, alert, attention fixed,
looking off west.

*A parsec equals 3.258 light-years.

Deneen, my sister, put down the seared hind leg of a
burrow pig. "What is it, Bubba?" she asked.

He didn't make a sound; didn't look at her. His
attention was all on what he heard, or maybe what he
was receiving telepathically.

Then the rest of us began to hear it, too. It was so
low-pitched, it was as if we felt it before we heard
it-a deep bass thrumming, barely audible. Yet somehow
it seemed very loud-loud but far away. Uncle Piet and
Bubba got to their feet, the rest of us a half second
behind, and we all trotted through the trees to the
edge of the cliff a hundred feet away. From there we
could see southward across the foothills, toward the
Valrith Plain.

"So it's happened," Piet said softly, as if talking
to himself.

What we'd heard was a Federation battleship. Make
that an Imperial battleship-things had changed. I
stood there in my moccasins, staring. It must have
been more than a quarter mile long, cruising across
the clear morning sky two miles or so above the
foothills, and maybe three miles south. It answered a
question we'd been talking about a few days earlier.
"Let's go home," Piet said.

It took us very little time to break camp and leave,
all without conversation. We had almost nothing to
carry-no sleeping bags, no cooking gear, no tent.
Each of us, except Bubba of course, carried a small
blanket, a heavy belt knife, a spark wheel for
starting fires, a tinder box, a sharpening stone, a
self-made backpack, woven at Piet's instructions from
the inner bark of a tree, and a water bag made the
previous butchering season from the boiled-out gut of
a fatbuck. We were being as primitive as we knew
how-or as Piet knew how.

I doused the fire with a minimum of water-it was a
small one-then stirred the coals, wet ashes, and dirt
with a stick to make sure it was out. Tarel wrapped
what was left of the burrow pig in its flayed-off
pelt and stashed it in his pack. Jenoor untied the
cords we used to set up shelters, and put them in
hers. Like the packs, the cords were inner bark, cut
into thin strips. They'd be hard to replace if we
lost them, because it was late summer now, and the
bark wouldn't strip off the trees anymore.

We were ready for the trail in about two minutes,
maybe three. No one needed to ask what next. We'd go
down to Piet's floater and fly home, hopefully to mom
and dad and Lady and the pups. After that. . . . We'd
see.

The Snowy Range is beautiful, but hiking out, I
didn't pay much attention to aesthetics. The country
was rugged and mostly forest, there was no
established trail where we were, and we were
hurrying. When my attention wasn't on picking the
route-I was the pathfinder that day-I had things on
my mind. All of us did, I guess.

We'd been three weeks in the Snowy Range on a
survival-training trek-part of the training Piet was
giving us. Piet isn't really our uncle; he's more of
an "honorary" uncle. He'd worked with our parents
back when dad and mom had been members of the
underground on Morn Gebleu, the executive planet of
the Federation. Dad and mom had taken Deneen and me
away from Morn Gebleu when we were little, to bring
us up on Evdash, a world that was safer and a lot
more democratic-an old colony world, well outside
Federation boundaries.

They'd started training us seriously for the
resistance after we'd come back from our crazy,
unintentional- adventure, I guess you could call
it-on the forgotten prison planet, Fanglith.

Piet had come to stay with us about a year later.
He'd been a lot of places and done a lot of things,
and became another trainer. One of the places he'd
been-he'd hidden out there a couple of years-was a
world where the intelligent species was a two-legged
felid type with a primitive hunting/fishing culture.
He'd learned things there about living in wilderness
conditions that the known human worlds had lost long
before, and he'd been teaching us the basics. By
Bubba's standards, our wilderness skills were still
pretty poor, of course. Espwolves had been pack
hunters before their planet banged heads with a
comet. Only a few dozen of them got evacuated with
the human colonists there. Bubba had been pretty much
grown already-old enough to have learned the skills
of an adult wolf.
Espwolves are more than just telepathic. They're
intelligent, with mental processes a lot like
humans'. You kind of half forget that sometimes,
because they look so much like any large canid
species, and because they don't say much.

That's right-some of them can talk. Bubba had taught
himself to speak Evdashian, more or less. By
combining telepathy with intelligence, he'd analyzed
words and speech patterns, and their meanings. Then
he'd substituted certain sounds he could make for the
human speech sounds he couldn't.
His approximation of Evdashian wasn't easy for him,
though, so he wasn't much for small talk.

Because he belonged to a telepathic species, his
brain probably didn't even have a speech center, and
his mouth and throat weren't built for talking. His
grammar was adequate, but rough-anything to keep it
brief-and he usually avoided words that were hard for
him, but with practice you could understand him. Our
family had no trouble at all.

Anyway, a month earlier, the news had come that the
Federation had declared itself "The Glondis Empire."
That wouldn't make a lot of difference on Federation
planets. Since the Glondis Party had taken over the
Federation government, a few years before I was born,
they'd run it more and more as a Party dictatorship.

But the declaration of empire would make a big
difference to us. Our parents and Piet talked a lot
about politics in front of us and to us; it was part
of our continuing education. And they'd agreed that
if it was now formally calling itself an empire, then
the Party must feel about ready to start taking over
the outlying independent planets. It would be just a
matter of time before they got to us.

Evdash had been colonized by refugees the last time
the central worlds had been an empire, four centuries
ago. Most of the so-called colony worlds had been
settled by refugees at one time or another. The
central worlds have a tendency to go imperial now and
then, and an empire usually became a dictatorship
after a while, if it wasn't one to start with.

Our way out of the wilderness was mostly downhill-
about four thousand feet downhill-but that didn't
mean it was fast or easy. We hiked through old forest
with lots of blown-down timber to pick your way over
or around, arid down ravines littered with boulders
and fallen trees. Toward noon a thunderstorm came
through, booming and banging, and we stopped to wait
it out in a thick dense glaru grove that would keep
us dry if it didn't rain too long.

As we crouched there, Deneen looked at Piet. "The
Empire didn't wait long, did it?" she asked.
It was a statement more than a question. A few
evenings earlier, around the cook fire, Jenoor had
asked Piet how long he thought it would be before the
Empire took over Evdash, He'd said probably within
two or three years.

"You don't suppose there's been much fighting, do
you?" Jenoor asked, looking at me.

I looked at Piet. He was leaving it to me. "I doubt
it," I told her. "A few skirmishes, maybe. Fly a
million-ton monster like that over the largest cities
on Evdash, and ideas about defending the planet
evaporate in a hurry. That battleship has got more
firepower all by itself than the whole Evdashian
navy. I'm just glad it's down here in the atmosphere
and not out a few hundred miles bombarding the
surface."

The rain had begun-fat drops in myriads assaulting
the leaves above, overlaying the swish of
wind-ruffled treetops with sibilant rustling;
intermittent rolls of thunder drowned them all.
Occasional shattered droplets touched my face with
mist, and the air smelled of ozone.
"Tell us what you're thinking about, Deneen," Piet
said.

I turned to look at her. She was frowning, more grim
than thoughtful.

"I wonder how long they've been here. They could have
taken over two weeks ago, or longer, and where we've
been, we wouldn't have known it." She turned to me.
"And if it's been that long, we won't find mom and
dad at home. They'll have taken off somewhere to
avoid the political police."

That was obvious. I just hadn't looked at it yet. It
was also food for thought. Whether we found our
parents or not, the question was where we'd go. There
was probably an Imperial flotilla guarding the planet
to keep people from leaving. And the Empire would be
developing an informer network, of course; they'd
already had a spy network. So if we tried to lie low,
we'd probably be uncovered sooner or later.

Of course, the Imperials might have just arrived, and
our parents might still be safe at home. Dad knew the
ropes on this world better than just about anyone-
probably better than Piet. He'd operated as a
business consultant here on two continents, and had a
lot of underground contacts, too. He had resources I
didn't know existed.

The rain lasted just long enough for Tarel to get out
the burrow pig and pass it around for a few bites
each. Then, not even wet, I led off again. By
mid-afternoon, landmarks told me we weren't too far
from Piet's floater. Bubba assured us there was no
one near it-that was just one advantage of having an
espwolf-and in a quarter hour we were there.

Six of us, with our gear, didn't leave a lot of room
in the floater's boxy body. Piet raised her above the
trees and started for home. The first thing Deneen
did was turn the radio on. The programming was not
the usual. For a few minutes, all we got was
Federation, now Imperial, patriotic music, no matter
what station we tuned to. Then some guy speaking
Standard came on and gave a brief news rundown-mostly
stuff on changes in laws and regulations.

That told us how the Empire figured to run things-
they weren't even broadcasting in Evdashian. The
languages were enough alike that people on Evdash
could pretty much understand Standard, and I would
have bet that the Empire had declared a law against
speaking our own language.

When Deneen and Bubba and I, and our parents, had
gotten back from Fanglith more than two years
earlier, we'd resettled on the northern continent.
Federation spies had found our previous home. Dad
fixed up an old farmhouse, and about a year later
Tarel and Jenoor had come to live with us. Their
parents had joined the resistance on a Federation
planet named Tris Gebleu, and had them smuggled to
Evdash, where they'd been placed with us. They were
twins Deneen's age-sixteen. Soon after, Piet came to
live with us. Add Lady and the two pups, and you get
a pretty full house.

Half an hour in the floater brought us close to home,
but Piet didn't simply land in the yard and punch the
hooter. He flew past about half a mile north at 3,000
feet, while Bubba scanned the place telepathically.
Someone was home all right, he said-two someones-but
they weren't our parents. They were two human males,
playing cards while they waited for their detector to
buzz.
My gut knotted. Had mom and dad escaped or been
hauled away? If they had been arrested, chances were
that Lady and the pups would be hanging around
nearby, living in the forest. But if they'd escaped,
they'd probably all have left together.
Telepathically, Bubba found no sign of Lady or the
pups around, so my guts relaxed a little.

Where we lived, the country was three-quarters woods.
Our house was near the edge of the farm clearing,
with a sod road going by it. Piet put down in the
woods about a mile away. Leaving the others with the
floater, Bubba and I took off at a trot, his esper
senses alert. When we got near the clearing, Bubba,
in his rough grunting version of human speech,
suggested I stay back. I knew it was good advice, but
I didn't like to leave everything to him, so we
continued together to the clearing's edge, creeping
on our bellies the last hundred feet, keeping to
cover, until I could see the house and our big shed.
The shed doors were open and the cutter was gone, but
the floater was still there.

That could mean that my parents had gotten away, or
it could mean that the police had impounded the
cutter. My guess was that they'd gotten away.
Otherwise the police, if they were smart, would have
left the cutter in the shed to fool us, maybe after
taking out the fuel slugs. They probably wouldn't
know our canid was an espwolf. There are lots of
different kinds of canids from the known worlds, and
espwolves are rare. As far as we knew, ours were the
only ones on the continent. Our friends thought Bubba
was just another big exotic canid with ordinary
abilities.

In a family like ours, you learn very young to keep
certain kinds of things a secret.
Bubba started crawling backward, and I did the same.
When we were out of sight of the house, he got up and
trotted off without saying anything. I knew where he
had to be going, and followed him. When we'd moved
here, dad had put a waterproof box in a huge old
hollow tree, where messages could be left in
emergencies like this.

It paid off: there was a package in the message box
and a medkit on top of it. I took them out, and Bubba
and I headed back to the others.

We opened the package at the floater. There wasn't a
lot in it-several data cubes and a message cube. One
by one we checked the cubes in the floater's
computer, the message cube first. It was dated seven
days earlier. An Imperial flotilla, standing off
Evdash, had demanded surrender, and a force of
fifth-column commandos, with the collusion of
traitors in the national police, had taken over
national police headquarters. With us not due back
for eight days, our parents had no choice but to
leave without us. "Well try to meet you later on
Lizard Island," mom had said, "and leave Evdash from
there." Try. Later. All in all not very reassuring.
And it didn't say where they were going or for how
long-probably for good reason.

The other cubes were a mixed lot: an astrogation
cube; a "miscellaneous" cube that included, among
other things, a learning program and a linguistic
analysis program-I'd had good use of both of them
before; a couple of library cubes; and a copy of the
family's planetary coordinates cube with everywhere
we'd ever flown on Evdash.

There was also one other: a copy of the old
contraband data cube we'd used to find Fanglith. When
I saw that one on the menu, I got goose bumps. I also
became aware that Deneen was looking at me. I
wondered if it affected her at all the same way.
She'd always been "Miss Objective Practicality."

An astrogation cube and the contraband data cube!
Huh! The knot returned to my gut. "Well," I said, "if
they don't meet us, it looks as if they expect us to
leave the planet on our own, somehow or other."

Although, how we could do that without a cutter . . .
"Let's sit here till dark," I suggested. "It'll be
safer traveling then. With the coordinates cube, we
won't have any trouble finding Lizard Island at
night."

I could feel part of my attention stuck on the
contraband data cube. On Fanglith, actually. And from
Deneen's expression, hers was too. "I'm not going to
be surprised if they don't get to Lizard Island for a
month or more," I went on. "Obviously, they've got
something to do first, or they'd have gone there
already, not 'later.' And they'll need to wait until
things quiet down, because a cutter's a lot more
conspicuous than a floater and a ton more likely to
attract trouble."

Of course, they might not get there at all.

The floater's main door was open, letting in the late
sun. I was sitting in front, with Deneen and Piet.
Tarel was in back, looking sober and saying nothing.
He was generally pretty quiet and serious. Beside
him, Jenoor was quiet, too. She wasn't generally
quiet like he was; in fact, she was often pretty
animated. But just now she was worried.

Jenoor tended to look up to me because I was older
and had the Fanglith experience under my belt, which
was fine with me. We'd told people that she and Tarel
were our cousins, so of course it hadn't been okay
for me to take her around. But I had it in mind to
propose to her after she reached legal age, and when
I could support her. Looking up to me the way she
did, it seemed to me she'd probably say yes. Anyway,
she hadn't shown much interest in other guys,
although they'd been pretty interested in her.

Meanwhile, living in the same house with her hadn't
always been the most comfortable thing in the world.
She was too good-looking.

Deneen considered her pretty special too-had even
asked me once if I'd ever thought of Jenoor as a
future wife. When I admitted I had, she said she was
glad to see her brother showing good taste. Deneen
was more critical than our parents about whom I took
out. She didn't issue her seal of approval very
often, even though they were just dates. And as for
getting serious-she said that considering the kind of
future I could expect, I needed "a wife of similar
purposes and comparable ability."

She was right, of course. But how could we know for
sure what someone's purpose was-one of our friends at
school for example. I was sure no one there knew ours.

At the floater we sat around or napped for a couple
of hours, until it got dark. I thought a little about
Lizard Island. That was our family name for it; all
the chart said was "Great Central Shoal," and showed
a string of dots along it to indicate little islands.
Lizard was inconspicuous, all right. I wondered what
it would be like in a hurricane; hopefully I'd never
find out.

I was in the pilot's seat. Piet sat in the seat next
to mine. He was like dad-ready to let me handle
things myself if it was something I could.

"Let's go," I said. I keyed the Lizard Island
coordinates into the computer, and we took off. At
3,000 feet, I put her on automatic pilot and we
headed southeast for the broad, shallow Entrilias
Sea, keeping track of the radio and the traffic
monitor, which was on high sensitivity.

The knot was gone from my gut. For whatever reason, I
felt as if everything was going to come out all right.

TWO

The floater didn't have an infrascanner-it wasn't
intended for anything more than family-type use-but
the stars give more than enough light to see Lizard
Island when you're right above it at 200 feet. It
appeared to be about two hundred yards long and half
as wide, but it wasn't really, because part of what
looked like island was a fringe of mangrove trees
that stood in the water around its edges.

"It's little, isn't it," Jenoor said.

"Small enough that no one pays any attention to it,"
I answered. "Small and out of the way. It's one of
the biggest in a string of low islands like this, and
they're a navigation hazard-the high points of a long
shoal-so ships stay well away."

"How do we land?" asked Tarel.

"Carefully and by daylight. There's no clearing, so
we'll have to slip down between trees."

I could feel that Tarel and Jenoor had more questions
but were holding off, hoping someone else would ask
them. Questions like, how do we live down there?
Deneen knew, of course. Our family had been here once
before, not long after we'd gotten back from
Fanglith, establishing a refuge in case we ever
needed one. We'd stayed for several days, getting a
feel for what it would take to live there.

We definitely hadn't set up a vacation home or
anything like that, but we'd hidden a plastite chest
with a shovel, hammocks, fishing Sines, hooks and
spears, a pair of books on edible fish and plants of
the Entrih'as region, a little water still and a
good-sized pail, a couple of insect repellent-field
generators, a pint-size geogravitic power tap (very
expensive), and Rigidite plastic sheeting that was
highly flexible to start with but would get
semi-stiff once it was wetted. There was also a small
beam saw.

Nearby we'd buried a lightweight skiff about eight
feet long and three feet wide, for fishing.
Meanwhile we had an hour or so before dawn-longer
than that before it would be light enough to land-so
I got in back to catch a nap. I hadn't been sleepy,
so I'd stood pilot watch most of the way. I still
didn't feel sleepy, but I was willing to bet I'd go
to sleep, once I lay down.

I was right. I lay down and closed my eyes, and it
seemed like only a minute later when I woke up. We
were moving, settling downward. It was already light,
almost sunup, and Deneen was at the controls.
Tree-tops were rising past the windows. A couple of
light thumps and brushing sounds marked our passage
through their branches; then there was one last
little bump and we were on the ground. Everyone else
piled out, but I closed my eyes again, "just for a
few minutes." When I opened them next time, the chest
had been uncovered and the shelter built. I got out
of the floater all sleepy-eyed, and Deneen looked at
me.

"Well, brother mine," she said, and handed me the
shovel. "You're just in time to dig up the boat for
us."

After I'd dug the boat up, I took the beam saw and
cut a little canal through the mangrove prop roots so
she could be floated out to open water. The beam saw
wouldn't cut under more than a quarter inch of water,
so Piet and Tarel and I had to use our heavy survival
knives for a lot of it. It was slow hard work, and I
was disgusted before we were even close to finished.
Then Deneen and Piet went fishing. Fishing was going
to be very important. The only food we'd brought with
us was the remains of the burrow pig, and all we'd
find on the island, I knew, was a little fruit, a lot
of little lizards, and insects that were mostly too
small for food.

With Piet and Deneen off in the boat, that left me to
finish setting up camp with Tarel and Jenoor. Deneen
had done well as far as she'd gone. The shelter was a
large lean-to, and she'd laid a pole on its sloping
roof to form a sort of groove before splashing water
on the Rigidite to harden it. This would gather the
rain, which would run into the plastite chest-our
cistern-which we could cover when it wasn't raining,
to keep out the bugs. If it rained. By the looks of
things, this was the dry season.

Meanwhile, if dad and mom arrived, they'd never be
able to bring the cutter down through the tiny gap
Deneen had coaxed the floater through. Correction, I
told myself-not if, when. When they arrived. I might
as well cultivate a positive attitude, But it didn't
feel very real to me. When, if, whatever, I thought.
Be prepared. I needed to fell a couple or three
trees, but not where they could fall on the shelter
or where the debris would be a problem. Or where our
camp could be spotted through the little hole they'd
leave.

It wasn't as if I had any reason to expect someone to
scrutinize this tiny islet in the middle of the
Entrilias, but time was one thing it looked like we
had lots of, and it made no sense to skip simple
precautions.

So with the beam saw I lopped off a couple of stout
saplings and sharpened an end on each, for pushing
with. Then I picked trees to cut down-three of them
in a row that would leave a thin, inconspicuous gap
long enough for the cutter. The forest was thick
enough that a tree cut from the stump would tend to
hang up in other trees instead of falling, so I had
had to shop around a little for one that looked as if
it would go all the way down. After seeing which way
it leaned, I had Tarel and Jenoor put their push
poles against it on the
16
opposite side, digging the points through the mass of
tough vines that coated the bark. Then I cut it with
the beam saw, and when it started to fail, they both
pushed as hard as they could. Brushing through
surrounding branches, it picked up momentum and
smashed to the ground.

The second and third trees were simpler. Each leaned
toward the opening made by felling the one before, so
there was a good place for them to fall. When all
three were down, I cut them into pieces small enough
that we could move them. They weren't what you'd
think of as big trees; the soil here was too sandy
and infertile, But before we were done dragging and
throwing the pieces out of the way, all three of us
were soaked with sweat, and I knew we'd be stiff in
the morning.

It helped that Tarel was as strong as he was. He
wasn't much more than average height, but he was
broad and chunky. Overweight, actually-even after
three weeks of survival training had melted off maybe
twelve or fifteen pounds. He was one of those people
who tend to be naturally, genetically fat. I knew for
sure he wasn't a big eater. But he was one of the
strongest kids I've ever seen-quite a lot stronger
than me-and I'd been one of the strongest guys in
school when I'd graduated this past spring.

After we'd gotten a landing place ready, I set up the
geogravitic power tap for our insect repellent field
and, if necessary, our water still. When Deneen and
Piet came back, an hour after we were done, I showed
them what we'd accomplished. Meanwhile they hadn't
had a lot of luck fishing, but the two edible fish
they'd caught were big enough to feed all of us,
including Bubba.

It looked to me as if our problem on Lizard Island
was going to be mostly a matter of coping with
monotony.

THREE

I was right about the monotony, but somehow it wasn't
that unpleasant. Two of us would go out in the skiff
each day to fish, and stay out till we had enough. It
could take most of the day, or only a few minutes,
but commonly it took less than an hour. A couple of
times, early on, we got nothing, but as we learned
the fishes' feeding habits, it went a lot better.

Besides fishing, there were just two other jobs:
Every hour or two, someone had to fetch a pail of sea
water and pour it in the still. Yes, this was the dry
season, The other job was gathering what fruit there
was. Most of the time, there was nothing that needed
doing.

The food was the worst part, and even that we got
used to. We ate our fish raw to get the maximum
vitamins from them, because there wasn't much edible
fruit in the dry season. Most of the plants timed
their fruiting to take advantage of the rains. Bubba
at least got a little variety by eating lizards. The
rest of us left the lizards alone. They were too
small and bony, and too hard to skin, to be worth it
for humans. Bubba, on the other hand, ate skin and
all. I suppose his stomach acid dissolved the bones.

Somehow or other, it wasn't as bad as it sounds-not
the boredom or the food.

To pass time, we drilled hand-foot art-both the
combat and gymnastic parts of it. Piet wasn't willing
to be the drill instructor-he said Deneen should be,
that her technique was amazingly good, I'd known she
was good, I just hadn't realized how good. We'd been
trained in it since we were little kids, one reason
we're both such good all-round athletes.

Tarel and Jenoor had never heard of hand-foot art
till they'd come to live with us. It's been illegal,
and pretty much a secret practice, most of the time
for a thousand years or more. As a result, on most
worlds, people didn't know there was such a thing,
Jenoor had picked it up fast; like Deneen, she was a
natural athlete. Tarel was slower at learning things
that took coordination, and the necessary flexibility
had come slowly for him too. Now, though, with more
time to work on it, he was starting to get good
enough to really feel some mastery, and with
confidence, his movements became surprisingly quick.
Combine that with his strength, and he was turning
into someone you'd do best not to fight with. He was
actually getting lean, too, partly from the food.

He was still very mild-mannered. I wasn't sure what
it would take to make him violent, but there was
bound to be something.

You couldn't practice hand-foot art all day, of
course; it was too strenuous. Two sessions a day,
about an hour each, was plenty, so the first month
was about the longest, slowest one I'd ever
experienced till then. The closest thing to it had
been traveling to Fanglith two years earlier. That
had been fifty-seven days of reading and sleeping.
Here we didn't dare use the floater's computer for
recreational reading because we needed to conserve
the fuel cell. For some reason known only to
Consolidated Floaters Corporation, computer operation
required that the whole system be on-at least on
idle. And, of course, floaters don't have the kind of
fuel slugs that cutters do.


We got so we slept a lot.
I thought about Jenoor more than I should have. Not
that I got fixated on her or anything, but I couldn't
help thinking, now and then. We fished together a
lot, we were always around one another, and no one
wore much in the way of clothes. It was generally
hot, and a great chance to get a tan. A couple of
times I was pretty close to making a pass at her, but
managed not to.
Partly, I was afraid she'd say yes. And if we got
something going, no way could we keep it secret,
which Tarel might resent, and maybe Deneen-just what
we didn't need in exile on a tiny little island. And
I was going on nineteen, with responsibility to more
than my own druthers.

But partly, maybe I was afraid she'd say no. From
what I'd read about Tris Gebleu in social geography,
people there took a lot of things more seriously than
we did, including sex, and I didn't want her to think
I was some kind of horny creep.

Anyway I kept it cool.

It helped that she'd told   me once I was like an older
brother to her. She and I   had gotten along really
well from the time they'd   come to live with us; I'd
always enjoyed having her   in the family.

Generally the five of us would sit around in the
evening and talk while it was getting dark. One of
the topics was what we'd do when dad and mom arrived
and we left Evdash. That was always the stated
situation-when mom and dad arrived. But beneath it
was the unspoken if-if they arrived.

We'd all listened in on discussions between mom and
dad and Piet about what they might do when, someday,
the Empire started taking over the colony worlds.
They would check out the more remote of the so-called
"lost" colonies, in what was referred to as "the deep
outback" -worlds scattered thinly around the fringes
of known space. The idea was to find the best ones to
establish hidden rebel bases on. And there was always
the implication that the rest of us would be part of
it if we wanted to.

One of the problems would be to get the lost-world
locals interested. Generally they wanted nothing to
do with off-worlders, beyond maybe getting
replacements or parts for some equipment they
couldn't make locally. In the deep outback, people
were self-reliant and not much interested in
off-world problems-Until maybe those problems became
theirs, too.

They were referred to as "lost" colonies because
ships seldom went there, and mostly they had no ships
of their own. Some of them may not have been visited
more than once a generation. They were so poor
economically, and so far from civilization and trade
routes, that the Federation had been no more
interested in them than they were in the Federation.

So they'd have little to contribute to the Imperial
treasury or trade, and hopefully the Empire would
decide to ignore them. Or some of them, anyway. The
cost/benefit ratio of taking them over and
controlling them would be high, and the Empire was
bound to have troubles closer to home.

Of course, we couldn't be sure that that's how the
Empire would look at it.

On Lizard Island, about the first thing we did each
evening was listen to a newscast on the floater
radio- the only time we turned it on. It was always
in Standard. After a couple of weeks, a local
announcer was used-we could tell by his accent.
Apparently, the occupation administration was phasing
in Evdashians they felt they could trust. By the end
of a month, judging by the news, things had settled
into a new routine on Evdash. The mass trials were
over, the public executions had taken place, and
thousands of political prisoners had been shipped
off-world to forced-labor camps on mining planets and
the like.

We didn't hear Klentis and Aven kel Deroop mentioned
among the names of people executed or arrested.
They'd been prominent in the old days, in the
resistance back on Morn Gebleu, and we agreed that
they'd be mentioned if captured.

So for things had gone about the way we'd expect,
with the Glondis Party in charge. Their idea was to
make everyone too scared to resist. But you could
pretty much depend on it that a majority now hated
them, and in time the Empire would explode-as soon as
anyone got a good strong revolt rolling somewhere.

Of course, that might take a long time to happen.

We all agreed that our function would be either to
help brew the revoit inside the Empire, or build a
base outside-in one way or another to help bring it
down. The only alternative acceptable to any of us
was that the Empire might somehow evolve into a
decent place to live. History said it wouldn't,
especially under something like the Glondis Party.
We'd see what happened, and meanwhile we'd prepare
for the revolution.

After six weeks I began to fret about my parents. Not
many of the things I could think of that might be
keeping them were very cheering, given how things
were now on Evdash. So I brought it up one evening
while we digested our raw fish. Actually, the way I
put it was: "Piet, how long do you think it'll be
before dad and room show up?"

His eyes turned to me without telling me anything.
"How long do you think?" he answered. I should have
known he'd say that.

"Things take as   long as they take," I said. "But
knowing mom and   dad, they won't take any longer than
they have to. I   guess what I was really asking was,
how long should   we wait before we leave without them?"
"Leave for where?" Deneen asked. "This isn't my
favorite place, but I can stay here a year if I need
to. Or anyway as long as the floater's fuel cells
have power enough to take us where we decide to go."

"Right," I answered. "But if dad and mom don't show,
we'll have to make some kind of move on our own,
sooner or later."

I glanced around at the others. Piet was interested
in what I'd do with the subject. Tarel looked solemn,
his eyes shadowed in the dusk. Jenoor looked serious
and neutral. Neither of the two had ever shown any
tendency to get involved in decisions. They were
young, though no younger than Deneen, and in a sense
"outsiders" because they were latecomers in our
family.

"Have you got any thoughts about this, Tarel?" I
asked.

I hadn't really expected a positive answer, but he
surprised me. "Unless your parents get here," he
said, "the only way we'll get a space cutler is to
steal one-a naval cutter of some kind. The occupation
forces probably confiscated all the private cutters
they could find out about."

"There might still be some private cutters around,"
Jenoor put in, "belonging to Evdashians who are part
of the Imperial spy network. And private cutters
ought to be easier to steal than, say, a patrol scout
on the ground for servicing."

I couldn't feel optimistic about the prospects. It
was one thing to talk about going out and
establishing rebel bases, but doing it, or even
getting out there, would be something else. I looked
at Piet, who'd been sitting there listening and
saying nothing. "What do you think?" I asked him. I
could swear he laughed behind those quiet eyes.
"You're doing fine," he said. "Keep talking. I
wouldn't be surprised if you came up with something."

I didn't, though-that night or any other. I didn't
know what Piet might have in mind of course, but none
of the rest of us came up with anything.

I was fishing with Jenoor a few weeks later when the
end of the dry season arrived. We found out the hard
way. Fortunately, we were fairly close to the island,
on the west side, usually the upwind side when there
was any wind. We seldom went more than a couple of
hundred yards from it, for safety's sake, and the
water two hundred yards from the island was only four
feet deep or so, green in the tropical sunlight. It
was shallow enough that we used spears occasionally,
when a fish came near enough to that strange object
floating on the surface.

We could have gotten out and waded, but we wouldn't
of course, because one of the fish species around
there- the javelin fish, which was sometimes five or
more feet long-was known to attack swimmers. The idea
was for us to eat fish, not vice versa.

It was early afternoon, a better time for spotting
fish than when the sun was lower. Usually we would
see fish from time to time-more often than not, the
fish we caught were ones we saw feeding. We'd cast a
little way in front of them and let them come up on
the lure.

This day we were seeing none at all; it was as if
they'd all moved somewhere else.
We'd noticed occasional thunderheads for several
days, building far to the west in the afternoons, but
none had come near. We'd have welcomed a good rain,
just for the change.

Jenoor and I were both facing east to reduce the
glare effect on our eyes, and hadn't noticed how near
the storm had gotten until we heard the thunder,
Jenoor had just hooked our first fish after two hours
of nothing. We both turned; the thunderhead wasn't
much more than a mile away, with a thick dark wall of
rain coming down from it to the sea.

We weren't smart enough to be worried, and returned
our attention to the fish. As she played it, perhaps
forcing it more than usual because of the rainstorm
coming, swells started to raise and lower the skiff.
I'd already reeled in my own lure, to keep my line
out of her way as she worked her fish. Now I picked
up a paddle. The storm was approaching faster than
I'd expected, and I felt my first misgiving.

"Horse him in," I told her tersely. "If the line
breaks, it breaks. I think we'd beiter get to shore
before that thing hits."

She nodded, raising her rod tip and cranking harder.
That lasted about ten seconds before the wind hit. It
was colder than I would have thought, and almost too
hard to be air. With the water as shallow as it was,
the sea responded quickly; within seconds the swells
became waves that threatened to swamp us.

"Break the line and let's get out of here," I yelled,
Jenoor yanked, and the line and rod went slack.
Gripping the paddle, I began to dig for the island
with it. That's when the first big wave hit, and we
turned over.

The water seemed deeper than usual. The wind was
piling it up, and it was up to my shoulders. I knew
Jenoor didn't swim very well, and my first thought
was to find and get hold of her, but I couldn't see
her. She's on the other side of the boat, I thought,
or under it. Somehow I'd come up on its upwind side.
The next thing I knew, she surfaced a few feet in
front of me, swimming clumsily, as the boat righted
itself. It was full of water.

I struck out for it, and that's when I discovered
that the big wave hadn't been big at all. The next
one was the big one, and steep because the water was
so shallow. It lifted us both, but we went up and
down almost in place, because it wasn't breaking yet.
The skiff, on the other hand, got carried thirty feet
farther from me. The next wave was close behind and
bigger still, and it was breaking. I just had time to
grab Jenoor when it crashed over us, carrying us
tumbling and confused in the general direction of the
island. I was scared to death I'd lose hold of her.

I wasn't even sure the waves would take us to the
island, because we'd been on the windward side, but
off toward the south end. With my free arm, I tried
to swim to my left. The next breaker caught us and
drove us forward again, sprawling and out of control,
and then we were in waist-deep water. My arm was
around Jenoor. I lurched to my feet, helping her up.
We were inside the breaker line now, not more than a
couple of hundred feet from the mangroves, about even
with the island's tip. I could see the skiff, awash
but still upright, sideways and seventy or eighty
feet ahead of us. The wind and waves were pushing it
a lot faster than we could wade or swim, and unless
we were luckier than I had any right to expect, it
was going to miss the island and go out to sea.

Let it, I thought, and kept wading toward the island
with my hand clamped around Jenoor's wrist. There
were, after all, priorities, and I could always make
a raft.

The rain hit then like a wall, and the wind slammed
our backs, knocking us off our feet for a moment,
while a rip current tried to take us past the island.
But the water was shallow enough that once our feet
found the bottom again, the rip couldn't sweep us
away. In a minute or two, whipped by hard-blowing
rain, we were clambering through and over the prop
roots at the edge of the mangroves. We didn't stop
until we were on solid land, scrambling as if
something was after us.

Then we just lay on the ground for a minute, holding
on to one another. The rain fell on us as if there
weren't any treetops overhead, and we didn't get up
until I realized I was starting to feel a lot more
than just protective of Jenoor.

The wind hardly penetrated the forest, but it sure
whipped the treetops. They were all bending
southeast. The rain was incredible. When we got to
camp, our cistern, the plastite chest, was already
full and running over. All five of us crouched inside
the shelter, no one speaking for a while. Finally
Deneen said two words: "The boat?"

"Gone," I said. "We're lucky we didn't go with it."

She nodded and reached over, squeezing my hand.

After a few minutes though, we stopped feeling awed
by the storm. Or maybe the word is intimidated. "No
boat," Deneen said. "Maybe it is time to think about
leaving this place. We could get pretty hungry trying
to live on lizard."

"We could make a raft," I said. "But maybe this storm
is just the first of a season of them." Again I
turned to Piet. "What do you think?"

"We've been waiting ten weeks," he said, "almost
eleven. And I've got a contact or two who might have
a lead on a cutter."

I knew when he said it that he wasn't feeling
optimistic.

"But let's give Klentis and Aven another five days,
at least," he finished. "If they don't get here by
then, we'll try our luck."

FOUR

The storm lasted about an hour, then stopped almost
as suddenly as it began, leaving us with sunshine,
and water dripping from the trees. If we were to stay
another five days, we'd need to keep fishing, so I
went out and cut poles to make a raft with. Then, it
still being our day to fish, Jenoor and I went back
out. There were no more thunderheads to the west, but
we stayed within a hundred yards of the island
anyway. The raft wasn't as quick as the skiff, and we
had only push poles to move her with.

We were lucky we'd had four sets of fishing tackle.

If the fish had given us almost no action earlier
that day, this time we had more than we needed within
half an hour: a pair of sand moochers more than
thirty-five inches each.

That evening, instead of talking about stealing a
cutter, we talked about where we'd go in it. Piet
told us about a planet we might try-one that dad had
favored. He called it Grinder.

"It used to be a mining world," he said. His voice
was quiet, as soft as the twilight that let us see
his Face but hid his expression. "There used to be
deposits of very high quality heavy-metal ores in the
crust. But after a few centuries they were mined out,
and Grinder was too far from anywhere to make
ordinary ores worth mining. By six hundred years ago
the mines had shut down. Most of the people left
then, but some stayed, hunting and farming, and
gradually it turned into a hideout for smugglers."

"You think it would work as a rebel base then?"
Deneen asked.

"It's as promising as any." He paused as if deciding
whether or not to say what he said next. "Both your
parents favored it, so it's the place they're most
likely to go if they get off Evdash."

If they get off Evdash. It was the first time Piet
had even implied an if, and the words ended the
conversation. We sat together in the silent gloom for
a minute or more longer before anyone moved. Then
Tarel got up without saying anything and went out to
his hammock. A moment later Deneen went to hers, and
then Jenoor, my eyes following her. That left only
Piet and me squatting in the shelter, and when I
turned to him, his eyes were on me.

"Piet," I murmured, "I need to talk to you.
Privately."

"Go ahead."

"I need more privacy than this," I said, and got up.
Piet got up too, and followed me as I walked to the
floater. It was parked outside the repellent field,
so we got in and shut the door quickly to keep most
of the bugs outside.

"Okay," he said when we'd both sat down, "let's have
it."

"I want you to marry Jenoor and me. You're the senior
member-the leader and magistrate in this community.
If you say we're married, we are."

"You've talked to Jenoor about this?"

"No. I wanted to get your agreement first."

"How old is she?" he asked.

"You know how old she is. She's sixteen. And a half."

"What's the legal marriageable age for a girl on
Evdash?"

"Eighteen. Seventeen with a parent's consent. What's
the legal age in the Federation? The Empire?"

"Eighteen. Sixteen with a parent's consent."

"Or a guardian's?" I asked.

"Or a guardian's."
"So there's no natural law that says eighteen. Only
legal arbitraries that some past legislatures passed."

"Not all laws make sense," he replied. "But they're
the stuff of civilization. Unless a law is actually
destructive and can't be changed, it ought to be
obeyed. Decent laws, even if they seem a bit foolish,
are what keep a society from coming apart."

His words surprised me. I hadn't expected them from
someone who'd been a rebel most of his life. I could
see what he meant though, even if I felt sure it
didn't apply in this case. I sat there waiting for
something to come to me that would convince him, but
all I could think of was how I'd felt when Jenoor and
I had gotten ashore that afternoon, safe from the
sea, and I'd lain there with my arms around her. It
had felt like my heart was in my throat, and I'd
wanted to keep her safe forever. Among other things.

Piet was the one who broke the silence. "All right.
So let's say I'm her guardian now; I guess I am. Give
me a reason it's all right for you two to get
married."

"Okay," I answered slowly. "First let's assume she's
willing; that she wants to. Evdash is part of the
Empire now, so legally, sixteen should be old enough,
if we consider you her guardian and you give your
permission. And next, we're outside the law, so we
can't go to some courthouse and ask them to marry us.
We couldn't if we were thirty, so age isn't the
issue. Only whether she wants to and whether you're
willing."

"Why not wait?" he said. "You're not the kind who
lets his gonads rule his life."

There was no denying that sex was part of it, but
only part, though I suppose it added a lot of the
urgency to it. And like I said, I felt protective of
her. But I also felt fond, and-I just wanted to be
with her as her husband. I didn't really have the
language to describe it.

It also occurred to me that now Piet's questions were
more to make sure I'd thought it through myself. That
probably meant he'd say yes. "Why not wait?" I said,
answering his question. "Because in two weeks there's
a good chance we'll all be dead. And we could have
had two weeks together by then."

Piet turned the door handle. "Ask her," he said. "I
hope she tells you yes. Five to one she does."

We shook hands on it and got out. When I'd closed the
door, we walked together through near night the
twenty yards to camp. I almost went over to her
hammock right then to ask her, but I didn't, Hers was
between Deneen's and Tarel's-they were only about six
or eight yards apart-and I wanted my proposal to be
private.

Sometime in the middle of the night it rained again.
Not a downpour like we'd had that afternoon, but a
pretty good rain that chased us all out of our
hammocks and into the shelter. So of course we had to
bunk down on the bare ground-not the most comfortable
sleeping, especially with Bubba smelling like a wet
canid. He read my thought and chuckled, a sound so
human you'd have to hear it to believe it.

In the morning we could cut vegetation and pile it in
the shelter for beds. The repellent fields would keep
it from getting full of insects and other arthropods.
But the hammocks, which were made of fine-mesh
netting, were cooler and generally more comfortable
than piles of weeds would be. So the best solution
seemed to be to keep on sleeping in the hammocks and
only take shelter as needed-hopefully not often. I
couldn't see any practical way of slinging hammocks
inside the shelter.

Maybe, I told myself, we'd been too quick to leave
our hammocks. We didn't wear much to sleep in anyway,
and as long as the rain wasn't too cold . . . And the
hammocks were made of "Skin-Soft" synthetic, so they
didn't soak up water.

Which brought to my mind the matter of privacy if
Jenoor agreed to marry me. We had a second repellent
field, so we could have our hammocks away from the
others, but they were too small and unstable for
double occupancy. And as for separate shelter if
needed . . . This definitely seemed to be the rainy
season. The best possibility seemed to be the
floater, if we moved it a little farther away. The
floater would get around the problem of hammock
stability, too. At the very beginning, Piet had said
no one would sleep in the floater because everyone
couldn't, not comfortably, and he wasn't going to
give anyone, including himself, special privileges.
Besides, hammocks were cooler.

But Jenoor and I would be married. If she said yes.
And he'd treat that as a different situation, I was
sure.

I went back to sleep feeling pretty cheerful,
considering our long-range prospects.
The next morning had a good feel to it. It even
smelled good-not dusty any longer, but fresh-and I
was glad the rainy season had arrived. We all had a
hand-foot workout and then Deneen and Tarel went
fishing. Piet sat on a log stool-we'd sawed five
blocks from a log to use for seats-and began working
on a new carving. He was the best of us all at
turning a piece of wood into something artistic. It
would have been my day to keep the still supplied
with salt water, except that now we had rainwater-all
of it we needed.

It was Jenoor's day to collect jonga fruits, beat
them thoroughly with a hammer, and put them to soak,
to soften for tomorrow's breakfast. The way to pick
jonga fruits is to take a pole with a heavy survival
knife lashed to it and find some you can reach from
the ground or from some branch you could climb on.
Then, with the pole and knife, you saw or hack at
their tough stems till they drop off. She had picked
up the pole and her old plaited packsack and was
leaving camp when I fell in beside her.

Bubba had fallen   in on her other side. Not all right,
Bubba, I thought   to him. He knew what I had in mind.
This isn't going   to be easy for me. If you have to
eavesdrop, do it   from somewhere out of sight, okay?

He flashed me a quick grin and veered off casually to
explore some interesting smell. As if there was any
spot or critter on Lizard Island that he hadn't
examined a dozen times already.

"Okay if I walk along with you?" I asked Jenoor.

She smiled sideways at me. "Sure. Glad to have you."

"I've got something in particular I want to talk to
you about."

"All right." She looked interested, and something
more. I really didn't know what to say next, or
rather, how to say it. Will you marry me would make
sense of course, but it seemed kind of abrupt and
inelegant.

"What I want to say is-it's a question." I stepped in
front of her. "Jenoor, will you marry me?"

So much for elegance.

She looked at me seriously, not turning her eyes down
shyly or anything like that. "Of course I will, Larn.
I've been hoping you'd ask one day. I can't imagine
marrying anyone else; I haven't since the first week
Tarel and I came to live with your family."

"You mean it!" I said. It seemed a wonder. "You
really mean it!" I stepped back from her and looked
around for something to sit on; my knees felt a
little weak. But there wasn't anything handy.
"Who'll marry us?" she asked.

"I asked Piet if he would, last night when he and I
went to the floater. He's the one we look up to here-
sort of the magistrate of Lizard Island. He
questioned me about it pretty closely, and then he
said he would, right here on the island, if you
agreed. He even said he hoped you'd say yes. And I've
already solved the problem of privacy."

It suddenly occurred to me I was talking too much,
too fast, and I stopped.

She answered slowly. "Of course. The extra repellent
field and the floater. Piet would let us use the
floater, under the circumstances."

I nodded.

"When would you like the wedding?" she asked.

"How about-this evening? Just before supper."

She nodded thoughtfully. "That sounds good." Then she
leaned the pole against a tree beside her. "Is there
..." This time it was her turn to be a little
embarrassed, "Is there something we should do now to
seal the agreement?"

I stared. She was so darned pretty. I put out my
hands. She took them and we stepped together and
kissed, long but gently. Then she stepped back.

"I'm going to like being married to you," she said.
"And I want it to last a very long time. Until ... As
long as circumstances allow. But now I want you to go
back to camp, and I'll go cut some jongas. It's best
if we don't spend all day together."

"Right," I said, and started back to camp. She'd
handled the whole scene as if she was twenty-five
years old, I told myself. I'd known she was mature
for her age, but she'd been incredible.
Suddenly I flipped out and did a run of three
handsprings right there in the forest.

Back at the shelter I told Piet what Jenoor's answer
had been. He accepted it matter-of-factly and didn't
even smile. To my surprise, that bothered me. It was
as if I wanted him to pump my hand and congratulate
me or something. Then it occurred to me that I'd once
heard mom mention something to dad about someone she
called "Gwennith"-as if this Gwennith had been
married to Piet, or anyway been someone special to
him. And as if something had happened. But I'd never
heard anything more. In the rebel life he'd led, with
the political police always looking for him . . . She
might have been killed or imprisoned, or they might
have had to separate and never found one another
again. I was sure Piet would have been a heck of a
good husband. He had all the qualities.

The thought bothered me for a while. Then, as if he'd
read my mind, Piet put down his whittling and,
smiling, reached out a hand to me. "Congratulations,"
he said as we shook. "You've got excellent taste in
women. And she's got excellent taste in men. I hope
you have lots of years together."

A woman. That's what she was, a sixteen-year-old
woman. And that 'lots of years" would begin today.
Tonight. If there was anything I wanted, it was to
make her happy. It would help that my parents had
been the kind of role models they'd been:
considerate, sharing, affectionate, willing to talk
things out and to let each other be themselves.

I felt confident, both for the long run and about
tonight. In lower middle school I'd heard a couple of
guys describe their dads telling them the facts of
life. It had amounted to a short biology lecture. But
when dad had told me the facts of life, he'd included
discussion of rights, comparative emotions, courtesy
and consideration, tenderness, and two-way
communication, so I couldn't imagine things working
out any other way than fine. Maybe-maybe Jenoor and I
would even settle down on some world and spend our
whole lives there, maybe operating a training camp in
hand-foot art.

I spent the next hour building daydreams on that
theme, until Deneen and Tarel got back with a string
of fish. The fork-tailed streakers had been feeding.
They were small, but about the tastiest species we
ever caught there. Even Bubba preferred them.

A little later Jenoor came back too. She'd not only
cut jongas, she'd taken the time and trouble to pick
about three cups of tiny pink thrimberries-the
closest thing to delicious that Lizard Island had to
offer. Thrimberries were so small and so sparse, and
the bushes so prickly, that none of us had tried to
pick any quantity of them before. It hadn't seemed
worth the trouble. When she arrived, we stood
together in front of the others and announced our
engagement-the shortest engagement I'd ever heard of.

It was Deneen who did the whooping-old cool-headed
Deneen, who'd always seemed to take everything
calmly. She whooped and squealed and jumped around
like an enthused eight-year-old, and kissed us both
while Tarel stood there watching without saying
anything. Then she said she was going to bake the
fish they'd brought back-that we'd just have to put
up with heat damage to vitamins and amino acids for
the sake of festivity. And anyway the thrimberries
would make up for the vitamin loss.

It was Piet's and my turn to clean the fish, while
Jenoor and Tarel took clubs and started hammering the
jongas on a flat place I'd cut once on a large log.

Deneen went to the debris of dead branches and twigs
where I'd cut the three trees that first day, and
brought back pieces that were dry enough to burn.
Then she dug in her pack and took out her tinder box
and spark wheel. We'd only had fire once or twice
before on Lizard Island; fire made smoke and light,
which theoretically might be seen if anyone was
flying past. Besides which, until yesterday's rain,
the island had been dry and dangerously flammable.
But this day was special, and before long she'd built
a small fire, piled tall.

When Piet and I had the fish cleaned, he got up and
moved the floater off between the trees to a place
some hundred and fifty feet from camp.

Finally the fish, wrapped in large wet leaves, were
buried beneath coals. Then Piet looked at Jenoor and
me. "Are you ready?" he asked.

I nodded, my face sober, my   heart starting to thud. I
heard Jenoor say "yes" in a   small voice.
"All right," Piet said, and   stood up. "We'll do this
without rehearsing. The two   of you stand in front of
me."

We did.

"Tarel, you stand beside Larn. And Deneen beside
Jenoor." He watched while we lined up. Then he looked
us over and nodded.

"Good," he said. "Start of a wedding. Larn, Jenoor, a
marriage is a lifetime commitment-a commitment to
love and help and care for each other. It is a
two-way arrangement that becomes unethical if it is
allowed to get lopsided-if it becomes too much take
on one side and too much give on the other. Marriage
is also a commitment to trust, and to be worthy of
trust. Larn, you must know what a marriage should be;
you've seen how your parents treat each other.
Jenoor, I don't know your parents, but I've seen the
kind of people you and your brother are. I'm
confident that you too know what a marriage should
be. A marriage resembles any close friendship, but in
addition it has special responsibilities, and it
should have special love. Now. Larn, bearing all this
in mind, do you promise to be a good husband to
Jenoor forever?"
My throat felt as if a whole jonga was stuck in it. I
could hardly believe how normally the words came out
when I said, "Yes, I do."

"And Jenoor, bearing all this in mind, do you promise
to be a good wife to Larn forever?"
My eyes moved to her as she answered. "Yes, I do."

Piet nodded as if in approval. "Then I pronounce you
man and wife." His serious expression changed; he
grinned. "You may kiss each other."

We did. Softly and not too long. When we stepped
apart, I looked at Tarel. He looked more serious than
ever. And Deneen? She was grinning a foot wide, even
though her eyes were watery.
Then Piet reached into his pocket and handed us what
he'd spent much of the day making: Two pairs of
hearts, perfectly carved, the hearts in each pair
joined at the edge. And on them, engraved with a
straightened, filed-down fishhook point, were our
names. He was still grinning at us as we made
sincerely appreciative noises.

We wrapped our gifts together in an old undershirt,
and while Jenoor stashed them in a corner of the
shelter, I turned to Tarel again. I couldn't tell
what he was thinking.

"Tarel," I said, holding out my hand, "I want you to
know I'll be the best husband to Jenoor that I know
how to be, and that I'm glad to have you as my
brother-in-law."

He nodded without smiling. "I know you will. And I'm
glad to have you as my brother-in-law. You're the
best brother-in-law I can imagine."

I think I must have blushed; no one mentioned it, but
that's how it felt. He'd surprised me, and I felt
like he must have gotten me mixed up with someone
else, I mean, I generally think I'm pretty good, but
the best brother-in-law he could imagine? That was
more than I was ready for. I didn't know what to say
back, so I gave his hand a couple of extra shakes and
hoped someone would say something to get me off the
hook.

It was Bubba who did. Tail waving slowly, he'd been
standing behind Piet watching, as if making sure
everything was done right. "I think you guys make
good family," he said to me now. "When Lady and pups
find us, I tell pups one of them should adopt you."

Deneen applauded that, and Piet and Tarel joined her.
Then, with a stick, Deneen dug the fish out of the
coals and we ate. It had started to get dark when we
finished, so I went and hung Jenoor's and my hammocks
on the other side of the floater, then set up the
second repellent field. Afterward the five of us kept
the fire going for a while and sat around it, talking
without saying much. I was feeling a little nervous;
nothing serious.

Finally Deneen stood up and stretched. "I don't know
about anyone else," she said, "but I'm going to bed."

"Sounds like a good idea," said Piet. He too got up,
and with him Tarel.

"Yeah," I said, and standing, turned to Jenoor. "Time
to go, while it's still light enough to find our way."

I helped her up, her hand small but strong in mine.
Actually, it wasn't going to be a really dark night.
Donia, the major moon, was close to full, and the
forest roof was less than solid. Hand in hand we
walked toward the floater. The lump did not return to
my throat. This evening the world felt right to me,
even in a sector ruled by the Empire.

FIVE

It wasn't one of Evdash's traditional ten-day
newlyweds' trips to Paradise Valley and Sky Falls, or
Lake Indigo, Cloud Island, and Ocean City-anything
like that. We had four days on Lizard Island, with
duties as usual, such as they were. But they were the
happiest four days of a life that had already been
happier than most. I couldn't believe how lucky I was.

Lucky in spite of daily rainstorms, one of them as
violent as the one that almost killed Jenoor and me.
Whoever was fishing kept part of their attention on
the weather. And where before everything had been
really dry, now everything was dank. The fresh smell
of the first days with rain changed to mold. Even our
clothes began to smell of mildew.

No one was really surprised that our parents hadn't
shown. A cutter flying in the atmosphere would be
detected in minutes, maybe seconds, and one in
Evdashian space probably almost as quickly. So if
they tried moving around in the cutter, the odds were
they'd be picked up or blown up in a hurry.

To casual eyeball observation, they might go
unnoticed for a while in heavy traffic, especially if
there was a mixture of cargo carriers and public
transport-units much bigger than personal and
family-size floaters. But the police would notice
fast. Even floater traffic had to be way down; the
radio talked about tough travel restrictions and a
limited curfew. And judging from the newscasts and
the general Glondis way of doing things, they
wouldn't be relaxed soon.

Piet talked with us about the prospects of getting
our hands on a cutter. The resistance movement in the
old Federation had long predicted a Glondis takeover
of the colonies, of which Evdash was one of the most
prosperous. Of course, Evdash had had its own branch
of the Party-a very minor party here then-and the
resistance had infiltrated both the Party and the
Evdashian military, just to keep track of what was
going on.

Piet had actually been a regional chairman of the
Glondis Party on Evdash! Until he'd made a slip that
was sure to get him uncovered before long. So he'd
arranged an "accident," and disappeared.

Some of that was new to us, especially the part about
Piet. The point was that he had resistance contacts,
or he had had, in the Party, the Evdashian military,
and the public at large. But he didn't know who was
still alive and in place, or whether any of them was
in a position to help.

On the fifth night after the wedding, we all got up
at first dawnlight. After a breakfast of jongas and
raw fish, we loaded everything we wanted to take with
us into the floater. There wasn't very much. By the
time we lifted through the forest roof, the sun sat
red and swollen on the watery horizon. The treetops
were spotted with flowers now-white, pink, yellow,
violet-brought out by the rains. Piet stopped for a
minute while we took in the view. Then he punched in
a navigation sequence that would take us to a point
near Delta City, a seaport. There he'd slip us into
the general traffic corridors. If nothing went wrong,
we'd head up the Jarf Valley from there, for Jarfoss,
the town where Evdash's main naval station was
located. He hoped to contact friends there, and get
enough information to plan with.

"Who knows," he said. "Maybe we'll even get a line on
Klentis and Aven there." I didn't allow my hopes to
build, but it did make me feel a little better.

It seemed to me, when I let myself look at the
situation, that we had almost no prospects of getting
a space cutter. But then, our chances had looked even
bleaker when Deneen and I had been on Fanglith. Now
we had two and a half years' additional experience.
The Fanglith experience was worth about ten years all
by itself, not in data so much as in getting grooved
in on operating in dangerous situations without much
information. Doing the right thing-or a right
thing-at the right time; or at least not doing
something fatally wrong.
To cut down the risk of detection, Piet ran just
above the water the whole 423 miles to the coast.
There he joined the sparse early morning
traffic-mostly cargo carriers but with a mixture of
public transports and private vehicles. We were a
pretty scruffy bunch. Piet and I had beards,
something rare on Evdash, and Tarel's was starting to
show too. The only clothes we had, dirty and
mildewed, hadn't been properly washed since we'd put
them on more than fourteen weeks earlier. To prepare
ourselves for civilization, we'd used the hairbrushes
Deneen and Jenoor had carried when we'd left home,
but that was it.

There weren't as many police floaters in traffic as
I'd expected to see though, and none paid any
attention to us.

Finally, near the naval station, Piet turned into an
approach pattern to an outlying officers' housing
area, set in a matrix of dark forest and light green
meadows, of recreation grounds and parking lots and
shopping centers, of streets lined with houses whose
roofs were red and green and cobalt, of emerald yards
with pale blue swimming pools.

It was very nice. I wondered what Imperial troops
thought of it-troops from the paved and crowded
high-rise population centers of the central worlds.
Presumably the people stationed here were still
Evdashians.

Piet had said the top command positions, with their
personal staifs, would be filled by Imperials now,
and there'd probably be a garrison of Imperial
Marines here for intimidation purposes. But the
principal forces, such as they were, would be
Evdashian-the same people as before, acting under new
commands and policies. There'd have been some
changes, of course. Officers thought of as especially
hard-nosed Evdashian patriots would have been shot or
imprisoned as examples. Their replacements would be
people who seemed willing to carry out Imperial
intentions. And a few would be eager to prove how
loyal they were to the Empire,
Of course, some of them-people who seemed to just be
trying to adjust and get along-would actually be
resistance people, or potential resistance people.
And so would some of the apparent turncoats who were
singing the Imperial song and giving the Imperial
salute. That's where our hopes lay.

Our first contact was going to be critical. We had to
find a friendly who could help us clean up and get
civilized looking, because the way we looked now, we
were ripe for stopping and questioning. If we were
stopped, we'd say we were just getting back from a
hiking vacation, but that would hardly be convincing.
We had no useful identification, and at least
fourteen weeks' wild growth of hair to explain.

The streets here were grass, neatly trimmed. Piet
dropped down low over one of them, then skimmed along
as if he knew exactly where he was going. After a few
hundred feet he turned smoothly, pulled into an
attached garage as if he parked there every day, and
put us down on the concrete, leaving the
floater-field generator on. I didn't know whether
he'd picked this place just because the garage door
was open, or whether he knew the people who lived
here.
"Larn," he said, "take the controls. If anything
happens to me, you're in command."

"Right," I said.

He got out and I moved into the pilot's seat. Looking
like something washed up on the beach, he walked
casually to the connecting door, but before he could
knock, it opened. Behind it was a woman in a summer
house suit, with a blast pistol in her hands.

For just a moment she stared at   Piet, then without
saying a word, lowered the gun.   He thumbed toward us.
She shook her head and murmured   something too quietly
for us to hear, then reached to   one side and the
garage door closed behind us. If anything went wrong
now, we couldn't make a quick getaway, but that
didn't seem to bother Piet. She disappeared, closing
the door behind her, and Piet stepped back over to
the floater.

"She has company," he said softly.

"What's she going to do?" I asked.

"Knowing Dansee, she'll think of something."

The situation felt about as uncomfortable as it could
get. Knowing almost nothing about what was happening
inside, I hadn't the foggiest idea what to do, so I
just sat there while Piet stood next to the floater
door. From beside me, I could feel Jenoor's hand on
my forearm, resting lightly, not gripping. Looking
behind me I saw Tarel, his hands fisted. Beside him,
Deneen watched intently the door the woman had closed
behind her. Bubba probably knew what was going on,
but whispering wasn't one of his abilities.

Nothing happened for the slowest several minutes on
record. Then we heard voices outside the garage door-
women talking and laughing. It sounded as if they'd
just come out of the house. One of them seemed to
stay in place while two others became more distant.
Then the talking stopped, and we heard a house door
close. A minute later the woman appeared in the door
again, grinning this time and without her blaster.

"Get in here," she said, not trying to be quiet now,
and held the door for us. Piet went first, the rest
of us trooping after. As we passed, she looked us
over, then closed the door behind us. She came across
as a nice-looking middle-aged lady who still did
something or other athletic. She herded us down a
hall and into a kitchen, where we stopped. "Piet,"
she said, "I'd hug you if you looked a little more
sanitary." She indicated the living room with a head
motion. "I'm reasonably sure my visitors didn't
suspect anything. They were sitting with their backs
to the window; I was the only one who saw you float
in."

"What did you tell them?"

She chuckled. "That Jom had told me not to leave the
garage door open again. Which was true, as far as it
went."

"How did you explain the blaster?"


"They never saw it. It's my kitchen gun. Who are your
young friends? Or can't you tell me?"

He hesitated a second. "Why not? Dansee Jomber, this
is Mr. and Mrs. Larn kel Deroop-Larn and Jenoor.
These are Deneen kel Deroop, and Tarel Sentner. And
Bubba. Bubba's a kel Deroop too. Those are their real
names incidentally."

She was studying Bubba. "Is Bubba an espwolf?"

"Right."

"Well, that's got to be a big plus-point." She sized
us all up. "I can see what you need first, unless
you're famished. There's a shower in the basement and
a complete cleaning facility upstairs. Just choose up
who uses what. When you're done I'll have something
edible for you and start cutting hair.

"Best you hustle now. I'm not expecting anyone else
till Jom comes home about half past fifteen, but
then, I wasn't expecting any earlier guests either.
Where are your other clothes?"

"M'dam," said Piet, "there are no other clothes.
These are it."

"Mmh! All right, get at it. Throw what you've got on
into the hall I'll dig up something temporary and put
your old things in the cleaning drum as soon as I
have a chance."

Piet and Tarel went into the main-floor bath, while
Deneen went with Jenoor and I into the basement guest
apartment. I offered Deneen first chance at the
bathroom there, and minutes later Dansee Jomber came
down with clothing.

"These'll do for now," she said, putting them on the
couch. "We'll worry about fit later." Then she turned
and went back upstairs. Deneen didn't take more than
six or eight minutes in the shower, and when she was
done she left, while Jenoor and I got ready and
showered. We scrubbed each other pink and then,
wishing we had more time, put on the clean clothes
and followed the others upstairs.

By that time Deneen was giving Bubba a cleaning.

An hour later we'd been fed and herded back to the
basement-a safety measure in case any unexpected
visitors came by. We took all our camping stuff with
us from the floater. In the basement we got barbered,
and by that time our own clothes were clean and we
put them back on. They looked surprisingly
presentable now for field clothes. Dansee had used
clippers on Piet's and my faces when she'd cut our
hair, and Piet and I, and Tarel too, debearded with
Jom Jomber's facial kit. After that we killed time
reading and napping until, late that afternoon, we
heard a pair of heavy male feet start down the stairs.

Piet and Jom Jomber didn't discuss very much in front
of us. Instead, after a few minutes they left in the
Jombers' floater, saying they weren't sure when
they'd be back. I got the idea that they didn't want
us to know anything we didn't need to-the old
"need-to-know principle"-in case we got arrested.
What you don't know, no one can get out of you.

After they'd left, Dansee Jomber baked sweetcrisps
and made hot meloren, and asked us about our weeks on
the island.
We were so used to sleeping half the clock around
that we went to bed well before midnight. Jenoor and
I were put in the Jombers' spare bedroom, while Tarel
and Deneen slept in the basement on a bed and a
couch. Bubba was happy with a pallet on the floor.

It was sheer luxury to be clean and comfortable and
alone together. I'm glad I didn't know what would
happen before daylight.

According to the dresser clock, we'd slept about
three hours when Piet woke us. He tossed two
Evdashian Marine uniforms on the foot of the bed and
told us to get dressed fast. Now was our chance, he
said, and if we missed it, we might not get another.

If they'd been Imperial Marine uniforms, what
happened probably wouldn't have. But those weren't
available-at least not on short notice.

Mine had a bolstered blast pistol and stunner on the
belt. So did Piet's and Tarel's. Piet also carried a
blast rifle and wore a senior sergeant's insignia.
Jenoor and Deneen, besides belt weapons, carried
attache cases attached to chains around their necks.
It was as if we were their escorts.

There was even a guard canid control collar and leash
for Bubba, barely big enough to fit around his wolfy
neck.

In ten minutes we were ready. No one told us
anything-no one even talked except for a few brief,
low exchanges between Piet and Jom-till we left in
Piet's floater. As Piet piloted, he briefed us, and
brief was the word. We'd be meeting a guy, an
Evdashian marine noncom who'd be driving a marine
floater. He was a courier with a pass authorizing him
to enter the scout park-the small landing field where
naval scouts were parked when not on station. This
guy knew which craft were ready to fly.
What he would try to do was drive into the scout
pool, something his pass didn't authorize. He'd claim
to have high-security packages to put aboard one of
the scouts.

Our man was waiting for us in the employee parking
lot at the local utilities central, a civilian
agency. Piet's floater didn't emit the proper
identification signal and would have been shot out of
the air if we'd tried to fly it into the air space of
a military installation. Piet parked a hundred feet
from the marine vehicle, got out, then stood
pretending to talk to us through the rear window.
That was the signal. A few seconds later the marine
floater drifted over, stopped, and we got in.

In the back of the marine floater was a box with a
handle at each corner. The marine told Tarel and me
to take out our blast pistols and hold them
conspicuously in our laps; that was how courier
escorts would carry them. Gate guards would check us,
and we were to make and keep eye contact with them
while they looked us over; it would be expected of us.

At the field we were stopped at two security gates.
At each, a marine guard came over to the floater
while two others stood nearby with blast rifles
ready, pointed in our direction, guard canids at
heel. After questioning our driver briefly and
examining his pass, the guard looked into the
floater, taking in our uniforms and weapons. At each
gate the guard's hand lamp paused on Jenoor and
Deneen. In the Evdashian Marines, women were almost
solely clerical personnel. And besides, both Deneen
and Jenoor looked awfully young.

Their attache cases may have helped, but I believe it
was Bubba who cleared us. At each gate, after the
guard's lamp beam dipped to examine him, the guy
waved us through. Our having an apparent guard canid
made us real to them.

Finally we were in the scout pool, moving down a
broad service lane a foot or so above the pavement.
Our driver stopped about twenty-five yards from the
nearest scout, a forty-five-foot patrol scout. The
area was lit more than I liked, by lights on tall
poles around the perimeter of the field.

"That's it," the sergeant said, jerking a thumb in
the direction of the scout. "Piet, get out with the
canid and stand about ten yards in the other
direction. Keep looking around, but act bored. And
light up a weed; it'll make things look relaxed."

"I don't smoke."

"Have one of mine. Here's my lighter." He turned to
Jenoor and Deneen. "You two walk with me. And you
two," he added to Tarel and me, "follow us with your
sidearms in your hands, looking as if you're guarding
us. But not as if you're worried. Could be no one's
actually watching us, but we need to look as if what
we're doing is entirely according to regulations.
Nothing sneaky is going on, and nothing tense-nothing
worth paying attention to. Got it?"

Tarel and I answered yes in unison, and we started
out. At the scout, our marine put an ID plate in the
slot and the door opened. We got aboard. The marine
took a hand lamp off his belt and, without turning it
on, put it on the deck.

"Don't turn on any ship's lights, not even inside,"
he said. "That would draw attention." He looked at
Tarel and me. "And I don't want any needless activity
out here either, for the same reason, so you two stay
aboard." He turned to Jenoor and Deneen. "Come on."

With no more than that, he stepped down the ramp onto
the pavement again, the girls close behind. My guts
tightened; something about this didn't feel right. I
told myself it was being separated from Jenoor and
Deneen in a situation like this, and I watched them
cross the pavement to the floater. There the sergeant
apparently said something to Piet, because Piet, with
Bubba beside him, walked over to them with his
blaster still at the ready.

The marine got into the floater, then backed out,
pulling the box I'd noticed. Again I could hear his
voice, quiet but fast. He took the handles at one end
and the girls took the handles at the other, and they
started toward the scout.

Beside me, Bubba growled. Then a floodlight beam
speared through the night to bathe them in
brightness. From across the field a loud-hailer
called for them to stop. They did, for just a moment,
then started for the scout, still carrying the box.

The guard tower didn't use its blasters. Maybe they
thought the package was contraband and didn't want to
destroy it. Instead, projectile weapons ruptured the
silent night with bitter racket. Bullets struck the
side of the scout, and both Tarel and I ducked back
out of the open door. Scant seconds later, Deneen and
Bubba came dragging the box.

"Close the door!" she yelled as they came through it.
"Close it now!"

"No!" I cried. "The others!"

She screamed in my face. "The others are shot! Close
the door!"

Instead I dove for it, blast pistol in hand, and
started down the ramp. Then strong hands grabbed the
back of my jumpsuit. I twisted. It was Tarel holding
me, and I yelled at him. The heel of his hand slammed
me in the forehead. Lights flashed in the space
behind my eyes, and for a moment there was only
blackness. I was vaguely aware that someone, Tarel,
was dragging me back into the scout, and that the
projectile weapons were firing again. Inside, Deneen
was sobbing and cursing-I'd never heard her do either
before-and I opened my eyes. She had the hand lamp,
and seemed to be hunting for the door controls. I got
back up and lunged clumsily for the door, but Tarel
slugged me again, on the back of the neck this time.

When my eyes opened, the door had been closed and the
power unit activated. A cabin light was on, Deneen
was at the controls and Tarel was standing over me. I
just stared. She must have found the force shield
controls, something our family cutter hadn't had,
because through the windows I could see flashes as
blaster bolts dissipated their energies in flickering
sheets around us.

The basic controls operated like those on our family
cutter. Abruptly we rose, climbing in mass-proximity
mode, wrapped by the drive field in a mini-space of
our own that divorced us from any inertia relative to
real space. In seconds, we were beyond blaster range.

Tarel looked at me with the strangest expression I'd
ever seen on a person. "They're dead, Larn," he said.
"They're dead. There was nothing you could do for
them. They're all dead."

Then his face crumpled like plastic melting in a
fire, and silently he started to cry. All I could do
was stare, while my guts withered inside me.

SIX

Jenoon:

When the shooting began, the sergeant went down at
once. I turned and saw Piet stumble to his knees, so
I dropped my corner of the box to try to help him. I
didn't take more than a step, though, when I felt a
bullet smash into my foot, and I fell forward onto
the pavement. I scrambled the last eight or ten feet
to him on my hands and knees, I'm not sure why. Maybe
I thought I still could help him somehow, maybe drag
him to the scout.

But by the time I reached him, he was lying on his
back. I'm pretty sure that he'd been hit some more;
he'd been shot almost in two at the waist. All I
could do was lie there, half on top of him. I think I
was crying then. The automatic projectile weapons
were still making a terrible racket across the field,
their bullets smacking and whining all around. It
seemed impossible that I was still alive, and I
expected to be killed any moment. That went on for a
long time-maybe as long as a minute. The bullets only
stopped when the blaster bolts started sizzling.

Scared as I was, somehow I raised my head enough to
look toward the scout. The ramp was in, the door was
closed, and I could see that the cabin was lit.
Someone had activated the force shield, because the
energy of the blaster bolts was flickering around it
like some weird aurora. It seemed to me that they
might actually get away-whoever had made it to the
scout- and I felt jubilant. As I watched, it lifted,
then almost leaped upward, the blaster fire following
it, still sheathing it in flickering light until it
passed out of sight half a minute later, too high to
see anymore.

Then I was filled by a sense of abandonment more
terrible than anything I'd ever imagined.
But that lasted only seconds, replaced by a sense
of-I guess resignation is the best word for it, I
closed my eyes and laid my head down on Piet's
shoulder. I realized that my hands were in a pool of
what had to be his blood, and also that my foot
didn't hurt. There was a feeling there, but it wasn't
what you'd call pain yet. I knew there'd be enough of
that when the shock wore off. I also knew that
someone would come out pretty soon and I'd be
arrested. And executed sooner or later.

After another minute I saw a small utility floater
coming out low, and I laid my head down again and
closed my eyes. I heard it settle right beside me,
and a man spoke in Evdashian. "I saw her move," he
said. "Well put her in on bottom and the other two on
top of her."
Then I felt two men grab me by the knees arid under
the arms and load me into the open back of the
floater.

"If we're caught . . ."I heard the second one say.

"We won't be. From there they don't even know how
many are down out here. She was lying on top of the
big guy."

Then I heard them grunt, and a moment later a heavy
dead weight was put down on top of me. "Sorry," the
first voice said. After another moment there was a
third body. Next I heard a light thump, and opened my
eyes enough to see Piet's rifle lying on the deck.
The two marines got in the front and drove off,
seeming to keep within a few feet of the pavement.

"Suppose someone comes out and looks?" the second
voice asked.

"Then we unload the girl with the other two, like it
was what we had in mind all along. But they won't.
We'll unload the two dead ones and I'll get back in
as if that's all, and take her away. You stay there."

The floater slowed and lowered to the pavement, and
the two men came quickly around and removed first one
body, then the other. I could hear another voice
coming toward the vehicle.

"Are they dead?"

"They seem to be, sir. I'll take the truck over and
clean out the back before the blood dries."
"All right," the new voice said, "do it. But don't
take all night." It sounded as if it was right by the
tailgate. He almost had to have seen me and pretended
not to.

A moment later the floater lifted and moved away. I
opened my eyes again; the blast rifle was gone, A
minute later the truck set down. I opened my eyes and
saw that we were beside a large shed. I heard the
marine move away. In another minute he was back and
lowered the tailgate. Under one arm he carried a dark
bundle-a small plastic tarp; in the other hand was a
broom. He saw that my eyes were open.

"I'm going to hide you," he told me. "In a waste bin.
You'll have to tough it out the best you can until
somebody comes to get you. It'll be a few hours."

He flopped the half-unfolded tarp next to me on the
truck bed, then rolled me onto it with an apology,
wrapped me in it, and with a grunt got me over his
shoulder. He wasn't big, but he was pretty strong.
Inside the tarp I couldn't see a thing. He carried me
a dozen steps, then I heard a lid raise on squeaky
hinges. I felt myself roll off his shoulder, and
landed on a jumble of what had to be lignoplastic
containers-boxes and bottles. The lid lowered again,
and I wondered if I'd get enough air in there. I
decided I probably would; it wouldn't be airtight. If
it seemed like I was going to suffocate, I'd wiggle
loose and prop the lid up a little with something.
Meanwhile I'd stay the way I was.

The marine had risked his life to save me; both of
them had. And maybe their officer too. And I'd
thought the Evdashians were docile because they'd
given up their world without fighting! I imagined an
empire sprinkled with people like them, learning
better and better how to undercut their masters.

Then I imagined him hosing the truck bed and
scrubbing it with the broom, the blood of Piet and
the marine sergeant-and maybe some of mine-mixing
with the water to flow into a sump or something. Then
he'd drive back as if everything was normal.

My foot was beginning to hurt. The shock was starting
to wear off.

I dozed anyway, drifting in and out of sleep without
knowing for how long, a sleep mixed with pain and
feverish dreams. But through it all I kept thinking:
I must not groan. I must not groan. Someone might
hear. And that if I was discovered, the two marines
who'd saved me would be executed.

I didn't come wide awake until I felt the bin being
lifted. A mechanism screeched, jerked, and I felt
myself being tilted, Then I was sliding, and fell
into what had to be trash. Pain stabbed my foot like
a knife, and I tasted blood where I bit my lip to
keep from screaming. Most of the contents of the
waste bin seemed to land on top of me, and I passed
out.

The next thing I knew the trash was shifting again.
Not very much; it was as if the trash truck had
tilted, its load sliding. Then the movement stopped,
and faintly, through the tarp and trash, I could hear
a man talking.
"Motor pool trash, eh? You better not have anything
in there that'll damage the chopper again."
"Take it easy, Frelky," another voice said. "We just
haul it, we don't pick through it. If someone dumps
an old electric motor in a bin and it busts up your
chopper, that's no fault of ours."

Next I heard the truck's beeper as it rose and swung
away. A minute later I felt someone digging the trash
out around me. Two arms wrapped around me as if I
were a bundle and pulled me free, then dragged me a
little way, which hurt my foot. I felt my feet drag
over what seemed to be a door sill, then I was laid
out on a flat surface and rolled over twice. I could
see.
I was on the floor of a small, unlit office shack. A
heavy, older marine corporal in fatigues knelt beside
me. On the other side a voice spoke, and dimly I
could see a sergeant standing there in what seemed to
be early dawn.

"Check her pulse," he said   "See if she's still
alive."
"She's alive. She's looking at me right now."

"Where are you hit?"

I realized he was speaking to me. "In the right
foot," I said. My voice was so weak, I was surprised
he could understand me.

"You've got blood all over the front of you."

"It's Uncle Piet's," I told him.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then: "Wrap
her up again."

While the corporal in charge of the trash processor
began to roll me up in the tarp, the sergeant added,
"I'm taking you to a safe house. There'll be somebody
there who'll take care of you."

I felt them pick me up together and carry me. They
put me in what seemed to be the luggage space of a
small floater-a staff car or something. A minute
later I felt it take off, and I passed out again.


SEVEN

Larn:

While Tarel stood weeping above me, my mind cleared.
Four of us were still alive; I include Bubba in my
count of people. If we could just stay that way,
someday I could find out who did the shooting back
there.

Tarel turned and stumbled toward the washroom, and I
got up. I'd have liked to help him-his hard hands had
saved me from myself twice in maybe a minute- but
what he needed was a little time alone.

Just aft of the exit door was the gunnery control
station; I recognized it from holodramas I'd seen.
But by the time I could hope to figure it out and
learn to use it, we'd be dead or possibly "safe" in
FTL mode. Once in FTL I'd have plenty of time to work
with it. So I walked over to Deneen and sat down in
the copilot's seat.

From the side, her jaw looked set and her eyes
intent. There was no sign that she knew I'd come
over, though I'm sure she did. I looked the
instrument panel over; most of it, though not all,
was familiar from the cutters dad had owned. Neither
Deneen nor I should have any trouble flying it, and
she was doing fine.

She'd have to take us out the better part of a
million miles before shifting to FTL mode; otherwise,
the stresses would tear the ship apart.

In spite of everything, dying wasn't something I
wanted to do for a while, and neither did Deneen, I
was sure.

Neither had Piet a few minutes ago, nor Jenoor. Nor
the marine sergeant who'd laid his life on the line
to help us get away, and lost it.

I told myself I wouldn't waste the chance they'd
given us.

The array of stars I could see through the wraparound
for'rd window didn't mean much to me, so I turned my
eyes to the instrument display. We were already 63
miles out; the right-hand digits were a blur, and
even the tens were changing too fast to read. At the
hundreds position, a 4 replaced the 3 almost at once,
followed quickly by a 5, then a 6. Pretty soon, I
told myself, the hundreds would be changing too fast
to read, too. Short seconds later we turned over
8,000.
I wondered if it was possible we might get away
unattacked. There had to be patrol craft on picket
around Evdash, between the hard radiation belts,
probably piloted by some of the more reliable people
the Imperials could identify, or maybe by Imperials
themselves. They were sure to have been warned by now
that we were outbound fugitives. There were monitor
screens above the window that ought to show any
approaching hostiles, if I could figure out how to
turn them on. Without them, we couldn't take evasive
action.

Not that Deneen or I was anything approaching a
fighter pilot, but we ought to be able to do
something. It might make the difference between
getting away and getting blown out of the sky.
Without the monitor screens on, all she could do was
keep accelerating at maximum for mass-proximity mode,
the computer holding us on the curving course that
gave us the greatest momentary distance from Evdash.

Above the more familiar console section was a sort of
shelf with key rows that probably controlled things
such as the monitor screen, but they were marked only
by initials or symbols. Let's see, I thought, if I
can call up a keyboard diagram on the computer.

But first I reached for something I did recognize-
the radio switch-and turned it on. Through the weird
distortion effect of an accelerating mass-proximity
drive, a demanding voice spoke from it, ordering: ".
. . at once, we will destroy you! Fugitive scout! If
you do not ..."

Deneen's hand reached up and cuffed the switch on her
side, overriding mine and turning it off. She didn't
even glance over at me. "I'm flying this," she said
tightly.

"Right." I could see her point: she didn't need the
distraction. We both knew what our situation was, and
all we could do was try to run through it. Letting
threats pour into our ears wouldn't help, and she
could do anything at the control console that she
thought needed done.

The accent had been Evdashian, though. That had been
apparent, even through the distortion And despite the
threatening words, that was at least a little bit
encouraging. The pilot might not be as zealous to
kill or capture us.

I looked around for Bubba and didn't see him. Had he
run back outside for some strange reason before
Deneen got the door closed? It didn't seem possible;
he was one of the most rational people ever born. But
it was out of character for him to go hide somewhere.
Then I realized-he was with Tarel; he had to be.

Meanwhile, if somehow we managed to get far enough to
jump to FTL mode, the scout would have to be our home
for as long as it took us to get somewhere. I got up
and started to explore it.
She was a lot larger than our family cutter. Built
for a patrol crew of six, she actually had two little
restrooms; six tiny cabins, each just big enough to
get in and out of the narrow bunk, a shower; and a
snug little galley. The food storage compartment was
a little worrisome, though. It had been stocked for
maybe a ten- or twelve-day patrol, and anywhere we
decided to go would probably be farther than that.
There was an emergency store of dried foods, but I
didn't have a good feel for how long stuff like that
would last us.

While I was snooping through the galley, I felt a
swerve: Deneen had made an evasive move. I jumped up
and went back out to the controls area. Tarel came
out, too. The monitor screens were on now, and I
could see why she was taking evasive maneuvers. The
mid-line starboard screen showed a blip that was
trying to center on it-Sock Onto us-and we were
sliding to port to keep it off center. There was also
a blip on the midline port screen, but it looked a
lot smaller, which should mean a lot farther away. On
the instrument screen, the hundreds digits were
blurred now, and the thousands digits said
ninety-seven. Ninety-eight.

For just an instant the nearer blip slid into the
central ring, but apparently it could only lock on us
when it was perfectly centered. At that instant
Deneen swerved us sharply to starboard, and the bogey
slid out. At the speed we were moving, a swerve like
that took us miles off line in a second. If the scout
hadn't been encased in its own little quasi-space at
the time, we'd have been smeared all over the
bulkheads. Or actually, we would have been long
before, simply from acceleration.

Tarel and I just stood there, watching. The bogey
would get close to the ring, sometimes actually
getting into it, while Deneen did her best to keep
him from centering. It seemed as if a lot of time was
passing, but it wasn't, really. The mileage on the
instrument screen passed 300,000-distance from
planetary mass, actually. We had a long way to go yet
before we dared shift into FTL mode. Twice again the
bogey almost centered- once it seemed it must
have-and we slipped away. I couldn't help but think
that its pilot wasn't trying as hard as he could.
He'd hardly dare do any more than be just slightly
slow of reflexes though, a tiny bit short on
coordination. The whole chase would be recorded on
his computer, and if we got away, there'd almost
surely be a board of review. I could imagine the
Imperial Military Administration on Evdash making an
example of her commander and pilot-maybe her whole
crew.

That's when I really realized how much others were
risking for us. I told myself silently that if we got
away, we wouldn't disappoint them.

By 430,000 miles, I'd begun to feel almost
optimistic. That's when I noticed that the second
blip was getting closer. I didn't know how close it
needed to be to have us in range, but it had gotten
close enough to identify as a light cruiser, which
probably meant it was Imperial. A light cruiser could
launch twin-seat chasers when he was near enough, and
we couldn't hope to evade them all.
"Any time you want me to take over-" I told her.

She shook her head without speaking, her hands
semi-relaxed on the control arm. I'd expected that,
and she could pilot as well as I could. So I just
stood by, not distracting her anymore. I was ready if
needed, or as ready as I could be, and she knew it.
She kept evading our nearest pursuer, and we kept
getting farther and farther from Evdash, but the
cruiser kept getting nearer.

Then the cruiser launched three tiny blips-chasers-
and I discovered what it looked like to be really
gained on. Their launch position had already been
gaining on us, and to that velocity they added their
own-not too great at first, but it would increase
fast. My glance flicked to the instrument
screen-614,000, 615,000, 616,000-and back to the
monitor. Deneen's principal attention was still on
our original bogey-had to be-as he slipped and
swerved around the ring, but mine was on the chasers.
They were getting closer. And now there were three
rings in the midline port screen, each with a little
bogey in or near it. As soon as any one of them was
near enough to lock on us, that would be it. Their
torpedoes would follow us unshakeably, even into FTL
if need be.

My eyes had just read 622,000 when Deneen hit the FTL
key. I didn't see her do it, but the monitors went
blank and so did the for'rd window. And we hadn't
come apart! The instrument screen read "all systems
ftl-mode normal, PSEUDOVELOCiTY i." The chasers
hadn't launched torpedoes before we jumped; launch
would have shown on the monitor. Which meant we were
safe from them.

Deneen got up as if she could hardly move, and
without looking at me, said, "The old survey cube is
in my attache case." It lay on the deck beside the
pilot seat, and she poked it with a foot.

"The old survey cube?" I stared at her. "You want to
go to Fanglith?"

"Why not? We don't have anywhere else. Take over. I'm
going to take a shower and lie down for a while. We
can talk later."

Without waiting for an answer, she went aft to one of
the sleeping rooms.

Fanglith! Still, this was not the time to overrule or
argue with her. I slid onto the pilot's seat, took
the survey cube out of the case, and inserted it in
the computer. The computer was standard and the main
menu format familiar. At my instruction it gave me
the menu for the survey cube, then read off the
coordinate equation for Fanglith and wrote it into
astrogation. Deneen was right. We could talk about it
after she'd unwound a bit, and decide on some other
destination, if for no other reason than that we
didn't have enough food to get to Fanglith.
Grinder maybe-the place Piet had talked about- where
dad and mom were likely to go if they got off Evdash.


PART TWO

THE MEDITERRANEAN

EIGHT


Deneen's nap was a long one-about four hours. Not
that I kept track of the time. Now that the pressure
was off, it was as if I'd been hit by a sandbag, and
for a while I sat around in a sort of daze. I'd lost
Jenoor, and Piet, and maybe my parents to the Empire,
yet I didn't feel hate or anger or anything with
enough juice in it to call grief. I guess desolation
would be the word. Anyway, when Deneen came back out
and I looked at the chronometer, four hours had
passed.

Tarel woke up a little later, and the three of us
discussed destinations. We decided to go to Fanglith
after all. It wasn't that Deneen argued me into it;
she'd have preferred Grinder, too, but the ship's
astrogation cube had nothing on a planet named
Grinder. Nothing at all. And neither did the one that
dad had left us, nor the old survey cube, of course.
A nickname, I thought. Grinder was a nickname. And
Piet wasn't there to tell us what its real name was.
So I ran a computer search for the name Grinder,
hoping that somewhere in data storage it might be
mentioned and cross-referenced to an official name.
But there wasn't a single place in all our cubes
where "grinder" occurred with a capital G.

There were coordinates for probably all the old
colonies, of course, but we didn't know enough about
them to make intelligent guesses on which ones the
Imperials might leave alone for a while. Or where
they might already be. Going to any of them would
take time, during which we'd be using up our food
supplies, and we could find ourselves arriving
somewhere to find an Imperial flotilla sitting there.
While Fanglith-Fanglith was probably the last place
the Empire would ever get around to. And while
Fanglith had lots of dangers, at least they were
dangers we knew something about- dangers we were at
least somewhat prepared for.

Also, as Deneen pointed out, dad had left us a copy
of the old survey cube, as if he'd wanted us to have
Fanglith as an option. The medkit contained a
broad-spectrum immunoserum, especially important on a
world like Fanglith that didn't have significant
medical facilities. It didn't take more than half an
hour to talk it all out. Then I went aft to sleep,
and found out I had juice enough for grief after all.
I don't believe I'd cried since I was ten; now I
cried hard enough in five minutes to more than make
up for it. Then I slept-for more than six hours, and
without a dream, so far as I could tell. When I woke
up, I was functional again.

Fifty-seven days was a long trip. The library cubes
mom and dad had left in the package helped-especially
Tarel. He studied the files on primitive felid worlds
that had helped Deneen and me prepare for Fanglith on
our first trip, plus the debrief I'd recorded-I'd
entitled it Fanglith-describing my experiences there.

There was the problem of food, of course. Even Tarel,
with his "something out of nothing" metabolism,
wasn't in any danger of getting fat. The ship's
stocks- ten days of food for six-came out to fifteen
days for four, of course. At normal consumption
rates, plus there were some dried emergency rations.
What made the trip feasible was the chest Deneen and
Bubba had dragged aboard-the one we'd supposedly gone
to the landing field to deliver. It had extra marine
field uniforms and a few other things, but also it
had dried field rations. After an hour of reading
packages, recording the data on a note cube, and
instructing the computer, it came out that we had
about thirty days' worth of dried food to go with the
scout's regular rations.
Deneen, Tarel, and I lived pretty much on the dried
rations, because whoever had put our field rations
together had overlooked one thing-canid food. Most of
the dry stuff wasn't suitable for Bubba's system, so
he got most of the regular food-and even that wasn't
really suitable for him-while none of us ate more of
anything than we had to.

It could have been worse. The ship's log told us that
the life support systems had been inspected and
okayed just the day before we'd stolen her, so air
and water were no problem. And there was an exercise
machine. Also, Deneen and I recorded all we could
remember, which was most of it, of the mixture of
Norman French and Provencal we'd used on Fanglith.
Then Tarel, using the learning program, learned to
speak it, too-with our mispronunciations, of course.
One thing that surprised me was how well all of us
stood the trip, especially considering how it had
started. After my heavy grief surge that first day,
the only time I got really depressed was a couple of
days later. That's when it hit me really thoroughly
that Jenoor was truly gone-that I'd never see her
again. After that, I rarely even fantasized that she
was with me.

I did fantasize a few good killing sprees though, the
first few days. I butchered the Imperial Council all
the ways I could think of-but not the marine gunners,
Some Evdashian marines in a gun tower, following
orders, had poured gunfire into some people they
didn't know-strangers a couple of hundred yards away
in the semidark. They'd had nothing against us, and
chances are they'd wished they hadn't had to. Maybe
they'd even tried to shoot a little wild. After all,
Deneen and Bubba had escaped without even being
wounded, which seemed to me to go beyond luck.
Whatever. The facts were the facts: Jenoor and Piet
were dead; Deneen and Tarel and Bubba and I were
alive. About mom and dad we could hope.

Deneen didn't talk much the first day or so out;
after that, she seemed pretty much her usual self.
Tarel did, too, most of the time. His one outsurge
seemed to take care of his grief, too, and he'd been
rational and decisive when it was needed-at just the
time I'd gone momentarily crazy. On the trip he'd
been quiet, but no quieter than usual. And although
he'd never seen the controls of a spacecraft before,
he was soon as familiar with them as Deneen and I
were. He did dry runs on flying until he felt at ease
with them. And we all familiarized ourselves with the
ship's armament.

Bubba was the one who surprised me. Before this trip,
his emotions had always seemed really healthy- more
so than those of any human I'd ever known. Mostly,
he'd been cheerful ever since dad had brought him
home to live with us. He'd often been playful, in his
way, and somber only rarely. When necessary, he'd
been tough-all smarts and action-like when the Norman
hunters and their hounds had chased him for hours as
a native wolf on Fangiith. And when, days later, we'd
had the run-in with the Federation political police
in Normandy.
But for the first several days out from Evdash, he
kept to himself a lot more than usual, seeming
positively moody. I'd never seen him that way before.
He knew when I first noticed, of course, and had gone
into his own cabin and closed the door, so I never
asked him about it. I figured if he ever wanted to
tell me, he would. After about the third day, though,
he got back at least to semi-normal, except that the
diet got to him like it did the rest of us.

One of the things we got around to talking about,
after a week or so, was what we'd do when we got to
Fangiith. The surface was really dangerous there; it
seemed as if fighting and wars were their most
important activities, with robbery and murder pretty
popular too. Actually, Fangiith was considerably more
dangerous than Evdash under the Empire, a realization
that kind of took me by surprise. On Fangiith it
seemed like a case of cultural immaturity. With the
Empire it seemed more like cultural degeneracy.

On Fangiith there was also the problem of not
blending in with the people there. Oh, for brief
periods maybe, or to someone who wasn't really
looking, but that was all. Physically we looked about
the same, sure, but we thought and acted differently.
Without realizing it, we did things they didn't,
while we didn't know things that everyone else there
knew. We didn't know how to be peasants or nobles, we
had no skill with their weapons, we'd be in constant
risk of saying or doing something that might outrage
or insult them or mark us as fools . , . And, of
course, every time we spoke, we were obviously
foreigners.

So what could we possibly accomplish there? Our main
reason for leaving Evdash, so far as I could see, was
to foment revolution against the Glondis Empire. But
the more I looked at it, the more impossible that
seemed on Fanglith. It was the wrong kind of world,
with the wrong kind of history and the most primitive
technology. And actually, from what little I knew of
it, their governments were worse than the Empire-at
least some of them were.

Operating on Fanglith would be up to me, more than to
anyone else. I was the oldest, and the only one with
much experience on the surface there. And I was male-
that was important on their world. I'd have to be the
one to land, get provisions, make deals and
arrangements.

So naturally, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the
responsibility, and I told the others just how I felt
about it. Deneen just leaned on the little galley
table and looked me calmly in the eye.

"Brother mine," she said, "the last time you
complained about how impossible things were was on
Fanglith. I was a prisoner on a Federation police
corvette, but I've heard you and mom and dad talk
about it. And Bubba. You were all stuck down there on
the surface of the planet with nothing more than hand
weapons to work with-hand weapons and some Norman
warriors who'd have happily cut all your throats to
get hold of your pistols."

Her eyes grabbed mine and wouldn't let them go. "And
you pulled that one off."

That was beside the point, I wanted to tell her. That
had been then. The situation had been
different. I'd been lucky. But all I could answer
was: "Dad had as much to do with it as I did."

"Not according to him he didn't." Her gaze withdrew
for a minute. "I can see the difficulties you're
talking about, and the dangers. But it seems to me
that when we get down to it, having a scout ship will
make up for a lot. And if things don't shape up for
us there, we can take on fresh provisions and try
another world somewhere. The fuel slug on this rig is
good for years and years if we don't run her too long
at high speeds in proximity mode."
She had a point. I'd been letting myself get bogged
down in the difficulties. And although dad had played
as big a role as I had in the final showdown on
Fanglith, all in all, it had been my show. So I said
okay, she'd made sense, and we didn't talk much about
it the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, Tarel and I let our hair grow, to look
more like Fanglithans. Also, we found a drawer with
several remotes-small receiver units you can put in
your ear for confidential radio reception. They
operate on a wireless relay from your belt
communicator, and with our hair over our ears, no
Fanglithan would know we had them.

Eventually, one day near ship's "midnight," the
scout's honker woke us up. We'd set it to let us know
when the computer kicked us down out of FTL mode.
Ahead of us we could see the system's primary-the sun
that Fanglith circled. Seen from where we were, it
was a glaring, small white globule against a
star-frosted backdrop of deepest black. We were
farther out from Fanglith than we'd expected-part of
the tiny error inherent in servomechanisms and
ancient equations-but still less than a day away in
mass-proximity mode.

I had flitter bugs in my stomach. I wasn't sure how
much of it was just plain excitement and how much was
fear, There'd be enough of both in store for me on
Fanglith. I took a deep breath. Whatever, I told
myself. When we'd taken care of a few preliminaries,
we'd be eating real food again, all of us, breathing
unrecycled air, and seeing the surface of a planet
where surely the Empire hadn't landed.


NINE


The first time we'd arrived, I'd been sixteen and
Deneen fourteen, and we'd known almost nothing about
Fanglith. So we'd looked it over pretty carefully.
You might think we wouldn't need to a second time,
but we weren't taking any chances. We made several
slow swings around it at 40,000 miles, monitoring for
radio signals just in case Imperials had landed. We
got nothing, and the radio monitoring equipment
aboard the Jav-we'd named our scout The Rebel
Javelin-was pretty sensitive. It was certainly a lot
more sensitive than most private craft would carry,
so we could assume that if we hadn't picked up
anything, there was nothing to pick up.

But to make doubly sure, we moved in below both zones
of heavy radiation and circled at 150 miles above the
surface. We didn't pick up anything from down there,
either. Meanwhile, I'd had the computer establishing
a reference grid for the planet, and because the
scout had a recording broad-band EM scanner, I had it
map the surface for us as we flew over it.

All of which used up another day-another day of short
and monotonous rations. By then we were ready to put
down somewhere, anywhere, to get something fit to
eat. So I called a council.
The immediate problem, I pointed out, was that I
didn't have anything to buy food with, and what I
could think of to trade, they'd have no use for.
Except weapons of course-stunners and guns. We had a
locker full of them, but they weren't anything we
wanted the locals to have. For one thing, they might
decide to use them on us.

Which meant I'd have to trade my services for food.
The question was, what services?

Deneen eyed me coolly. "Larn," she said, "you're
thinking like a planner, which is fine when you have
data to plan with, but right now you don't. What you
need to do is let me put you down somewhere. Then you
circulate and find out what services people want that
you can give them."

It sounded simple, the way she said it, but doing it
, . . Mainly it bothered me that she'd pointed it out
to me in front of Tarel, but she was right. I tended
to worry sometimes when I didn't have a plan of
action all figured out ahead. And there
were-are-times when that just isn't possible. There
are times when a person needs to do whatever comes
next, and figure that somehow he'll make it come out
right.

My mind went back then to something our Norman
knight, Arno de Courmeron, had mentioned when we'd
been here before. There was a seaport in Provence, on
the Mediterranean coast, from which he had planned to
ship horses to-somewhere. Sicily. The island of
Sicily.

"Okay," I said, "let's see if we can find a seaport
named Marseille, in Provence. It's probably as good a
town as any to put down near, and maybe while I'm at
it, I can get a lead on Arno." I smiled smugly.
"Meanwhile, you guys will have to make do with what's
left of the dry food while I line up something down
below."

Which I'd do for them as fast as I could.

We didn't know whether it was Marseille or not. But
it was definitely the biggest Mediterranean seaport
west of the high mountains, with a population of
maybe, oh, eight or ten thousand, at a guess. The
river near it seemed to be the one Arno had called
the Rhone-part of the route he'd probably have taken
from Normandy. We'd followed it once, farther north.

Here it divided into a number of channels, to flow
into the sea through broad, wild, delta marshes. The
town we were assuming to be Marseille was the nearest
seaport, lying not many miles east of the river, away
from the marshes. If it wasn't Marseille, it would do
for the time being.

Actually I was enjoying working without a plan. Not
that I considered "no plan" a virtue-I looked forward
to having one. But it was kind of exhilarating,
playing by ear, and it wasn't entirely "no plan"-it
was more as if the plan only existed for a step or
two in advance, not all the way to the goal.

We'd spied out the terrain from three miles up, with
a viewscreen magnification that let us examine things
in detail when we wanted to. Especially the road that
led from river to town. Where it approached the town,
it ran along not far from the sea, with high, rugged
hills close behind it to the north. As a road, it was
mainly the tracks of animals in the stony, muddy
ground, with the cartwheel ruts mostly broken down by
hooves. It looked as if it had rained a lot lately.

Just then there wasn't much moving on it. On one
stretch, for example, two peasants on foot, with long
sharpened sticks, prodded along six of Fanglith's
version of cattle. These are big, hoofed animals,
with two horns curving out from above their ears.
Behind the two peasants, a heavy-bodied man rode on a
"horse," an animal resembling a gorn. He seemed to be
the men's boss-their "master," as they call them on
Fanglith.

A quarter mile ahead of them were three men walking
together, carrying stout staffs that could be used
for fighting as well as walking. Their clothes were
old, dirty, and patched. A hundred yards ahead of
them was a two-wheeled cart pulled by a donkey-a
small, long-eared animal a little like a horse. The
cartwheels looked almost as if they'd been sawed from
tree trunks in single pieces.

That was all the traffic on a half-mile piece of
road. Not what you'd call heavy use or high speed.

Next, there was the question of where to put me down.
From our earlier experience on Fanglith, we'd
concluded it was best to keep our ship secret until
we needed to exercise some power, because unless we
handled things right, people would react to it in one
of two ways: either hate and fear, on the assumption
that we were what they thought of as devils or demons
(I'm still not sure what the difference is); or with
greed for our ship and weapons. Either reaction was
dangerous to us.

We'd have to come out in the open sooner or later, of
course, to develop a political power base and
accomplish anything. But for now, I'd land somewhere
where the ship wouldn't be seen, and blend in with
the population the best I could.

And hopefully get a lead on Arno de Courmeron.
Although Arno might not feel altogether friendly to
us now, I was pretty sure I could work with him.

Assuming he was still alive. An ambitious knight in
this world might die anytime. But Arno would take a
lot of killing, and his ambitions had seemed to lie
in getting rich, not necessarily in becoming famous
as a warrior.

It wasn't hard to decide on a time and place for
landing-just before dawn, in a ravine where it opened
onto the narrow coastal rim. It was just above the
road, and only about two miles from the town walls.
The ravine's bottom was rough and sloping, so we
wouldn't land the scout. Tarel would lower me the
last dozen feet with a winch and sling, while Deneen
kept the scout steady.
We thought about landing Bubba with me. When we were
around people, he'd be able to monitor for dangerous
intentions. But he'd also be conspicuous, and make me
conspicuous, especially if he tried to tell me
something, so the decision was for a solo landing.

I'd travel light-stunner, blast pistol, communicator,
and a pocket recorder I'd record all conversation on.
We'd feed the recordings into the scout's computer,
running it through the linguistics program to improve
our knowledge of local language. Then we could use
the learning program to help us learn it.

I'd also wear a crucifix-a local type of religious
artifact-around my neck. I'd cut it from a piece of
steel in the Jav's tiny workshop. Polished, it looked
pretty nice, and it could easily be helpful down
below. I'd made three crosses, actually-one for each
of us humans. I had a notion that for Bubba to wear
one might not be acceptable on Fanglith; their native
canids were not at all on Bubba's intelligence level,
and were considered simply animals.

This time, I'd wear a remote in my ear. I remembered
the trouble I'd gotten into before on Fanglith when
Deneen's voice had come out of my communicator. The
monks had thought I'd had a demon, and I was lucky
not to be burned at a stake.

I stood there in the harness-like sling, wearing a
navy jumpsuit. It wasn't much like what people wore
on Fanglith, but I didn't plan to stay down long this
time, and if I got a chance, I'd get some native
clothes before I returned to the Jav.

It was moonless and cloudy, and had been showering
off and on since evening, which cut down a little on
how clearly our infrascope imaged things on the
ground. But Bubba assured us that no one was near.
Still, as we lowered, we had our windows on one-way
opaque- something you couldn't do with our family
cutter-so we couldn't be noticed.

Deneen, at the controls, stopped our descent, dimmed
our lights nearly out, and keyed the door open.
Touching another control, she swung the winch out of
its housing above the door and into place in the
opening. Tarel hooked its cable to a ring on my
sling, and I tugged on it, testing, then stood
backward in the door. "Take care, you guys," I said.

"Right," Tarel answered, and reached out. We shook on
it.

"You take care, too," Deneen told me over her
shoulder. "And don't take too long getting that food."

Bubba stood with his tail slowly waving, his brown
eyes fixing me. "Have fun," he told me. It was his
standard goodbye, but somehow this time it didn't
have its usual jauntiness. The food on this trip has
gotten to him more than any of us, I thought to
myself.

I leaned back and stepped out into another world.
Until that moment, Fanglith had been something we
looked out at through the windows or on the screens.
Now I was part of it again, already separated from
the secure space inside the Jav. A little shiver of
excitement went through me as I lowered the fifteen
feet to the ground. It had stopped raining, but the
air was cool and moist, and clouds cut off all
starlight. Solid ground met my feet before I even saw
it. It was really dark, and the night smelled
like-well, it didn't smell like recycled ship's air.
It smelled like wet dirt and resinous plants.

I pulled the safety pin and turned the harness
release, and the sling fell away. Then I gave the
cable a triple tug, signaling Tarel that I was free,
and it snaked back up, leaving me behind. A minute
later the vague, faint light from the door closed
off. Another five seconds and the dim form of the Jav
began to lift; three seconds after that, I couldn't
see it anymore.
Time to get on with it.

I hiked carefully out of the ravine, which was wet
and muddy but stony-rough enough for good footing. It
was so dark that I kept stepping into the little
rivulet without seeing it. Five minutes after I'd
backed out the door, I stood on the rough beast trail
that served as the major road to the largest seaport
of Provence. I knew I'd found it when my feet felt
the cattle tracks and stumbled on a wheel rut.

I wasn't worried or even nervous. Somehow my chest
felt big, my body strong, and my self eager.
Because the road was rough and the night so black, I
didn't walk very fast. Only the feel of the tracks
beneath my feet kept me from losing it in the
darkness. After half an hour or so, it was definitely
starting to get light; I could actually see a little
bit. Minutes later I passed a hut, then more of them,
set back from the road. This was the part of town
that was outside the walls. About that time I made
out the town wall itself, ahead in the lightening
grayness.
The gate, when I reached it, was closed. The wall was
maybe thirty feet high, made of stone blocks, and had
battlements on the top. Huddled against it were two
soggy-looking guys with walking staffs. They looked
as if they'd been there most of the night. One eyed
me dully, the other curiously.

"Hello," said the curious one. His language was
Provengal, as I'd expected it would be here.

"Been walking all night?"

"Only since the rain stopped," I said.

"How'd you keep dry?"

"Tent," I lied. "But I didn't like who I shared it
with."

He shrugged.

"When do they open the gate?" I asked.

"Sunrise. Best they can guess on a morning like this.
Come a long way?"

"Pretty far."

"You ain't no Norman, but you been in Normandy, I'll
wager, from your talk."

I could get myself in trouble if I kept answering
questions, so I just nodded.

"English?" he asked. "I've heard the English are
tall, and I never seen clothes like yours before."
Instead of answering, I asked a question of my own.
"Ever hear of a Norman named Arno of Courmeron? I'd
like to find him. I've heard he brings war horses
here, to ship to Sicily."

He shrugged. "Not many Normans take the sea route.
Most go over the Cenis Pass and south through Italy.
Brigands and barons are more to their liking than
storms and Saracen pirates."
I nodded, remembering what I'd heard of Saracens.
They were a military people whom the Normans had
warred with on Sicily. It was the Saracens whom Arno
had fought in the battle that had won him his
knighthood, at a place called Misilmeri.

"But Normans have shipped horses out of Marseille a
time or two," the man went on. "It's faster than
overland. No doubt they'd do more of it if horses
were better sailors. They get sicker'n a pregnant
woman at the slightest seas, and are likely to go
down and break a leg."

Marseille, he'd said. We'd hit it right. "Are you a
sailor?" I asked.

"Aye." He gestured at his companion. "We both are,
though Marco here finds it hard to get hired anymore.
Lost a thumb in a bight, and don't neither row nor
haul ropes so well as he did. Though better'n you'd
maybe think."

I hadn't understood every word he'd said, but enough.
The other man removed his right hand from his armpit,
where he'd been keeping it warm, and displayed the
scarred nub, red and ugly, where once a thumb had
been.

"How can I get some food?" I asked. "Quite a lot of
food."

The talkative sailor snorted, and eyed me even more
curiously. "How much is a lot? All you can eat and
drink you can buy at an inn, if you've got a few
coppers. And the market is in the middle of town.
While if it's a shipload you want ..."

"I have no coppers," I told him. "I'll have to see
what I can do to get some."

"What do you do?" he asked. "Clearly you're no
farmer, nor no sailor, I'll wager. You're no knight
nor sergeant, nor mercenary neither, going about
without weapons." His eyes traveled up and down me.
"A monk, I'd say, except your clothes ain't monkish.
And what else is there?" He shook his head. "It's
sure you're no merchant."

"Mercenary's closest," I told him, and an idea struck
me. "I'm a bodyguard. If a merchant wants his person
kept safe, he'll do well to hire me."

"Is that so?" An eyebrow had raised. "Jesu knows
you're a big one, and maybe strong, though I might
say you don't look the type. Not a scar to be seen,"
He paused. "Nor any weapon at all, unless you carry
one of them little daggers hid in your clothes, and
they be mainly useless in a fight."

I didn't answer, just squatted down beside them. I'd
talked too much already. I had no business claiming
to be a fighting man on this world; someone might
easily call my bluff. And unless I was willing to use
my stunner or pistol, which was undesirable, I could
be dead in a hurry. Hand-foot art was nothing to face
a trained swordsman with, and the odds wouldn't be
good against a skilled knife fighter either.

It was most of an hour before the gate opened, and by
that time it looked as if the weather might clear.
The clouds seemed thin again, and in places blue
showed through. I didn't even say goodbye to the two
sailors, just walked inside and followed the muddy
road, which became a muddy street.

Marseille smelled bad. I'm sure that not all the
water in the street was rain. It seemed as if these
people didn't have much idea of sanitation, and I was
glad we'd used the broad spectrum immunoserum in the
medkit.

There weren't many people on the street yet, but most
that I did see seemed lively enough and not unhappy.
One young guy, a year or two younger than me by his
looks, was striding along whistling, his step
springy. His clothes were red and yellow beneath
their grime.

"Hello, young sir," I said. "Can I ask you a
question?"

He stopped and looked me over. I stood about a head
taller than him. "Ask away," he answered.

"I'm looking for a merchant who will hire me. I do
calculations very quickly." It seemed to me that that
was a safer thing to advertise than martial skills.

The young guy looked interested.   "Calculations?" he
said. "Well, that can be useful.   My own master has a
Saracen slave to do calculations   for him. His abacus
is different from ours, and he's   very quick."

Our conversation wasn't as neat and direct as I'm
telling it here. His pronunciations were a bit
different from those I'd heard before on Fanglith,
and he used words that were new to me, while the
Norman French I mixed with my Provencal gave him a
certain amount of trouble. So a couple of times we
had to stop and sort out meanings with each other.

Anyway, an idea began to develop. "Very quick, you
say," I said, referring to the Saracen slave. "I am
quicker. I calculate more quickly than anyone in
Marseille!"

His eyebrows arched. "You think so?"

"I know it." I took the communicator off my belt, a
military model with a microcomputer built in. "Give
me a problem."

"Add seven to itself nine times."

I didn't need to use the micro for that. "Nine sevens
added to seven equals seventy."

He looked impressed, but also uncertain. It occurred
to me that he couldn't do arithmetic himself, so he
couldn't tell whether I was right or not. I cocked an
eye at him. "Is your master's slave faster than that?"

"I think not. Your answer was virtually
instantaneous."

"Who is the fastest calculator in Marseille?"

"A merchant and shipowner named Isaac ben Abraham, a
Jew from Valencia. He uses an abacus of beads upon
rods, like the Saracen, which is much swifter than
the boards and disks that others use."

"Does he wager?" I asked.

His face went instantly thoughtful. "Would you bet
against him?" he asked back.

"If we're going to talk about things like this, we
should know each other's names. Mine is Larn."

"Mine is Reyno. Would you? Bet against him?"

"I have nothing to bet," I answered. "But if you do,
or if others wish to bet, for a percentage of their
winnings I would contest against this-Isaac?"

"Isaac ben Abraham. Let me take you to my master,
Carolus the Stonecutter. He sometimes wagers, but he
will wish first to see the horse run."

"Of course," I said. "Take me to him." Meanwhile I
was recording our conversation. It would be useful to
speak Provencal better, including speaking it without
a mixture of Norman French.

He nodded, and we began to walk briskly in the
direction he'd been going. "I could stand to win a
bet," he said. "I am in love with Margareta, the
youngest daughter of Henrico the mason, and she with
me. We wish to marry. But first I must have money,
and soon, before her father promises her to someone
else. She is already fifteen, though small for her
age," he went on.
"In her family the women mature late."

Already fifteen. Jenoor had been sixteen, would have
been seventeen soon now. Again I had that empty
feeling. Where would we be if she and Piet had
escaped with us? Together on some more or less
civilized world, probably Grinder. Compared to
Fanglith, Grinder would seem like home.

I spent the quarter-mile walk to Reyno's master's
feeling sorry for myself, hardly aware that Reyno was
whistling again. The stonecutter's place was two
stories high, and set back from the street about
thirty feet. The front yard was partly filled with
blocks of rough-cut stones, some of them partly
recut, and the ground was littered with chips and
shards. A short stocky man, wearing a rough leather
apron and holding a hammer and chisel, was examining
one of the blocks as if looking for the right place
to attack it. Reyno tossed him a cheery "good
morning" and led me past; the man was not Carolus.

As you might expect, the building was made of stone,
its blocks cut to roughly the same size. The stout
plank door was open and we went in. There was more
work space inside, with blocks lying around on the
dirt floor. The windows were large, probably for
light, and had no glass; the shutters I'd noticed,
which opened back against the outside walls, were
apparently all there was to close them with.

Carolus the stonecutter was a tall man for Fanglith,
or at least for the places I'd been-only a few inches
shorter than me. Even with a bulging middle, he
looked extremely strong. He scowled at us as we came
in.

"You're late," he snapped to Reyno.

"Yes sir. I met this young gentleman and brought him
with me. His name is Larn. He has an interesting
proposition-one that could be profitable."

The stonecutter's dark little eyes moved to me and
stayed for a few seconds before he said anything
more. My jumpsuit looked a lot different from clothes
in Provence or Normandy, or any I'd seen at any rate.
For a shirt, they generally wear a thing resembling a
loose jacket that covers the upper legs. They call it
a tunic. Instead of pants, most of the men wear a
sort of leggings, with a kind of undershorts-more of
a diaper, actually-to cover their genitals. None of
it really fits. Also, the shoes don't have separate
soles, and they don't press shut around the foot.
Instead, they have a leather thong you draw them snug
with and then tie. "Where are you from?" Carolus
asked me. So there it was. I was going to have to
tell him something, and it had to be a lie-hopefully,
one that wouldn't trip me up. Remembering my
one-night lecture on the world of Fanglith from
Brother Oliver, more than two years earlier, I
answered "India." India was a place that everyone had
heard of and apparently no one had been. Things that
were said about it sounded pretty imaginative.

His eyes had paused at my crucifix. "You're
Christian."

"Yes. Although I've not been thoroughly instructed in
it."

He shrugged. I'd already learned that most Christians
hadn't been. "What is this interesting proposition?"
he wanted to know.
"I'm a master calculator," I said. "Reyno tells me
that the swiftest calculator in Marseille is a man
named Isaac ben Abraham. I am faster at difficult
calculations than he can possibly be, and perhaps at
simple ones too. It seems to me we could have a
contest, he and I, and there could be wagers. Whoever
bet on me would win. In reward, I would get part of
their winnings."

Carolus looked thoughtful. "You have not seen the Jew
at his abacus; he is lightning swift. He is a man
late in middle years, who was calculating long before
you were born."

This kind of conversation would lead nowhere. "You
have a slave who does your calculations," I said. "Is
he fast?"

"Faster than most. But not so fast as the jew."
"Let's see how much faster I am than your slave." For
just a moment Carolus stood examining me. Then he
turned toward a staircase that led upstairs through a
raised trapdoor. "Faid!" he bellowed. "Down here!"

A few seconds later a slender, dark-complected man
came down the stairs. He might have been thirty or
thirty-five. "Yes, my lord?"

"I have need of your calculations."

"Yes, my lord." Faid walked over to a table beneath
one of the windows. Carolus, Reyno, and I followed.
There Faid sat down, and with one hand drew a sort of
open-topped small box to him, a box with rows of
beads on what seemed to be thin wooden rods. He
looked questioningly at Carolus.

"Do a difficult problem," Carolus said to him, "but
do not say from what roots, or what the answer is."

For just a moment Faid looked puzzled, then shrugged.
His fingers moved quickly, the beads clicking for a
few seconds. "It is done."
Carolus turned to me. "Where is your abacus?" he
asked.

I took out my communicator, which was also a
microcomputer, and switched it on. "Here," I answered.

He turned to Faid. "State your roots," he said.

"Twenty-eight fourfold."

"One hundred twelve," I answered. I didn't need my
computer for that.

Carolus's eyebrows raised slightly and he turned to
Faid. "Is that right?" he asked.

"Exactly right." The Saracen looked at me with
considerable interest. "And what are the portions if
you divide 144 into 18 equal parts?" His fingers
raced as he asked it.

"Nine each," I said. "I need no abacus for that." Our
math teachers in lower school had drilled us
thoroughly. It looked as if this was going to be easy.

Faid looked up at Carolus. "He is right." Then he
turned to me. "What sort of question would cause you
to use your abacus?"

"Oh, the square root of some large number. Do you
know how to do square roots?"

Faid nodded. "In the main they are problems for
geometers. I can do them, but it takes time."

"Fine," I said. "Calculate a large square; that'll be
easier. Then tell me what the square is and I'll give
you its roots."

"Stand away then," he answered, "so you cannot see
what roots I use."
We moved a few steps away and I turned my back to
him. After a short while he said: "The square is
1,369."

I tapped 1,369 into the computer and asked for the
square root. "The root is 37," I said, and turned to
look at him. It had taken me about two seconds, which
was about half as long as Paid stared at me before he
said anything again.

"That is correct." He sounded impressed, or maybe
awed would be more like it. "You must be Indian."

Carolus pursed his lips, then made a decision. "Paid,
mention this to no one. None of it. How fast he is,
that he comes from India, none of it. And you, Reyno:
Keep that glib mouth shut, or I'll see you
tongueless." Then he turned to me. "What is your name
again?"

"Larn."

"Larn," he said, "we have things to talk about."


TEN


Carolus sent Reyno to Isaac ben Abraham, inviting him
to contest with "a youth who is truly marvelous at
calculations." Ben Abraham answered in writing, which
Faid read to his master; reading was something else
the Saracen could do and Carolus couldn't. After
commenting that it was unimportant to him whether
someone else could calculate faster or not, ben
Abraham said it would amuse him to take me on. He
offered to bet fifty gold bezants or an equivalent in
Pisan solidi.

Carolus the stonecutter was a careful man who would
bet only what he could afford to lose, even when it
seemed almost certain that he wouldn't. And he felt
very uncomfortable at the thought of betting fifty
bezants. He sent back word that he would bet only
twenty. Reyno had almost nothing of his own to bet,
but borrowed two bezants from his master, Carolus was
grumpy about lending it, and I suspect he only did it
to keep Reyno from trying to borrow elsewhere and
being questioned. He felt uneasy about word of the
contest getting out.

Ben Abraham, smelling Carolus's uncertainty, decided
he could probably beat me, and got Carolus up to
thirty against his own sixty. Then, in amusement, he
agreed to cover Reyno's small bet at odds of three to
one. All of this was arranged through Reyno as
courier.

Carolus was to pay me a sixth, or ten bezants, if I
won. I wasn't sure what he'd try to do if I lost, but
I couldn't see any chance of that happening.

The contest was to take place in the office of Isaac
ben Abraham, shortly after the hour called
"sext"-local midday, as far as I could tell. After
eating an early lunch, we walked there through spring
sunshine. I was impressed by ben Abraham's offices.
They were clean, and there were decorative woven
cloths called tapestries on some of the walls.

I was even more impressed with Isaac ben Abraham. He
was the biggest man I'd seen yet on Fanglith, and the
tallest except for a Norman knight named Brislieu.
Besides which, he looked as if, under the fat, he'd
be very strong physically. His face went with an age
of about fifty or fifty-five, but his long black hair
had only scattered threads of gray. He also had a
bigger, thicker beard than I'd ever imagined, and
wore the richest clothes, topped by a long,
far-trimmed, brown velvet cape. All in all, when he
spoke in his rich bass voice, people were likely to
pay attention.

And it was obvious that he washed, he and the man who
ushered us into his office. I'd never seen a clean
Fanglithan before. I hadn't realized there were any.
He had his servant pour wine for us. It was weak and
kind of watery-intended for flavor, not to get anyone
tight. After Carolus introduced us, ben Abraham
looked me over with eyes that were shiny black.
"Larn," he said, as if tasting the name. "What is
your age?"

"I am a few days short of nineteen."

"And you are already very fast?"

"Very," I answered.

"By the design of your crucifix, I take it you follow
the Church of Rome, yet it appears that you bathe.
How is that?"

I had no idea what a safe answer might be, but l had
to say something. "I was told to by the Abbot of St.
Stephen at Isere. For a rash I get sometimes." I
crossed myself when I'd said it, the way I'd learned
to do at the monastery, and changed the subject. "I'm
ready to contest when it is time."

I'd no sooner said it than the cathedral bells began
to ring. A cathedral is a large church-a building in
which the Christians carry out important religious
activities. Cathedrals apparently always have a bell
tower. The people of Fanglith don't have clocks. They
read the hour by the shadow on an etched metal plate
set in the sun. They also measure intervals of time
by the flow of sand through a narrow opening between
adjacent glass hemispheres. But most people simply go
by the ringing of bells in the city's cathedral.
These are rung several times a day to tell the people
when it's time to pray.

As soon as the bells had stopped ringing, Carolus and
Key no lowered their heads and began to pray out
loud. I didn't know the prayers, but it was expected
of me so I did the best I could: I recited a poem,
"The Greening of Dancer's Desert," in Evdashian:
'Twas on the planet Dancer In the System Farness
Meth, There spread a windswept desert Named the
Emptiness of Death, The director, Kalven Denken,
Wearied by its furnace breath, Swore to plant its
desolation, End the Emptiness of Death He never
dreamed what it would cost, Nor the kind of coin. In
faith, Had he known, he'd not have sworn To plant the
Emptiness of Death. ...
I kept going until the others stopped, and when we
were done, Garolus scowled at me suspiciously. Isaac
ben Abraham looked on with interest, and again with
that hint of amusement.

"What heretical tongue was that?" Carolus demanded.

It smelled like trouble for sure. My answer was as
much a surprise to me as to him, and based on what
Arno of Courmeron had said at the monastery two years
earlier. "That was Aramaic," I told him. "The
language of our Lord Jesu Christ."

I could only hope Carolus didn't speak Aramaic. He
frowned. "It sounded like Saracen to me," he said
suspiciously.

It was Isaac ben Abraham who answered. "It does
indeed. We Jews speak Aramaic in our churches and
homes, in the reading of the Talmud. Also, we speak
it in trade with Jews of other lands. From his
dialect, obviously Larn learned it in the Holy Land,
from Syrian monks, whose tongues are not colored by
any vernacular." He looked at me with respect.
"Truly, I am impressed."

I was more than impressed. I was relieved, but also a
little worried. I couldn't imagine what reason Isaac
ben Abraham might have had for lying me out of
trouble.

After that, the contest was an anticlimax for me. We
were to calculate in rounds-the best of nine would
win. In each round, ben Abraham would pose a problem
and we'd both calculate the answer. Then I'd pose
one. If we tied a round, each of us winning a half,
then we were supposed to replay the round until one
of us won both halves.

But of course I won right away. I didn't know what to
expect from Isaac ben Abraham then, or his household
guards. I only hoped I wouldn't have to use my
stunner. But what he did was pay Carolus and Reyno
what they'd won, weighing out the coins to satisfy
Carolus that they hadn't been shaved. Reyno was
practically dancing, and Carolus's usually sour face
was actually smiling as he paid me my ten gold
bezants.

Then ben Abraham had wine poured again. "And what
will you do with your winnings, young Larn?" he asked.

"I'm not sure how much I can buy with ten bezants," I
told him. "I'd like to buy food-fresh meat, cheese,
fish, and flour. And dried fruit, if I can get any.
And rent a donkey to take it to friends I know, who
are hungry."

Carolus looked at me as if I was crazy, but didn't
say anything. Ben Abraham looked at me as if he'd
like to know what I was really all about. Reyno
looked at me as if he didn't really see me; his
thoughts were on the girl he might be able to marry
now.

By evening I had a donkey loaded with freshly
butchered beef, a huge round cheese, dried fish,
dates, olives, and other foods I'd bought in the
market. Plus two daggers, two short swords, and a set
of cheap local clothes for all three of us. The short
swords were way the most expensive: a bezant each.
Except for a dagger that I'd fastened to my belt, all
of it was loaded in two big baskets slung across the
donkey's back. They almost hid the donkey.

And I also owned the donkey! I hoped I could bring
him back to the market and sell him for what I paid
for him. But if I simply had to let him loose, that
would be okay too, because I still had two of my gold
pieces left.


ELEVEN


I left the city gate just before it closed at
sundown, and followed the road westward, leading my
donkey by his rope halter, Off to my left was the
sea, beautiful in sunlight, and a beach with no one
on it. After a little while I turned off on a trail
that wound its way down to it.

The beach seemed like the nearest decent landing
place, except for the road itself. After unloading
the baskets onto the sand, I tied the donkey to a
bush a little way above the beach-far enough that the
scout shouldn't scare him out of his wits. Then, when
it was dark, I called Deneen to come get me. When
they landed, Bubba trotted down the ramp and off into
the brush above the beach without a word. He needed
to get out and stretch his legs and hunt. Knowing
Bubba, I had no doubt he'd catch fresh meat by dawn,
when he was to meet us. And no way would he bother my
donkey, or anyone's livestock. Well-not my donkey,
anyway. But he was bound to be pretty desperate for a
proper meal.

After Tarel and I got my purchases loaded into the
scout, we took off, and Deneen parked us twenty-one
miles above Marseille. There I loaded the contents of
my recorder into the computer, and while Deneen and
Tarel started putting the food away, I had the
linguistics program analyze the language contents
against the Provencal and Norman it already knew. It
didn't take long-a few seconds. Then I had the
computer copy it into the learning program. When that
was done, I sat down in the copilot's seat, put on a
learning skullcap, and proceeded to upgrade my
knowledge of Provencal, running through all we knew
of it now until I had it thoroughly.
That done, I took off the skullcap, got up, and went
back to the little galley. Deneen was bloody to the
elbows. "Next time," she said, looking up at me
grimly, "see if you can get the meat cut up into
pieces that'll fit into storage. This place doesn't
have the facilities for cutting up forty-pound hunks
of beef-especially tough beef!"

I could see what she meant. They were trying to work
on a counter fourteen inches wide. And not only were
they bloody, and the counter bloody, but blood was
dripping onto the floor and had smeared the wall
behind the counter. She and Tarel had taken off their
shoes, and their feet were smeared red. So far,
they'd gotten about a fourth of the beef cut and
wrapped for putting away.

"Sorry," I said.

She held up one of the belt knives we'd had on
Evdash. "This is the biggest thing we have to work
with," she added, a little less hostile now. "It
would help if you bring a butcher knife next time,
even if you do bring the meat in smaller pieces. And
we need rags to wipe blood with. We're trying not to
use paper toweling; we're almost out of it."

She gestured at the large cleaning drum, where I
could see the clothes I'd bought. "I put them in
there on sanitize, in case they've got any of those
mean little critters you got infested with our last
trip here," She grinned then, sheepishly. "Oh, and
let me thank you for bringing all these tasties,
brother mine. You really did do good work getting
them, and I honestly appreciate it. It's just that
the meat needs a few improvements in preprocessing."

"Can I help in here?" I asked.

"There's not room for three at once. No, just stand
there and admire us, and tell us what you have in
mind to do next."
So I did. Before dawn I'd go back to my donkey. Then
I'd return to Marseille and see if I could have a
long talk with Isaac ben Abraham; I had the notion I
could learn even more from him than I had from
Brother Oliver two and a half years before. Certainly
he could expand our knowledge of Provencal a lot. And
if it was unusual to transport horses by sea, then,
as a shipowner, ben Abraham might know of Arno. I had
no idea how many shipowners there were in Marseille,
or even if Arno had gotten this far with his horse
herd. It was a long dangerous distance from Normandy.

"Then," I finished, "we may have enough information
to plan intelligently."

"I'd like to go with you next time," Tarel put in.
"I'd like to get a firsthand feel for what it's like
down there."

I looked at that and felt uncomfortable with it, but
I couldn't come up with any strong reason why he
shouldn't. He was as old as I'd been the first time
I'd landed alone on Fanglith, and he already knew
quite a lot of the language. "All right by me," I
answered. "It'll probably be safer with two of us.
Tell you what: I'll help Deneen. You wash up and
spend some time on the learning program, upgrading
your Provencal. Then, after we try on our new
clothes, we'd better get some sleep. We need to get
down there before daylight."

Deneen set the scout's honker, and it woke us up an
hour ahead of estimated daybreak. Then, twenty-one
miles above Marseille, we ate a quick breakfast while
watching for the first sign of dawn to touch the
horizon, which, from our altitude, was four hundred
miles east. That would give us roughly twenty minutes
to get down and on the beach and let Deneen get away
while it was still full night on the surface. When
the first touch of dawn showed, far to the east, we
hurriedly finished eating and stowed our dishes in
the cleaner. Then Deneen dropped the twenty-one miles
to the beach. As we slowed for landing, the
infrascope showed what had to be Bubba lying a few
dozen yards from the donkey- far enough, and no doubt
downwind, not to upset it seriously. Except for those
two, there was nothing large and warm blooded
anywhere near.

When we landed and Tarel and I stepped down the ramp,
Bubba was at its foot. "Catch anything worth eating?"
I asked him.

He grinned-something he hadn't been doing a lot of.
"Even rodents good after long time on ship's food,"
he woofed, then trotted up into the cutter.

Even without any overcast, we couldn't see far in the
moonless night. The cutter was lost in darkness only
seconds after the door closed.

Nothing had happened to my donkey while I was gone,
but a lot had happened to the bush I'd tied him to.
He'd eaten most of the tough little leaves and a lot
of the smaller twigs. I untied his halter rope and we
started up the slope from the beach. Looking off to
my right, it seemed as if there was already a hint of
gray dawn where the land met the eastern sky. By the
time we got to the road, there was a distinct wash of
gray along the horizon, and even with lots of stars
still bright above us, we could see a little better.

It was pretty much daylight when we reached the city
gate, and we squatted there with a few others, backs
to the wall. Minutes later we watched sunlight touch
the hilltops to the northwest, and heard the heavy
gate bar being drawn back. We stood up, getting out
of the way, heard the hinges groan, then the gates
were pushed open by the gate guards.

It's not surprising that so many Fanglithans are
burly and strong for their size. Just about
everything seems to be done by muscle power, and lots
of simple things, like opening the massive, timbered
gates, are heavy labor. Of course, not all
Fanglithans are husky and strong, by any means. Their
genetics dictates that lots of them will have slim
builds, and I suspect that most of them weren't
properly nourished as children. That's probably why
they're mostly short by our standards; at least it's
a better explanation than genetics. Their parent
stock hadn't been any different from our own, or not
much different, anyway. They'd been mind-wiped
political prisoners dumped on Fanglith eighteen
thousand or so years ago by the mad emperor Karkzhuk.

Another thing about Fanglithans - a surprising number
have lost their teeth. They don't seem to have any
idea of dental care, and that probably interferes
with proper eating. I suspect that quite a few of
them have chronic physical ailments that would be
easily cured in high-tech societies, or wouldn't have
happened in the first place.

Like I said though, a lot of them are husky and
strong-looking, even if short, and that included the
gate guards who watched us enter. But they saw
nothing troublesome in Tarel and me, even as big as
we were by their standards. We were dressed now in
native clothes, and the shortswords and daggers on
our belts weren't unusual.

We went first to the marketplace, where I sold my
donkey back to the man I'd bought it from. He only
offered me half what I'd paid him for it, and as a
matter of form and principle, I dickered him up to
two-thirds. He wasn't more than about five feet tall,
but it didn't seem to bother him at all that Tarel
and I, five-ten and six-one, were really big by
Fanglithan standards - or at least by standards in
Provence and Normandy.

From the marketplace we went straight to Isaac ben
Abraham's. The armed servant at the door recognized
me, but had us wait in the courtyard while he sent
someone to notify his master. The man was back in a
minute, and escorted us to ben Abraham's office.
The merchant's eyes, alert and wise, watched us in.
"You are back quickly," he said, then chuckled. Ben
Abraham's version of a chuckle was more of a deep
rumble. "If your friend is another rapid calculator,"
he added, "I am not in the mood for more contests.
What may I do for you?"

I'd thought a bit, in my bunk before I slept, of how
I would answer that question - how I'd open the
conversation to get us the kind of information we
needed. "My lord," I said, "you are a learned man,
while in this land I am ignorant of much I should
know, as you no doubt noticed. Yesterday you saved me
from possible trouble, with what you said about my
'Aramaic,' which I believe you knew was not Aramaic
at all."

"Nor any other language I have ever heard," he
answered. "Not Greek nor Italian nor Spanish nor
Arabic. Nor Armenian nor Swabian, as far as that's
concerned. Certainly not Hebrew, and definitely not
Aramaic." He paused, his gaxe sharpening. "Your
calculations were fast beyond belief. Are you Indian?"

"No, I'm not Indian, although I told Carolus the
stonecutter that I was. Carolus doesn't care for
things that feel mysterious to him, and I needed to
tell him something he could accept. In fact, I'm from
a land called Evdash, and so far as I know, no one in
this part of the world has heard of it except from me.

"And that brings me to another matter. I have been in
Provence before, and also in Normandy, two and a half
years ago. At that time I had as a friend and ally a
Norman knight named Arno de Courmeron. I would like
to find him again. When we parted, I had provided him
with a herd of war horses, and he intended to drive
them south to Marseille ..."

At that point, Isaac   ben Abraham's bushy eyebrows
arched. I decided he   must know Arno, or at least have
heard of him, unless   he was reacting to what I'd said
about providing Arno   with a herd of war horses.
". . . from where," I continued, "he intended to take
them to Sicily by ship. Do you know anything about
him?"

He nodded. "This Arno has come through twice-the
first time, incredibly, with only two mercenaries to
help him. It seemed impossible that three men could
have brought forty war horses hundreds of dangerous
miles from Normandy, with brigands and barons hungry
for plunder all along the way."

Forty! Unless that was a rough approximation, he'd
actually increased his herd after we'd left him.
"When was the last time?" I asked.

"Late last summer. He had three knights and sergeants
with him that time, and three villeins. And again,
forty horses. All mares this time-all of the war
horse breed."

"Did any stories follow him?" I wondered if he'd made
a name for himself with the stunner and blast pistol
we'd left him.

"None that I've heard. He came to me asking for
transport. I'd hauled Norman war horses before, for
William of Caen, and your Arno had heard of me. I
built their stalls so the horses cannot fall in a
storm and break their legs."

"What did you think of him?"

"Of Arno de Courmeron? A very hard man, like every
other Norman I've met. And very young for what he was
doing. By all reports, at his age-at any age- most
Normans of noble birth think only of fighting and
plotting. It is that or the clergy. A Norman knight
turned merchant was new to me.

"What is your interest in him?" ben Abraham asked
then. "Or in any Norman? You do not seem warlike."
I didn't try to think an answer, just let the words
come. "My own land, Evdash, has been conquered by the
evil Glondis Empire-an empire that could someday come
even to Christendom and try to enslave it. I hope to
build a kingdom here that is wise and just, and
powerful, that can defeat Glondis when the time
comes. It seems to me that the Normans could help,
and Arno de Courmeron is the Norman I can best work
with."

Ben Abraham's face had gone unreadable. He nodded.
"There is something about you that is different," he
said. "I have no idea what it is. You have a power
that is not force, and perhaps you can do what you
say. But I will tell you something that perhaps you
do not realize.
"I have talked with more than a few Normans-even with
the steward of Robert Guiscard, whom the Bishop of
Rome now has anointed Duke of Sicily as well as
Apulia. And I deal with many people from almost every
part of the known world. I am always interested in
people, and what they have to say, and my home and
table are not unknown. So they talk to me-merchants,
ship's captains, traveling nobles. And sometimes I
travel, for trade. I once spent two weeks in the
court of the Saracen Lord of Palermo; many wise men
are his guests, and hold long discourse there. I have
talked with the secretary of the Bishop of Rome, and
shared wine with the Lombard mayor of Amalfi. I have
dined with merchant princes in Byzantium, and
discussed commerce with the steward of Philip the
Fair, the Prankish king, in his castle at Paris.

"All of these have had much experience with Normans,
and I would like to describe for you the impression I
have gained from them. The Normans are more than
adventurous: They have an extreme restlessness, and a
recklessness that often leads them to victory,
although sometimes it takes them to their own
destruction. They have a thirst for power that seems
beyond quenching. There is no people in the known
world who exceeds them in their love of fighting-not
even the bloody Vikings, from whom the Normans drew
their founders and their name. They have a courage
that is frequently foolhardy, and a craftiness that
leads often into treacheries both outrageous and
bloody.

"And I have heard it said that those who go to Italy
are the worst of them all. Their overlord in Italy,
Robert of Apulia, is even called Guiscard, 'the
Cunning,' and wears the name with pride."

I wouldn't understand all of ben Abraham's words
until I'd run them through the linguistics program
aboard the scout, but I understood enough to make my
stomach knot.

"You may wish to enlist the help of the Normans," ben
Abraham went on, "but the Normans help mainly
themselves. To whatever they can take."

I nodded, feeling his black eyes on me, remembering
the Norman Baron, Roland de Falaise, his utter lack
of honesty, his attempt to have me clubbed to death
by trickery. Even Arno had tried treachery against
me, twice. Though he'd also saved my life, not to
mention helping us rescue Deneen from the political
police and capture the Federation corvette. Which the
Normans, with the recklessness ben Abraham had just
mentioned, had then blown apart, along with thirty of
their own knights.

Yet ben Abraham made the Normans seem even more
dangerous than I remembered them, mainly by showing
them to me as a culture, not as a few dozen warriors.
And by letting me see them through someone's eyes
besides my own.

But I had to start somewhere, and Arno seemed like a
good somewhere.

"I thank you for your warning," I told ben Abraham.
"I have experienced some of what you described. It is
why I wish to find Arno; I know him well enough that
I believe I can work through him." I hope, I added to
myself.

"I would not dissuade you," ben Abraham said. "Only,
make sure you know what you're dealing with. Your own
ambitions are not less than any of theirs, and I
sense in you a strength of your own that I suspect
can be formidable, though not brutal. Yours is an
ambition of a kind that dukes with armies have
undertaken and failed with, but every kingdom was
begun by someone, and often against great odds."

It was really embarrassing to hear him say it. It
made me feel like a huge fraud-I was only Larn kel
Deroop- but this was no time to correct his
impression of me.

"Thank you," I said, and moved the conversation on to
other things-mainly the geography, peoples, and
princes of the Mediterranean. There wasn't any
question that ben Abraham was the smartest man I'd
met on Fanglith-the best informed and least given to
statements that sounded like runaway imagination and
superstition.

And a born teacher who'd obviously rather instruct a
couple of young strangers like Tarel and me than
attend to business. A couple of times his secretary
looked in at us, as if he had questions that needed
answering, but ben Abraham frowned him back from the
door.
I recorded all of it. I'd feed it to the computer
that night and receive it back through the learning
program, the words analyzed and defined. I have a
darned good memory, and good logic circuits of my
own. But for linguistics analysis, the computer was
parsecs ahead of me, and the learning program would
help me remember it.

Finally it was lunchtime, and Tarel and I ate with
ben Abraham as his guests. Then I arranged passage
for myself to Reggio di Calabria, in Italy, on one of
ben Abraham's ships, which was leaving in four days.
Reggio was just across the Strait of Messina from the
Sicilian port where Arno had taken his horse herd.

When I'd paid my fare, I had just one gold piece
left, plus the silver I'd gotten when I sold my
donkey that morning.

Ben Abraham walked us to the courtyard, and as we
shook hands, I asked him one last question. "My
lord," I said, "yesterday you told Carolus the
stonecutter an untruth, to shield my own. Why?"

His face was serious when he answered. "I am a Jew,"
he said. "And in the lands of Christendom, any
non-Christian is always in at least some small risk
of his life for being what he is. It seemed to me
that you might be in serious risk of yours unless I
spoke for you."

Our eyes held for a moment before I thanked him for
his courtesies and help. As Tarel and I walked away,
it seemed to me that I was alive only through the
risks, large and small, of strangers-certainly on
Evdash, and perhaps now, here in Marseille. And by
Father Drogo and Pierre the tanner in Normandy, as
far as that was concerned-men who had no reason
beyond their own ethics to have helped me.


TWELVE


When we left Isaac ben Abraham, there still were
hours to wait before calling Deneen back down. It
seemed to me we might as well spend it learning
something, so Tarel and I walked down to the
waterfront to see what we could see.

The ships weren't much, they looked even smaller up
close than they had in large magnification from a few
miles above. The ones we looked at had a mast, though
on some of them it was lying in the bottom of the
ship, or in a few cases, on the deck or the dock or
the beach. Most of them weren't decked over, though;
all they had as decks amounted to flooring in the
bottom of the ship. Others were partially decked
over, fore and aft, with the midships open, and a few
were decked over from stem to stern.

We talked to some sailors about ships and the places
they'd been-sailors who spoke Provengal, Their talk
of places was a bit of this and that, and a lot of it
sounded- umm, more or less imaginative. I got the
impression that part of the time they were lying on
purpose, as if they were trying to see how much we'd
believe. We (mainly me-Tarel didn't say very much)
also questioned them about the names of different
ships' parts and gear. Mostly the men on different
ships used the same terms, so I felt they were honest
with us on that. I didn't have Evdashian equivalents
for most of their terms, but I recorded brief
descriptions of the parts in Evdashian-enough to
serve as memory tags to go with the Provencal words.

Then we walked the streets of Marseille, asking
questions of artisans and shopkeepers. By late
afternoon we were more than ready to eat dinner and
leave. The inn we stopped at looked better than
others we'd seen, but it wouldn't begin to pass a
health department inspection on Evdash; they'd board
it up and burn it down. It was even worse than the
dining hall in Baron Roland's castle in Normandy. The
food was edible-a vegetable stew, a chunk of roast
beef, coarse, dark, smelly bread, and smellier
cheese. It was the dirt and grease that bothered us
most, and again I was thankful for the immunoserum
we'd taken.

Some of the customers there didn't look very savory,
either. But we were bigger than any of them, and we
wore shortswords, so no one bothered us. If they had,
I'd have tried first to bluff our way out of it,
using our stunners only if we couldn't avoid it.
Hand-foot art wasn't promising. Being as big as we
were, we'd hardly be attacked with less than swords,
and it seemed to me that using our own swords would
be suicidal. We had no training, no technique.
In a sense, our swords were a lie, because we weren't
the swordsmen they implied. But in another sense,
they told a truth in a way these people could accept:
We were armed and deadly, our weapons more dangerous
than swords in anyone's hands. I just didn't want to
use them.
We left the city a little before the gates closed at
sundown. There was also a small gate by the main west
gate, no wider than an ordinary door, where we could
have been let out after the big gate was closed and
barred. But neither of us had any desire to see what
Marseille was like after dark. Together we
backtracked the same route we'd walked that morning,
ending on the beach, where we took off our shoes and
leggings and waded until it was starting to get dark.
It was starting to cloud up, too, the thin sickle of
moon low in the west adding little or no light to the
evening, even when there wasn't any cloud in its way.
I'd call Deneen down as soon as it was full night,
then feed my recording to the computer when we were
aboard.

We'd have three days to use the learning program, and
to relax on the surface in some place remote from
people. Somewhere we could set the scout down and not
be seen. An awful lot of Fanglith was like that.

And that's what we did the next morning-or rather,
what Deneen did. At daybreak she headed north to find
the place we'd first landed, in the high mountains.
But the ground in that district was buried deep in
snow, so she headed westward to islands the
infrascanner had charted when we'd been surveying for
signs of Imperial forces.

The island we picked was beautiful-sandy beaches, old
volcanic mountains green with forest, and narrow
valleys that ran down to the ocean. From the air,
there was no sign of people at all, or of large
animals that might be dangerous.

The day was as beautiful, and as peaceful, as the
island.

We landed where a small stream ran into a little
inlet, and Deneen got out and walked on the solid
surface of a planet for the first time since that
night on Evdash when she'd run up the ramp in a fury
of gunfire some sixty days earlier. The sky was a
towering blue vault, and there were none of the bad
smells of Marseille. Nor any threat-at least nothing
evident and immediate. A volcano could erupt, of
course, or a comet could strike the planet, but the
odds were minute. There were no swordsmen or bowmen
around, and no reason to expect, say, an Imperial
corvette.

We did find the remains of a small stone hut, not a
hundred feet from where we'd landed, its walls so
tumbled that we didn't recognize it until we almost
stumbled over it. A large and ancient tree had grown
up within the square of fallen walls, hiding it from
the air.
Even so, after an initial walk on the shore of the
inlet, we set a watch schedule. One of us would stay
in the ship. The radio monitor was set to detect any
traffic on communication bands, and it would trigger
the honker if it picked up anything.

I started out by insisting that the ship be kept
closed, in case there was something dangerous we'd
missed on our overflight scans. But Bubba hadn't
picked up anything telepathically, either, so I
backed down on that. We could even have activated an
energy shield around the scout, but it would have
been a needless drain on the fuel slugs.

I assigned myself the first watch, and after a half
hour on the learning program, spent the time reading
a long article in one of dad's library cubes, about
naval tactics on primitive field worlds. None of the
worlds discussed had been as primitive as Fanglith,
but it was something interesting to do.

Then Tarel replaced me on watch. They'd hiked inland,
so Deneen and I went for a walk on the beach, Bubba
was hunting. He preferred his dinner fresh-caught. It
was beautiful, with a light surf breaking, washing up
on the sand, the forest lustrous green in the sun,
the sky a deeper blue than I seemed to remember over
the Entrilias Sea and Lizard Island.

We didn't talk much for a while, just walked. I
should have been enjoying it, but walking on the
beach made me think of Jenoor. I let myself slide
into a silent swamp of "if only," and "we should have
..."

I was aware enough, though, to know that Deneen had
something on her mind, too. But I'm not much for
asking personal questions unless I've got a good
reason to, and besides, I was busy feeling sorry for
myself. After a little bit it was Deneen who broke
the silence.

"A seething for your thoughts," she said.

I shook my head. "No point in both of us being
depressed."

She nodded, and we kept walking, right about where
the larger waves reached. The biggest washed over our
feet and wiped out our tracks behind us. "You know
what?" she asked after a while.

"No. What?"

"Tarel told me he loves me and wants to marry me."

"When was that!?"

"Today. While we were hiking up the stream."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him maybe someday. I do like Tarel, a lot,
but I definitely don't love him. And even if I did,
the level of medical services on Fanglith has got to
be near zero, we aren't set up to take care of babies
on the Jav, and we don't have any anti-conception
drugs."

I nodded. That was my little sister - look at the
angles and avoid regrets. What would we have done if
Jenoor had gotten pregnant? But we hadn't planned
then to go to a planet as primitive as Fanglith. We'd
expected to be on Grinder, wherever that was.

"How'd he take it?"

"He said he'd already seen the problems, but thought
I ought to know what was going on with him."

I walked along a little troubled. It wasn't
surprising that Tarel was interested in Deneen, and
he was a good guy. I hoped this wouldn't get to be a
problem for anyone. We definitely didn't need
complications on a planet like Fanglith.

She broke that train of thoughts, too. "Do you know
what's going on with Bubba?" she asked.

"No. What?"

"I don't know either. But something is. Now and then
he gets absolutely glum, and that's not like him."

"I figured the lousy food's been getting to him," I
said. "It had to be tougher on a carnivore than on
us. He ought to be getting over it now."

"It's more than the food. He's got something on his
mind."

"He's worried about Lady," I suggested. "And the
pups."

"No, we talked about that, he and I. He feels they'll
do okay wherever they are. And you know Bubba; he
just files things like that. If you can't do
something about something, don't worry about it, and
he's the kind that can really make that work. "

Why are you bringing up these things? I wondered. I
just want to enjoy this place for a couple of days .
But I knew that wasn't fair. I hadn't been enjoying
it; I'd been wallowing around feeling pathetic. I was
the captain now, I reminded myself. Everyone's
problems were mine, at least to a degree, and I
needed to take responsibility for my crew and how
they were doing.

We didn't talk any more about Tarel's proposal, if
you could call it that. He didn't seem inclined to
make a problem out of it. But she'd opened my eyes a
bit by telling me.
Tarel had been attentive to Deneen, helping when it
was her turn to fix meals or wash dishes. He really
was a good guy, had been ever since we'd known him.
Courteous and considerate, aware and intelligent . .
. Even reasonably good-looking. And as I said before,
surprisingly strong-one of those people who seems to
have been born strong. I couldn't help but wonder
what Deneen might have said if he wasn't so darned
serious about things. He just very seldom laughed or
even smiled very widely.

As for Bubba, we didn't see much of him till just
before we were ready to leave. He seemed cheerful
enough when he got back, but he was different from
the way he'd been at home on Evdash. There wasn't the
sense of openness I'd always felt from him before. It
was as if he was withholding himself a little, as if
there was something he was keeping to himself.
Sometimes it was really noticeable, particularly now
that I was paying attention.

Our vacation lasted three days and two nights. The
third night we spent parked above Marseille again. At
dawn of the fourth day, a raw, breezy, overcast
morning, I was waiting at the town gate.

Two hours later I was on one of Isaac ben Abraham's
ships, heading east through a choppy sea, a following
wind pushing us along. And briskly, considering how
small our triangular sail was, and how blunt the
ship's broad bow.

Somehow, I felt glummer than Bubba at his glummest,
as serious as Tarel. And a little seasick from the
ship's pitch and roll, although I got over that
pretty quickly. Tomorrow maybe it'll clear up, I
thought, and we'll have sunshine. Maybe I'll feel
better then.


THIRTEEN


The ship had been one of the larger in Marseille, all
of sixty feet long. Loaded as she was, her gunwales
amidships were only about four feet above the water.
The full length was decked. Below deck there were
dozens of bales of what they call "wool" on Fanglith-
the curly and remarkably thick hair of an animal
called "sheep." One of the other passengers told me
the fur is cut off the sheep's entire body, right
down to the skin, and grows back to be recut the next
year. The hairs are so tangled together that when
they cut them off, they hang together in a mat.

Below deck were also thousands of ingots of copper,
silver, and lead-especially lead-which were mainly
what made the ship ride so low in the water. Besides
the cargo of wool and ingots, there were nine
passengers, all men. We slept on the bales of wool
below deck and ate the same food as the ship's crew.

Before long I was sharing my clothes again with
minute biting insects, called lice and fleas, that
seem to be ever-present pests on Fanglith.

The next day was nicer-clear, though still chilly-
the wind continuing from the west. For a while, a
school of very large fish swam alongside us, more or
less in formation. Their smooth-looking gray bodies
moved along in a series of arcs, curving clear of the
water and then back in. The sailors called them
porpoises.

In late afternoon we saw a headland to the southeast,
a high ridge. One of the passengers told me it was
the north end of a large island named Corsica, which
the Saracens had once held but had been driven from
years before. Before dark we'd rounded it and were
heading south, more slowly now, with the wind and the
island on our right. With the wind from the side we
not only went slower, we also roiled heavily, and for
a while I felt a little seasick again.

At dawn the next day we were out of sight of land
once more. The wind had eased quite a lot, but was
still from the west, arid our progress was slower
yet. I spent a lot of the day asking questions of the
other passengers, secretly recording our talks, but I
got tired of that after a while and went below deck
to kill time napping.

I was wakened by loud, excited talk. A pirate ship
had been spotted, and I followed other passengers up
onto the deck to see what it looked like. Head on, I
couldn't see how long it was, but even seeing it from
a distance it seemed to be more slender, and probably
rode less deeply in the water. It had a sail,
triangular like ours, and I thought I could make out
oars hurrying it along. Our captain had turned us to
run ahead of the light wind, but after watching for a
while it was obvious that the pirate ship was gaining
on us.

I was standing by the rail beside a merchant
passenger who'd been to sea a lot. "How can you tell
they're pirates?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if I was dense. "Because they're
using oars. Only warships and pirates use oars. And
because, by their lines, they're Saracens. Plus, they
changed course toward us as soon as they saw us."

"What happens if they catch us?" I asked.
"They board us." He drew a shortsword and tested its
blade grimly with a thumb. "And it's not if, it's
when. Our only chance is that some warship, Pisan or
Genoese, will show up. Don't hold your breath."

"What happens when they catch us?"

"We fight until either they kill us all or we
surrender. Any of us taken alive will be held for
ransom or made slaves. If you have no one to ransom
you, you'll do well to die fighting."

"How much is the ransom?"

He looked me over, appraising my clothes. "More than
you have," he said sourly, and turned away to watch
the pirate ship again.

I watched, too-long enough to estimate that we had
less than an hour, maybe half an hour, before they
caught us. The sun was already down, the light
beginning to fade a bit. If we could stay ahead of
them long enough, I thought, maybe we could hide in
the darkness. But no. I scanned the sky and there was
the moon, half full now, pale in the early evening.
The way they were closing the gap, they'd be close
enough to see us by moonlight if they hadn't actually
caught us before dark.

Of course, I could always use my blast pistol. I
couldn't imagine them trying to board us after I'd
fired a few charges into them. But that would make me
a lot more conspicuous than I was ready to be-or
rather, the wrong kind of conspicuous. Which didn't
leave much for me to do but call in my one-ship space
fleet, the biggest in the system.

I went down the stern ladder below deck again, among
the ingots. Three of the passengers were down there,
sitting near the ladder, talking quietly. I passed
them and sat down amidships.
They were watching me now, the strange foreigner with
all the dumb questions, so when I put the remote in
my ear, I made it look as if I was scratching.
Fanglithans do a lot of that. Then I took my
communicator off the belt inside my cape, palming it,
and when I took it out, I pretended to raise my
crucifix with the same hand and kiss it.

"Jav, this is Larn," I murmured in Evdashian. "Jav,
this is Larn. Come in please. Over."

"Larn, this is the Javelin," It was Deneen's voice in
my ear, also in Evdashian. "There seems to be a bogey
chasing you. He's gaining on you. Over."

"Right," I answered. "They're pirates. I don't want
to shoot them up myself if I can help it; I'm not
ready for that kind of publicity. So here's what I
want you to do. If we can stay ahead of them till
it's pretty much dark, I'd like you guys to sink them
with your heavy blaster. Got that?"

"Sure. If you can stay ahead of them till it's pretty
much dark, we're to sink them with our number one
blaster. What if they catch you while it's still
fairly light? Are you going to take care of them
yourself then, or do we step in?"

Apparently the three passengers watching me could
hear me faintly. Two of them crossed themselves and
began to pray. They probably assumed that praying was
what I was doing, and decided it was a good idea.

"I'm not sure yet," I answered. "I'll have to play it
by ear. I'm going back up on deck in a minute to
watch, but meanwhile, as it stands now, I don't want
you to shoot them up till it's too dark for anyone
down here to see what's doing the shooting. It's all
right if they see something up there, but not what
the something is. Got that?"

"Got it. Why don't you just call and tell us when to
start?"
An idea had been just out of sight, nudging my mind.
Now I saw it. "Good idea. I'll call you in Provencal.
And listen. ..."

When I finished explaining what I had in mind, I put
my communicator back inside my cape and went up on
deck. The other three had watched me the whole time,
so I crossed myself before I left, and nodded at them
soberly as I went to the ladder.

The pirate ship had gained quite a bit on us, and the
evening seemed hardly any darker than when I'd gone
below. It didn't look as if we'd stay ahead of them
long enough. Besides which, there was no safety or
hope ahead of us that I could see, and it occurred to
me that our captain might decide to turn back and
fight-get it over with.

So I went to him. He was manning the heavy steering
oar himself, his eyes sternward toward the pirates.
"Captain," I said, "I've been praying to the Angel
Deneen. She told me that if we stay ahead of the
Saracens till darkness, they'll be destroyed with
fire from heaven."

His eyes narrowed. I wasn't sure what he was
thinking. "Can we?" I asked. "Stay ahead of them till
dark?"

"It is in the hands of God," he said after a few
seconds.

"Good," I told him. "We must leave it there, in the
hands of God, and not defy him by turning to fight,
for he will surely save us."

The captain scowled without saying anything more to
me, as if he thought I was crazy. I leaned against
the rail to watch the pirates gaining on us.

After a few minutes it seemed to me they weren't
gaining on us as fast as they had been. I suppose
their oarsmen were getting tired. And the light was
noticeably less, though it was still more like
daylight than night. Maybe it would get dark before
they caught us.

"Larn."

It was the remote I'd left in my ear.

"There are more than forty pirates, not counting the
guys who are rowing. And they look really tough. If
you change your mind about when, we're ready to put
them out of commission."
I didn't take out my communicator and answer her; it
wasn't the time or place for that. She'd liave to
assume I got it. But I nodded anyway, in case they
had me in the viewer under magnification.

There were eleven in our crew, and ten passengers
including myself, just about all of us on deck now.
Several had shortswords already in hand, but I doubt
that any one of them would really qualify as a
warrior. Gradually the distance shrank between the
pirates and ourselves, and gradually it got darker.
It began to look as if it might get dark soon enough
after all. And looking upward I could see the scout;
it had come down to maybe four or five hundred yards
and was barely visible against the darkening sky. You
had to look for it-know it was up there-to see it.

The pirate ship was only about two hundred feet
behind us. I stepped away from the rail a little and
took out my palmed communicator, raising it as if I
was lifting up my crucifix. Then I bellowed out as
loudly as I could: "Don't be afraid! The Angel Deneen
will save us! She has promised!"

Just about everyone on the ship looked at me. None of
them looked actually scornful; stories about divine
intervention were common on Fanglith. But none of
them looked very convinced, either. And the pirate
ship came on. After another couple of minutes I
looked up again. I could sort of make out the Jav;
she was maybe two hundred yards up now, and the
pirates not more than eighty or a hundred feet
behind. I switched on my communicator. "Angel
Deneen!" I shouted. "Save us from the Saracens!"

A heavy-caliber blaster thudded once, and a hissing
charge exploded into the pirate ship. We could hear
them yelling back there. Then a spotlight speared
down from above, drawing every eye, and someone up
there- Tarel, I learned later-fired four more single
rounds about a second apart. The pirate ship started
to burn in the thickening dusk as we pulled away from
her, but she apparently sank in a hurry, because the
flames disappeared quickly, as if drowned.



FOURTEEN

Moise:

Even though the slavemaster had slowed the beat
somewhat, I was so tired I thought I would die of it.
But he was pacing the walkway between us, and I still
feared his whip more than death. Besides, I always
felt that way when we were chasing some merchant
ship, and hadn't died yet. A man can stand more than
he thinks.

Ahead on the merchantman, I heard someone call out
loudly. We were that close. Soon we would ship our
oars and rest while the Saracens boarded her, but
until then I had to keep on.

Cool as the evening was, sweat trickled into my eyes,
and dripped from my nose and chin to fall on my bare
thighs. I gasped for breath. Again I heard a shout
from ahead, nearer now-and then the world exploded!
My bench was torn loose, thrown back, and I fell on
the feet and legs of the oarsman behind me, a Tuscan
named Guittone. I had no idea what had happened. As I
struggled to disentangle myself from Guittone's legs,
there was another terrible sound, and more, and I
felt water rising rapidly around me. Men were
screaming, some of them calling to Allah to be
merciful. None of them knew-none of them could have
known-what had struck us, any more than I did then.

The ship sank quickly-indeed, had broken in two- the
halves pulling apart, with one swinging to the left
and one to the right. The half with the mast had
turned onto her side. I was floating free of it,
chained to my broken bench. Around me, many of my
captors-ex-captors now-were clinging to wreckage or
swimming toward one of the halves, and it seemed well
to move away from them, although there was no place
to swim to except into the near-night. The water was
winter-cold. I managed to get my broken bench beneath
me, then kicked and paddled away, careful not to
overturn again. Minutes later I could not see any of
them any longer, although distantly I could hear
injured men calling for help.

Tarel:

I hadn't liked shooting into the pirate ship, but it
was necessary. There wasn't much question about what
the pirates had in mind, but it bothered me to shoot
at people who couldn't defend themselves against us.
There wasn't even anything they could try to do.

On the target screen I could see their ship almost as
clearly as if it were daylight. It surprised me to
see it break in two. I suppose it was partly because
it was going along pretty fast, for such a primitive
ship. The blaster bolts must have torn enough out of
the hull that
it acted like a scoop, and the pressure broke it
where the explosions had weakened it.

Deneen turned off the spotlight, but I could still
see with the target screen. Guys were swimming to the
halves of the hull, which were still afloat, one full
of water to the gunwales, the other on its side.
Deneen felt the way I did-wanted to go down and
rescue people-but it would be suicide to take pirates
into the Javelin with us.
What she did instead was lift to about two hundred
yards again, and we sat there watching, unwilling to
just leave. Then I noticed that one guy was paddling
away from the wreckage, which seemed peculiar. It
occurred to me that he might have been a prisoner or
something-maybe one of the oarsmen. They might have
been slaves; there'd been a guy with a whip making
sure they kept rowing.

"Deneen!" I started, and before I could get any more
out, she said, "I see him." She's like that
sometimes, as if she knows what you're thinking. We
watched him paddle and kick until he was about a
hundred yards from the others. Then he slowed down,
as if he felt safer now, or maybe tired, and Deneen
started to lower us toward him.

At twenty feet or so she hit the control for the
door. It opened and I went over to it. We were behind
the guy and he hadn't even seen us. It turned out
he'd noticed the light on the water in front of him,
from the open door, but of course, it never occurred
to him what it might be. Meanwhile Deneen lowered us
to five feet.

He wasn't more than a dozen feet from me, so I spoke
to him in Provencal. "Let me help you."
He turned, jerking as if he'd been stung, and the
board he was on turned over, dumping him off. For a
moment, when he surfaced, he just stared toward us as
if he didn't see anything there. Then his eyes bugged
out and his mouth sagged open.

"We'll take you out of the water if you'll let us," I
told him.

He started talking in some language I couldn't
understand, not as if he were talking to me, but more
as if he were talking to himself. I'd never heard
anyone pray before-hadn't even heard of praying until
I'd gotten the concept from the computer when I was
learning Provencal. Prayers are pretty important on
Fanglith. Meanwhile, Deneen kept the Jav settling
downward until we weren't more than twenty inches
above the waves, which weren't very big. I reached
out toward him. He shook off the shock of seeing us
then, and started paddling the ten feet or so to me.
I guess I didn't look as fierce or mean as the people
who'd had him last.

I looked around for something I could reach out with
that he could grab hold of. When I didn't see
anything, I lay down on the deck, grabbed the edge of
the doorway with my left hand, and reached out with
my right. When he got to me, we grabbed each others'
wrists and I pulled.
There was a problem: He was chained to the broken
bench he was on. I hoisted him partway in, then took
hold of the chain and pulled the board in too. He
just lay there on the deck then, looking around. I
could imagine what it was like for him. The scout was
so different, so completely unlike anything he'd ever
seen or imagined or dreamed of, that he must have
thought he was dead or crazy. In fact, he told me
later that that was just how he felt. And Bubba's big
wolf face was looking at him about thirty inches from
his own.

Deneen:

I wanted to follow the merchant ship and see what was
happening, but Moise's feet were still sticking out
the door. He was also bleeding on the deck-not
heavily, but he was injured. I told Tarel to get him
in. Tarel took hold of him under the arms and pulled,
and I closed the door. Then I lifted to a hundred
yards and moved to a position above the merchantman.

It had changed its course from east to southeast, the
direction it had been going before they'd spotted the
pirates. It looked to me as if everyone aboard it was
on deck now. 'I called Larn and he answered right
away, his voice soft and not too far from laughing.

"It worked like a charm," he told me in Evdashian.
"They think I'm really something." Then, in
Provengal, he called: "Thank you, Angel Deneen! Thank
you for answering my request! You have saved us from
the Saracen!"

"That's all right, brother mine." I said it in
Evdashian, in case he'd switched on his speaker-which
it turned out he had. "Do you need anything more just
now?"

"No," he said, in Evdashian himself again, "I'll let
you know if anything more happens."

I didn't tell him about our new passenger. I didn't
have enough information yet to make it worthwhile,
and didn't want to worry him. I just put the
spotlight on the midships deck for a moment,
centering on Larn- one last sign from the heavens.
Then I switched it off and parked there, invisible
from below. In Evdashian I told Tarel to take our
passenger into the head, sluice him off in the
shower, and do whatever seemed necessary for his
wounds, so far as he could. I also told Bubba to stay
with them in case the guy turned out to be dangerous
after all. (Not that I needed to; Bubba would know,
and he'd do whatever was needed.) Then Tarel could
put our-guest? prisoner?-in one of the suits of navy
fatigues we had on board, and feed him, and we'd see
what we could learn about him.

Meanwhile, I made sure my stunner was set on
medium-low. If I had to use it, I didn't want to
endanger Tarel or Bubba. But for some reason, I had
the distinct feeling that I wouldn't have to use
it-that we had a new friend and ally on board, not an
enemy.


FIFTEEN


The rest of the trip took four days. Four days that
started out miserably for everyone else aboard ship,
because they all came down with diarrhea that night-
every one of them-and had it for two or three days.
The ship didn't have any latrines of course, only
buckets and the sea, and at times there was no time
to wait for a bucket. I offered my thanks from a
distance to the inventor of the immunoserum.

Lice and fleas, on the other hand, had no respect at
all for immunoserum, or even for people who could
call down angels and lightning from the sky, and
foreigners seemed to taste as good as native
Fanglithans to them. On Fanglith, though, people
hardly thought of them as an affliction; in fact,
they hardly thought of them at all. Everyone I'd seen
seemed to have them, and apparently all the time.
Lice and fleas were like breathing and eating-a part
of life.

Maybe Fanglithans would even miss their lice if they
lost them; I'm not sure. I wouldn't. Itch! True, I
was starting to get used to them, but life on
Fanglith would have been a lot nicer without them.

Anyway, not getting diarrhea fitted my image as
someone special-someone protected by an angel. Where
before some of the people on board had disliked me as
a dumbbell full of foolish questions, now everyone
was at least polite, including the captain. Some of
them were in absolute awe of me, and at meals I even
got larger portions than the others. But no one tried
to hang around with me.

The day after the pirate incident, Deneen told me
about the guy they'd rescued. He'd been a galley
slave, forced to help row the pirate ship, and was
about the same age as she and Tarel were. His name
was Moise ben Israel, and like Isaac ben Abraham,
Moise was a Jew, a member of a different religion and
culture from Christians. His family had been moving
from a city called Genoa to one called Amalfi, where
Jews were not so badly treated. When the Saracens
attacked the ship, his whole family had drowned or
been killed.
Moise could read and write, spoke several languages,
and knew a lot about how things were done on
Fanglith. He seemed to be adjusting well to Deneen
and Tarel and the cutter.

And Bubba approved of him-said he was a good guy. One
thing Bubba didn't miss on was what people were like.

The next to last day was stormy-the wind behind us,
the sky and sea two tones of gray. Big waves would
loom above our stern, some of them fifteen feet high
or higher. They'd raise us up as they caught us, then
we'd seem to slide down their backside as they
passed. And there the next one would be, heaving
itself above us from behind. To me it was
exhilarating.

The captain had two men on the steering oar. As he
explained it to me, it was important that we stay
headed downwind. If we broached-came about sideways
to the waves-we could easily turn over. He didn't
seem worried, though, so I figured the danger wasn't
great.

Some of the people prayed quite a bit though,
including several of the crew, and they looked at me
a lot, as if they hoped I'd pull off another miracle.
The only miracle I could think of was to have Deneen
pick me up if we foundered, and when the storm got a
bit worse, I called her. They were keeping an eye on
us, she told me, and if we foundered, Bubba could
easily identify me among the people in the water.

While I was murmuring to her, of course, people were
watching hopefully, soon after that, the wind started
easing up. The waves stayed pretty big for a while,
but it felt as if the danger had passed. Judging from
the sideways glances people gave me, I was getting
the credit for it, which was fine with me. It was
just the kind of notoriety I wanted.

The last day dawned to seas that were a lot smaller,
and they got smaller    yet through the day. In
mid-afternoon we saw    land ahead. It looked like a
continuous shoreline    at first, but as we got closer I
could see an opening    that the captain told me was the
Strait of Messina.

About then I noticed that some of the crew were
starting to look a little nervous, and I asked one of
them if something was wrong.

"Charybdis," he said.

"What is-Charybdis?"

He used a word that didn't mean anything to me, but
his explanation, complete with hand motions (the
Provencals are great for using their hands to help
them talk), made it clear: Charybdis is a whirlpool.
In the Strait of Messina. And it could, he told me,
swallow a ship.

I asked the captain about that, and he nodded. "It
could. But many ships go through there every year,
and only now and then does the whirlpool take one of
them. Perhaps when there is a storm out of the north,
or the ship has a careless master." He shrugged. "Or
maybe with someone on board whom God has decided to
strike down-perhaps a heretic. Some say there is a
monster in it that takes a ship when she is hungry.
But there are more monsters told about than exist,
and I do not believe there is one in the whirlpool."

He crossed himself though, after he said it.

When we passed through the strait, I kept watching
for the whirlpool, but didn't see it. What I did see
on both sides was rough, mountainous country without
much forest, and to the southwest, on the Sicilian
side, an incredible mountain in the distance. It was
broad, climbing gradually up and up, with miles and
miles of snow. The captain told me its name was Aetna.

It was starting to get dark when we landed in Reggio
di Calabria, a town ruled by Normans. I was almost
out of money, and the captain agreed to let me sleep
on the ship that night. It brought the ship luck to
have me aboard, he said; it would bring it still more
to grant a boon to a holy man.

It took me a minute to realize that by holy man he
meant me. And from what I understood of the concepts
of holy, I felt a little embarrassed. I'd tricked
him, and everyone else on board, and didn't feel good
about it.

I had the ship almost to myself. The other passengers
had left. The mate and another sailor sat on guard by
the gangplank while two others, their relief, slept
nearby on wool bales dragged up on deck. A lopsided
moon shone down.

They'd dragged up more than enough bales for
themselves, and as I lay down across a couple of
extras, scratching and waiting for sleep, I thought
about what I'd done. So I'd used trickery. It had
been necessary; they'd never accept me for what I
was. They wouldn't believe. Or if they did, they
wouldn't understand. And if the word got around, I
might get executed as a demon; that had almost
happened at the Monastery of St. Stephen of Isere, my
first time on Fanglith.
What I'd done on this ship had helped the people on
it-saved them from being killed or enslaved by the
pirates-while what I hoped to do would keep them from
being enslaved by the Empire.

Because if the Glondis Empire lasted long enough, it
would come to Fangiith someday and subjugate it.

And that uncovered the unasked questions that had had
me in the glums off and on lately. Did I actually
believe we could turn this planet into a rebel world?
And if the Empire came to Fanglith, would the
Fang-lithans be any worse off then they already were?
Or might they actually be better off?
But enough of the old legend was obviously true that
I could assume the rest was, too. The human
population of Fanglith had started out mind-wiped and
naked, without as much as a knife or even a memory-a
few thousand political prisoners dumped here 18,000
years ago by the Mad Emperor, Karkzhuk. And with that
miserable start, it was impressive that they'd
advanced this far. There was no reason to think they
wouldn't someday be truly civilized, but if the
Glondis Empire took Fanglith over, they'd make a
slave labor pool out of it.

Of course, the big question was whether we could
accomplish anything here. What was needed was some
kind of superman-someone out of an adventure
thriller-not Larn Rostik kei Deroop.

I shook off the crud of self-devaluation and looked
up at the stars. Evdash was up there somewhere, I
thought to myself, and then I thought of Jenoor,
killed by the Empire, and started deliberately to
build up a good hate to toughen my mind for the job
we had here. But working up a hate was just a dodge,
and I knew it. It didn't change the way things were;
it was just a way of not looking at them. I needed to
get my attention out of myself, so I took out my
communicator; I'd talk with Deneen.

I didn't use the remote. The guards would hear her
voice, but that was the kind of thing they expected
of me now. I was established as someone who
communicated with the angels.

Deneen:

Moise was something else, and finding him could
almost make me believe in fate. Virtually everything
about us was new to him, including knowing what the
stars really were, and the galaxy, and Fanglith
itself. You'd never imagine how the Fanglithans had
envisioned and explained their world and the
universe. Yet he'd adjusted so quickly to us and to
what we'd shown him, with so little confusion and not
even a headache, that both Tarel and I were really
impressed. Moise was not only very bright, he was
very adaptable.

I wonder if mental adaptability might not be the key
to maximum success in this universe.
You might think we'd have gotten bored, parked
fifteen miles above the surface with "nothing much to
do." Actually, we were as busy as we could be,
including Moise, because after talking with him a
while, I'd decided he'd make a good consultant, and
perhaps a contact man on the surface. I wasn't sure
about that yet.

So Tarel and I had taken turns questioning him-
picking his brain-and educating him. Recording all of
it, of course, then running it through linguistic
analysis and taking turns using the learning program.
We were expanding our knowledge of the language and
of Fanglith both.

In turn, we educated him. Over the next Four days we
described to him what the universe and galaxy were
really like, gave him a course in the basic
principles of technology, and let him know a little
about ourselves. Not everything. But that we were
refugees from a far world, and that we wanted to make
a place for ourselves on Fanglith without attracting
hostile attention from the people here.

We'd had to talk Provencal, of course-the only
language we knew that he could understand.
Fortunately, Moise was from a seaport called Genoa,
where the language, Piedmontese, was pretty much like
Provencal. He could understand us, and we understood
him, without a lot of trouble. He told us he also
spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and quite a bit of Greek. And
Arabic, the language of the Saracens. It had been
important in Tarragona, the place where they'd lived
before going to Genoa. The pirates had spoken Arabic,
too. He'd learned quite a bit of Arabic poetry where
he'd lived in Tarragona; he'd thought they were the
best poems of all. And the poetry had built his
Arabic vocabulary well above the street vocabulary of
the children he'd played with.

I'd become aware on our first trip to Fangiith that
there was a bad communication scene on this world,
but now I began to realize how bad. Because all of
those languages, plus a bunch of others, were spoken
in just the region around the Mediterranean. Who knew
how many different languages there might be on
Fanglith? It seemed a safe bet that there were
hundreds of them.

Because Arabic was important around much of the
Mediterranean, it seemed to me that it might be
useful to us. So between times, I had Moise say
Arabic words into the recorder, discussing in
Piedmontese what they meant. Then I'd load them into
the computer. But for the time being we'd stick with
Provencal/Piedmontese. Moise said we should be able
to make ourselves understood with it, more or less,
in Tuscany and Venice, which were important regions
of Italy.

Moise was unusually well educated, I realized-even
compared with most of the "nobility" of the time. But
it was interesting how little he knew of
geography-even the geography of the Mediterranean. He
knew a lot about a lot of places and peoples, but a
map he tried to sketch for us, in our first session,
was so crude and incomplete that, comparing it with
the one our ship had made, we couldn't figure out
where it was supposed to be. And he had no idea where
it was on our map.

It turned out that on Fanglith they hadn't developed
map-making as a technical skill. They hardly even had
the concept of an overall geographical view-of the
planet's surface as something you could sketch on a
coordinate system. If they could get where they
wanted to go from where they already were, that was
enough for them.

Briefly we took him out to 5,000 miles-briefly
because that was in one of Fanglith's heavy radiation
belts, and because we couldn't see Larn's ship from
there. Instead of being scared or awed or anything
like that, Moise was positively enraptured. Later, I
had the computer print out a map of the whole
Mediterranean region for him, and the country north
of it all the way to the northern sea. From the way
he'd reacted, you'd think I'd given him something of
fabulous value, which I guess maybe I had.

When the pirates had attacked the ship his family was
on, his mother and sister had jumped into the sea so
they wouldn't be sold as slaves. Neither one of them
could swim. His father had ordered Moise to lie on
his face, then died fighting. Moise, because he was
young, and for Fanglith big, had been chained to a
rowing bench to replace a slave too sick to row
anymore. The sick slave had then been thrown into the
sea as a lesson to the others not to get sick.

Moise had never exercised much before, and he told us
with a laugh about his first couple of days at the
oar. The skin had rubbed off his hands, and in
general his body had gotten so tired he'd thought he
was dying. Then there'd been a couple of days when
the wind had been right, and they hadn't had to row.
That's when his muscles, from legs to shoulders and
arms, had gotten so stiff and sore he didn't think
he'd ever be able to move again.

But he had. Because the next day, when they were
ordered to row again, he'd seen the whip used. He'd
rowed then in spite of his soreness. Three weeks of
slave food and rowing changed him from kind of pudgy
to lean and sinewy. In the months since then he'd
added a lot of muscle.

He was lucky, he told us, to have had the captain
he'd had. He'd heard that some pirate captains
underfed their slaves. His had fed them enough to
keep them strong for rowing. He'd even given them
dates and raisins, along with dried and salted meat,
occasional stew, and what Moise called massah-some
kind of bread.

Most of the time we stayed at fifteen miles, keeping
the viewscreen locked on Larn's ship, and Bubba kept
some telepathic attention on what was going on down
there. I checked in with Larn once a day just to stay
in touch. After we'd sunk the pirate ship, he'd only
called once while he was at sea. My brother isn't the
kind who needs his hand held.

But after they got to the port of Reggio, he called
again, sounding kind of bummed out. It seemed as if
he was wondering what he was down there for. I could
see his problem; it was ours too-Tarel's and mine.

"Larn," I said, "you're worrying about no workable
plan again." He didn't say anything back right away.

"Can I make a suggestion?" I asked.

"Okay. Sure."

"We've got an intention. Right?"

"I guess so. Yes."

"So what is it, then? The intention."

It took him a minute-well, ten or fifteen seconds-
before he answered, I suppose because what he was
looking at didn't seem do-able to him. "Make this a
rebel world," he said at last.

I was playing it by ear myself now, and what I said
next surprised me. "Take it back another step," I
told him, "Our real intention is to rid the Empire of
tyrannical rule. Right?"

There was another lag, and when he answered, his
voice was thoughtful. "Right. That's right."

"So how about this, then: You're down there doing
things, making decisions step by step to suit the
situation-the best you can and with no need to hurry.
And if you keep that intention in mind, to rid the
Empire of tyrannical rule, your decisions will move
us in that direction.
"Does that make any sense to you?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Yeah."

"Good. And we're not in a hurry! We can't make a
rebel world out of Fanglith overnight. As far as
that's concerned, maybe it's not even possible. Take
things a step at a time, learn, and wait for the
bright idea that you can build a plan on. And if
things don't look good in a year or two, maybe we'll
decide to go somewhere else, to some other planet. We
don't have to make it on Fanglith."

I shut up then, to give him a chance. After a minute
though, when he hadn't said anything more, I spoke
again. "Brother mine, are you there?"

I heard him chuckle then, the welcomest sound I'd
heard in a long time. "Yeah, I'm here. Thanks, sis.
You're the greatest. This is Larn, over and out."

"This is the Jav, over and out."

I switched off the mike. Maybe not the greatest, I
thought, but l am pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Tarel and Moise were already sleeping. Only Bubba was
awake with me, looking at me and grinning, his tongue
hanging out. I winked at him, then put on the
learning program skullcap and began my first lesson
in Arabic.

Moise:

These people who rescued me were clearly not children
of Abraham. Nor were they Christian, nor of Islam.
Yet if they were heathen, they seemed nonetheless
people of honor and nobility. And surely they had
shown me kindness and many wonders. Even their huge
wolf-like dog spoke with them in his own language,
which they understood, and they answered him
in-theirs. Deneen says they will start to teach me
their language tomorrow.

Although they have knowledge and power incredibly
beyond my own, they treat me almost like one of them.
True, at first they locked me in my room at night,
but that was a reasonable precaution. And they showed
me no other distrust, though they knew nothing about
me except what I told them. They have told me their
dog reads the thoughts of men, and has told them I am
honorable, worthy of their trust. Perhaps he does
read thoughts. I will test him when I learn to
understand his speech.

Being with them, I feel an excitement like none I
have imagined before. And even though they are goyim,
if they ask me to help them in their endeavors, as I
expect they will, I will surely agree. For I have no
family, nor anyone else in all this world.

PART THREE

CAPTURED

SIXTEEN

Larn:

A few hours later I woke up, just barely, and feeling
kind of chilly, went below and fell right asleep
again. The next thing I knew, someone had grabbed me
and jerked my right arm up behind my back. A second
person was taking the blast pistol, stunner, and
communicator off my belt. Someone else, on deck, was
holding a flickering torch down through the hatch;
now he backed away.

"Not to struggle." The guy talking was the one who'd
taken my weapons. "I wish not to harm you."

The words were Evdashian! Broken Evdashian! Then
whoever was holding me jerked me to my feet, harder
than he needed to. He was strong, with hands like
very large clamps.

I was absolutely wide awake now, but confused. How
could the Imperials have found me? And wouldn't the
political police have spoken in Standard? Besides,
someone whose language was Standard wouldn't speak
Evdashian with that accent. It occurred to me then
that maybe they'd been here ahead of us this time.
Maybe they had native monitors on Fanglith now, who'd
picked up my communicator traffic.

But I couldn't really believe that; it seemed
impossible that this was happening.

The guy who had me in the hammerlock pushed me toward
the ladder. There was just enough light that I could
see the one with my weapons start up the ladder.

The man following me had to release his hammer lock
to climb the steep steps after me, but at the top,
the guy with my weapons was waiting in the dark with
my stunner pointed at me.
The sailor on watch was standing well back from the
gangplank, obviously afraid of the guys who'd
captured me. His relief man was sitting awake on a
woo! bale, staring, unmoving. The moon, about
three-quarters full, was lighting the scene from
about thirty or forty degrees above the western
horizon. Considering the geometry of the planet,
moon, and sun here, that made it about midnight.

Then the man behind me reached the deck and clamped
the hammerlock on me again.
The one with my weapons definitely seemed to be the
boss. I could see now that he wore a conical Norman
helmet, and I was willing to bet he had a hauberk on
beneath his cloak. A knight's outfit. But he was
familiar with civilized weapons, because he turned
and put both the sailors to sleep with my stunner. I
hoped it was to sleep; if he'd reset it upward from
the medium setting I usually kept it on, at this
range they were probably dead. He hadn't needed to
shoot them at all; they hadn't been about to do
anything.

Meanwhile the guy behind me never paused, just kept
walking across the deck and down the gangplank,
pushing me ahead of him. The guy with the torch had
started off ahead; the one with my weapons came along
behind now. A little way along the wharf we came to
several horses, watched by a fourth man. The guy in
charge stepped in front of me and turned, stunner
steady. Now, in the moonlight and torchlight, I could
see his face.

"Brislieu, let go his arm." This time he spoke in
Norman French. My arm was released.
"Arno!" I said. This was harder for me to believe
than my first idea about Imperials. How had he
learned to talk Evdashian? No wonder I hadn't
recognized his voice! Then I recalled: The last day
we'd been with him, he'd spent a couple of hours
plugged into the learning program, absorbing
Evdashian-just before the Federation corvette had
blown up; a little before we'd left Fanglith. It was
surprising he could speak it at all; that had been
two and a half years earlier, and he'd never had a
chance to use it, even once.

"I'd come here looking for you!" I told him. "But how
did you find me? How did you even know I was back on
Fanglith?"

He laughed softly. "Your French has gotten worse," he
said, again in Norman French. "You've been speaking
too much Provencal. We'll talk of how I found you,
and of other things, when we're out of town." He
gestured toward one of the horses. "That one is
yours; get on. We have some twenty miles to ride. And
do not try to escape. You'll be more comfortable
sitting in the saddle than tied over it on your
belly, and the scenery will be better that way."

I put a foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the
horse-one of the heavy war horses that the Normans
call destriers. Arno had swung into the saddle
without letting the stunner move away from me. Then
we rode off down the dirt street, the horses'
iron-shod hooves thudding softly in the quiet night.
I hadn't ridden since Normandy; the horse's smell and
the roll of its gait felt good to me. At one point we
encountered a street patrol, but they didn't pay any
attention to us. I suppose they recognized Arno and
Brislieu as Norman knights, and Normans were the
masters here.

The wall around Reggio was higher and thicker than
the one at Marseille. One of the gate guards opened a
narrow gate for us, and before long we were in the
moonlit countryside. Here Brislieu took the lead and
Arno rode beside me, their squires sharing a horse
behind us. After a few moments I repeated my earlier
question:

"How did you find me?"

Arno chuckled. "Those who gain fame are easy to find.
I had come to Reggio to arrange to ship horses to
Palermo, and in an inn I heard a ship's captain tell
a marvelous story, about a holy man who talked to his
crucifix. Or actually to an angel, through his
crucifix.

And either the crucifix or the angel talked back to
him; I forget just how he told it."

Arno laughed again. "The angel sent down lightning
from the sky, which struck and sank a corsair. And
moments later the eye of GOD shown down as a shaft of
golden light, to fall unerringly on the holy man.
Then, later, when a plague of grippe sickened all
others aboard, this holy man, who was named the
Blessed Larn, was not touched by it.

"Later still, when a storm threatened to send one and
all to their deaths, this Larn, who was from India
incidentally, called on the angel again. Angel
Deneen, he called her. And the water smoothed around
them like a silver mirror, though at a little
distance the waves heaved and tossed more savagely
than before."

I could see Arno's grin in the moonlight. "Even
allowing for exaggeration," he continued, "I might
have "wondered if it was you, even if he had not
named you. And indeed I did not catch your name
clearly when first he said it, for not only was he
speaking Provencal, but his mouth was full at the
time. But your sister's name left no doubt."

He chuckled again. He'd changed since I'd seen him
last; his mood was lighter. "Lightning from the sky.
That was something you didn't show us before. Or was
that the shipmaster's imagination?"

"He stretched things a little," I said, "but it was
pretty much true."

He looked me over now as we rode. "You've grown," he
said. "You were tall already; now you're as tall as
Brislieu. Or very nearly. What brought you back to-
our world?"

It was hard for him to say "our world," as if he'd
never quite accepted that there were others. In spite
of everything he'd seen.

I didn't answer right away-didn't know just how to
start, although I'd thought before about what I'd say
to Arno when I found him. The country air was a
little chilly, an early spring night in a warm
climate. Moonlight lay a shimmering path across the
strait to our right; to our left it lit the rugged
hills, and filled the ravines with inky shadow.

"What brought us to Fanglith?" I answered him in
Evdashian, slowly and carefully, so that hopefully
he'd understand. It seemed best that Brislieu and the
others not know what I was saying. "Tyranny and
death. The rulers who had driven us from our first
home, our first world, have become even more
tyrannical."

I paused to let him get that much of it, then
continued. "It has named itself the Glondis Empire,
and begun to conquer more worlds-including the world
where we'd made our new home." I peered at Arno,
trying to see his shadowed eyes. "Eventually I expect
they'll come here to conquer yours."

He answered in Evdashian, thoughtfully. "Then why
come you here, if they will someday follow?"
He still held my stunner in his hand, pointed at me.

"Not to hide," I told him. "We would find no
satisfaction in hiding."

"Then why?"

What to tell him? The truth, I decided-the truth in
its simplest terms. "We left our home world under
gunfire," I told him, still in slow and careful
Evdashian. "We were being shot at by powerful
weapons. Three of us were killed-shot down as we ran
to the sky boat. One was my wife; the Glondis Empire
does not hesitate to kill women. We had planned to go
to a certain world where we would be welcomed, to
help build a rebellion. But our leader, the one of us
who knew how to go there, was also killed.

"Your world was the one world we knew the way to,
where we felt the Imperial sky navy had not gone yet,
because you are so very far away here; much farther
than other worlds with people on them."

I had no idea what Arno might be thinking. Maybe that
I was crazy-possessed by a demon, as the abbot of St.
Stephen's had thought that summer day. But Arno had
seen our family cutter and ridden on it several
times, which should make a lot of other strange and
unlikely claims seem at least marginally possible.

"So we came here with more intentions than plans,"
I went on. "We will try to set ourselves up as
supporters of some able and powerful man, and help
him establish a kingdom on this world-a kingdom that
is too strong for any power here to defeat-then help
him form an empire that is not evil like the Glondis.
And help him manage it; help him make this world so
strong that if, or when, the Glondis Empire comes
here, they will not be able to enslave you."
As I said it, it seemed to me that we could never
make Fanglith that strong. It was too primitive!

"You came here in a sky boat again?" Arno asked very
matter-of-factly.

"Yes. There's no other way."

"And you have a supply of the weapons you had before?"

"A small supply." Suddenly I felt a light surge of
excitement. I was onto something after all.

"And if we're successful in setting up a kingdom
here, we can go back to our own part of the sky and
find a world where more such weapons can be gotten,
and bring them."

And experienced rebels with assorted skills, to help
build a technical base here, I told myself. That
might possibly work; it just might.

We kept riding through the night, his eyes on me, and
I knew he had to be digesting what I'd said. Maybe
planning something, too. What had Isaac ben Abraham
said about the Normans? "They have an extreme
restlessness, a recklessness. ..." Something like
that. And also something about "treacheries bloody
and outrageous."

Then Arno quit pointing the stunner at me, clipping
it on his belt without saying anything.
"Where are we going?" I asked, in Norman now.
"To the castle of Roger of Hauteville, at Mileto,
some twenty miles south of here."
"Will I meet Roger?"

"Roger and his elder brother Guiscard, the duke, are
on Sicily, where they captured Palermo three months
ago. Palermo is Sicily's greatest city-one of the
world's greatest-and beautiful beyond words. I fought
there. I led a squadron. Then the duke dubbed Roger
the Count of Sicily. Roger will rule the island for
him, though Guiscard, as duke, will keep Palermo as
his own.
"Roger has said he will keep his castle at Mileto,
where we are going now. It is no stronghold such as
Normans build here, but its walls are thick, and he
has no lack of men to defend it. And he controls the
country far around.

"He has given me my own fief outside Palermo, where I
am having a castle built of stone, atop a rocky hill.
I have my own liege knights and sergeants there now,
looking to it."

Arno had obviously come a long way in less than three
years. He was peering at me as if trying to see what
I thought of all this, but the moon was on the wrong
side; my face was shadowed. "It is good land," he
went on. "Much of it is lowland, nearly flat, with a
mountain stream that carries water the year round.
But there is no great marsh, and therefore, it is
said, no fever. And because the lower slopes are
northerly, the pasturage grows thicker and stays
green longer."

"So you're going to remain a warrior after all," I
said, "instead of becoming a merchant."
"Not so. I have become a baron, but I am also a
merchant who raises destriers for our knights and
sergeants. That's why I am here in Calabria just now,
instead of on my own fief. I've been grazing my
breeding herd on the count's land here until I should
have my own. In town today I arranged to have them
shipped to Palermo. Late tomorrow a ship will come to
the wharf at Mileto, and we will load them."

"But most merchants are free men, isn't that so?" I
asked. "While a baron is a vassal, owing military
service to his liege lord."

For some seconds there was only the dull plodding of
hooves on dirt, the occasional click of an iron shoe
on stone. Then Arno answered. "No man is truly free.
A merchant makes agreements with buyers and others,
and owes them goods or services. He pays in money or
goods for protection, and more often than not he owes
the moneylender."

We rode a way farther without saying anything, Arno's
eyes ahead. Finally, he looked at me again. "As a
younger son I have no inheritance," he told me, "and
my eldest brother is not a man of influence. For me,
the road to wealth can best begin by swearing fealty
to a great lord, preferably a conqueror, and making
myself of special value to him. Also, both Guiscard
and Roger are granting fiefs that have little to do
with land. One great noble will build Guiscard a
fleet with which to conquer Greece or possibly
Africa. In my own case, in Sieu of military service,
I may pay Roger in destriers if I wish.

"I caught Roger's eye on the battlefield at
Misilmeri, nearly four years since, and happily, he
had not forgotten me when I returned a year later
with my first herd. Italian horses are not suited to
our Norman tactics; they lack the weight and
strength. So the destriers I brought were almost
beyond price. My second herd was mostly brood mares,
with only three great stallions. With them I . . .",

Deneen's voice spoke unexpectedly from the
communicator at Arno's belt. He was so surprised he
jerked, then reined in his horse. I stopped mine,
too. I hadn't remembered to switch it to remote
reception after I'd used it the last time on the ship.

"Larn, this is Javelin," she was saying. "Larn, this
is Javelin. Over."

"I should answer her," I said.

He reached to his belt and took off the communicator,
peering at it. "How is it used? I've forgotten."

"It's a different model from the one I had before.
This one is military. Here," I added, reaching.

He scowled, holding it away from me. "Tell me," he
said, "for I will not put it in your power."

"All right," I countered, "hold it in your hand and
let me touch the magic places."

"Larn, what's the situation down there?" Deneen's
voice went on. Obviously, she thought I had it on
remote and that no one else was hearing her. She
sounded somewhere between exasperated and worried.
"Bubba says you're out in the countryside. I seem to
have you located on the viewer-I presume it's you-
with four other men on the road that goes south along
the coast. Come in please, if you can. Over."

While she was saying that, Arno held the communicator
out for me to touch. I opened the transmit switch and
raised the volume a bit. "Okay, Arno," I told him.
"Talk to her."

"Hello," he said in Evdashian. "I am Arno of
Courmeron."

"What? Who are you? I can't understand you."

She could understand him all right. She wanted him to
give me the communicator. But from his expression, he
wasn't about to.

"You understand me so good as you must. I am Arno of
Courmeron."

She did something with the switch, and the
communicator made clicking noises, sharp and rapid.
"Larn, can you hear me?" she said. "What's going on
there? Whose voice was that? Over."

He wasn't very happy with that either, but he held it
out where I could talk into it.

"Hi, Deneen." I was speaking Evdashian too, slowly,
so that Arno could more or less follow what I said.
"That was Arno of Courmeron. And I didn't find him;
he found me. He'd heard about me in an eating place,
and surprised me when I was sleeping; he and three
other Normans. He's got my stunner and blast pistol
and communicator.

"Don't worry, though. Everything is all right so far.
He and I are talking about things we might do
together. Right now we're going to where he's
staying."

Arno was watching me intently. I'd need to throw in
some words he didn't know so he wouldn't understand
what I had to say next, "I'll activate the remote if
the opportunity presents. You palpitate the switch
additionally after I enunciate the appellation of our
telepathic quadruped."

I paused. It was desirable that Arno did understand
what I said next, so this time I spoke simply. "Arno
is holding me prisoner, sort of. He doesn't fully
trust me and I don't fully trust him, but I think he
and I can work something out together. Meanwhile, you
follow us from above. You can use magic to know
whether I've been harmed or not." Magic Arno
accepted, more or less, while technology was foreign
to him. I paused now for emphasis. "If I'm harmed," I
continued, "you know what to do. And take good care
of Bubba."

As soon as I said "Bubba"-the "appellation of our
telepathic quadruped"-the speaker not only gave
another series of clicks, but a loud squeal. I don't
know how she did the squeal part.
"Here," I said to Arno. "I need to fix it."

He hesitated, then moved his horse closer so I could
look the communicator over. Reaching, I switched it
to remote. "There," I said. "That may fix it, or it
may make it worse.

"Deneen," I added, "my communicator is acting up
again. Same old problem-clicking noises. I've
adjusted the gummox. If you can hear me, transmit
again and let's see if it's working now. Over."

Both Arno and I looked at the communicator as if
watching would help it work. Of course it didn't make
a sound that he could hear. "Deneen," I said, "we do
not receive you. Transmit again please. Over."

Her voice murmured in the privacy of my ear canal.
"Well, brother mine, was that quiet enough for you?
Cough if your remote is working. Over."

I coughed, cleared my throat, then looked at Arno,
and he at me. "The amulet refuses to talk for now," I
said in Norman, shaking my head. "I've had trouble
with it before. It will work for a while, and then
for no apparent reason it quits."

Of course Arno, being a Norman, was suspicious. I
could read it in his face, even by moonlight.
I shrugged. "It will probably work all right later.
Will it be all right for me to put it to rest? No use
running down the power cell." The last two words were
in Evdashian, of course. "That which gives it power,"
I added in Norman.

To him it was all magic. I could almost smell his
distrust as he nodded. "Do what you must," he said,
"as long as I keep the amulet."

"If you insist," I answered, and reaching again,
switched off the transmitter. The remote would
continue to function.
As we started down the road, the remote murmured
again. "Larn, I'm getting ready to give him a
demonstration. You might want to prepare him so he
won't think he's being attacked."

I had this natural urge to answer, but didn't.
"Arno," I told him, "if I know Deneen, we can expect
her to do something to prove her power to you. I'm
sure she won't harm anyone, because we'd like to be
your allies. But it may be pretty noisy, so be ready."

He nodded, saying nothing. It wasn't more than half a
minute later that a spotlight caught us. Brislieu,
taken by surprise, stopped his horse and drew his
sword, glancing upward for a moment. Arno was too
smart to look at the lamp even briefly; it would make
his pupils contract. He looked only at the
illuminated area of the ground. Their squires halted
behind us; I don't know what they made of all this.

Then the light switched off.

Nothing more happened for a long minute. I sat
holding the reins tight, waiting. If what I suspected
happened next, my horse might easily start bucking;
the average saddle gorn at home would have. Then the
light came on again. This time it wasn't an intense
and narrow beam, but spread to flood a grove of trees
planted in rows not far from the road. I tensed,
almost sensing Tarel at the weapons controls.

The dull "thud thud thud" of the heavy blaster
punctuated the night, a series of twelve or fifteen
shots in maybe six seconds. Energy bolts hissed,
trees burst, fragments of wood whirred and plunked
around. The horses, well trained, jerked and danced
but settled down quickly. Then it was quiet, and the
floodlight showed shattered stubs where the nearest
trees had been, two hundred feet away.

After a moment it switched off again; only the dark
was left. I wondered if any locals had seen what had
happened, and what they'd make of it if they had.

The light came back on, its beam narrower again, to
shine on a steep, rocky slope about a quarter mile
away. Our eyes went to it. The blaster thudded again-
one, two, three, four-the bolts slamming one after
another into the bedrock. Shards flew, and above the
target point a large slab broke loose to slide
crashing to the foot of the slope.

Then once more it was dark.

"I think she's done now," I said quietly in Norman.
"We have much more powerful weapons this time than
before. And we are harder. We have seen our friends
killed, and we are looking for allies."

As I said it I had a kind of feeling I'd never had
before, a sort of dry emptiness that marked some kind
of change in me. It wasn't especially bad, but it
wasn't good either. There was a certain flavor of
regret to it, but not a heavy sadness or anything
like that. And with it came a sense of strength as
well. I didn't think I'd ever be awed by Normans
again. Impressed by them maybe, but not awed.

"Let us go on," Arno said, also in Norman. "We have
miles to ride yet." His voice was quiet. He sounded
more than just impressed; he sounded as if he had
things to think about.


SEVENTEEN


A Norman sergeant, wearing helmet and hauberk, let us
into Count Roger's castle at Mileto. I'd never been
in a Norman-built stone castle, so I couldn't compare
this with one of them. But it was a lot different
from the timber castles that were usual in Normandy.
The stone defensive wall was so thick that the small
gate we went through was like an inky tunnel.
The grounds inside were like a big country estate
with a wall around it. Arno told me it had been built
for a Byzantine governor. There were no lights, not
even a lamp by a door, and the moon was all but down,
hidden by a hill. But even by simple starlight, the
buildings were graceful, more beautiful than any I'd
seen before on Fanglith.

I couldn't tell how many buildings there were. Quite
a few. Some had wings, and courtyards of their own.
There were gardens with privacy walls, and trees for
fruit and shade. I could smell something in flower.
But the walls had corner towers, one much larger than
the others, to remind me that war was a way of life
on Fanglith.

Arno had told me that Judith of Evreux, Roger's wife,
really loved the place. I could understand that,
especially if her father's castle in Normandy was
like the castles I'd seen there. Arno didn't say so,
but I got the idea that he liked this better, too.

We headed for the big stone tower. After Arno had
warned the squires to say nothing about what had
happened that night, they took the horses away to rub
them down and feed them. Arno, Brislieu, and I went
into the tower. Our "bedroom" was the large dark
hall, lit by a single lamp-a bowl of oil with a cloth
wick and a flickering small flame. I could make out
other men sleeping-knights and sergeants no doubt.
After each of us had gathered together his own little
heap of the dry hay piled in a corner, Arno and
Brislieu stripped off their hauberks. Then we wrapped
ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep.

They didn't smell nearly as bad as the Norman knights
I'd been among in Normandy, or the monks in Provence,
as far as that was concerned. What dominated my
nostrils was the hay-a clean, pleasant smell. I
wondered if they'd learned about baths in this new
country they'd conquered.

Arno:
It had been a long enough day, riding in to Reggio,
arranging for a ship with a horse hold, rinding and
capturing the star man, and riding back to Mileto.
But my mind was roiling like a kettle over a fire,
too full of thoughts just then for sleep.

The star man! He was ignorant, carried no sword,
spoke inadequately, had only a vague idea what to say
or do. Even with his sorcerous weapons, which on two
occasions I'd deprived him of, and with his sister
overhead in their sky boat, he should have been dead
long before this. Instead, since the first hour I'd
known him, he'd gone from one dangerous situation to
another, slipping through each as if, in truth, he
was guided by some angel, or the Holy Spirit Himself.

I remembered my old training master, Walter Ironfist,
telling us that the only lasting luck was the luck
you made for yourself. And while I accepted that, the
knowledge did not seem particularly useful. But in
the case of this Larn, certainly his luck was beyond
mere chance.
I could wish I'd never met him; yet I had. I seemed
drawn to him, and despite myself I liked him. And if
he, in some way, created luck, one might do well to
share a project with him.

Once I'd seen Sicily and come to know it a bit, seen
how wealthy Saracen princes lived, and Jewish and
Byzantine merchants, I too wanted wealth. And it
seemed to me that I could best become wealthy by
being a merchant. Fighting, living in the saddle,
sleeping among the rocks with one's hauberk on,
saddle for pillow, hand on sword hilt and one eye
open-it all has a certain flavor. Yet while I admit
to relishing it, it was a life I would willingly
sacrifice for wealth.
Obtaining wealth, however, takes more than sacrifice,
else there'd be far fewer poor. But I am nothing if
not smart-smart even for a Norman. I knew I could
learn to be a merchant. I could even see how to
begin, for here was a great demand for war horses,
while in Normandy there was a good supply. Even the
Prankish animals were adequate, and at a lesser
distance. And like every Norman knight, I knew
destriers; knew them well. All I needed was money to
buy them with, and the luck and will and toughness to
get them here from the north.

The money to start with, I obtained from the Battle
of Misilmeri, where we'd killed Saracens by the
thousands-killed them till those who yet lived
surrendered to us. We'd been reeling from exhaustion
by then, hardly able to stay upright in the saddle.
Our arms ached, seemingly beyond our power to raise
for another blow.

Nonetheless we'd dismounted. The more experienced
among us summoned the energy to begin searching the
dead, and as the rest of us watched, our exhaustion
was forgotten. Those of us recently from Normandy
could hardly believe the coins and gems the Saracen
knights carried in their purses to ransom themselves
with if captured. We cut pieces from their robes,
made bags of them, and emptied their purses into the
bags. And the rings of gold and silver, many set with
precious stones! How many fingers were cut free of
how many dead hands that day! We sergeants and
knights chose the richest-looking bodies for our
efforts, then left the poorer to the Lombard
mercenaries and went to the quarters assigned to us.

And while, by Saracen standards, or Byzantine, or
Jewish, we were not wealthy, any one of us was
wealthier in gold, silver, and gems than almost
anyone in Normandy.

I knew then how I could buy horses.

But that was not the end of it. For Roger had seen my
strength and prowess in the battle-indeed, had heard
of me from skirmishes earlier-and I was knighted.
Beyond that, his brother Guiscard levied an
unbelievable ransom on our prisoners, knowing it
would be paid. And when in fact it was paid,
Guiscard, royal in fact and power if not in title,
distributed it among his army. I began to see myself
not only with a great horse herd, but also sleeping
on a soft bed, on silk sheets, with slaves and
servants to tend my needs.

When I was able to obtain an audience with Roger, and
tell him my plan to raise horses, he approved at
once. For in every skirmish we were likely to have
destriers killed or maimed, and their like were hard
to come by in the south. And our Norman style of
fighting depended on their size and strength and
ferocity as much as on our heavier mail, our stouter
swords. With our ranks closed and our great war
horses between our thighs, we Normans are the
greatest fighting men of all, not even excepting
Varangians or Swabians, for all their fierceness and
great frames.

If I could help solve the problem of enough good
horses, Roger told me, then he would absolve me of
the fealty I'd sworn him and let me go my way. I felt
myself fortunate in having had such a noble lord, and
in fact I was.

Then, on my way back to Normandy, I'd met the star
man beside the road that comes down from the Cenis
Pass into the valleys of Savoie. I could barely
understand his speech, which was Provengal poorly
spoken. He had seemed unarmed and as innocent as a
girl- almost too innocent to survive beneath heaven.
But then I learned what powers he held, glimpsed what
force I might gain from him, and suddenly the life of
a merchant seemed small and trivial. While wealth, it
seems, was after all only part of what I wanted. Now
I could see a kingdom, even an empire, waiting to be
grasped by getting his weapons and skyboat into my
hands. I had but to wait-bide patiently and strike
when the time was right.

But the time was never right. And at last it had
seemed to me that my best chance was to deal
honorably with the star folk-Larn and his father and
the great wolf that seemed to think and speak like a
man. And finally I had it in my hands-the great
warship of the sky, taken from their enemies by might
of Norman arms, and by the star folk's own cunning
and daring, which even a Norman could admire.

And then that great fool, Roland de Falaise,
destroyed the warship, and with it all our knights
and sergeants except Brislieu, whom I had sent on an
errand. I know it was Roland who did it; no other
could have been so perverse. The warship had burst in
the air with a force unbelievable.

With that, my dream of empire had been in tatters. It
seemed then that my only chance was to take the
skyboat from the star folk. But my attempt was
without cunning or force, ineffective, and my offer
of fealty to them if they would take me with them to
their world was both ill-advised and rejected. I was
back to horses again, and to my earlier dream of
being a merchant.
In time I almost convinced myself again that it was
all I truly wished. And indeed I made much progress.
Then I had eaten supper in the Greek inn near the
cathedral, overheard the captain's tale, and found
the star man once more.

And there it was again: The dream, the possibility,
of empire! If I could gain their skyboat and their
weapons, and use them cleverly . . .

Larn:

As late as it was, I didn't feel sleepy at first. For
one thing, my thighs and rear end weren't used to
riding horseback. And for another, I was chilly. But
mainly I had stuff on my mind.

It seemed to me that as smart as Arno was, he wasn't
in a position to be my number-one man on Fanglith. He
wasn't the native leader I needed. The kind of man I
should be looking for was someone already established
in power. His Count Roger maybe, or even better, the
duke, Robert Guiscard. Those guys already had armies,
and ruled pieces of real estate that apparently were
pretty big and important for a planet like Fanglith,
where communication and transportation were so
primitive. Give them communicators and air support
and let their enemies see a demonstration by a turret
blaster, and they wouldn't have to fight to conquer.

I shifted on my grass pile, trying to get more
comfortable. Arno, I told myself, would be my front
man, my introduction to Roger or Robert.

"It sounds as if you're getting it all sorted out."

Deneen's voice in my ear startled me, and I heard her
laugh. "We're sitting about a hundred yards above you
with the windows opaqued. There are so few people
awake down there that Bubba can follow your thoughts.
He's been giving us a running summary, "I've been
thinking about possible rescue plans," she went on.
"If you'd like, I can put Tarel down on the roof of
the building you're in; there's a trapdoor in it. He
could take a stunner and have a remote in his ear,
and Bubba and I could guide him in finding you."

I looked at that. "Bubba, can you read Arno's
thoughts?" I asked with my mind. "It would help to
know more about what he's thinking."

There was a long pause, a minute or longer. Bubba's
form of speech was hard to understand over a
communicator, and I could picture him giving his
answer to Deneen.

"Arno's still awake," she said at last, "but Bubba
hasn't been paying much attention to him. He's not
used to Norman French, or to the nonverbal mix in
Arno's thoughts. The general tone doesn't feel
threatening, but if you want, he'll monitor and see
what he gets."

I knew that Bubba does better with people whose
thought style he's used to. "Fine," I said. "If
Arno's still awake, Bubba can monitor him for a
while, and if he learns anything I ought to know
about, tell me.

"Meanwhile, let's leave things the way they are-at
least for now. I'll play things by ear, and you can
bail me out later if necessary. I'm pretty sure Arno
plans to take me to Sicily with him, and that's where
I need to go anyway. That's where Robert and Roger
are."

That's about all that needed saying just then. We
"talked" a minute longer just for company, but I knew
it was hard work for Bubba, so we ended off. Then I
got myself as comfortable as I could and waited,
scratching, for sleep. It seemed to me that, in spite
of the lice and fleas, I'd rather be down here than
up there: it was more interesting.

Now there was a different viewpoint for me! I was
learning to relax and enjoy the situation. Give me a
little time and maybe I'd make a good adventurer
after all!



EIGHTEEN


The next day wasn't all that enjoyable though. For
one thing, I felt as if l should have slept a few
more hours. And the weather had changed; it was
beginning to be windy again, but out of the south
this time-a warm wind gritty with sand. The sirocco,
they called it, out of Africa. By the time we'd
climbed into our saddles to help fetch Arno's horses,
it was a stiff breeze, damp and almost hot. We chewed
grit, breathed grit, and got grit in our eyes. Nobody
there seemed very happy about it.

It could last for days, they told me, though it might
be gone tomorrow. If it ever came to a vote, I'd vote
for gone tomorrow.
The country behind Mileto was rough, with draws and
little canyons, and Arno's herd was scattered in
several loose bands with some young locals keeping
track of them. There were three stallions,
thirty-seven big mares, and thirty-three foals-a lot
of horses. It took us till afternoon to get them all
down out of the hills and penned near the wharf.
There Arno selected sixty to take to Palermo this
trip. That was all the ship would hold-the biggest
horse ship available in Reggio.

Then we went back to the tower-the donjon, they
called it-and actually bathed! The Normans were quite
cheerful about it-not only Arno, but Brislieu and
their squires. They even had soap, and what the soap
lacked in quality, the Normans made up for with
scrubbing.

It was the first time I'd had my clothes off since
before I'd boarded the ship at Marseille. There were
red blotches-bug bites-all over my body; it was
pretty impressive. They didn't bother me the way they
had at first though. And the Normans didn't have the
blotches. It was as if the body quit reacting much to
them after a while.

When we'd gotten rid of the grit temporarily, we had
a meal. Then Arno and I sat alone in the shelter of a
garden wall to talk. I'd thought he might present me
to Roger's wife, but he didn't. I decided that one,
he didn't know how to explain me; and two, he didn't
want them to know what sort of resource I was.

What we did do was talk about the kind of kingdom or
empire he'd run, if he had one. First of all, he
said, he would establish his sovereignty over the
Greeks- the Byzantines. Then he'd bring the cleverest
artisans and weapons makers of Byzantium to his
court, which would be at Palermo. At the same time,
he'd send me back to the heavens to get more of our
powerful weapons, an idea that fitted in with my own.
Also, he would not, he said, allow the barons to
build castles; it encouraged them to defy the king.
He'd let each subject people rule themselves by their
own laws and leaders, after swearing fealty to him as
their sovereign. Guiscard had begun to do this, and
was finding that it greatly reduced revolts and other
unrests.

And again following Guiscard's example, he would
appoint Jews and Greeks to administer the offices of
government. They had the knowledge, could read and
write and compute; and besides, he said, Normans had
no genius for the job.

I decided that Arno had the makings of a good ruler.

"But look," I told him, "today you won't even trust
me to hold the speaking amulet in my hand. Yet later,
you're going to trust me to leave this world in the
skyboat?"

"Of course," he said. "Things will be different then."

"Different how?"

He didn't answer for a moment, as if deciding whether
or not to tell me. "First, I shall require your
oath," he said at last, "and then I shall marry your
sister. She and our children should be assurance
enough that your oath will be kept."

I guess my expression must have told him what kind of
jolt that was, because he added: "Do not be
concerned. I shall always treat her honorably and
respect her ways, requiring only that she be
baptized. Admittedly I have scarcely spoken to the
lady, but I have often thought about her, remembering
what she looked like, and how brave she proved in the
teeth of your enemies in Normandy. Thus not only have
I yearned for her in seeming hopelessness, but I
admire her greatly."

I didn't say anything; it seemed best not to. And I
guess Arno decided he'd said too much, because after
a quiet minute or so, he excused himself and left. I
don't suppose it ever occurred to him that Deneen
might have other ideas, might tell him to go jump in
the whirlpool Charybdis. At the very least.

The ship from Reggio didn't arrive that afternoon,
and I could see why: a south wind was a head wind. It
wasn't practical to sail south in the gritty teeth of
the sirocco. We'd see what tomorrow brought.
Meanwhile the servants would have to feed the horses
hay.

That evening we ate with the other knights and
sergeants and their squires in the dungeon,
twenty-one of us in all. I was the only one who
didn't wear a hauberk at the table. It was a strange
tradition. But at least no one wore their helmet.

When Roger was at home, Arno told me, Roger and his
family customarily ate dinner with the troops. At
other times his family ate separately, which
apparently was different from Norman custom. In any
case, the food was a lot better and more varied than
it had been at Roland's castle in Normandy.

Also, there was wine instead of sour beer, and when
the eating had slowed down a little, there was
storytelling. One of the knights, Rollo, wanted me to
tell about India, but I could see that getting
awkward. I wasn't sure I could lie fast enough, or
convincingly enough, or
keep my lies consistent. So I told him I could speak
of it only in my own language. Rollo decided that was
an insult, and challenged me to fight-he'd drunk at
least three or four big cups of wine, while I'd been
getting through the evening on just one.

I wanted to avoid a fight if at all possible, for two
reasons. Make that three reasons. Even if the fight
started without weapons, I wasn't sure it would stay
that way. Second, I didn't want them to know about
hand-foot art; it was my secret weapon. And third, I
don't like to fight. But Arno handled the situation;
he got up and said it was unseemly to ask a holy monk
to fight. And when the marshal of the house troops
agreed with him, Rollo didn't push it.

Meanwhile it had gotten dark outside, and the
lighting was poor, of course-a dozen of the crude oil
lamps. Some of the troops went to their sleeping
places and lay down; I decided that was a good idea
and followed their example. After an hour I was still
awake, still listening. The stories were interesting,
and I was following the Norman with only a little
trouble now and then where I lacked a key word or
concept. The lamps had burned low or out, all that
was left of the hearth fire was embers, and the last
three or four men finally gave it up for the night.
I remember thinking that I wished Deneen would call.
Minutes later I was asleep.

The reason she hadn't called was too much mental
activity in the hall, which made it impossible for
Bubba to read my thoughts. I'd been asleep long
enough that the lamps and hearth fire were entirely
dark when the remote spoke in my ear.

"Larn! Larn! Wake up. I've got something important to
tell you."

Something important to tell me? The thought that hit
me was that they'd detected an Imperial cruiser.

"Not that bad," she said. "A complication, not a
catastrophe."

"What complication?" I thought to them.

"I was doing a routine check of ship's systems a
while ago, and the fuel slugs have serious peripheral
crystallization."

I thought I knew what could have caused it, or at
least contributed to it: prolonged and constant
operation in mass-proximity mode. I knew for sure
what would happen if it wasn't reversed: It would get
worse. And the further crystallization advances, the
faster it advances, until beyond some critical point,
you can't activate FTL mode anymore. If that happened
to us, we could be stuck on Fanghth forever.

"A shutdown should reverse it," I thought back at her.

"According to the systems manual," she answered, "it
will have to be about a six- to ten-day all-systems
shutdown. The only alternative is to head outbound
and go into FTL. Eight or ten hours at FTL would
decrystallize it, but that's too iffy."

Even a day at FTL sounded better to me than a six-to
ten-day shutdown. "What's iffy about it?" I asked.

"We'd need to get out about 700,000 miles before I'd
try FTL. Fanglith's a little more massive than
Evdash. That's 700,000 miles in mass proximity mode,
with crystallization accelerating all the way. The
computer says it's marginal whether we could go FTL
when we got out there. The crystallization might have
gone too far. So I plan to go back to the island we
visited. It's the safest place I know of on Fanglith,
and we'll get along okay there. After six days, if
the reversal isn't complete, maybe then I'll take her
out and go FTL to finish it.

"Now what I need to know is, do you want me to pick
you up and take you with us? I don't like leaving you
with no one to bail you out if things come apart down
there."

To my surprise, I wasn't even tempted. "No," I told
her, "I'm pretty safe here, for Fanglith. I doubt if
anyone around here is interested in messing with
Arno, and he doesn't want anything to happen to me.
And as far as the ship ride to Palermo is concerned,
we'll be following the Norman-controlled coast all
the way. I don't think we have anything to worry
about; just get that crystallization reversed.
"Anything else to report?" I added.

"No, that's it. I'll say goodbye   now and we'll be on
the island before daylight. I'll   be in touch again in
six or eight days. Ten at most."   She stopped then for
a moment, a stop that I knew was   just a pause.

"Larn?"

"Yeah?"

"I just want you to know that besides being my
brother, you're also my best friend."

Well I'll be darned, I thought. "Thanks, sister mine.
That goes both ways." And I meant it.

With that she cut off, and I could picture her
accelerating westward toward the island coordinates.
I lay there savoring our conversation for a minute or
two before I went back to sleep.

PART FOUR

THE VARANGIANS

NINETEEN

The sirocco began to die down late the next morning.
The locals said we were lucky, that usually it lasted
longer, just before dusk the ship arrived from
Reggio, probably the biggest ship I'd seen close up
on Fanglith, with a taller, heavier mast than usual
and a square sail instead of the usual triangular
one. Tomorrow, Arno said, we would leave.

The next morning we met with the captain in a
steel-gray dawn. The wind was out of the north now,
and chilly instead of gritty. It would be best to lie
at the dock a while, he said. The wind would make the
Strait of Messina hard to navigate northbound. But
Arno was a Norman and the captain wasn't. We would
start this morning, Arno insisted, and if we had too
much trouble, we could put in at Reggio or Messina.
Roger had his own docks in both ports, which we could
use without fee; Arno had a letter of authorization.

The captain shrugged and agreed. He was Greek, and
his French quite broken, but I got the idea that it
wasn't a big deal to him either way-sail or lie at
the dock. We started loading the horses.

Most of the deck could be taken up in sections, like
a mosaic of hatch covers. Each horse stall in the
hold was just wide enough for a destrier, with a sort
of leather sling so the horse couldn't fall in rough
weather and maybe break a leg. The horses were loaded
in-you could almost say they were inserted in their
stalls- with a block and tackle fastened to a boom.
That seemed to be the reason, or a reason, for the
taller, heavier mast: It served as part of the boom
rig for loading the horses.

When all sixty horses had been loaded, we cast off-
Arno, Brislieu, and three sergeants, along with their
squires, myself, and the ship's crew. The crew kept
giving me sideways looks and plenty of room; Arno had
spread the word that I was a holy monk from India. I
didn't know whether he had some purpose in this or if
it was his sense of humor.

The breeze was brisk, but nothing like a storm. The
captain took us around the point of land just west of
Mileto and we entered the wide, lower end of the
long, funnel-shaped strait. The wind picked up a bit
then, and he tacked northwestward across it. An hour
later, though the clouds were breaking up, it was
blowing considerably harder, and the ship was
pitching pretty badly. Arno agreed that we should
turn southwest and make for a little bay north of
Taormina, the harbor of Taormina still being held by
Saracens. But before long they decided that Catania
was a better choice. It was considerably farther, but
safer; we wouldn't have to sail across the wind.

Then, around mid-afternoon, the wind began to slack
off markedly, and Arno had us turned north again. I
was beginning to get a better idea of how hard it
could be, with sailing rigs as crude as ours, to
travel by sea with nothing more than wind power. I'd
be willing to bet that sport sailors back on Evdash
had a lot fewer problems with wind direction than the
Fanglithans did.
At any rate, after five hours at sea we were quite a
lot farther from Palermo than when we started. The
swell continued pretty high, lifting our bow, then
the entire ship, letting it slide down the back side,
but we weren't taking spray across the deck anymore.
The captain had the crew remove some of the hatches
so the horses could have sunshine and fresh air.

As we zigzagged clumsily northward, we saw a sail
riding the wind southward toward us-a square sail
like our own. The captain told us it was almost
surely not Mediterranean; Mediterranean vessels
carried triangular sails. Ours was an exception,
designed for hauling destriers.
Before long we could make out her hull, which was
slender. My first thought was pirates, and that was
Arno's thought too. But the captain said a corsair
would have a triangular sail; this looked like a ship
of Norse pilgrims on its way home from the Holy Land.

The word "Norse" triggered Arno's interest. The
Norse, he told me, had founded Normandy, and some of
his ancestors had been from Norse kingdoms. Also, the
Varangian mercenary regiments in the Byzantine armies
were Norse, and were famous fighting men. He asked
the captain if we could sail near enough for a close
look at their ship, and after a moment's hesitation,
the captain agreed. He changed our tack so that we'd
pass close to her.

The Norse ship moved fast by Fanglithan standards,
riding high in the water, and soon we got a good look
at her. Her lines were as smooth as the pirate's had
been, and more slender. A "long ship," our captain
said; he'd never seen one before, but he knew of
them. Most Norse ships were broader, he told us, to
carry cargo. We passed her at a distance of no more
than two hundred feet, and there seemed to be fifty
men or more on board her, most of them watching us.
One of them had climbed her mast to the spar,
presumably to get a better look.

Then we were past, and our attention left her. No one
was even aware when she began to put about; she was
mostly through her turn when our steersman noticed
and called out. By that time her sail was down and
she had oars in the water, her oarsmen pulling hard.
Over the next few minutes, the Normans and I watched
her draw up on us. It took skill to row in a swell
like that. Our captain changed our course
northwestward, angling toward the Sicilian coast, but
it was obvious that she'd catch us. With the
primitive Fanglithan sail rigs, oars worked a lot
better in a headwind.

And Deneen was hundreds of miles away with all
systems shut down, which meant no radio.
When the long ship had drawn near, I could see one of
her men in the bow with a grapple in his hand, rope
attached, I could imagine the technique: When they
were close enough, he'd throw it and hook us.
Brislieu had strung his bow, but Arno warned him
sharply not to shoot. The Norse, he said, might all
have bows, many to our few. Instead he drew
his-my-blast pistol.

"Let them draw alongside," he muttered. "Do not cut
their lines." He gestured with the blaster. "This
will put the fear of God into them. They'll let us go
as if we carried the Devil himself, and we'll have
their grapples for our own."

The Norseman began swinging his grapple around his
head, then released it, its line snaking behind it
across the water. It fell onto our deck, narrowly
missing me, caught the gunwale, and bit deep and hard
into the wood. Then other Norsemen threw grapples,
and strong arms drew the ropes taut. They shipped
their oars then, the oarsmen lending their tough
hands to the ropes. I could see them plainly
now-well-tanned, bearded men, mostly with brown or
blond hair. At about fifteen feet, Arno leveled the
pistol at the Norsemen in the bow and pressed the
firing stud.

And nothing happened! It flashed through my mind that
the safety was on; the double safety on this heavy
military model was different from that on the police
model he'd had before.

"Let me have it!" I shouted at him.

But instead, one of the Norsemen let him have it-
slung a throwing axe spinning toward us. It slammed
hard against Arno's helmet-fortunately end on-sending
him sprawling unconscious.

The pistol went sliding along the deck, but what I
dove after was the stunner on Arno's belt.
At close quarters, it would stop the Norsemen as well
as the blaster would, and it was closer to hand.
Arno's body was lying on the stunner, though, and by
the time I got my hands on it, the Norsemen were
boarding us. Brislieu and the sergeants and squires,
in true, reckless Norman style, had drawn their
swords, and for maybe half a minute I could hear
their furious fight. If I'd gotten to my feet, or
even to my knees, I'd probably have been killed for
my trouble, so I shoved the stunner and communicator
into my shirt and lay beside the unconscious Arno,
playing dead. Blood was spreading across the deck
planks-Norman blood, I thought-and the brief noise of
fighting had stopped.

Pilgrims from the Holy Land!

Then brown hands with pale hair curling on their
backs turned Arno over and took off first his sword
belt, then his helmet, collet, and hauberk.
Unfamiliar voices were speaking a language I'd never
heard before-a language with a sort of
tonality-almost a singsong quality. There was quite a
bit of laughter. Someone grabbed me then and started
to turn me over, and abruptly I scrambled to my feet.
I didn't want them to take my stunner and
communicator.

One of them drew his sword, and I raised my cross,
holding it out at him in my left hand. My right hand
drew my stunner, aiming from beneath my cape. As he
hesitated, I started chanting my school fight song
good and loud, as if it were a prayer, moving my
cross up and down between us to hold their attention
on it. Then I pushed the firing stud, and the blond
swordsman just sort of sank to his knees and toppled
over on his face.

Talk about a reaction! For four or five seconds no
one said a thing. After that, they all started
talking at once, while I slipped the stunner back
inside my shirt. I was still holding my cross up.
Then the Norseman who seemed to be the leader
bellowed something and they all shut up. With his
eyes slitted at me, he said something else in a quiet
voice and someone grabbed me around the arms from
behind so hard I thought my rib cage would break.
Another put his knife tip to my throat. I held very,
very still.

Their leader was a broad, thick-shouldered warrior
whose red hair and beard were marked with white. He
turned to our captain and said something that had to
be Greek-it sounded pretty much like what our captain
and crew talked among themselves, though I could tell
it was accented. Our captain answered. The Norseman
looked at his fallen warrior, then at me, and said
something more in Greek, and again our captain
answered. They talked back and forth for a minute or
so, then the Norseman pursed his lips and frowned,
said something to the man who had hold of me, and I
was let go.

I sucked in a big breath of air and looked around.
Except for Arno, every one of the Normans was dead,
lying in their own blood-including the squires, none
of them more than fifteen years old, I could see
three dead Norsemen too, while another was sitting on
a hatch cover having a gashed arm bandaged. He was
bloody from shoulder to feet-must have lost at least
a quart of it-but instead of looking pale and weak,
he looked angry and mean. I'm not sure how I looked;
probably green.

We were broadside to the swell now, rolling heavily
from side to side. Some of the Norsemen were down in
our hold, looking at the horses and talking
enthusiastically. I learned later that the Norseman
who'd climbed their mast had seen our rich cargo of
horses. That was what inspired them to turn and
attack us.

The Norse leader shouted orders, and the men in the
hold started coming back on deck. Some of them laid
the dead bodies out on the deck boards-Normans and
Norsemen both. When they were done, the Norse leader
stood over the corpses. He called again, sharply, and
two more of his men came out of the hold. Then all
the Norsemen took off their helmets and stood
quietly. Their leader wore an ornate gold cross on a
chain around his neck, and he held it up with his
right hand, then raised his eyes to it and started
chanting in his own language. It occurred to me that
he was praying.

He prayed for about half a minute, then let the cross
fall against his hauberk. Another brief order, and
some of his men grabbed the dead under the arms and
knees and threw them over the side. He turned to look
at me, gave another order, and one of his men grabbed
my arm and pointed to their ship, gesturing
forcefully. His grip was like a steel pincer, his
hands as fiercely strong as Arno's. The two ships had
been tied snugly against each other, side by side,
and were rolling and wallowing, their gunwales at
almost the same level; apparently, they wanted me to
cross to theirs, so I did. Two of the Norsemen lifted
Arno and carried him across.
Within minutes the ships were separated. The Norse
had left a small prize crew of their warriors on the
horse ship, with her Greek captain and his men. Both
ships had turned before the wind now, and we were
sailing southward together about two hundred feet
apart, with the long ship in the lead, her sail
raised again.

I wasn't feeling too pessimistic. If the Norsemen had
been going to kill Arno and me, they probably would
have done it already. And I had the communicator. In
six or eight days Deneen would be back, and if worst
came to worst, when the time came, I could jump over
the side at night and let her fish me out.

It occurred to me then to turn off the remote in my
right ear. Deneen wasn't around to talk to me, and
even just turned on, it was a constant tiny drain on
the communicator's power cell. When I needed it,
later on, I didn't want a rundown powercell.


TWENTY


Arno didn't wake up for half an hour, and when he
did, he was confused. We sat on the bottom decking of
the open Norse ship, talking quietly, his speech
vague and mumbly at first as he gradually remembered
what had happened. After a while, the Norse leader
came over to us with one of the Greek sailors from
the horse ship.

The Norseman said something in Greek, and the Greek
repeated it in Norman French. His Norman was good-a
lot better than his captain's had been-and obviously
the Norseman had brought him aboard to interpret.

"He wants you to stand up," the Greek said, It was me
the Norse leader was looking at, so I got up. The
Norseman spoke to me again, the Greek translating. "I
am told you are a holy monk."
"That's right."
The Norseman eyed the cross that hung from my neck.
"Do you follow the church of Miklagard, or that of
Rome?"

Somehow the question felt dangerous, so I
sidestepped. "India. I am a Christian of India."

"Umh." He thought about that, frowning, then said
something more to the Greek and walked away.
"What did he tell you?" I asked.

"He had planned to sell all of us, and the ship and
horses, to Saracen merchants in Spain. But he says he
cannot sell a Christian holy man, certainly not to
the Saracens, so he will have to take you with him to
his homeland."

Well, I thought, mark one up to being a holy monk.
"He asked if I followed the way of Miklagard," I
said. "Where or what is Miklagard?"

"These men are Varangians, Miklagard is their name
for Byzantium."
Varangians? "What are Varangians?" I asked.

He shrugged. "They are barbarian mercenaries who come
from the North. Some come on ships like this, across
the Mediterranean. But mostly they come, or used to,
across the Black Sea from the Rhos land. They pay no
heed to kings, but bond themselves by oaths to
whatever leaders they choose. Most of these men have
been fighting for the Emperor, and are returning now
to their homelands with the gold they have earned."

The Emperor. That would be the Byzantine emperor, I
decided.

"And they plan to sell you?" I said. "Does that mean
you'll be a slave?"

"Yes. But I am a skilled sailor. I will probably not
be chained to a rowing bench or sent to the mines."
He didn't seem all that upset. Resigned was more like
it.

Meanwhile Arno had gotten to his feet and stood by,
taking it all in. Now he called out in what seemed to
be the Norse language! It surprised heck out of me; I
hadn't known he knew it. The captain, who was
standing about thirty feet away in the bow, turned
and stared at him, then said something back in Norse.
Haltingly, Arno answered, and the captain came over
with an interested expression. They talked for a
couple of minutes, Arno often pausing as if groping
for words. The captain reached out, squeezed Arno's
arms and shoulders with big hands as if testing his
muscles. Then he laughed, nodding, said something
more, and drew Arno by an arm to the center of the
long ship while calling in Norse to its crew.

Most of them moved toward the middle of the long
ship, with Arno in the center, and there seemed to be
some sort of brief meeting. Everyone was grinning or
even laughing, then serious for a few moments, then
cheering. A keg was passed around, which must have
held five gallons, and they all drank, some from big
mugs. Those who drank from the spout held the keg
above their faces as if it didn't weigh a thing, but
when it got to me, it still must have weighed
twenty-five pounds or more.

Our Greek had come over to where I was sitting. He
had no more idea what was going on than I did. After
a few minutes, Arno came back. My eyes must have been
out on stalks by then.

"What was that all about?" I asked. "What did you say
to him? How did you know their language?"
Arno chuckled. With the wind behind us now, no one
was rowing, so we moved to adjacent rowing stools. "I
never told you the history of my people," he said.
"The first Normans were Norse pirates called Vikings.
Most were from the kingdom of Denmark, though Hrolf,
our first duke, was from Norway. They had been
harrying the coast of France from ships much like
this one,
and the Franks were unable to deal with their
ferocity. The Vikings would sail up a river to some
town or monastery and capture and loot it, putting
the people to the sword, then setting the place on
fire before they left."

Arno chuckled again. It bothered me that he could
laugh about it.

"So Charles the Simple, the Prankish king, offered
Hrolf the duchy now called Normandy," Arrio went on,
"if he would stop his raiding. Hrolf was a great
Viking lord, a sea king with many men sworn to him.
And Hrolf, whom the Franks called Rollo and who later
took the Christian name Robert, would be the duke.
All the king required, besides the end of his
raiding, was that Hrolf allow himself to be baptized,
for the Norse were not Christians then. And Hrolf was
also to recognize the king as his sovereign, but
owing him only one man's military service for forty
days a year. Which, the story goes, the king in turn
promised not to demand of him, though I doubt that
even Charles would promise that.

"Denmark was crowded in those days, and many Danes,
as well as certain other Norse, came to Normandy then
to take land. The Franks who were there before them
became their villeins. Many of the Danes who went
there were drengr-unmarried men-and becoming
baptized, took Frankish wives. Also they ceased their
seafaring and learned to fight on horseback-like the
Franks, but more skillfully. And they still had the
bold, fierce, Viking nature, which we Normans keep to
this day."

Although I followed all of that easily enough, there
was one point of confusion. "But the Greek said that
these are Varangians. How does that fit with Vikings?
And apparently they not only speak a language of
their own, but Greek."

"Varangians are the same people as the Vikings.
Varangians are Norse who went to Byzantium to fight
for the Emperor, and the language of Byzantium is
Greek. Byzantium is wealthy beyond belief, and its
Emperor pays richly for warriors of skill and valor.
Many Norse go to Byzantium, and return to their
homelands wealthy by Northern standards."

"And the Normans can also speak Norse?" I asked.

Arno shook his head. "Almost none do. I'm the only
one I know who speaks as much of it as I, although
there may be a few others. When I was born, my
great-grandsire was an old man-seventy. As a small
boy, I was intrigued by him, for he could find his
way around the castle as if he still had the eyes
which had been taken from him by a sword stroke,
fighting river pirates on the Seine.

"In summer, he liked me to sit in the sun with him,
when I was small and we would talk. He taught me the
Norse language, which as he spoke it then was mixed
with more than a little of our good Norman French.
And he told me many stories in Norse, of old days and
old ways. I did not fully understand them then, of
course, but I remembered; I heard them often enough
that sometimes I told them to him,"

Amo smiled, shaking his head. "I loved that old man,
although I will tell you that he never entirely
forgot the old gods. Indeed, I believe our priest
suspected as much, for he often told my mother I
should not be allowed with great-grandsire. He dared
not accuse him of paganism though, for he had no
evidence. And in name, my great-grandsire was still
the baron there, though in his blindness, first my
grandsire and then my father bore the responsibility.

"Great-grandsire-his name was Knut-had been born in
Denmark, but Harald Bluetooth, who in those days was
king there, had become Christian. And demanding that
all Danes be baptized, and had begun to burn the
shrines of the false gods, replacing them with
churches.
"So my great-grandsire's father, disapproving of
Christian ways, took his wife and children and left
the country, going up to Norway, which was pagan
still. It was there my great-grandsire grew up,
worshiping the old gods, and when he was fifteen,
went a-viking. In time, the band he was with took
service with Ethelred of England, and fought Sveinn
Forkbeard, who'd since become Denmark's king.

"But the band broke up when its leader, Gisli
Ketilsson, was baptized and demanded that his
followers do the same. Then my great-grandsire went
home to Norway, where he found Olaf Tryggvesson king,
and the people being baptized left and right. The
shrines of the false gods were being burned, there'd
been fighting, and in one fight, my great-grandsire's
father had been sent to his grave.

"So he went with a Viking band to Normandy, where
they took service with Duke Richard in quieting
rebellious freeholders who were protesting certain
changes from old Danish law to feudal law, which they
considered a Prankish heresy. And the duke, not aware
that great-grandsire was pagan, knighted him, his
valor and the force and cunning of his sword making
up for indifferent horsemanship."

Arno chuckled. "And in Normandy he was baptized at
last, having seen, if not the truth of God, at least
the daughter of William of Courmeron, who would not
give her in marriage to a heathen. When William died
without living sons, great-grandsire received the
fief from the duke. From heathen Viking to Christian
baron in a ten-year! By then he'd learned to ride
with all but the best of them, though he swore he'd
been fortunate to survive some of those wild early
hunting rides through the forest.

"Then, when I was six, I was sent to serve at the
castle of Hugh of Falaise, Roland's father, a man far
nobler than his son would ever be. At certain
holidays, we pages and squires would go home.
Great-grandsire had entered his dotage, and somehow
could no longer speak French, but only Norse, which,
since grandsire's death, no one else there could
speak except myself. Even from his Norse the French
words all had fled, so that I had trouble
understanding him at first. But because I could at
least somewhat understand him, I spent much of my
time with him when I was home. Until, when I was
twelve, I was called to weep beside his bier."

I'd never thought of Arno weeping, even as a kid. He
wasn't chuckling now; he wasn't even smiling.

"They said he'd regained both his French and his full
wits on his last day, and, calling for the priest,
had been absolved of all his sins, which I doubt not
were less numerous and fulsome than those of many men
who'd been Christian from the womb."

Arno shook his head as if throwing off a sense of
loss. "I had not heard the Norse language again until
today, and indeed could speak it only with difficulty
at first."

"What did you talk about?" I asked.

"The leader's name is Gunnlag Snorrason, and he has
accepted my oath. I am now one of his men. He was a
Varangian himself once, and had fought against
Normans in Apulia. Others of his men had fought
Normans in Greece, or fought beside Norman
mercenaries against the Patzinaks. The Varangians
know the strength of Norman arms, and when they found
that I could speak their tongue, albeit haltingly,
they were pleased to have me. In fact, it clearly
amused them to have a Norman in their ranks. To them
I am a sport, like a Saracen bishop in God's church."

He chuckled, grinning ruefully. "Gunnlag Snorrason is
no son of Tancred-no Roger de Hauteville, no Robert
Guiscard or William Fer de Bras-and this vessel is
all there is of his domain. But it is far far better
than the cinnabar mines of Spain, where it is told
the slaves live short and sickly lives and there is
always a demand for more to replace the dying. And I
can like these Varangians, for if they have learned
to admire Normans in battle, Normans have learned
that Varangian strength and valor is hardly second to
our own. Were it not for Varangians, Guiscard might
well rule not from Palermo but from Byzantium itself,
and not a dukedom but an empire."
Later, Arno's cheerful mood turned somber, and that
evening before we slept, he let me see what was
bothering him.

"Larn," he said.

"Yes?"

"Why didn't your sister drive the Varangians away?

With her mighty weapons, she could have sent them to
the bottom."

I lied to him. "I don't know why. She has other
things to do than hang around taking care of me. And
until today, you've had my speaking amulet. I haven't
been able to keep in touch with her."

"Can you call her now?"

"I tried. She didn't answer." I took my communicator
off my belt, switched it on, and murmured into it.
"Deneen, this is Larn. Deneen, this is Larn. Come in,
please. Over."

As I spoke, I had this feeling that she was going to
surprise me and answer, but she didn't. Shrugging, I
switched it off and put it back on my belt. "It seems
to be working," I told him.
"I just don't get an answer. But it only works over a
few hundred miles. She's probably farther away than
that."

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. I wished I was like
Bubba and could read thoughts.
TWENTY-ONE


Late that night I woke up. I'd been dreaming of
Jenoor, and in my dream she'd been alive, talking to
me. I couldn't remember much about it, except she'd
been telling me she was all right. I also remembered
that in the dream it seemed as if she'd come to me in
dreams before.
It had been such a joyous dream; now it was gone. I
lay there for a minute, trying to remember more of
it, but couldn't. Even what I did remember was
slipping away, and a slow wave of despair washed
through me. Getting up, I looked around. To the right
of the long ship I could see a low coastline not many
miles away beneath a fall moon.

One of the Varangians had wakened at my movement and
was watching me. I ignored him and went aft to where
the water casks were lashed, for a drink, being
careful not to step on anyone. I thought about
talking to the steersman, getting into the Norse
language the way I had Provencal, by gestures and
pointing. I decided that wouldn't work too well with
him handling the steering oar, so I went back and lay
down again, where I dreamed some more about Jenoor.

But the next time I woke up, the sun was rising
behind us, which told me we'd changed direction from
south to westerly. The wind had shifted, too, coming
out of the northeast. The square sail billowed
roundly, and we were moving right along.

The most surprising change was that we were towing
the horse ship now! Its own sail was full like ours,
but the line was taut; we were adding to her speed,
though it slowed us down. I called to the Greek-his
name was Michael-and asked if he knew what that was
about.

"We are entering waters where Saracen pirates and
warships are more likely to be met," he said. "Our
captain"-he meant the Varangian captain now-"wants to
pass through them as swiftly as possible without
separating from the other." He gestured toward the
horse ship some hundred feet behind us.

And he really did want to get through fast. First we
ate breakfast, which was the same as supper had been
the day before: dates, smoked meat, and a hard, flat,
crusty thing that the Norse called flatbraud, all
washed down with watered wine. As soon as we'd
finished, men were assigned to the rowing stools.
Sliding the oars through the oar holes, they began to
row in rhythm. It had to be in rhythm, or they'd have
been banging oars together. An overweight Varangian
with a hand missing set the rhythm of their stroke by
striking a drum.

No question about it-we were going faster now.

I began to see a long, hard day ahead. Not all the
oars were in use; only about half the Varangians were
rowing. It didn't take too much imagination to see
what would happen after they'd rowed a while: The
rest of us would replace them. I looked at my hands.
There wasn't a callus on either of them. Then I
looked around for something I could make a sun visor
with. I wasn't nearly as tanned as the Varangians,
and I didn't want my face to slough off at the end of
a day on a rowing stool.

Sure enough, row I did. One shift would row for an
hour-the one-handed bosun had an hourglass-then the
other would take over. At midday we all quit rowing
to eat lunch, which was the same as breakfast,
followed by a longish rest, during which most of us
slept. Then the rowing began again. Before my first
shift I cut cloth pads from my cape to protect my
hands, and I'm sure it helped, but even so, before
the day was done, my palms were raw and oozing. The
only good thing I could say about it, if you could
call it good, was that I'd sort of gotten used to the
pain. At the end of the first shift, I leaned over
the gunwale and scooped up a bucket of salt water
from the sea. After each shift I soaked my hands in
it, though it stung. I wasn't sure the immunoserum
would keep my blisters from getting infected, and a
saltwater soak was the only treatment I could think
of.

To start with, I told the captain I'd never rowed
before, and asked for some coaching. Instead of a
coach, he gave me the rearmost starboard oar, with no
one on the next two stools in front of me. I saw why
quickly enough. The long ship was rolling more than a
little, and for the first couple of minutes I kept
missing the water every few strokes, fanning the air.
Then I got grooved in and it went pretty decently.
After a while, I was even digging the water about the
same each stroke.
My hands weren't my only problem. By the end of my
first shift, my legs and back and arms were really
tired. I kind of semi-recovered on the off-shifts,
but by the end of the day I was more exhausted than
I'd ever been before. When Michael gave me the good
word that the captain wasn't going to make us row at
night, I was too tired to be ecstatic, just awfully
grateful.

On our first off-shift, Arno came over to me. "I've
heard what you did to Jon Eriksson," he said.
"Apparently it was you who took my weapons of power."

I resisted the impulse to remind him who "the weapons
of power" actually belonged to, "Just the stunner," I
said. "And I'm keeping it. The blaster went flying
when the ax hit you. It's probably on the other ship
with your horses."

He gestured at his belt, with its sword, dagger, and
recharge magazine attached, "These were returned to
me," he said, "and even my purse of gold. But
this"-he indicated the magazine-"is empty. Who would
have taken its contents except you? And why would you
have taken them if you did not have the blaster?"
"Arno," I told him wearily, "I may have lied to you a
time or two, but not this time." With an effort, I
got to my feet. "Come on," I said, and headed for the
stem. Arno followed, puzzled. I beckoned to Michael
to come along too, and went to where Gunnlag stood
with the steering oar under one brawny arm.
"Gunnlag," I said, "when you attacked our ship, Amo
had a marvelous device from India which I had given
him. I saw it fly from his hand when he was struck by
the ax, but it did not go into the sea. It was of
metal, and about this long"-I showed him with my
hands-"with a short handle at one end. Would you find
out if any of your men have it? It would have been
just lying there, and they could not have known that
it was his. I'd like him to have it again if
possible."

I said all that in short sentences, Michael
interpreting. When I was done, Gunnlag nodded. "I
will ask at midday, when we stop rowing to eat."

"And there was something else," I added. "Some small
objects that were kept in this." I touched the
magazine on Arno's belt. "He thought I had taken them
for safekeeping, but I had not. Perhaps someone else
has them."

In response, Gunnlag bellowed a name, and one of the
Varangians came over. They talked briefly in Norse.

"It was Torkil here who took the strange objects from
Arno's purse," Gunnlag said to me through the Greek.
"They seemed useless to him, so he threw them aside,
but not into the sea, he thinks. Perhaps they are on
the other craft."

I thanked him then and returned to the bow. Arno
followed, looking at least as unhappy as before. "You
have humiliated me," he said grimly when we'd sat
down,

"How did I do that?"
"By taking up my cause with Gunnlag. It was mine to
do."

I stared at him. "Is that how things are done among
the Varangians? Or is that a Norman way? Or perhaps
only your own feeling about it? Gunnlag didn't seem
to think there was anything wrong
with what I did."

That stopped him. "Besides," I went on, "you didn't
believe me when I told you I didn't have them. I
thought if they turned up from someone else, that
would settle it. As far as that's concerned, you'd
practically accused me of stealing them from you,
when actually you'd stolen them from me. Now Gunnlag
is your witness that I said I gave them to you. It
seems to me you don't have much to complain about."

He sat frowning, not really looking at me. I guess he
was thinking. Then he nodded curtly and moved a few
feet away where he sat facing aft. I lay back and
closed my eyes until our shift went on again.

He felt a lot better at midday break, when one of the
Varangians came up with the blast pistol I was glad
it had a so-called "shelf safety"-the second safety
that Arno hadn't known about. Otherwise the
Varangian, poking around in curiosity, might easily
have shot a hole in the bottom of the ship, or killed
some shipmate. I showed Arno how to disengage it, and
advised him to leave it on when he was just wearing
it around.

In turn, Arno was halfway friendly toward me again.

During our other off-shifts, with Michael's help, I
talked with a few of the Norsemen, including Gunnlag
Snorrason. The captain was from a Norse kingdom
called Sweden, and at sixteen had gone to the Rhos
land, where the warrior band he belonged to took
service with a great prince named Jarisleif from time
to time. Apparently the Rhos princes fought one
another a lot. Jarisleif himself was descended from a
Swede, as were most of the princes there.

Between hostilities, the Varangians occasionally
raided Slav villages, selling their captives as
slaves to the Greeks. Gunnlag laughed after he told
me that. It had seemed, he said, as if the Greeks had
all the gold in the world. So when his chief had a
falling out with Jarisleif, their band had gone south
in boats, down a great river to the Black Sea.

It had been a dangerous trip. The southernmost end of
the river flowed through grasslands held by the
Patzinaks-dark fierce horse barbarians who grazed
their herds there. Reaching the Black Sea, the
Varangians had rowed to Miklagard to take service
with the Greek Emperor. Miklagard had proved
everything men said of it.

Gunnlag cocked an eye at me then. "Surely you have
been to Miklagard. How could one come here from India
and not visit Miklagard?"

"Through the sky," I told him. "Through the sky." And
he believed me, or that's how it looked, anyway,
because after probing me with his eyes for a moment,
he nodded.

He'd fought for the Emperor for eight years, Gunnlag
told me, then had shipped home to Sweden. With the
gold he took with him, he'd had this ship built on a
great lake called Vanern, then rode it down the river
Gota to the Northern Sea. In his youth, the old man
who'd built it had built ships for the last of the
Vikings. This one was built much like them, for ease
of rowing, but a bit broader and deeper of keel for
long sea voyages. By having his passengers row when
the winds were not favorable, the trips went faster
and there was less quarreling on board.

This had been Gunnlag's third voyage carrying
pilgrims to the Holy Land. But when they had stopped
at Crete, they'd been told by an admiral of the
Byzantine Emperor that pilgrims landing in the Holy
Land recently had been sold into slavery there. The
Emperor was gathering a new army to punish the
Saracens for it, and surely those who took part would
be rewarded not only with gold in this life but with
Heaven afterward.

Most of the Swedes had planned to go to Miklagard
anyway, after first visiting the holy city of Jorsala
where the Christ had died. Instead, following this
bad news, they went directly to Miklagard, where most
of them entered service in a Varangian regiment.
Gunnlag had recrewed his ship with Varangian veterans
wishing to return to the lands of their birth. Now,
aboard ship, there were not only men from Sweden, but
from Denmark, Norway, and even distant Iceland, all
speaking dialects of Norse. There were even two who'd
been born in the Rhos land and had never seen the
home of their fathers, though they could speak their
tongue.

That night, lying chilled in the bottom of the long
ship, I couldn't help wondering if the Fanglithans
would ever become civilized. But then I remembered
Brother Oliver and the monks, and Isaac ben Abraham.
And back in Normandy, Father Drogo and Pierre the
tanner, each of them a man of peace. Maybe dominance
by warlike cultures was just a phase, one that
Fanglith would have to live through.

Then what phase was the Federation-turned-Empire in?
Was tyranny just a phase? If it was, it had been
recurring for a long time. And meanwhile, I told
myself, what I needed was warriors. The Glondis
Empire made slaves of peaceful people.


TWENTY-TWO


The next morning I was so stiff and sore I couldn't
believe it. Me, who'd always been so good at
athletics, who'd been one of the stronger kids in
school! I could hardly close my hands or pick up food
with them. About my only consolation was that I
wasn't the only one. Michael and Arno weren't moving
around too well either. I don't suppose Arno's
sword-callused right hand was peeled raw like mine,
but I wasn't so sure about his left.

One of the Varangians grinned at us and said
something in Norse. Arno had been practicing the
language, and seemed to be doing pretty well, so I
asked him what the man had said.
"He said the oar does that to you, when you're not
used to it. And that the best cure for the oar is the
oar. Yesterday one of them told me they were all sore
the second day out of Miklagard."

I examined my hands-an oozing mess. I got another
bucket of salt water to soak them, then just sort of
flexed and unflexed them to limber them up before
using the oar again.

The first minute was the worst, as far as pain was
concerned.

As I rowed, I thought of the young slave oarsman that
Deneen and Tarel had rescued. He must be pretty
tough, I decided. I hoped he didn't cause any
problems on their wilderness island. In Deneen's
description, though, Moise had sounded all right. And
Bubba had approved of him; that was the best
assurance I could ask for.

By mid-morning my muscles weren't nearly as sore,
although I was tired again, and even my hands felt
better. As I had the day before, I soaked them in
salt water for a while after each shift. We were
finishing off our lunch when one of the Varangians
saw sails to the southwest. They were triangular-two
at first, and quickly two more. If we kept our
present course, we'd just about run into them.

Gunnlag began shouting orders. Then, pulling on his
steering oar, he put us into a long turn toward the
north. The other rowing shift moved quickly to their
oars. Of my shift, some began lowering the spar and
sail, while others hauled furiously on the tow rope,
taking in the slack that formed before the horse
ship's steersman could match our turn. Arno ran to
the stern of the long ship, his expression a mixture
of chagrin and determination.

I saw Michael questioning a Varangian, and went over
to him. "What is it?" I asked.

"The captain believes the sails are a Saracen fleet,
and I think he is right. If that is so, we will have
to abandon the prize ship and flee, else we will be
taken."

Abandon the horse ship, and Arno's herd! Meanwhile,
Gunnlag was determined to pick up his men aboard her.
By that time I could see seven or eight sails, and
surely they had seen ours. I grabbed the braided
leather rope and helped pull; under the
circumstances, I almost forgot how sore my hands were.

When we'd completed our turn, the oarsmen slowed
until we'd pulled the prize ship's bow against our
stern. As soon as they bumped, Arno vaulted across,
and I thought I knew why: He wanted to find the spare
charge cylinders for the blast pistol. Meanwhile the
Varangian prize crew was scrambling aboard the long
ship, but not the Greek crew; they were staying!
Whether by choice or Varangian order, I didn't know.
When the last Varangian was aboard, one of them
raised his sword to cut the rope-and Arno wasn't back
aboard yet! I grabbed the Varangian's sword arm and
began yelling.

"Arno!" I yelled. "For God's sake, get back here!
They're going to cut the rope!"
The Varangian stared, bug-eyed and indignant, for
just a second, then aimed a punch at my head with his
free hand, but I ducked it. Gunnlag shouted at him,
then across at Arno in Norse, and the man I had hold
of stopped trying to shake me loose. A moment later
Arno came out of the hold and leaped aboard. Another
Varangian cleft the rope.

"They were not there!" he said. "Someone must have
thrown them overboard, else I'd have found them." His
eyes were blazing. "If I had them, I could drive back
the entire Saracen fleet. Then I'd take over this
ship and make them row us to Palermo as my prize!"

I didn't argue with him. For one thing, there wasn't
time. By then the mast was lying in the Song ship's
bottom with the spar and sails, and Gunnlag ordered
all oars manned. It was plain how things were shaping
up. Maybe twenty sails were visible now, and I had no
reason to think there weren't more. Five others had
dropped their sails and veered toward us-five of
those nearest the front. Obviously they were being
rowed, which meant they were either warships or
pirates. And I presumed that pirates didn't travel in
large fleets.

One of the Varangians was handing oars to my shift,
and we added our strength to the rowing. The graceful
long ship surged, almost seeming to fly on the water.
It occurred to me how relative things are-how much
they depend on your local frame of reference. Even in
mass proximity mode the Javelin could travel in
minutes a distance as far as from Fanglith to her
moon, and we thought of mass proximity mode as slow.
Here we were traveling-what? Not more than than ten
miles an hour, I thought, and it seemed fast.

After a few minutes, Gunnlag's big voice called
again, and the bosun slowed our pace a few strokes a
minute. We might have to stay ahead of our pursuers
for hours, I realized, and it wouldn't do to use
ourselves up at the start. I glanced up to see what I
could see, which under the circumstances wasn't much.
They'd struck their masts too. I returned my full
attention to rowing; I had to keep the stroke and not
miss the water with my oar.

Meanwhile we had spare men. There hadn't been oars
for all of my shift, and now we had the prize crew
aboard as well. So after a while some of us were
replaced at our oars to rest, including all three of
us non-Varangians. Ordinarily, the Varangians didn't
mind rowing, and considering that this was a matter
of escape or die, they probably wanted the best
oarsmen on the oars. Which didn't include Michael and
me, or even Amo.

I took half a minute to try contacting Deneen, on the
off chance she was somehow powered up and tuned in,
but got no answer. Then I followed Arno back to
Gunnlag Snorrason in the stern, with Michael behind
me. Most of the Saracen fleet was out of sight again;
apparently they'd continued on their original
northwesterly course. Judging from the sun, we seemed
to have veered all the way around to somewhat east of
north.

Only three of our original five pursuers could be
seen. I suppose the other two had turned aside to
capture the horse ship. But the remaining three, I
told myself, ought to be more than enough,
considering that Arno had no replacement charges for
his blaster. And their bows had a lot longer range
than my stunner; it was only effective up close.

Arno was talking to Gunnlag in Norse-he'd gotten
pretty good at it-and of course I couldn't
understand. So I questioned Michael. From what he
said, I got the impression that a warship was more of
a troop carrier loaded with infantry than it was a
fighting ship. Lots of naval battles on Fanglith
amounted to boarding the enemy with your troops and
fighting it out with swords. Any one of our pursuers
would have two or three times as many fighting men as
we had, maybe more.

No, he said, the Saracens were not the fighters the
Varangians were. Mostly they were men of smaller
frame, less brawny and not so savage, wearing lighter
mail and wielding lighter weapons. That much was well
known.
But they were brave and skilled, and when they caught
us they'd be fresh, because slaves did their rowing.

Could slaves row as hard as the Varangians? I asked.
Michael thought not-Byzantine slaves couldn't anyway.
But the dromans, the big Saracen warships, had as
many as fifty great oars each, each pulled by two
men, with the whip to inspire any who didn't pull
hard enough.

After a while we sat down at the oars again for about
an hour. The next time I was relieved, the Saracens
had gained quite a bit. The Varangians who weren't
rowing were arguing with each other and with Gunnlag.
Michael explained that some of them wanted to stand
and fight while others thought we ought to keep
running.

It seems that Arno had told them earlier that the
Normans held most of Sicily now-probably including
the part we were headed for. Even if they didn't, a
strong party of determined warriors might make their
way to Norman territory. And Roger, the Count of
Sicily, who was notoriously generous, would be glad
to hire Varangians in his army, or help them continue
home as Christian pilgrims.

Those who wanted to run figured we might reach
Sicily, and that if we were about to get caught, then
we could stand and fight. Those who wanted to make a
stand now figured we didn't have a chance to reach
Sicily, and they wanted to fight before they got any
more tired from rowing. They assumed they were going
to get killed anyway, and they wanted to kill as many
Saracens as they could while they were at it.

Michael told me the Varangians were famous for never
surrendering. According to him, the most dangerous
thing you could do was trap Varangians.

Finally, Gunnlag had heard enough, and bellowed one
short command. The argument thinned down to a few
"last words" by some of his men to some of the
others, then stopped. We kept going.

Arno went up to the bow. I followed and sat down next
to him. "What decided the argument?" I asked.

He looked at me and grinned, reminding me of the Arno
I'd seen before a few times-happy-go-lucky.

"I told Gunnlag that if we stopped, the Saracens
would come up on us all at once. But if we kept
running, they'd probably come up on us one at a time.
And that one at a time I could use the device you
gave me to sink them or drive them away."

He took it out of its holster and looked at it
thoughtfully, slipping the silent safeties off and
on. "It isn't accurate at a distance, and without the
recharge cylinders"-he used the Evdashian words for
them, of course-"I must make each shot count, which
means we must be close, within reach of their arrows.
If they come at us all at once, we'll be under heavy
fire, and these"-he gestured around to indicate the
Varangians- "would stop rowing to fight. We would
surely be taken then.

"Not that I explained all that to Gunnlag. Best he
thinks of this as thaumaturgy instead of the handwork
of some weapons artificer."

That took me by surprise. I'd assumed that Arno
himself still thought of it as magic.

"It was then he made up his mind," Arno finished.

He looked me over. "In your way, you are brave. And
you are one of those who are still alive after the
danger or chase or fight are past. You proved that in
Savoie and Normandy, more than once. Nonetheless, if
it comes to it and they close with us, I'll see that
one of the Varangians covers you against arrows with
a shield. Then, just before the ships touch, you rise
up with your stunner and sweep its force along their
rail. Some of us will cut the ropes."
He grinned again. "We will arrive at Palermo yet, you
and I."

Before Gunnlag ordered us back to the oars, I tried
the communicator once more, just in case. And once
more got no answer. When I sat down to row again, we
could see Sicilian hills in a faint line along the
horizon.

At the end of our next shift, the hills were a lot
closer, but the Saracen dromans were too. At the end
of the shift after that, the nearest two dromans were
almost even with each other, and I could imagine them
treating it as a race, with us as the prize.

The bosun quickened our pace, and I wasn't sure I
could make it through my next shift. Arno wasn't
rowing now; he was with Gunnlag in the stern. He must
have had quite a bit of experience with the blast
pistol we'd left with him before; I hoped he'd gotten
good with it. When at last I was relieved, I could
see more than the Sicilian hills, which weren't so
high here. I could even make out the shore, we were
that close. Maybe three miles, I thought, and turned
and went aft.

Behind us, the Saracens were so near, I could easily
see the oars of the nearest two. They'd gotten strung
out at last. There was the nearest, then maybe a
couple of hundred yards back the second. The third
was probably a half mile farther still.

I couldn't tell whether we were going to reach the
shore ahead of them or not. Or what we'd do if we
did. Looking down into the long ship's bottom and
then over the side at the water, it seemed to me she
couldn't draw more than four feet of water. But for
seaworthiness, she had a keel. And for all I knew,
the keel could be deep enough that we'd hit bottom in
water over our heads. Or there might be a reef
offshore, or a shoal, and we'd pile up on it a
quarter or half mile out.
I supposed the Varangians could swim, but not with
hauberks on, or swords at their belts. And in
Normandy, I'd discovered the hard way that a blaster,
or at least some blasters, wouldn't fire after being
submerged in water. Did the dromans have small boats
aboard? Would they launch them to attack us as we
swam, or to follow us ashore? Did the Normans control
this part of the island? If they didn't, were there
Saracen troops in the vicinity? Were those hills
wild? How far could we travel without being
discovered?

I went aft to wait with Arno.

The first droman was close enough now that I could
see the white of her bow wave, and make out men at
her rail. Five would get you ten, I thought, that
they had bows strung and ready. The cadence of their
rowing was no faster than ours, but their two-man
oars gave longer strokes, and their ship, if not as
graceful as the long ship, had lines well built for
speed.

At maybe a hundred yards they shot a few trial
arrows, which fell close astern of us. The Varangians
not rowing stood in the walkway with shields, ready
to protect their oarsmen. One also stood by Gunnlag
to protect him while he steered. At this point, Arno
and I crouched with only our heads above the
gunwales. A minute later the Saracens fired a small
volley, and the first arrow struck the stern; we
heard it thud.

Arno raised up enough to level the blaster, holding
it with both hands, wrists braced on the gunwale.
Then he fired, and I saw a flash at the bow of the
droman, but I couldn't see if he'd blasted a piece
out of the bulwark or actually hit a bowman. A
bowman, I decided; I could hear men yelling, and it
didn't sound like battle cries. By the flash, his
next bolt hit the bow a little above waterline. The
hole would have been a good foot wide, I'd think, and
hopefully low enough to be taking water. But the
droman came on, and a flight of arrows rose visibly
from her, so Arno fired two more bolts into the
massed archers in the bow.

This time we heard unmistakable screaming. He must
have killed a couple of them, messily, and the droman
began to veer off. That's when he lucked out. I mean,
it may have been what he was trying to do, but he had
to be lucky to do it: As she began to veer, he fired
again and apparently hit the mast, because the mast
and sail fell across the aft oarsmen.

Even with luck though, it had been great shooting at
that distance, with a pistol. I needn't have worried
about Arno's marksmanship.

By that time, Saracen arrows were falling in and
around our stern. Our own oarsmen didn't miss a beat,
but neither did those on the second droman. I don't
know what their captain thought was happening on the
first ship, but it didn't change his mind about
anything. At about eighty or ninety yards, a volley
of arrows lifted from her bow, and Arno sent two
bolts into the mass of archers, then several at her
bow.

The last time he touched the stud, nothing happened:
her charge was exhausted. I kept my head down as the
arrows started to fall-enough of them that I was
surprised none of us was hit, though several stuck in
Varangian shields and a number had thudded,
vibrating, into the wood of the long ship.

I popped my head up for another look. Arno must have
hit the droman near the waterline with at least two
bolts and probably more. She was definitely
slowing-probably scooping water.

Then Gunnlag bellowed an order, and our oarsmen
stopped! I didn't realize what that was about for a
moment. Arno yelled something in Norse, and Gunnlag
looked angrily at him. Arno started talking
furiously, and I suddenly realized what was going on.
Gunnlag wanted to slow down and disable the other
droman; he hadn't realized the blaster was out of
charge. Arno was trying to get us rowing again.

When Gunnlag got the picture, he bellowed the rowers
back into action. Meanwhile the third droman was
coming on, not more than a quarter mile away now. By
that time we were less than a mile from the beach,
and the Varangians put their brawny backs into it. At
a half mile, the droman slowed. She was quite a bit
bigger than we were, and probably rode a few feet
deeper. Apparently her captain wasn't willing to
beach her.

We didn't hit bottom until we were less than fifty
yards from shore. When the shallow keel grabbed the
sand; the long ship jerked sharply, throwing me to
the deck. But our momentum and the oarsmen's last
stroke took us ten yards farther, tilting to the
side. Then we sat on the bottom, resting partly on
the keel and partly on the curve of our left side,
the water within two feet of our gunwale.
The droman was still coming, though more slowly now,
and maybe three hundred yards back. I could picture
her bowmen waiting ready. The Varangians didn't waste
time. Grabbing weapons and shields, they piled over
the portside gunwale into waist-deep water. The surf
was negligible. I followed them, holding my stunner
and communicator overhead; we were all ashore within
a couple of minutes.

The droman had veered off, out of bowshot. We'd come
through the whole thing without one casualty. There
were seventy-eight Varangians on the beach, along
with one Norman, one Greek, and one holy monk from
India.

PART FIVE

THE BATTLE

TWENTY-THREE
Once ashore and satisfied that we weren't about to be
attacked from the sea, I looked around. The wide
beach sloped up to a screen of trees-trees that
didn't look like any I'd seen before on Fanglith. Or
on Evdash either, as far as that's concerned. Their
trunks were like thick rough pillars, without any
branches at all. At the top, each of them had a broad
crown of what looked like very long leaves, maybe
twelve or fifteen feet long, that curved out and
down. Each leaf came directly from the top of the
trunk, which I suppose was maybe sixty or seventy
feet tall.

Arno told me it was a date orchard, that the trees
were date palms. I knew about dates; I'd eaten them
aboard the long ship. After looking around for a
minute, we walked up the beach and into the orchard,
which was only about a hundred feet wide. Behind it
was a field of something that looked like grass and
that Arno said was wheat. I remembered wheat from
Provence and Normandy, but it had been quite a lot
taller there. Later in the growing season, I suppose.
On the other side of the wheat field was a row of
more ordinary-looking trees.

Eastward about half a mile was a little hamlet of
maybe twenty small houses, plus sheds and other
outbuildings. On a knoll a little way back of the
hamlet stood a castle, not very big but built of
stone. I would have seen it from the long ship if my
attention hadn't been behind us, while from the
beach, the orchard had been in the way.

We all stopped to look it over, the Varangians
talking quietly in their singsong language.
"A Saracen place," Arno said to me. "Most of Sicily
is peopled by Saracens, and there is no Christian
church in that hamlet. If there was, we could see the
cross. But this could still be Norman territory.
Where Guiscard or Roger conquer Saracen ground, they
leave the people to their own laws and religion. It
saves no end of trouble.
"From the tower they must have seen our vessel being
pursued by Saracen warships, and may have seen us run
aground. That they have not sent cavalry to attack us
gives me hope that this district is Norman."

He went over to Gunnlag and they spoke in Norse. Some
of the other Varangians entered into the
conversation; I wished I could understand what they
were saying. When they were done, Gunnlag and Arno
led us off across the wheat field, ignoring the
hamlet and the tower, heading toward the hills. I
asked Michael to find out what was going on, and he
fell into step with one of the friendlier Varangians
who'd been agreeable to his questions before.

The more ordinary-looking trees on the other side of
the wheat field shaded an irrigation ditch. We
stopped there to drink, then started across another
wheat field on the other side. As we walked, Michael
angled over to me.

"Some of the Varangians wanted to sack the hamlet,"
he told me. "Some of the younger ones don't seem very
smart; their motto seems to be, act now and let the
consequences take care of themselves. But Lord Arno
recommended that we reach the hills before nightfall
and camp in a place easy to defend. And Captain
Gunnlag agreed. They don't want to risk attack in the
open by Saracen knights, or get surrounded, trapped,
in the hamlet. Or antagonizing the Normans, if this
place has surrendered to them and been granted Norman
protection.

"Lord Arno believes that if there are Saracen knights
in the castle, they are too few to attack us. But the
Saracens use pigeons-a kind of bird-to carry messages
from one place to another. The steward of this castle
could easily have sent word to some nearby lord that
a shipload of Christians has come ashore here.

"Then, by darkness, Lord Arno and some other will go
down to the hamlet and see what they can learn- nd
out if this district has indeed been conquered by
Normans."

If the district was hostile-still under Saracen rule-
and if the castle's marshal had sent a message to
some governor by bird or mounted messenger, would we
be attacked that night, I wondered? It seemed to me
that if a Saracen force came after us, they'd better
be a large force; seventy-eight Varangians plus a
Norman knight might give them more than they
bargained for.
Plus one Evdashian rebel with a stunner. That should
be worth something.

I wished I'd been able to raise Deneen, though. I
counted back on my fingers. This would be the fourth
night since she'd left for our uninhabited island. At
best I couldn't expect her to be powered up again
till the sixth, but I'd still try every now and then.

None of us was used to hiking. The Varangians and
Michael weren't even used to being on land-not lately
anyway-and neither was I for that matter. While Arno
seldom walked far, and probably never had; he was
born and raised a horseman. So the rugged hills were
pretty hard on us. Probably less on the Varangians,
though. Rowing, the way they did it, worked the
thighs hard, and it certainly worked the heart and
lungs.

Of course, the Varangians had a lot more to carry.
Each of them wore a heavy sword. Some of them carried
a long-handled battle-axe over one shoulder, and
others a bow and a quiver of arrows. All of them
carried a shield, most an ornamented round shield
that Arno told me was Byzantine. But some had a long,
rectangular shield slung over their backs, almost big
enough to hide behind.

If we were attacked, I'd have to do without, at least
until I could scavenge one from someone who'd been
killed-preferably a Saracen if it came to that. Not
that I had anything against the Saracens; I might
like them better than Normans or Varangians. But I'd
committed myself, and besides, I had an "in" with the
Varangians, as a holy monk.

After drinking our fill at a brook, we made camp on a
hilltop, where anyone would have to walk or ride up a
steep slope to get at us. If we were surrounded,
sooner or later we'd have to fight our way down to
water, but even I could see that the brook wasn't
defensible.

One thing we hadn't been able to bring from the long
ship was food. My stomach was complaining already. It
threatened to be a long night, and tomorrow didn't
show much promise either.

Then Arno started back to spy out the hamlet, taking
Michael with him because the Greek could speak
Arabic. With them gone, there wasn't a man in camp
that I could talk to or understand. I very definitely
hoped they came back.

Even as tired as I was, it took me quite a while to
fall asleep. Which was unusual. The Varangians had
bedded down all packed together-for warmth I suppose.
To me though, they smelled too bad for such close
quarters, and I slept a little way off from them. I
was cold and hungry, and my muscles were starting to
stiffen up again. About the time it got dark, the
moon came up, too little past full to tell the
difference just by looking. When I did get to sleep,
I kept waking up or half waking up from cold and the
stony ground, but I only got up once, to relieve
myself.

When it was daylight, nearly sunup, I awoke for good.
I was really stiff again, from rowing, and maybe
partly from hiking up hills and sleeping on the hard
ground in the cold. For the first time, I really
looked around. Four or five miles south was the sea,
with no trace of warships, although I could make out
a couple of what I supposed were fishing boats. In
every other direction were rugged hills, mostly bare.
Here and there were patches of scrub, and in some of
the ravine bottoms there were trees. To the north,
the hills rose to become mountains.

Arno and Michael were back, but they were still
sleeping so there was no one to tell me what they'd
found out. It looked as if something had happened,
though; each was wrapped in a blanket. I limped down
the hill to the brook and took a long drink, then
limped back up, my stomach growling. Water didn't
make much of a breakfast. By the time I'd gotten back
to the top of the hill, I was warm again, and the
worst of the soreness was gone. The sun was looking
at us over the next ridge east, and Arno and Michael
were both awake.

No one seemed in any hurry to get on the trail.

I went over to Arno. "What did you find out?" I asked.

He grinned and, patting the rock next to him, invited
me to sit. "We went to the first house," he said. "I
hid beneath a window and sent the Greek to the door
with a piece of Saracen silver." Arno hefted the
purse at his belt, which held what might be the only
money among us now. "He'd lived in Messina when it
was still Saracen-there are many Greeks there. He
knows Saracan ways and language, and something of
their religion-enough to pretend he is one of them, a
convert. He told them he'd escaped Varangian priates.
And while the Greek talked with them, the Saracans
fed him. They'd seen the ship, they said, and later
they'd seen the infidel dogs, perhaps a hundred of
them, cross the wheat field. The commander of the
tower garrison had sent men on horseback to Agrigento
and Sciacca to inform the commanders there and ask
them to send knights.

"They also told him that the Normans had captured
Palermo, and that there is fighting in the west, and
over east around Troina."

"How did Michael get away?" I asked. "Wouldn't it
have seemed suspicious for him to leave, under the
circumstances ?"

"It was no problem. They gave him a mat to sleep on
and went back to bed themselves. After giving them
time to go to sleep, I slipped inside and killed
them. Then I ate my fill and we left."

From a purse he hadn't had the day before, he took a
few dates and gave them to me. I stared at them a
moment before eating, and even as hungry as I was,
they didn't go down easily. I could see why Arno
might feel he had to kill them, but he'd said it as
casually as if it meant nothing to him. And I suppose
it hadn't; he was a Norman.

"When are we going to start hiking again?" I asked.
"Or aren't we?"

"Gunnlag sent archers out hunting. We'll need food.
All Norsemen learn archery as boys, and they are used
to hunting on foot. And these hills have many goats."
He pointed northward toward the mountains. "That's
the way to Norman territory, but it seems to be a
long, hard march. We'll do better with meat in our
bellies."

It was on toward midday when we left. By then we'd
eaten a half-grown goat. The shares were small, but
they helped. Most of the others were footsore-Michael
and Arno the worst of all. The ground was rocky, and
I was the only one with stiff soles on his boots. In
fact, I couldn't see how their soft-bottomed shoes
could possibly last across the mountains. Maybe they
could make some kind of shoes out of goatskin, I
decided.

After the first half hour of hiking, I got loosened
up enough that it didn't go badly at all, but by late
afternoon I was bushed again, and hungrier than I
could believe! So was everyone else, and we started
taking quite a few breaks. Also, it got a lot colder
as we got higher up. We'd come to several stone huts,
but no one was staying in them. Arno said they might
be for herdsmen-that sheep had probably been grazed
in these mountains before the Norman invasion. I
wondered what sheep ate here. By the looks of the
bushes, something ate twigs-perhaps the goats.

Gunnlag had sent scout/hunters ahead of us, and two
of them shot a goat each. We cooked them for an early
supper, or half cooked them, by a mountain brook, and
ate one of them plus the head of the other. The rest
would be breakfast, I was appointed to carry it, in a
smelly bag made of its own skin. Then we pushed on.
By dusk, when we made camp, we'd passed banks of
crusty old snow on some north slopes, and I was
prepared for a miserable night. Just about everyone
but me was limping now from sore feet, though I
didn't hear any complaints.

Before I lay down, I went a little way off. "To
pray," I told Michael. "Tell the Varangians I'm going
off by myself to pray to the angel Deneen." I went
out on an outcrop and tried the communicator, but got
no one. Just as I'd expected. Tomorrow night would be
the sixth. I could reasonably hope to get her on the
sixth night. If not, then maybe on the seventh.

After that I went "to bed." This time I didn't let
smelly bodies bother me. I lay down against the jam
of Varangians to share warmth. I suppose it helped,
but it was the coldest, most miserable night I'd ever
spent.

What can I say about the next day? Until late
afternoon it was basically the same as the one
before: hike up and down steep slopes and pick your
way along ravines. The country was high and cold, and
if a little less rugged, it was still tough going. We
were still in luck with the weather, which was sunny
without much breeze, but on the other hand, the
scouts only killed one goat. One goat for eighty-one
of us. Gunnlag stopped early to camp, and a number of
men with bows were sent hunting.
If they didn't have some luck, we'd be hungrier that
night than the first.

While we lay around in the late sun, we heard a horn
off to the south. I asked Arno what he thought it
was. He said it sounded like a Saracen war trumpet,
but they probably used them as hunting horns too. I
asked him what they might be hunting in a time of war
like this.
He grinned at me. "They're hunting just what you
think they're hunting," he replied, "Us. And the horn
means they've found our trail."

He got to his swollen feet and, with only a slight
limp, walked over to Gunnlag to talk with him about
it. By the way Gunnlag looked-standing, staring off
toward the sound-he'd come to the same conclusion on
his own. I went off to pray to the angel Deneen
again. Maybe this time. If not . .

From what I understand about prayer, what I felt when
I called Deneen that evening wasn't much different
from what the Christians felt when they prayed to
their God. Again I didn't get any answer. I began to
wonder if, just possibly, my communicator wasn't
working. Unlikely. Maybe ... I didn't like to think
about it, but maybe something was wrong with the
Rebel Javelin- something worse than fuel
crystallization. No, I told myself, it's just a night
too soon.

And tomorrow night could easily be a night too late.
I decided it was time to turn on my remote again, in
case she called me.

The hunters were back sooner than they might have
been. They'd heard the horn too. Among them they'd
gotten one goat. She'd been gutted, and given to me
to carry because we weren't going to stay where we
were. It didn't appeal to Gunnlag for a defensive
stand. True, it was a high point on a ridge, but an
enemy could charge along the crest at us from two
sides with only a mild slope to ride up. While on the
next major ridge north there was a rounded peak, sort
of a knob, that would be a lot easier to defend.

It was nearly dark when we reached it. By that time
we'd heard horns twice more, the last sounding as if
it came from the place we'd left two hours earlier. I
wondered how many Saracens there were. The Varangians
rolled and lugged the available large rocks into a
crescent at each end of our position. Only the ends
were attackable. The rocks didn't make a wall at all;
you could walk between them. But they'd give a little
cover from arrows if you knelt behind them.
Then we sat and squatted in little clusters at the
top.

That's when I realized that someone wasn't with us.

"Where's Michael?" I murmured to Arno.

"I've sent him north," he answered. "To see if he can
find some Norman force to relieve us. The Saracens
will assume we've sent someone, but one man is hard
to trail by night."

"Can they track us at night?" I asked.

"Saracen knights are like Norman knights in their
love of hunting. And the moon will rise before long,
with light enough to track a force the size of ours."

That seemed reasonable to me. Piet had taught us to
track during our survival training, and we'd followed
well-beaten animal trails by moonlight.

"How many of them do you think there are?" I asked.

Arno shrugged. "They think we are a hundred, so they
may well be twice that. Quite possibly more. And they
are on horses; do not doubt it."

It occurred to me to wonder what use I'd be up there
on the hilltop. The Saracens had to be pretty smart
about war, or they wouldn't be a power on Fanglith.
And if they were smart, they wouldn't rush us. They'd
sit down the hill and let us get good and thirsty.
They might not even waste arrows on us.

And knowing the Varangians, when they got thirsty
enough, after maybe a day without water, they'd go
down after some. They wouldn't just wait to die. Then
the Saracen archers and swordsmen would get a
work-out. And whoever won-probably the Saracens-a lot
of us would be dead when it was over. Maybe all of us.

The last of the twilight had died, and moonrise was
still an hour or two off. It was as dark as a night
in open mountains can get without a good cloud layer.
Which was pretty dark. "Arno," I said, getting to my
feet, "wish me luck."

I unbuckled my belt and took my shortsword off of it,
then laid the sword by a boulder. My stunner and
communicator I kept.

"What are you going to do?" Arno asked.

"I'm going hunting. We hunt on Evdash too, you know."
Then, after rebuckling my belt, I slipped out through
the partial crescent of boulders and started south
down the mountain.


TWENTY-FOUR


Deneen:

It was still night when we got to the island. I put
the Jav down near the little stream, at about where
we'd been before. A little farther from it, actually,
in case a big rainstorm came along and the creek
outgrew its banks.

With the power off, we'd be down to basics. And I
mean basics. Most of our equipment, including kitchen
and sanitary equipment, operated off ship's power,
while what hand-powered tools we had were designed
for working on ship systems and structure. We didn't
have so much as a shovel to bury trash with or dig a
latrine.

Somehow, I hadn't thought about any of this until we
were on the island. Then, for a couple of minutes, I
considered going back to the continent and having
Tarel and Moise get us some things, but that would
mean being on power again for several hours, and
there was the possibility that they might get into
trouble on the ground. Possibly trouble that could
take days on power to handle. Unlikely, maybe, but I
wasn't willing to take the risk.

Then I remembered that we had the fire starters from
our packs, and the shortsword and dagger that Larn
had gotten Tarel in Marseille. Plus stunners to hunt
with, and Uncle Piet's survival training. And more
than anything else, Bubba was with us as our super
watch-canid and master hunter.

We were better off than I'd thought; it wasn't like
me to get all shook up with no good reason. That's
when I realized how worried and distracted I was
about Larn. Which was kind of dumb, because it didn't
do anyone any good-Larn or any of us.

Tarel and I looked around for anything I'd missed
that might be useful and didn't require ship's power.
Then I shut the power off and we all went out and
slept on solid ground-more solid than I was used to.

I lay there for a while with Larn on my mind. Both in
Provence and Normandy, and recently on the ship from
Marseille, he'd shown a lot of ability,
resourcefulness, and ingenuity, which had helped keep
him alive. But an important part of it had been-let's
face it-really good luck. And while luck is very good
to have, I'd never felt very comfortable about
relying on it. It seemed to me that you couldn't know
when you'd run out of it-at least, not until it was
too late.
Of course, ability has its limits too, but you at
least had some idea of what those limits were. And
while you couldn't measure ingenuity or
resourcefulness, you knew if you had it or not. just
now, Larn's abilities weren't what I could wish they
were. For example, his skill with local weapons was
almost nonexistent, and Arno had gotten his stunner
and blaster away from him. What he had left was his
ability to do the right thing at the right time-duck
when he needed to. And that's where ability shaded
over into luck, which he might or might not have some
of at any particular time.

Or was luck another ability-a kind that people didn't
usually recognize as one?

That's the kind of thing that went through my mind
for a while after I lay down beside the Jav. But in
half an hour or so I went to sleep anyway.

We got along through five days and five nights, and
it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be-at least
not for me. I may have been a little bossy at
times-let's face it, I was-but someone had to be in
charge, and it was my hat. On the morning of the
sixth day, with everyone on board, I powered up and
called for a systems check on the computer. Including
a check of the fuel slugs.

It could have been worse. Crystallization was greatly
reduced, but there was still more than I was willing
to live with. I'd have to take her out 700,000 miles
and run her in FTL mode for a while-lock her into a
loop that would bring her back in-system at the same
system coordinates. I told Tarel what I was going to
do, and told him to explain as much of it as he could
to Moise. They'd gotten to be pretty good friends on
the island- buddies you could say. And Moise had
learned considerable Evdashian through the learning
program, although he didn't understand some of our
concepts yet.
So far I'd been impressed with how calmly Moise had
reacted to all the strange, and to him far out,
things he'd been exposed to since I'd put the
spotlight on the pirate ship. I'd wondered a time or
two if it was partly because, in his world, they
believed in so many supernatural things. Then, when
he ran into something real that seemed supernatural,
it might not be as big a shock.

Now, of course, he knew we weren't a threat to him.
But it must have been really weird and scary when
strange people had hauled him inside a sort of giant
boat, or big steel flask, and whisked him into the
sky.

As Tarel started explaining, I headed us outbound and
then called the maintenance manual into memory. The
entry on fuel crystallization referred to a number of
library entries, and now that I had time, it seemed
to me I ought to read them. The third one I came to
was the one I needed to see. One sequence of events
that could lead to crystallization was rare, but it
fitted all too well what had happened to the Jav.

"Prolonged impacts by heavy blaster charges on a
ship's energy shield," it said, "can result in weak
magnetization of the power transfer system.
Subsequent use of the weapons system, with its
translation of the gray force into pulse mode, will
initiate crystallization in the fuel slugs."

I had no idea what that meant, but for the moment, I
kept reading, hopeful that I wasn't getting into
mental quicksand.

"Once crystallization is initiated," it went on,
"subsequent low-intensity power use, as in
mass-proximity mode, and the resulting resistance to
normal matrix function, causes feedback to the fuel
slugs, extending crystallization rapidly, "When fuel
crystallization occurs, do the following: I avoid
using the ship's weapons system until the power
transfer module has been changed; 2. decrystallize
the fuel slugs; and 3. change the power transfer
module."

It fitted. The Jav's energy shield had taken a lot of
blaster charges before we'd lifted from Evdash. And
I'd discovered serious fuel cell crystallization
within twenty standard hours of demonstrating the
scout's weapons system for Arno.

Well, I told myself, I know what to do about it now.
Fingers on the keyboard, I called up parts storage
and asked for a new power transfer module. It replied
that power transfer modules were not part of standard
parts stock on scouts. That was followed by a list of
places where I could get one-any of the three
Evdashian naval stations.

I muttered an expression that mom and dad wouldn't
approve of.

From there I skimmed on through the rest of the
articles, looking for information that might be
helpful. There wasn't any. But it seemed obvious that
I'd better not use the weapons system again, and in
trying to establish a political and military power
base on Fanglith, that would be a serious
disadvantage.

"Tarel!" I called.

"What is it?" he asked, coming over. I brought the
third article back to the screen-the article that
explained what had happened. He read it over my
shoulder.

"And there isn't any replacement module," I told him.
"Any suggestions?"

"We've got hand weapons," he said. "Including blast
rifles. Maybe they'll be enough, along with our speed
and communicators."

"I guess they'll have to be," I answered. But I
didn't feel very good about it. We couldn't have too
many advantages, and we'd lost a big one. At 700,000
miles I shifted into FTL mode on a ten-hour loop, and
before we returned to mass-proximity mode, all
residual crystallization was gone. Back at Fanglith I
parked above the north shore of Sicily at an altitude
of fifty miles. The scanner located the biggest town
there, a good-sized city even by Evdashian standards.
Palermo was where Larn should be. From where I sat,
the moon stood well above the horizon-high enough
that its light paled the island. I turned on the
radio receiver, checked the communicator channel, and
touched the send switch.

"Larn," I said, "this is Rebel Jave-lin. Larn, this
is Rebel Javelin. Over,"

He didn't answer. He doesn't have his remote on, I
told myself. That's all. It didn't reassure me a bit.
Why didn't he have his remote on? It was controlled
with a switch on his communicator, and the last I
knew, Arno had the communicator. The likeliest
explanation I could think of for the remote being off
was that Arno had turned it off-whether by accident,
or because he'd learned about it.

"Bubba!" I called. He came over to me, meeting my
eyes. "I'm going to drop low over Palermo," I told
him, speaking out loud. "When we get there, I want
you to scan around and find Larn. I can't get him on
the radio."

He nodded like a human might, and of course he read
the concern in my mind. I already had a scanner view
of northern Sicily, and asked the computer for a
coordinate overlay, to get the coordinates of
Palermo. Then, using voice mode, I ordered the scout
to park above Palermo at an elevation of five miles.
We headed for it.


TWENTY-FIVE
Larn:

When I started down from the mountaintop, I didn't
have any plan, but one started to unfold for me as I
went: Backtrack, then ambush the Saracens with my
stunner. Not that I could stun many of them; besides
its short range, the stunner had a limited charge.

They'd probably send scouts out ahead to find the
way, and to draw fire if they got close to any
Christian bowmen. I'd ambush them. We'd see what they
thought about paralyzed scouts who didn't have an
arrow or sword slash on them. If they were
superstitious, they might quit till daylight. Maybe
they'd even turn around and go home, though that
seemed a little much to hope for.

In the dark I couldn't see our tracks, but I didn't
need tracks to retrace our route. When Gunnlag had
decided to move camp, we'd come down from our initial
campsite, crossed a small valley, then climbed along
a ravine to its head at a notch in this ridge crest.
From there we'd hiked along the crest till it topped
off at the knob. Even with the moon not up yet, it
would be easy to follow the same route in reverse.

The "notch" was an actual sharp one, with a big rock
outcrop on one side. When I turned there to start
down the ravine, someone grabbed me from behind,
hard, arm around my neck, jerking me back with a
rough strength too abrupt to let me use hand-foot
art. It took me totally by surprise.
Another man moved in front of me, knife ready, and
peered into my face. Recognizing me, he spoke quietly
in Norse, and the one who had grabbed me let me go.

Gunnlag had posted lookouts; I should have realized
he would. "I'm going down the ravine to set an
ambush," I said softly in Norman French. They didn't
understand me, of course; it would have sounded crazy
to them if they had. But it seemed as if I should say
something to them. One of them said something back in
Norse. No one had understood anyone, but I guess it
made us all feel better somehow. I nodded and left
them, starting down the ravine with as little noise
as possible.

As the ravine got deeper, it seemed to get even
darker, probably because it was exposed to less sky
and less starlight. Where there were clumps of trees
in the bottom, it was darker still. It got stonier,
too, with lots of boulders that had rolled down from
above. The upslope on my right had quite a lot of
clumpy brush and scrubby trees, probably because it
faced away from the sun. The other side was pretty
bare, as if it faced into the sun and dried out too
badly during the dry season.

About halfway down the ravine I came to what seemed
like a good place. When the moon came up, visibility
would be pretty good in the bottom there-no trees, no
tall boulders. And on the brushy side of the ravine,
the lower slope was clear along there, a slant of
naked rock. I scrambled up it on all fours, to take
cover above it between two clumps of stiff-twigged
scrub. From there I'd have an open shot at anyone
riding up the bottom, at a range of only about twenty
or twenty-five yards.

Of course, I couldn't know for sure that any Saracens
would come along, but it seemed as if they would. If
they hadn't shown up by the first Sight of dawn, I'd
just have to take off for the knob-that or hide out
and try to make it to Norman territory on my own. No
way was I going to tiy ambushing a Saracen scouting
party by daylight, when they'd be able to spot me.
And any who got out of effective stunner range-maybe
fifty yards- would be able to sit back and shoot
arrows at me in total safety.

Meanwhile, I had some waiting to do, and something
occurred to me that I hadn't thought about before: I
was going to have to stay awake. If I went to sleep,
Saracens might ride past without waking me up. Right
away I started worrying. Turning off my remote, I
took it out of my ear so it wouldn't interfere with
my hearing.

Staying awake turned out to be easier than I'd
expected, because it was getting pretty cold again,
and just sitting there didn't keep me warm like
hiking had. After checking by feel the setting on my
stunner-at this range, narrow beam and just above
medium intensity seemed about right-I shoved my hands
inside my cape to keep them warm in my armpits.

I wondered what Jenoor would think if she could see
me here, then imagined that she could see me, and
what we might say to each other. After a while I
dozed in spite of the cold-dozed and wakened, dozed
and wakened-and didn't worry about it. In as shallow
a sleep as that, I told myself, I'd wake up if any
horses came along.

Finally I awakened with a start, and thought sure
some sound must have done it-maybe horseshoes on
rock. I sat still, hardly breathing, but couldn't
hear a thing, and after a couple of minutes decided
it had just been nerves. The sky down the ravine was
lighter, but it didn't seem to be the graying of
early dawn. Besides, I was sure I hadn't slept nearly
that long. Moonrise, I told myself. Of course. After
a few minutes I could see moonlight shining on the
upper slope across the ravine; the moon had climbed
above the next ridge east. Now I could see quite a
bit better, although my side of the ravine was out of
direct moonlight, in heavy shadow.

If the Saracens were going to move that night, they'd
probably have started by now. If they'd reached our
first stopping place, chance was that they'd followed
our trail down off that ridge to camp by the creek in
the little valley below it; there were even some
empty huts there. And if they'd done that, I told
myself, I shouldn't have to wait too much longer.

So I was ready when, maybe ten minutes later, I heard
faint hoof sounds. I lay down on my stomach and crept
forward a couple of feet so I could look farther down
the ravine, I saw movement, and seconds later a
horseman rode out of the shadow of some trees fifty
or sixty yards away.

There were three of them, their armor covered by
robes-advance scouts I suppose. They rode one behind
the other, twenty or thirty feet apart. I Set the
first ride past my position before I pushed the
firing stud. He slumped at once, falling without even
grabbing to hold on, and while he was slumping, I
shifted my aim to the second. That one was falling
too, as I moved for a shot at the third, who had
wheeled his horse and was spurring it back the way
they'd come. I pressed the stud a third time at maybe
fifty yards and saw him reel in the saddle, fall
forward, and ride out of sight clinging to his
horse's neck.

Then, without even thinking, I let go with my
impression of the wail of a Thargonian ghost tiger.
It was supposed to be the spookiest sound on the
known worlds. Us kids had learned it watching
holo-dramas when we were, like, ten years old. And
practiced it on shadowy evenings playing "hide from
the tiger," a game that's been big on Evdash for
generations. Whoever was "it" would make the sound
while they hunted for the other kids.

On a still night like this one, I suppose you could
hear it for a quarter mile or more. I don't know what
the Saracen thought of it, but I'll bet he didn't
slow down. I realized I was grinning like crazy.

I didn't go down to check the guys I'd zapped. I was
pretty sure the first two were unconscious but
proba-ly not dead. The third one was my best product.
He knew something had happened to him. He was
probably half numb, and when he came out of it later
he'd tingle with pins and needles. Yet he hadn't seen
anything, no arrow had touched him- And there'd been
this terrible noise! Meanwhile the other two horses-
first one, and after a moment the other-had turned
and clattered back down the ravine out of sight,
apparently only buzzed a bit by the stunner.

If the Saracens sent another scouting party, it would
probably be bigger, and maybe strung out farther
apart. If I was the Saracen commander, that's what
I'd tell them to do. But if they were nervous enough,
they might bunch up anyway.

They bunched up anyway. Maybe half an hour later I
heard their horses. Two had passed me, fifteen feet
apart, and the third was about even with me, when I
zapped them quickly, one after another, then got up
in a crouch and stepped out to where I could shoot at
the others. Most were in a confusion of trying to
turn back, getting in each others way. But one was
sitting off to one side, looking around, and his eyes
locked on me. I zapped him first and he fell like a
sack, till a foot caught in a stirrup. His horse was
turning, and I didn't want it to drag him away so I
flipped the setting to high and zapped it too. It
stopped, shuddered, and I zapped it again. It
collapsed. I turned the stunner on the hindmost of
the others as they galloped off. He fell. The others,
three at least, had disappeared, with the wail of a
Thargonian ghost tiger, or a reasonable imitation, in
their ears.

One thing I did not want was the Saracens to know it
had been a man who had ambushed them. I wanted them
worried about devils and demons. So I moved along
behind the shadowed fringe of scrub to where I could
plainly see the man who'd spotted me. Then, with the
intensity still on high and the beam at its tightest,
I zapped him again.

I didn't feel very good about it. I'd killed men
before, in Normandy, but that had been in self
defense, or to free Deneen. They hadn't been lying
helpless.

It was time to go back to the Varangians, but it
didn't seem like a good idea to go back up the
ravine. The Varangian lookouts would have heard my
tiger impression; they had bows, and they'd be
nervous. What I did instead was clip my stunner on my
belt and start up the steep slope. The top had to be
a spur ridge that would slope upward to join the main
ridge ahead.

The side of the ravine was almost too steep to climb;
the dirt kept slipping away beneath my boots. In
places I grabbed the scratchy, stiff-branched bushes
to pull myself along through the dark, squinting and
flinching, hoping I wouldn't get a twig in the eye.

After a while I reached the top, breathing hard from
the exertion. I scrambled out of the scrub onto the
open crest of the spur ridge, then heard hooves and
looked up. A rider had been coming along the crest in
my direction, and seeing me, had spurred his horse
into a galloping attack.
He wasn't more than forty yards away, ignoring his
lance, drawing his sword, leaning to strike.
My hand seemed to move in slow motion, drawing my
stunner, raising it, pointing, not worrying about
settings. His horse nose-dived, hitting the ground so
heavily I swear I could feel it through my feet. The
Saracen hurtled over its head in a billow of robe,
moonlight flashing on sword, and I zapped him too as
he skidded and rolled. He stopped not more than five
yards from me. As I scanned around for any more
riders, I was panting from excitement as much as from
the climb.

There weren't any others in sight.

The rider was dead. I didn't need to check him out to
know that. I hadn't thumbed the intensity back from
high after killing the guy in the ravine, and at such
close range, I'd really curdled his synapses.

Apparently, after the survivor had returned from the
first scouting party, the Saracen commander had not
only sent a strong party up the ravine. He'd also
sent outriders to bypass the ravine and see what they
could see. One at least, and maybe one on the
opposite ridge, too.

I took the Saracen's shield; I'd probably need one
when daylight came. As I started along the spur ridge
toward where it connected with the main ridge, I
stayed just below the rounded crest, at the edge of
scrub and shadow.

When I reached the main ridge, I kept a careful eye
peeled for Varangian lookouts, and called softly as I
approached the notch. They didn't show themselves,
but I could feel their eyes, and almost their strung
bows, their nocked arrows. Nothing happened though,
and before long I was at the base of the knob.

It occurred to me that I probably hadn't accomplished
much except to delay the Saracens till daylight. And
maybe make myself look good to the Varangians. The
delay wouldn't allow us to move on farther north- not
far enough to do us any good. On horseback the
Saracens would catch us before another night fell,
even if we moved as soon as I reported in. Where we
were camped now was as good a place as any to make
our stand.

Maybe I should have struck off north alone, I told
myself. Maybe I should yet. But instead I started up
the last slope toward camp.


TWENTY-SIX


Gunnlag himself was one of the lookouts on the knob,
and when he saw it was me hiking up to camp, he went
to Arno and woke him up. Gunnlag was curious and the
boss, and he needed an interpreter to ask questions
through. It turned out that when the lookouts at the
notch had been relieved, they'd told him I'd passed
through. And I suppose that my carrying a Saracen
shield got him especially interested.

"What did you do out there?" Arno asked. He was doing
more than passing on Gunnlag's questions; he was
curious, too.

"I ambushed a Saracen scouting party," I told him.
Arno passed the answer on to Gunnlag.

"With what weapons?"

"With a holy amulet."

Gunnlag's brows knotted, so I went on. "There were
three Saracens in the first scouting party. I caused
the first two to fall from their horses unable to
move. They should still be lying there, alive. The
third I caused only to go numb, and let him ride away
to his army. I was hidden in shadows, and they were
unable to see me. All he could tell his commander was
that two men had fallen from their horses without the
twang of any bowstring, and that he had gone numb and
nearly fallen from his saddle without being struck a
blow. And that there had been a terrible sound, as of
a soul in torment."

I said all that a sentence or two at a time, so that
Arno could translate. After the last sentence,
Gunnlag said something and Arno turned to me again.

"He says his lookouts at the notch reported a sound
like that."

I nodded. "Then, a while later, about eight more
came. I caused four of them to fall; I'm afraid I
killed one of them. The rest fled."

When Arno had repeated this in Norse, Gunnlag frowned
again and said something more. Again Arno turned to
me. "He wants to know why you didn't kill them all."

I shrugged. "I am a holy monk." Arno's eyebrows
raised at that, of course, before he passed it on to
the Norseman. "And besides," I went on, "when the
Saracens find them, their commander will be confused
and mystified. All the Saracens will be. Dead men
they would understand about, especially if I'd killed
them with arrows, or sword or knife. And from what
I've heard, Saracen knights have no great fear of
death or other men. But what could it be that
paralyzes them, and makes such a terrible sound? That
will put fear in their hearts, at least while it's
dark."

When Arno had finished interpreting, Gunnlag stood,
peering intently at me.

"Then," I went on, "I climbed the side of the ravine,
and at the top was attacked by another Saracen
knight. I regret that I had to kill both him and his
horse. There was no time to use more delicate magic,
may God forgive me." I motioned with the shield. "I
took this from him," I said. "I may want it when
daylight comes.

"And Arno," I added when he'd finished interpreting,
"tell Gunnlag that if he sends warriors down the
ravine to see, they should not kill or rob or even
touch the fallen men they find there. If any of his
warriors go there, they should pretend to be
mystified at what they see. The paralyzed men will
remember it, and tell their commander."

Gunnlag pursed his lips thoughtfully. Then, without
saying anything more, he went and woke up two of his
men and talked to them. They left, carrying shields
and swords. Arno and I walked over to the mass of
sleeping Varangians. One of the disadvantages of
going to bed late, in a situation like that, is that
you have to sleep at the edge, where there's not so
much body heat.

When we lay down, Arno murmured a question of his
own. "Why did you do it? Tomorrow it will make little
difference. We are all dead men then, unless God,
through some saint, intervenes."

I hadn't even thought about that before. "I did it,"
I said, "because-because tomorrow some saint may
intervene. Or some angel. And I want us to be alive
if one does."

It struck me then that he'd asked the question as
casually as if he was asking whether I thought it was
going to rain. I don't think he put as much
importance as I did on the matter of living or dying.
Then it struck me that I wasn't making as big a deal
out of it as I would have a month earlier, or a week
as far as that's concerned.

I closed my eyes. It had been an extra-long day, and
I'd hiked a lot of miles. Even cold, and with my
stomach grumbling about no food, I went right to
sleep.

The first time I awakened-just barely-was when a
Varangian I was lying against got up. I was vaguely
aware that it was starting to get daylight, then went
right back to sleep. The next time I awakened, the
rising sun was in my eyes and just about everyone was
up. I thought about a drink of water, then remembered
there wasn't any. The nearest water could easily be a
mile away.
I got up and stretched, noticing that most of the
rowing soreness was gone. And I remembered that this
was, would be, the day of reckoning. I went over to
where I'd left my shortsword the night before and put
it back on my belt.

That's what I was doing when I heard the distant
halloos. Walking to the south side of camp, I looked
in the direction the calls had come from. Two
Varangians, lookouts, were trotting from the
direction of the notch. Apparently the Saracens were
coming up the ravine.

Arno was standing near; now he came over to me.
"Gunnlag sent men down the ravine after you came
back," he said. "They found two men dead and four men
down, unable to move. Apparently you used a higher
setting on them than you did on me that time."
He was grinning. I didn't feel like grinning back. A
Norman might feel cheerful on a morning like this,
but I was no Norman. I recalled the time he referred
to- our first meeting, in Provence, on the road from
the Cenis Pass. That was the first time he'd tried to
take my weapons from me.

The Varangians didn't look glum either. They weren't
saying much, but mostly they looked either cheerful
or grim; a few looked thoughtful. Most had been
mercenaries in the Byzantine army, and the others
were probably veterans of battles in other places. I
suppose all of them had been close to death at times.
Besides that, from what Arno and Gunnlag had said,
their whole culture was warlike. That would mean
they'd almost have to feel different about danger and
death than I was used to.

"Do you still have power in your stunner?" Arno asked.

I nodded. "Enough for a few more shots, I suppose."

Smiling, he fondled the hilt of his sword. "That is
one advantage of our weapons here," he said. "They
last as long as you can wield them. Unless, of
course, they break. And Saracen swords are too light
to break Norman blades."

The lookouts had reached the foot of the knob now,
and slowed to a walk on its steep slope. At almost
the same moment, the first few Saracens rode up
through the notch.

Over the next quarter hour, something more than two
hundred appeared, maybe as many as two-fifty to three
hundred. They trotted their horses easily in a rough
column of twos toward us, and I wondered if they'd
attack us right now instead of besieging us. When
their lead riders reached the foot of the knob, they
separated, half of them bypassing us on the knob's
steep flanks to the ridge crest on its other side.
This put half of them on the south end and half on
the north. None stayed on our flanks, which were too
steep to ride up, but the Saracens could attack from
both ends if they wanted to.

"What now?" ! asked Arno.

He shrugged. "They'll probably wait and let us get
thirstier."

I was already thirstier than I could ever remember
being.

"And maybe try to get the Varangians to use up their
arrows," he went on. "But I doubt that will work.
These Varangians are no Lombard peasants called to
war, scarcely knowing a sword from a spade." He gave
me a friendly clap on the shoulder; it was like being
hit by a club. "You have never seen a battle like
this will be," he told me. "Watch well, while you
still live! Breathe deeply of it! Let the sounds fill
your ears! And when you go to meet God, keep the
memory of it; it may help to pass the time in heaven
or hell."

I'd settle for watching the Saracens from a distance.
Their horses were noticeably more lightly built and
graceful than the Norman destriers, and the Saracen
knights were colorful in robes that covered whatever
their armor might be.

Then four of them rode partway up the knob, stopping
out of bowshot. One, apparently their commander, rode
another few feet and shouted to us in a language I'd
never heard before. Apparently the Varangians didn't
understand it; at least none of them shouted anything
back. Then he tried another, which I thought might be
Greek. And it seemed to be, because Gunnlag stepped
up on a boulder and called back. The Varangians
laughed. The Saracen commander, after staring for a
moment, turned his horse and trotted back, followed
by the other three.

Arno questioned one of the Varangians, got an answer,
and turned to me with another grin. "Gunnlag told him
his father eats pork." I couldn't see why Gunnlag
would say that, or why the Varangians had laughed.
I'd eaten pork in Normandy, and it had seemed all
right. In feet, I'd liked it. Arno, seeing that I
didn't get it, explained.

"To a Saracen, that is a terrible insult. Their
religion holds that eating pork is a mortal sin."

Frankly, to me it seemed stupid to insult someone
who's getting ready to kill you. But maybe Gunnlag
figured it wouldn't make any difference, and that he
might as well enjoy what he could while he could.

Arno asked some more questions. It turned out that
the Saracen commander had offered surrender terms. If
we surrendered, we wouldn't be killed. I suppose that
anyone who wasn't ransomed would be sold into
slavery. They didn't attack though. Not for hours.
The morning wore on, and the afternoon, and I kept
expecting it. I hardly noticed how hungry I was. The
thirst was something else; it I noticed. A few times
some Saracens rode near enough to shoot arrows into
camp, and I was glad to have a shield. But that was
it. The Varangians didn't even shoot back, They were
waiting for the Saracens to get closer, I suppose.

Judging by the sun, it was mid-afternoon when,
signalled by trumpets, Saracens at both ends of the
knob grouped to attack. Again trumpets blew, and
horsemen formed ranks of ten. They blew again, and
the ranks started toward us at a walk. There seemed
like an awful lot of them. The Varangians nocked
arrows. At about a hundred yards, the Saracens
spurred their horses to a trot, and at about eighty
yards, at Gunnlag's shout, the Varangians sent a
flight of arrows at them, followed by another. A few
horsemen and horses fell, some to be ridden over. The
Saracens had spurred to a heavy, uphill gallop. The
Varangians dropped their bows, drew swords and picked
up shields, or raised two-handed battle-axes, then
moved out together to meet the charging enemy.
Several held huge swords that took two hands to use.
I stayed where I was, leaving my shortsword in its
scabbard, waiting with my shield on my left arm and
my stunner in my right hand.

The Saracens hit.

It would have been a lot worse if they hadn't been
riding uphill. As it was, they didn't have a lot of
momentum, and the Varangian swords and axes cut down
horses and men in a melee of violent motion and
spraying blood, impacts and bellows. Brown dust
billowed; men and horses screamed and fell. Three
Saracens broke through, and I zapped each of them
before he could wheel to hit the Varangians from
behind. After brief minutes, maybe only one, the
charge broke. A trumpet blared, and the Saracens in
front of us wheeled and rode back down the slope.
Some of the Varangians picked up bows and sent arrows
after them.

I turned. At the other end of camp the fight was
over, too. Gradually, in the relative stillness, my
eyes registered the shambles all around. Dead horses,
dead men, bloody dirt. Quite a few of the bodies were
Varangians, dead or dying, while some of those on
their feet bled from slashes. Arno's hauberk was
smeared with crimson, but apparently the blood wasn't
his.

He looked around until he saw me, then grinned in
spite of his thirst. "I saw what you did," he called
to me. His voice was hoarse and raspy. "Your 'holy
amulet' is a valuable weapon."

I looked at my stunner. The indicator was on red; at
the most it was good for three more shots-one, at
least. "It's almost used up," I told him.

"In that case," he said, "I suggest you find a sword
to your liking-something longer than that." He
gestured at my shortsword.

I wasn't sure how much good a sword would do me-any
sword-but I hefted a few dropped by the dead. Most of
them had blood on the hilts, but I made myself pick
them up. The Varangian swords I tried felt heavier
than I could handle properly. My arm was strong
enough, but not my wrist and hand. The Saracen swords
were lighter. I played with one of them, testing;
this one I could handle easily.

Then a hand gripped my shoulder, and I turned around.
It was Gunnlag. He beckoned me to follow, then led me
to the body of a fallen Varangian. Arno came along,
curious. Gunnlag picked up the man's sword-one of the
big, two-handed ones-and husked earnestly at me in
dry-throated Norse.
"He's telling you to use that one," Arno said. "For
someone with little skill, the two-handed sword is
better. It is for berserkers, or for those who are
strong but inept."

I didn't know what a berserker was, or whether I was
strong enough to handle a weapon like that one. But
inept fitted me pretty well, so I took it and tried a
few practice swings. Big as I was by Fanglithan
standards, and strong, it was too heavy for me to use
effectively, even with two hands. Gunnlag saw that,
and looked around at the bodies, then went to one of
the largest. The sword he picked up was single-handed
but big, with a hilt long enough that I had no
trouble gripping it with both hands. I swung it high
and then low, and then in figure eights.

Gunnlag was grinning and nodding now, and said
something to Arno. Other Varangians were looking on,
most of them grinning too. "He says," Arno told me,
"that he wishes you'd come to him earlier, when you
were a boy, or even a year ago. He says you'd have
made a fine Varangian."

I nodded. Not that I was agreeing with him. I was
just being courteous, and maybe appreciating the
compliment. I wasn't the kind of warrior who would
get kicks out of hacking people up. If I was any kind
of warrior at all, it was the kind that just wanted
to overthrow the Empire and then retire to something
more peaceable.

So far I hadn't been paying attention to what the
Varangians were doing. Now I did. Some were bandaging
the wounds of their buddies with pieces of Saracen
robes. A few were killing the badly wounded of both
sides, sticking them in the neck with their knives. I
could understand that; otherwise they'd lie there and
die slowly. But it was something I didn't ofier to
help with.
Something else the Varangians did was look for any
water bags the dead Saracens might have carried.
There weren't any; they'd probably left them behind
on purpose. After that the Varangians started
dragging dead horses to form a crescent-shaped
barricade at each end of camp, a little below the
brow of the knob. I went out and helped them. It was
heavy work. Even as cool as the day was, and as dry
as we were, I was soon sweating from it. After the
dead horses were all in place, we sort of leveled it
off on the uphill side with the dead humans, Saracens
and Varangians both.

When we'd finished, Gunnlag prayed over the dead at
both ends of camp. Then we sat around and stood
around, watching. I felt really bushed, and wondered
if we had enough strength to fight oif another
attack, even behind the barrier we'd built. There
were plenty of Saracens left, but only fifty-three
Varangians fit to fight. The Saracens didn't seem in
any hurry.

It felt like an hour or more that nothing happened. I
wondered if the Saracens even planned to attack
again. Maybe they'd just sit down there and wait for
us to die or come to them. Then some of them made a
big show of riding toward us to drink from their
water bags, so some of the Varangians started cutting
the heads off dead Saracens and throwing them down
the hill. Every time they threw one, the rest would
cheer, though not as loudly as they would have if
their throats hadn't been so dry.
If only Deneen would show up, I thought. Then I
realized with a shock that I hadn't tried to call her
since early the evening before! Of course she could
be expected to call me-but I'd taken the remote out
of my ear in the ravine! Fumbling it out of my belt
pouch, I seated it in my ear again. Then I spoke into
the communicator, my voice rasping over dry throat
membranes.

"Rebel Javelin, this is Larn," I said. "Rebel
Javelin, this is Larn. Over."

Nothing. How many days had it been? "Damn it, Deneen,
I need you guys! We're in big trouble here! Tomorrow
will be too late!"

Her voice in my ear was the most welcome sound I'd
ever heard in my life! "Larn! What's happening?"

It's amazing how much calmer I got, right away.
"We're somewhere in Sicily," I told her, "inland, in
the mountains."

Amo was staring at me, and I switched the sound from
the remote to the hand unit so he could hear.

"Arno and I and a bunch of Varangian warriors are on
the top of a mountain, and a bunch of Saracen knights
have us surrounded. We haven't had anything to drink
since yesterday. They charged us once, and a lot of
guys are already dead. And the rest of us will be
pretty darned soon. Like maybe in an hour or maybe
five minutes."

"We're on our way," she snapped. "Keep talking, and
I'll get a read on your location."
"Right," I said. "We've got a great view from up
here. Mountains all around. I can't see the sea,
though; we're too far inland. The flies are starting
to gather around the bodies. The Varangians have been
throwing Saracen heads down the hill, and it looks as
if the Saracens are getting ready to attack again."
It must have been the head-throwing that got to them.
They were forming ranks again, one behind the other,
and I got the notion that this time they wouldn't
quit. There were about ten in each rank, and I
counted nine ranks at our end. I suppose the guys at
the other end of camp were looking at the same sort
of thing.

I switched the receive switch back to remote, so I'd
have my hands free to fight and still be able to hear.

"Hold on!" I shouted to the Varangians. "The Angel
Deneen is coming to help us! Hold on until she gets
here!"

The first Saracen rank was starting our way at a slow
trot. Then the second. Then the third, the fourth . .
. The Varangians were fitting arrows to their
bowstrings. I hefted the heavy sword.
It looked like a race, and I didn't see how Deneen
could get there first.


TWENTY-SEVEN


As we moved out onto the barricade to make our stand,
Gunnlag grabbed me by the arm and shook his head,
pointing back, snapping something in Norse. I
gathered I was supposed to be a backup, along with
several wounded men.

But by standing on a rock and looking between
Varangians, I could see the charge well enough from
the brow of the hill, a few paces back. As the lead
Saracens got closer to the barricade, they realized
they couldn't ride over it, while riding uphill the
way they'd had to, they wouldn't have nearly enough
speed to jump it. So a little short of it. They swung
down from their saddles and came at us with swords.
One problem the Varangians had was standing up. Dead
bodies, especially the barrel-like bodies of horses,
aren't the best footing for a sword fight. But they
had the advantage of elevation, and slashed at the
Saracens clambering up at them. It was slaughter, and
for a half minute or so I thought for sure we'd hold
them, even as outnumbered as we were.

But the Saracens weren't stupid. The sides of the
knob were too steep for horses, so we hadn't extended
the barricade very far around. Now, on foot, some of
the rear ranks started around to flank us, and the
handful of us in reserve-the wounded and myself-moved
to keep them out, while a few of the men on top
dropped back to help us.

I can't describe what went on, because after that all
I saw was what was close around me. We still had the
advantage of position, but there were too few of us
and too many of them. I didn't even think of finesse,
of strike and parry. I didn't really think of
anything at all. I just swung and slashed. Once,
through the fog of desperation, I heard a voice
howling like an animal, and realized it was me. And
the howl was the Thargonian ghost tiger. Then more of
the Saracens were on top with us, and more, and then
...

Then I heard screaming, and realized I was also
hearing the thud! thud! thud! thud! of a heavy
blaster. But there still were Saracens around us,
striking with their swords. My blade half cleft a
heavy shield, stuck there, and was jerked from my
hands. Without even thinking, I snatched my stunner
from my belt and fired, then fired again at another
Saracen, and threw it at another when it failed on
the third shot.

Then Arno was beside me, striding into the melee.
Varangians too, more of them now. Because, it turned
out, the attacks on the barricades had melted back
under blaster fire and the sight of the scout close
overhead. The Saracens who'd reached the top were
suddenly outnumbered.
"Larn!" Deneen's voice spoke in my ear as I tugged my
sword free of the Saracen shield.

I straightened, ignoring her, the heavy sword in my
hands, and looked around for more attackers. I wasn't
about to be distracted when I needed my attention on
staying alive. But I didn't, really. The Saracens
were running now, back down the side slope, several
falling and rolling, unable to stop themselves. There
weren't any left to strike.

I blinked, shaking my head, becoming aware of things
around me-other things besides Saracens. It was like
coming out of some kind of bloody trance. Then I
started counting. There seemed to be twenty-six
Varangians left on their feet, most standing
momentarily motionless, staring upward. I knew that
some of them had to be wounded. I was spattered with
blood myself, but as far as I knew, none of it was
mine. You might not believe how much blood gets
sprayed around in a fight like that.

Gunnlag shouted a hoarse order, and we moved back to
the barricade. There were a lot of dead Saracens
there, but down the hill I could see a lot of live
ones-a lot more than there were of us.

And there was the scout, maybe two hundred feet
overhead. I waved at it, then looked at Gunnlag. "The
Angel Deneen," I told him, then crossed myself. Arno
heard me, and repeated it loudly in Norse; I caught
the name "Deneen" when he said it.

A second later the loud-hailer boomed out with about
a minute's worth of talk that was a total mystery to
me. The language wasn't Evdashian or Standard, Norman
or Provencal, or Greek. I didn't even know the voice.

But it sure had the Saracens' attention. And when it
was done, we saw them get on their horses and start
rounding up the strays-the horses whose riders
hadn't, or wouldn't, return. When they were done,
they all left, riding along the ridge crest to the
notch, where they turned off out of sight into the
ravine.

"Larn," said the voice in my ear, "I'm the one who's
got a problem now." I'd never heard Deneen sound like
that. Tired. More tired than I was. "I just checked
the fuel system again. Using the weapons system, even
less than a dozen bolts like that, has begun some
pretty heavy fuel crystallization. I never imagined
it would happen so fast.

"Now here's what I'm going to do. I'll put Tarel and
Moise down with you, each with a blast rifle, pistol,
and stunner. And one of each for you. Then I'll get
to the island again as quickly as I can, and shut
down for a few days. We can not afford to get
ourselves stranded."
"Just a second," I said. "No rifles. They'll make us
too conspicuous. Or just one. Make it one, in case we
need some longer range firepower. And a pistol and
stunner for Arno, and belt magazines with spare
charges."

"All right ..." she began, but I interrupted.

"And we've had no water for nearly twenty-four hours.
Or any food. None of us. Put down a hose; there's one
in a locker in the machine room. And send down any
food you can spare, if there's enough of it to share
among thirty men."

"Right. I'm leaving the pilot's seat to do it."

"Got ya. Larn holding."

A bunch of the Varangians were staring at me,
including Gunnlag, who, like Arno and me, seemed
unwounded.

"The Angel Deneen is going to Set two other holy
monks out of the sky ship," I told them, "with
special protection for us, to help keep us safe to
Christian territory. She has to go back to the
heavens."

I figured she'd land and let them out, but she had a
better idea-one that would help keep up our image.
She lowered to about fifty feet and let Tarel down in
a harness. When he was down, she winched the harness
back up and let down another guy, who had to be
Moise. I realized then who'd been talking on the
loud-hailer. Like Tarel, Moise wore a marine jump
suit. He was tall for a Fanglithan; I suspect it was
from a decent diet when he was a kid.

Deneen's voice spoke in my ear again. "There's some
emergency food concentrate in Moise's musette bag,"
she told me. "All we've got left of it. And Tarel's
musette bag has extra cells for your communicators.
Water's coming next."

A minute later a hose came down, with a pail taped to
it. On my cue, Deneen would release some water, a few
quarts at a time. I'd catch it in the pail and pass
it around among the Varangians. I drank last, which
I'm darn sure the Varangians noticed. It tasted like
hose, but it was good!
When all of us had drunk a bit, I got some of the
cubes of food concentrate from Moise's pack and
passed them around, two per man. That wasn't much,
but any more might have made us sick on such empty
stomachs. After that everyone drank again. Then I
retaped the pail to the hose and told Deneen we were
done. The hose drew back up into the hatch and
disappeared.

The hatch closed behind it, and in a minute or so the
Jav started to rise, rose till we couldn't see it
anymore.

"That's it, brother mine," said Deneen in my ear.
"Gqod luck. And wish me the same."
I raised the communicator to my mouth. "Thanks.
You've got my best wishes, for whatever they're
worth." And she did. Not getting stranded here might
not be as important to me as staying alive, but it
ran a close second.

Luck! It occurred to me that, everything considered,
we hadn't done too badly on Fanglith, luck-wise. So
far. Not for a world like this one. Things had gone
wrong, but we were still alive. And that was more
than I could say for a lot of Varangians and Saracens.


PART SIX

TREACHERY AND CLIMAX

TWENTY-EIGHT


Actually there were thirty Varangians able to walk
reasonably well. Five others could hobble with help.
We'd take them with us to the nearest water and leave
them there on their own. The Varangians killed the
more severely wounded, then all the dead were prayed
over.

It had occurred to Gunnlag that I should do the
praying. After all, I was the holy monk, the chief of
the holy monks. But I told him I wanted him to do it
because he was our war chief. I also told him that
the Angel Deneen would want him to, over the Saracens
and all. And just now what the Angel Deneen wanted
was what we did.

I could have pretended to pray, of course, but these
guys were dead, and they deserved the real thing. And
while he was praying, I found myself feeling really
solemn. If there actually was some kind of heaven,
the way the Christians thought, and maybe the
Saracens, then I wanted them to go there, all of
them. That's when I realized that I didn't hate the
Saracens, even though we'd just been chopping at one
another with swords, trying to kill each other. I
only hated the Empire. Interesting.

After the praying, Tarel gave me my weapons and
Arno's. I blessed Arno in Evdashian while holding up
my crucifix. Actually, what I recited was part of the
acceptance formula for initiates into the middle
school honor society, modified a little for the
circumstances. I
didn't know any Christian formulas. Then I gave Arno
a pistol and stunner, and a belt magazine of
replacement charges for each.

I kept the blast rifle. It would be my symbol as
chief monk.

Next I turned to Moise and asked him in Norman French
if he spoke Greek.

"Yes, sir," he said, in Evdashian at that. "I also
speak your language. Your sister had me learn it with
the learning program, and we have practiced it ever
since to develop my fluency."

"Good. I'm assigning you to speak it with Arno. He
needs the practice. But first I want you to tell
Gunnlag Snorrason something for me, in Greek." I
pointed. "He's the older Varangian with the red hair.
It's best that Arno not tell him, because I'm
appointing Arno the leader of this expedition for
now. And Gunnlag should get the word from someone
else, not from Arno.

"And another thing: As far as these people are
concerned, Deneen is an angel of God. D'you
understand?"

He nodded soberly.

"Good. And she came down from heaven to bring you to
us. You and Tarel. So while you should be courteous
to the Varangians, always act as if you're their
superior. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Fine. Now I want you to tell Gunnlag that Arno is a
Norman of importance, a liege man of the great
leader, Roger of Sicily. And that we will soon be in
Norman land. Tell him."

We were the center of the watching and listening
Varangians, Gunnlag the nearest of them. Moise turned
to him and spoke in Greek. When he was done, he
turned back to me for further instructions.

"Tell him that because of that, Arno will be our
leader on the march. Gunnlag will still be the chief
of the Varangians, but Arno will be the march
leader-the march leader of all of us, including us
holy monks. Got that?"

Moise nodded. "Yes sir," he said again, and again he
talked to Gunnlag in Greek. Gunnlag nodded with no
sign of resentment.

I looked at Arno. "Did you get that too?" I asked in
Norman French.

"Yes," he said. "And I shall treat the old Viking
like a Norman knight. I have seen him fight, and I
love him like a brother."

It seemed to me that things just might go right for a
while. For a change.

Progress was slow because of the wounded. As we
hiked, Tarel told me what they'd learned about fuel
crystallization, and approximately what Moise had
said on the loud-hailer. He'd spoken in Arabic, the
Saracen language, telling them that the vessel from
Allah-Allah was the name the Saracens gave to
Fanglith's god- that the vessel from Allah bore the
Angel Deneen. And the Saracens were not to molest any
further these people they'd been attacking. They
should let them leave in peace, or risk Allah's
further wrath.

"Was that Deneen's idea?" I asked. "Or Moise's?"
"Deneen knew he speaks Arabic. She does too now, but
hasn't practiced it much. She told him to say
whatever it would take to keep them from attacking
you any more, and he took it from there."

"Umm. You guys get along all right? You and Moise?"

"Oh sure. We're good friends."

I was glad to hear it. I'd wondered if maybe they'd
developed some rivalry-if maybe Moise had gotten
interested in Deneen, too.

Dusk was settling when we reached a creek in a small
valley, another valley with abandoned huts in it.
Gunnlag agreed with Arno that we shouldn't camp there
though- that we needed to reach a high place. So we
drank our fill again, then left the five who needed
help to walk, and started up the next ridge. Two of
the Varangians keeled over when the going got steep,
and three others couldn't make it, so we waited while
they were helped back to the hut where we'd left the
other five. Then we went on again-twenty-five
Varangians, Arno, and three "holy monks from India."
It was black night when we got to the top, chewed and
swallowed the last of the food concentrate, and
bunched up to sleep. The cubes didn't quiet our
stomachs, which growled and grumbled, but they'd help
us keep going.

The next morning, Arno and Gunnlag sent our four best
hunters out ahead, after pointing out the course we'd
be taking. Then, after about an hour of lying around,
the rest of us started out. The muscles in my
forearms had gotten surprisingly sore overnight, and
my hands stiff-from using the sword I suppose.

The hunters would be moving slowly, so we moved
slowly too. An hour or so later we came to one of
them who'd killed and dressed out a half-grown goat.
There wasn't any firewood nearby, so we ate most of
it raw, keeping enough to share with the other
hunters in case they hadn't gotten anything. Goat is
tough chewing, especially raw, and bloody raw is the
opposite of appetizing for me. But when you're hungry
enough . . .

Maybe two hours later we came to another hunter with
another goat. This was near the mouth of a ravine
where there was scrub, with dead branchwood to burn.
So we took a break, half-cooked the goat, and ate
some of it, wrapping the rest in the hide. A third
hunter saw the smoke and hiked over. He hadn't seen
anything near enough to shoot at.

Then we lay around for a while, feeling full, napping
in the sun, digesting the half-raw goat meat. We
never saw the fourth hunter again. He might have
fallen and broken a leg somewhere. We yelled, there
and later from a ridgetop, but never heard a thing.

A couple of ridges later I wondered if maybe he'd run
into hostiles. Because when we reached the top of
this ridge, we could see a lot bigger valley on the
other side. Arno said a valley like that was sure to
have farms and hamlets, and almost surely a castle
with knights.

And these people wouldn't have heard of the Angel
Deneen, though hopefully they might be under Norman
control.

We talked it over and decided that the Varangians
would hike down one of the ravines. It had enough
brush and trees to give cover. Tarel and Amo would
stay with them to provide flrepower. Moise and I
would hike along the top of one of the spur ridges
that walled the ravine. From there I could provide
blaster fire with my rifle, if needed. And while the
two of us could be seen from a distance, the sight of
two hikers shouldn't get anyone excited. Not when
neither of us was visibly a warrior. Neither of us
carried a shield, and I'd left my longsword on the
battleground.

Tarel turned his communicator on so we could stay in
touch.

It was a warmer day than we'd been having. Spring was
coming along, and the country wasn't as high as a lot
that we'd been through. I was actually enjoying the
hike. We paused on a high point, from where we could
see a lot of the valley. And Arno had been right: A
good-sized hamlet, almost a village, was visible,
with a castle nearby. I saw a dust cloud in the
valley's lower end, and staring, made out a number of
mounted men at the head of it. They had to be
military.

I took the communicator from my belt. "Tarel," I
said, "this is Larn. Tarel, this is Larn. Over."

"This is Tarel. Over."

"Tell Arno there's a force of cavalry in the valley,
riding toward the castle. I can't tell if they're
Normans or Saracens. Ask him what he wants to do
about this. Over."

"Hold on; will do."

It was two or three minutes before I heard anything
more than faint murmuring. Then Arno answered. "This
is Arno. We'll continue down the ravine as far as
there's cover for us. Then we'll wait until dark.
After dark I'll go out and see what I can learn."

"Right," I answered. "Moise and I will keep hiking
the ridgetop to near the end. Maybe we'll be able to
see more farther on. Larn over and out."

A moment later I heard Tarel's voice again. "Got
that. This is Tarel out."

A half-mile ahead, the ridge crest started dropping
off more sharply into the valley, giving us a fuller
view ahead. The cavalry had ridden to a point almost
in line with it. I still couldn't make out details,
except I was pretty sure they didn't wear robes. They
made me think of men returning home though; they
formed a fairly strung out group, about twenty of
them. And they weren't making the dust they had been,
as if they'd slowed from a trot to a walk. I let Arno
know. Then Moise and I sat on the ground and I
followed them with my eyes, wishing I had binoculars.

After a minute, I noticed something else. Another
horseman, ahead of them and off to one side, had
stopped, as if he had gotten off the road for them.

Again I called Tarel, and told Arno what I'd seen.

Arno chuckled. "The people of the country here are
Saracens. That the horseman got out of the road
probably means that the cavalry are Normans, and that
the fighting here is past."

"Do you want to go on out into the valley this
afternoon?" I asked.

He didn't answer immediately, and when he did, it was
slowly, thoughtfully. "No. We are fed now, and there
is no great haste. We'll stay under cover till
nightfall."

Moise and I stayed where we were for a while,
continuing to watch. The castle was far enough away
that we couldn't see what went on when the cavalry
got there. Finally we picked our way down into the
ravine, and along the bottom til! we came to Arno and
Tarel and the Varangians.
It was nap time again.


TWENTY-NINE


We did more waking than dozing. And with danger no
longer baring its teeth at us, plus the probability
that we were out of enemy territory, sitting around
made the Varangians restless and impatient. So Arno
didn't wait till dark to go scouting; he started out
when sunset was coloring the sky.

Even no more than that made the Varangians more
cheerful. They liked action-something going on. If
not their action, then someone else's. At least
something was happening.

While dusk settled, Tarel and I sat side by side
without saying much. Being with him made me remember
Jenoor, and that made me introspective. Moise had
gone over to sit by Gunnlag and ask him questions in
Greek; he found the Varangians intriguing. After a
while, he came back and sat down by Tarel and me
again. Gunnlag, he said, had told him I'd surprised
him-that he hadn't thought a holy monk could fight
like I had. I'd been like a berserker, Gunnlag had
said, howling in battle and wielding my sword with a
fury that would do credit to any warrior he'd seen.
Neither of us was clear on what a berserker was, but
apparently it was something or someone pretty wild in
battle. Moise was impressed with the story, and Tarel
even more. As for me, there wasn't much I could say.
Even allowing for Fanglithan exaggeration, it sounded
like pretty high praise by Norse standards. I
couldn't remember much of the fight-general
impressions, fragments of image. But I did remember
hearing someone howl and realizing it was me, and
that I had gone at it pretty hard.

I was big by Norrnan standards, of course-even by
Varangian standards. But the Varangians, like the
Normans, had always seemed to me to be a lot stronger
and a lot more formidable than I was.
I recalled the times when one or another of them had
grabbed me. Arno, on that first day in Provence, when
he'd grabbed my wrist and hauled me up onto his
destrier. And Varangians a couple of times. They'd
seemed terribly strong. Was it because of the way
they did things? With hard, abrupt force, the way a
warrior might learn to do them? Did they actually
think of me as physically strong-or at least fairly
strong? And was I, in fact, stronger than I thought?
I didn't have the hand and wrist strength to handle a
Varangian sword one-handed, but maybe the rest of me
compared better with Normans and Varangians than my
hands and wrists did.

One thing I knew for sure: Fighting with swords was
something I'd gladly do without.

It was sometime after dark when I woke up. How long
after, I don't know. The moon wasn't up yet though,
and it was really black among the scrub trees in the
ravine bottom. Guys were moving, talking. Then I
recognized the plod of hooves, not running or even
walking, but stamping around, and not just one horse
but several.

"Larn! Gunnlag!"

It was Arno's voice. I rolled to my feet and moved
through the dark in his direction. "What is it? What
did you find?" I called.

"You were right!" He said it in Evdashian. "We're
here! They are Normans!"

Gunnlag was beside him before I got there, asking
questions in rapid Norse, and I had to wait for a
minute before I could get any more information. Then
the Varangian chieftain turned away and began to
shout orders.

Arno turned to me. "The baron holding this district
in fief is Gilbert de Auletta," he said. "He has
invited us to stay at his castle, and within a day or
two he will provide us with an escort to Palermo.
Which is no farther than two long days' walk. And for
you and me, and perhaps a few others, he will provide
horses."

Three of the baron's men waited for us outside the
darker darkness of the scrub woods, with spare horses
for Gunnlag and me. I had one of the wounded ride
mine-a Varangian named Ketil, from a place called
Jamtland. He was a huge man, even by Evdashian
standards, and one of those who used an oversized,
two-handed sword. I'd noticed him early on, not only
because of his size, but because of his helmet. It
had a nasal on it to protect the nose, and looked to
be Norman, Normans had fought Varangians at various
times, and I suspected that Ketil's helmet was a
trophy from some Norman he'd killed.

Arno hoisted me up to ride with him. He was impressed
that I'd give up my horse to a wounded comrade, and I
was surprised that he found it admirable. It showed
me another side of Arno; if I'd thought about it at
all, I'd have expected him to consider my giving up
my horse a weakness. The other Varangians regarded
Ketil as a savage, which from them seemed to be a
term reflecting admiration as well as caution. They
all seemed wary of him, as if he was dangerous.
Supposedly, as a youth, he'd been a member of a
bandit troop in Jamtland that had preyed on trade
caravans over the mountains there. He'd even broken a
moose to the saddle to ride on, they said. Whatever a
moose was.

It was nearly unbelievable that Ketil had walked all
the way from the battle site. His calf had a deep cut
across the muscle that made it impossible to flex his
ankle or push off with the ball of his foot. Try
walking on hills that way sometime! And even tightly
bandaged, it leaked blood off and on. Yet the only
sign of pain he showed was his bad limp. His grim
lack of words didn't seem part of it; he hadn't
talked much before the wound, either.

He didn't even say thank you, or anything else, when
I turned my horse over to him.

Gilbert de Auletta's castle was Saracen-built, of
course. It wasn't as large or luxurious as Roger's at
Mileto's not by a long way, but it had a bath and
gardens. And a dining hall. Eating was our first
order of business. The Varangians ate the same way
they did just about everything-they gave it a hundred
percent. They weren't shy about the wine, either.
Gilbert kept us company while we ate, and drank wine
with us. And spoke Greek with the Varangians. In
fact, as the drinking continued, it was mainly with
the Varangians that he talked. He'd been born in
Italy, in Campania, grandson of one of the earliest
Norman mercenaries there. Until the invasion of
Sicily, he told us, he'd spent much of his life in
the Norman effort to drive the Byzantines out of
Italy. And he spoke Greek fluently, or at least
easily.

Like the knights I'd known in Normandy, he wore his
hauberk at the table, but he was different-looking
from any other Norman knight I'd seen. Even wearing a
hauberk, he had a slender, fine-boned look-like a
Saracen, Arno whispered. His face was sharp, and his
wrists and hands small. But his hands were extremely
muscular, his bare forearms well-developed and
sinewy, and when he chewed, the muscles in his jaw
looked like stones.

His almost-black eyes seemed to actually gleam with
an intensity that made me uncomfortable, but I
couldn't fault his friendliness or hospitality.

Arno didn't seem to drink much. He raised his cup
often enough, but I never saw him accept a refill. I
decided he probably had a reason for that, so I did
the same, and in Evdashian told Tarel and Moise to
follow my example.

After supper we bathed. The Varangians knew about
bathing. I didn't ask whether it was done in their
homeland or if it was something they'd learned in
Miklagard. In the bath was the only time I'd unslung
my rifle from my shoulder, even at the table. And
even in the bath I kept it in reach. The Varangians
and Gilbert would just have to assume it was some
religious instrument.

When we'd finished our bath, a servant showed Arno,
Tarel, Moise, and me to a separate room, with actual
mattresses, stuffed at least partly with
nice-smelling herbs. The Varangians would bunk down
in the dining hall on straw. I put my belt, with its
weapons, on the floor by my head, and Arno blew out
the flame in the bowl of oil that was our lamp. It
felt incredibly good to lie on something soft, with
no stones digging my back, and my stomach not only
full but happy.

Now that I felt comfortable and safe, my mind kept me
awake. Tired though I was. First, my attention went
to Jenoor. From her it went to the Empire. What was I
doing about it? I lay there scratching occasionally
and feeling frustrated. So far, all my attention had
been on surviving; I hadn't accomplished a thing
toward establishing a rebel base. But survival was
something, and when we got to Palermo, I'd meet
Roger. And Guis-card, if he was there. And if Arno
didn't volunteer an introduction . . ,

Arno interrupted my thoughts. "Larn," he murmured.

"Yes?"

He spoke in slow Evdashian. "I feel ill at ease here,
apart from the Varangians. It may be unsafe."

I remembered my feeling about Gilbert. "Why?"

"I do not trust this baron."

"Was there something he did? Or said?" I couldn't
help remembering Isaac ben Abraham's words about
Norman treachery.

"I'm not sure. But this much I can say, although it
falls well short of accounting for my feeling.
Gilbert de Auletta was born in Italy, and his father
before him; I believe you heard him say it. Some of
those early families resent greatly the successes of
the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, whom they consider
upstart latecomers: They plotted and fought almost
constantly against William Iron Arm until his death.
And do against Guiscard when they dare. Roger arrived
from Normandy only fifteen years ago, and his success
here galls them most of all.

"And finally, they resent those newcomers of us
who've attached ourselves to Guiscard or to Roger and
have prospered by our loyalty."

Dimly I could see him get to his knees, his face a
lighter blob in the darkness. "Gilbert may not be one
who feels like that, but I do not trust him, for
whatever reason. We should go back out among the
Varangians."

Neither Tarel nor Moise had gone to sleep yet, so
they'd heard all that. Together we got up, belted on
our weapons, and left to spend the night on straw in
the dining hall. I thought of taking my mattress, but
decided it wasn't the thing to do. One of the
Varangians was awake, sitting on a table, apparently
a guard, and I wondered if Gunnlag was suspicious
too. Or whether it was simply standard practice for
Varangians among strangers in a strange stronghold.

It was Arno who woke me up. The sun was shining
through the windows. I'd have been glad to sleep for
two or three more hours, but servants were setting up
for breakfast. By daylight, with the busy, ordinary
sounds of breakfast being put on the table, our fears
of the night before seemed a little silly. To me at
least. Breakfast showed me again how the Normans in
the south had changed from those I'd known in
Normandy. We had fruit as well as porridge and
cheese, custard as well as meat and bread and eggs.

I wished I'd brought a toothbrush with me.

The weather had turned almost summery-quite warm, no
wind, bright sun, and only a few fluffy white clouds.
After breakfast we loafed around outside, napped in
the sunshine, snacked on dates and some small wrinkly
fruits called raisins, and occasional little cakes
with a fruit in them called figs, which I'd tasted
first in Marseille. They were brought to us by
servants that Arno told me were Saracens.

Like Roger's place at Mileto, and unlike any castles
I'd seen in Normandy, the grounds here were
landscaped. Like the Byzantines, the Saracens
definitely had a stronger aesthetic sense than
Normans did, but I'd bet ten credits that the Normans
would pick it up from them. Like they were picking up
bathing.

Later, some of the Varangians left on horses to get
the wounded we'd left behind in the mountains. Most
of the rest were feeling energetic enough to wrestle,
and one of them challenged Arno. Arno took him on,
and it seemed to me that neither of them was clearly
the winner.

Tarel suggested to me that he and I spar for them,
using hand-foot art, and see what they thought of it.
I turned him down, and told him why. The Varangians
wrestled with lots of energy and violence, as well as
quite a bit of skill. They didn't hold back. And
while he and I were supposedly holy monks, it seemed
to me the Varangians might scorn just sparring. They
might look down their noses at us for holding back
when we "fought" each other. Besides which, hand-foot
art was my secret-my weapon of last resort.

That afternoon I noticed Arno and Gunnlag talking
alone together in a corner of the garden. They seemed
pretty serious. Then Arno came over and started
talking to me in Evdashian, piecing it out with
Norman French where he didn't know a word.

"We may be in trouble here," he told me. "This
morning when Gunnlag arranged for horses to bring the
wounded, Gilbert said ten Varangians should go, with
ten horses. Each of them could then take one wounded
on his horse to bring him back. And Gilbert sent with
them three knights as an escort, a symbol of his
protection. The Varangians wore no hauberks nor
carried any shields. Their horses were old, such
animals as pages learn to ride on. Gilbert said he
would not have good mounts ridden by men other than
Normans trained to ride and care for them, and that
old horses would have trouble enough carrying two men
each without shields and armor.

"Gunnlag felt uneasy, a little, but Gilbert had been
very friendly last night, so he agreed. Besides, it
all seemed reasonable enough."

It sounded reasonable to me, too. These warriors
could be paranoid. But I remembered my misgivings of
the night before, and Amo wasn't done yet.

"Then, a little while ago," he went on, "I climbed
the tower to look over the countryside. A dozen of
Gilbert's knights were riding east down the road, on
destriers, and carrying lances. But soon they left
the road, riding south toward the ravine we came out
of yesterday. They could have been leaving on patrol
of course, but I have a feeling it is more than that.

"I told Gunnlag what I saw, and he feels as I do.
Gilbert may have sent them to attack the Varangians."

"Why would he do that?"

"Last night, I am told, Gilbert asked many questions
about you. He must have heard of your power from the
Varangians. He may wish to take you hostage."

Like you did, I thought. But there was a difference
between Arno and Gilbert, a difference in character
that I'd felt the evening before.

"And he knows the Varangians would defend you," Arno
was saying. "If he kills ten of them, there will be
only fifteen left."

I looked at that. "You said a dozen of his knights
seemed to have followed them. And there were already
three knights riding escort. How many of the knights
would the ten Varangians kill, do you think?"
"The Varangians do not expect an attack. Not by
Normans. And they took neither hauberks nor shields.
If they were tricked, surprised at close quarters . .
. They do not fight skillfully on horseback, it is
not their way. They could be killed without killing
any of Gilbert's men, or maybe two or three, if they
are lucky."

It could happen that way. On the other hand,
Gilbert's knights could very well have gone out on
patrol, with no idea of attacking the Varangians.

"Let me ask you a question," I said. "Would you be
willing to get hold of a horse-steal one if
necessary- follow Gilbert's men with your blast
pistol and stunner, and attack them if they attacked
the Varangians?"

Arno didn't have a quick answer for that. I thought
of making him an offer that occurred to me, but
decided against it. I'd let my question be a test.

After a long ten seconds, he passed it, "I will see
about a horse," he said. "A hunting horse. They are
faster, and with this"-he patted the holster on his
belt-"I do not need a destrier. I'll let them believe
I've come out to join them. I'll tell them that
Gilbert and I have talked things over."

I unslung my blast rifle and handed it to him. "Then
take this," I told him. "It is accurate at a
distance."

He looked at me without expression, then nodded. I
wished I knew what he was thinking. Not because I
feared treachery just now, but because I'd like to
understand him better. Maybe this would help ensure
an introduction to Guiscard or Roger. Whether it did
or not, I owed it to the Varangians.

I took the recharge magazine off my belt and gave
that to Arno too, along with a thirty-second short
course in how to use the rifle. If I had to do any
shooting here, it would probably be at close range;
my pistol and stunner should be plenty.

He walked over to Gunnlag then, and they talked for a
minute or two. When they were done, Arno left,
walking toward the stable. Gunnlag looked toward me
and nodded, then strolled toward a bench beneath a
fruit tree of some kind. It occurred to me that he
and I had things to talk about too. Because if he and
Arno weren't being paranoid-if Gilbert did intend to
kill the ten Varangians-then he probably had plans to
kill the others too.

I got up to look for Moise. He'd have to interpret
for us.


THIRTY


We decided that we shouldn't let ourselves be
separated, and that we'd keep our weapons with us at
all times. He agreed there might not be any danger,
but we'd play it safe. Then he called his men
together. He didn't say anything about what we
suspected; we didn't want any of them to get agitated
and maybe do something foolish. Instead, he told them
they'd become careless, reminding them that they were
among strangers, and they were to stay together
unless ordered otherwise. He also warned them not to
get drunk at supper.

All in all it spoiled the afternoon. The servants
came out again with dates and fig cakes and sweet
drinks, and the weather was beautiful, but I couldn't
really relax or take a nap. I felt impatient for
something to happen, for Arno to come back and say it
had been a false alarm. But it was unreasonable to
expect him back before the next day.

Last night's supper had been something hustled
together late for unexpected guests. This one was a
production. Roland de Falaise, in his timber castle
in Normandy, probably hadn't even imagined a meal
like the one we sat down to. This time the entire
Norman household ate with us. The baron and his wife
sat at opposite ends of the short main table, while
his knights sat among the Varangians at both main
tables. His foot soldiers ate separately at two long
tables nearby.

Gunnlag didn't look happy with the way we were
seated-the knights and Varangians mixed like that-
but he let it pass. All the knights, Gilbert
included, wore their hauberks at the table, and so
did the foot soldiers. And of course the Varangians
did too.

I remembered how, in Normandy, I'd thought that the
Normans must be real barbarians to wear hauberks at
the table. Now I began to understand why: The danger
of treachery and attack were always in the back of
their minds.

But actually, everything seemed fine. A guy in what
you might call civilian clothes played some kind of
stringed instrument and sang for us while we ate.
Pages waited on us. There was fowl of some kind,
pickled fruits of several kinds, different kinds of
meat . . . And the baron told dirty stories in Greek
and Norman.

The only false note was that he never said anything
or asked anything about Arno not being there. He had
to be wondering about that, unless he'd already taken
care of Amo.

That is, it was the only false note until a spiced
hot drink was brought out that smelled marvelous. I
had an instant suspicion of that drink. And when
Gilbert proposed a toast-it was in Greek, but
obviously a toast-I took only a tiny sip of it.

Within half a minute, Varangian bodies began to
slump. Varangian sank to the table, and Tarel's, and
Moise's. But not Gunnlag's; he'd only pretended to
drink. His fierce blue eyes burned on Gilbert. The
baron and his knights had obviously not drunk either.
As for me, it had been a tiny sip too much. I felt a
slowness, a creeping, growing numbness.

Gunnlag barked something in Norse, and a few
Varangian heads raised weakly. Gilbert smiled and
gave an order of his own in Norman French: "Kill only
the Varangians!" Immediately, the knights were on
their feet, knives in their hands, grabbing handfuls
of Varangian hair, pulling heads back, cutting
throats. Arterial blood sprayed scarlet. Gunnlag
grabbed the knight beside him and they crashed
together to the floor as I got slowly up. stunner in
my hand.

But standing was too much for me. I began to fold, my
knees giving way even as I started to swing the
stunner, my finger on the stud. As I fell, I saw
knights collapsing, and heard a woman
scream-Gilbert's wife, who hadn't even squeaked at
all the throat-cutting. Then I hit the stone floor,
and that's all I remembered for a while.


THIRTY-ONE


I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. A pain stabbed
through my head-from the drug I suppose-so I lay back
and settled for raising my head a little. I was back
in the bedroom we'd been put in the evening before.
The lamp had been left lit, its yellowish flame
flickering above the rim of the bowl, making shadows
jump on the walls. My hands were shackled together,
and someone had been good enough to dump me on one of
the mattresses. A sour-looking knight had been left
to guard me; his hard eyes had caught my movement,
and his jaw was clamped with hostility.

He didn't say anything though, and neither did I
then. Instead I lay my aching head back down and
tried to put things together for myself. The
Varangians who'd been in the hall had to be dead now,
except maybe, just possibly, Gunnlag. And it was hard
to imagine even him getting out of it alive. Gilbert
had said "Kill only the Varangians," nothing about
taking their chief alive.

On the other hand, it seemed as if Tarel and Moise
might still be alive somewhere. If I was valuable-and
I supposed that was the reason for all this-then it
seemed as if Gilbert would want them alive too, at
least for the time being.

I wondered how many Normans I'd zapped before I'd
passed out, and whether any of them were dead.
And Arno? Gilbert hadn't asked about him. Maybe he'd
been followed and killed. Or maybe Gilbert had
decided that if he had me, he could ignore Arno.
Which was probably true. Arno had the rifle, a pistol
and stunner, and maybe ten healthy Varangians, if he
was lucky. With them he could probably get to Palermo
all right. He'd have no reason to try rescuing us
here. That would be a lot more dangerous than
rescuing the Varangians in the mountains.

In fact, I couldn't see anyone rescuing us. Deneen
wouldn't be back for five days or more, and she was
alone, with no one to put down. Except Bubba of
course. And for all Bubba's talents and brains, this
wasn't the sort of situation he could operate in.

It was up to me to get out on my own. My hands
explored my belt; it was bare. I didn't have so much
as a knife, or a communicator if I had anyone to
communicate with.

Just having my hands free would be a big improvement,
a start. Carefully I raised my head enough to look at
my guard again, and didn't see a sign of any key
ring. Only his eyes. I suppose Gilbert had the key to
my shackles.

"Where is Gilbert de Auletta?" I asked.
The Norman scowled. "Taking care of other business.
He'll get to you soon enough."

That didn't sound very promising. I got the notion of
Tarel or Moise being questioned, maybe with the help
of things like knives or hot coals. I hoped they'd
have the good sense to tell the baron whatever he
wanted to know.

"How many men did I kill in the great hall?" I asked.

My guard didn't answer, but if looks could kill, I'd
have been dead right then. I was pretty sure I hadn't
swept much of the room before I passed out, but I'd
had the stunner on medium, and at close range like
that, a military model could kill people. Maybe I'd
zapped a friend of his.
I wondered if Arno would still be interested in
getting the help of the Rebel Javelin, Maybe, when he
got to Palermo, he'd talk to Guiscard, and Guiscard
would come up here and wipe Gilbert out. That was my
best chance, I decided.

But it irked me that I couldn't see any way of
getting out of the situation on my own. I decided to
relax as well as I could and wait, so I closed my
eyes. After a while I dozed, and woke up to Gilbert's
voice. A hand slapped me hard.

Gilbert didn't look too good, or sound too good
either, and I wondered if I'd zapped him. That didn't
seem possible. If it hadn't killed him, it would have
left him unconscious for quite a lot of hours.

"Where is the monk called Moise?" he demanded.

"Brother Moise? The last I knew, he was in the hall,
falling off the bench from the drugged drink. Perhaps
the Angel Deneen has taken him into the sky. Perhaps
she will come back and take you next."

He glared more hatred at me than my guard had, and
for a moment I thought he might draw his sword and
convert me into steaks or something. Instead he
turned and left the room without saying anything more.

By that time, my headache was only a shadow of what
it had been. And interestingly, I was actually
feeling pretty casual about the situation. I'd either
be dead tomorrow or alive, and right then I wasn't
all that worried or afraid. Which seemed a bit
strange to me, but I wasn't going to argue with it.
Instead I closed my eyes again, to rest and hopefully
sleep some more.
The next time I opened them, my guard was asleep on
one of the other mattresses. The lamp had burned down
to a fluttering glow. Something had wakened me, and I
sat up. Looking around, I couldn't see anything that
might have done it.

Then I felt a draft, and the lamp blew out. The draft
had been from the wrong direction for the window or
door, and it srnelled musty. Someone or something was
behind me now, I was sure of it. I could sense
something there, and for a few seconds my hair felt
as if it were standing up like wires. It's got to be
Moise, I told myself, and the spooky feeiing passed.

Why Moise? And how could it be him?

Then a knife tip touched the side of my neck from
behind, and callused fingers touched my face. My
heart almost stopped. There was the whispered word,
"Who?", in Provencal.

I barely breathed my name.

The hand withdrew, and the knife. "Is the other one
your guard?" he whispered.

"Yes."

Dimly I saw my visitor slip past me toward the Norman
guard, and kneel. After a minute I heard a long
shuddering sigh. My visitor stood again and came over
to me, "Come," he murmured. "Your guard is dead."

Now I recognized the voice: It was Moise!

I rolled to my knees and got up. "My hands are
shackled," I whispered, "but the guard has no key."

"We can free them later," he murmured, then took my
arm and turned me around. There was an opening low in
the wall, with a faint glow on the other side. Moise
led me to it and we went through on hands and knees.
The other side was a passage not more than three feet
wide. A girl was standing back from the opening,
maybe twelve or fourteen years old, holding an oil
lamp. I couldn't tell what she looked like because,
like most of the other women and older girls I'd seen
here, she wore a cloth over her face from the cheeks
down.

Moise, still on his knees, pushed the door closed. It
was mortared slabs of rock, looking like the stone
blocks of the wall but split thinner. It seemed to
move on some kind of bearing, maybe stone balls in
rounded holes. The slight grating sound of its moving
was what had wakened me.
If it hadn't been for Moise's voice, I wouldn't have
recognized him. In the lamplight, I saw that he was
wearing a hooded Saracen robe and slippers.

We got up then, and Moise said something to the girl,
in Arabic I suppose. She answered him, and I followed
them along the passage, A few yards farther we came
to stairs that led steeply down maybe fifty or sixty
steps. At the bottom the passage continued level, its
ceiling low enough that I had to stoop a little. The
girl stopped after maybe a hundred feet and pointed
upward. Moise pushed where she pointed, and a
trapdoor opened overhead. We helped each other up,
and I found myself in a round room with a ceiling
that barely allowed me to stand erect. The place
smelled kind of like grain smells on Evdash.

A tall, powerful Varangian was sitting there against
the wall, hauberk, sword, and all. His legging was
cut away from one leg, up to the knee, and his calf
was bandaged. "Ketil!" I whispered, and going to him,
I shook his hand awkwardly with both of mine. It
seemed to me he might be the only Varangian left
alive here. I realized then that he hadn't been at
the banquet; in fact I hadn't seen him since we'd
arrrived at the castle.

I turned to Moise. "How did you get here?" I asked,
still softly. "How did he get here? And who's the
girl?"

"Her name is Layla. She is the daughter of the
Saracen who was steward of this castle. He was killed
fighting the Normans; so was his master. She and her
mother work here now.

"She was told to take care of Ketil, and then the
Normans apparently forgot about him. So when she
heard that the Varangians had been massacred, she
brought Ketil here to hide. After the battle of
Misilmeri, her father showed her the hidden
passageways and every hiding place. She even knows a
hidden way out of the castle. Just above us is a
large grain storage vault. Sometime in the past, a
false floor was put in it to form this secret
chamber."

He stopped there as if that was all of it. "So how
did you get out of the hall?" I asked. "And run into
her?"

"It was you who made it possible. But first I must
explain that I did not even taste the drink. Then,
seeing the Varangians falling drugged, I pretended to
be drugged too, and let my head drop onto the table.

Before you fell, you killed several of the Normans
with your stunner. Unfortunately, Gilbert was only
touched by it-he was probably ducking beneath the
table as it reached him. I heard some Normans saying
that Gilbert could neither move nor speak, though his
eyes were open.

"His wife took charge then, screaming orders to the
knights who still lived, and the castle's foot
soldiers. More orders than there were Normans to
carry them out, some of them impossible or
contradictory. I felt hands drag me from the room and
leave me in a corridor. When I opened my eyes a slit,
a minute later, there were only myself and two
Normans lying there, and my belt things had been
taken. So I got up and fled. I didn't know where to
go, so I went outside, intending to hide in the
shrubs and plan what I might do.

"But Layla, who was going home from working in the
kitchen, saw me leave and followed me. She brought me
here and gave me this." He took a sheathed knife from
inside his robe. "And brought me the robe as well,"
he added. "Then a few minutes later, she brought
Ketil. I described you to her then, and told her I
wanted to rescue you. And Tarel."

"What about Tarel?" I asked.

"He is somewhere with no hidden passage. Only three
rooms open on a passage, and by luck, you were in the
third of them."

"Ask her if she can think of a way we can get to him
and get him out."

"I have. She tells me there is no way short of
searching, and taking him by force."

"Okay," I said, then examined my wrist irons. There
was no lock. They'd simply been bolted, the nuts
turned so tightly they'd been burred. I gestured.
"Can Layla get a hammer and chisel? Now?"
Moise turned and spoke to her in Arabic. She shook
her head as she answered. "Not tonight," he told me.
"She would have to go to the smithy and steal a
chisel, and there will be men about, searching for
me."
Then Ketil spoke, questioning, and Moise answered in
Greek. Next Moise said something in Arabic to Layla,
who nodded, raised the trapdoor, and stood waiting,
looking at him.

"What?" I said.

"Ketil has an idea for freeing you. We will go and
bring something, Layia and I." Then they left, the
trapdoor closing behind them.

Ketil and I sat waiting for quite a while, neither of
us saying anything. Ketil looked as if I wasn't
there, as if he were alone with his thoughts. Grim
thoughts. His two-handed sword was in his fists now,
fists that looked enormous to me. Finally the
trapdoor began to lift again, and Ketil raised his
sword in readiness for whatever might appear.

The first head through was Layla's, and Ketil
relaxed. A block of firewood followed her, then
Moise, who closed the trapdoor.

"There," he said to me. "Kneel down and put your
chain on the block."

I got the idea, and knelt. The chain was only about
three inches long. When I put it on the block, my
wrists were less than three inches apart. Ketil had
gotten up. I looked up at him, and my thought, in
Norman, was God, let him be accurate.

Because the ceiling was low, he got down on his
knees. Then he raised the heavy sword as high as the
ceiling allowed and swung hard while my eyes
squinched shut. There was an impact that jerked my
wrists, and my eyes popped open. The chain had been
cut and the block half split, and although each wrist
still had its iron cuff, my hands were free.

Ketil was examining his blade where it had chopped
through the chain, while Lay la stared at the block
from over the edge of her veil. I turned to Moise.
"Now I need a Norman hauberk," I told him. "And a
sword. Let's see if my dead guard's been discovered
yet."

Tarel:

I woke up on my side in a dark room, with the first
headache of my life-a bad one. I was on a stone
floor, with my hands tied behind me, and whatever my
ankles were tied with was also attached to my wrist
bonds, bending my legs back. I was really
immobilized. If I tried to move my feet, it pulled on
my arms.

Someone was there with me. I couldn't see him because
he was behind me, but I could hear him breathing. I
was pretty sure it wasn't a guard. A guard would have
had a lamp lit, and besides, this sounded like
someone asleep, and maybe sick or hurt.

I didn't need a guard anyway, the way I was trussed
up.

There were other sounds too, that came in through the
window. At first I could hear people talking.
Normans. Then after a few minutes I heard someone
call from a little distance, and someone else called
back. Then it was quiet, with only a little talking a
couple of times, farther away in the courtyard. From
what I could hear, they were hunting for someone. I
wondered if some of the Varangians had escaped, or
possibly Larn. Deneen had said Larn led a charmed
life; that he always found a way out of things.

My fingers found the cord-it felt like twisted cloth-
that tied my ankles to my wrists. If I could get that
untied ... I pulled on it, which drew my legs back
farther, until I felt the knot with my fingers. That
was the first practical value I'd had from hand-foot
art-it makes you flexible. But when I let go of the
cord with my hands to explore the knot, my legs
wouldn't stay bent that far back, and the knot got
away from me.

Now what? I wondered. There was no one to answer, of
course. Whoever was in the room with me was behind
me, probably also tied up.

So I just lay there for a while, waiting for whatever
might happen. But that got boring, so I pulled on the
cord until my fingers found the knot again. Then I
pulled an inch or two farther, until I'd hooked a
couple of fingers of my left hand under a more
slender cord that was wrapped several times around my
ankles. I held on with my left hand then and began to
feel of the knot with the fingers of my right.

It had been pulled up pretty tightly. I've always had
strong fingers though; in school there wasn't anyone
who could grip me down. Hardly any could even hold
their own against me, not even Larn. So I dug and
plucked at it, not sure whether I was accomplishing
anything or not. After a while, the backs of my
shoulders felt like they were going to cramp. But I
wasn't willing to let go, because then I'd lose
whatever gain I'd made.

Finally, I could feel the cord give a little through
a loop of the knot, and a minute later I'd pulled it
free. But the knot was still tied; it had been a
double knot, I let go and gave my shoulders a rest,
rotating them as much as I could. Then I went through
the whole thing again, but this time I knew I could
do it, and pretty soon the rest of the knot was
untied. My ankles were still tied together, but they
weren't tied to my wrists anymore. Straightening my
legs was one of the biggest treats of my life.

Then I just lay there for a minute, listening. I
could barely hear someone talking in the courtyard,
pretty far away. The guy behind me was still
breathing about the same as before.
Now to get my arms in front of me. I rolled over on
my stomach and bent my legs back as far as I could,
grabbing my left foot with my left hand, and worked
until I'd gotten my hands over my feet. Now the hard
part was over; my hands were in front. All I had to
do was untie my ankles and I'd be able to get up and
move around. Though I wasn't sure what good that
would do me; my wrists would still be tied together.
But at least it gave me something to do while I was
waiting.

Then I became aware that the breathing behind me had
changed. I was pretty sure whoever it was was awake
now. I also realized that whoever it was must have
heard me moving around on the floor, and probably
grunting, while I was getting loose.

"Are you awake?" I whispered in Norman.

The reply was in Norse; it was Gunnlag Snorrason! I
groped for a moment for the Greek I'd started
learning on the Jav. I'd had Moise recite all kinds
of Greek stuff, with Evdashian equivalents, into the
linguistics program for analysis while Deneen had had
us in FTL, getting the fuel decrystallized. Then I
had run the

Greek-Evdashian data base into the learning program,
and had had a session with it. But only one, and I
hadn't had a chance to practice with it because we'd
gotten into other stuff.
"My hands, feet, not free," I said in Greek. "I try
make them free,"

He murmured something back at me in rapid Greek that
I didn't understand at all. "I no understand," I told
him. "Only very very slow."

He muttered something in Norse. I started to work on
getting my feet untied. That cord was pulled tighter
than the other had been, but after a couple of
minutes, it started to give. It didn't take long
after that.

Then I turned around and, kneeling, explored
Gunn-lag's bonds. He d been tied the same as I had,
but it was easier to work on the knots, now that I
had my hands in front of me. When I got his ankles
free from his wrists, he gave a big groan of relief
and said something in Greek that I recognized as
"thank you," with some other words added.

His legs and body were so thick that I didn't think
he'd be able to get his hands around in front, even
with my help, so next I started on the knot that tied
his wrists together. It was really tough. With my own
wrists still tied, I wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe
if my hands had been free . . .

I straightened my back and knelt there in the dark,
thinking. We might not have much more time. They were
certain to come by and check on us sooner or later,
and it could be any minute. Maybe there was something
in the room that I could use, something with a sharp
edge, or a point . . .

Outside the window, the night seemed less dark now. I
decided the moon must have come up. It seemed to come
up later and thinner each night. The room was about
as dark as before though. I got up, went to the
window, and looked out. Fifteen or twenty feet below
was a garden. Then I groped my way around the room. I
couldn't find any kind of tool, not even any
furniture, or anything sharp or rough fastened to the
wall.

That left my teeth. With my eyeteeth, I started to
dig at the knots that held my wrists.

Arno:

I rode my mount hard. I wanted to catch up with
Gilbert's troop before it caught up with the
Varangians. The Varangians could be useful to me. I
had enjoyed their comradeship, and we had fought well
together, side by side.

It was a close thing. Gilbert's men were in sight of
the Varangians when I caught up, and the Varangians,
unsuspecting, had halted with their escort to wait
for them. Gilbert's marshal, Richard de Sele, led the
troop. Another Italian-born Norman. It was clear he
did not like my joining them. Nor did he hide his
sneer when I arrived on a hunter, carrying neither
lance nor shield. I told him I'd talked with Gilbert,
and had decided to join him.

Less than half a furlong from the Varangians, Richard
ordered his troop to charge. Spurring their destriers
into a gallop, they raised their lances above their
shoulders and drove at the surprised Varangians, who
for a moment did not know whether to try running, to
fight from horseback, or to dismount. I made the
question irrelevant. My hunter easily kept pace
immediately behind the troop, and I felled them with
my stunner almost as quickly as a breath. All but
Richard. He glanced back with a look of shock, then
swerved to flee. I finished the others, then changed
weapons, and with the blast pistol, shot his horse
from under him, sending him crashing.

He got to his feet, drawing his sword and limping
badly, scarcely twenty yards from the Varangians. I
had spared him deliberately to their tender mercy.
Their three escorts, who'd drawn away from the
Varangians to be aside from the charge, had seen all
that had happened. They milled in confusion now. It
went against their Norman fiber to flee, yet what
they had seen had overawed them. I settled their
uncertainty by charging at them. They turned and
fled, riding hard.

It did not suit my plans that they take word to
Gilbert, so I spurred after them. Seeing me in
pursuit, one turned aside, spurring viciously. I
ignored him, my hunter gaining on the other two, and
I killed them both with the pistol. Then I stopped
and fired two aimed bolts from the blast rifle at the
man remaining. The second bolt took the horse from
under him. I trotted to where he lay, the dead horse
pinning his legs. He cursed me as I jumped down, and
with a dagger thrust I released him from his pain and
humiliation.

Then I returned to the Varangians. Their mercy had
not sufficed for Richard's life. He lay dead and
dismembered by multiple sword blows.

The sun was a vivid orange-red ball half hidden by
the westward mountains as we started back toward
Gilbert's castle, myself the leader now. It was
nearly night when we stopped to eat from our ration
bags, and sleep. The Varangians were mostly
indifferent horsemen. It would be unwise to lead them
down into the ravine until the moon had risen. What
there was of it, for it would be scarce half full
tonight.

Tarel:

It took more patience than I knew I had, but finally
I worked out the knot and got my hands free. I went
right to work on Gunnlag's ankle bindings, and I'd
just gotten them untied when I heard a metallic sound
at the door-someone putting a key in the lock.

I jumped to the wall, where I'd be behind the door
when it opened. It swung inward, letting weak light
in from the corridor, and I heard a voice speaking
Norman.

"Only the Varangian chief is here. You must have put
the false monk in another room."

"No, this is the room. Someone else must have fetched
him. Or moved him."

"Gilbert isn't going to like this when we tell him."

"Tell him what? We'll look in the other rooms until
we find the filthy heretic."

Then the door closed. I heard them take the key out,
but I hadn't heard it turned first in the lock. For
maybe half a minute I stood there, getting up my
nerve. Then I tried the door; it was unlocked. I
started easing it open for a peek along the corridor,
but I'd only opened it a few inches when I heard a
Norman voice, excited but not loud.
"I tell you, the chief heretic, the one who carried
the strangely shaped staff, was in there earlier.
Shackled."

I felt excitement surge as I pulled the door almost
closed. It sounded as if Larn might be loose
somewhere. A door thudded shut: the two Normans were
in the hall now.

"I helped Charles drag him in there, so I know," the
voice went on. "Then Charles stayed to guard him. Now
they're both gone."

"All right," the other said reasonably. "Then someone
sent and had him moved."

"But only Gilbert would have had him moved. And he
thinks the vile dog is still in there,"

"Maybe Gilbert forgot. The state he's in tonight, he
could forget his Pater Noster. Let's look in . . ."

They'd moved on down the hall, and I couldn't make
out the rest of it. Then I couldn't hear them at all
anymore, By that time Gunnlag was on his feet beside
me. It seemed to me that pretty soon the knights
would be back, probably with others, and they'd check
this room again, plus the one to our right that
they'd just come out of. I opened the door wide
enough to look out; to the right a little way was a
corner. They'd gone around it. To our left was a
stairhead that probably led down to the dining hall.

I grabbed Gunnlag's thick arm, slipped out into the
corridor, and started down it to our left. Then we
heard voices from the stairway, coming up. Instantly
I moved to the nearest door and turned the handle. It
opened and we ducked in; I closed it quietly behind
us.
But before it closed, the weak Sight from the
corridor had given us a glimpse of the room. In it
were the hauberks and weapons stripped from the
Varangian dead!

It took me about ten seconds to find a knife in the
dark and cut Gunnlag's wrists free. The hauberks had
to have a lot of dry blood on them, but each of us
put one on anyway and picked up a belt with weapons.
I'd have given almost anything to have a stunner or
pistol in place of the Varangian sword, but it was
something, at least.

Then I went to the window and looked out. Off to one
side a little way was a bench with an ell-shaped
hedge as a screen. The window wasn't very wide, but
wide enough, and it didn't have any glass in it. I'm
not sure these people even had window glass. I leaned
way out-the walls were thick-and dropped my gear.
After I heard it hit, I waited to see if anyone came
to investigate the noise. When they didn't, I got
into the win-ow, let myself down to arms' length, and
dropped. Nothing broke when I hit, but it jarred me
pretty hard. I got up, grabbed my gear, and moved
behind the hedge, where I buckled on my sword belt.
Then I heard Gunnlag's gear thud onto the dirt. Half
a minute later he dropped too. He must have weighed
two hundred pounds, even if he was only about
five-feet eight, and I'd guess he was at least forty
years old, but he got right up.

We crouched together behind the hedge then. I didn't
have any idea what to do next, and if Gunnlag did, he
didn't tell me.

Larn:

We pulled my ex-guard's body into the passage and
took off his hauberk, collet, gear, and
leggings-everything but his helmet; it wasn't there.
I'd have to do without it. As far as I could see by
Layla's oil lamp, the stuff wasn't even bloody. When
we weren't so busy, I told myself, I'd ask Moise how
he killed him with a knife without getting blood all
over.

After I put them on, Layla led us back along the
passage, shielding her oil lamp with one hand. We
stopped at the hiding place to pick up Ketil and
talk. Ketil put on his helmet. Even lame, he
looked ready to fight.

My plan, I said, was to get outside the castle. Then
I'd go to the gate, pretend to be a Norman knight,
and ask to be let in. They'd never suspect who I was.
Inside, I'd try to find out where our weapons were,
get hold of some, and see what good I could do with
them. Maybe take Gilbert hostage. I wasn't willing to
leave without rescuing Tarel. He wasn't just my
friend, he was my brother-in-law.

Moise repeated most of this to Ketil in Greek, then
had a conversation with Layla. It seemed a lot more
than was necessary to tell her I wanted to get out of
the castle. When they were done, she nodded, and
lowered herself back down through the trapdoor.

"She is going to get some olive oil," Moise said. "To
see if we can get your wrist irons off over your
hands."

I almost shriveled with embarrassment! I'd forgotten
them. I could imagine trying to pass myself off as an
envoy from Robert Guiscard wearing irons and broken
chains on my wrists.

Layla was back inside of five minutes with a jar of
oil, and poured it on my hands and wrists. It was
Ketil who held onto the slippery irons while I made
my hands as small as possible and pulled. At first I
thought it wasn't going to work. Then I decided I'd
just have to stand the pain, and jerked hard. In
spite of the oil I lost some skin, but the irons came
off.
Then we followed Layla a couple of hundred yards
farther to where the tunnel ended. There she reached
up and touched the overhead, saying something in
Arabic. Moise started to push where she touched, to
open another trapdoor.

"Just a minute," I said, and looked at Ketil, then at
Moise. "I'm going alone. Tell Ketil if he was with
me, they'd know at once that something was wrong with
my story."

He passed it on to Ketil. I wondered if the big
Varangian would get mad, but he just nodded and said
something in Greek. Then he took off his
Norman-looking helmet and set it on my head. It even
fitted pretty well. Looking at it critically, he
nodded, then spoke again in Greek.

"He wishes you the blessing of the Virgin," Moise
told me.

That surprised me so I couldn't say anything for a
few seconds. This was a guy I'd thought of as a
savage. Then Moise came up with something.

"Larn, you should take me," he said. "I can help you."

"How?" I demanded. I wasn't in the mood for wasting
time in silly arguments. "You can come out with me,
but not to the castle gate. You'll have to hide
outside somewhere."

"I can help you," he insisted. "I can be a Saracen,
or a Levantine Jew. They dress like Saracens."

"How will that help me?"

He didn't answer for several seconds. Then, "We'll
think of something," he said.

"Moise," I told him, "that's not a reason."

He surprised me. His voice was hard when he answered.
"Then here is a reason. I am going with you whether
you like it or not."

I suppose my eyebrows went up at that. "Huh!" I said.
"Do you realize we'll probably be dead by morning?"

He nodded soberly.

"Okay," I told him, "we'll go together."

I stuck out my hand and we shook on it. Then he
reached up again and pushed up the trapdoor.
Unlike the other, this one made him grunt to raise
it. I shook hands with Ketil before we left, then
bowed to Layla. I didn't know the Norse or Saracen
rules of courtesy, but I wanted to do something to
express my thanks. Especially to Layla. She'd owed us
nothing and put herself at risk. And saved our lives
this far, anyway.

Then I pulled myself up through the trapdoor and gave
a hand to Moise.

He lowered the trapdoor back into place. We were in a
small room. "Layla told me this is a holy place," he
whispered.

We left through a doorway with no door in it, that
led into a good-sized room lit through large windows
by moonlight. I'd wondered what a holy place might be
like. In this one, the only furniture was a lectern
in one corner, and in the opposite corner, a low
platform with a railing and what seemed to be a desk.
I suppose they had some meaning, but I have no idea
what.

From the outside door we could see the castle some
way off.

"Larn," Moise murmured, "there are two things we must
consider before we go any farther. Would a knight be
out without a horse? And also, you speak Norman with
an accent."
He had a point. Two points. The lack of a horse I
could probably lie my way around. But while my Norman
French had become pretty fluent, and I could disguise
my voice, I'd never pass as Norman.

"If anyone asks," I answered, "I was a boy in
Provence who was adopted by a Norman knight when my
father was killed."

Even by moonlight I could see that Moise wasn't
entirely satisfied with that. I wasn't either, as far
as that was concerned. But it was the best I could
think of on the spur of the moment. And that's what
it had to be-the spur of the moment.

"Let's go," I said, and we started for the castle.


THIRTY-TWO


This time the castle wall looked different to me,
Bigger. Forbidding. When I'd ridden up to it before,
I'd been a guest, and the gate had been open for me.
Now I was on foot, an enemy trying to trick my way in.

It occurred to me that maybe no one was on gate duty
this time of night.

I'd thought there might be a big knocker or a bell
rope, but I ended up pounding on the gate with my
sword hilt. After several minutes and some hard
pounding, I tried yelling. Finally, someone spoke
angrily to us through a slot in what I suppose you
could call the gatehouse, a rounded section of wall
to the right of the gate.

"What do you want?!"

"I want in, that's what I want!" I disguised my voice
by making it higher pitched and nasal. I also made it
angry and imperious, because the identity I'd decided
to pretend here was an envoy of Robert Guiscard de
Hauteville, Tancred's son, Duke of Apulia, Calabria,
and Sicily. Someone whom hopefully they wouldn't want
mad at them, and wouldn't question too hard.

"I am Laurent de Caen," I continued, choosing Caen
because I'd at least been there, even though it had
been at night, in a storm, and I hadn't ventured
inside the walls. I'd come close to getting killed,
too. "I did not come all the way here from the duke,"
I continued, "and have my horse killed under me, to
be kept standing outside in the night."

There was no answer, and I wondered if I'd blown
it-irritated whoever it was so badly that he was
going to leave me out here. Or maybe said something
that had given me away as a fake. It was dangerous
pretending to be something you don't know much about,
I told myself, especially with people like these.

We waited about five minutes, and I was just getting
ready to start pounding again when a small door
opened to the left of the gate. A knight stepped out
and motioned us in. The wall was about twelve feet
thick, and the gate like a dark trap they could close
at both ends while we were inside.

But we went in and nothing happened.

I recognized the knight who met us on the other side:
Stephen, Gilbert's steward, seneschal is the Norman
word. He'd been in charge of the banquet that
evening, and maybe in charge of drugging the drink.
That much gray hair meant a lot of experience and
years of weapons practice; in a sword fight he'd take
Moise and me before we could yell "mercy." And his
narrow eyes didn't look very trusting.

"Caen?" he said.

"Caen. On the River Orne."

"Your speech does not sound like Normandy."
I gave him my coldest look. "I did not come here to
relate the circumstances of my childhood," I said
stiffly. "Where is your master?"

He didn't answer for several seconds. "He is-not
well. Perhaps I can be of service to you."

That sounded fine to me. Although actually, Gilbert
and I had hardly spoken to each other, he'd seen more
of me than Stephen had, and there was a better chance
he'd recognize me. "Perhaps you can," I said. "The
duke has sent me to seek the whereabouts of a
renegade vassal, Arno de Courmeron, who has
trafficked with Vikings preying on Norman shipping.
His profit from it will be his head separated from
his body.

"Delivery of this Arno to the duke, alive, will be
rewarded by a special ducal fief: precedence above
all others in the showing and sale of destriers." I
was getting into it now; the story was flowing.
"Also, ownership of this Arno's well-known herd of
brood mares," I went on, "which has been landed at
Palermo and is currently in the duke's possession."

I glanced around at the three armed men who stood
nearby, then back at Stephen. "Arno is known to have
been shipwrecked on Sicily, and is traveling with
several dangerous thaumaturgists said to be from
India, as well as with a band of Vikings. The duke
will also pay well for each of these other miscreants
delivered live to him." I turned and gestured at
Moise. "This is Isaac, a Levantine Jew employed by
the duke to counter their thaumaturgy."

Stephen chewed a lip thoughtfully; he actually seemed
to be buying all this. My hopes began to brighten.

"Come with me," he said after a moment. "I will find
out if the baron is well enough to see visitors."

He turned and began to lead us across the grounds to
the building that was Gilbert's residence. We hadn't
gone more than a few steps when someone started
yelling near the tower. Stephen paused, staring in
that direction; then we heard swords clash. "Come!"
he said, and started running toward the noise with
his men. Moise and I followed. We turned the corner
of a building, saw the fight, and ran toward it. Two
men were backed into an angle of the castle wall; one
stood in front of the other and was holding off three
knights with his sword. In the angle, only one of
them could get at him at a time.

It was Gunnlag, and the one behind him was another
Varangian! "Hold!" I shouted. "These are two of the
men I seek! The duke has first claim to them, for a
long list of outrages!"

The Norman who'd been battling Gunnlag backed away.
The noise was drawing a small crowd, knights and foot
soldiers with blood in their eyes.

And the second "Varangian" in the corner wasn't
Varangian at all; it was Tarel in Varangian gear!

"Get a bear net," I said. In Normandy, I'd seen the
nets the nobles used to capture bears. "We shall take
them alive."

"We have no bear nets here," Stephen said. "There are
no bears on Sicily." He turned to the growing cluster
of men. "Fetch pikes, staffs, rocks. We will batter
them into submission."

"Isaac," I said to Moise in Norman, "speak to the
criminals in Greek. Tell them they can save
themselves serious injury if they throw down their
swords."

Moise repeated it in Greek. Tarel, of course, had
understood my Norman French, and tossed his sword out
readily enough. Gunnlag could hardly bring himself to
let go of his, but he did, dropping it at his feet.
That's when I decided to forget about getting some
energy weapons back.

I'd settle for horses, with Gunnlag and Tarel my
prisoners. "Bring shackles," I said. "I'll. . ."

I stopped there, because everyone's attention was
shifting from me to someone else. It was Gilbert
arriving, drawn like the rest by the noise. His hair
was wild and his eyes wilder. He stared at Gunnlag
and Tarel, then demanded to know what was going
on-why they were still alive.
Stephen explained, and Gilbert's eyes turned to me,
"An envoy from Guiscard? From the devil, I'd say. It
is the same. Let me see your paper of authorization!"

I struck my forehead-the front of my helmet actually-
with the heel of my hand. "In my saddlebag!" I said.
I didn't expect him to buy that, but I had to try.

He peered at me then in the pale moonlight. "Don't I
know you from some ..."
He never finished. A floodlight spread around us from
above, freezing the action. Then, as I looked up, the
action really froze. Because someone up above-
Deneen, obviously-was playing a stunner over the
crowd. I fell, not unconscious, but unable to move.

Overhead, an emergency hooter began to sound,
probably to spook the Normans. I hadn't realized the
Rebel Javelin had a hooter; only a honker, I'd
thought. It kept on, sounding as if the scout was
settling to the ground. I couldn't see what was
happening because I'd fallen on my side, and
someone's body lay almost in my face. Seconds later I
heard running feet. Someone grabbed me under the arms
and raised me partly off the ground. Then I
saw-Bubba? Bubba looking at me.
Someone started dragging me. I wanted to yell:
Deneen, don't risk the scout, don't . . . She was
handling me as if I were a little kid, dragging me.

None of this felt right, felt real. The stunner must
have affected my perceptions. I hadn't known they did
that.

Then she was pulling me up the ramp into the scout.
And someone else was there, by the ramp, with a blast
rifle. That's Deneen, I thought. Deneen, slender in
jump suit. So it had to be someone else dragging me.

I was laid out in the dark cabin, able to see only
upward, and my rescuer ran back out. The cabin wasn't
right either. Everything was weird.

A minute later someone else was dragged into the
scout, and a voice said, "That's it! I've got Tarel
too. Close her up and take her up!"

It was dad!

"Wait!"

I don't know how I got it out, but I said it. Slurred
and slowly I had pronounced the word. And again,
"Wait!"

"Hold it," he said. "What is it, Larn?"

"Frien's. Don' . . . leave . . . frien's ... Be ...
killed."

I wasn't sure if he could understand or not.

"Jenoor, blast a couple of bolts against a wall, to
keep anyone back who might be thinking of rushing
us." I heard a rifle thud out three bolts.

Jenoor! He'd said Jenoor!

"Help me, Aven," he said. "He's heavy and he feels
boneless. I need him up on my back." Between the two
of them, my parents got me onto his back with my head
flopped over a shoulder. He had to move bent over so
I wouldn't fall off.

"Larn," he said as he carried me back down the ramp,
"We're going over among the bodies. Tell me when I
come to the right one. Can you do that?"

"Two," I mumbled. "Two . . . frien's."

"Two," he said. "I got that." We went back among the
bodies, pausing over one after another, seeming to
take forever. Most of a minute, I suppose. We'd
looked at eight or ten before we came to Gunnlag.

"Him," I said.

"Right."

The next was Moise. "Him."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

There was growling, then an espwolf barked out
"Down!" We hit the ground, arrows hissed, and the
rifle thudded again, and again. Dad was back on his
feet, had grabbed me under the arms, dragging me
hurriedly, roughly, to the cutter and up the ramp. I
hadn't known he was so strong; I'm not sure he had
either. He dumped me and ran back out. I heard
shouting in Norman, clashing of swords-clashing of
swords?-more thuds from the blaster, and in half a
minute another body was dragged in and dropped. The
confusion of sounds continued outside, but for then
the blaster was silent, and dad was gone again. The
blaster thudded twice more, and a moment later once.
Dad was back with another body, breathing hard.

"In, Jenoor! Aven, close her and lift!"

There were espwolves aboard, too-more than one.

Not Bubba, obviously. Lady and the pups-pups who'd
been half-grown when I'd seen them last, but were
near full-size now.
The door shut out the moonlight, and gradually the
cabin illumination came on.

We'd be well above the ground now, I knew. The
cutter's windows couldn't be opaqued like the scout's
could, but we'd be high out of sight in the night
sky. I didn't know what to think, what to feel, it
had all happened so fast.

Then Jenoor was on her knees beside me, crying all
over me, and I didn't worry about it anymore-just lay
there with my eyes spilling over. It seemed
impossible that she was still alive, and for an empty
moment I was sure I'd wake up to find I'd been
dreaming again.

After half an hour though, she was still there, and I
was functioning well enough to talk better, even
though I couldn't move much. By that time, Tarel and
Moise and Gunnlag were talking, too. Slowly of
course. Tarel had explained to Moise who these people
were, and Moise had been explaining to Gunnlag. I was
impressed with how matter-of-fact Gunnlag seemed
about the whole thing.

I noticed, though, that Jenoor sat near with her
stunner on her lap, just in case.

"Dad," I said, "there's one more guy we need to get
back there." The words still didn't flow at normal
speed, but they were clear now.

"One more? How do we get him?"

"I'm not sure. But I'd like to try to bring him out,
too. I owe it to him. He's a Varangian, like Gunnlag.
A barbarian warrior. A huge guy, tall, and strong as
a gorn."

He didn't answer right away.

I remembered how Arno had recovered from a light
stunning, back in Provence. After he got so he could
talk decently, it hadn't been an hour before he could
get around pretty well. "When I can get around all
right," I added, "say in half an hour or so, we can
go back. I'll think of a way."

"Tall, you say. Did he fight with a two-handed sword?"

I knew right then what he was going to tell me. I
remembered the sound of swords back there.

"Yes," I answered.

And he wouldn't even have had a helmet. He'd given me
his.

"Larn," dad said quietly, "it's too late for him.
Some men came running toward me, from the other side
of the cutter, and before Jenoor had a chance to
fire, he came out of the shadows and cut them off. He
was kind of hopping, as if something was wrong with
one of his legs. He killed a couple of them before
they cut him down, then Jenoor took care of the
others."
I felt a surge of grief! Ketil. Big, mean, ugly
Ketil. I couldn't even guess how many men he'd killed
in his life. But still, I hadn't felt this bad since
we'd raised from Evdash, leaving Piet and Jenoor. It
was embarrassing. It took a minute or more before I
trusted myself to talk again, and it was dad who
broke the silence.

"Where are Deneen and Bubba?" he asked. "We quartered
most of the continent between the northern sea and
the Mediterranean, looking for the radiation
signature of a scout, and had just about decided you
hadn't come to Fanglith. Then I remembered you and
Arao talking about 'Sicily,' and this island seemed
to fit the description. But instead of getting an
instrument read on a ship's systems, the wolves got
an esp locational on you and Tarel "

"Deneen's got the scout on an uninhabited island in
the western ocean," I told him, "with all systems
off. She's had serious problems with fuel
crystallization, apparently from the scout taking
multiple blaster charges on the shield."

"Can you guide us there?"

"Sure. But she ought to be all right for now, and
there's something else I'd like to check on first.
Arno's back near the castle somewhere. Not in the
castle; at least I don't think so. Back in the hills.
Hopefully, with about ten warriors. Varangians."

Varangians! It hit me then: Varangians had attacked
our ship, taken us captive, killed half a dozen
Normans, lost Arno's horse herd for him, and planned
to sell us as slaves. And we'd ended up allied with
them against- who? Some of Arno's fellow Normans.

Fanglith's a crazy world! I told myself. Well, maybe
not crazy, but the rules were awfully strange, so far
as there were any. It occurred to me that this was
not a world for a rebel base. Someday, possibly, but
not now. Not for a long time. It was too
unpredictable.

Testing my legs and balance, I got to my feet slowly
but unassisted. It turned out that standing made me
feel better.

"So you want to find Arno," dad said.

"Right. It shouldn't take long."

"Can you find him with the night scanner?"

"Sure," I said, and with my arms half out for
balance, I walked carefully to the copilot's seat,
next to mom. She smiled without speaking. She looked
beautiful, even if her eyes were a little soggy, and
I grinned at her. Then I returned us to coordinates
five miles above Gilbert's castle. At that height, we
didn't need to go hunting for Arno. On the screen I
could see a troop of ten mounted men waiting on the
road half a mile from the castle. That had to be
them, I thought, then spotted a single rider
approaching the castle wall. That would be Arno.

I took us down, intending to   call him with the loud
hailer. But he stopped, so I   decided to wait a minute
and see what he was going to   do. Killing the cabin
light, I dropped to 250 feet   with the sound receptor
on high.

Arno:

It had been good to get out of the dark and rocky
ravine, where even with moonlight a horse could
easily stumble and fall. In the open valley I'd been
able to turn my attention to the castle and what I
might find there.

It did not seem to me that Gilbert would have sent
ten Varangians out to be killed without having plans
to dispose of the others. The question was whether
he'd been more successful inside the castle than out.

I hoped that Larn might have foiled him, or at least
been spared, and it seemed to me he might well have.
For I doubt I have known anyone more favored by fate
in hazardous circumstances. But luck is treacherous,
and in enterprises like his, or mine, one can meet
death as readily as victory, and more quickly.

The wisest course now, it had seemed to me, was to
leave my Varangians a little distance from the
castle-far enough not to be seen or heard by any
watchman on the wall. I myself would halloo from
outside and see what I could learn. If the situation
seemed beyond salvage, we'd ride the rest of the
night toward Palermo and perhaps some friendlier
castle along the way. Almost any would be friendlier.

So I had left the Varangians on the dark and silent
road and gone on alone until the wall loomed close
before me. But not too close; I kept some fifty paces
between it and myself, with my pistol in my right
hand. Looking upward toward the parapet, I called
out: "Halloo, the castle! Who is in command here?"

A watchman answered from atop the wall. "This is the
castle of Baron Gilbert de Auletta," he called back.
"The baron himself is at home and in command. Who
asks?"

That told me part of what I wished to know: Larn and
Gunnlag had not overthrown him. It would have been
miraculous if they had, of course, unless Larn's
sister had returned in their skyboat. There would
have been half a score knights left, and thirty or
more foot soldiers, after Gilbert had sent his troop
into the mountains. In close quarters, even sky
weapons would avail little against such numbers,
especially in the presence of treachery, which
Gilbert would surely attempt.

I ignored the watchman's interest in my identity, and
continued my ploy. "I have been told that you have in
the castle three holy monks from India, and their
Varangian bodyguard. I have a message for them from
the Bishop of Palermo."

I was less interested in what he said than how he
seemed when he said it. For if my friends had been
massacred, he would hardly tell me so. His
considerable delay in answering suggested that he
might have sent word of me to Gilbert. Thus I backed
away a bit, shifting my shield from my saddle pommel
to my left arm, turning my horse that my protection
would be toward the wall. Bowmen could well be on
their way to the parapet.

"Go to the gate," said the watchman at last, "and you
will be let in. Then you may speak with Gilbert
himself."

I was tempted, but my sky weapons would not protect
me from ambush, from being rushed in close quarters.
And for the first time, it occurred to me that
Gilbert himself would probably have sky weapons now.
"No," I said, "I will wait here."

While I waited, I backed my horse another twenty or
thirty paces away. If Gilbert did have sky weapons,
he'd hardly be skilled in their use, but he might
well have learned how to fire them.

Shortly I spied another head above the parapet, and a
different voice called to me-Gilbert's. "Who are you
to disturb our rest here?"

His words were slow, his voice weak. Even in the
quiet of night it was hard to hear him, and it seemed
to me that he might have been shot by a stunner. I
remembered the symptoms very well, from my first
meeting with Larn and from scoundrels I myself had
stunned while driving my first herd to Marseille.

"I am Arno de Courmeron," I said. "Your troop of
horses came upon a misadventure in the mountains and
will not be back. Any you may send after me will
suffer the same fate.

"I have come for my friends, to take them to Palermo.
If they are within, send them out unaccompanied and
we will leave you in peace. Otherwise, Guiscard will
send for them, and you will not like his messengers."

I expected either words of compliance, or likelier,
some angry retort, but for a moment nothing seemed to
happen. Then I felt a sudden tingling, and reined my
horse to turn, for I recognized the weak touch of a
stunner. It reached farther than my old one had. The
beast wheeled, rearing, and half stumbled. Affected
as I was, I was thrown from the saddle.

Larn:

I'd heard the exchange between Arno and the watchman
more clearly than they had. And seen more clearly,
too; to our scanner, the moonlit night might as well
have been day.
I'd also seen Gilbert helped up the outside stairs to
the top of the wall, followed by four knights or
sergeants; their hauberks were longer than foot
soldiers wore. Two had bows, while the others had
pistols in their hands, and Gilbert gripped a stunner.

They lined up along the parapet, all but Gilbert
keeping out of sight. I didn't waste any time
settling downward to about a hundred feet from them,
above and to the side. Then I slid the door open a
couple of feet, while Arno and Gilbert had their
friendly conversation. I did these about as fast as
if I hadn't been stunned; all it took was light
motions of the control rod in front of me, and a
touch on the door control.

"Jenoor," I said quietly, "set your stunner on high,
medium-wide beam, and take out the guys on top of the
wall."

"Right, Larn."

As she knelt by the door, I saw Arno go down.
"Quick!" I told her, and the men on the wall fell
without another move. Without hesitating, I moved to
just above the parapet. "Dad," I said, "the guys on
the wall have got pistols and stunners. Will you pick
them up? I'd rather not leave things like that with
that crew."

"Right," he said, and moving to the widening door,
jumped the forty inches or so down to the wall-top.
He was back in maybe a minute, a pistol in each hand.
An extra stunner was clipped to his belt and another
pistol was shoved under it. "That's it," he said, and
I lifted.

A minute later we were on the ground, and dad was
outside helping Arno to his feet. Together they got
aboard and I closed the door behind them for
security, swiveling my seat to face them.

"Are you all right?" I asked Arno.
He looked around, saw Gunnlag and the rest of us.
"Well enough," he said. "At that distance, Gilbert's
stunner only numbed me a bit. And the horse,
apparently."

"Good. I have an offer for you. Can you catch the
horse again?"

"Probably. If your skyboat has not frightened him too
badly." He looked around. "Where is your sister?"

"With our other skyboat," I said, and got him back to
the subject. "Here is my proposal. Take the
Varangians to Palermo, where they can get jobs as
mercenaries if they want, and we'll take you with us
to one of our worlds. They need warriors there who
learn quickly and can lead."

Dad had been standing behind Arno, relaxed but with
his hand on his stunner; he remembered what Arno had
tried the last time he'd been aboard our cutter,
nearly three years before. Now, as I made my offer to
Arno, dad's eyebrows went halfway up his forehead.
His Norman French was rusty, but he'd understood.

Meanwhile, Moise and Gunnlag were carrying on a
murmured conversation in Greek. I hoped we weren't
going to have any trouble from them. It didn't seem
likely.

"Otherwise," I went on, still talking to Arno, "you
have your rifle, your pistol, and your stunner. We'll
leave some recharges with you, and our best wishes."

I could almost see him thinking. His wealth-his horse
herd-had been lost. And while he could always start
over ... "I will take the Varangians to Palermo," he
said, "and go with you. But I have already promised
the Varangians that I will go back with them and pick
up their wounded where we left them. And there are
people here who would gladly see us dead. Did you
kill Gilbert?"
"He's alive, but he'll be out of action for hours.
We've got all his blasters and one of his stunners."

Arno nodded. "If I go to Palermo, how will you pick
me up?"

"We can find you. Our wolves know how."

I turned to Gunnlag and Moise then. "Moise, tell
Gunnlag to go with Arno. He will take the Varangians
to Palermo, where there are jobs as mercenaries if
they want them."

It was me Moise spoke to instead of to Gunnlag. "I
already told him your offer to Arno. He said he wants
the same offer. He will go to Palermo with them, but
then he wants to go with you to your land. He thinks
it must be very different from any land where he has
been before. He would like to see it, and fight
there. He will swear himself to you if you'd like."

I could see dad looking doubtful at that, and I could
understand why. But I knew these men, and I felt some
loyalty to them after all we'd gone through together.

"Tell Gunnlag I'll be glad to receive his oath. And
after he and Arno have gotten their wounded and gone
to Palermo, I will take him with us."

Moise turned to Gunnlag and talked to him in Greek.
Gunnlag grinned through his beard, then sobered as he
turned and spoke Greek at me.

"He wants to know how you swear a pledge in your
land," Moise said.

"Tell him to repeat after me," I said, "and we'll
shake hands on it afterward."

Again Moise spoke to Gunnlag in Greek. The Varangian
nodded, and looked at me expectantly.
I, Gunnlag Snorrason ..." I began in Norman.
Moise said it in Greek, and Gunnlag repeated after
him.

"... being under no duress ... do pledge by my God
and the blessed Jesu ..."

Gunnlag looked especially sober when he repeated the
last of that.

". . . to serve Larn kel Deroop faithfully until my
death ... or until we agree to cancel this pledge. .
. . And in the event of the death of Larn kel Deroop
. . . to serve such member of his family as is
present with us then ... on the same basis."

When we'd said it all, we shook hands. In the
background, dad blew quietly through pursed lips. I'd
taken on a big responsibility. Gunnlag knew nothing
about the kind of place we were going, or how to live
or get along there. But from the little I knew of
him, he'd changed lands and careers several times
before, and things new and different were like food
and drink to him.
Moise broke my thoughts. "Sire," he said to me, and I
turned to him. "I, too, would like to go with you."

"Moise, you might not like the world we're going to."

"I believe I would, sire. Tarel has told me something
of the worlds among the stars, and of your quest to
free them. Here my family is dead, and I have no
place, I would like to help you."

Somehow it was a lot harder for me to agree to take
Moise than Gunnlag, the seasoned Norse mercenary and
occasional pirate. Moise was really a different case,
and besides, he made it seem so idealistic. And I
guess it is idealistic, but we knew what we were
getting into, more or less.

But who was I to decide what he should do with his
life? Besides, I'd come here to recruit, among other
things.

"Tarel," I said, "you're the one who talked to him
about it. If he's willing to pledge himself to you,
and you're willing to accept it, he can come along."

Tarel looked flustered. Behind Gunnlag and Moise, I
could see dad start to grin. He saw me watching,
grinned wider, and winked at me.

Tarel nodded and talked it over with Moise. They
shook hands on it; the pledge had been made.

Ten minutes later, with the destrier finally having
let himself be caught, Arno was in the saddle, with
Gunnlag up behind him, and they started down the road
to the Varangians.


PART SEVEN

DEPARTURE

THIRTY-THREE


I piloted to Deneen's island with dad sitting beside
me. The others mostly napped. We talked off and on,
and dad never questioned my decision to take Arno and
Gunnlag, or Moise, with us when we left Fanglith. It
was as though he'd go along with it, if I thought it
was the thing to do.
I wasn't surprised, but it made me feel good anyway.

The island was quite a bit west of Sicily-about a
twelfth of a planetary circumference-so there was
still a lot of night left there when we arrived. We
could have landed right then, but if we'd wakened
Deneen, there'd have been at least an hour more of
talk. And we all needed sleep-it had been a long day,
and a long, intense night. So we bunked down on the
cutter. Only Bubba, Lady, and the pups had any
conversation from one craft to the other-silent, of
course.

Then we overslept sunrise by more than an hour. By
the time we landed, Deneen was walking back to the
Jav from tending her fish traps. Bubba hadn't said
anything to her-let her be surprised, he'd decided.
And when she first saw us, at a distance, she was
scared. That's when Bubba told her who we were. Close
up, of course, she recognized our family cutter
easily. There were lots of hugs and some tears when
we all got together.

Then mom and Deneen fixed breakfast on an open fire.
The high point was Deneen's fish. Mom contributed
powdered milk, two kinds of algae bars, and
whole-grain crackers. On the cutter they'd been
living mostly on condensed rations.

Even with the not-so-great cuisine, it was a party.

After breakfast, mom had Deneen power up the Jav and
checked its computer for the medical manual and
inventory. Then she went into the dispensary and came
out a while later with powder that presumably would
kill fleas, and some greasy stuff for lice. At least
they killed known equivalents on other worlds. The
wolves had been scratching; they'd already gotten
fleas from us. After a swim and a scrub, dad used
clippers on Tarel, Moise, and me, down to the skin.
Then we smeared each other. I can see how the grease
might kill bugs: It not only stung and burned, it
reeked. After half an hour we scrubbed again, and
like the wolves, got powdered. Then we put on clean
jump suits.

Meanwhile, Deneen had thrown our clothes, and the
pallets we'd used the night before, into the Jav's
sterilization chamber. When the sterilization cycle
was finished, she checked crystallization and turned
off the power again. An hour with the power on hadn't
set things back too badly.

Then we all strolled over to the ancient hut we'd
found on our first trip, and sat around on the
tumbled stone walls, dad and mom on one side, the
rest of us on another. The espwolves lay in the grass
between us.

The first thing I wanted to hear was what had
happened to Jenoor. When she'd finished telling us
about her rescue, mom and dad wanted our story of the
past few months. That took a while, and when we'd
finished, dad grinned at us.

"I guess you're probably tired of sitting now. Your
mother and I can tell our stories later,"
"Dad," Deneen said, "that's not funny. Give! Now!"

He laughed. "All right. When the Federation went
Imperial, the underground on Evdash made some
contingency plans: what to do when the Empire grabbed
Evdash. Your mother and I, having a cutter, accepted
the responsibility of getting Dr. Boshner off the
planet. So when we left home, we headed for an estate
in the mountains west of the capital, to pick him up."

Dr. G.K. Boshner was a tall, white-haired man who was
Evdash's most famous refugee. He'd been head of the
opposition party in the Federation senate when the
Glondis Party threw out the constitution, and part of
the Glondis justification for it involved making a
lot of accusations against Dr. Boshner. He'd been
lucky to get off Morn Gebleu alive, thirty years ago.

"In planning," dad went on, "we assumed that the
Imperials would block off-planet escape attempts as
soon as they arrived. It would be relatively easy for
them. So our plan called for moving Dr. Boshner to a
remote hiding place where he could be kept until
off-planet patrols were relatively relaxed. By that
time, hopefully, something might even be 'arranged'
with naval personnel."

Dad glanced around at us, smiling wryly. "But there
was one thing we hadn't been prepared for: how
quickly the Imperials would take over the national
police. I mean, the first day! Even when we heard it
on the radio, we hadn't realized how widely Glondisan
sympathizers had infiltrated the force. We assumed it
would take a few days for the occupation
administration to take extensive control.

"We were wrong. We were about sixty miles west of New
Caltroff when a patrol floater spotted us, and hit us
with a rocket."

He shook his head ruefully. "At that. We were lucky:
The rocket was a solid round, not explosive. It holed
us, which of course made us totally unspaceworthy,
wrecked the life-support system, and caused other
damage, some of it to me. I had about a dozen wounds,
fairly superficial, from pieces of metal.

"But we could still fly. And a good deal faster than
a police floater. Your mother lost them and hid in
the anvil top of a thunderhead."

"A thunderhead?" I said. "The turbulence must have
bounced you around something terrible, at the very
least!"

"I suppose that's why they didn't look for us there.
But in the anvil top, we were above major turbulence,
and at the same time, effectively invisible to radar.
We parked there and drifted southeast with it, to
within twenty miles of a place we knew."

They'd been lucky, all right. Then mom had flown them
by night to the place, a backwoods hill farm forty
miles north of Jarfoss. Dad had lost quite a lot of
blood. The people who hid them put the cutter in a
hay barn, surrounded it with walls of hay bales, then
roofed it over with bales on top of planks. It took
months to get repair parts. Commercial sources had
been shut down by the Empire, and when they finally
got parts, it was from the naval supply depot at
Jarfoss-parts never intended for a small civilian
cutter. But they made do.
They never knew the pipeline the parts came through.

Dad had thought seriously then about staying on
Evdash, and working with the underground, but the
Glondis Party had old grudges against him, and there
was a price on his head. He'd be a danger to anyone
he might work with, a magnet to the political police.

A turncoat police unit, it turned out, had already
arrested Dr. Boshner. He was hanged without trial
during the first public executions. He'd been tried
in absentia, back on Morn Gebleu, nearly thirty years
ago.

The Glondis spy network really kept things hairy for
a while. The resistance movement lost probably a
third of its people the first week, and there was a
continual trickle of losses after that. Mom and the
people they were with doctored dad themselves, rather
than risk getting a doctor. Mom sutured his wounds;
his only anaesthetic was homemade whiskey.

Meanwhile a new underground was forming, and bit by
bit, contacts were occurring with the old. It was
hard to evaluate its size or much about it, because
for safety, no one knew the names of more than a few
others. But as far as he and mom could see, the
nucleus seemed to be the military. And apparently the
loyal police, when they'd adjusted to the new
situation, started closing their eyes to underground
activities as much as they dared.

By that time in dad's story, our behinds were tired
of sitting on rocks, but we ignored the discomfort.
We wanted to hear the rest. "How did you get together
with Jenoor?" I asked.

"Jenoor," dad said, "why don't you tell him?"

"Well," she began, "it was quite a chain of
coincidence. The sergeant transferred me to a
delivery service van, where the driver gave me a shot
to kill the pain. Then he delivered me ..." She
paused and looked around. ". . .at Jom and Dansee
Jomber's! Dansee was home when I arrived, and it hit
her pretty hard to learn what had happened. Piet had
been a close friend of theirs. And I'm sure she
assumed that the rest of you had been destroyed by
patrol ships, though of course she didn't say that to
me.

"They kept me in their basement for three days. The
first thing Densee did was clean and bandage my foot.
I was sort of on a cloud from the painkiller then,
and watched her. It was pretty gross."

Looking at me, she smiled. I was cringing. "The first
night, a man came there who was apparently a doctor.
He gave me another shot-the first one was wearing
off-and repaired my foot. That I didn't watch."

She turned to dad then. "Klentis," she said-not Uncle
Klent anymore-"why don't you and Aven tell them the
rest? It's more your story than mine."

Dad stood up before he spoke, and rubbed his
backside. "You'll just have to wait a minute. My
bones aren't as young as yours."

I became aware then of just how sore my own backside
was from silting on rocks. "Let's go sit in the Rebel
Javelin," I suggested. Everyone seemed to think that
was a good idea, so we went in and sat on soft,
contoured seats. And at mom's suggestion, Moise went
into one of the cabins and napped. So much of what
he'd been hearing meant nothing at all to him that
he'd gotten groggy, and was having a terrible time
staying awake

Dad. it turned out, had gotten a pipeline to a
warrant officer in naval operations at Jarfoss. The
cutter had be paired by then, and the idea was for
the WO to get information to dad, to help him decide
when to try to get off Evdash. At the same time, Jom
Jomber was looking for somewhere to send Jenoor. And
the warrant officer, one of the few people who knew
Jenoor was there, made a deal with dad. He'd provide
him with information, if dad would take this young
girl away.

So mom, in a borrowed utility floater, had gone the
next night to pick up this young girl in a parking
lot in Jarfoss. Each had almost come apart when they
saw who the other was.
On the farm, dad asked Jenoor where we'd been headed.
Naturally she told him Grinder. He knew it wouldn't
be in the astrogation cube by that name, and when he
questioned her about it, she didn't know the planet's
official name. When he told her-Tagrith Four- she
said she'd never heard it before.

And if she hadn't, it seemed probable that the rest
of us hadn't either.

They'd talked it over then, trying to figure what we
might have done, in the unlikely event that we had
gotten out-system alive. And decided the likeliest
place to look for us was on Fanglith. If they didn't
find us here, they'd head for Tagrith Four and hope
we were alive somewhere.

Dad told us frankly that he hadn't had much hope. But
any at all was enough to follow up on.
Their own escape, a couple of weeks later, was a lot
less hairy than ours. It involved a major solar flare
and undoubtedly some deliberate "failures to notice"
by patrol scouts. Failures that could be blamed on
instrument and radio problems caused by the flare.
The Imperial cruiser had left the system by then.

And Bubba told us then why he'd been so quiet and
moody after we left Evdash. It was more than the
food, and being separated from Lady and the pups.
Most espwolves, by their emotional disposition, can
handle that land of thing pretty well. His bigger
problem was that he had a secret from us-a very heavy
secret, from me especially.

"I knew Jenoor alive out there on ground," he said,
"Alive, wounded. I also knew it suicide to try get
her. So I said nothing." He looked at me, holding my
eyes with his. "After that, I not tell. I know you.
You go mad if you know we left her there like that.
You tear your hair out. After you shoot me."

"No, Bubba," I said. "No way would I ever shoot you.
No way! Tear my hair out, yes. And I might have said
some terrible things to you, until I got my senses
back."

His eyes never faltered. "Anyway," he went on, "I not
tell. But it hard to have such a secret. I never felt
like that before. Like guilt. Worse than grief."

Jenoor went to him and, kneeling, hugged him.
"Bubba," she said, "you seem wiser and wiser to me
all the time. You did the right thing, the only right
thing." Her eyes were brimming when she stood up.
"And look how it turned out."

Bubba grinned at her. "Espwolf live around people,
get more and more like them. Even sentimental."

Which made me wonder, not for the first time, what it
would be like to be an espwolf.

After Bubba's confession, we talked about what we'd
do next. Mom and dad both considered that Fanglith
was no place to try developing an anti-Imperial base.
We'd keep it in mind as a last refuge, but that was
all.

They got no argument from anyone, me least of all.

Now we would go to Grinder, just the way Piet had
intended. It had at least one smuggler base, dad
said, dug into a mountain. We could get the Jav's
power transfer module rebuilt there.
Grinder had a false but carefully nurtured reputation
as an abandoned world, in a system where the sun was
supposed to be heating up. A planet with a worsening
climate, where hardly anyone, if anyone at all, still
lived. It was at the blurry edge of explored space,
without commercial resources and far from any trade
route. And with far too few people left to maintain
technology, any human remnants would have degenerated
to primitive survivalism.

So the story went. But Piet had been there, and knew
what the real situation was. There actually weren't a
lot of people on Grinder, but enough. They'd retained
the technology that counted, and they taught it. They
all belonged to a single culture that placed a high
value on independence, they were resourceful, and
they regarded themselves as one people.

And what they knew of the Glondisans, they didn't
like at all.

What they were short on was organizational and
military expertise. Dad was experienced at
organization, and had made a study of military
history. "You," he told me, "are the one with some
experience."

I didn't consider my military experience to amount to
much, and it didn't seem like the kind a rebel
movement would find useful, but dad disagreed.

"Larn," he said, "I'm not trying to tell you that
what you've gotten here on Fanglith amounts to a
military education. It doesn't. But you've learned to
adapt, innovate, and survive. And you've also proven
yourself resourceful, able to face death, and a
survivor.

"A formal military education probably only touches on
the tactics we'll need, anyway-tactics well develop
on our own. Mostly, any actual insurgency will have
to be guerrilla warfare for years-probably lots of
years- both on colony worlds and the urbanized
central worlds. Chances are we'll never wage formal
warfare against the Empire."

He grinned then. "You realize what you've done, don't
you? You've recruited a couple of specialists in
military thinking: Arno and Gunnlag must have an
ingrained, almost instinctive feel for tactics. What
they need is to be educated in technological weapons
and equipment. And about the enemy.

"Meanwhile, with your education and having grown up
in a technological culture, plus your experience now
with warlike primitive cultures, you're the obvious
person to work with them. To help translate Norman
and Varangian wisdom into tactics and military
organization that can work for us.

"So we'll call your a training operation and
recruiting mission," he added, then stood. "And
frankly, I can't think of a better place you could
have gone for that than Fanglith." He turned to mom.
"Aven, let's you and I take a hike on the beach.
We've been penned up all too long."

That afternoon, Jenoor and I took a long hike into
the hills and didn't return till nearly dark, getting
to know one another again. We stayed six days on the
island, giving Arno time to get the Varangians to
Palermo and hired out as mercenaries-those who were
interested. It also gave the Jaw's fuel cell time to
fully decrystallize.

Then, power on, Deneen checked to make sure the
scout's astrogation program included Tagrith Four.
The plan now was that when we left Fanglith, Jenoor,
Deneen, and I would fly the Rebel Javelin, taking
Gunnlag, Moise, and the two pups. The Jav had quite a
bit more room than our family cutter.

Arno would go with dad and mom and Tarel. Bubba and
Lady would keep them company. I was willing to take
Arno, but I'd to!d them about his romantic interest
in Deneen, and we agreed it might be awkward if she
was cooped up with him for sixty-eight days flying to
Grinder. And while neither Deneen nor I brought it
up, of course, it seemed to me it might be easier on
Tarel if Deneen was with us on the scout, instead of
with him on the cutter.

We would transfer Arno's fealty to dad; Arno would
agree to that if he really wanted to leave with us.
The way Amo's mind worked, you swore fealty to
someone and then you were pretty much loyal unless
you came up with some incentive to double-cross them
and some technicality to make it all right. Which I
didn't expect from him under the circumstances. And
the espwolves would know if he got treacherous ideas.

Meanwhile I'd have Gunnlag to educate. I looked
forward to it. Compile a data base of Norse and
Standard, run it through the linguistics program, and
have him learn Standard; we'd use it now instead of
Evdashian. Evdashian was an offshoot dialect of
Standard used only on Evdash, and chances were we'd
never see Evdash again.

On the evening of the sixth day, the scout and the
cutter lifted for Palermo. With the wolves scanning,
we located Arno and Gunnlag, and put Moise down with
a communicator to arrange the pickup. By
communicator, I told Arno to arrange for a couple
mule-loads of food and take it to the pickup point,
outside Palermo. I'd have preferred three or more
loads, but we didn't have storage.

Larger spacecraft would have been nice, for the
biovats if nothing else. As it was, we'd have to
ration pretty strictly on the long trip to Grinder.

It took Moise and Arno two days to get the food we
needed and get it to the edge of an orange grove a
couple of miles outside the city. Actually, Arno was
nearly broke, way too poor now to buy that much food.
But Gunnlag had received a bounty from Guiscard for
bringing his Varangians to the recruiter, and that
had been enough. (Guiscard and Roger never had enough
Norman foot soldiers, and were always looking for
high-quality mercenaries.) Arno had borrowed the two
mules, and one of the Varangians had gone along to
take them back to town.
Bubba okayed the pickup scene, so dad landed the
cutter to get the food and the two warriors. Then we
all got together on a hill a few miles southeast, got
everything distributed, and said goodbye to one
another.

The goodbyes were hard, believe me. We wouldn't see
each other again for sixty-eight days. But there was
no way around it, and at least Jenoor and I were
together.

Sixty-eight days in FTL gave us a lot of time to
talk-about what might be, how we'd like to have
things turn out (and why), what problems we might run
into, and even occasionally about what might have
been. To give Gunnlag practice in Standard, we had
him tell us about his people and others, the places
he'd been, things he'd seen and done . . .

Moise too. Although he was a lot younger, and had
less to tell, there was more than you might think,
and it was more interesting than he realized.
Fanglith and its people in general were marvelously
interesting-I'd only seen a small sample myself.

Their stories strengthened our conclusion that it
wasn't the place for us. To coin a phrase: It's an
interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to
live there.

We worked on Gunnlag's and Moise's education. If you
want to develop a better understanding, more
insights, into your own culture, try educating
someone in it who's from a totally different culture.
That can be worth a whole series of university
courses to you. Gunnlag, like Moise, was marvelously
adaptable and had a quick mind. And of course, they
each had some unusual and surprising ways of looking
at the things we told them about.

But the most meaningful talks, for me, were some
between Jenoor and me in the privacy of her tiny
cubbyhold cabin or mine. (There were no cabins for
two on the scout.) Talks about the future. And once
again, I-we-knew too little, had too little
information to plan with, beyond the next step or
two, or in broad, vague terms. That kind of planning
we could do.

At first, we considered the possibility of settling
down as sort of "backup revolutionaries." Not get
involved too deeply. That way we could live a
semi-normal life, enjoy some stability, raise a
family.

But it seemed as if that wouldn't work. Now that the
Glondis government had gone Imperial, it was the road
to slavery and regret. Fifteen years earlier, when my
parents had fled Morn Gebleu, things had been
different. And they had children. Now the Glondis
Party had consolidated its power on the central
planets and was moving to control all the human
worlds. We faced a spreading Empire, not a Federation.

So what kind of future could we have together?

We'd had each other, very briefly, and we'd lost each
other. It was the wildest luck that we were together
again. When I'd thought Jenoor was dead, life had
gone on for me. And while she'd had a lot more reason
to think I was dead than alive, life had gone on for
her, too.

It really had; life had gone on.

So we made a pledge-a pledge subject to change if
experience showed us it should change. The revolution
would come first with us. We'd be together, work
together, enjoy together, as much as we could. For as
long as we could. Without clinging to it, without
sacrificing the revolution to it. We'd be willing to
lose each other, and hope it didn't happen.

Meanwhile we wouldn't worry about it any more than we
had to. Life was for living, and hopefully for
accomplishing something valuable with. And eventually
for dying. For non-revolutionaries, as well as for
us. We'd live it while we had it, as ethically as we
knew how.

That's the way it sorted out for us-at first only
intellectually, but more and more at the gut level,
the emotional level, as we got used to our decision.

And that's how it was that, when the Jav came out of
FTL mode, Jenoor and I could stand holding hands and
feeling good about things as we gazed at the bright
blue-white bead of Grinder a couple of million miles
away. We had work to do and a life to live there. And
who knew where else before it was done.