Return To The Whorl Part 45

"My proper name is Horn. This is my friend Pig."

The tall man bowed again. "Your servant is called Hari Mau, Rajan." The others bowed too, and there was a flurry of names and s.h.i.+ning smiles. "You must come with us," Hari Mau said, still smiling.

"I will not."

"Tentie," Pig rumbled again, and stood.

"You must. Hear me, Rajan. Echidna herself demands it."

He raised his eyebrows. "You have a Sacred Window on Blue?"

"No, Rajan. Yet we still serve the G.o.ds, and they speak to us in dreams. I swore--"

There was a murmur of objections behind him.

"We swore, we brothers, that we would not return to our homes and wives without you. We will do you no hurt." Hari Mau's smile had faded; his eyes were serious. "You will live in the palace we are building you, and judge us with justice."

He sighed. "Did you read about me in a book, Hari Mau? Before your dream?"

"Yes, Rajan. Afterward, too. Many, many others had the same dream, even the priests in the temple of the G.o.ddess."

"You cannot compel me." His right hand gripped the k.n.o.bbed staff; his left touched the hilt of the azoth under his tunic.

"We do not seek to compel you, Rajan. Far better that you come willingly."

"I am going to tell you now, for the final time--"

"Good man?" Oreb spoke from the windowsill.

"That I am not the one you seek--the one whom I sought too. That I am Horn, not Silk."

"Good Silk!"

"Knowing that, do you still want me to come with you?"

Hari Mau said, "We do, Rajan," and the men around him murmured their agreement.

"You have a lander--that's what Calde Bison told me. It's below this city now, guarded by your followers?"

"It is. As soon as you are on board, Rajan, we will fly back to Gaon."

He shook his head. "That's not what I want. I will go with you--go willingly and do as you ask--if you will fly my friend Pig--"

Pig grunted with surprise.

"To the West Pole first. Will you do that, Hari Mau?"

When the operation was over and the last bandage in place, and the tiny hands that had mimicked the surgeon's every motion had withdrawn, the white-haired man who had watched it all let himself breath again. "May I see him now?"

"You are." The surgeon pointed to the gla.s.s. "There he is." The surgeon was as tall as Hari Mau, and darker.

"I don't mean that."

The bandaged figure in the gla.s.s stirred, and the man who had spoken wondered whether he had been overheard. "I'd like to sit beside him for a minute or two, and pray at his beside. May I do that?"

"It's some distance." The surgeon spoke slowly, and his voice was rich and deep. "I'll give you directions for the tunnels, but I can't go with you. I can't take the time."

"Bird find!" Oreb declared. "Find Pig!"

"I'm going to Blue, and that's a great deal farther. I don't believe I'll ever get back."

The surgeon shook his head, his eyes on Oreb. "We'll leave this system once the Whorl Whorl has been repaired, but that won't be for years. A lifetime, likely as not." has been repaired, but that won't be for years. A lifetime, likely as not."

"And I can't take the tunnels. My--my friends are anxious to go home. If they see me now, they'll put me on the lander and leave at once, I feel sure. Can't I travel on the surface?"

"I must myself," the surgeon said; from his tone, he had not been listening. "Your name is Horn? Is that correct?"

"Good Silk!"

"Yes," he said.

"I'll tell them to expect you, Horn. And I'll guide you, at least for the first chain or so. It's not going to be easy. I hope you understand."

He said, "I want to just the same."

"All right." The surgeon touched his belt, and a hatch at the top of the room lifted silently and almost smoothly, admitting hot wind and a pinch of wind-blown sand.

"If you could only lend me a propulsion module . . ."

The surgeon shook his head. "You have been to the East."

He nodded. "They had propulsion modules there, and they even loaned us some to use until we left."

"They need them." The surgeon kicked off, drifting upward until he caught the edge. "They require them for the fliers, so they have spares. We don't need them here, and don't have them. We've learned to do without them. Aren't you coming up?"

He did, rising too slowly because he had been afraid of rising too fast. "Silk come," Oreb announced before Oreb was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the wind.

"I don't understand all this. I don't understand how you can live like this."

"In the dark?" The surgeon caught his hand; the surgeon's own was twice as long, pink at the palm and the undersides of the fingers. "It's not usually this dark." Scarlet flashes failed to illuminate a pandemonium.

"The wind, and the sand. Is it always like this?"

"Yes," the surgeon said. "Turn on your light."

"I've been trying to." His fingers, fumbling for the tiny switch on his headband, moved it by accident; at once a glow from his forehead lit up the surgeon's dark, severe features. "I didn't realize--I should have, of course--that there would be darkdays here, too. Or that you'd have so few lights."

"We don't usually need them. These," the surgeon lit his own headband, "are medical emergency equipment."

Already his feet were above his head. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the pale blur that was the surgeon's tunic to keep himself from being blown away.

"You have your radiation monitor?"

He was about to say no when he remembered that it had been pinned over his heart. "Yes--yes, I do."

"Don't ignore it. We can fix most things here, but that one's as tough as it gets."

"Bird back!" Oreb's claws closed upon his shoulder.

"I suppose that's why you're here, so close to the--the . . ."

"Reactor. Come on." The surgeon was moving away and taking him with him.

"And the whatever you call it--the place where you operated on Pig--"

"Sick bay."

"Is farther away, where the danger isn't so great. Your reactor powers the sun? That's what we were told, though I find it almost impossible to think of anything powering the sun."

"Here, grab this outcrop." The surgeon's hands, so much longer and stronger than his own, guided his to it. "Don't let yourself think you're weightless."

He gripped the sand-smoothed rock with grim determination. "That's how it seems."

"Because of the wind." The white light of the surgeon's headband was moving away. "The wind wants to pick you up and blow you away. If you let yourself believe that you have no weight, it will do it, too."

"No fly," Oreb explained.

"The heat makes the wind?" He was frightened, so much so that his teeth chattered.

"Exactly." The surgeon seemed to be waiting for him, having perhaps noted the chattering. "A darkday makes it worse, because there's none from the sun to counter it. Eventually it would cool off and the wind would drop, but they'll restart the sun long before that. It would take months for the reactor to cool completely."

Staring at the surgeon's light, he said fervently, "I see."

"The sand blows around. One day it will be deeper than a man can dig, and next day it's bare rock. It wears the rock away, and makes more sand, and the rock cracks in the heat."

"It seems very hot now," he ventured.

"It isn't. If the sun were on, all this would be too hot to touch, almost. Keep down, so the wind doesn't get you."

"I'll try," he promised, "but it seems very windy."

"That's because we're going uphill." The white glow of the surgeon's headlamp vanished in the middle distance, but the surgeon's voice still reached him, the only calm element in that wild night. "You've got to kick off with your legs."

"No fly!" Oreb insisted.

The surgeon's light reappeared, surprising close. "Your legs are a lot stronger than your arms."

He gasped for breath and spit out sand. "I didn't even know we were climbing."

The white light had halted. "You don't weight much, but don't let that make you think you won't get hurt if the wind slams you into some rocks. It's happened to me, and it hurt like Holy Hierax. People are killed, sometimes."

He wanted to say that he would try to be careful; but it was all he could do to struggle forward, half crawling.

"We're not supposed to fix up Cargo." They were near enough that his deep-set eyes and broad flat nose showed dimly. "But I'll make exception for you. Ask for me if you get hurt."

"You made . . ." He was panting. "An exception . . . For Pig. Thank you."

The surgeon caught his arm and helped him over the final two cubits. "I ought to tell you about that."

"Please do."

"Hold on to this and you can stand up."

Again the surgeon guided his hand to it; over the whistling wind, the snapping of his augur's robe sounded like the incessant cracking of a whip.

"Look over there. Can you see my arm?"

Oreb repeated, "See arm?"

"Yes." The pale sleeve made it easy, although there appeared to be no hand at the end of it.

"That green light. Got it?"

"I think so. Is it blinking?"

"That's where you're going. That's the sick bay. It's a league or a league and a half, something like that. Tell him I said h.e.l.lo."

"I certainly will."

The wind was rising again, and the surgeon had almost to shout to make himself heard. "You're still going?"

"I--yes."

"You can come back with me if you want to."

He nodded, although their faces were nearly touching. "Thank you. You're very kind."

The surgeon took his arm. "Then let's go."

Oreb added his own vote. "Go now!"

"No," he said. "You misunderstood me. I didn't mean that I was going back with you, only that you've shown extraordinary courtesy. I'll always be indebted to you."

"I thought you'd want to turn around once you'd seen it."