The Torian Pearls Part 9

He was able to recognize many familiar objects. There was a small computer with a print-out device. There were the remains of a radar set. There were various items of scientific gear, including a spectroscope, a centrifuge, sampling devices, chemical-a.n.a.lysis equipment, and much that was less easily identifiable. There was a cargo compartment aft, holding boxes and tubes of many different sizes with as many different markings. On the floor lay a number of the electronic implants for the brains of the sea reptiles, spilled from a broken box.

From each dive Blade brought up some small piece of Menel equipment. The pile of bits and pieces in his end of the canoe grew, like Fudan's pile of sh.e.l.ls in his end.

Blade kept on diving until the first warning twinges of pain in his joints and muscles told him that he was approaching his limit for the day. It was maddening to have to leave the machine with so much of it still a mystery, but there was no helping it. He'd already collected as much as he could hope to a.n.a.lyze himself, perhaps more. He'd also collected ten times more than he could ever hope to bring back to Home Dimension.

On his last dive he went down determined to examine the ceiling of the machine. So far he'd been too busy searching and stripping the floor. He swam in through the crack in the fuselage, turned on his back, and looked up.

A large squarish shape seemed to be hanging from the ceiling at an impossible angle. At first Blade thought it was another piece of broken equipment, then he realized that it was floating freely. He reached up and drew it down to him.

It was a large black-covered book of some sort, scaled in a waterproof sack with a small cylinder at one end for buoyancy. Obviously it was designed to survive and float free in the event of a crash. Did the Menel keep diaries or logs? If so, then this might be one. Blade clutched the book under his arm and dove out of the machine. Excitement drove him up to the surface. He threw the book into the canoe, hauled himself out of the water, and caught his breath.

Fudan looked at Blade, experienced eyes noting his fatigue. "Blade, I hope that was your last dive for the day?"

Blade nodded. "I'll stay in the canoe, until you've finished your diving."

"That will not be much longer," said Fudan. "I see in the sky that a great storm will come in from the sea in another day. If I dive much more, we shall have to spend the night here. With a storm coming, that would not be wise."

As Fudan slipped over the side again, Blade relaxed into the healthy fatigue that came after a long day's work well done. He looked up at the sky. The faintest hints of sunset colors were beginning to glow in the west. Above the colors rode the mackerel-scale clouds that indeed promised foul weather not far off. Except for those clouds and the wheeling sea birds, the sky was empty.

A sudden splash alongside the canoe made Blade turn. He expected to see Fudan's head emerge dripping from the water. Instead he looked straight into a pair of glittering golden eyes, set in a totally hideous face. It was a death-eel, the most sinister-looking and voracious creature in the seas of this Dimension, one that sometimes attacked even the great sea reptiles.

The mouth opened, exposing two rows of needle-sharp teeth. Blade's eyes ran from the bulging head back along the coal-black body and he swallowed. This death-eel could not be an inch under thirty feet long.

What had brought it here, Blade didn't know. What he did know was that in no more than a minute Fudan would be rising from the bottom, straight into the creature's striking range, straight into those gaping, teeth-studded jaws. Fudan would not see it until it was too late. There would be no escaping the eel's enormous speed and agility.

Somehow, though, the eel didn't seem to be paying any attention to Blade. Somehow he'd failed to register in its tiny, hunger-filled mind as either a possible prey or a possible enemy. He had a few seconds at least to act.

Blade started to pick up one of the crossbows. As he did, the eel's head sank down and vanished under the raft. Blade swore. Now he couldn't get a killing shot in before the eel noticed Fudan. There was only one thing to do. Catching up a knife in one hand and a spear in the other, Blade rolled over the side of the canoe and into the water. Before the eel could react, he was gripping the slimy body with both legs. As the body began to twist, Blade reached forward with his knife and his spear and drove the points of both deep into the eel's head.

He'd hoped to reach the brain with one weapon or the other. Instead he drove the eel into a sudden fury. Its body arched from nose to tail; and its head plunged down into the depths. Blade barely had a chance to gulp a breath of air before he was dragged under. At least he'd drawn its attention away from Fudan.

If Blade hadn't had his knife gripped firmly and driven in deeply, he would have been torn loose from the eel. As it was, the force of the water tore the spear point out of the eel's head and the spear shaft out of Blade's hand. The spear vanished, and Blade drew his belt dagger.

The eel chose that moment to shake its head from side to side in a desperate effort to get rid of its tormentor. Blade felt his left arm nearly dragged out of its socket, but he held on. As long as he held on where he was, the eel could not twist around and reach him. The moment he let go, it would be looping around and those tooth-studded jaws would be reaching out for him, perhaps closing on him.

Blade thrust his dagger into the black flesh. Blood flowed, pale green in the underwater light. The eel twisted convulsively, but showed no sign of weakening. It continued its plunge toward the bottom.

Blade realized that it must be planning to try sc.r.a.ping him off against the rocks on the bottom. He also realized that even if it didn't do that and even if his knives held, the breath in his lungs was almost gone. He might already be so far down that he could never hope to reach the surface alive. But he could not and would not let go, as long as there was any chance that Fudan hadn't made it to safety.

Blade knew that he was only moments away from death, either by drowning or in the jaws of the eel. None of his life pa.s.sed before his eyes-his mind was still working too furiously, trying to think how to strike a lethal blow against the eel. It would go on working like that until the last brain cell winked out from lack of oxygen.

Then the eel was twisting more furiously than ever. Blade held on to both knives, but the eel's twisting tore them free. Blade found himself floating upward as the eel curved around underneath him, the head rising toward him, the jaws opening, the teeth ready to tear his flesh and a crossbow bolt suddenly standing out from the black head, squarely between the golden eyes.

That was the last thing Blade knew until he awoke, facedown in the bottom of the canoe, with Fudan pounding his back and heaving his arms up and down. It was a crude form of artificial respiration, but it worked. Blade gulped in air until his head stopped swimming, then slowly sat up. Once more he looked into the eyes of the death-eel alongside the canoe, but now the eyes were closed and the thirty feet of sinister black body floated limply in death.

Blade went on catching his breath, until he felt like speaking again. Even then he looked at Fudan for quite a while before he said a word. The Hauri chief matched him stare for stare.

"You saved my life," said Blade at last.

Fudan shook his head. "Perhaps. Certainly you saved mine first. I would not have been alive to shoot the eel if you had not fought it as you did. You would probably have killed it even without my help."

Blade had his doubts on that point, but there was no use in arguing. Fudan went on.

"Certainly we have this day fought a death-eel and slain it, and one of us has just as certainly saved the other." He smiled. "By the customs of the Hauri this makes us brothers in the spirit. Each may ask of the other the same that a brother in the flesh could. Each must grant what is asked if there is no dishonor in it."

"Well," said Blade. "In that case I will promise you my voice in the councils of the Kargoi, to speak for making the peace with the Hauri last forever."

"I also will give my voice for peace between our peoples, among the headmen of the Hauri. I will also consent that you take as wife my sister Loya."

Blade frowned. "I am honored. But I would not take her against-"

Fudan threw back his head and laughed. "Blade, Blade, Loya has already given her consent ten times over. It is her dearest wish to be your wife, to bear you sons and daughters who will be living proof that there is peace between the Hauri and the Kargoi. Do you find her displeasing?"

It was Blade's turn to laugh. "Hardly. It is merely that I have given no thought to taking a wife." He did not add that this was partly out of a reluctance to involve Loya in all the battles he knew he still had to fight in this Dimension. Women who became involved in his battles had a way of getting killed, and he wanted to avoid that fate for Loya. "If it is now proper that I take a wife, certainly I could find none better than Loya. She is beautiful, strong, and wise."

"She is. I am glad you think of her as she thinks of you." Fudan turned and began heaving on the anchor rope. "If you feel able to put away our weapons and the bags of sh.e.l.ls, I think it is time to see about beginning our voyage home."

Chapter 22.

They headed for home under full sail in order to beat the approaching storm and succeeded with a few hours to spare. From a hilltop beside a sheltered cove, Blade watched the sea and sky both turn dark and twenty-foot waves churn against the sh.o.r.e.

That night Blade and Fudan sat in a hut lit by a flickering candle. Fudan squatted, opening the sh.e.l.lfish with his knife and carefully probing the dark flesh inside for the precious black pearls. Just as carefully Blade examined the salvaged Menel equipment.

Some of it was impossible to even identify. Much of it was impossible to study without a fully equipped laboratory. Frustrating, but inevitable. Blade saved the black book in its waterproof bag until the last.

It was indeed some sort of diary or log, with a map, photographs, and handwritten entries. At least Blade a.s.sumed they were handwritten. The "handwriting" of the Menel looked more like the marks made by a c.o.c.kroach dipped in ink and sent crawling across the pages of the diary. After a moment Blade turned to the map and photographs.

It would have been hard to find the Menel's island base purely from the map-their cartographers did not work to human standards, and Blade was totally unable to guess the scale of the map. Fortunately the Hauri had seen the s.h.i.+p of the Menel fall out of the sky and knew where the island lay. With the map from the diary, it would be possible to land on the island and march straight to where the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p of the Menel lay hidden.

The crashed s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. The photographs made that clear. Judging from the size of the Menel standing beside it, the s.h.i.+p was at least five hundred feet long. It was also broken completely in two, with one end crushed into the ground as well. Blade counted forty-eight Menel in the group photograph. At least twenty of them were wearing what could have been bandages, and only twelve of them were carrying the long cylindrical beamers.

Perhaps the Menel had come to this world with a plan of conquest. Perhaps in the crushed part of the s.h.i.+p lay hundreds of dead Menel, a dozen more submarines and a dozen more flying machines, and an array of weapons that would have given them control of this Dimension in a few weeks. Certainly what they had now was this battered, poorly armed band of survivors of a devastating crash-a band which had in the past few weeks lost still more people and equipment to Blade's efforts and bad luck.

In spite of this disaster, they were trying to carry out their mission of extending the Menel empire. If they couldn't conquer this Dimension outright, perhaps they could do so by controlling some of the more formidable local wildlife? Some determined individual among the Menel must have asked that question. The result was the implanted bat-birds and sea reptiles.

Blade could not help wondering about the diary he held. Was it official and authorized, as a supplementary record of the Menel activities in this Dimension? Or had some Menel succ.u.mbed to the temptation to record privately what he and his comrades had done? Why had he succ.u.mbed, in that case? Out of loneliness, fear, despair, distrust of superiors who might not give him or someone close to him proper credit? Those were plausible motives for human beings in a situation like this, and ascribing those motives to the Menel made them seem much more human for a moment. It was also complete guesswork, and perhaps totally unjustified.

One thing was certain. The diary laid out for Blade to see all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the Menel. Whoever had kept that diary and for whatever reasons had, quite by accident, done his comrades a great deal of harm. Fortunately for him, he was probably one of the crash victims and would therefore never know. Meanwhile, Richard Blade sat with the diary in his hands.

It was almost ludicrous, the way the Great Menel Menace had evaporated or at least shrunk down to its proper size. Instead of a horde of Menel ready to sweep human beings from the face of this world, there was a battered handful of survivors desperately trying to improvise some sort of campaign with what little equipment they still had. Blade found himself reluctantly admiring their courage and determination, although he didn't think much of their common sense. And a campaign of conquest was still a campaign of conquest, no matter how sloppy or ineffective it might be.

There was also no guarantee that the Menel wouldn't sooner find some more effective method of attack. They might even find human allies, the way they'd found the Ice Master in the land of the Ice Dragons.

So there was still no time to waste. The peoples of this Dimension would have to be united, as fast as possible and as thoroughly as possible without telling them exactly why they had to unite. A few of the wisest leaders could be trusted with that truth, but for the time being no one else.

He would also have to give this Dimension gunpowder as quickly as possible. Gunpowder weapons were still not equal to the beamers of the Menel, but they would be better than spears and arrows. With a hundred cannon or a thousand muskets to every beamer, the Menel would certainly have their claws full in any battle.

Blade realized that he was letting his thoughts run on ridiculously far ahead of his knowledge, and turned back to the photographs in the diary. One of the last ones showed an aerial view of a two-masted sailing s.h.i.+p, all sails set and close-hauled. The human figures on the deck showed that the s.h.i.+p was about a hundred feet long. Most of the figures wore seaman's trousers, boots, and caps. Several wore long coats of chain mail, with horned helmets on their heads and broadswords or axes slung from belts at their waists.

What drew Blade's eye particularly were the long cylinders of various sizes pointing outward on either side of the main deck and also at the bow and stern. On the main deck someone was about to shove a large sponge on the end of a long pole into the outboard end of one of the cylinders. They could hardly be anything but cannon-perhaps crude, but judging from their size, quite powerful.

So somebody in this Dimension already had gunpowder. Who and where were they? There was no clue to where this picture had been taken. The sailing s.h.i.+p might have been just beyond the range of the Hauri canoes, or it might have been half a world away.

In any case, it was absolutely necessary to search out these people. If they became allies and friends, it would give the other peoples of this Dimension gunpowder weapons many years sooner. If they became enemies-or even worse allies of the Menel-well, that had to be prevented somehow.

Blade suddenly realized that the candle had gone out and the hut was so dark he could barely make out the photographs in the book across his knees. Fudan was slumped over his pile of sh.e.l.lfish, sound asleep, his knife still in his hand.

Blade yawned, and realized that he also was ready for sleep. Certainly he could do nothing more against the Menel now, even if he stayed up all night.

The storm died by morning and Fudan put out to sea in his canoe, a small bag of black pearls slung at his waist. He wanted Blade to come with him, but Blade refused. He did not want to bring any of the Menel equipment to a Hauri village or a Kargoi camp at the moment.

"It is possible that the Menel have put in some of these little machines devices that give off signals-like smoke signals, but invisible. Such signals can be heard many days' sailing away. The Menel might follow the signals in another flying machine and destroy whatever and whoever they found. If they do that while I am here, I alone will die, not a whole village."

Fudan sighed. "I could say that your wisdom is worth a whole village, and it would be true. But it would not change your mind, would it?"

Blade shook his head. "If I am killed, look for a boulder marked with a blue triangle on top of that hill to the east." He pointed. "Under it I will put a written plan of how to fight the Menel. In that plan will be everything you will need to know to go on without me."

"Should I tell anyone else of what we have seen and learned on this voyage?"

Blade was about to shake his head, but some note in Fudan's voice made him stop. "Are you thinking of anyone in particular?"

"Yes. The man you would have as High Baudz of the Kargoi, Paor. He has been asking many questions about what we have seen of the sea reptiles. I began to wonder if he suspects something about them."

"But you didn't tell me, because I didn't ask?" said Blade, laughing.

"That is true. Then you wish me to tell him?"

"Yes. It is time that he learned. I trust him to keep silent until it is time to speak of this to other people."

"Very good. Farewell, Blade, and do not stay here alone too long. Both the Hauri and the Kargoi have too great a need of you."

Blade shook hands with Fudan and watched the chief go down to the sh.o.r.e and climb into his canoe. When Fudan's sail was out of sight, Blade returned to the hut and the study of his Menel souvenirs.

For all that he learned from them during the next four days, Blade might just as well have gone with Fudan. Even the photographs lost interest for him after looking at them twenty times. He was able to spend a day writing up his report and concealing it on the hill, but that was only one day, and he was determined to give the Menel at least a week. If they hadn't done anything to trace their missing gear by then, it would probably be safe for him to go home.

Blade was just lighting the candle on the fifth evening when someone knocked on the door of the hut. He blew out the candle, picked up his sword, and went to the door.

He needed no weapons for the visitor. It was Loya, dressed in her usual trousers, her staff in one hand and a bag of food slung over the other shoulder. She was barefoot and there were salt stains on her trousers and in her hair.

"Am I welcome, in spite of that?" she said, pointing at the sword. Her broad mouth curved into a mocking smile.

"Certainly." Blade put down the sword and closed the door behind her. "Perhaps in return for my welcome you will tell me why you have come here?"

"Why does any woman come to a man she has chosen and who has accepted her-or so she has been told?" There was no mockery in the smile now. "It is not good for you to be alone so long."

"It may not be good for you to be here," said Blade. He hesitated. "The Sky People may come, and if they do ...."

"Yes, yes," Loya said briskly, waving one hand to dismiss the matter. "Fudan has told me everything. I came anyway. Blade, there is nothing that can frighten me away from he who is to be my husband."

"You seem to have tracked me down at last. Well then, huntress, come and claim your prey." He stood up and held out both arms to her. Loya seemed to float into them without her feet touching the ground.

For some time Blade had wondered how Loya's long-limbed, finely muscled body would feel in his arms. Now he knew. She filled him with soaring excitement and at the same time tenderness. He was more to Loya than she could ever be to him, and nothing could be done about that in the long run. In the time they would have together, though, he would do anything possible to avoid hurting her or disappointing her.

Loya was tall enough so that he did not have to bend far to kiss her. He started on her forehead, brushed his lips down over both eyes and across the high-bridged nose, then brought his mouth against hers. He started gently but quickly sensed her demanding more and began to give it. Her tongue crept out between the even white teeth and he met it with his own. He felt a warm, deeply sensual welcome in that meeting of their tongues.

He would happily have let the kissing go on forever, but as his lips and Loya's met his hands were moving up and down her back and her hands were stroking the insides of his thighs. His hands slipped inside her trousers and drew her up against him, so that the swollen manhood under his loinguard was pressing upward between her thighs. Her hands crept upward across the broad chest, fingering the layers of muscle and the ridged scars. Then they darted down to yank aside the loinguard and suddenly close on the exposed flesh. Blade jerked as if he'd received an electric shock and stifled a gasp.

He could feel Loya's breath coming quickly now, her chest rising and falling, driving the solid curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the still more solid points of her nipples against him. He could feel her beginning to s.h.i.+ver, as if she were standing in a cold wind. He could feel that it was time for both of them.

It was agony to step apart even for a moment, but it was a short-lived agony and it made coming together again all the sweeter. Blade tore off his loinguard as Loya unlaced her trousers and pushed them down her long legs. She stepped forward, a perfect triangle of blue-black hair cradled between her thighs, rising on her toes as she came. Blade bent at the knees, so that they were perfectly positioned. Loya sank down, he rose up, and as he did he slid upward into the eagerly waiting warmth inside her.

Neither Loya nor Blade could have stayed apart a second longer. It would have made no difference to him if she'd weighed four hundred pounds-he still could have lifted her like a feather pillow, with the strength given by the overpowering desire in him.

He had no need to move, only to support Loya while she rose and fell and twisted as though all her limbs were suddenly made of elastic. She followed no pattern or rhythm, followed nothing except her own desire. Yet somehow what her desire demanded was exactly what would also perfectly satisfy Blade. It seemed to him that in the joining of their bodies they had also joined their minds, so they had only one consciousness between them.

Suddenly Loya seemed to spring upward, her arms locking hard around Blade's neck and her legs around his waist. All the breath went out of him under the pressure of those muscular limbs. A moment later all the breath went out of Loya as well, in a series of convulsive gasps. Her body arched forward and back, her head twisted from side to side and battered itself against Blade's shoulder. Then before she could be still it was Blade's back that arched like a tightly-drawn bow, and his arms and legs that gripped Loya as though his life would cease the moment he let her go. He did not gasp, for there was no breath left in his body. He stood until his body had found all its release and the room began to swim around him from the lack of oxygen. Slowly he sank to the floor, without releasing Loya, and her head sank forward onto his chest with a last moment of grace. Then they had no strength left to keep them from sprawling on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs and damp hair.

The strength to look at each other swiftly returned. The strength to sit up, laugh, talk, eat dried fish and seaweed from Loya's pack came a little later. It was hours before they found the strength or the desire to join again. The first loving had drained both of them so that for a time they were unable to even conceive of desire, let alone feel it.

That was something rare for Blade, and it meant that Loya was something equally rare among women. That was no surprise. He'd suspected it since they first met. Now that he could be certain, he could also hope that uniting the Hauri and the Kargoi might not be so difficult-if he had the time.

Chapter 23.

Kayarna Kameda, Queen of Tor, sat on a blanket spread on the landward face of a sand dune a day's ride north of Tordas. She was naked, her long legs stretched out in front of her and her arms crossed over her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the flesh of her arms and legs were all tanned and admirably firm for a woman of forty-two, although the waist showed the thickening inevitable after bearing three children.

Without the three children, though, she would not have felt free to spend the remaining years of her life pleasing herself as she chose. Kayarna Deda had always been known as one who understood her duties and gave them the attention they deserved.

A man stood on the crest of the sand dune above her, looking out over the fog-shrouded sea. He also was naked, and Kayarna had to admit she preferred him that way. Duskas Mon had just enough brains to command a troop of the Royal Guards. His real talents lay in other directions, and Kayarna would keep him busy in those directions as long as he could do his duty. She would not give him anything else, no matter how often he lost his temper. She could always coax him back to her bed, and if some day she could not-well, there were other strong young guardsmen in plenty who could fill his place. She would not risk giving Duskas more than he deserved. Jealousy among the captains and n.o.bles over the advancement of royal favorites had cost more than one ruler of Tor throne and life.

She heard splashes and the squealing voices of young women on the far side of the dune. Kayarna sighed. The four serving maids who'd accompanied her and Duskas out here were bathing in the sea. No doubt one of the little fools had stepped on a stingray and would have to be carried back to the palace. The next time she came out here ....

Then the squeals turned into unmistakable screams of terror. Kayarna s.n.a.t.c.hed up her sword from the corner of the blanket, sprang to her feet, and rushed up to the crest of the sand dune without bothering to dress. As she reached the crest Duskas shouted, "Get down, Glorious One!" and shoved her so hard that she fell to her knees. She started to flare angrily at this disrespect, then got a good look at what was coming out of the sea and fell silent.

A s.h.i.+p's boat lay in the shallows, while fifteen men climbed out of it and waded toward the beach. Each one wore a long robelike garment of chain mail and a metal helmet with long sharp horns jutting out on either side. Each carried a sword or an axe at his belt, and three of them carried long metal tubes with some sort of sculptured decorations at the end they held. Farther offsh.o.r.e, half visible in the fog, Kayarna saw two large s.h.i.+ps, with more boats coming ash.o.r.e from them.

The four maids stood as if turned to stone while the steel-clad men tramped toward them. One of the girls shrieked and ran. Her panic made her clumsy. She went down, and shrieked again as two of the men fell on her before she could rise.