The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton
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nobody would ever think to look. Not a planet, of course, just a floating workshop. A satellite. And now you know. So you can let them beat you to Mercury.”
“All right,” said Bellaver softly. “All right.”
They passed Mercury, lost in the blaze of the Sun, and only a few ships followed them, far behind. The rest stopped to search the craggy valleys of the Twilight Belt, and the bleak icefields of the Dark Side.
And now Hyrst had run his string out, and he knew it. When no intra-Mercurial satellite showed up, physically or on detector-screens, there was no further lie to tell. He drove his mind out and away, to the cold planets wheeling on the fringes of Sol’s light, and he sweated, and prayed, and hoped that nothing had gone wrong. And suddenly the cloak was dropped, and he saw a lonesome chip of rock beyond Pluto, all hollowed out for shops and living quarters, and the great ship standing in the mile-long plain, with the stars all drifted overhead. And the ship lifted from the plain, circled upward, and suddenly was not.
Hyrst was bitterly sorry that he was not aboard. But he told Bellaver, “You can stop looking now. They’ve got away.”
He watched Bellaver die, standing erect on his feet, still breathing, but dying inside with the last outgoing of hope.
“I thought you were lying,” he said, “but it was the only chance I had.” He nodded, looking toward the shuttered port with the insufferable blaze outside. He said, in a flat, dead voice, “If you were put out here, bound, in a lifeboat, headed toward the Sun—Yes. I could make up a story to fit that.”
In the same toneless voice, he called his men. And suddenly the yacht lurched over shuddering in the backwash of some tremendous energy. Hyrst and the others were flung scattering against the bulk-heads, and the lights went out, and the instruments went dead.
Beyond the port, on the unshuttered side away from the Sun, a vast dark shape had materialized out of nothing, to hang close in space beside the yacht.
Hyrst heard in his mind, strong and clear, the voice of Shearing saying, “Didn’t I tell you the brotherhood stands by its own? Besides, we couldn’t make a liar out of you, now could we?”
Hyrst began to laugh, just a little bit hysterically. He told Bellaver, “There’s your starship. And Shearing says if I’m not alive when he comes aboard to get me, that they won’t be as careful about warping space when they go away as they were when they came.”
Bellaver did not say anything. He sat on the deck where the shock had thrown him, not speaking. He was still sitting there when Hyrst passed through the airlock into the starship’s boat, and he did not move even when the great ship vanished silently into whatever mysterious ultra-space the minds of the Lazarites had unlocked, outbound for the limitless freedom of the universe, where the wheeling galaxies thunder on forever across infinity and the stars burn bright, and there is nothing to stop the march of the Legion of Lazarus. And who knew, who could tell, where that march would end?
Aboard the starship, already a million miles away, Hyrst said to Christina. “When they brought me back from beyond the door, that was re-awakening. But this—this is being born again.”
She did not answer that. But she took his hand and smiled.
DREAMER’S WORLDS
Reining in his pony on the ridge, Khal Kan pointed down across the other sands of the drylands that stretched in the glare of the crimson, sinking sun.
“There we are, my lads!” he announced heartily. “See yonder black blobs on the desert? They’re the tents of the dry-landers.”
His tall young figure was straining in the saddle, and there was a keen anticipation on his hard, merry young face.
But Brusul, the squat warrior in blue leather beside him, and little Zoor, the wizened third member of the trio, looked uneasily.
“We’ve no business meddling with the drylanders!” accused brawny Brusul loudly. “Your father the king said we were to scout only as far west as the Dragal Mountains. We’ve done that f and haven’t found any sign of the cursed Bunts in them. Our business is to ride back to Jotan now and report.”
“Why, what are you afraid of?” demanded Khal Kan scoffingly. “We’re wearing nondescript leather and weapons—we can pass ourselves off to the drylanders as mercenaries from Kaubos.”
“Why should we go bothering the damned desert-folk at all?” Brusul demanded violently. “They’ve got nothing we want.”
Little Zoor broke into sniggering laughter. His wizened, frog-like face was creased by wrinkles of mirth.
“Our prince has heard of that dryland princess—old Bladomir’s daughter that they call Golden Wings,” he chuckled.
“I’ll be damned!” exploded Brusul. “I might have known it was a woman! Well, if you think I’m going to let you endanger our lives and the success of our reconnaissance for a look at some desert wench, you—”
“My sentiments exactly, Brusul!” cried Khal Kan merrily, and spurred forward. His pony galloped crazily down the crimson ridge, and his voice came back to them singing.
“The Bunts came up to Jotan,
Long ago!
The Bunts fled back on the homeward track
When blood did flow!”
“Oh, damn all wenches, here’s an end of us because of your fool’s madness,” groaned Brusul as he caught up. “If those drylanders find us out, we’ll make fine sport for them.”
Khal Kan grinned at the brawny warrior and the wizened little spy. “We’ll not stay long. Just long enough to see what she looks like—this Golden Wings the desert tribes all rave about.”
They rode forward over the ocher desert. The huge red orb of the sun was full in their faces as it sank toward the west. Already, the two moons Qui and Quilus were rising like dull pink shields in the east.
Shadows lengthened colossal across the yellow sands. The wind was keen, blowing from the far polar lands of this world of Thar. Behind them rose the vast, dull red shoulders of the Dragal Mountains, that separated the drylands from their own coastal country of Jotanland.
A nomad town rose ahead, scores of flat-topped pavilions of woven black hyrk-hair. Great herds of horses of the black desert strain were under the care of whooping herdsboys. Smoke of fires rose along the streets.
Fierce, swarthy drylanders whose skins were darker than the bronze faces of Khal Kan and his companions, looked at the trio with narrowed eyes as they rode in. Dryland warriors fell in behind them, riding casually after them toward die big pavilion at the camp’s center.
“We’re nicely in the trap,” grunted Brusul. “Now only wit will get us out. Which means we can’t depend on you, Khal Kan.”
Khal Kan laughed. “A good sword can take a man where wit will stumble. Remember, now, we’re from Kaubos.”
They dismounted outside the great pavilion and walked into it past cat-eyed dryland sentries.
Torches spilled a red flare over the interior of the big tent. Here along rows, on their mats, sat the chiefs of the desert folk, feasting, drinking and quarreling.
* * * *
Upon a low dais sat old Bladomir, their highest chief. The old desert ruler was a bearded, steel-eyed warrior of sixty whose yellow skin was grizzled by sandstorm and sun. His curved sword leaned against his knee, and he was drinking from a flagon of purple Lurian wine.
Khal Kan’s eyes flew to the girl sitting beside the chief. He felt disappointment. Was this the famous Golden Wings, this small, slight, slender dark-haired girl in black leather? Why, she was nothing much—mildly attractive with her smooth black hair and fine, golden-skinned features—but not as pretty by half as many a wench he knew.
The girl looked up. Her eyes met Khal Kan’s. The stab of those