Part 104 (2/2)

Ready for our little bash?”

”You should be dead!” they cried.

The s.h.i.+ning One lifted his bejewelled pauldrons in a rueful gesture. ”The Adversary had other games to play. Are you two ready to get on with this one?”

The ogrish mates grinned then, showing white pointed tusks.

Sharn remarked, ”So Remillard's gone, eh? Well, he left us a nice souvenir that we'll take great pleasure in demonstrating to you.”

”You might call it a winning game plan,” Ayfa added. ”And you're going to be quite impressed with the postgame festivities, too!”

Aiken held up one plated finger. ”Let me make just one little announcement.” And his mind-voice rolled and echoed over the Field of Gold, silencing the tumultuous audience and the impatient teams.

I speak to the humans, Aiken said, and to those other persons of goodwill who seek to live in a world of peace. The time-gate leading to the Galactic Milieu is now open.

Sensation! Sharn and Ayfa gaped at each other, thunderstruck.

All throughout this Fifth Day of the Grand Tourney my aircraft will shuttle back and forth between here and the time-gate site.

They will transport any who wish to go. You may take with you only what can be carried in one arm and nothing that belongs to Me. I myself intend to stay and rule this Many-Coloured Land as High King after seating Myself in triumph upon the Singing Stone at the end to today's play. I invite those who love this place to stay also.

”Lowlife!” Sharn raged. ”Upstart jackanapes!” screeched Ayfa.

The t.i.tanic ball rose into the air, impelled by the psychokinesis of Sugoll, Katlinel, and the Howlers. When it reached an alt.i.tude of about forty metres, the Marshal of Sport commanded: ”Play ball!”

Cras.h.!.+ The heavy spheroid fell to earth. The opposing teams surged forward, the audience shrieked, and the final contest of the Grand Tourney began.

Ten persons per trip, twenty trips per hour.

After the young North Americans had been translated, and those of the Guderian Project who wanted to return to the Milieu, the time-gate exodus settled down into a fairly routine operation, organized and supervised by Chief Burke, Basil, and those of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who weren't doing pilot shuttle duty. The commandant of the Roniah garrison, a cheerful little Walloon PK-head named LeCocq, helped maintain order with a small force of loyal greys.

Tony Wayland was caught trying to sneak off to Nionel on a returning aircraft. Burke frogmarched him back to the gazebo and gave him into the charge of an armed guard, with orders that Tony was to stay with the skeleton staff of gazebo technicians who had agreed to stand by in case the apparatus broke down again.

”But the King promised I could go to my wife!” Tony protested.

Burke picked him up by the scruff and dangled him nose to nose. ”I still remember the Vale of Hyenas, White Eyes, and for two bits I'd give you a roundtrip in that time-machine and use your ashes to polish my tomahawk! Now sit there with the others and wait, dammit!”

Tony waited.

The next morning, the aircraft coming from Nionel were only half-full, carrying only the most homesick of the Pliocene exiles, those who had yearned for years to return to Elder Earth. As long as King Aiken-Lugonn and the Tanu put up a good sc.r.a.p in the hurley-burley, there seemed no need to rush into making the big decision.

Then, some time early in the afternoon, Sharn and Ayfa finally sorted out the fine points of Marc Remillard's metaconcert program and began to use it efficiently. Not only did the Firvulag come up from behind in the scoring, but they began to inflict serious injury upon members of the Tanu team, singling out stalwarts such as Celadeyr of Afaliah, Lomnovel Brainburner, and Parthol Swiftfoot, who had been especially skilled ball carriers. The three were savagely red-dogged and had to be retired to Skin.

With the tide of fortune turning toward the Little People, the mood of the human spectators darkened. They recalled the rumours of impending war-no mere brushfire action such as had taken place at Burask and Bardelask, but a conflict that might involve the entire continent. Pondering their sombre options, the Lowlives watched rampaging waves of Tanu and Firvulag surge about the devastated turf of the Tourney field like a living maelstrom. Nightmare illusions were everywhere.

The aether throbbed with a h.e.l.lish din. Mind-bolts, nauseating psychic eructations, and quasi-material missiles were flung in all directions. Frenzied ogres sought to tear their outnumbered Tanu opponents to pieces. Herds of stampeding dwarves stomped fallen torced humans into the b.l.o.o.d.y dust. Tanu redactors and the scuttling little cadres of Firvulag nurses could scarcely haul away the injured without being mortally endangered themselves.

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