Part 7 (2/2)

'It can't be so,' Richter said, staring at the dark gypsy. 'You once gave me your kerchief. You swore eternal fidelity.'

'An' it is na' true, either,' Zito said, approaching the commander with his tough hands spread to either side, as if he were as perplexed by these accusations as the old man was. 'I wa' with him, tha' is sure. Bu' tha' does na' mean guilt! I am as loyal to tha' commanda' as-'

He was no more than ten feet from the commander when a thrown knife buried itself to the hilt in the center of his chest, ripping cleanly through his bulky coat and spearing flesh. Eyes turned in the direction of the knife, stopped on Mace who stood in the position of a marksman. 'He would have throttled you, Commander, or worse,' Mace said. 'It was in his face, believe me.'

Everyone turned to stare at Zito.

The gypsy was looking stupidly down at the blade buried in his chest, swaying back and forth as his pierced heart labored to pretend that death was not present, and the machinery that shared his flesh worked to knit the torn artery inside of him.

Mace spoke again, his voice self-a.s.sured, even though the dying man seemed only to be that and no more-certainly not a fiend whose body sheltered an alien life form. 'You told him to do no more than wound the guilty man whenever we discovered who it was. Instead, he placed that arrow in Cartier's neck, a deadly shot.' Mace turned to Zito. 'Were you frightened that what few traces of humanity remained in Cartier might turn on you and betray you if you only wounded him? Was it necessary to kill him so that he might not say the truth in his last moments?'

'It is na' true,' Zito gasped.

Blood bubbled up on his lips.

He looked beseechingly around the group, and finally a man named Hankins stepped forward and went for the wounded gypsy.

'No!' Mace shouted.

But it was too late. As Hankins touched the dark Coedone, the gypsy snarled, clasped the man in a death embrace.

Hankins screamed, fought to break loose.

The Coedone's face split, spewed forth snaking wires which stung into Hankins, threaded his flesh and sought out the core of him, slowly turning him into whatever it was that Zito had been. The living machine shrieked in triumph, using Zito's vocal cords.

From the ranks of the Banibaleers, four men threw their daggers. The weapons wobbled uncertainly, not made for throwing. But two of them found their mark in Hankins' back.

The writhing figures dropped on the snow, rolled against each other like some grotesque pair of unearthly lovers. The wires grew over them both, using their flesh to support extensions, whining, swaying, seeking!

In time, the machine was as dead as the men it had killed.

14.

The windbreakers were taken down and packed away.

A party was detailed to scoop out hollows in the snow, while a second party dropped twenty-four human corpses into the depressions and scooped loose snow over them. In time, they would be encased in ice, as fitting a grave for a mountaineer as any.

The huddled, nightmare forms of Cartier, Zito and Hankins were left untouched.

At Daborot's insistence, the men were fed, though no one had much of an appet.i.te that morning. A bit of bread, some coffee, a little cheese, and a healthy dollop of brandy was the average lunch. No one, for some reason only partially understood, wished to partake of the salted beef jerky.

Commander Richter pulled on the tough bread and looked down into the swirling mists and snow through which they must travel in the hours ahead of them.

The Shaker said: 'Eternal fidelity cannot exist, of course.'

Richter said: 'Of course.'

The Shaker: 'No man is eternal.'

Richter: 'Sometimes, I feel that I am.'

The Shaker: 'And circ.u.mstances affect fidelity.'

Richter: 'Perhaps the knowledge of the Blank-perhaps it was not meant for us.'

The Shaker: 'For Jerry Matabain, then? You see, nothing matters more than knowledge.'

Richter: 'Love, family, children, freedom, peace.'

The Shaker: 'Ah, but all of them fall victim to the man with a little knowledge. With knowledge, he can take your woman from you. With knowledge, he can destroy your family and leave only ashes. With knowledge, your children can become his slaves, your freedom can become the product of his whim, and your peace will be shattered by his l.u.s.t for war.'

Richter: 'You make me pessimistic.'

The Shaker: 'Not I. The world.'

And then they went down, hand-over-hand, piton-by-piton, foot-by-foot, into warmer climes where they spent a night without terror. And on the evening of the following day, they pa.s.sed the frost line and changed into cooler clothes as the mysterious lands of the continent's heart opened to receive them!

BOOK TWO.

The East!

15.

Forty-two men and four dark-feathered Squealers const.i.tuted all the living creatures within the Darklands expeditionary force as Commander Richter brought them, at last, to the dense jungles which they had observed ever since they had come out of the mists on the eastern side of the Cloud Range. They crossed more than a mile of open, stony ground where rocks thrust up like fragments of broken urns and shattered bottles, and at last they reached the almost impenetrable, steamy richness of the rain forest. All of this was accomplished at double the average marching pace, for the commander feared that the Oragonians might be running patrols of the no-man's land between jungle and mountains in their aircraft. They might have a contingency plan in operation to cover the eventuality of their a.s.sa.s.sins-Cartier and Zito Tanisha-meeting with failure. Forty-two men and four birds would be easy targets in open country for men riding in aircraft.

In the winding vines and ropy, exposed roots of the towering, interlocking trees, they huddled in the dense blue shadows and broke open the mess supplies for a meal of chocolate, dried beef and dried fruit, coffee and some brandy.

It was two hours early for supper, but the commander had decided that appet.i.tes came second to the safety of his men. The way ahead looked rugged, and he wanted them to be full and energized for the next leg of the trek. Also, he hoped to make a good many miles before camp, even if it meant marching until darkness barred any further progress.

And darkness came early here, in the shadow of the great mountains to the west.

It was not that he was in such a hurry to find the place to the north-two hundred miles east of the Oragonia High Cut-where the enemy was mining the treasures of the Blank, though he certainly did wish to fulfill his mission. No, what plagued him more was the urgency to be gone from this open ground, to be secreted as deeply as possible in these thickly growing trees and ferns, these vines and flowers that barred their way but would part before them. If a patrol plane cruised over their exit point from the Cloud Range, found their path, trackers might be set upon their trail; the more jungle between the Oragonian hunters and themselves, the better their chances of survival.

And now that he had lost more than half his men, now that his own and-figuratively-the General's son had died under his command, only the eventual success of his mission could redeem him. And even that would not erase the screams he had heard these last days. Even that would not erase from his memory the sight of the men falling from that rope across the chasm, the sight of slit throats and dead men whom he had known as friends and almost as sons. Those things would remain with him; he could only accept them and go on if he had eventual success with General Dark's plan.

The world, as Shaker Sandow had said, had made him pessimistic. Maybe he could force it to give him his optimism back.

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