Part 14 (2/2)

And they were gone.

It was necessary to handle all the steerage on their own cognizance, for the computerized auto-pilot that had been built into the submarine was set to guide by a map of a world that was no longer accurate. The continents were far different than once they had been. There were new seas and new rivers, and many of the old ways had been sealed shut as if they had never existed at all. The builders of the dragon had originally intended the escape route to run beneath the Cloud Range by means of a subterranean river which fed from this lake, then into the Shatoga River, from there into a fjord at the bottom of the Banibals, far south and on into the Pacific Ocean (which was now called the Salamanthe Sea). But the Cloud Range had not even existed then. And the Banibals had been smaller and less extensive. Such a route now ceased to exist. Instead, the Darklanders found a water pa.s.sage from the lake to the Great Inland Sea where the Salamanthe Islanders had once or twice ventured a short distance along the coast. From there, they pa.s.sed through Bortello Straits into the Northern Sea which eventually flowed into the Salamanthe. Striking south, they eventually reached the coast of Oragonia, moving faster than any of the strange fish they viewed along the way. They handled the huge vessel with ease, the sleep-teach tapes having made sub-surface sailors of them in a short time.

From the moment they had boarded the vessel, Shaker Sandow had been prowling from one end of her to the other. He slept little, unable to rest easily in such a wonder-packed machine. He spent time before the amber portals, looking out upon the sea bottom, watching octopodial creatures half as large as their s.h.i.+p, smaller fish, great kelp beds waving as if in a breeze.

Thirty-six hours after their departure, at three o'clock in the morning, he was busy playing with the garbage disposal unit in the small galley where foods other than the protein cubes were prepared. The disposal unit seemed to sum up the richness of the science of the ancient men who had constructed the dragon. To think that such an ingenius and complicated device had been built for such a mundane problem as trash acc.u.mulation was more than a little awe-inspiring.

Four feet above deck level in the galley, against the outside bulkhead, stood a bronze pipe ten or twelve inches in diameter, with a heavy, hinged lid and screw clamps to keep the weighty cover in position. Because the dragon had been meant to remain underwater for months at a time, this had taken the place of nighttime disposal dumps made when the vessel surfaced. The bronze tube went to the bottom of the submarine. On the lower end, there was a heavy water-tight hatch much like the one in the galley, with inter-connecting controls that made it impossible for both to be open at the same time-and thus flood the s.h.i.+p. The garbage, then, was placed in tough plastic sacks and weighted with stones which were kept for this purpose only. The galley hatch was closed after a few sacks of trash, and the stuff was pumped out under pressure, then the outer door closed again. It was necessary to weight the bags to keep them from floating to the surface and thus give clue to the position of the dragon.

A bag full of nothing but stones had been forced out the tube, and the Shaker was watching the red and green safety lights above the disposal unit with childlike intensity, when Tuk appeared in the doorway.

'Ah, there you are, Shaker!' the red-haired youth said swinging through the open hatch.

'Here I am,' Sandow affirmed. 'And there are you And do you make a habit of stealing quietly through the corridors trying to scare the wits out of tired old men?'

Tuk smiled. 'Aye, that I do. If the tired old men are too frisky yet to hie themselves to bed.'

'I have been to bed,' Sandow said. 'And I find it unappealing.'

'That's because you don't take the proper company with you,' Tuk said, grinning.

'Aye, and what would I do with the proper company if I had her longside me 'neath the sheets? I have long since lost my vitality.'

Tuk laughed, then grew more serious as he seemed to remember what he had come for. 'The commander sent me with a message, and when I could not find you in your bed, I began a search of the s.h.i.+p.'

'Message?'

'We are off the coast of Oragonia at a point some three miles from the harbor of their capital, Blackmouse. The harbor lanterns are visible, but little else.'

'I suppose the war resumes for us,' Sandow said.

'Aye, Shaker, it does.'

'Let us go then and watch the dragon spit its fire.'

They left the galley and the marvelous garbage disposal for the fore quarters of the long s.h.i.+p.

Richter and Crowler and Mace and Gregor, plus half a dozen other Darklanders were waiting on the guidance deck, before the two amber windows of the vessel. They were riding on the surface, the windows just above the slopping darkness of the sea. All lights in the main cabin had been extinguished so that they did not present a display for anyone who might be watching from the docks. The only illumination came from the pulsing scopes of the instruments, the lightly glowing panels of dials and gauges. These threw their features into dark blue bas relief and gave them all an other-worldly color that reminded the Shaker, for a brief moment, of the way they had looked in the jeweled forest in the east.

'And now what?' the Shaker asked, peering through the viewports toward the dock lights of the enemy capital.

'At first,' Richter said, 'I had intended to use sh.e.l.ls upon the town. Not nuclears. Pray that we can avoid those no matter what transpires. But now I do not believe that sh.e.l.ling the city is necessary either. There on the slopes above the town lies the Matabain castle.'

There were a few lights there, barely enough to outline the thrusting towers and the hard, high walls of the mad emperor's domain. It seemed so distant and unreal that they might have been fighting a war of the imagination. It was suddenly obvious to the Shaker why the more civilized men of earlier eras had dealt so heavily in war. Long-distance wars, from submarines and aircraft and rockets.h.i.+ps, was impersonal or seemed to be. The killer did not think of himself as the killer-but merely as a technician, a cog in the great wheel of things.

'And you plan to sh.e.l.l Matabain's castle in hopes the armies will flounder without him. But remember that another man will a.s.sume the tiller of state. One man is not responsible for a nation's policy.'

'More than the castle,' Richter said. He turned and looked back to the land. 'Up there on the slopes, laid out as nice as you please, are fifty aircraft and many other land vehicles. Perhaps the largest part of the enemy a.r.s.enal lies before us.'

Sandow strained. 'I see nothing,' he said at last 'Is this wishful thinking that guides you?'

Richter turned and handed the Shaker a pair of heavy, enormous binoculars. 'Look upon it with those and see if you do not note what I have told you, friend. Luck indeed has turned upon us.'

The Shaker raised the gla.s.ses to his eyes, grunted his surprise. Through some magic mechanism in the instrument, night was driven away and everything seemed as brightly lighted as if the sun shone. He had to remove the binoculars for a moment to check whether this was perhaps the case. But stars were there in blackness, no sun. He looked again, saw the aircraft banked along the slope beneath the towering castle walls. There were lumbering trucks and other ground vehicles, a wide a.s.sortment of weapons of war, there for the plucking.

'It will not be all his supply,' Sandow said.

'Of course,' Richter agreed. 'We know that aircraft and ground vehicles now work in the lower colonies of the Darklands. So this is not all, but some, a good many, a large blow to them.'

'You speak as if you've heard more word about the way the Darklands fare in all this.'

'An hour ago,' Richter said, 'we intercepted radio reports between the castle and aircraft to the south in our home counties. It is said that only Far Walk, Lingomabbo, Jenningsly and Summerdown are still under the reign of General Dark. All other twenty-seven counties have succ.u.mbed to the Oragonian forces. There are reports of slave camps in the fallen colonies, of women pressed to service as prost.i.tutes. General Dark and his wives now reside in Summerdown, by the fjord, with nowhere to go if the last perimeters of their defenses fall. Jerry Matabain has ordered the General executed immediately upon capture, his body to be returned to Blackmouse for a public disembowlment and burning.'

'They are not playing games, then.'

'No games.'

'Then let us move swiftly,' Shaker Sandow said. 'Every hour may mean life or death to our master.'

Richter turned to Crowler who was manning the armament station. 'Have you got the range, Sergeant?'

'Radar identifies it: three and a quarter miles, sir.'

'Very well. To protect the citizens in the buildings immediately downslope from the castle, we'll use implosion missiles. That should reduce flying debris considerably.'

'Aye, sir!'

'Fire three rounds when ready,' Richter directed.

Everyone but Crowler turned to the amber viewports.

There was a slight whoofing noise a bit aft and above them. Air was sheared apart above the submarine, and thin white vapor marked the trail of the first rocket for a hundred feet before darkness swallowed even that. The hissing came twice again in close succession, presenting two more wispy white tentacles that terminated in blackness.

They waited.

Time seemed to slow, almost as it had in the city when the Shaker had realized that he must kill in order to save young Gregor from that harsh burden of guilt The night remained black.

The night remained quiet Then it turned white and red and made sounds like a herd of stampeding cattle running across the membrane of a huge drum.

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