Chapter 16
THE SUN SET behind the high buildings, the first gas lights flared in streets and alleys. The glaring spotlights came on, bathing the naked bodies of the prisoners in the harsh radiance. A worker standing by the projector switched it on and the screen stretched over a facade came alive with the all too familiar rendition of the erotic fun and games aboard Little Sister. When it was over there came the barrage of spoiled fruit and other garbage. Grimes and Tamara stood there, trying not to flinch, determined even in these circumstances to show that they were, after all, superior to their captors, their persecutors.
Somebody once said: It is a proud and lonely thing to be a man.
It was lonely all right, thought Grimes. As for the pride, he and Tamara were doing their best.
Then the show was over. The sullen worker threw their coarse blankets into the cage. The guards took up their stations for the night. The mob melted away. A light drizzle started to fall but the canopy over the cage protected the prisoners. Grimes did not feel sorry for the Shaara guard who were exposed to the precipitation. He said as much to Tamara.
She said, “There’s something . . . odd . . .”
“Odd?”
“The . . . smell . . .”
Yes, there was a strange odor in the air, carried on the slowly writhing tendrils of mist, a sweetish aroma, intoxicating almost. Almost? Grimes was beginning to feel light headed. He laughed foolishly. He muttered, “Come to Darijja, the vacation planet, where it rains gin . . .”
She nipped his arm painfully. “Snap out of it, Grimes! Something is happening!”
“And it can go on happening,” he said happily.
“Look!” she said.
Dimly seen grey-cloaked figures were creeping into the square, converging on the platform on which stood the cage. The guards, standing like statues, ignored them. One of the natives approached a drone, raised his right foot, pushed rather than kicked. The Shaara topped over, lay there with all four arms and both legs in the air, twitching slightly. The other drones, the workers and the princess paid no attention.
Two Darijjans clambered on to the platform, approached the cage. Grimes saw the gleam of metal, tensed himself for an attack. But none came.
A heavily accented voice whispered, “We . . . friends. We Deluraixsamz . . . We to you make bow . . .”
He suited the action to the words.
The other man was busy with a file, muttering to himself as he worked. A trickle of glittering, metallic dust slowly grew to a tiny pile on the platform. Losing patience he grasped the bar with both hands, jerked. It parted. The second bar was a tougher proposition but at last it was filed through, bent out and sidewise.
“Come,” urged the speaker. “Come!”
Grimes wriggled through the opening, helped Tamara out. They wrapped the blankets about themselves like togas then jumped down from the platform. The cobblestones were hard and cold underfoot.
He started to walk toward the fallen drone but his guide grasped his garment roughly. “Come! Come!”
“Weapons,” said Grimes.
“We take. Come.”
Grimes saw that the grey-robed figures were busy about the motionless Shaara. He saw the flash of a knife. So this was turning out to be a minor massacre. He said, “You’ve gone too far. There will be retaliation.”
“We not here in morning,” said the native.
Grimes sighed inwardly. It had always happened. It would always be happening. Guerrillas would stir up a hornets’ nest—a very apt analogy—and citizens who had no wish for anything but a quiet life would pay the penalty. But in troublous times those who do nothing to resist the invader might well deserve all that comes to them . . .
He and Tamara hurried across the slimy cobblestones in the center of a small crowd of the devotees of Delur and Samz, whoever and whatever they might be.
***
They walked rapidly through deserted, gas-lit streets. It was still drizzling, although the light precipitation was now devoid of artificial additives.
They came to a large building with an ornate, pillared facade. The huge main doors were shut but they passed through a small side entrance, made their way through a great hall dimly illumined by a few flickering gas-jets, decorated with huge pictures that, as far as Grimes could see in the uncertain light, were crudely painted landscapes. Another small door admitted them to a long platform, beyond the edge of which parallel lines of metal gleamed faintly.
A railway station . . .
But where was the train?
There was no locomotive, no string of carriages. But there was a vehicle that was little more than a platform on wheels surmounted by a framework from which projected two cranks.
“Come!”
That seemed to be the only word that their guide knew. Grimes and Tamara jumped down from the edge of the platform on to the car, a half dozen of their rescuers followed. The cranks were manned and the crude vehicle rattled out of the station, picking up speed. Two others came behind it; all the guerrillas were making a getaway. Through the misty darkness they moved, picking up speed, through the town, out into the countryside. They clattered over a bridge, toiled up a steep incline with extra hands at the cranks, rolled down the other side with the driving mechanism out of gear. There was a deep cutting, a tunnel smelling of damp and soot.
Nocturnal animals cried in the bush to either side of the track—a weird ululation, a harsh cackling. Something clattered overhead, shrilly keening. Somebody started to sing aboard the rear rail car, a rhythmic chant that sounded as though it should have been accompanied by throbbing drums and squealing fifes. Other voices took up the chorus. The leader shouted loudly and angrily and there was silence—apart from the natural noises and the rattling of their progress—again.
Ahead there was a dim, flickering light. The cars slowed, halted. “Come!”
They scrambled down on to the rough gravel beside the track. Grimes cursed as the sharp stones cut the tender soles of his feet, heard the girl cry out softly. Once they were away from the ballast the footing was better, soft moss by the feel of it. By the faint light of the lantern the humans watched the natives working around the rail cars. They were rocking them, pushing them, grunting and panting. The first one, finally, was off the track. It was shoved away from the opposite side of the track, moving reluctantly as its wheels bit first into the gravel and then the soft, mossy soil. Then, suddenly, it seemed to leap away from the men shoving it. It vanished to the sound of an oddly subdued and soft crashing that abruptly ceased. Some rudely disturbed animal screamed.
The second car followed, then the third. They had been disposed of, Grimes realized, down a deep ravine—one that, Grimes thought and hoped, was masked by thick vegetation. “Come!”
The dim, yellow lantern, stinking of partially consumed animal oil, was bobbing away into the bush on the side of the railway track away from the gully. There was a path, of sorts, barely wide enough for the party to proceed in single file. There were wet, feathery growths that brushed their faces, spiny twigs that reached out for them from all sides. The going was hard, uphill. Grimes was sweating inside his makeshift garment, wished that he could discard it, but by this time he had acquired a healthy respect for the nudity taboo of these people.
Ahead of him Tamara’s blanket was snagged on a thorn, was snatched from her. Her pale body was almost luminescent. A low cry went up from the natives. “Delur . . . Delur . . .” There was no menace in it. She retrieved her covering from the bush, slowly wrapped it about herself. “Delur . . . Delur . . .” There was still worship, but mixed with it was . . . regret?
“Come!”
The upward trudge continued.
And there was another light ahead of them, a flickering red flame set in the mouth of a cave. There were figures around the small fire who raised their arms to bring them sweeping down in a salaam-like gesture, who cried, “Delur . . . Delur . . . Samz . . .”
“We here,” said the guide.
At least it made a change from “Come! . . .”