Chapter 26
THE SUN WAS WELL UP and the clouds had dispersed by the time that Grimes was almost ready to fly Little Sister away from the scene of the battle. The bodies of the Darijjans killed in the fighting had been loaded aboard, as had been the serviceable weapons taken from the Shaara corpses. All that remained was the clearing of the carcasses of the hapless drones from around the twin lasers. Grimes would not entrust this distasteful task to anybody but himself; a power connection could so easily be broken by anybody unfamiliar with such weaponry.
He clambered up to the upper hull of the pinnace, using the handholds recessed into the shell plating just abaft the airlock. He looked with incipient nausea at the tangle of thin, hairy limbs, the tatters of chitin, the green ichor that was oozing disgustingly over the burnished metal. He gulped. But the job had to be done.
Before starting he took a good look around. There was no traffic on the river. There were no machines, either native or Shaara, in the sky (if there had been his radar would have given him ample warning). But there was noise—mechanical, but not the arrhythmic beat of an inertial drive unit, not the whine of the electric motor of a Shaara blimp, not the throbbing of the engines of a Darijjan airship. It was a peculiar, wheezing rattle and seemed to be coming from ground level.
Then Grimes saw them.
They were between the city and the Shaara landing place, coming slowly but steadily. The sunlight was reflected from bright metal, was illuminating clouds of dark smoke mixed with white steam. Four vehicles, Grimes decided, steam-driven, and behind them what looked like cavalry. He shouted down, “Lennay! Come up here! Bring a pair of binoculars with you!”
Lennay clambered up to where Grimes was standing with alacrity, handed him the powerful glasses. Grimes put them to his eyes, stared. There were four tall-funneled tractors, armored, rolling on huge, wide-rimmed wheels. Each towed behind it a truck in which men—soldiers almost certainly—were seated, stiffly erect, holding long rifles. The horsemen—although the beasts that they were riding were more like Terran camels—were similarly armed. Grimes switched his attention back to the vehicles. At the front end of each of them, forward of the engine, was a turret from which protruded the multiple muzzles of a heavy machine gun.
Grimes handed the glasses to Lennay.
“War wagons,” said the Darijjan.
“It’s time that we weren’t here,” said Grimes.
Lennay said, “Surely you have nothing to fear from our primitive weaponry, Captain?”
Grimes told him, “There’s been enough killing. Too much. The Shaara, the Rogue Queen and her people, are the real enemies. Not your people.”
Lennay said thoughtfully, “Perhaps you are right. If Samz is speaking through you, you are right, Captain Grimes. And it is possible that there are some of my men, of our men, among those soldiers . . . Perhaps if the gods deigned to display themselves . . .”
“Mphm,” grunted Grimes dubiously. “Meanwhile, I’ll just have time to clear this mess away from around the guns before we have to use them.”
“No,” said Lennay. “Leave the bodies there. They are proof that the sword of Delur is a mighty one . . .”
“Were you talking to me?” asked Tamara who had joined the two men a-top the pinnace.
“Yes, Lady Goddess.” (Grimes thought, He doesn’t address me in that tone of voice. But, of course, he’s too familiar with space captains to believe that they’re deities . . . Superintending Postmistresses are outside his past experience.) “Should you display yourself, standing triumphant on the torn carcasses of your foes, you will be a sign unto the faithful . . .”
“You mean that you want me to ride on top of the pinnace? I suppose that if I stand between the two guns I shall be safe enough—as long as Grimes doesn’t indulge in aerobatics . . .”
“Yes, Lady, between the cannon. Your feet on the bodies of your enemies. Your sword unsheathed. Your glorious body unclothed.”
“That should not be necessary,” said Grimes.
“But it is,” Lennay told him. “The Goddess Delur is always depicted naked in moments of triumph.”
She said, “All right. I’ll go through with it. After all, those bastards have already seen me without a stitch on, and this time I shall at least have boots and a sword belt . . .”
“Boots?” asked Grimes.
“Boots. I’m not going to stand on that . . . mess in my bare feet.” She unbuckled her pistol belt, handed it to Lennay. Her sword belt followed. She whipped off her tunic. She was naked under it. The sword belt she put back on. She drew the weapon from its sheath, held it aloft. She asked, “How do I look?”
“The very incarnation of Delur, my Lady,” said Lennay reverently.
Like somebody out of a nude version of a Wagner opera, thought Grimes. Nonetheless, the effect was decidedly erotic.
“I shall stay with you, Lady,” said Lennay. Grimes felt jealous but he was the only one capable of piloting the pinnace.
“It will be necessary for me, as High Priest, to call out to the multitude.”
If they can hear you over the clatter of the inertial drive, thought Grimes.
“And now, Captain, if you will take your post at the controls and fly us towards the war wagons . . .”
“I don’t like this,” said Grimes.
She turned to face him, nude, imperious, her skin shining like gold in the sunlight reflected from the burnished hull of the pinnace. She said, “Fly towards the city, slowly, not too high. I want the people to see me.”
“Suppose they shoot at you?”
“They have no anti-aircraft weapons,” she said.
But rifles can be aimed upwards, he thought.
“Do as I say,” she commanded.
It was a crazy idea, Grimes thought, but on this crazy planet it might just work. He resolved that if anything should happen to her he would exact bloody vengeance. He took one last look at her, standing between the twin cannon, her back to him, that absurd sword uplifted in her right hand, dazzlingly glittering, then clambered down to ground.
***
He took his seat in the control cab, watched by the two Darijjans, both of whom had made themselves comfortable among the corpses of their late comrades. He decided to leave the airlock doors open; after all he would not be proceeding at any great speed or altitude. As the pinnace rose he saw that the forces from the city were just topping a low rise. Now was the time for them to open fire on him, if they were going to. But, of course, they would not know yet that the pinnace was not still under Shaara control. The armored tractors came into full view as he lifted—the locomotives and the troop trucks and, behind them, the cavalry. He flew towards them. He wondered what the soldiers were thinking. Perhaps they would assume that this was just another show put on for their benefit by the Shaara, yet another public humiliation of the Terrans. But they would soon realize that this was not so. The spectacle of the woman with the drawn sword, trampling on the crumpled bodies of those who had been her persecutors, was such obvious symbolism.
He flew on, looking ahead and down. He could see that Tamara had been noticed (and who could fail to notice her?) by the soldiers. There was commotion in the open trucks being towed by the tractors. There was a burst of fire from one of the heavy machine guns with the bullets passing harmlessly below the pinnace. A cavalry officer had drawn his sword, was waving it, pointing it upwards. Some—by no means all—of the mounted men aimed their rifles at Little Sister, at Tamara. Grimes could only just see the muzzle flashes but the black powder smoke was visible enough.
All right, he thought. You’ve asked for it. Now you get it. A slight touch on the controls would dip the pinnace’s nose and bring the laser cannon to bear. But he hesitated. Such a maneuver could well throw Tamara off balance and topple her from her airborne pedestal to the ground; the transition from Winged Victory to broken corpse would be sudden and irreversible. He wished that he had been able to rig some system of communication between himself and those on top of the pinnace, but there had been no time.
Then he realized that the cavalrymen, although still firing, were fighting among themselves. The sword-waving officer fell, was trampled by the broad, splayed hooves of his rearing mount. Troopers toppled from their saddles. The infantrymen in the trucks were struggling hand to hand. One of the tractors peeled away from the line abreast formation, turned with surprising nimbleness and opened fire, with its heavy machine gun, on the one which had been its next abeam. There was a sudden cloud of steam as the boiler was ruptured.
Grimes heard Lennay’s voice. And how, he wondered, was the Darijjan able to speak to him? But the High Priest had clambered down the hull to the open airlock doors and was in the control cab. He was saying, “They are with us, Captain Grimes. They are with us. Fly on to the city, slowly. Let the goddess’s soldiers precede you . . .” Grimes cut fore-and-aft thrust, hovered. Looking down he could see that the three surviving tractors were turning, that the ground was littered with dead cavalrymen and the bodies of those who had been thrown from the troop trucks. He watched the depleted force regroup, proceed back to where they had come from. He saw two fast riders gallop ahead of the main body.
He said, “I am not making fun of your religion, but those soldiers were very easy converts.”
Lennay said, “Many of them were already true believers. And now they have seen the glorious, living proof that Madame Tamara is indeed the incarnation of the Lady Delur.”
“Mphm. She must be getting chilly up top. Or don’t goddesses feel the cold?”
“Please not to jest, Captain Grimes. And please remember that the God Samz is working through you, just as Delur works through Madam Tamara—although not so strongly. I cannot help but feel that He could have chosen a more suitable vessel. You are capable, that I would never deny. But you lack the . . . divine aura.”
“We can’t all be Handsome Frankie Delamere,” said Grimes.
“Your pardon, Captain?”
“I was just thinking out loud. Commander Delamere is an old . . . friend of mine. He’s long on presence, but short on ability.”
He adjusted thrust, slowly followed the soldiers to the city. Lennay left him, went to rejoin Tamara on top of the pinnace.