V
I stared at her, astounded, shocked—and suddenly remembering things.
“Barak,” I repeated foolishly. “Barak. Yes, I am Barak. I—how did I get here? Things are still so shadowy—but I’m beginning to recollect—”
“Try,” she begged. “Try hard. It’s the only way you can save yourself. Let me remind you; this world called Dondromogon was settled long ago by adventurers. For centuries their descendants built up a luxurious way of living. Messages filtered back to the old home planet—Earth, in the Solar System—”
“I remember that much,” I told her. “Something about a group of chiefs growing fat on the labor of the community, and killing those who threatened to rival them?”
“Yes. Calling those deaths necessary for the good of the race, but preserving really the soft and easily ruled of the race. And an expedition was sent, to point out that Dondromogon really was a colony of Mother Earth. Gederr received the Newcomers with false welcome, and tried to have them assassinated. But reinforcements arrived, and the war goes on—”
Again I did not let her finish. “And Gederr has been deceiving his followers, by the line of talk I heard from him! That the Newcomers are not rescuers or dealers of justice, but invaders and destroyers! I remember that, too!”
“Do you remember yourself?” she demanded. “Barak, the wonder warrior, who met the enemy by twos and threes, and conquered them like flies, like puffs of wind? Barak, mighty in battle, who offered to fight the whole Council of Dondromogon single-handed? Who led one digging assault after another, and who fell only to a stupid trick?”
“I don’t remember that last,” I confessed. “It is in my mind that I was somewhat rash, and had skill and luck enough to live in spite of my rashness, through several combats.”
“No time for modesty!” she chided me, and smiled despite the desperation of our plight. “You were a natural engine of warfare, Barak. And once you pursued your retreating adversaries far—too far—until it was Gederr himself who squirted anaesthetic gas upon you and felled you, senseless. Then they gathered around you, like carrion feeders, that whole Council, to see how they could profit best. And Gederr and Elonie, with Sporr’s help, made the decision.”
Her eyes held mine earnestly. “As you began to revive, with your wits still unguarded and baffled, Sporr and Elonie hypnotized you. They both know how to do that—”
“I fought off Elonie’s hypnotism last night,” I remembered.
“Because your knowledge of its danger remained in your subconscious. After that, you were placed outside—naked, without memory or knowledge. And a speaking device brought what would sound like a cosmic voice of destiny. After that, all was prepared to draw you into their plot as a tool.”
I groaned. It had been as simple and raw as all that. “But the legend of Yandro?” I asked.
She waved it aside. “Someone named Yandro did exist, in the old days when Dondromogon was not Council-ridden. When he died, it was suggested that he would return again in time of need. Many a time did Gederr inspire some better-than-ordinary fighting man to face you, Barak, by telling him that the soul of Yandro had wakened in him. But when you fell into their hands and they decided to use you, they twisted the legend to suit your coming—even with a picture and your own thumb print to help convince you.” She sighed. “Very few had seen your capture. Only Rohbar and the two guards you saw die would recognize you. Those three men, and myself, were in the farce.”
“You!” I said, and gazed at her. That lost former life was creeping back, like a dream becoming plain and fusing into reality.
“You, Doriza! I—remember you—”
“You should,” she murmured, pink-cheeked. “We used to say kind things to each other. With the Newcomers—remember?”
“You were one of us—a year ago! A technician in the synthetics department! But you vanished—and now you’re here! Why?”
“I—I—oh, don’t ask me that!”
I clutched her elbow, so fiercely that she whimpered. “Did you turn traitor? Answer me, Doriza!”
“You hurt me—don’t—Barak, before you call me a traitor, answer this. Are you wholly for destruction of this people of Dondromogon? Haven’t you changed?”
“Why—why—” And I paused. “I want to crush the Council, but the people—”
“Barak, I want to help them, too! The people—and you, Barak!” She looked at me beseechingly. “Can’t you trust me?”
My heart flopped over and over, like a falling leaf, but I could not steel myself against her. “You were sweet once, Doriza, though you went away from me.” As if by long practice, my arm encircled her.
“Believe me, I’m not a traitor,” she whispered against my shoulder. “I want to save you—and others—and myself—”
I shook my head. “They want to kill you. They shan’t. Let’s defend ourselves.”
For answer, she pointed to the door. A quiet humming sounded. I saw that a panel bulged and vibrated.
“Disintegrator,” she whispered in my ear.
I thrust her into a corner and moved close to the doorjamb. A moment later the rayed panel fell away in flakes, and a man stepped through, the officer who had tried to arrest Doriza.
I clutched the wrist of the hand that held his disintegrator pistol, and almost tore his head off with an uppercut. He went down, and Doriza caught up his weapon as it fell. There was a spatter of sparks as someone fired through the hole with electro-automatic pellets, but already Doriza was using the ray to knock a lock from a door beyond.
“One side,” I heard Gederr growl from the corridor. “I have a disintegrator, too. I’ll open a hole too big for him to defend!”
But we had hurried through the door Doriza opened. Beyond was a vehicle, the same that had carried us earlier in the day. “In,” she said, took the controls.
We rumbled away, not daring to speed and thus attract too much attention. Doriza drove us toward the point where conflict was being centered, and at a deserted stretch of the tunnelway braked us to a halt.
“We must know what they’re doing about us,” she said, and began to tune the televiso apparatus.
Figures leaped into view on the screen. I stared. Members of the Council—I recognized them—were marshalled against a wall, as if for a firing squad. And a firing squad faced them. Someone lifted a hand as a signal. The line of soldiers lifted their electro-automatics. I saw the play of sparks, heard the whip and thud of pellets. A form fell, another, another.
“They’re rebelling!” I cried. “Overthrowing the Council! Somehow,” and my heart sang wildly, “they know the truth!”
But Doriza put her hand on mine, and it trembled. “No, Barak. Watch.”
One of the riddled forms floundered and tried to rise. Elonie, no longer lovely, but an agonized and gory victim. Someone stepped forward and cooly shot her through the head. It was Gederr.
He faced forward. They brought broadcasting equipment to him, and he suddenly grew huge on the screen.
“Attention,” he bawled, “all true people of Dondromogon! We do not hesitate to kill traitors, even the highest of rank! Those false folk who made up the Council—they have died!”
He paused, glared, and swallowed. “I, Gederr, have discovered their plot! They foisted off upon us a man of the Newcomers as Yandro—caused us to accept him as a hero, when he was only the tool of their plan to betray and sell us!”
A cheer came from somewhere, and he went on.
“They are dead! I remain to lead and protect you! And my command is, find the false spy we accepted as Yandro! Search for him, find him and kill him!”
Doriza and I looked at each other. “Where now?” she asked.
“Toward the battle zones,” I replied. She closed a circuit and steered us away.
The main corridor was almost deserted—apparently noncombatants had been cleared out in anticipation of the battle. Again the speaker began to yammer, Gederr speaking again:
“All defenses on alert! Watch for this man, falsely called Yandro—very tall, strongly made, dark, young, scar on chin. He wears a red cloak. With him is a woman of medium height, young, light brown hair, blue eyes, more robust than common—”
“Not flattering, are they?” Doriza said, and smiled.
Up ahead, two guards gestured and bawled. One pressed a wall-button, and a folding barrier crept across our way. “Vehicles out of running,” said a guard as we slowed up.
“We’re on the trail of those spies!” I yelled from the dark interior. “Get that barrier out of our way!”
They hesitated, and Doriza threw in the speed-ahead lever. We smashed through and away. Cries rang in our wake, and slugs struck the rear of the vehicle. Two burned clear through the metal. I opened a panel to kick them out, and they scorched my foot, clear through the stout shoe sole.
“We must abandon this car, it’s marked.” Doriza was cutting speed. “Let’s jump, here in the shadows.”
I jumped through the open panel, and managed to stay on my feet, catching and helping Doriza as she jumped after me. The car hummed onward, and smashed loudly into the wall beyond. Guards ran into view from a doorway, chattering loudly.
Every back was toward us. We stole forward, and into the guardroom they had abandoned. I saw dials and mechanism of both televiso and speaker system. A couple of twists and pulls, and I had them out of commission.
“Slovenly discipline,” I growled. “They should have left at least one man in charge.”
Dropping the telltale red cloak Doriza had given me—how long ago? Yesterday?—I caught up instead a blue military cape, the property of some officer. There was also an ornate helmet, which I jammed on my head. “Stoop,” Doriza counseled. “You’re taller than any man on Dondromogon. Now, maybe you’ll get away with—whatever you’re getting away with.”
Emerging, I strode toward the wreck. A man saw my cape and helmet of authority. “Attention!” he called, and they stiffened respectfully.
“How close is the point of contact with the enemy?” I demanded with official brusqueness.
One pointed the way. “Not far, sir. We’re the last message-relay station. Everything’s in order, and—”
“Thanks,” I said, and beckoned Doriza. We walked past. I wondered what I could have done if these men had paused to think I might be the culprit for whom Gederr was clamoring.
Up ahead was a cross-tunnel, and beyond that a fork. We heard men talking and moving in the distance. Doriza pointed to an inscribed door.
“The way to the works below. I’ve seen it on the televiso. The mined floor of the main chamber has a second cavern below.”
I scowled. “As I remember, Gederr said he had blocked all advance tunnels of the Newcomers, except at one spot. What kind of explosives will he use?”
“Glare-rays,” said Doriza. “You wouldn’t know, Barak, the Newcomers haven’t any such. It’s a special vibration-speed that sets atoms at a pitch ready to fly violently apart. Anything it involves can be exploded at the first touch of fire.”
“Anything?” I repeated. “Weapons, men, earth? Doriza, can you operate such a ray?”
“I think I can.”
“Then come,” and I pushed open the panel.
The elevator cage was waiting, and its operation not hard to study out. Quickly we sped down and stepped forth into another great chamber, bright and echoing. A sentry confronted us.
“Your pass?” he demanded.
I chose to bluster it out. “What kind of idling goes on here?” I snapped at him. “I’m from the Council, to see if the report is true—that you haven’t made all ready for the ambush.”
“But we have,” he protested.
“You give me arguments, you insolent upstart? Where’s your commander?” I turned to face an officer that hurried up. “This sentry needs to be disciplined, taught respect for his superiors,” I scolded. “What have you to say, sir, about the laxity and slowness of work here?”
“But we’re ready and more than ready,” the officer assured me. “Look, sir,” and he pointed. “This whole cavern is dug out to completion, the overhead roof thinned for the explosion. See the play of glares upon it.”
I looked, and nodded as if in sour agreement. The earth floor was a maze of cables and coils, and here and there, strategically placed, were little wheeled stands with mechanisms atop. From each of these beat upward a cone of glaring golden light against the rough ceiling. It blinded me to look at them.
“The glares,” Doriza murmured.
I gazed at the men on duty. “Is nobody armed? What if the Newcomers get in here?”
The officer shook his head. “You know that weapons would be our own destruction. Electro-automatics, disintegrators, ray-sabers—they all give off flame. And a touch of flame in any one of these glare-fields would explode the whole chamber, and the solid soil around it, into atoms.”
I glanced toward the far end. “Up yonder I see no glares.”
“Of course not. Beyond and above is the point that coincides with the narrow approach left for the Newcomers.” The officer studied me narrowly. “If you are from the Council, why are you ignorant of all these things?”
It would be a difficult question to answer plausibly, but I was spared the task. Someone hurried from a little televiso shack and saluted the officer.
“Orders, sir. Important. We’re to withdraw immediately. The Newcomers are advancing, and the forces above will take over operation.”
“Of course,” the officer said, and turned from me to shout commands. Men began to hurry away past us, toward the elevator, eager to quit the post of danger.
“Come, Doriza,” I said softly, and she followed me along a wall. “Here’s one of those explosion mechanisms. If we can bring it between us—”
She did something to turn it off, and we trundled it along on its wheels. I pointed to the spot above which the entry-point was said to be, and toward it we went, unchallenged and unnoticed. We reached the earthy far wall, and it was steep, but with the point of my ray-saber I dug pits for hands and toes. Up I scrambled to the ceiling. There I paused, hanging like a bat.
“Disintegrator,” I called down to her.
“Dare we?”
“We must dare!”
She tossed me the disintegrator pistol. I turned it on and fate favored me once again. No explosion occurred. I tunnelled upward, upward, and climbed up the slanting chimney-like tunnel I made. Moments later, I broke into open air above.
I was in a necklike passage. Lying flat, I looked each way. To one hand was a great cavern, the ambush-space, in which Dondromogon’s warriors were cautiously ranging themselves. Opposite was a wide tunnel, empty as yet—a work of the Newcomers, into which this passage had been invitingly opened by the defenders. I was not observed as, rising to my knees, I tore my cape into strips and knotted them into a line.
I lowered it. “Fasten on the glare-ray,” I told Doriza, and when she had done so I drew it up. After it climbed Doriza herself.
“Now what?” she demanded. “I haven’t had time to ask.”
“Turn on the glare. Like that, yes—set it against one wall, and let it fall on the opposite, to fill this little passageway through which they must pass to fight each other.”
The golden glow sprang into being. At the same moment a shout rose from the direction of the corridor. A patrol of Newcomers appeared, and others behind.
I sprang erect.
“Attention, all!” I roared at the top of my lungs. “Fire no shots, send no rays, or you will all perish in the explosion! You came to fight, exterminate! But I—I, Barak, the foremost fighter on this planet—am here to see that it does not happen!”
And I drew the saber at my side.