John Rackham (6 page)

"That
won't take long!" Jasar
laughed,
a surprisingly
deep laugh for such a small man. "You'll see, just as soon as we have them
all planted. If they work, you'll see such a tree as you never saw before, or
ever will again."

"And
the fruit of it?"

"Ah,
now, that's something quite different. This one won't stand long enough to bear
fruit. That's not what it is for. Think of it this way. I am going to climb it,
right to the top, so that I can get closer to the stars before I jump."
And Jack smiled dutifully at what he realized was a jest, so that Jasar laughed
again. "You think I'm joking, don't you? You'll see!"

As
they arrived back at their starting point the sun lay in red fire across the
rippling grass and the whole evening was hushed and quiet. Jasar plucked yet
another device from his belt and held it, looked up at Jack. "Now we shall
see. I repeat, as I've said before, there's no harm here for you, so don't be
afraid, whatever happens. Now!" and he moved a switch of some kind. In
that instant, from the blood-red quiet of the meadow, eight shimmering blue pillars
of fire streamed up into the sky, shaking the evening air with strong and
steady pulses like the unheard beat of a vast drum. Jack was too awed to feel
afraid, his neck creaking as he tried to see the top of those incredible
columns. They seemed to soar upward forever, vanishing into distance, piercing
the sky itself.

And
something was happening up there, a distant turbulence, difficult to
distinguish as blue against blue. The shimmering columns that had been all in
line, all straight, were beginning to bend as if blown inward by some giant
gale. Or more like some vast hand gripped them and squeezed them together at
the tips, for he could sense the strain, how they resisted coming together, how
they hummed like enormous bowstrings under tension. Yet they were bending,
bowing, arching unwillingly to a focal point, high above. Over his breathless
awe Jack heard his companion muttering.
"Never seen a
magnetic field and ionosphere to compare with this one.
No wonder I had
such a rough ride getting through. But it should settle and equilibrate, all
the same, now it's got this far. Come
on!"

He
had hardly spoken when there came a shattering, earthshaking snap of sound, and
in that instant the shimmering fire-columns grew smooth, still, as clean-cut
as fine arrows. Jack thought of the silver-rod structure of the ship, and some
instinct told him what had happened here. This was a framework, some kind of
skeleton on which to build. He was so instantly certain that he said it aloud
for Jasar to hear.

"They are but comer
posts!"

"Good
for you!" Jasar reached to thump his arm. "That is precisely what
they are.
A framework.
Impressive, isn't it? How high
do you think it is?"

"I have no way of guessing that. I cannot
see the top."

"That's
a sensible answer, too. Let me see; what were those units again? Ten chains to
a furlong, right? Hmml Base to apex, that grid-frame is a little more than
seven furlongs high. Does that help at all?"

"Nearly a mile high?"
Jack could hardly get the words out.
"What will grow on such a frame, Sir Jasar?"

"That's
a bit harder to explain. And we had better move off, leave it alone for a
while. There's going to be quite an energy field around this area for a while.
We had better go back and reassure your mother that we havent done anything too
scary. She's bound to wonder."

Widow
Fairfax stood in her doorway as they drew near, her careworn face alight with
fear and wonderment in the last light of the sunset. Jack turned to look back,
and couldn't blame her for her wonder. At this distance the standing columns
could be clearly seen to have curvature, straining into each other, leading the
eye upward to the

near-invisible
tip, far above in the darkening sky. And there
was something going on, now, all over the giant framework, a business of
spidery tracery budding from the columns and stretching across, matching and
interlacing and weaving, and all in an unearthly blue glow.

"It really is growing!" Jack
breathed.

"You
could call it that," Jasar agreed. "Remember the food machine? If you
take the basic stuff and do to it what an animal does, you have food meat? In
the same kind of way
that field is taking from the air and
soil
the necessary bits and pieces and growing branches to strengthen
the frame. But metal, not wood. And not fruit, but—as I told you—a high place
from which I can jump into the enemy's fortress."

"Then
. . . you were not jesting with me? That thing
...
is a ladder?"

'That is as good a name as
any I can think of, yes."

THREE

Inside the cottage again, with a refilled
beaker clutched in his lean hand, Jasar struggled with the business of trying
to explain.

"A
ladder for climbing up into the sky," he said, "is a nice picture,
but it won't get us very far with understanding anything."

"When
I was very small," Jack offered, "I was told gc-to-bed stories of
such things, and other marvels that were to be found beyond the sky."

"Stories
to make young eyes tired enough to sleep!" his mother protested quickly.
"They were not meant to be taken as true. I was told the same things when
I was small. You are too old, my son, even to be remembering such things."

"I
never really believed them." Jack smiled.
"AD your
giants, and fire-breathing dragons.
They were wonderfully exciting tales
for a child, but I think Jasar could tell of more exciting things that are
real."

Jasar
came down from a deep draft of ale and shook his head. "These are matters
on which I am not too well informed. Our wise men speak of a thing they call
the common unconscious, and perhaps they understand it. All I know is that
there are huge and fearsome creatures that breathe fire, sure enough, but they
exist on planets that are not pleasant places for humanoids to live on anyway,
and we seldom bother with them. And there are indeed giants, as I know only too
well, and they are a very different matter. You need to realize this much,
Jack. Of all the worlds of the Federation that I showed you, very few there are
on which there is no life at all. The urge to live is a mighty and potent one,
and it breaks out wherever there is the least chance. Investigating and
studying such things is

a
matter for our wise men. The rest of us are more naturally concerned with
those creatures that are reasonably enough like ourselves, that we can call men
without having to strain the word. There are enough of them. They vary in
several ways, and customs, and it is not surprising that those who are most
alike in manners and appearances tend the more easily to make firm friendships.
There is not so very much difference between you and myself, for instance, in
appearance and the way we think. Others are more different. And it is a
commonplace, and one we should not have been as surprised by as we were, that
all the Hilax Group of humanoids
are
...
on the big side."

"How big?"
Jack demanded, and Jasar did that head-tilt gesture of his again,
smiling wryly.

"Would
you believe a manlike creature fully sixty feet tall?"

"Now you do indeed
jest with me
I"

"Never.
That's one thing I wouldn't do, Jack. I assure you there are such
people. In fact I am about to take issue with some, if my plans work as well
from this point on as they have this far. I'm thinking now of the Dargoon. They
are a race of people from a huge light planet away over in Galactic Sector
Seven. But perhaps you ought to understand something else, first. With so many
different worlds we have many different ways, different talents and skills, and
all kinds of special abilities. In the Salviar Federation, for instance, the
people of Drith are our experts in shipbuilding. On Manataver they know more about
the skills and arts of weaponry than anyone else. And the people of Willan are
famous for scouts. I'm from Will an, and proud to uphold the name." At
that moment the little man didn't look proud at all, but dark and stern and
somehow sad. But then he seemed to shake it off. "I could go on a long
time listing them," he said, "but you wouldn't remember the half.
The point is, the Dargoon, now, are well-known for several abilities. First
their great size; second their lack of disturbing emotions; third their
memory-span; and fourth—which goes with it—their long life-span. Barring lethal
accidents, a Dargoon routinely expects to live some four hundred of your years,
often considerably more. So they make the ideal kind of people to man a space
station for long periods of time." Jasar put on a wry grin again. "It
always helps to know what you're up against. And I forgot to mention one aspect
in my favor. They move slowly. Physically, that is.
Nothing
slow about their thinking, at all."

Jack struggled to get his values arranged.
"Space station" meant little or nothing. He presumed it was consonant
with "fortress." But giants sixty feet or more tall were something he
could much more easily grasp. "You, by yourself, plan to meet and do
battle with giants?
Several of them?"

"Put
it like that and it does sound a bit stupid." Jasar laughed openly now.
"But it's no part of my plan to meet them, in your sense of it. I'm not
going to call out any Dargoon to single-handed combat, lad! It isn't like that
at all. I can't blame you for thinking along those lines,
it's
part of your way of life, and you're a lusty, husky young fellow. But when you
get to be my age you tend to use brain rather than muscle. Maybe I can show
you. We'll try my reader-screen again."

This
time, on that magical shimmer surface, he busied himself with his buttons and
produced a drawing, very simple. A circle inside another, quite small, and
then, outside that, were larger loops, slightly egg-shaped, right out to the
edge of the surface. "That," he said, "is a rough schematic of a
Hilax command station. This"—he indicated the central double
circle—"is the central control installation. The rest is environment
assist and defense screens."

"Walls
around a fortress," Jack translated, and Jasar snorted gendy.

"Call
it that, if it's easier for you. To give you some idea of the true size, this
little ring equals your cottage here and the fertile patches."

Jack
stared again at the egg-shaped lines within lines, at the dark ring in the
center, and then at the very tiny ring that Jasar had drawn, away out at the
left extremity. "It is a vast place indeed," he admitted. "Even
be they the giants you say, it must take many of them to defend such a
place."

"Not all that many, Jack. Not man power.
Machines do it.
Energy-weapons for attack and defense.
Force-fields and spy eyes for guard.
A force-field?
Do
you feel any thing when you go near my ship?"

"A
pricking in my skin and
an uneasiness
about my hair.
Is that what you call a force-field?"

"That's it."

"But we walked through
it with no harm!"

"We
did, certainly. But you
couldn't have done it on your own. This harness of mine carries a monitor that
opens the field for me whenever I wish. Call it a key in a lock. It also
provides a similar defense-field around me. Remember the way your arrow bounced
off? That I said you couldn't do me any harm?" Jasar tilted his head aside
again at Jack's expression. "You don't believe me, do you?
All right."
He peered about the dim interior of the cottage,
full of shadows now that Widow Fairfax had lit a tallow drip. "That blade
will do. Bring it." Jack stepped and got his father's tree-felling ax from
where it hung on the wall, brought it to the table, to see that Jasar had
folded up the screen-reading device into its original compact size, and was
now laying it on the oak-paneled floor.

"Don't
be afraid to swing the blade, lad.
Fm responsible.
Let's see you split that. I guarantee that you won't. I'm staking my life on
it, quite literally, so make it a good try."

Jack
eyed the small black box, no bigger than a small billet of wood, and took aim.
The blade hissed down
...
and twisted
aside and into the floor as it came within an inch of the box, almost wrenching
itself from his grasp. And it
happened
exactly the
same again on his second try. He didn't bother with a third. He stalked to the
wall and rehung the ax, trying not to show the fear he felt.

"You
are full of magic, Jasar.
Magic and strange words.
And
yet you are a man like
myself
. Smaller, darker of
skin, yet you eat and drink and sleep as I do. I find this confusing."

"On
the contrary, Jack, you are going along the right road to getting somewhere, to
not being scared of technology. That's a strange word to you, but it means
only that the skill and experience of many men has been put into use in a
machine. Let me ask you; could you bring down a tree with your bare hands?
Of course not.
But with an ax, you can. And what is an ax
but the skill and experience of some man, possibly a lot of men, somewhere,
some
time, made into a device that another man can use. A
force-field is only an extended idea along the same lines. Let's take another
look at that schematic I drew."

Jack
studied the egg-shaped lines with a new interest as Jasar pointed.
"Detector-screens on the outside.
They give the alarm.
Force-fields closer in, for defense.
These spots are
beam-projectors. Imagine the power of that field you tried to chop through, but
a hundred times greater. Wrap it up into a spear-shape and thrust with it, from
here and here, as fast and far as a light can shine. Or play a trick with it so
that it acts like a hook, and pulls, and call it a tractor beam. And then
forget it and pay attention, instead, to where the spots are located. See,
here and here? This is the side where they expect attack and are ready for it.
But this side, you'll notice, is comparatively defenseless. That's the back
wall that I intend to climb over. And once I'm inside, all those fancy beamers
are powerless against me. Once I'm inside I will make for here, the central
control. That's where it's all worked from, the nerve center."

"And where the
Dargoons are," Jack reminded him.

"
I’ ll
worry about those when I have to.
All
in good time.
For the moment I've nothing to worry about except that
grid,
and I think it is going to be all right anyway. It
will take some hours to consolidate. I can use those in making a thorough
overhaul of my ship and equipment." With deft movements of his hands he
collapsed and folded the reader-screen again and secured it to his belt, then
stood and turned to Widow Fairfax.

"Madam,
I thank you for your forbearance, your kindness, your hospitality toward me. I
regret there is nothing I can do that will adequately repay you for such
generosity, except perhaps that I may be allowed to add a few items to your
food-store."

"You
owe us nothing, Sir Jasar, but I confess I have a great liking for the platters
on which you brought that strange meal."

'Those?
You may keep them, and gladly. And if I may ask for another quantity of that
rare ale, I will replace it and more with a wine from my own stock. The least I
can do. And you, Jack, I'm grateful for all your help, a real pleasure to have
met you."

"How
will you go?" Jack broke the question into the formalities in a desperate
attempt to postpone them.

"That will be easy enough to do. When
the grid is ready and charged up, I will get the signal, in my ship. I will
then move it into the grid-base, run up on the field to the critical point, set
my astrogation, and twist. It will all happen as fast as you can blink your
eye . . . and
I’ ll
be gone."

"But what about the grid, as you call
it? Will it remain there?"

"Only for a while.
That's all part of the design. Either my mission will be successful, in
which case I will return by it, and then eliminate it
...
or I will fail. And not return. And it will cancel itself
away entirely at the set time. Either way, by this hour the day after tomorrow,
it will cease to exist and no trace of it will remain to bother you. You have
my word!"

Jasar
was very formal, very stem and dignified now. Jack didn't like it one bit. He
saw his little taste of strange, his high adventure, slipping away through his
fingers much too rapidly. The little goblin man was oddly impressive, valiant,
a hero-figure. Half in amazement at himself, all in uneasy fear, Jack heard
himself blurt out:

"Let
me come with you, Sir Jasar. Let me help. At the very least, I could guard your
back!"

"Oh no!"
By his side his mother gave a quick wail of dismay.
"Oh
no!
Jack! My son! What madness is this you speak?"

"She's
right, lad. You've a brave heart, a good head, and a strong arm. Ill grant you
all those, but they are not enough for a jaunt such as this."

"I can leam! I can
keep lookout for you!"

"
I’ ll
admit I could use another pair of eyes. This exercise
was meant for two in the first place. But those extra eyes would have to know
what they were looking for, and why. No, Jack, I'm grateful for your offer.
Honored by it.
But it wouldn't work. Have no fear,
madam,
I won't rob you of your son, your breadwinner. It's
my war, and I regret that it has touched you this close. I won't let it harm
you further."

"I
want to go with you," Jack insisted, adamant now. "What is there for
me, here, but to dig, and drudge, and die some
time.
You said a man can only die once. Better to die valiantly than as a
slave." He wheeled on his mother in overflowing frustration. "You
know I speak true. We cannot pay tithe this month. We will fall into debt and I
shall lose my freeman state. To be a serf!
A bondsman for the
rest of my days.
And what of you, my mother?
What will you do? Will you beg by the roadside, or enter Castle Dudley as a
kitchen drudge? There is no other choice open, as well you know."

"I
know only that I have lost one man already and will not lose another, and be
all alone in this world. You shall not leave me like that, Jack!"

"But
think, Mother!" he argued angrily. "If I go, and you are all alone,
then the tithe debt falls vacant. That is the law. At one stroke all is
changed. You will become the solitary Widow Fairfax, possessed of some land, a
little bit of attractive property . . . and there's many a goodman of the
village will find that a thoughtful matter. You'd not be lonely for
long, that
is sure!"

"What strange and unnatural wit is it
that makes you speak thus to me?" Widow Fairfax grew shrill and hurt.
"You are my son. Flesh of my flesh! I will not have you go away and leave
me, fly off to some strange and dreadful place, there to be killed. Why do you
so argue with me? I want you here, and there's an end of it!"