Sandcats of Rhyl (22 page)

The sandcats were more brutal in their ideas of retribution. No rehabilitation, no mental correction. Death. Death, slow and painful if the crime merited it. Slayton’s crime had.

Friend who saved me … listen to the Old One … I
will speak for you and the others … you must not fall into the trap of the Wand of Command … it eats your body and soul … please!

The Guardian’s thought was no less precise than the Old One’s had been. Nightwind looked and easily picked out the Guardian from the ranks of the beige-furred sandcats. With the scepter, it was all so easy. He could … he could … what?

He was super-human. He was a god. He could create. He could destroy. His mind could span light years in a split second. He could see all of time, past and future. What good was power if it wasn’t used?

“You would all obey me?” Nightwind asked aloud.

YES!

The mental roar deafened him. The sick feeling in his gut twisted like a knife when he realized Heuser and Steorra joined in the chorus.

The scepter. Power. Unlimited power. It wouldn’t corrupt him. He was a fair man, an honest man. He wasn’t Lane Slayton. He could resist the call of the Circe wand. Used only for good, this was the most potent force in all the universe. He could be the savior of mankind. Curing ills, righting injustice, he would be remembered as the greatest man who ever lived.

Deep inside, he felt the crawling of a worm. It was beginning to eat away at his confidence, his restraint, his knowledge of right and wrong. The scepter itself was evil and must be destroyed.

But the power. He was strong. He could fight it. He could win.

With great reluctance, Nightwind lowered the scepter to the altar in front of the throne. The jewels continued to pulse with their own pseudo-life for long minutes after his hands left the warm handle of the rod. Tiredness smashed into his body. His left arm was hurting and the agony he felt from the collarbone almost caused him to pass out.

Worst of all, the sandcats rose en masse. The look in their blazing amber eyes was not gratitude. Nightwind knew he had only to reach out, touch the scepter, and command. They would obey instantly. The danger would be eliminated. He didn’t do it.

Halt!

The Old One’s thought was still clear but lacking in the definition it once had. The scepter would put him in direct in-depth communication with the sandcat. Nightwind’s hand trembled above the jeweled rod. He pulled it back.

“Rod, if …” Heuser began.

“Quiet. There must be some other way out of here. I … I just can’t use the scepter. Don’t ask me why.” He looked into Heuser’s eyes and knew his friend understood, at least partially. The brief glimpse into the cyborg’s mind convinced him Heuser was able to perceive why the scepter was not the answer to their problem.

He glanced at Steorra. She was pale, but her shoulders were pulled back and her posture erect. No matter what came, she would bravely face it. Frightened, even terrified, she would do what was necessary. He recognized courage — true courage — in her. Bravery was overcoming fear, not being totally lacking in fear. Only the fool or the insane person was never afraid; they could never be brave. In spite of her idealistic outlook, Nightwind found himself admiring the woman immensely.

She had the courage of her convictions. Not everyone had both moral and physical courage. Rare commodities.

And ones about to be ended by the sandcats.

Why did you relinquish the Wand of Command?

“It wasn’t right for me, Old One.”

You could save your lives … you could be like the Rulers.

“That’s why I put the scepter back in its proper place. I don’t want to become like the Rulers. Being human is enough of a burden for me. Having the welfare of an entire race as my duty was too much. That and … I think you know the rest.”

No duty is implied … only command … only power.

“I felt responsibility.”

There was a long mental silence as the Old One studied them. Nightwind felt feathery touches at the periphery of his mind but couldn’t grasp the probe and decipher it. Whatever was happening, he knew their lives depended on it. It was a trial with only one judge and half-a-hundred executioners.

Who will speak for these?

I speak for my friends … my brothers saved me from the Other.

The penalty is thus the same for you.

“What’s going on, Rod?” asked Steorra. She was looking out at the assembled sandcats. The menace wasn’t gone; it was merely held in check.

“We’re standing trial. And the Guardian seems to have spoken up for us. Whatever the decision is, the Guardian apparently will suffer the same fate.”

Heuser smiled wanly. “I sort of liked him. Do you think he’ll get us out of this in one piece?”

“Who can tell what a sandcat’s idea of justice is? I don’t think mercy is even in their vocabulary. I didn’t get any mental picture of the concept. But they live on Rhyl, and the planet’s not exactly a place where mercy would be easily developed.”

The mental silence lingered until it was broken by the Old One’s piercing thought:
They have been studied and their motives analyzed … they are one with our people … to renounce the evil of the Rulers and accept the decision of the Old Ones is xxxx…

“I think we have just been adopted by them. There was a garbled thought I missed but apparently it’s pretty good with them. See?”

The sandcats were turning and leaving. They silently padded from the throne room until only the three humans — now adopted — the Old One and the Guardian were left.

Friends … brothers!… welcome.

“Thanks, Guardian, for your support,” said Nightwind. “You obviously took a big gamble on our behalf.”

No danger … Old Ones could see your goodness … your xxxx.

“Your confidence is appreciated.” To Heuser and Steorra, he said, “I’m getting that undecipherable concept again. I don’t know what it even implies. My mind simply won’t accept it. I think we’d better get the hell out of here while we can.”

Leave if you wish … you are brothers and always welcome.

The Old One left, striding briskly from the throne room.

The Guardian’s thought came:
What will you do?… I must now train a new Guardian.

“What? Why? Did you lose your job because of us?”

Yes … I am no wan Old One … I have shown ability in judgment.

“Can you read in our minds that we want to go to our, uh, Old Ones and protect you from humans like Slayton?”

Yes.

“We would go and petition our Old Ones. Among us are a few telepaths. One will come and contact you. Will that be a satisfactory way of establishing relations between your race and ours?”

We are now one.

“Yes, but we are still humans.”

Return, brothers, when you can … I go.

Watching the Old One depart, Heuser said, “Is it okay for us to blast off and lift out of here? They trust us?”

“They trust us like one of the gang. But the sooner I’m off this dust ball, the better I’ll feel.”

“I wish I could get pictures of all this,” said Steorra. “Do you think they would mind if we took a few artifacts? Just to support the claim before the Council?”

“Leave everything where it is. Let’s not press our luck too far. Even in mind-to-mind contact, I missed quite a lot. Concepts that don’t translate into human terms are ones I’m not eager to meddle with.” Nightwind took two steps off the dais and collapsed.

“Come on, Steorra. Help me get him to the aircar. There’s a first-aid kit in it.” Heuser limped over to Nightwind and pulled him erect.

“Thanks for patching me up, Steorra. You should have been a doctor instead of a chemist.” Nightwind leaned back in the cushions of the aircar seat. He had forgotten the grit and dryness while in the Ancient Place. It hit him like a hammer blow now. His lips were chapped, his tongue felt swollen and his throat was being seared by dry fire.

“Heuser did a good bit of it. He’s very handy with that Quik-heal.”

“Now that you two have a mutual respect for each other’s abilities, why not try and instill some respect in me?” the cyborg requested.

“What do you mean, Heuser?”

“The aircar’s computer interface is missing. Slayton or Dhal must have hidden it. The interface from their aircar is missing, too. If they hid them outside, they’re probably sandblasted hunks of junk by now. We were in the city long enough for the wind to wreck a piece of delicate electronics like that.”

“Hmm, that’s right,” mused Nightwind. “And Dhal was a desert-worlder. He would have known it. Where would he hide it so the wind wouldn’t destroy it?”

Steorra said, “Inside the aircar is the only place where it’s safe from the wind. But we can see virtually everything in this cramped compartment.”

Heuser checked the wall panels and reported, “None have been removed recently. No bright scratches on the metal. Well?”

“Well, Heuser, if I were diabolical and I wanted to put that interface controller in a nice, diabolical place, it would end up in the ignition chamber. No danger of radiation damage until the engines were keyed on, then it would be burned to a silicon-germanium crisp.”

Nightwind painfully stood and left the compartment, returning in a few minutes holding the small computer interface. He reached under the control panel, snapped the electronic component into place, then said, “My insight is sometimes frightening. It’s almost as if I had ESP.”

Steorra laughed and Heuser smiled.

“And now that the aircar is whole once again, let’s clear sand and move it out!” Heuser began running down the brief checklist, bringing the engines to power and making certain the internal life-support systems were operational.

Nightwind looked at Steorra and sighed. Even in the desert suit, she was lovely. He remembered her aboard the
Ajax.
The word gorgeous easily came to mind. Her eyes were widely spaced, giving her an innocent look that carried over to her actions. How an intelligent woman could have ever thought Slayton and Dhal were the ones to aid her was a mystery to Nightwind. Even his brief excursion into her mind didn’t allow him to properly appraise her system of values.

“Well, milady, we’re just a few days from Rhylston. Once there, we can subspace a message back to Earth and get the machinery started to recognize the sandcats as a new sentient race.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “That’s what I came after. That was what my father meant by his cryptic ‘find utterly beyond belief.’ This is the first living, nonhumanoid intelligent race found in over a hundred years.”

“He’ll be famous. And, in a way, he discovered two intelligent alien races. The Rulers were around long before the sandcats. They must have been real bastards, the Rulers.”

“Why do you say that?” Steorra asked, puzzled.

“What sort of race lifts another from bestiality simply to have more intelligent slaves? That’s what the Rulers did. The laugh was on them, though. The sandcats were more adaptable to the changing climate. Their slaves outlived them.”

“I think the laugh is on us,” complained Heuser. “We’re out a hell of a lot of money and skin, went through both mental and physical torture and what have we got to show for it?”

“Heuser, old friend, we helped Steorra insure her father’s discovery was properly recognized. We are the ones helping the sandcats to a place of equality after centuries of being slaves.”

“You can’t spend gratitude.”

“No, but it can’t be bought, either.”

Nightwind basked in the warmth of Steorra’s smile, knowing it was going to be an interesting journey back to Earth to formally file the sandcats’ claim before the Council.

He quietly drifted off to sleep thinking pleasant thoughts.

The aircar’s engines died. Nightwind was awake in in instant. He looked at Heuser, still at the controls, and snapped, “What’s the matter? Something wrong?”

“Not yet, Rod. I was checking the outside barometric pressure and noticed it was dropping fast. That means a big blow coming up. I decided to find a protected place to weather it out.”

Nightwind saw Steorra was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. He pulled himself out of his seat and asked quietly, “Is the wind very bad outside right now?”

“Relatively speaking, no. Only chopping up dust at fifty kilometers an hour or so. But it’s rising fast.”

“Let’s go outside for a minute. Would you put my filter on, please? And adjust my goggles?” His left arm was too firmly splinted for any movement.

“Why not? But what’s outside you want to show me?”

“Out first.” Nightwind cast a significant look in Steorra’s direction.

Heuser fastened the filter on his own desert suit, cycled open the door and dropped onto the sand. Nightwind quickly followed. He felt the faint bite of sand against his legs, even through the thick plastic skin of the desert suit. He motioned with his head in the direction of the aircar’s cargo compartment.

“Something wrong? You find some sabotage?” Heuser’s voice was faint in the wind, muffled by the filter.

“When I recovered the computer interface, I had to go through the cargo compartment. I think you’ll be interested in what I found there.”

He opened the small hatch.

For a long moment, Heuser was speechless. Then, his hand shaking slightly, he reached out. Scooping up a handful of gleaming gems, he let them sift through his fingers like sand.

“Where did they come from, Rod? We sure as hell didn’t put them here. And there’s a fortune in gem-stones so exotic I don’t know what half of them even are! A fortune did I say? There’re a dozen fortunes!”

“Slayton must have created a pile of these to amuse himself. I guess he figured he would go back to civilization with them. It must have been before the scepter began to control him — before it infected him with the poison of total power. But I’m not complaining.”

“I’m not either. It makes this entire venture worthwhile — well worth it!”

Nightwind smiled and got a mouthful of sand, in spite of his filter. He motioned to go back into the compartment of the aircar. The planet had furnished danger and a fortune in exotic jewels. It even held the promise of further relations with an intelligent race of nonhumanoids.