Throy (21 page)

Flitz looked down into the declivity from which they had issued. Glawen and Chilke joined her. Almost at the bottom, with water from the slutes seething in and out, lay Barduys, half-submerged in a puddle.

Flitz began to climb down the slope. Glawen halted her. “You can’t do anything down there! Stay here; cover us with your gun; keep those black things off our backs.”

Glawen jumped into the decline, followed by Chilke. The water-waifs disapproved of their actions and came sliding across the rocks. Glawen told Chilke: “Keep me covered.” He dropped down the last six feet, and bent over Barduys. He was not dead. At Glawen’s touch his eyelids flickered and he whispered: “My legs are broken.”

Glawen gripped him from behind, under the armpits, and dragged him from the puddle. Barduys hissed between his teeth, but said nothing. Glawen bent for another effort, and drew Barduys up the slope. He heard Chilke’s scream of outrage as water-waifs slid into the pit and flung themselves downward. Never, for so long as he lived, would Glawen forget the feel of that sinewy dank body and its groping limbs. He kicked and fought; something tore at his thigh; something else scratched his face; he was stabbed in the shoulder and chest and leg. Chilke’s gun sent explosive slugs into the surging bodies. Glawen tore off the creature which wanted to cling to him and nuzzle his neck with one of its organs. He threw it aside and Chilke shot it.

Water-waifs, coming from the slutes, scurried this way and that, then bounded forward. Keeping them in sight Flitz descended into the pit a short way, adjusted the aperture of her weapon to the third notch and discharged a swath of energy into the swarm. Some became crisps of fiber; the others twittered in horror and tumbled back.

Glawen and Chilke hauled Barduys up from the declivity. He seemed more dead than alive, and his legs dragged as if they were rags. Glawen began to feel dizzy; what was happening to him? He blinked and again saw water-waifs jumping from the ruined walls. Chilke was sent sprawling, down into the puddle. The waifs fell upon him; he seized one and dashed it against the rock; Glawen fired his gun and destroyed the others. Chilke struggled back up the slope. Water-waifs heaved large rocks which struck Chilke and sent him rolling back down into the puddle. Painfully he began once more to crawl upwards; another stone struck him, but he flattened, clung to the ground and saved himself from falling again. A bolt from Glawen’s gun destroyed the rock-throwing waif.

Chilke continued to crawl, aware of broken bones. He managed, finally, to rejoin Glawen and Flitz.

After an interminable effort, the group reached the Fortunatus. Chilke, limping and stumbling, with Flitz’s

help carried Barduys into the Fortunatus. Glawen found that he could no longer control his muscles and fell to the ground. Flitz and Chilke, his broken bones grinding , carried him aboard.

          Chilke staggered to the controls; the Fortunatus rose into the air and flew south.

At first inspection it was evident that Barduys had suffered a blow to the head; a gun-shot wound in the chest, broken bones, and a number of puncture wounds, already surrounded by yellow discoloration. Glawen had been scratched, beaten and stabbed, his left arm had been broken. Around the puncture marks were puffy rings of purulence. Chilke had escaped with broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a cracked femur, a single poisonous puncture wound; nevertheless he felt light in the head and dizzy.

Flitz called the hospital at Port Mona and asked that emergency medical service be dispatched to Stronsi Ranch. She mentioned that members of her group had been attacked by water-waifs and seemed to have been poisoned. The hospital medic prescribed a combination of standard all-purpose antidotes from the shipboard medicine chest. “With any luck it will keep them alive until we can get at them. We’ll also send a team from the Port Twang dispensary.”

Flitz followed the instructions; Barduys and Glawen desisted from their trembling and relaxed into dazed sleep.

At the moment there was nothing more to be done. Chilke tried to sit but his ribs protested. He hobbled forward to stand by the observation port, holding to a handrail for support. His mental processes were not functioning correctly; they seemed to be impeded by some sort of viscous medium. Perhaps time itself was moving at a decelerated rate. The condition augmented the accuracy of his perceptions. He heard sounds with exact fidelity and when he looked about, all colors and textures were rendered with an amazingly vivid precision. Too bad his mind was confused! “This is the way an insect looks at the world,” Chilke told himself. In his ordinary condition, he would have welcomed these new sensitivities.

Gradually order returned to his mind and the unreal awareness began to wane. His thoughts slowly arranged themselves. He considered the awful events at Bainsey Castle. They had occurred in a shattering rush; death had been close - perhaps too close. Barduys and Glawen lay pale and ominously quiet. Flitz had loosened their clothing and had made them as comfortable as possible. Chilke felt miserably sad. He turned back to the observation port. His mental images were vividly acute. He observed the ambush at Bainsey Castle as if he had been at the scene. Namour had come up behind the unsuspecting Barduys, who could hear nothing because of the wind. He had shot Barduys and pitched him into the pit. For some reason he shot Alhaurin as well, or perhaps Alhaurin was already dead. For a moment Namour stood considering his handiwork, his handsome face without expression. Then he had departed in the Flecanpraun, believing Barduys to be dead.

If Barduys survived, a ghastly surprise awaited Namour.

Chilke took stock of his own condition. It was not good. He ached in every part of his body; his head felt light and loose. Chilke drew a deep breath. He had never felt so oddly before. The effects of the poison? Vertigo? Something worse? He jerked forward and stared at the ground below. He blinked, squinted, moved his head back and forth as if to improve the focus of his eyes.

Flitz became aware of his behavior. She asked: “Mr. Chilke, are you well?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Chilke. He pointed. “Look down there, if you please.”

Flitz examined the landscape. “Well?”

“If you saw a lot of strange colors - lavender, pink, orange, green - then I am sane. If you did not see these colors, I am very sick.”

Flitz looked a second time. “We are passing over a swamp. You are looking at large mats of algae, all of different colors.”

Chilke heaved a sigh. “That is good news - possibly.”

“Is something else wrong?”

“I feel unreal, as if I were floating.” He reached for Flitz in order to steady himself, and managed to clasp her with his sound arm. “That is better He looked into her face. “Flitz, you are a fine woman! I am proud of you!”

Flitz disengaged herself. “Come over here and sit down, I think the poison has affected you.”

Chilke hobbled to the settee and lowered himself with a grimace.

“I will bring you some medicine. It is a tranquilizer and you will not feel so wild.”

“I am better already; I won’t need the medicine.”

“Relax then and rest. We will soon be back at the ranch.”

Chapter 6, Part II

Glawen and Barduys received emergency treatment from the Port Twang medical practitioner, who took instruction by communicator from senior medical personnel enroute from Port Mona.

For three days Glawen and Barduys lay quiet, less than half-conscious, and for a time Barduys seemed to waver between life and death. The medical team, using self-regulated therapeutic devices, remained in constant attendance, monitoring and controlling vital processes. Chilke, meanwhile, had been splinted, bandaged, treated with bone-mending techniques, and confined to bed.

Time passed. Glawen regained consciousness, but lay flaccid, gaining strength and awareness only slowly. Barduys awoke a day later. He opened his eyes, looked to right and to left, muttered something incomprehensible, then closed his eyes and seemed to doze. The attendants relaxed; the crises were past.

Two days later Barduys was able to speak. Slowly at first, and with frequent pauses to search his recollection, he described what had happened to him. At Port Twang he had received a message purportedly from Bagnoli, stating that plans had been changed and that the two would meet at Bainsey Castle. Barduys, puzzled but unconcerned, had flown north to the slutes. He saw no sign of Bagnoli, nevertheless he landed the Flecanpraun, jumped to the ground, and walked toward the proposed construction site. He passed close by a jut of rock; at this point the world collapsed upon him, and his memory became a set of blurred impressions. There had been a flurry of merciless blows while the sky reeled, then he was thrown into the pit. Down the rocks he tumbled, landing upon a huddle of writhing water-waifs. They cushioned the final shock and perhaps saved his life. Dimly Barduys thought to hear a muffled shot and felt a great blow against his chest. The water-waifs fled shrieking from the pit. There was a time of heavy silence; then the water-waifs were back, bounding and twittering in fury. Barduys painfully found his gun and fired at the waifs until they retreated. As soon as he became dazed, they slyly returned and prodded at him with sharp sticks. His gun held them at bay and finally they left him alone to die.

Flitz told him how he had been rescued. With an effort he looked from face to face. “I will not thank you now.”

“You need not thank us at all,” said Glawen. “We did what we thought to be our duty.”

          “So it may be,” said Barduys in a colorless voice. “Duty or not, I am grateful. As for my enemy I know his identity and I know why he tried to destroy me.” For a moment Barduys lay quiet. Then he said: “I think that he will regret his failure.”

“You are speaking of Namour?”

“Yes, Namour.”

“Why should he do such a thing to you?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You must not tire yourself,” Flitz told him.

“I will talk until I am tired and then I will stop.”

Flitz gave Glawen and Chilke a disapproving look, then left the room.

Barduys began to speak. “I must go back to the beginning, which would be fifteen years ago. L-B Construction had done some work for the Stronsi family, and they wanted to talk over some new construction. I arrived to find that they had all gone north to Bainsey Castle for a day or two. This was no great inconvenience and I settled myself to wait.

          “The whole clan had gone north: twenty-seven of them, many from off-world. The patriarch was Myrdal Stronsi; he and his wife Glaida lived at Stronsi, along with their sons Cesar and Camus, with their children and an aged aunt.

“It was to have been a merry occasion; the Stronsis were happy people, who enjoyed festivities in the old-fashioned manner and they had gone to Bainsey Castle many times for just such a purpose. But on this occasion, a terrible storm came up and sent green waves to batter against the castle. They had nowhere to go, and watched in horror as the stone walls collapsed and the green water dashed into the opening, and then it was all over.

“At Stronsi Ranch, when the communicator from Bainsey remained dead, we became worried and flew north to investigate. We found the ruins and the scattered corpses, some of which the water-waifs had dragged out on the slutes. We found no survivors, and, after calling for ambulances, everyone departed. But almost as soon as I was in the air, something began to tug at me. I became uneasy. I tried to reason with myself, but in the end I flew back alone. It was then late afternoon, and very quiet. I remember the scene well.” Barduys paused for a moment, then continued. “In the west the sun had found an open space among the clouds and illuminated the slutes with the light that toward evening seems the color of sherry A million puddles reflected a million spatters of light, and the water-waifs were hard to see for the glitter. I went close to the ruins and stood looking about. I thought I heard a cry, very weak and thin. If the wind had been blowing, I would not have heard it. At first I thought it was a water-waif, but I searched and finally, under a tumble of stones, I caught a glimpse of cloth. It was a little girl, who had been trapped beneath the stones. She had lain there for two nights with the water-waifs prowling about, thrusting sticks, trying to squeeze through the cracks.

“To make long story short, I finally managed to drag her out, more dead than alive: a little girl about seven years old. I remember seeing her in the family portrait; she was Felitzia Stronsi, the only survivor of the entire clan.

“There was no one to care for her. The trustees were far away, off-world and quite disorganized. I did not trust the Factor’s Association, which was - and still is - hostile to the Stronsis. In the end I took her in charge, with the intention of finding a suitable foster home for her. But time went by and I made no moves in this direction, and presently realized that I liked having her around.

“She was a strange little creature. At first she could not talk, and sat watching me with big eyes in a pinched little face. The shock finally wore away but she had lost most of her memory and knew only that her name was ‘Flitz.’”

Barduys paused, summoned the maid Nesta, who brought him the group photograph of the Stronsis, which

Glawen and Chilke had already seen. The earnest little blonde girl, sitting cross-legged in the foreground was identified as ‘Felitzia Stronsi.’

          Barduys went on with his story. He became accustomed to the girl’s presence and in the end the trustees of the Stronsi estate appointed him her guardian. He educated her as if she were his son, in the lore of construction, technics and mathematics, music and aesthetic perception, and the crafts of civilization.

          Flitz grew through the ordinary phases of life in a more or less normal manner. When she was fourteen Barduys enrolled her at a private school on old Earth, where she spent two terms. She was still thin and pale, but already conspicuous by reason of her sea-blue eyes, shining hair and delicate features. The staff considered her cooperative, if rather enigmatic.