Unicorn Point (25 page)

A group of androids burst into the chamber. “Here they are!” Tania exclaimed. “They’ve got stunners!”

He had anticipated as much. “Get comfortable,” he said grimly. “It may be a hard ride.”

“I can’t get comfortable here! There’s a gearstick poking my bottom.”

“Lucky gearshift,” he murmured, as the machine lurched out to meet the androids.

One of them fired. The shot was invisible, and was evidently deflected by the metal and plastic framework of the machine, for there was no effect. Still, this luck would not hold; he had to eliminate the menace.

He aimed a nozzle and fired. Foam squirted out to blast the androids. The force of it was formidable; it knocked them off their feet. Bubbles enclosed them, and they gesticulated wildly as they fought for good air to breathe.
 

“What is that stuff?” Tania asked admiringly.
 

“Merely light detergent. But methinks it would sting if it got in the eyes.”

Indeed, several androids were rubbing their eyes. None were trying to use their stunners. This group had been effectively defeated.

But more would come, this time better prepared. Not enough time had passed to allow for the ship taking off. “Me thinks we had better give them aught to ponder,” he said, guiding the vehicle to the service entrance.
 

“Robots!” she cried, pointing.

That was what he had feared. Detergent foam would not stop those!

So he charged them as they passed through the door. They were machines, but they were no match for the mass of the vehicle; they dived aside as he smashed into the door, and broke it in, along with a large segment of wall. Human and android people screamed. Tania grunted as she was bounced against the cockpit dome and back into Bane. Her knees were now jammed against his belly, and she clung to his neck for support. Her hair was in wild disarray, but she was smiling.
 
This was her kind of mayhem!

But already the robots were righting themselves and orienting their weapons. Bane touched a lever, and water blasted out in a circular sheet, horizontally, sweeping them all off their feet again. “Rinse cycle,” he murmured to the top of Tania’s head, which was jammed against his right shoulder.
 
“May short out some of those weapons.”

Then he maneuvered the vehicle around and away from the smashed wall, retreating. “Takeoff!” he said gladly.
 

“This thing flies?” she demanded, astonished.

 
“The ship be launched,” he explained. “Now it be safe to pass its ramp. I wanted to interfere not, before.”

“Figures,” she agreed.

Some robots were coming after them. Bane tried his third weapon, the sander. Powdery sand blasted out, and the big brushes extended, whipping it into a dust-storm frenzy, in tended to scour away the worst runway buildup of grime or old paint.

“Those robots won’t like that,” Tania remarked, grinning.
 
But just to be sure, he aimed his foam nozzle and sent out a prolonged rearward jet of liquid detergent. He was rewarded by the sight of robots sliding helplessly back on a spreading wave of bubbles. They had finally been defeated.
 
They passed the main launch ramp. The ships did not take off vertically; they lay at an angle, and were catapulted up before their engines cut in, so as not to befoul the interior of the dome. Incoming ships landed outside, and were then hauled in on flatcars. It was an efficient system, but did not do much to abate the exterior pollution.
 
They passed through the dome wall, which was just a force field that served as a barrier between the clean inner air and the bad outer atmosphere. Here the view was murky; here the dust storms were natural.

“They’ll have aircraft after us,” Tania said. “We can’t dodge those long, or shoot them down with squirts of water.”

“Aye. Now we call for help.”

He set up a radio circuit on a special channel. Blue! Blue! Willst take me in?

Thought thou wouldst ne ‘er ask, the laconic reply came.
 
Then, flying low on the horizon, came a winged craft, bright blue. It looped around them, then slowed and glided down for a landing.

“Don this,” Bane Said, drawing from the back of the cockpit a helmet and breathing tank.

Tania wedged her head into it and made sure the seal was snug about her neck. Then Bane opened the canopy and let the atmosphere in. They clambered out and ran across to the airplane.

In a moment they were inside, and the plane was taking off. It was a remote-controlled unit, made to hold two.
 
“That’s Tania!” Citizen Blue’s voice came. “What of Agape?”

“She be offplanet now,” Bane explained. “Tania and I be defecting to thy side, and Mach likewise in Phaze.”

“What about Nepe?”

Bane had known he could not rescue Nepe the moment Tan caught on to the ploy, but had been distracted by the need to act swiftly and effectively. Now the realization struck with full force. “She be captive o’ the Citizens. She covered for me, to get her mother out.”

Tania turned to him, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. Bane,” she said with genuine regret.

“I think we shall have to negotiate,” Citizen Blue said, as the airplane flew them to the safety of his power.
 

“Aye,” Bane agreed, depressed.

Forel cut through the brush, heading for home. He had always been an explorer, and now with his oath-friend Barelmosi gone, he found surcease from his disquiet only by increasingly distant excursions. He claimed that he wanted to find and run down prey, so that he could make his first individual Kill and be eligible for adult status, and that was true, but it was mostly his foolish notion that if he only ranged far enough, he might find and bring back his lost friend. He knew that Barel had been captured by the Adepts, knew there was no chance they would let him go, and knew that if Barel somehow escaped, he would not dare come here, where they would first look for him. Yet Forel ranged, hoping on a level more fundamental than that of reason.

But now he had to return, as he had promised Sirel and Terel, who feared he would get himself killed by a hunting dragon, or by a goblin snare. If he stayed out too long, they would come looking for him, and so put themselves at similar risk. He wanted that not!

He scooted under an overhanging bush and picked up speed in the straightaway between several large trees. But there was a sinister trace of mist descending, forming a low cloud. He had seen what unnatural clouds could do! He slid to a halt, trying to avoid it, but it expanded to embrace him.
 
Suddenly he was lost in choking fog. He could not see his way clear, and indeed, had to put his nose down to the ground to breathe. This was certainly magical, and surely not the work of his friend Barel!

“Wolf pup,” a human voice came. “Are you Flach’s friend?”

Flach: the human name of Barelmosi! Had he escaped after all? Were they casting another net for him?
 
“Aye, spook,” he growled. “And may thou catch him not!”

A manshape came out of the obscurity. “I helped catch him before, but now I am changing sides. Will you help me free my son—and my wife?”

Forel stared up at the figure. It was the Rovot Adept!
 
“There is little time, wolf,” the rovot continued. “Flach and Fleta are captive on an isle under the sea, and I can not go there now without arousing suspicion. But I can conjure you there, where you can verify that I am speaking the truth.
 
Will you cooperate to that extent?”

It was obvious that the dread rovot had him captive, so could either kill him or compel him to do his bidding. It was better to go along, at least until his chances improved.
 
“Aye,” he growled. “But I trust thee not, rovot!”

“Nor should you, wolf. Hold on; I am conjuring us to a safer place. This concealing cloud is too obvious, here.” A concealing cloud: of course! Barel had used clouds as a device to hide things they had to hide, but only when no others except the oath-friends were present. They alone had known his nature, that he was the man-‘corn, no wolf at all, but a creature of far greater potential. But he had rewarded their support with the benefits of his growing power, and their friendship with his own. He was, at the root, a youngster like themselves, who had left his origin to come to this Pack as they had. He was one of them in the ways that counted, and it had been entirely fitting that he and Sirel had Promised when they made their first Kills together. Forel hoped to do the same with Terel, when the time came, and he would be come Forelte, and she Terelfo, until they were granted their kill syllables.

So it was not surprising that Barel’s rovot father knew the uses of clouds. As Forel felt himself wrenched to somewhere distant, he was already gaining confidence. Maybe the rovot spoke truly, and was now on the right side. It would be won derful if Barel no longer had to hide from his family! Barel had not spoken much of this, but they knew, as oathrfriends did, what he was feeling. He loved his sire and his dam, and hated being apart from them, but knew he could not serve the side they served. His grandsire Stile, patron of all the better animals, had made that clear to him.
 
And he would return when he could; they all knew that.
 
By ancestry Barel was man and unicorn, but by association he was wolf, and that would never change.
 
The realm steadied. Forel gazed out into a white chamber, irregularly globular, resembling the shell of a hollowed-out gourd. The floor was spongy but firm enough for good pur chase.

“Turn manform,” the rovot said. “We must talk quickly.” Obligingly, Forel assumed his human form, complete with his fur jacket and breeches, and the fur slippers needed to protect his frail human feet. In so doing he sacrificed advantages of nose and tooth, but gained that of human speech, which was more versatile than growl-talk.

“Thou claimest to be on our side now, rovot?” he demanded as challengingly as he could manage. It was obvious that he was in the power of the Adept, but appearances were important.
 

“So I claim,” the rovot agreed, taking no offense. “This is the situation: Bane and I served the Adverse Adepts not because we had any liking for their policies or ambitions, but because they supported my liaison with Fleta. Once that commitment was made, it continued and increased, as a matter of honor rather than preference. But after we recovered Flach, the Adepts violated the covenant between us by threatening to kill his mother if Flach communicated again with Nepe in Proton. This was false in two ways. It prevented the Adept Stile from using Flach’s power to his advantage while the Adverse Adepts were using mine to their advantage. And it undercut my union with Fleta, upon which the covenant is based; I could not remain married to her if they killed her.” He looked directly at Forel. “Suppose, wolf, that you achieved your first Kill, and Promised to the bitch who—“ He paused.

“Terel,” Forel supplied grudgingly.

“To Terel. But instead of granting you adult status, Kur relgyre killed her. Where would you stand?”

“The Pack Leader would ne’er do that!”

“Agreed. But what of an Adverse Adept?”

Forel nodded. “Methinks I take thy point.”

“I mean to conjure you to my son, where you can quickly verify what I have told you. I want you to enable Flach and Fleta to escape the power of the Adepts. If you discover that what I have told you is not true, no one will be able to make you do anything more, for I dare not go into the Adept strong hold now. Of course you will be trapped there yourself. You will be taking a serious risk no matter how it turns out.” The rovot seemed sincere. But how could he be sure? The Adepts were notorious for the manner they dealt with ani mals, as more than one grown bitch had discovered to her cost. He had to ponder.

“Where be we?” he asked, hoping to elicit further proof of the rovot’s intentions.

Mach smiled. “In a cloud, floating above the forest of the Animal Heads. It changes its location with the wind, but will not move far in the next hour. You must tell Fleta that, or Tania, so they can find it. You can guide Flach here your self.”

“A cloud,” Forel repeated, unbelieving. True, it did look like the interior of a cloud, but he knew that clouds were not always the way they looked.

Mach made a gesture. Suddenly the walls became transparent. There was blue sky beyond, interspersed by the white masses of other clouds at this level.

Forel looked down. There below was spread the panorama of the land, its forests and rivers and fields. He had ranged across it enough to recognize its nature, though he had never viewed it from such a height before. This really was a cloud!
 
With that simple confirmation came his acceptance of the rest. “Tell me how,” he said.

The rovot seemed unsurprised at his process of decision.
 
“Here are two amulets. Each will enable its invoker to as sume the likeness of his companion. One is for Tania, one is for you. When I conjure you to the prison isle, give one to Tania and keep the other, and then the four of you must change forms and flee the isle and make your way here as swiftly and quietly as you can.”

 
“But the Adepts!” Forel protested. “They will let us go not! And Tania—she be worst o’ the Adepts; canst trust her?”