Land and Overland Omnibus

CHAPTER 17



The startled cry from Steenameert reached Toller across dark distances of the soul, shadowy distances, where unseen worlds prowled their orbital paths. Each world was the embodiment of a new personality, one of which was destined to be his, and he had little concern for the trivialities of his old existence. Aloof and vaguely irritated, he asked himself why the young man was calling his name. What in all the black reaches of the cosmos could be important enough to justify distracting him at a time like this, just when momentous decisions were being made about his destiny?

But something else was happening! A battle was beginning in the stygian landscapes which surrounded him. Powerful external forces were being brought to bear on the psychic lens whose curvatures governed every aspect of his future…

The lens shattered! Released from his mental and physical paralysis, Toller was reborn into a world of tumult. Dozens of black-clad and ragged-edged Dussarran figures were running across the floor of the dome towards the enclosure. A woman was screaming. The aliens Toller had been crushing behind the panel were now free and were staggering towards their leader. Other aliens who had been clustered behind Zunnunun were fleeing through the exit to unknown parts of the building.

Come with us! A Dussarran appeared at Toller's side and tugged his arm. We are your friends!

Toller shook himself free of the grey-fingered hand. The alien seemed no different from any of those he had already encountered, except that the ubiquitous piecemeal costume dangling around his spindly form featured a few diamond-shapes of drab green.

"Friends?" Toller made as if to thrust the newcomer away, then—accepting urgent telepathic guidance—realized the alien was one of a group which had recalled him to his own existence with no time to spare. The choice was not a difficult one in any case—stay and face the quietly invincible Director Zunnunun, or seize the unexpected offer of salvation.

"Baten!" Toller saw that Steenameert was staring at him with concern. "We have to trust these people!"

Steenameert nodded, as did some of the women behind him. The entire group of humans began to run in the company of their alien rescuers, but their escape route was being blocked by other Dussarrans who were spilling through the dome's multiple entrances. The opposing forces converged and the scene quickly became chaotic as black-clad bodies locked with each other in all the grotesqueries of spontaneous physical combat.

Toller's perception of the scene underwent rapid shifts as he saw that the Dussarrans' idea of hand-to-hand struggle was to throw themselves at each other, lock arms and legs with opponents and bring them to the ground. Once that had happened they lay in ineffectual pairs, like copulating insects, each cancelling the other's contribution to the battle. The advantage from the humans' point of view was that no weapons were being used—the aliens fought like angry children, and although hostile enough were manifestly lacking in the ability to incapacitate an enemy. Toller was comforted when he realized that he and his new allies would not be annihilated in a few bloody seconds; but then the negative aspect of the situation came to him. The struggle was too democratic, too much like casting votes. In this style of combat the numerically superior force was bound to win.

Again longing for his sword, Toller turned on one of the group of unfriendly aliens who were closing on him with arms outspread. Toiler clubbed him to the ground with one diagonal blow of his fist, and then—with murder in his heart—drove his heel down on the alien's neck, while at the same time hurling away two more attackers.

The feeling of living firmness crunching into inert mush told him immediately that the Dussarran was dead, but a more dramatic confirmation came from the surrounding melee. The mass of black-ragged aliens—friend and foe alike—underwent a convulsive spasm as though some powerful unseen force had torn through them. Their various pairings were dissolved and the air was filled with wordless keenings of anguish. All at once Toller and the other humans were the only mobile and concerted force on the bizarre battle ground.

"What happened?" Jerene shouted, her round face and clear eyes beaconing at Toller from the confusion.

"The scarecrows all suffer when one of their number dies near at hand," Toller replied, remembering what Divivvidiv had told him about the strange telepathic backlash which accompanied the death of a Dussarran. "The trouble is that those who are favourably disposed to us are not spared. Get them on their feet and keep them moving—otherwise we are lost."

The other six Kolcorronians responded at once, snatching suitably emblazoned aliens to their feet and urging them to run. They had to be dragged or pushed for some yards before their limbs began to pick up the motive rhythms. The ill-sorted band passed through an archway, entered a corridor and continued their awkward progress towards double-leafed doors at its far end. Other Dussarrans, shown to be friendly by their green-dappled clothing, were waiting at the door and making urgent beckoning signals.

My name is Greturk. The alien that Toller was propelling forwards looked up at him and his silent words were charged with fear and loathing. You deliberately ended a life! You behaved like a Vadavak! Have you no feelings?

"Yes—I have a powerful feeling that I want to get out of this place."

That is not what I meant.

"I know! You were talking about the reflux." Toller pushed the alien harder to emphasize his words. "You had better understand that I would quite happily break a thousand Dussarran necks to obtain my goal—so prepare yourself for a few more refluxes if we are attacked again."

The chances of a new attack grew less, however, as the group reached the double door and were ushered through it by urgent hands. Livid alien faces danced around Toller, advancing and receding in the confusion, as he escaped from the confines of the corridor into a night which was shot through with artificial light. In part the light came from the facades of rectangular buildings, but there seemed to be free-floating blocks of radiance and a profusion of varicoloured rays among which drifted vivid lines of intense red and yellow.

Toller had no time to fathom the exotic scene, because an egg-shaped vehicle—a larger version of the one which had earlier transported Steenameert and him to the dome—was waiting only a few paces away. He had the impression that its lower surface was not quite touching the ground. Its circular entrance revealed a dim-lit interior from which other Dussarrans beckoned. Toller halted by the entrance and helped cram his own people plus some of their alien rescuers into the vehicle. At the innermost end of the corridor more aliens were appearing, their mobility almost fully restored, and were running towards him like flapping black birds striving to take to the air.

Toller had no fear of pursuers who could be laid low by the death of only one of their number, but he was hounded by a conviction that Zunnunun was too resourceful to remain off balance for long, that other enemy forces were being ranged against him at that very moment. He threw himself into the oval vehicle, adding to the press of bodies inside, and the entrance flowed out of existence behind him. There came a giddy shifting of weight which signalled that the vehicle was moving and silently becoming airborne. It came to him that he had not seen a pilot or anything like a station from which a pilot could operate, and the eerie thought occurred that the Dussarran craft could control its own movements.

He was straining to see about him, trying to verify the idea, when he realized that Vantara was quite close by in the airless compression of alien and human forms. Her face was pale, distraught and immobile—rather like a tragic mask of the real woman—and, although her eyes were turned in his direction, he was not sure that she was looking at him. Feeling oddly self-conscious, he tried to produce a reassuring smile.

"Take heart, Vantara," he said in a directed whisper, "I vow to you that no matter what befalls us I will be at your side."

There followed an odd and timeless moment in which her gaze hunted over his face, and then—to Toller it was like a perfect sunrise—she answered his smile. "Toller, my dear Toller! I'm sorry if I have not been—"

Do not speak! Greturk, the alien at Toller's side, cut in with an urgent telepathic warning. Do not think about what is happening—otherwise we will be easily followed. Try to forget who and what you are. Try to believe that you are nothing more than bubbles of air rising in a huge cauldron of boiling water … going this way and that way … swirling and spiralling in unpredictable paths…

Toller nodded and closed his eyes. He was a bubble rising in a huge cauldron … going this way and that … following a dangerous and unpredictable path…

Toller had become so deeply absorbed in the mental discipline, the negation of coherent thought, that he was scarcely aware of the vehicle coming to a halt. At one moment he was jammed upright, barely able to move because of the pressure of human and alien bodies; and at the next he was staggering slightly in a comparatively generous amount of floor space and Dussarrans were vanishing through the circular exit which had appeared in the vehicle's side. He was receiving no structured telepathic communications, but his head was filled with a pulsing urgency. The very air seemed tremulous, agitated by a pervasive sense of panic.

You must disembark quickly. The silent message came from Greturk, the only alien to have remained inside the egg-shaped craft. There is very little time to spare.

"What is going on here?" Jerene put in before Toller could voice the same question.

Greturk's black lips twitched. We are in the midst of a civil conflict—a war you might call it—the first in many thousands of years.

"A civil war!" Toller said. "In that case why are you so concerned about a few outsiders like us?"

This will come as a surprise—but you and the rest of your kind are at the centre of the controversy which divides Dussarran society.

Toller blinked down at the alien. "I don't understand."

I know that the Decisioner responsible for the Xa project has explained to you the basic reasons for our presence in this part of the galaxy. How much of that information have you retained?

"There was something about Ropes," Toller replied, frowning. "An explosion which will destroy dozens of galaxies…"

Steenameert cleared his throat and moved closer. "We were told that the crystal sea … the Xa … is a machine which will hurl your home world into a distant galaxy, where you will be safe from the explosion."

I am quite impressed, Greturk answered, glancing from Toller to Steenameert while at the same time gesturing towards the vehicle's exit. It is unusual for a species at your early stage of development to be able to accommodate concepts which are so far from primitive myth-based visions of…

"We have no relish for being styled as Primitives," Toller growled. "Divivvidiv learned that to his cost."

Perhaps that is why he withheld a piece of information which he knew would provoke an extreme reaction from you.

"Out with it!" Toller scowled into the alien's livid face. "Out with it at once, or I may be…"

There is no need to bluster against me, Toller Maraquine, Greturk replied. I was opposed to the Xa project from the day of its inception. I am not culpable in any way, and therefore have no compunction about informing you that on the instant in which Dussarra is projected into the target galaxy your home world … and its neighbour … will cease to exist.