More than once Gomes snarled at them to keep up. Yet Dockle in particular lagged, and at a point where the vegetation was exceptionally thick, he fell far enough back to be out of sight.
Twenty more paces, and Gomes caught on. He glanced back, discovered that Dockle had vanished, and gave an oath as he thrust past Lex, raising his gun. His heavy pack
caught overhanging branches and made them whine in the air like whiplashes.
They did not see what happened, but they heard: Gomes called Dockle a foul name and told him to come back; there was a hysterical answer, and then came the flash of the gun.
Gomes returned a moment later. “Get down there and pick up his stuff,” he said gruffly to the youngsters who had been walking with Dockle. “Load it on Lex’s back. And take a good look at Dockle while you’re about it, because that’s what will happen to you if you try the same trick.”
The two looked as though they were going to vomit, but they obeyed.
One down, ten to go. Another before dark would be advisable, Lex calculated coldly. He would have preferred that Dockle should live, because he had had the guts to defy Gomes not once but twice, but he knew enough about the situation on the plateau to imagine what Dockle must have done or connived at for Gomes to choose him as a companion. He wasn’t thinking of justice or retribution, though. What counted was the future of humanity on this planet.
No one said anything for a long time after that; they just plodded onward. The going was better than it had been on his last trip. On the way down Gomes had had a lot of foliage burned back, and it had not grown over the path yet, though it was so luxuriant it would restore itself in another week.
An hour from town they passed the dead remains of one of the black-bag monsters, presumably the one which had killed a man on the party’s coastward journey. They were astonishingly numerous. Something would eventually have to be done to protect humans from them, though they could not be eliminated—their ecological function, obviously, was to prevent herbivores overgrazing the plants. The next patch of them was only a half-mile farther on. Lex’s ultra-keen hearing identified a bubbling noise in the river well before anyone else did, and he watched closely to see if his captors knew what such a sound signified. Apparently they didn’t. Nor did they recognize the blue-green shoots on the unbrowsed trees nearby. On the way down they must have contrived to avoid this particular carnivore, despite its being concealed by the pseudomoss which here spread densely on
ground. Perhaps at that time it had just fed and wasn’t interested in further prey. But now…?
Not Gomes. Not Probian. Without seeming to change his direction Lex stepped adroitly among the bag-mouths, and because they were in a line with him Gomes and Probian also escaped. But the man next behind was walking alightly to one side, and his left leg suddenly plunged downward.
At once there were screams, and guns flared. It was altogether convincing that Lex should leap aside in terror like everyone else, and jerk Probian with the rope so that his beam burned not into the ghastly black maw but into the legs and belly of the captive.
By the time darkness overtook them, Gomes’s party was in a very bad state. They cleared a large patch with their guns, then built a big fire, not for warmth but for comfort, since the night was hot.
Probian, glowering, hobbled Lex with the rest of the rope and left his arms bound behind him. He was given no food, though a grudging mouthful of water was accorded him. The others ate, not talking, but looking about them fearfully at intervals. They avoided meeting Gomes’s eyes.
Good.
Gomes set up a rota to keep watch on Lex. Two wakeful men with guns were to be facing him continuously until dawn. He did not include himself in the rota. He made sure that the two young men who had been walking with Dockle were not going to watch together. They knew why, and so did everyone else. Also good. The more hints about deserting Gomes that crossed their minds, the better.
He noted carefully which of his guards-to-be went into the undergrowth before turning in, to relieve themselves. One didn’t, but drank greedily from his canteen before throwing himself, exhausted, on his bedroll.
Perfect That was the man Gomes had assigned to watch with Probian after midnight. Lex leaned back and dozed.
As he had figured, the first pair of guards were too eager to lie down to permit the man he was counting on to relieve himself before assuming his duty. They made him turn out and take his place at once. Growing more uncomfortable by the minute, he sat with gun in hand until the others were snoring. Lex feigned deep sleep.
At last the man’s bladder could endure it no longer. He spoke to Probian, handed over his gun, and disappeared out of the circle of light from the low-burning fire.
Under cover of the darkness Lex had been quietly fraying his bonds. Now he snapped them at wrists and feet and hurled himself at Probian. The man did not even have time to cry out before his head jolted back. After that he was unconscious.
Moral, thought Lex as he stole after the second guard to catch him from behind: an ordinary rope could not hold a polymath for long.
Though it served admirably as a garrote.
He had made no more sound than a passing breeze, and the others were too exhausted to be easily woken. They remained slumped on their bedrolls as he stole from one to the next collecting all their guns except Gomes’s and stringing them together on his rope.
Then, ghostly, he faded into the dark. At the very edge of hearing he could detect noises from downriver. Presumably Jerode or someone had sent “rescuers” after him. He must intercept them before they came so close that they disturbed Gomes’s gang.
By the time they found the second body, partly burned, partly digested by the crippled bag-monster, Baffin’s team was prepared to accept that Delvia had been right. They couldn’t imagine how it was being done, but they realized Lex must be trying to demoralize his captors to the point at which Gomes would lose control.
They saw, as night was falling, how guns were being used to clear a campsite ahead. Then a fire was lit, and the flames reflected on the nearby trees. Baffin decided not to do the same, but with great caution to follow the trail in the dark in the hope of mounting a sneak attack.
It was while they were stealing through the night that Lex appeared in front of them, grinning broadly and
holding up his strung-together guns like a successful fisherman.
They were so taken aback that at first they could not react Fritch broke the tension with a mutter of sincere—if reluctant—admiration.
“You young devil! How did you manage it?”
Lex explained briefly, distributing the guns as he talked. There were almost enough to go around.
“You didn’t get them all!” Baffin said, having counted.
“No, I left one with Gomes,” Lex agreed. “For a reason, don’t worry. Now listen carefully to me. All hell is due to break loose, and we’ll have to pick up the pieces. I want some of you to come with me—Hosper, you and Jesset because you know the layout on the plateau, and you, Aldric, and you, Cheffy. Baffin, I want the rest of you to camp down here. About dawn they’ll find out what’s happened. Gomes may finish them because he’ll be so furious, but some of them will probably get away and come back downriver. Wait for them; when they get here, take them to the town under guard. Then tell Jerode to make up a big relief party, with all his nurses who aren’t pregnant. Bring blankets, clothes, food, anything you can. By the time that stuff can be brought to the plateau, it’s going to be desperately needed. Plan for at least two hundred sick and injured, and everyone weak and exhausted.”
He gave a faint chuckle.
“Gomes’s situation must have been disastrous enough when he set out for the coast. You figure what will happen when he gets back having lost all but one gun, and probably all but one companion.”
There were answering smiles.
He beckoned to the four he had detailed to go with him, turning as he spoke.
“Follow me. Move quietly. We’re going back to watch what happens when Gomes wakes up.”
Gomes rolled over, grunting, blinked his eyes open. One second later he was sitting up, hand on his gun, and shouting at the top of his voice. It was barely dawn; the light was watery-gray. Probian lay sprawled on the ground, breathing stertorously. There was no sign of his fellow-guard, and the other six men were sleeping soundly. The prisoner, of course, was gone.
From the safety of two hundred yards away, high in
a tree, Lex’s keen vision could plainly discern what was happening. There had been almost total silence for an hour past, and his hearing was fined to such keenness that he could clearly hear the quarrel mounting. The participants made it easy by bellowing at each other. Gomes was practically out of his mind with fury; at first he screamed that the missing man was a traitor like Dockle, then, when he was found in the undergrowth, that he and Probian were incompetent fools.
They roused Probian by throwing water over him, and he was so dazed that he could give no account of what had happened. His incoherence roused Gomes to explosion point. He made to kick Probian in the face. One of the other men jumped him from behind, demanding whether they were all to be treated as animals now.
His companions shared his view. Mouthing hysterically, Gomes threatened them with his gun, calling them defeatists who had sold out to the people at the coast. The men exchanged frightened glances. One of them moved to Gomes’s side—most likely, persuaded by the gun.
Now Gomes tried to compel them to go back down-river and recapture Lex, claiming he couldn’t have gone far. Lex smiled to himself. Quite right. But that order was the last straw on the men’s backs.
They spread out as though to comply, collecting their belongings; then one of them, passing by the dying fire, snatched up a brand from it and threw it at the captain. At the end of its charge, his gun only flashed, no more than singeing his attacker. The rest piled on him and brought him down.
There was a brief conference. All the heart had gone out of them. They were sick and tired of slaving for Gomes, even those who up to now had most faithfully carried out his orders. Down at the coast there was a polymath, and if he could get away with two armed men guarding him and seven others sleeping nearby, there was no limit to what he might ultimately achieve.
They left Gomes, and Probian, and the man Lex had strangled, and took the empty gun, no doubt for purposes of bluff. Then, in a strung-out line, they headed back downriver.
Perfect.
Those six deserters had long been captured by Baffin’s party and escorted to the town, when Gomes began to
recover. The day was bright and hot. He climbed dizzily to his feet, found himself with only two companions now, and cursed the men who had abandoned him. He staggered to the river and sluiced himself with water, then roused Probian, who lay in a near-coma.
With kicks and oaths he drove the others to their feet, made them pick up what little gear the deserters had left them, and urged them onward, upriver.
Discreetly, occasionally coming close enough to see them but following mostly by sound, Lex led his team after them.
The man who had been strangled collapsed late in the afternoon, and not all Gomes’s screams and insults could make him continue. Gomes and Probian abandoned him, and Lex assigned Aldric to make him comfortable, provide him with food and water, and tell him that he would be rescued when the main relief party came by. That of course would not be before tomorrow.
The vegetation closed tunnelwise around the river. Sustained now by sheer desperation, Gomes and Probian plodded on, always with Lex’s party a few hundred yards behind. Night came down, and they reached a site previously cleared, where they slumped down, so exhausted they could barely snatch a mouthful of food and water. Now the torture to which they were submitting the pair began to trouble Lex’s companions; even Jesset, who had at first said hotly that nothing was too bad for such devils, fell silent when she saw the state to which they were reduced.
His eyes like chips of rock, Lex stared up toward the cleared ground where the hapless men lay sleeping. He said, “If we wake them a little after midnight, we can reach the plateau at first light tomorrow. Get a few hours’ sleep. You’re going to need it, I promise.”
In the dead heart of the night they crept up on Gomes and Probian and woke them with handlights in their eyes. They were too weary to offer resistance. Fed, given water, they were taken captive in their turn, and driven onward again. Soon they were on high ground, having to clamber over the rocky ledges beside the falls and rapids, with starlight and Lex to show the way. Sometimes having to drag the prisoners, or lift them over the worst obstacles, they nonetheless made good time. Dawn was just breaking as they found themselves below the sad, futile remains of
Gomes’s vaunted dam. The river ran free now, and its sound was loud enough to cover a few quietly-spoken words.
“I’m going up first,” Lex whispered. “Send Gomes and Probian after me, then follow yourselves, as quickly as you can.”
The others nodded. Gleefully Hosper hugged Jesset to him with his left arm, weighing his gun in his other hand.
“And don’t use that unless you have to,” Lex ordered.
He scrambled over the last rocky shelf, and was on the same level as the wrecked dam. He had judged that the gap here would be guarded, and he was right. As he turned and dragged the unprotesting Gomes up behind him, he heard a hiss of breath, and then someone said sharply, “Say, it looks like the captain got back!”
A handlight beam, very faint in the morning twilight, slanted down and fell on Gomes and Probian standing dazed on the edge of the rock-shelf. After a moment two men emerged from cover, carrying—for want of energy guns—crossbows improvised from springy strips of metal and fraying lengths of cord.
That summed up everything which had gone amiss here: that amount of ingenuity, lavished on arms….
He waited a moment, judged it was safe to beckon the others up beside him—and was wrong. Gomes licked his lips.