Andro, his face altered by her careful surgery, stalked through the open slave marts with an unforgiving grimness in his eyes, in the clamp of his jaw. They knew their danger. Were he to announce his presence too quickly, they would be over-powered by Field Teams before his influence could spread enough to cause a probability deviation.
Calna sensed that Simpar, as well as the other main planets of Empire, was under constant, wary scrutiny. She explained to Andro, saying, “We must free them in such a way that it will appear to be a natural revolt. I have been trained in that sort of thing. Yet if I do it too cleverly my presence here will be suspected.”
He thought it over. “Then why not take this step? As we free them, give them ships and send them away to other planets. And. as they leave, tell them that Andro of Galvan has released them, and to keep that information secret until the word is passed. That will give this influence you talk about, the widest possible chance to operate.”
The Director received the report in person. He immediately beamed it to all Field Teams in Era 4, saving. “Slave revolt on Simpar indicates help being given by Ex-Agent Calna. Request immediate Team concentration at Simpar.”
Within twenty hours the suspicion was verified by direct report from Simpar The Field Team reported, “Ex-Agent Calna and Andro can be immediately eliminated. However, escaped slaves have gone to other planets with information re Andro Request verification of present probability index, as ship power less responsive than before.”
“Index sagging. Approaching danger point. Immediate elimination ordered. Verify. Verify.”
There was no verification. The Director waited until the last possible moment before ordering the slip back to a stable era. The city slipped back and communication with all Field Teams was thus cut.
It was night on Simpar. The triple moons, blood red, arced across the night sky. There were no more ships. The freed slaves, eyes wide and wild in the torchlight raced through the plundered streets. Throughout Solom, the capitol city of Simpar, Andro and Calna could hear distant crashes, faint screams as the last of the traders and buyers were hunted down and murdered. They had underestimated the unreasoning fury of the slaves, and thus found themselves in danger Slaves dressed in the fineries of the traders and buyers and were themselves killed by their fellows.
Thrice Andro had to stand and fight and kill in order to clear their path through the city. The first scattered revolts on the planet had been orderly, and the freed slaves had been spirited away on the captured ships without incident Rut this past night when the last of the fortified marts and pens and mansions of the traders and the government had fallen completely was nightmare.
Andro found a grim humor in having to stand and do battle with slaves who died screaming his name, as though it were a magic incantation.
At last they were out of the city Fires burned unchecked in the heart of the city. At one place flames rose hundreds of feet into the air. The dark plain was ahead of them, and in the darkness they meant to find the slanting tunnel down to the hidden ship
“Now have we won?” Andro demanded as be hurried along beside her.
“I’ll know when we reach the ship. If we’ve won, we cannot reach any other known era.”
The hidden entrance to the tunnel was less than a mile ahead. They ran on, and the night seemed endless as the clamor of the city faded behind them.
Solin’s ship, containing the other agent who had replaced Calna, hung poised and-invisible fifty feet above the mouth of the tunnel. The screens were adjusted to make the plain that stretched out toward the city as bright and clear as though it were bathed in sunshine.
He watched the tiny figures approaching. He knew who the first two were. The third one, the one who followed them, was unknown to him.
Solin felt the tiny shudder and turned almost in anger to Arla, the woman Agent who had replaced Calna. “It’s pointless to keep trying,” he said, “we’re beyond the point where we can return.”
The woman dropped her hands from the panel and turned toward him. Her expression was bleak and hopeless. Her shoulders sagged. She glanced at the screen. “Soon they’ll be near enough.”
“There seems to be no point in killing them now,” Solin said.
Arla gasped. “But it was an order! Your service with that Calna has made you a poor Agent, Solin. You heard the order.”
“We’re trapped here in Four. They can’t reach us and we can’t reach them. So why kill them? The damage is already done.”
“It was an order,” the woman said.
Solin sighed. He sometimes wondered if the male-female teams were not a mistake. According to Field Team theory, it made for a more flexible unit, increased the time that could be spent by any single Team on any single assignment. But it did give rise to a great many petty irritations.
“We took so long finding the tunnel,” the woman said. “That’s what trapped us here. We can make it worth while now by following orders.”
Chapter Four
The Might of Deralan
Deralan, on arrival at Simpar, had been clapped into one of the feeding pens for fattening. He listened to the rumors that brightened the eyes of the one who had been in the pen before his shipment had arrived. Rumors of freedom. Rumors of revolt. They heard violence in the city for many days and nights and at last they were released. The guards were slain and the walls broken down and the gates smashed and the great house where the trader and pen-owner had lived set afire.
Deralan trotted into the city with the rest of them and there he heard the word that he had suspected, that he had not wanted to believe.
“Andro!” they shouted. “Andro of Galvan!” It was rallying cry, battle cry, blood scream. “Andro!”
With sickness in his throat, Deralan dodged into the mouth of an alley and waited until the running steps had thudded into the distance. Dusk had changed slowly to night before he found a lone slave he could overpower.
“What of this Andro? Quick, while you live!”
“Please! He is said to be in the city. He has come back. His face is changed, but he has come back.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I don’t know. Believe me, I don’t know!”
Deralan made a quick and practiced gesture and then flung the body from him. He joined another wolf pack, snatched a torch, held it high, looked endlessly for a man with the huge strong body of Andro of Galvan.
He found a knife with a blade that suited him. He looted and burned and shouted with the others, but always he searched for Andro. He lost track of the hours. And at last he found a big man who stood with a fair-haired girl behind him and fought well, fought with the skill to be expected of any noble of the House of Galvan. He seemed about to be overpowered when the girl stepped to the side and something gleamed in her hand. The three who still faced the big man folded and dropped into absurdly small heaps on the paving stones.
As the big man turned, the torchlight touched his upper arm. Deralan sucked in his breath as he saw the pale rectangular patch. As they hurried on, Deralan looked at the three bodies. He swallowed hard. Something that swept across them, something the girl had used, had apparently completely removed whole sections of the men’s torsos. That was why the huddled bodies looked so small.
He flung the torch aside to gutter out and followed the man and the girl through the smoke drift of the streets, his fingers hard and tight on the haft of the knife.
Deralan followed them out of the city and across the dark plain. The three dark moons stretched three vague shadows of his crouched body as he followed them. As the ground grew more uneven, he shortened the distance between them. He reversed the knife in his grasp. It had a good balance. Andro’s back was broad. Deralan raised the knife. He poised it. He hurled it with all his strength. In the fractional part of a second before he released it, a great light bathed the entire plain in green-white brilliance. During the last six inches of the swing of his arm it seemed to Deralan that some great outside force had taken his arm and had given it a whip and power beyond anything any man should possess. The odd power snapped the bones of his arm and hurled him screaming into blackness.