The village had no wall or stockade, or even any well-defined borders. He passed the first houses without being challenged. To his left a group of women pounded meal, to his right young men were practicing spear-throwing. Neither group seemed especially promising—or especially interested—although he was an obvious outsider in his Sussian smock. His hair was as black as theirs, but he doubted that anyone else had blue eyes. He had decided to go on a little farther when faint sounds of shouting came drifting out from the town.
The warriors stopped their spear-throwing. The women looked up.
Then the men took up their spears and began to run. The women rose to their feet, hastily gathered small children, and set off to follow.
So did Edward. Pushing his blistered feet faster, he hurried after them. Soon the shouting grew louder; he saw more people running. Something of importance was happening. It could have nothing to do with him, but if everyone was there, then he had better attend also. A stranger caught skulking around deserted houses would be suspected of ill intentions.
He saw smoke. One of the houses was burning, which could hardly be a rare event in a village built like this one. The houses were spaced well apart, undoubtedly for just that reason. With no set street pattern, the people were heading more or less straight to the emergency. He followed until he reached the assembled crowd. He peered over heads. Half the building had gone already, red flames shooting skyward. Through a window he could see the interior glowing like a furnace and could feel the heat on his face, even at that distance.
He sensed something amiss. However strange the language, he could read the tone of the shouting. There ought to be wailing and lamentation. There wasn't. He heard jeering and anger. This was a mob. Someone was in trouble, and ten to one that house had been deliberately torched.
He located the center of the agitation, the men in charge of this riot. Their green robes, their shaven heads and faces, all confirmed that they were priests. They were haranguing the crowd, rousing it to ever-greater fury.
His skin prickled. An outsider had no place in a nasty business like this. Mobs were fickle. Furthermore, green was the color of Karzon, the Man, one of the Five. In the popular mind, Zath was an avatar of the Man, but in Zath's case the vassal was the stronger of the two. Zath was certainly one of the Chamber, and Karzon must be assumed to be so also. This affair might very well concern Edward, therefore, and the sooner he made himself scarce the better.
He stepped back one pace, then stopped as the crowd howled, a hungry, bestial sound. Four men came forward, carrying another prone between them. The priests yelled something. The crowd howled again.
Then the lynch party ran forward to the flaming house, two holding their victim's ankles, two his wrists. They swung in unison, and hurled him bodily through the doorway. They beat a hasty retreat from the heat. The man screamed from inside the furnace. Edward watched, appalled and helpless. He thought he saw the wretch rise to his feet, already wreathed in flame, only to stumble and collapse. There was one more scream and then nothing but the roar of the fire and the wild hollering of the mob.
"Karzon!” they screamed. “Krobidirkin Karzon! Karzon Krobidirkin!"
The priests waved a signal, and the execution squad came forward again. This time they were carrying a woman.
Edward began to push his way through the crowd. He was a stranger; he had charisma; he might be able to do something. He was too late. Sickened, he turned away, hearing the lustful howl of the mob and the woman's horribly prolonged dying shriek.
An elderly man stood beside him. His graying beard hung to his waist, but it did not hide old ritual scars on his scraggly chest. The wrinkled face above the beard was painted with a complex design, mostly in white, but with minor elements in the other sacred colors. He was grinning and rubbing his hands on his leather skirt.
"What have they done?” Edward demanded in Joalian. “What is their crime?"
Filmy eyes inspected the stranger suspiciously. Then the old man bared his teeth and barked out a string of words.
Edward caught very little of the explanation, except for one name: Kalmak. Another howl from the crowd made him look around. He caught a glimpse of an adolescent boy cartwheeling through the air, following his parents into the pyre.
So the priests of Karzon had just taken care of Kalmak. They had also destroyed Edward's only lead to the Service. Without the help of the Service, he could not return to Earth.
No escape! No escape!
He was trapped on Nextdoor, with no way to escape.
He watched in dismay as all his hopes went up in flames.
What was that confounded noise? He was in a bed. A bell ringing? A fire alarm. Not on Nextdoor any longer. Eyes gritty with sleep, head like a swamp. Back on Earth, in England. Dreaming of three years ago. Smedley had set off the alarm to help him escape from Staffles....
11
AGAIN JULIAN SMEDLEY HAD DISPOSED OF HIS SLEEPING TABLET. AGAIN he struggled to push his feet into laced shoes. This time he had pulled his greatcoat on over his civvies—no old campaigner ever forgot his greatcoat. He had noted where Rattray had put his blues. Rattray was roughly Exeter's height, although much broader. With a stolen bundle under his maimed arm, Smedley stole out into the dim, hushed corridor.
The fire alarm was right beside the bathroom door—a real spot of luck, because he was going to provoke a very fast reaction, and he did not want to be caught in the act. He paused for a moment, heart pounding, wondering for the thousandth time if there was any horrible miscalculation in his plan. Suppose nothing at all happened?
Over the top! he thought, and pulled the lever. Noise roared through the silent mansion, louder than the guns opening up at the start of a major battle. He turned the door handle the wrong way and began to panic; he almost fell into the bathroom—should have opened the door first, of course—he counted to ten and then emerged again. Other men were coming out of other doors, nurses flitting like moths already, lights dazzling bright.
He had expected to be first down the stairs, but several men were ahead of him, staggering in the way of the newly awakened. They might be cursing, but the clamor of the bells drowned out all sound. More were already streaming out into the chilly night, some on crutches, some helping the disabled. Like him, many had thought to pull on their greatcoats. Then he was outside on the lawn.
His first error! He had expected darkness, but light was streaming from every window—so much for regulations! The sky was almost cloudless and a gibbous moon had etched the grounds into a silver lithograph. His companions had stopped to take stock, muttering angrily. He pushed past and kept on going, around the west wing and the big greenhouse, past the sheds, across the rose garden, and through a narrow arch into the yard.
Second error! The yard was already full of men, and more were pouring out the kitchen door. He should have foreseen that! And the light would make it impossible to climb the wall unobserved. Oh ... heck. Keep calm! It could be done yet. All it needed was a cool head.
Some meddling officer began shouting, ordering everyone out to the garden. The yard was too close to the house.
Splendid! Smedley backed away and then stood against the wall near the arch, watching the faces coming by him—pale blurs, but he could imagine the angry, unshaven faces, the tousled hair. Cold, shivering men in pajamas. If they knew who had ruined their sleep, they would lynch him. And indoors, the bedridden, the crippled, the crazy...