"You forget. Perhaps they're not after you; but they know about you. They could hold you as a hostage. Presently I'd get a note saying: Reith, unless you give yourself up to us, we will set to work on your female Terran. To show we mean business, we inclose a finger, or a nose, or other detachable part of her."
"You needn't obey their demands!" she snapped.
"But ask yourself whether I would. You know me pretty well. I said I wouldn't order you around, and I won't. You needn't break Angur's pitcher over my head in order to walk out that door. But think about what I've said."
Slowly she set the pitcher down. "You win, damn it! Oh, Fergus!" Her speech ended in a wail as she threw herself into his arms. "Why do I do these things?"
Between kisses, he said: "The human mind is a mystery to me—especially yours, my love."
IX - THE STAR CHAMBER
The mahout astride the bishtar's neck blew a flourish on a shrill little trumpet and whacked his beast with a goad. The links between the cars clanked, and the car in which Reith, Alicia, and Marot were traveling jerked into motion. The train clicked over switch points and out the yard on the single-track line. Flanges groaned, axles screeched, and the wooden frames of the little cars creaked like ships at sea. Ahead, the passengers could hear the muffled thud of the bishtar's six elephantine legs.
The background noise compelled the Terrans, clad in their worn, patched khakis and sharing their car with six Krishnans of assorted ages, to raise their voices. Eventually they fell silent, fatigued by the sheer effort of shouting.
The train rattled and rolled, at a steady fifteen kilometers a Krishnan hour (longer than its Terran equivalent) through the farming country of northern mainland Qirib. As the hours passed, the country grew increasingly rugged and rocky, and the farms more scattered and less prosperous.
"Hey, what's up?" said Reith, awakened from a catnap. The train had ground to a halt in hilly country, covered only by open stands of scrubby trees and bushes. "There's no siding here, for a southbound train to pass ..."
As Reith thrust his head out the window, Alicia, looking out the other side, cried: "Who are those people? It looks like a holdup!"
So suddenly did the marauders appear that they might have sprung from the earth. Reith saw one emerge from behind a boulder; others must have lurked behind ground cover until the train stopped and then risen at a signal. Then a yelling mass swarmed towards the train from both sides. They seemed well armed, with an occasional flash of chain mail beneath their nondescript garments and ragged mantles.
"Get our swords, Aristide!" yelled Reith.
As the paleontologist rose to reach for the weapons in the overhead rack, Reith heard intruders burst into the next car aft. One shouted in a Chilihagho accent:
"Keep your seats! Be calm! Ye shall not be hurt! We do but seek certain aliens amongst you."
"Must be Lazdai's boys," growled Reith. "Forget the swords, Aristide. They're still wired into their scabbards, anyway."
"What can I do to help?" said Alicia.
"Pull something over your hair and pretend you don't know us," Reith hissed.
"But I can't desert—"
"You must! You can't do us any good if they nab you, too!"
"My fossil!" cried Marot. "They will destroy it! How can I hide it?" He hauled the bag out from beneath his seat. "Alicia, my dear, pretend that it is a baby, and you are nursing it!"
"But how—" began Alicia, who had tied a scarf over her betraying blond hair. Marot placed the sack in her lap and untied the draw string at the top, whispering: "Please! I beg you!"
"Heaviest damned baby ..." muttered Alicia, unbuttoning her shirt. She thrust a breast into the opening in the bag and sat gently rocking the sack and crooning to it as armed Krishnans burst into the car from both ends.
"Ha!" cried their leader. "These twain bid fair to answer the description. Zanzir, where's that warrant ..."
Reith stared, with more imperturbability than he felt, at the bared swords pointed at his chest.
"Here we have it!" said the leader. " 'A Terran hight Fergus Reit', of good height, with hair the color of copper. A Terran hight Aristide Maghou, of similar stature but stouter build, having black hair flecked with gray, and wearing eyeglasses. Masters Reit' and Maghou, I hereby arrest you in the name of the Dasht of Chilihagh! Come along! Resist not, or 'twill be the worse for you. Now where is that accursed bag of stones we were commanded to find? Look about, men!"
Several Krishnans searched the car, poking at the luggage in the overhead racks and peering under the seats. None paid attention to the bogus baby in Alicia's lap. One said: " 'Tis not here, sir."
"Oh, Hishkak!" growled the leader. "We were straitly commanded to work with all possible dispatch. We cannot linger to take apart the cars, seeking some fribbling bag of stones. Come along, ye twain!"
"What—what—" protested Marot as he was hauled out into the center aisle.
"All shall transpire at Jeshang. Bring them forth!"
The two were hustled out of the car. The raiders assembled, leading ayas; Reith thought there must be over a hundred of them. A glance back at the train showed that, beyond the stopping point, the track had been torn up.
"Here's your mount, Master Reit'!" said a Krishnan. "Ye ride, I trow? Lest ye get any storybook ideas, we'll make sure ye don't try a bolt. Hold still!"
They tied a noose around Reith's neck and another around his right wrist. "Now mount!"
Encumbered by the ropes, Reith mounted awkwardly. With a mounted Krishnan holding a rope on either side, any attempt at flight would be futile. His captors had but to pull up and haul on the ropes, and he would be plucked from the saddle and slammed down with bone-breaking force on the rocky earth.
A Krishnan blew a whistle, and the raiders sorted themselves out into a mounted column. At another blast, the troop set out at a trot to westward. Marot, also roped, rode behind Reith. Rising in his stirrups, Reith had a last glimpse of Alicia, with a scarf on her head, gazing after him. As the cavalcade broke into a canter, she fluttered her fingers in a discreet farewell.
All day they rode and far into the night, not even stopping to eat. Reith surmised that their captors wanted to get out of Qirib as quickly as possible. They pushed the animals hard, cantering, then walking them for a space to breathe them, then cantering again. Avoiding towns and traveled roads, they meandered through wild country, sometimes following a game trail or a long-disused road. They must, thought Reith, have planned this foray carefully so as not to provide Qirib with an excuse for war.
Roqir set. The endless ride continued, although the troop now moved at a walk. Every few hundred meters, they passed a lighted lantern set in the ground to show the returning raiders the way.
Ready to fall off his mount with fatigue, Reith guessed it was near midnight and that they had crossed the border, when the troop emerged into cultivated country, found a good road, and speeded up to a trot. Reith found the aya's trot hard, because the saddle, mounted over the middle pair of legs, transmitted a pitiless jar up through the rider's spine.
A group of houses, washed in the light of two of Krishna's three moons, appeared on either side of the road ahead. Most were dark, but a few windows shone yellow with the glow of candles or lamps. A few minutes later, the ayas' hooves thundered on the timbers of the floating bridge across the Zigros. The riders crossed, two by two, and entered Qantesr on the southern bank.
The troop halted while their commander conferred with a hooded figure. Then the riders guarding Reith and Marot commanded: "Dismount, Terrans! And come this way; ye shall bunk in the schoolhouse."