“There it is—that pile of boulders, over there!” Wilm shouted breathelessly. They headed towards it.
“Right!”
The nearer he came, the more the pile of rocks began to resemble a cleverly-painted canvas. With numb hands he slashed Asloth’s keen blade through the strands holding down the tarpaulin against the gale, ripping off the cover and exposing the battery of lasers. Never had cold metal looked so good to him! It was a ten-beam battery of 57-microns, smaller and less powerful than the great surface-to- space battery on Valadon, but fully competent to dispatch a few small ships.
Automatic habit-pattems imposed by endless hours of Naval gun-drill took command of his body. He slammed switches and ignited the firing-chambers, slapped wheels and watched the long glittering muzzles begin to elevate. At his side, Wilm was using the battery’s communicator.
“Radar! Radar! Give us a fix, will you?” Bardry yelled. A tinny voice crackled back at them from the speaker.
“They’re coming into range now, sir, braking for atmospheric entry.” It was Gundorm Varl’s voice, Linton knew.
“Give me a fix, Gundorm!”
“Right, sir! Set your guns at R.A. 14 hours, 36.2 minutes; Dec. -60° 38”—no, cancel that! Cancel that! The bastards are cornin’ in too damn fast for manual. Wait a minute—yes! Set your battery on ‘automatic’—I see there’s a tracking-computer hookup here. We can fire the guns automatically from here—find the switch?”
Raul searched the panel for the switch.
“Right!” His hand went out to close it.
“Stop right there. Don’t move, or I shoot!”
Raul froze.
“Back up ten paces—come on, move, Linton! That’s it. Now turn around, slowly, slowly. Drop those weapons, both of you—” the cold, hard voice from behind him demanded. Raul let his laser pistol and Asloth slip through his fingers. He turned to see a stooping figure in dirty Rilké garments covering himself and Bardry with a neuronic scrambler. Blinking his eyes against tears caused by the biting wind, he sought to make out the features within the suede cowl. A lean, sour-mouthed brown face—vaguely familiar—
“Pertinax!”
The sour mouth smiled primly.
“So I was right all the time about you, eh Linton! You really were a traitor, all the while.”
Raul shook his head numbly, as if to clear his mind.
“Listen, Pertinax, I don’t know how you got here or what it is you think I’m doing, but for all the stars in space, man, let me get back to those guns! It’s our only chance—”
Pertinax spat.
“You treacherous turncoat! Enough of your lies. I came here yesterday, in disguise, with a number of other ‘recruits’ for this invasion. And all I heard from the dirty natives was how a great Shakar from the Inner Stars, a Commander Linton, had come to join the Kahani and lead her troops, along with those of other rebel princes from the Border-worlds, to invade and sack Omphale and the neighboring stars. You bloody-handed traitor! Lead a pack of grubby natives against your own people, will you? But I’ve got you now!”
“Pertinax, you’ve got it all wrong! Arion, man, if you don’t let us get at those guns, we’ll all be blasted to hell when the fleet gets here!”
A thin-lipped smile.
“None of your tricks, Linton! Keep your hands in plain view and don’t try to jump me or I’ll coagulate your brain! I don’t know how you discovered I had summoned the Border Patrol, but I’m not going to stand here and let you burn them down!”
Linton felt his mind reel.
“I don’t know anything about the Border Patrol! I didn’t even know you were here, much less that you had summoned the Patrol! Listen to me, Pertinax—we haven’t time for talk. Those are Pelairi ships coming—Wilm, can’t you talk sense to this single-minded idiot?”
Ignoring the unwavering pistol, Bardry shoved forward. “Pertinax! Put down that gun, man, and lend us a hand. Those ships are—”
But the Snake wasn’t even listening. His eyes widened with disbelief, then half-closed with pleasure.
“Bardry! Well, I’m—so you’ve turned traitor, too, have you? Well, wait till Brice Halien hears about this!”
Behind them, the speaker squawked sharply:
“Commander! Commander! For the love o’ life—switch the guns to automatic! The fleet’s within the atmosphere right now—hurry!”
Wilm Bardry fixed Pertinax with a level, fiercely urgent glare. He said slowly, with the ring of command like steel in his voice: “Colonel Pertinax. I outrank you, sir. I am a Captain-General in His Magnificence’s service. I command you—put down that pistol. For once in your life, man, think straight!”
It was no use. Pertinax was not even listening. His little weasel-eyes were alight with joy and his thin lips curved smugly in a self-righteous smile.
“Oh, I know you’re clever, Captain-General—very clever. You managed to fool everyone at Omphale—but not Nijel Pertinax! I know a traitor when I see one—and I’ve got you dead to rights, this time. You and Linton, both. Oh, it will be a great day when I take the both of you back to Omphale—I’ve spoiled more ‘little games’ than any agent in the Cluster, but this will be my greatest triumph!”
“Great Arion,” Raul gasped. “Wilm—I bet he’s the one who set the Arthon and his gang loose!”
Wilm groaned.
“You must be right, Raul! No one else around here more stupid than the Snake—was it you, Pertinax?”
Pertinax sniffed with self-satisfaction.
“Of course it was me. Do you think you can lay violent hands on a Planetary Prince—clap him in a cell—like he was a common criminal? I was nosing about in disguise, and came upon the men who had been set to guard his highness. I told them I had been sent to relieve them and that they were urgently needed elsewhere. The Arthon told me, as soon as I identified myself, how he had come here to Ophmar in a vain attempt to dissuade the war-mongering Kahani from her mad plan to attack the Inner Stars … and how you, Linton, seized him by force and jailed him so that he could not get free to radio a warning to the Border Patrol. Naturally, I set him free!
“Don’t you realize that, renegade or not, Linton, you are still an Imperial citizen—every action you take reflects against the Imperium! I had to do some fast talking to persuade the Arthon not to sever diplomatic relations with the Imperium—he was all for lodging a full protest with the Imperator! But I assisted him and his men to freedom, gave them arms, and helped them find their way down to the hangar below, where their ship was moored—”
Bardry fixed burning eyes on Pertinax, and said in slow, deadly tones: “If ever I get free of this, I swear I’ll break you and run you out of this Cluster without a shred of honor or reputation to your name. You—incredible—blind—ignorant—FOOL!”
Above them, somewhere to the east, a shrill whine came to their ears, borne on the cold wind. The fleet! And just then, at the edge of ultimate and complete despair, Raul felt his heart lift with a surge of incredible joy—a thrill so intense, that he fought to keep his face rigid, and not to show the blaze of relief that tingled through him.
Across the mighty dome of rock, Gundorm Varl emerged from the elevator and came swiftly, silendy towards them, pistol clasped in one huge, capable hand, blond beard riffling in the chill wind. Impatiently waiting below in the radar room for Raul and Wilm to switch the laser battery to automatic firing, guided by hookup to radar and course-computer, he finally had come up himself to see what was the matter. Now, seeing a stranger holding the two of them helpless at gunpoint, he lifted a finger to his lips and stole silently across the clifftop towards them, walking with exaggerated caution.