“Be silent,” Hoss’k said.
The foreigner blinked. He reared back. “Listen, fatso, I’m Dr. B. Brady, of the Sahara Institute of Technology. I am a representative of Dr. Marcel Flaster, who happens to be—”
There was a loud thump as the alien hit the ground, knocked flat by the burly backhand of one of the guards. “The scholar said to be silent!”
The fellow rolled over slowly and looked up, blearily. He did not open his mouth again.
Hoss’k smiled in satisfaction. This one would indeed turn out to be more tractable than Dennis Nuel had been. His bluster meant he had few internal reserves and would bend quickly once shown the way of things. He already showed the signs.
Apparently the guard had used too much force, though. The foreigner was slow to become lucid again.
No matter, Hoss’k thought. By the time we are on our way back again, the high passes will be filled with my Lord’s troops. I’d rather make a procession past them, with my new prize, than journey down that silent, eerily empty road one more time.
10
“Are they gone yet?”
Linnora turned and went “Sshhh!” at Arth, who ducked quickly back under the bushes and was quiet.
Dennis watched anxiously as the Princess peered through the underbrush at the side of the road. The dust of the last of the cavalrymen settled slowly.
She had insisted on being the lookout. Dennis wasn’t too happy about it, but he had to admit that she was right. The job didn’t put much strain on her feet, and she was less exhausted than the two men. Besides, Dennis had witnessed few things more remarkable than the girl’s eyesight.
He lay back on the dry sticks and needles beside the little cart. They had pushed the wagon into this thicket fifteen minutes before. It had been just in time, as the lead elements of Kremer’s cavalry pounded around the rim of the mountain only moments later.
He and Arth had fallen to the ground exhausted, hardly noticing the apparently endless procession of horsemen who galloped past. It was only in the past few moments that the roar in Dennis’s ears—and the laboring of his lungs—had quieted enough for him to hear anything at all.
Dennis felt a sharp tug on his sleeve. He turned his head and saw the robot standing only inches away. It had nudged him with one manipulator arm. Its red “attention” light flashed.
Dennis rose onto one elbow and looked at the small line of text that appeared on the machine’s little screen.
“Oh, hell. Not now!” he told it.
The thing still wanted to fulfill the very first function he had given it—to report what it had found out about the inhabitants of this world. No doubt it had discovered a lot, but now certainly wasn’t the time for a debriefing!
He patted the little robot on its turret. “Later, I promise, I’ll listen to everything you have to tell me.”
The machine’s lights winked in response.
“Okay,” Linnora said. She used the Earth term she had picked up from Arth. “The last of the horsemen are gone. From what we saw on high, they cannot be followed closer than an hour by any other forces, even more cavalry.”
“All right,” Dennis said, groaning as he sat up. “We chance the road again.”
It was the only way deeper into the mountains. And deeper to the south they had to go if they were to arrive in time to do the beleaguered L’Toff any good.
Dennis stood up and held out his arm. The pixolet swooped down from its vantage point on a branch overhead, from which it had watched the cavalcade of horsemen. Grinning, it seemed to think the episode a wonderful joke.
Of course, they never would have made it this far without Pix and the ’bot.
This forest thicket in which they had hidden had been more than three miles away when they first caught sight of their pursuit. He and Arth could never have hauled the cart this far in time.
But the robot proved to be powerful when he ordered it to lend a hand—or claw. It was at least as good a tractor as the donkey had been. They covered those three miles quickly.
During the race for shelter, Dennis was certain that he had felt that queer resonance effect again between the humans and the Krenegee, directed at the tools they were using. It had been a mild version of the felthesh trance. He was sure the cart and robot had changed again even over that short stretch.
At his command, the ’bot took its place under the wagon again. Two of its three arms clamped onto the undercarriage to hold on.
Already the arms were beginning to look suited to the task.
Linnora and he pushed the cart through a gap in the bushes, while Arth ran back up the road to keep watch. Once they were onto the highway, Linnora climbed aboard and reset the glider sails. Dennis almost stopped her, but then he shrugged and let her finish. Who could tell? The flapping things might frighten some party of troops they came upon.
Arth came hurrying back. “Th’ whole army’s headed this way, Dennizz! At th’ rate they’re comin’ we got no more’n an hour’s head start.”
“Okay. Let’s get going.”
Linnora belted herself into the cart, its sleek, almost streamlined sides glistening in the sunshine. Arth climbed aboard and took the brakes, whose friction bars and bindings had begun to look almost like machine-designed units.
Dennis remained on his feet to help push. He would hop in when they came to a downhill slope.
Linnora had already begun to enter her practice meditation. Maybe he was becoming more sensitive, or maybe it was the presence of the pixolet, but Dennis could already feel its traces begin to fill the space around him.
The pixolet, seeing a better place to position itself than his shoulder, abandoned him and launched itself to the top of the twin masts. The sails drooped under its weight, but the creature seemed happy enough. Its purring intensified the feeling that strange powers were already at work, helping mould the cart into something better.
Fine, Dennis thought, but I’d still rather have an armored personnel carrier, made from scratch by the Chatham Works in England.
With a sigh he nodded to his motley crew, and signaled the robot to commence pulling at top speed.
Dennis pushed on the upslopes, and ran alongside on the downhill sections while Arth applied the brakes and Linnora steered. The robot whirred and the sails flapped.
Above them all, the little Krenegee beast purred, amplifying the queer resonance that seemed to glow around them like an aura. The afternoon felt crystalline, like a faceted gem, and the use of the cart became like a complicated dance to music just beyond the edge of hearing.
Clearly they were getting better at working together to make the practice trance work.
It gave Dennis a strange sense of exhilaration. Through the pixolet, he could almost feel Linnora’s thoughts as she concentrated. It seemed to tie them together, somehow closer than they otherwise might have been. Arth, too, became part of the matrix, although the Krenegee did not focus upon the little thief quite as much.
Dennis caught occasional glimpses of Pix perched upon its drooping sails. The creature grinned, enjoying the flow of purpose that flooded through it into the machine their lives depended on.
And it was changing. Dennis pushed the cart until he found he had to run simply to hang on! At the top of a steep rise he ordered the robot to stop, and he climbed aboard up front to take the reins from Linnora. The straps, he found, had grown softer and easier to hold.