Blade went on catching his breath, until he felt like speaking again. Even then he looked at Fudan for quite a while before he said a word. The Hauri chief matched him stare for stare.
«You saved my life,» said Blade at last.
Fudan shook his head. «Perhaps. Certainly you saved mine first. I would not have been alive to shoot the eel if you had not fought it as you did. You would probably have killed it even without my help.»
Blade had his doubts on that point, but there was no use in arguing. Fudan went on.
«Certainly we have this day fought a death-eel and slain it, and one of us has just as certainly saved the other.» He smiled. «By the customs of the Hauri this makes us brothers in the spirit. Each may ask of the other the same that a brother in the flesh could. Each must grant what is asked if there is no dishonor in it.»
«Well,» said Blade. «In that case I will promise you my voice in the councils of the Kargoi, to speak for making the peace with the Hauri last forever.»
«I also will give my voice for peace between our peoples, among the headmen of the Hauri. I will also consent that you take as wife my sister Loya.»
Blade frowned. «I am honored. But I would not take her against-«
Fudan threw back his head and laughed. «Blade, Blade, Loya has already given her consent ten times over. It is her dearest wish to be your wife, to bear you sons and daughters who will be living proof that there is peace between the Hauri and the Kargoi. Do you find her displeasing?»
It was Blade's turn to laugh. «Hardly. It is merely that I have given no thought to taking a wife.» He did not add that this was partly out of a reluctance to involve Loya in all the battles he knew he still had to fight in this Dimension. Women who became involved in his battles had a way of getting killed, and he wanted to avoid that fate for Loya. «If it is now proper that I take a wife, certainly I could find none better than Loya. She is beautiful, strong, and wise.»
«She is. I am glad you think of her as she thinks of you.» Fudan turned and began heaving on the anchor rope. «If you feel able to put away our weapons and the bags of shells, I think it is time to see about beginning our voyage home.»
Chapter 22
They headed for home under full sail in order to beat the approaching storm and succeeded with a few hours to spare. From a hilltop beside a sheltered cove, Blade watched the sea and sky both turn dark and twenty-foot waves churn against the shore.
That night Blade and Fudan sat in a hut lit by a flickering candle. Fudan squatted, opening the shellfish with his knife and carefully probing the dark flesh inside for the precious black pearls. Just as carefully Blade examined the salvaged Menel equipment.
Some of it was impossible to even identify. Much of it was impossible to study without a fully equipped laboratory. Frustrating, but inevitable. Blade saved the black book in its waterproof bag until the last.
It was indeed some sort of diary or log, with a map, photographs, and handwritten entries. At least Blade assumed they were handwritten. The «handwriting» of the Menel looked more like the marks made by a cockroach dipped in ink and sent crawling across the pages of the diary. After a moment Blade turned to the map and photographs.
It would have been hard to find the Menel's island base purely from the map-their cartographers did not work to human standards, and Blade was totally unable to guess the scale of the map. Fortunately the Hauri had seen the ship of the Menel fall out of the sky and knew where the island lay. With the map from the diary, it would be possible to land on the island and march straight to where the spaceship of the Menel lay hidden.
The crashed spaceship. The photographs made that clear. Judging from the size of the Menel standing beside it, the ship was at least five hundred feet long. It was also broken completely in two, with one end crushed into the ground as well. Blade counted forty-eight Menel in the group photograph. At least twenty of them were wearing what could have been bandages, and only twelve of them were carrying the long cylindrical beamers.
Perhaps the Menel had come to this world with a plan of conquest. Perhaps in the crushed part of the ship lay hundreds of dead Menel, a dozen more submarines and a dozen more flying machines, and an array of weapons that would have given them control of this Dimension in a few weeks. Certainly what they had now was this battered, poorly armed band of survivors of a devastating crash-a band which had in the past few weeks lost still more people and equipment to Blade's efforts and bad luck.
In spite of this disaster, they were trying to carry out their mission of extending the Menel empire. If they couldn't conquer this Dimension outright, perhaps they could do so by controlling some of the more formidable local wildlife? Some determined individual among the Menel must have asked that question. The result was the implanted bat-birds and sea reptiles.
Blade could not help wondering about the diary he held. Was it official and authorized, as a supplementary record of the Menel activities in this Dimension? Or had some Menel succumbed to the temptation to record privately what he and his comrades had done? Why had he succumbed, in that case? Out of loneliness, fear, despair, distrust of superiors who might not give him or someone close to him proper credit? Those were plausible motives for human beings in a situation like this, and ascribing those motives to the Menel made them seem much more human for a moment. It was also complete guesswork, and perhaps totally unjustified.
One thing was certain. The diary laid out for Blade to see all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the Menel. Whoever had kept that diary and for whatever reasons had, quite by accident, done his comrades a great deal of harm. Fortunately for him, he was probably one of the crash victims and would therefore never know. Meanwhile, Richard Blade sat with the diary in his hands.
It was almost ludicrous, the way the Great Menel Menace had evaporated or at least shrunk down to its proper size. Instead of a horde of Menel ready to sweep human beings from the face of this world, there was a battered handful of survivors desperately trying to improvise some sort of campaign with what little equipment they still had. Blade found himself reluctantly admiring their courage and determination, although he didn't think much of their common sense. And a campaign of conquest was still a campaign of conquest, no matter how sloppy or ineffective it might be.
There was also no guarantee that the Menel wouldn't sooner find some more effective method of attack. They might even find human allies, the way they'd found the Ice Master in the land of the Ice Dragons.
So there was still no time to waste. The peoples of this Dimension would have to be united, as fast as possible and as thoroughly as possible without telling them exactly why they had to unite. A few of the wisest leaders could be trusted with that truth, but for the time being no one else.
He would also have to give this Dimension gunpowder as quickly as possible. Gunpowder weapons were still not equal to the beamers of the Menel, but they would be better than spears and arrows. With a hundred cannon or a thousand muskets to every beamer, the Menel would certainly have their claws full in any battle.
Blade realized that he was letting his thoughts run on ridiculously far ahead of his knowledge, and turned back to the photographs in the diary. One of the last ones showed an aerial view of a two-masted sailing ship, all sails set and close-hauled. The human figures on the deck showed that the ship was about a hundred feet long. Most of the figures wore seaman's trousers, boots, and caps. Several wore long coats of chain mail, with horned helmets on their heads and broadswords or axes slung from belts at their waists.