Nobody had a watch or any way of telling time now; they would just have to settle back and wait that eternal wait for the light to come on.
Oh, hell, he decided. Might as well ask the Gedemondan straight out. “Communicator? What do you wish of all this? What shall I do for and with you?”
The Gedemondan didn’t hesitate. “For myself, nothing, except to be returned to my people,” he told the other. “For my people, I would wish that you examine why the experiment which succeeded here failed out there and make the necessary adjustments so that it at least has an even chance this next time.”
Brazil nodded slowly. That sounded fair enough. He wondered about the creature, though, and whether or not it was entirely on the up-and-up. Quite often more than one race would wind up on a given planet once a pattern was established, occasionally by design because they might have something to contribute, occasionally by accident. The process just wasn’t all that exact. The insectlike Ivrom, for example, had managed by accident or their own design to get a few breeders into Earth during the last time, and had become the basis for many of the legends of fairies, sprites, and other mischievous spirits. Some of the others, too; once Old Earth had had a colony of Umiau, what it called mermaids, on the theory that perhaps a second race could use the oceans as the main race used the land.
The Rhone—descendants of the original Dillian centaurs—had attained space flight at an early age. An exploratory group had crashed on Old Earth when the humans still thought it a flat land on the back of a giant turtle or somesuch, and they had managed to survive there, even be worshiped by some of the primitive humans as gods or godlike creatures. But they were too wise, too peaceful, for the rough primitivism of Earth; eventually they had been hunted down and finally wiped off the face of the planet. He himself had arranged to destroy their remains and wipe all but legend from the sordid history of what man did to the great centaurs, but when the Rhone, fallen back into bad times, first lost, then regained, space, and again probed the human areas, they had known, somehow, of the fate of those earlier explorers. Humans had appeared in their dreams, in their racial nightmares, long before lasting discovery, and it had kept them somewhat distant and apart from humanity even as they entered into a pragmatic partnership with it.
As for the Gedemondans, there were legends, both on the Rhone home world and on Old Earth, of huge humanoid, secretive creatures that lurked in the highest mountains and the most isolated wilderness, somehow avoiding technological man through his whole history except for brief glimpses, legends, half-believed tales. Were some of these, the Yeti, the Sasquatch, and others like them, truly the evolved descendants of some Gedemondans who had somehow gotten shifted to the wrong place? He couldn’t help but wonder.
Time dragged for them, on the Avenue, at the Equator. More than once any of the three of them had the feeling that more than seven hours must have passed, that somehow they had either missed it, or this entryway wasn’t working, or there was some other problem.
The waiting, Mavra decided, was the worst thing of all.
Suddenly the Gedemondan said, “I sense presences near us.” He sounded worried.
Brazil and Mavra looked around, back into the darkness, but could see and hear nothing unusual In both their minds was the fear that, now, at the last moment, the armed force would catch up to them, that Serge Ortega and his group had been unable to hold the Borgo Pass long enough.
The Gedemondan read their apprehension. “No. Just three. They appear to be to our right. It is very odd. They seem to be inside the solid rock wall, coming toward us fairly fast.”
Mavra’s head jerked up. “It’s the Dahbi!” she warned. “They can do that.”
“That’s twice I’ve underestimated that bastard,” Brazil grumbled. “While Serge’s people hold his army, Sangh goes around them in a way only he can. The force at the pass told him what he needed to know— we were here and on our way. At least he can’t take any weapons on that route.”
“He doesn’t need them,” she shot back. “Those forelegs are like swords and the mandibles are like a vise. And we don’t have any weapons, either.” She looked around. “Or anywhere to go.”
“Except in,” he sighed. “But we can’t count on that.”
The Gedemondan turned and stared at a rock wall not fifteen meters from where they stood. Slowly there was a brightening of the rock in three places. They watched in horrified fascination as three ghostly creatures oozed out of the solid rock, seemed to solidfy, and stood there, a huge one in front, two slightly smaller in back, like ghastly sheets with two black ovals cut in them for eyes.
Brazil stared at them, fascinated. So those are Dahbi, he thought to himself. He remembered them now, vaguely. More legends and ancestral memory. And the big one in the middle had to be—
“Nathan Brazil, I am Gunit Sangh,” said the leader. “I have come to take you back.”
Brazil started to move forward to make connection with the Gedemondan so he could reply, but the Gedemondan ignored him and walked to only a few meters from the Dahbi leader.
“You’ve lost, Sangh,” said the Gedemondan in almost perfect imitation of Brazil’s accent and mannerisms. “Even if we went back with you now, our own forces are behind yours at the pass. You may go through walls, but you can’t take me that way.”
“I won’t have to,” Sangh replied confidently. “We shall go back with you as hostage and we shall walk right through that pass to my own forces, which, by that time, will have it secured. Then we need only hold it until the balance of my forces moves up to collect us. Your pitiful force in between can’t hope to do much more. After all, look at how well your own small force has held the pass against us so far.”
Both Mavra’s and Brazil’s heads came up at this. They had still been holding the pass!
“I stand here in front of the Well,” the Gedemondan responded threateningly. “You know the rules, Sangh. I cannot be killed, and I do not wish to be taken.”
“I weary of this,” Gunit Sangh sighed irritably. “Take him!”
The two smaller Daahbi unfolded, showing their full, grim insectival forms. The effect was startling, particularly on Brazil, who had never seen it before.
The two moved on the Gedemondan, who stood firmly facing them. Sticky forelegs dripping some gruesome liquid reached out for the great white creature, and all along the legs flashed the natural sabers of the Dahbi. The foreleg of the one to the Gedemondan’s left touched the creature, who reached over and grabbed it, unexpectedly, in his left hand. There was a brilliant flash of blue-white fire that seemed to envelop the Dahbi, a supernova that flared into momentary monumental brightness, then was gone.
Taking advantage of the stunned shock of the other, the Gedemondan already was turning, his right hand reaching out and taking hold of the other’s foreleg before it could withdraw. Again the flare, again, when it suddenly faded, there was no sign of the Dahbi.
Gunit Sangh hadn’t lived this long or gotten this far without guts and quick thinking. In a display of courage that rivaled his ferocity, his own foreleg lashed out and took the Gedemondan’s head off with one swing.
The headless body spouted blood from the severed neck, which dyed the beautiful white fur, and it lurched forward as if with a will of its own as Sangh, moving with a speed that seemed impossible, retreated back out of the way of the decapitated thing.
The Gedemondan’s arms reached out and it took one or two steps forward, then shuddered and toppled to the ground, where it twitched for a few moments, then lay still. Abruptly the stored energy in the body flared up, another brilliant nova, and then it was over. There was nothing left, nothing but the blood and the severed head, staring glassily from the Avenue floor.