The Days of Glory Page 13

  As he slowed up, he saw a red haze near the middle of the control screen, and nudged the incoder so that he was headed more or less straight for it. For one instant, he shot the ship’s velocity up to maximum again, and watched the red haze explode into a series of blurred red scars. Then he pulled the controls right back again and slipped into slow-speed evasion pattern again.

  The Human ships, left momentarily behind, were right back on his tail, and seconds away from locking. He hurled the ship forward into the solar system, his fingers modifying his flight plan just enough to keep the Human ships from locking, but not troubling them sufficiently to keep them from getting closer and closer. There was .no point in going mad—there were too many of them. They were bound to outmaneuver him eventually. But he was not giving up. He was heading in toward the sun, on a far from direct course, but one which took him drunkenly nearer to his objective with every second that passed.

  There was no chance of cutting out his omega-shield and pretending to be an asteroid. The movement of a ship was unmistakable, even if the ship was colored red and not silver in the screen. Nor could he spare the time to land, even if he could get near enough to one of the system’s planets. While he switched from omega-drive into space-drive, he would become a sitting duck.

  But, he reasoned, if he could get close enough to the sun for the tiny silver dot to be lost in the red blob on the screens of the Human ships, he might be able to slip into a tight solar orbit in normal space, and gain the time to align.

  “Close” would have to be very close because the enemy were at all angles to his own ship, and it would be difficult to hide from all of them at once. He might even have to get within the solar halo. Once there, the blur which hyperspace imposed upon all images on the screens of all ships should be sufficient concealment.

  There was, of course, a limit to how much protection the ship’s shield could give. It would not hide them from the sun’s radiation for long. And if Deathdancer made the slightest mistake, they could be plunged far too deep into the solar skin and turned into instant ashes.

  Deathdancer decided to try it. It was not particularly heroic—there was no other course of action which gave him as much chance. But it was a decision which needed guts, for all that

  He looked at the red fog sprawling half across the control screen and wished he could actually see where he was going. The distortion of hyperspace was confusing and troublesome. It was, of course, not a true representation of what was actually there. What showed on the screen was a sort of approximation of what would be there if the ship were in space. For all practical purposes it was a reasonable approximation, but it was never wise to be overconfident. Gravity, as far as theory went, ought to be totally absent in hyperspace, but there was, in fact, some interdimensional leakage. Radiation was also supposed to be either absent or existing only in an entirely new frame of reference, but it was rumored that that was not absolutely true either. It was also widely held that no sane man could look at hyperspace and stay sane. Few people felt inclined to test the hypothesis, and Deathdancer had never heard of any whose evidence disputed the widely held opinion.

  But the blurred red image on the screen was all he had, and Deathdancer simply had to make do with it The bottom half of the control screen was all red now, and the side screens showed arcs of redness. Deathdancer abandoned his complicated flight path and flew the ship straight at an arbitrary point on the blurred solar horizon. A red haze began to fill the top half of the screen, and he pulled the nose up an imperceptible fraction. The temperature seemed to be rising, but at the moment it was more imagination than anything else.

  “Can you see the ships?” he asked grimly.

  “Yes,” came back the reply. “But only a few. Most of them are lost in the sun.”

  Deathdancer bit his lip. Just because he could see the Humans did not mean that they could see him, but it was a risk.

  “I can see more now,” said the man on the rear screen. “But they’re further away. They won’t follow us. They must have lost us!”

  Deathdancer switched the ship into spacedrive, and the muscles of his face tensed as he wondered what would happen now they were fully exposed to the gravity of the sun. If they had not enough velocity, they would spiral into the sun. If they had too much, they would shoot back into space.

  “Align for Altair IV!” he shouted to the control gunner while his own hands manipulated the space-drive controls. The gunner reached across to the computer incoder, and keyed the alignment. Deathdancer’s eyes stayed steadfastly on the solar horizon—clearer now they were in space and not hyperspace, but still uncertain.

  The temperature in the control room really was climbing now.

  The seconds ticked by as sweat streamed down Death-dancer’s temples and there was an intense silence in the room. It was an agonizing wait. He imagined that he saw the plastic of the control panel begin to melt, but in fact it was his head beginning to spin.

  His face became dry as the sweat evaporated, and his eyes grew very hot. “I’ll have to take us away,” he groaned.

  “Ten seconds,” murmured the control gunner faintly.

  The dizziness increased, and the solar horizon disappeared from view, but not because his course had changed. Deathdancer swayed and shook his head. The dim red line swam back into sight.

  “Now,” croaked the gunner. Deathdancer flicked the ship back into omega-drive and jerked it away from the sun at maximum velocity into the aligned path.

  He watched the tiny cluster of Human ships disappear into nothing on the rear screen. They had no chance to give chase. While still en route for Altair IV he heard Eagle-heart give the order to align for Sapia, and changed his destination.

  SAPIA

  Sapia is a young world. It is small, but still bursting with healthy atmosphere. Like most worlds, Sapia has evolved no animal life but has been fairly generous with its plants. Sapia is covered almost from pole to pole with thick, garish vegetation. Up at the poles, where the climate is only mildly warm, the vegetation is economical and consists of vast stands of low-growing moss; but over most of the world there is a great deal of variety, depending on elevation and rainfall. There are no deserts.

  There are pleasanter places than Sapia in the galaxy, but many worlds like it are colonized. It is merely a matter of chance that this one is not.

  The area around the crater where Eagleheart lands the Beast fleet is typical of much of the world. The jungle is a tangled mess of big, fleshy leaves and twisted stems. The trees are high and straight, bearing crowns well out of the reach of the smothering ground vegetation. Long, flaccid ropelike stems use the trees for support and make a secondary crown above the undergrowth.

  THE LANDINGS ON SAPIA

  Eagleheart -waited with fingers poised to send his ship into the aligned path as soon as possible, his eyes fixed with intense concentration on the control screen. A confusion of dots sprawled all over the screen, as on every other screen in every other ship. All six guns were firing, but there were no cries of triumph and no splashes of white to signal imminent danger.

  But ships were dying all around. The ghostly battle was on every side. The Beasts held up well for a few moments, until the Humans were all present and had collected themselves. Then it became noticeable that more pale dots than bright ones were fading into smoky light

  And then the alignment was complete and the Beast ships ran. The brighter sparks dwindled and died in the rear screens.

  The Beast ships landed in a circular depression which was less favored with vegetation than the immediate surroundings. It was apparently a crater, presumably made by a meteor since there was no sign of volcanic activity. The crater was not deep, but it was just large enough in diameter to hold the entire Beast fleet if they were careful when landing.

  As Eagleheart emerged from the belly of his ship he was smitten by a wave of hot, humid air which made sweat stand out on his face almost instantaneously. He felt giddy for a moment, then recovered sufficient
ly to begin counting the ships which were settling on all sides. There seemed to be a vast total crammed into that small crater, but he found that he had lost a large number. His force was reduced by almost a fifth. The losses in space had been doubled in a single battle. Eagleheart began to wish fervently that he had not risked so much for four ships, only two of which—Rayshade’s and Deathdancer’s—had as yet returned. Undoubtedly the Humans had suffered too, but they could not have come off as badly as this.

  He set about the task of reinstilling some organization into the men and preparing some cursory defenses in case the Humans should follow them and land.

  Bare minutes later, ships began to appear in the sky, near the eastern horizon. He hoped for a few moments that it might be Chaos and Keyrie, but as more and more silver needles poured down from the sky and up from behind the horizon, his fleeting hope died.

  The Human ships flew in the sky of Sapia for a long time before settling. His discovery of the crater was a stroke of fortune. The Humans were forced to find places to land in the jungle, and they were scattered over miles of country.

  Eagleheart contemplated leading a large force out into the jungle to exploit the diffusion of the Humans, but almost instantly decided against it. Jungle warfare was not in the least to his liking, and there was no point in leaving the crater, which was a reasonably secure spot. Its walls were not high, but there was a sufficient dip—on the inside at least—to provide cover so that sniper fire from the jungle would be ineffective.

  At the moment, the sun bothered him far more than the Humans did. He was wishing that he had landed at the north pole. His clothes stuck to his skin and the heat sapped his energy. The brilliance hurt his eyes.

  The rest of the Beasts were similarly affected. They moved sluggishly and complained bitterly. Eagleheart’s temper was distinctly the worse for wear when Mark Chaos set his ship down neatly in a tiny space at the edge of the crater.

  As Chaos stepped down from his ship, Eagleheart was waiting for him.

  “If I’d known we were going to end up here,” said the commander of the fleet, “I’d have stayed on Diadema. Your ingenious trap for Blackstar has lost us a battle and far too many men.”

  Chaos shrugged. He looked slightly annoyed and not in the least penitent. “It might have worked,” he said. “It should have worked. But we were outguessed all along the line. Did the others get back?”

  “Rayshade and Deathdancer were with us before we landed. There’s been no sign of Keyrie.”

  “Poor Jade. It was half his idea.”

  “Then he half deserved it!”

  “It was half my idea too,” retorted Chaos, angrily.

  Eagleheart waved a hand, but whether in exasperation or apology, it was impossible to tell.

  “What’s happened here?” asked Chaos.

  “We can’t get into much more trouble. The Humans are scattered over the countryside, but if they attack we’ll hold them easily, no matter what numerical advantage they have. I intend to lift for Diadema as soon as night falls. By the time they’re in their ships and thinking about following, we’ll be aligned and away.

  “We’re all right until we have to fight again. I wouldn’t dare take a force this size into battle again. We’ll have to wait for the reinforcements I asked for before we dare make another move.”

  Chaos nodded. “We’ll be all right on Diadema. Our base there is well fortified.”

  “I still don’t like it. We could be in dire trouble if they do think of something.”

  “Well don’t put all the blame on me,” snapped Chaos. “Give Starbird some credit. It was his generalship, not my stupidity that got us into this mess. That and Stormwind. It’s true I took a chance, but it was a worthwhile gamble. It was just bad luck that we didn’t manage to kill Black-star, and more bad luck that we fell into their trap.”

  “All right,” muttered Eagleheart. “We have to live with it.”

  He walked off, still angry. He clambered up the edge of the crater to look at the jungle for a while, then strode back to his ship to wait for nightfall.

  ONE MOVE AHEAD

  Before the sun had completely set, the Beasts withdrew into their ships. The girdle motors began to roar, and the fleet lifted majestically into the sky.

  Eagleheart felt relieved as he sat before the control panel and began alignment for Diadema. He felt comfortable for the first time in many hours.

  A sharp cry made him turn his head to look at the rear screens and the rearmost sidescreens. A second host of silver pinpricks was rising slowly from the red splash of Sapia. The Humans were lifting from Sapia as well. Eagleheart thought quickly. If the Humans intended to give chase, they must be aligning for Diadema as well, to catch the fleet while it was landing. There was not enough time available to the Humans to start a fight here and now.

  Within seconds, he reached a decision, and changed his destination. “Eagleheart to fleet,” he said rapidly. “Align for Kamak. Align for Kamak.” The message flashed out to the Beast fleet on the normal communication frequency which the Beasts used.

  But Jade Keyrie’s predilection for listening to messages which did not concern him, which had indirectly caused the Beasts to be in space, had been adopted by the Humans. As soon as the Beasts knew where they were going, Star-bird knew too, and he wasted no time in informing the fleet.

  Eagleheart’s fleet slipped into omega-drive and quickly assumed maximum velocity along the alignment path which would take them to Kamak. Eagleheart was standing behind the rear-screen gunner as they went, expecting to see the Humans disappear into the distance. But the silver dots did not disappear. They lost hardly any ground at all. The chase was on again. Eagleheart did not feel abrupt shock or despair. He had half expected it—with the tragic certainty of a man who knows that he is being beaten. His brain seemed to slow down, and the sound of the six men at the screens as they drew in their breath was suddenly loud in his ears. He stared and stared at the screen, with the dust of white light motionless in the lenticular black eye.

  In that moment, Eagleheart had lost the war and was looking at the death of his dream.

  In mere minutes, they would be slowing down as they reached the end of the alignment path in the Kamak system. Then there was the choice again: stand and fight or run away. But wherever he ran, the Humans were always there.

  He walked back across the control room to his own seat. Grimly, he changed the setting on his high-omega transmitter.

  “Eagleheart to Stormwind,” he said slowly. “Eagleheart to Stormwind. Answer, please.”

  There was silence. Eagleheart repeated the call twice more, pausing each time to allow Stormwind to reply if he wanted to. He was about to give up, when a reply finally came.

  “Slavesdream to Eagleheart. Go ahead.”

  Eagleheart straightened but did not become confident. Slavesdream himself had only a handful of ships. He needed Stormwind. But if he could only reach Stormwind through Slavesdream, then he had to put his appeal to Slavesdream.

  “Eagleheart to Slavesdream and Stormwind. We need help badly. I am forced to make a stand in the Kamak system. The Human fleet is very close behind us. We have suffered heavy losses. Unless we get help our fleet will be utterly annihilated and there will be a vast number of fives lost. The Humans outnumber us. There is no hope unless we get help.”

  “Slavesdream to Eagleheart. I’m coming.”

  “What about Stormwind?” said Eagleheart urgently.

  “I don’t know. I’ll try. How much time?”

  “Less time than it will take you,to get to Kamak. Hurry, but for the sake of the fleet bring Stormwind and the Sabellans. It’s our only hope.”

  Eagleheart changed the setting again, so that he could speak to the fleet. “Eagleheart to fleet. We will fight in the Kamak system. The Human ships are widely spread, while we are in close formation. That formation must be maintained at all costs. When we arrive in the Kamak system, lock your ships on to mine. I’ll signal any changes of cou
rse.” He turned away again, to look at the screen behind him where the Human ships could be seen, wishing that they were within firing range. He wished that his hopes were not all pinned on Stormwind. He was absolutely unable to decide whether the Urside would come to his assistance or not

  SLAVESDREAM

  Saul Slavesdream is a shadow.

  In the days of his childhood, he had been the only friend and the constant companion of Richard Stormwind. Stormwind loved him, and he worshipped Stormwind. In those days, Stormwind had needed him badly as a sole line with people, a constant factor in an inconstant, incomprehensible, and hostile world.

  As they grew older, Stormwind overcame his environment, opposed what was hostile with fierce resolution and determination, and inherited Sabella. Saul Slavesdream was simply carried along in his wake. Slavesdream never did anything himself. He was important only for what he represented to Stormwind: a reminder of the past, and a symbol of what Stormwind had accomplished.

  So Slavesdream is only a shadow of Stormwind. Once he was companionship and self-confidence to Stormwind, but now he is only a faded image, a thing whose real existence ended long ago on Vespa.

  Slavesdream is happy to be a shadow. His personality is negative and shy, his yellow eyes and fair hair having no individuality and no life of their own. He is a child of a negative world and a clan which is little more than a branch of the Ursides. His entire heritage is shy, secondary and supplementary. He is less than nothing.

  But being the shadow of greatness can make a man great himself. The important thing about Slavesdream is not that he is no one himself, but that he is a fraction of Stormwind. He has Stormwind’s courage and Stormwind’s vanity. He is the hero who has never killed a man, the leader who has never given an order. Stormwind’s dreams are in Slavesdream’s sleep. Stormwind’s strength is in Slavesdream’s soul. Slavesdream has shared every moment of Stormwind’s loneliness, and known every aspect of Stormwind’s ambitions. He shares them for Stormwind. He bears some of Stormwind’s burden, accepts some of his fear and some of his need.