“How much further?” snapped Nymaster. The affair was taking him farther afield than he had bargained for.
“A few steps, no more, then you shall see the woman; but mind you, take care not to make your presence known or else we’ll all dangle and our heads will be drained.”
“What!” barked Glystra savagely. Nymaster gripped his arm, shook his head urgently. “Don’t antagonize the old fool,” he whispered. “Otherwise we’ll never find her.”
18
Charley Lysidder
They continued, walking on heavy green carpet along a corridor which constantly curved out of sight ahead. At last Gentile halted at a door of heavy wood. He looked furtively behind, then stooped with the ease of much practice, peered through the crack where the hinges dented the jamb.
He turned, motioned to Glystra, “Come now, look. Assure yourself of her presence—then we must leave. At any moment the High Dain may appear.”
Glystra, smiling grimly, looked through the crack.
Nancy. She sat in a cushioned chair, head back, eyes half-closed. She wore loose pajamas of dull green brocade; her hair was bright and clean, she looked as if she had only just finished scrubbing herself. Her face was blank, expressionless; or rather, she wore an expression Glystra could not identify.
With his left hand Glystra felt for the latch of the door. In his right hand he held his ion-shine. The fat steward squawked. “Stand back, stand back! Now we must depart!” He plucked Glystra’s sleeve with angry fingers.
Glystra shoved him away. “Nymaster, take care of this fool.”
The door was not locked. He flung it open, stood square in the doorway.
Nancy looked up with wide eyes. “Claude”
She slowly put her feet to the floor, stood up. She did not rush to him in gladness and relief.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked quietly. “What’s happened to you?”
“Nothing.” Her voice was listless. “I’m all right.”
“Let’s get moving. There’s not too much time.”
He put an arm around her shoulders, urged her forward. She seemed limp, dazed.
Nymaster held the steward negligently by the nape of the neck. Glystra looked deep into his frightened and outraged countenance. “Back to the radio room.” The steward jerked around, trotted whimpering back along the amber-lit corridor.
Downstairs, back along vaguely remembered ways. Glystra held his ion-shine in one hand, Nancy’s arm in the other.
A hum, an electric susurration.
Glystra pushed into the room. A thin man in a blue smock looked up. Glystra said, “Stand up, be quiet and you won’t get hurt.”
The operator slowly rose to his feet, his eyes on Glystra’s ion-shine. He knew it for what it was. Glystra said. “You’re an Earthman.”
“That’s right. What of it?”
“You set up this equipment?”
The operator turned a contemptuous glance along the table. “What there is of it… Anything wrong with that? What’s your argument?”
“Get me Earth Enclave.”
“No, sir. I won’t do it. I value my life pretty high, mister. If you want Earth Enclave, call it yourself. I can’t stop you with that heater on me.”
Glystra took a sinister step forward, but the man’s face changed not a flicker. “Stand against the wall, next to the steward… Nancy!”
“Yes, Claude?”
“Come in here, stand over by the wall, out of the way. Don’t move.”
She walked slowly to where he had indicated. She was trembling, her eyes roved around the room, up and down the walls.
She licked her lips, started to speak, thought better of it.
Glystra sat down at the table, looked over the equipment. Power from a small pile—a simple short-wave outfit like that owned by a million high school boys on Earth.
He snapped the “On” switch. “What’s the Enclave frequency?”
“No idea.”
Glystra opened a file index, flipped to E. “Earth Enclave, Official Monitor—Code 181933.” The control panel displayed six tuning knobs. Under the first was the symbol “0,” under the second “10,” under the third, “100,” and so by multiples often to the sixth. Evidently, thought Glystra, each knob tuned a decimal place of the frequency. He set the sixth knob to “1,” the second to “8”—he looked up, listened.
Footsteps sounded along the wall, heavy hard feet, and Nancy wailed, a wordless sound of desperation.
“Quiet!” hissed Glystra. He bent to the dials. “1”—“9”—
The door swung open. A heavy black-browed face looked in. Instantly the steward was on his belly. “Holy Dain, it was never my will, none of my doing”
Mercodion looked over his shoulder into the corridor. “Inside. Seize those men.”
Glystra bent to the dials. “3”—one more dial to go. Burly men trooped into the room; Nancy staggered out from the wall, her face drawn and bloodless. She stood in the line of fire. “Nancy!” cried Glystra. “Get back!” He aimed his ion-shine. She stood between him and the High Dain. “I’m sorry,” whispered Glystra huskily. “It’s bigger than your life”
He squeezed the button. Violet light, ghastly on white faces. A sigh. The light flickered, went out. No power.
Three men in black robes rushed him. He fought, wild and savage as any Rebbir. The table tottered, toppled. In spite of the operator’s frantic efforts the equipment crashed, jangled to the floor. At this point Nymaster bolted from the room. His feet pounded down the corridor.
Glystra was fighting from the corner, using elbows, fists, knees. The black-robed men beat him to the floor, kicked his head, wrenched his arms up hard behind his back, punishing him.
“Truss him well,” said Mercodion. “Take him down to the pen.”
They marched him along the corridors, down the stairs, along the arcade overlooking the oasis.
A black speck streaked low across the sky. Glystra uttered a hoarse cry. “There’s an air-car! An Earthman!”
He stopped, tried to pull close to the window. “An Earth air-car!”
“An Earth air-car,” said Mercodion easily, “but not from Earth. From Grosgarth.”
“Grosgarth?” Glystra’s mind worked sluggishly. “Only one man in Grosgarth would own an air-car—”
“Exactly.”
“Does the Bajarnum know—”
“The Bajarnum knows you’re here. Do you think he owns an air-car and no radio?”
He said to the black-robed men, “Take him to the pens, I must greet Charley Lysidder… Watch him carefully, he’s desperate.”
Glystra stood in the middle of the stone floor, naked, damp, miserable. His clothes had been stripped from him, his head was shaved, he had been drenched in an acrid fluid smelling of vinegar.
These were the pens of Myrtlesee Fountain. The air was gruel-thick with latrine reek and slaughter-house odors, seeping in with the steam from the processing rooms. Glystra breathed through his mouth to escape awareness of the stink. Horrible odor—but it was a poor time to be fastidious. He frowned. Strange. A component of the stench was a heavy, pungent, almost sweet, smell which tickled his memory.
He stood quietly, trying to think. Difficult. The stone floor oozed under his bare feet. Four old women crouching beside the wall moaned without pause. A thin red-eyed man vilified a blowsy woman with waist-long blonde hair, which for some reason had not been shaved. She sobbed into her hands, without apparent attention to the curses of the man—guttural throat-catching sobs. Steam and stench poured in from the processing room through chinks and cracks in the stone, likewise bars of yellow light flickering through the steam. With the light and the steam came the sounds of the processing: boiling, pounding, rasping, loud conversation.