Strong hands pried him loose from his snarling opponent, drew him back behind a wall of others' shoulders. Merritt swung to be free and suddenly felt a softer grip, heard Sazhje's voice, for Otrekh had moved in before him and Sazhje was holding to him, trying to talk sense to him, mingling words of her language and his. He gasped breath, forced himself to be calm, even while the closed ranks of Sazhje's people were all that was between him and the others, and that thin line was yielding. He stood quietly so that one of Sazhje's friends who held him would let go; and when the hands relaxed, he dived away and ran, away from the light.
"Ssam!" Sazhje's outraged shriek pursued him; and then her shrill voice was lost in such a massed howl of rage and anguish that he could no longer tell what was happening.
At forest edge and beyond, lost in the dark and the tangle, he paused to look back, realizing to his surprise each time that no one was following. The confusion that still came from the camp was such that it covered any noise he might make: and the name of it all might be Sazhje and Otrekh.
He hit the trail that led in the direction he thought the river lay, began to run, pacing himself to last. They could run him to earth once they caught his track; he had no doubt of it, but he had a few precious moments to open the lead he must somehow hold.
Or perhaps, the thought kept nagging at the edges of his mind, they were not following because they knew he would find no help: there was no knowing what might have happened at the station; and as for the connection between fire and explosives, the thought might not be too complex for Sazhje's kind, not at all.
If that box was set at the earthworks or the bypass flume, it would unleash that pent-up lake on the dam before it was ready; and if the dam failed, it would pour on the downriver a greater flood than Hestia had yet seen.
Chapter 14
The dam was in sight, the gorge a brighter area in the dark. Merritt wiped the rain from his eyes and scanned the area for any sign of the enemy, aided by the lightning flashes that a moment from now must aid the enemy, betraying him to any observers as he crossed that open ground to the guard station.
He gasped another mouthful of air and stumbled ahead, slipping in the mud and the puddles, the ache in his side like a mortal wound. He had made it. He had managed to keep ahead of whatever pursuers might be behind him, and there was the goal in sight, the log shack that guarded the nearside of the bridge.
"Hey!" he hailed the unseen guards as he came within view of the slit windows. He was not about to become victim of a nervous sentry in this murk of night and storm. "Hey, in there—"
The lightning showed a pale face in the slit, glimmered wetly on a gun barrel.
"It's Merritt," he heard someone say; and then in the stop-action sequence of triple lightning flashes he saw the man lift the gun to aim.
The shot might have hit the area he vacated; he did not stop to see, not until he was well into the woods again. There was no motion of apology from the guard post. It had not been a mistake.
Shaken, trembling, he paused to wipe his vision clear again and to look over the trail behind him, anxious that the shot might have drawn his pursuers to his track. The lightnings showed him nothing but the dark trunks of trees and interlacing branches.
He sucked air and turned, started running again, the path for the ravine, the only way that was left. The river was up: he heard the thunder of it spilling off the flume; there was no time to chance the riverward ledge, that way around under the promontory, not since the rains. He headed up, up the long incline out of the water-filled ravine, and out of the trees again. Thunder rolled down the canyon and the sound of the river roared up out of it, drowning all else.
The lights were lit, the great outer gate barred. Merritt reached the first corner of the stone wall and leaned there a moment, panting, fighting for breath. The lightning played strange tricks with the landscape, creating shadows between him and the wooden wall of the outer-camp stockade.
Ahead were the steps down, that led to the dock and Celestine. And before he could make that first stage, he must for a moment come under the guns of the guards at the mainhouse gate… who just perhaps would have heard that shot from the dam; the wind and the rain could play tricks with sounds.
And perhaps Celestine was gone; or perhaps Amos and Jim had sheltered in the house this night. Perhaps it was all for nothing, such a risk.
He wiped at his eyes and went, keeping close to the wall, trying to do something he had himself designed the guard-posts to make impossible—slipped along the wall in small quick moves from shadow to shadow while he could, then hit the open and sprinted for the steps.
A shot exploded behind him and kicked up water from a puddle ahead. He threw himself over the earthen bank, rolling, sliding in the clay until he bumped over the first tier and caught hold of the steps, bruised and stunned… clawed his way to them and gathered himself up, started down them, praying the Selbys would not be so quick on the trigger. An alarm dinned from the house upslope. But Celestine was there, riding at her moorings.
"Amos!" he shouted, slipped again on the wet boards, gathered himself and ran staggering down the heaving dock. "Amos! Jim!"
A lantern flared into the open on deck. Merritt waved at it violently, redoubled his effort to reach the gangplank before someone could get a clear shot at him from behind, outlined as he was against that light.
"It's Sam!" he heard Jim's voice across the gangway, and when he staggered out on that heaving board and leaped for the deck, friendly hands pulled him on board and steadied him.
He had no words. He slumped to the deck and leaned on his hands trying to catch his breath, the alarm up at the house still clanging in his ears, voices shouting somewhere. Amos and Jim were trying to pull him to his feet against his will, and he could not get enough breath to protest being set upright against the slot of the gangway.
"Sam," Amos said, holding his arm. "Sam, you hurt?"
Merritt shook his head, gasped down more air. In his hazed vision he saw lights start filing down the steps from the house toward the dock. Frantic, he looked toward the Selbys.
"I tried to warn them. —They fired…"
"We supposed to ask where you been?" Amos cut him off in a harsh tone. "Or do we just guess this time?"
"Amos—" He staggered for his feet, holding to the rail. "Amos, the People have blasting materials and they're probably headed for the dam right now."
Jim jerked him left and slammed him back against the wheelhouse, himself too stunned and out of breath to resist. He stared at Jim in bewilderment.
"How they got the stuff we already know," said Jim, his young face hard with anger. "We got Miller's body back two days after the stuff turned up missing out there at the site. But if they can use it, you tell me how they know, Sam. Or maybe the People turning up with explosives and Sam Merritt missing is supposed to add up different."
Merrill's eyes focused for a fraction of a second beyond Jim's shoulder, at the line of lanterns that had reached the dock; and snapped back lo Jim's face.
"There's not much time," he told Jim. "You'd better stop them or you'll never hear my side of it."
Jim stared at him, anger still twisting his face, but he relented a little at the look Merrill gave him. He turned to one side, made his decision and picked up the rifle that lay against the rail. He threw the safety off and his father made a tentative move to stop him, then took the rifle from Jim's hand and faced the oncoming crowd himself.
"Hold your fire!" Amos shouted across the distance to the dock. "Don't you come any farther!"
"You all right out there, Amos?"