Chapter 15
"They don't close in. Why don't they close in? "
"Quiet," Merritt ordered hoarsely. He braced his weight and Jim's against the trunk of a tree, listening to the wind soughing through the branches about them. It was quiet again. It always was when they stopped to listen.
Merritt put a hand to his side and pressed, feeling dizzy. How much of what soaked his clothes was rain and how much was blood he did not want to know; but it was hard to walk any more, Jim's half-supported weight an almost intolerable burden. Jim did the best he could. His pale head jerked up as Merritt tightened his grip and he moved obedient to Merrill's direction.
The small scurrying sound was with them again. Merritt knew he might catch it by surprise if he should stop suddenly now, but it was a game he did not want to win. Their pursuers were amused, perhaps. At least for now the road was free, the station at last close at hand, up that last rise. Perhaps that was what they were waiting for; perhaps the People's sense of humor would let their quarry reach the very edge of safety; or perhaps the People were content to have destroyed the dam and were done for the night. It was no use to surmise their intentions. All that could help was to keep moving until they used their advantage for what they wanted.
The gleam of lights showed through the thinning trees now: ahead of them was the main house wall, the end of their road. Merritt heaved Jim's faltering weight a degree upward.
"Jim. Do you see? Do you see the lights? We've made it."
Jim made a sound that seemed to say he understood, and redoubled his efforts. Merritt took a better grip about him and awkwardly, by half-steps and whole, they left the wood and came along the wall, into the circle of the lights, up to the very gates of the yard.
"Who's there?" a sentry hailed them; and by those words roused men from inside, a great stirring about and shouting from inside the gates.
"Merritt and Jim Selby," Merritt shouted up. "Open up, will you? Jim's hurt. He needs help."
The gates swung inward and Merritt started forward, but armed men barred the way, rifles leveled. Merritt stared at them, knees shaking with his own weight and Jim's, and hesitated to let Jim to the ground. He thought that they might fire once Selby was clear; he was ashamed to do it, but he kept Jim upright against him.
More men were gathering, from the stockade camp outside the walls as well as from the house and the barracks. Totally surrounded, Merritt at last offered to move forward, and gave Jim into the care of two of the men from the camp. There was not a word spoken, not a sound from anyone but Jim, who moaned a protest.
And as Merritt drew back from them he chanced to look at others who had come from the main house: Hannah Burns—and Meg, Meg with her arms wrapping her coat tightly about her. She returned his stare, thin-lipped and hard of face, except that tears cast back the lantern-light.
"I tried to warn you." Merritt spoke to her, out of all of them. "I tried to stop it. No one would listen—"
"Merritt." It was Porter's voice. "Who used the explosives?"
Merritt searched among the faces, found his man as Porter came out into the light not far from him.
"Where's Amos?" Porter asked him.
"Dead," said Merritt. "Dead trying to stop them. —Why wouldn't you come? Why wouldn't you listen to me? There might have been enough of us then."
"How many are loose out there?"
"Maybe several thousand."
There was a murmuring of dismay.
"And it was you," Porter said, "it was you that stirred them up, it was your tampering with the People that brought this on, and that much you can't deny, whether you knew what you were doing or not. And for my part, I think you don't care. I think you still believe you were right, after all this."
"I had no part in it, Porter. None."
"We got kin downriver I pray to heaven got to high ground. We got farms and houses and everything we own going to be wiped out thanks to you. You've finished Hestia. You've done for us once for all. But you're not going to get on any starship this year and get away from it free. No, Sam Merritt."
"I tried to help you people," Merritt cried over the rising tide of voices. He started back as men surged toward him from the front, but there was no way of escape from the circle. Porter's men had him closed in. Meg's thin voice cried a warning, and he spun half about as they seized him from behind.
A shot rang out within a hundred yards' distance, but not from the group. As the crowd broke in terror and looked in that direction, there came a shrill scream from atop the wall just over their heads.
It was Sazhje.
"
Get it
Porter shouted, and a half dozen rifles turned for that target.
Merritt shouted and heaved against those holding him as the volley was fired, broke free suddenly and hurled himself at Porter, blind with rage, blind to anything but Porter's stunned face. He hit the big man twice before Porter could do more than try to fend off the blows.
Then Porter's fist slammed to his wounded side and sent the breath out of him. He staggered badly and hurled himself in again, clumsily shouldering the man to the wall, stumbling in the mud.
Something struck the back of his skull, once and again, and still he continued to hit Porter until hands tore him away and spun him aside, on hands and knees in the mud. For a moment he could not see or get his breath—but then he saw that Porter was likewise down. And the crowd—the crowd was watching something behind him.
He rose and staggered in turning, swaying on his feet; and shook his head and wiped his eyes, blinking things into focus. A half-dozen of the People stood at close range, with perhaps fifty more at the forest rim; the nearest, the tallest—had a rifle incongruously clutched in his spidery hands.
Scurrying steps splashed across the rainsoaked ground behind him, stopped. Merritt looked back and saw Meg, and followed her frightened gaze to the crest of the wall above him.
Sazhje stood there for a moment upright in the view of all of them, then sprang to the ground, easily absorbing the shock of that fifteen-foot drop. She straightened and came toward him, her ears flicking nervously, her eyes fixed on Meg with wary insolence.
"Somebody get that thing," Porter's strangled voice shouted. "Get the Burns girl out of the way."
Meg looked back at Porter and hugged her arms tight to her in plain refusal to move. Someone started forward from the crowd, but stopped when no one else moved. There was a second start forward then, several men finding their nerve at once.
"You'd better count again," Merritt shouted. "That's just one tribe of the People standing out there, and there's far more than what you see. They don't look like they're going to attack unless someone touches them off."
Another of the women from the house started to move, and a man reached to stop her; but Hannah Burns indignantly jerked her way free and joined her daughter. A few of the surviving Burns men did the same.
A man moved from the other side to join them: George Andrews; and another: Harper, with his arm in a sling.