“Only because you can’t see yourself,” Gartasian said. “I don’t know which was the greater fool—Rassamarden for issuing that ridiculous message; or you for undertaking such a long and hazardous journey to deliver it.”
“Your punishment for insulting the King will be death.”
“I tremble.”
Orracolde’s mouth twitched. “I will remember you, Gartasian, but for now I have more important concerns. Littlenight will soon be upon us. When darkness falls I will take my ship aloft—rather than give you the chance to launch a sneak attack—but I will pause at a height of one thousand feet and wait for aftday. Chakkell will no doubt be with you by that time, and you will communicate his response to me by sunwriter.”
“Response?”
“Yes. Either Chakkell bows the knee to King Rassamarden willingly—or he will be compelled to do so.”
“You truly are mad—a madman speaking for a madman.” Gartasian held his bluehorn steady while one of the crewmen fired another burst of gas into the balloon. “Are you talking of war between our two worlds?”
“Most certainly.”
Struggling with his growing incredulity, Gartasian said, “And how would such a war be prosecuted?”
“A fleet of skyships is already under construction.”
“How many?”
Orracolde produced a thin smile. “Enough.”
“There could never be enough,” Gartasian said calmly. “Our soldiers would be waiting for each ship as it landed.”
“You don’t really expect me to swallow that, old warrior,” Orracolde said, his smile widening. “I know how thinly your population must be scattered. With informed use of wind cells we can put down almost anywhere on this planet. We could land under cover of darkness, but there will be little need for stealth, because we have weapons the like of which you have never imagined.
“And on top of everything else—” Orracolde paused to glance at his three companions, who gave approving nods as though knowing what he was about to say—"there is the natural and undeniable superiority of the New Men.”
“Men are men,” Gartasian said, unimpressed. “How can there be new men?”
“Nature saw to that. Nature and the ptertha. We have been created with total immunity to the ptertha plague.”
“So that’s it!” Gartasian ran his gaze over the four narrow faces which, with their inhuman metallic sheen, could almost have belonged to four statues cast from the same mould, and understanding began to flicker in his mind. “I thought that… perhaps… the ptertha might have ceased their attacks.”
“The attacks continue unabated, but now they are futile.”
“And what about… my kind? Are there any survivors?”
“None,” Orracolde said, smugly triumphant. “The old have all been swept away.”
Gartasian was silent for a moment, saying a final goodbye to his wife and son, then his thoughts were drawn back to the problems of the present and the need to learn all he could about the interplanetary visitors. Implicit in the few words Orracolde had already spoken was a dreadful scenario, a vision of a civilisation in its death throes. The drifting globes of the ptertha had swarmed in the skies of Land, hunting down their human quarries without mercy, driving them closer and closer to extinction, until their numbers were so…
My stomach is on fire!
The burning sensation was so severe that Gartasian almost doubled over. Within seconds the heat centre beneath his chest had spread tendrils into the rest of his torso, and at the same time the air about him seemed to cool a little. Unwilling to show any sign of discomfort, he sat perfectly still in the saddle and waited for the spasm to come to an end. It continued unabated and he realised he would have to try disregarding it while he gathered precious information.
“All swept away?” he said. “All? But that means your entire population has been born since the Migration.”
“Since the Flight. We refer to that act of cowardice and betrayal as the Flight.”
“But how could the babes have survived? Without parents it would have been…”
“We were born of those who had partial immunity,” Orracolde cut in. “Many of them lived long enough.”
Gartasian shook his head, pursuing the thought in spite of the spreading fire at the core of his being. “But many must have perished! What is your total population?”
“Do you think me a fool?” Orracolde said, a sneer appearing on his dark countenance. “I came here to learn about this world—not to throw away knowledge about my own. I have seen as much as I need to see, and as littlenight is almost here…”
“Your reluctance to answer my question is answer enough! Your numbers must be small indeed—perhaps even less than ours.” Gartasian gave a violent shudder as, in contrast to the heat within his body, the air seemed to press in on him with a clammy coldness. He touched his brow, found it slick with perspiration, and a shocking idea was born deep in his mind, coiling like a worm. He had not seen a case of pterthacosis since his youth on Land, but nobody of his generation could ever forget the symptoms—the burning sensation in the stomach, the copious sweating, the chest pains and the bloating of the spleen…
“You grow pale, old warrior,” Orracolde said. “What ails you?”
Gartasian held his voice steady. “Nothing ails me.”
“But you sweat and shiver and…” Orracolde leaned forward across the rail, his gaze hunting over Gartasian’s face, and his eyes widened. There was a moment of near-telepathic communion, then Orracolde drew back and gave a whispered order to his crew. One of them stooped out of sight and the ship’s burner began a continuous roar while the other two men hurriedly began releasing the anchor lines from the downward-pointing cannon.
Gartasian had a pure, clear understanding of what he had read in the other man’s eyes, and in the instant of accepting his own death sentence his mind had vaulted far beyond the circumscribed present. Earlier Orracolde had boasted of weapons outside the Overlanders’ imaginings, but even he had been taken by surprise, had not sensed the dreadful truth foreshadowed by his own words. He and his crew were weapons in themselves —carriers of the ptertha plague in a form so virulent that an unprotected person had only to go near them to be smitten!
Their King, though apparently insane by Gartasian’s standards, had been prudent enough to send a scout ship to gauge the opposition an invading force would meet. If he received word that there could be very little effective resistance, that Overland’s defenders would be annihilated by pterthacosis, his territorial ambitions would be even further inflamed.
The skyship must not be allowed to depart!
The thought spurred Gartasian into action. His men were too far away to be of any assistance, and the ship was already straining upwards, making him solely responsible for preventing the take-off. The only course open to him was to rupture the fabric of the huge balloon by hurling his sword at it. He drew the weapon, twisted in the saddle to make the throw and gasped aloud as pain erupted through his chest cavity, paralysing his upraised arm. He lowered the sword into a position from which he could try an underarm lob, suddenly aware that Orracolde was bringing an oddly shaped musket to bear on him.
Counting on the delay which always occurred while power crystals were combining in a gun’s combustion chamber, Gartasian began the upward swing. The musket emitted a strangely flat crack. Something punched into Gartasian’s left shoulder, slewing him around and causing his sword—weakly thrown—to tumble wide of its mark. He jumped down from the startled bluehorn and went for the fallen blade, but the agony in his shoulder and chest turned what should have been a highspeed dash into a series of stumbles and lurches. By the time he had retrieved the sword the gondola was a good thirty feet above ground, and the balloon carrying it was far beyond his reach.