The gods have looked upon the Mink,And felt his mighty hand;They've sought him through the mines and towns,And in the forest land.All-wise, all-powerful though they be,The Mink they cannot find;Afar he's wandering o'er the earth,At war for all mankind.—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
The gods have looked upon the Mink,And felt his mighty hand;They've sought him through the mines and towns,And in the forest land.
All-wise, all-powerful though they be,The Mink they cannot find;Afar he's wandering o'er the earth,At war for all mankind.
—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
"Read it again," said Revel, bending his scarred face beside the girl's sleek one, staring hard at the printing as if by concentration on it he could learn to read right there, and drag the hidden meaning from the words. "Read slowly. Rack, you're no slouch at thought, even though you have been in the toils of the false gods. Give this your best brainwork. Jerran, concentrate! You three men, try to cull the sense from these words. Begin!"
In the light of half a dozen lanterns she began to read. The Mink strained all his brains.
"Man of the 21st century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and leader of the Ninth Expedition against the Tartarian Forces in the year 2054. Held in suspended animation."
"Ha! I thought that's where you got the phrase," said Revel. "I believe it means that in this chest, and thank Orbs it was too heavy for the gentry to move today, in this very chest lies a man of the Ancient Kingdom, who still lives, though he sleeps!"
The woman looked up excitedly, then began to read again. Most of the words were strange. "Placed here 10-5-2084, aged 64 years; this done voluntarily and as a public service to the men of the future, as part of the program of living interments inaugurated in 2067."
"Living interments," repeated Rack heavily. "Buried alive. But you think he still lives?"
"I think so. Don't ask me why I simply do. The words burn my brain."
"What are the numbers?" asked a miner. "2067, the year 2054—what are they?"
"I don't know. Go on, Nirea."
"Instructions for opening the casket: spring back the locks along each bottom edge." She felt the chest where it rested on six legs on the floor. "Here are odd-shaped things—ooh!" She jerked her hand away. "They leap at me!"
Revel felt impatiently, said, "Those are the locks." He unsnapped fourteen altogether. "What next?"
"Run a knife along the seal two inches below the top."
"Here's the seal," said Rack. He took his pick, and thrusting the point of it into a soft metal strip that ran around the chest, tore it away with one long hard tug. The Mink finished the job on sides and back; "Read!" he said.
"Lift off the top." She glanced at Revel. "This is almost exactly like Orbish," she said. "Only those queer words—"
"Philosophize in the corner," he said, pushing her aside. "Rack, lend me your brawn." Together they lifted the top, which was about the weight of a woods lion, and with much groaning and puffing, hurled it clear.
Below them, within the chest and under a sheet of the transparent stuff they had seen in other parts of the cave, lay a man. He was young-looking, though if Revel understood the words on the chest, he had been sixty-four when he was hidden away here. His skin was brown, smooth, and his closed eyes were unwrinkled. A short oddly-cut beard of brindled gray and black fringed his chin. His hands, folded on the chest, were big and sinewy, fighter's hands.
"What now?" panted Revel.
"Provided that the atmosphere is still a mixture of 21 parts oxygen to 78 parts nitrogen, with 1% made of small amounts of the gases neon, helium, krypton—none of these words make sense."
"Skip them, then. Find something that does."
"Let's see ... swing the front of the casket up, and unhinge it so that it comes off." They figured out what was meant, and did it. The front of the metal case, very light compared with the top, fell with a clang. "Insert a crowbar under the glass that covers the man and lift it carefully away."
"Crowbar? Glass?"
"This almost invisible stuff covers him, it must be the 'glass'," said Jerran. "Let's try to lift it off."
It took Revel and Rack and two miners, but in a matter of five minutes, they had removed the plate of glass, the thin curved sheet that had protected this man of the Ancient Kingdom. "Next?"
"Provided that it is no later than the year 3284, Doctor Klapham should revive within an hour. If not, take the hypodermic from the white case below him and inject 2cc.... Do you understand this at all?" she asked.
"Only that the man, whose name is evidently Doctor Klapham, ought to wake up shortly." The Mink shook his great brown head. "If only we'd found this cave in a quiet time! If only the gods and the gentry weren't to be dealt with! Have we the time?"
"Your work is going on above-ground," said Jerran, rubbing his chin. "We can't be of more use anywhere else, it seems to me, than we may be right here."
They sat and watched the inert form of Doctorklapham, while two of their rebels went out into the mine to round up anyone who would join them. In something over half an hour they were back. "The mine's been cleared; nothing anywhere except this man, who was on the lowest level and hasn't heard a thing."
"They missed me, I guess," said the newcomer. "I was off in an abandoned tunnel sleeping."
"We're eight, then." The Mink scratched his head reflectively. "Not a bad fighting force. Provided they don't smear this whole valley, I think we can win clear—after we see what this fellow is going to do."
"I think I see him breathing," said the girl breathlessly. She was sitting with a book on her lap, trying to decipher the meaning of its words. "Look at his throat."
Doctorklapham made a strange sound in his chest, a clicking, quite audible noise, and unfolding his strong hands, sat up.
"Well," he said clearly, "didn't it work?" Then he took a closer look at the eight people standing beside him. "Oh, my Lord," he said, "itdidwork!"
"He speaks Orbish," said Rack, "but with a different accent. Could he be from the far towns?"
"No, you idiot, from the Ancient Kingdom," said Revel. "Your name is Doctorklapham, isn't it?"
"Roughly, yes." The sleeper worked his jaws and massaged his hands. "Wonderful stuff, that preservative ... what year is this, my friend?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"What's the date?"
"Date?"
"God, this I wasn't prepared for." He hoisted himself over and jumped down with boyish energy. "Tell me about the world," he said. "I guess I've been asleep a long time."
"Yes, if you were put here in the time of the Ancient Kingdom." Revel was trembling with excitement. "Why are you still alive?"
"Friend, judging from your clothes and those picks, and the primitive look of those lanterns, which must date from about 2015, I'd say it'd be pretty useless to tell you how come I'm alive. Just call it science."
"What's that?"
"Science? Electronics, atomic research, mechanics, what have you—mean anything?"
"I'm sorry," said the Mink, "no."
"You speak quite decent English, you know. It's funny it hasn't changed much, unless I've been asleep a lot shorter a period than I figure."
"My language is Orbish."
"It's English to me. What's the name of your country, son?"
"It has no name. Towns are named, not countries."
"Who are you, then?"
"I am Revel, the Mink," he said proudly. "I am the leader of the rebels, who are even now spreading through the land sending the word that the gods can die, and that the gentry's day is done. I am the Mink."
He half-expected the man to know the old ballads, but Doctorklapham said, "Mink? That was an animal when I was around last.... Call me John."
"John. That sounds like a name." Rack nodded. "Yes, this is better than Doctorklapham."
"Anybody have a cigarette?" asked John.
"What's that?"
"A fag, boy—tobacco, something to smoke. You drag it in and puff it out."
"Your words make no sense," said Revel. "Drag in smoke?"
"This is going to be worse than I anticipated," said John. "Look, can't we go somewhere and get comfortable? I have a lot to find out before I can start getting across to you what I was sent into the future for."
"We are besieged by the gods. We dare not leave this place."
"By the gods. Hmm. Let's sit down, boy. I want to know all about things here. Miss, after you." He waited till Nirea had squatted on the floor, then folded himself down. "Okay," he said, whatever that meant. "Shoot. Begin. What are the gods, first?"
Lady Nirea listened with half an ear to Revel's speeches, but with all her intellect she tried to follow John's remarks. They were sometimes fragmentary, sometimes short explanations of things that puzzled Revel, and sometimes merely grunts and slappings of his thighs. Many words she did not know....
My God, that sounds like extraterrestrial beings ... globes, golden aura of energy or force, sure, that's possible; and tentacles ... zanphs? describe 'em ... they aren't from Earth either; I'll bet you these god-globes of yours, which must be Martian or Venusian or Lord-knows-what, brought along those pretty pets when they hit for Earth....
Listen, Mink, those are not gods! They're things from the stars, from out there beyond the world! You understand that? They came here in those "buttons" of yours—what we used to call flying saucers—and took over after ... after whatever happened. Your civilization must have been in a hell of a decline to accept 'em as gods, because in my day ... oh, well, go ahead.
Priests, sure, there'd be a class of sycophants, bastards who'd sell out to the extraterrestrials for glory and profit ... yeah, your gentry sound like another type of sell-out, traitors to their race and their world ... describe those squires' costumes again, will you?... Holy cats, eighteenth century to a T! Not a thread changed, from the sound of it! And a lower class, you call it the ruck, which is downtrodden and lives in what might as well be hell....
Yep, it sure sounds like hell and ashes. The globes; then, as is natural to a conquered country, the top dogs, priests in your case, who run things but are run by the globes; then the privileged gentry—I'll have a look at those books of yours in a minute, honey—who pay some kind of tax, in money or sweat or produce orsomething,for being what they are; then the ruck (I know the word, son, you've just enlarged its meaning) who have been serfs and peasants and vassals and thralls and churls and hoi polloi and slaves since the Egyptians crawled out of the Nile. The great unwashed, the people. Let 'em eat cake. I'm sorry, Mink, go on.
Your gentry sound about as lousy a pack of hellions as the eighteenth century squires! Too bad you don't know about tobacco, they could carry snuffboxes andreallyact the part....
My God! Even the fox hunts—with people hunted. Anyone but miners? Open days, eh? Ho-oly....
Glad to know you, Rack. Don't know as I'd care to have you on the other side, you look like Goliath. So you just saw the light when the gods started to die? You are lucky you saw it, big man; brother against brother is the nastiest form of war, especially if mankind's fighting an alien power....
Your rebels sound familiar, Mink. They had 'em about like you in Ireland, a hundred or so years ago—I mean before I went bye-bye.... Always romantic, unbelievable, unfindable, foxes with fangs....
I wonder what your globes wanted? Power, sure, if they're that humanoid in concept, but it must have been more. Maybe their own planet blew up. Maybe they ran out of something. Tell me, do you have to give them anything? Any metal, say?
Diamonds? Are those small hard chunks of—yes, I guess diamond still means what it did. By gravy, I'll bet I know! They were just starting to discover the terrific potential of energy of the diamond when I went to sleep in 2084. Iwonderhow long ago that was? Anyway, I'll wager these globes of yours run their damned saucers—buttons—on diamond energy. Maybe their planet ran out of diamonds. By god! what a yarn!
You'll have your hands full, but maybe I can help. There's a way to bring those saucers down out of the sky in a hurry.... They won't give up easily. They obviously have atomic bombs, and the lush intoxication of power won't be a cinch to give up, not for anything that sounds as egotistic as the globes....
Dolfya? We called it Philadelphia. Kamden, Camden, yeah.... Woods lions, wow! They must be mutants from zoo or circus lions that escaped during the atom wars; or maybe someone brought 'em to the U.S. The Tartarians had tame lions, I remember.
Six or eight brains? Well, Mink, I wouldn't argue, but I think you are confusing certain functions of one brain with—oh, do go on!
Let me see that gun. My Lord, what a concoction! Blunderbuss muzzle, shells, yet no breech-loading; ramrods to shove in shells! My sainted aunt! A fantastic combination....
He eats dandelions, parsley, grass, eh ... chlorophyll, obviously. And the globe rests on his chest and puts tentacles into his mouth and nostrils. It's feeding, sure; look at the title of this book you've got here. This is a bastard English but close enough. Certainly your father wrote it, Miss. Some of your gentry must have preserved the art as a secret.
Look here: I'll make it as plain as I can. The globes are from another world. They came here for diamonds to run their buttons with. Got that?
Now here's what I deduce from the little I've read here. Talk about Pepy's Diary! Hadn't anything on this chronicle. Your father and the other gentry have to feed the globes periodically. Evidently they draw nourishment out of the human bodies—all that chlorophyll makes me think it's a definitely physical nourishment, rather than a psychic one. That's what your people pay for being privileged powers in the land. They stand the disgrace and the pain, if there is any, the draining of their energies, in return for plain old magneticpower.
So that's the source of life, strength, what-have-you, of the aliens! They must have gotten pretty frantic out in the space wastes, looking for a planet that could afford them a life form that was tap-able.
Evidently it has to be voluntary, from these books. I guess the ancestors of the ruck had their crack at the honor and declined, thus dooming themselves and their offspring to servitude; while those that assented became the gentry. What a—Judas Priest! What a sordid state of affairs for poor old Earth!
Let me have that line from the Globate Credo again:They came from the sky before our grandfathers were born, to a world torn by war; they settled our differences and raised us from the slime—there's a bitter laugh, gentlemen—giving us freedom. All we have we owe to the globes.There's the whole tale in a nutshell. God!
Orbish language, Orbuary, Orbsday—nice job they did of infiltrating. I wonder what books they left you. I'd like a look at your father's library. Alice in Wonderland, I suppose, or Black Beauty, or something equally advanced.
Now listen, lads, and you, Lady Nirea. I came from a world that may have had its rugged spots, but it was heaven and Utopia compared with this one. You disinterred me at the damndest most vital moment of your history, and probably of Earth's as well—we've had conquerors aplenty, but always of this world, not from out of it. It seems to me that if your rebellion fails, you're due for worse treatment than ever. You've got to win, and win fast. Any entity that has atomic weapons is going to be no easy mark, and the gentry have guns. How about you people? Ten? Ten guns altogether? Oohh....
See here. That big machine over there is a—well, that's hopeless. I'll try to break this down in one-syllable words. Orbish words, I hope.
That big thing sends up rays like beams of sunlight but of different intensity, color, wave length, et cetera—it sends up beams that counteract, I mean work against, destroy, other beams. Now the buttons are held up there by forces in diamonds, taken out by these globes of yours and used to hold up their homes, ships, saucers, buttons. The beams from that big thing will destroy the diamond beams and make the buttons fall.
There's just one thing. We have to get the machine, the thing, out of this cave and onto the surface of the earth. You catch my meaning? It has to have sky above it before it can work against the button-beams. Yes, much like your globes' telepathy (what a word to survive, when "glass" and "electricity" didn't) and hypnosis fails when rock gets in the way.
Can you get it to the surface? Talk it over, Mink. It can give you plenty of help ... if you can get it up there. I'll just sit here, if it's okay with you, and let my imagination boggle at what you've told me.
I have the most confounded urgent feeling that this is a visit I'm making in a time machine, and that tomorrow I'll go back to good old 2084. Johnnie, Johnnie, wake up! You're here!
God!
The Mink he takes his pick and gun,He ranges through the towns;His force is miners, trappers, thieves—And a girl in gentry-gown.The rebels ride on stolen nags,They travel on shanks' mare;The gore's awash, the heads they roll,All in the torches' glare.—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
The Mink he takes his pick and gun,He ranges through the towns;His force is miners, trappers, thieves—And a girl in gentry-gown.
The rebels ride on stolen nags,They travel on shanks' mare;The gore's awash, the heads they roll,All in the torches' glare.
—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
Revel the Mink and his eight troops crouched in the dark entrance of the mine. The night was black, clouds had obscured the moon, and only the occasional pinpoints of globes drifting between the buttons above them broke the gloom.
"What are they doing?" hissed Nirea. "Why haven't we been attacked long since?"
"The globes move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform," muttered John Klapham. "I'll wager there's something like that in the Globate Credo."
"Almost those words." Revel glanced at him respectfully. This man of the Ancient Kingdom had great mental powers.
"Sure. Every time somebody has the upper hand over somebody else, there's got to be an aura of mystery; and any half-brained action is put down to 'mysterious ways.'" He spat. "They're so damn confused, son, that they're probably holding forty conferences up there, because they don't dare wipe out this valley—coal keeps the gentry warm and happy for 'em—and they want to inspect the cave down below. So they're tryin' to think of the best way to squelch you without losing too many priests and zanphs and gentry."
"True, they mustn't lose too many servants, or their prestige is hurt," said Lady Nirea. Now that she'd found her Revel, she had discarded the rucker's clothing and was dressed in a thigh-hugging sapphire gown. Even in the dark she was beautiful, he thought.
The Mink stood. Up and down the valley glowed the lights of god-guards at the mines, double and treble now, since with the Mink loose not even a god was safe alone. Plenty of zanphs there too, he thought. Yet he had a few gentryman's guns, and his old pick slung at his back. Zanphs, gods, gentry, priests? Let them beware!
His thinking was done; he would retire his brains—despite the clever John, Revel knew he had more than one brain—and let his brawn take over. Only the brawn of the Mink could win through the next hours. Half-consciously he tensed his whole frame, curled his fingers and toes, thrust out his great chest. The skin on all parts of his body creaked, split back from the worse wounds, achily stretched; blood sprang from shoulder and from other hurt places. Yet he was not only whole, but full of eager vitality. The small pains of his hide were only incentives to act violently and forget them. He relaxed and turned to his friends.
"You two, find the nags of the gentry we slew. I hear stamping nearby. Nirea, go to your own beast and wait for me. You two, with Rack, Jerran, John and me, we'll search the mines for men. We need plenty of them—it's miners' guts and muscles it'll take to move that beam-throwing thing from the cavern. Let's begin."
He drew the Lady Nirea up to him, slapped her face lightly, kissed her open mouth. "Quick, wench, hop when I speak!" A touch of starshine glistened on his grin-bared teeth. Then he turned and leaped off the rock shelf.
The nearest mine was guarded by three gods, nervously jiggling up and down in grotesque little air-dances; below them sat half a dozen hideous-headed zanphs. Revel crawled up toward the entrance. At the first touch of an alien mind on his own, he shot forward, pick flailing. Two gods he caught with one stroke, the third began to rise and his backswing took it on the underside and tore a gash as if the pick had struck a rubber bag: yellow gore dropped in a flood. He had no time to wonder if the third globe had telepathed a distress signal, for the zanphs were on him.
Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yet those were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base, tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of its six legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across his left arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug down into the flesh and grated on the ulna bone.
He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupilless eyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm by the frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot, spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. John appeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengage the teeth from his bloody arm.
"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the mine.
"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders."
There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement.
To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there came forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at their posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry.
Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conquering general already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley, and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back.
"How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roan on the grass. She glanced at the mass of men, all those in the van carrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?"
He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with circles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white and flickering yellow.The buttons, murmured his men behind him.The buttons are awake!
"You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old man was as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not waste time. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast this valley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if their science has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screen thrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now."
Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech—"Let's not waste time"—waved his miners forward.
They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; when the Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one another for the honor of being first to touch it.
It stood solidly on the floor, ten feet high, twelve wide, square and black with twin coils and a thick projection like an enormous gun on the top. Men jammed around it, bent and gripped a ledge near the bottom, heaved up. Loath to move, it rocked a bit, then was hoisted off the ground. They staggered forward with it.
The hole in the wall was far too small.
"Miners! The best of you, and I don't want braggarts and second-raters, but the best! Tear down that wall!" Revel stood on a case and roared his commands. Men pushed out of the tunnel's throng, big bearded men, small tough men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and at a word began to swing their picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rock away....
Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into the tunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distant ones to go up the shaft to the top.
"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had a kind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the big miner. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind when John himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he, the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all his friends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world had vanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things as John?
There was a man, by—what was the expression he used?—by god!
"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, there aren't any worries."
"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimistic crack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby."
Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingness yawned above for ninety feet, below for over a hundred. The shaft was twenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea.
"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft, and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanism worked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in small loads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad it holds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center; it's as tough as anything on earth."
"I see your idea," said John. "Ihopethat cable's tough. The machine weighs a couple of tons."
"Tons?"
"I mean it's heavy!"
Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly they heard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward their level. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, the Mink let go a yell that halted the men on the windlass like a pickax blow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto the bucket!"
"For God's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicate thing." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," he cautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work. "Easy ... easy ... easy!"
The great square mysterious box thrust out over the lip, teetered there as if it would plunge into the bucket. John with a screech of anguish jumped forward and thrust at it with both hands.
If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel's chance to drop the buttons from the sky would be gone forever. Nobody on earth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as theantiforcescreenthrowerof John.
The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launched himself into space, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled over sideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him.
The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it and lowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gave a lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tipped gradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall of the shaft. Revel howled, "Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts! Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable'll be frayed in half!"
Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cable through its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had to be distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righted itself, came horizontal again.
"Up!" roared the Mink. Nothing happened. "More men on the winch!" Then in a moment they began to rise.
The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.
At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft. All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the night, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally theantiforcescreenthrowerwas all but out of the mine. Another ten feet would bring it clear.
Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.
The Mink he turns his blazing eyesUp to the buttoned sky:"This night I'll tear ye down from thereTo see if gods can die!"The gentry mass in stallioned ranks,The priests have gone amuck;The orbs and zanphs they now descend,All-armed against the ruck!—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
The Mink he turns his blazing eyesUp to the buttoned sky:"This night I'll tear ye down from thereTo see if gods can die!"
The gentry mass in stallioned ranks,The priests have gone amuck;The orbs and zanphs they now descend,All-armed against the ruck!
—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
John staggered to his feet. "Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an atomic city-buster if I ever heard one—and when the Tartarians were over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn't so important to your damned orbs after all." He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes' buttons rose another of the dark twin clouds.
"If they were trying to smack us, they could stand a refresher course in pin-pointing ... let's get the thrower out here fast. Too many saucers directly above us for comfort."
"There went another quarter of Dolfya," said Rack. "What power they have!"
"You'll see their power come plummeting to earth if I can work the machine," said John urgently. "Bring it out!"
The miners hauled it out, a titanic job even when men pressed tight against men and uncounted hands lifted the great burden. John showed them where to put it on the rock shelf. "Hoist me up on top," he clipped. It was done. "Now watch."
Revel stared at the sky till his eyes began to ache. At last John shouted, "I'm ready, but listen—I see a lot of torches coming up the valley, and the men holding 'em are mounted!"
"Our rebels, likely," said Jerran.
"Send men to meet them," yelled Revel. "They might be gentry. Pickmen and those with guns. Fast!"
"Okay, son," said John then, "watch the buttons just over us."
All heads tilted. A strange clanking came from the great box, a beam of thick-looking purple light lanced upward from the gun-like projection on top and fingered out toward the buttons. "Be ready," called John from the top of the machine. "This'll nullify the diamond rays for a few minutes, but then the things will be able to rise again. Your men must go out and break into the buttons before the globes can get 'em up!"
Revel issued his orders quickly. The purple light had now touched a button, which wavered from its fixed position, then as the beam caught it fully, dropped like a flung stone. Hundreds of voices bellowed the rebels' joy. Half a hundred miners leaped off into the night to attack the fallen ship, which struck the earth some distance up the valley with a shattering crash.
Already the beam, more sure now as John's hands grew confident of their power, was flicking over other buttons. The least play of its purple glow on the under surface of an alien ship was sufficient to send it catapulting down. The other buttons were moving, sluggishly, then more swiftly, coming toward the valley; and John could be heard swearing in a strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around.
A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley. Revel jerked his head up. "Theyweresquires!" he said. "We've got to get up there to help our men!" Rack motioned to the miners behind him and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, "Some for the fallen globes! Some have to stay to—"
Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. "Little man, are you the Mink?"
Jerran struggled ineffectually. "No, damn it, no!"
"Then shut your mug till you're told to give orders!" Revel dropped him, and roared out, "Two hundred men—Jerran, count 'em off as they pass you—to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o' this hill—spread round in a ring that circles this ledge, and don't let a squire or enemy through! We've got to protect John!" He turned, gripped Lady Nirea's wrist urgently. "Have you quick eyes and hands, love?"
"Faster than most men's, save your own." Her slatey eyes glowed eerily in the buttons' light.
"Then up you go," he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her hands clenched on the upper edge of John's machine. "Perhaps you can help him. I can't spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!" He set off toward the nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight.
The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts. An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick. Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs milled, then spread out to attack.
He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on, coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth "saucer" as John called it, Revel gave up counting, and slew his way from button to button, gore of red and yellow spotting and splashing him, wounds multiplying in his legs and arms and chest, half the hair burnt off his head by the energy auras of angry orbs.
His force dwindled. Men died with throats torn out by zanphs, with eyes singed from the sockets by globe-radiation. Men stood numbed and useless, hypnotized into immobility. Men sat looking at spilling guts that fell from zanph-slashed bellies. But still the Mink slew on and on, a tall dark wild figure in the uncanny light of the still-flying airships of the alien globes....
John was bringing them down faster than ever, and Revel must needs split up his small force even more, sending miners to each wreck to catch as many entities as possible. Many spheres of gold managed to rise into the sky, where they found sanctuary in other saucers: some zanphs went scooting for shelter in the rocks and bushes, but most stayed to fight and die.
He yearned to check his forces back on the hill, those protecting John's machine, and the men who still fought the gunmen in the upper end of the valley. But he dared not take his encouraging presence from the miners here. A button came swooping to earth not three yards from him, spraying him with clods of dirt, unbalancing him by the shock; a zanph gained purchase on his shoulder and tore flesh and sinew and muscle so that his left arm lost much of its strength and cunning. He killed it with the pick handle and struggled on into a mob of the brutes, panting now and blinking blood from his eyes.
Of his original two hundred, less than seventy remained. Still he dared not draw any from the protective ring. Where were the rebels that Vorl and Sesker and the others had gone to rouse? Probably raiding mansions miles away. He should have told them ... oh, well. Surely the concentration of noise and buttons and gods above the valley would bring them soon.
A moment's respite allowed him to look at the sky. It was lightening a little for the early dawn, and the buttons were less bold; most of them hovered near the horizon, only an occasional one bravely sailing in at a terrific speed to make a try at bombing the valley. John, perhaps with Nirea helping him, had managed to bring down every one so far. But John and Revel would run out of luck some time, as every man does; then John would miss, Revel's arm would fail, and they would all die.
Even as he lowered his head a gargantuan blast shook the world below him. He fell into a mob of zanphs, who were fortunately so demoralized by the explosion that they ignored him till he could gain his feet and begin to murder them once more. From the tail of his eye he saw a mushroom cloud lowering just beyond the hill; he flicked his gaze at the crest where his men had been stationed to guard theantiforcescreenthrower—no human form showed against the gray sky. The blast had hurled them to dust, together with every tree on the skyline.
Finally—the gods knew how long he had fought—he found with amazement that no more foes were in sight. The buttons that had fallen were all cleaned out. Zanphs lay thick in heaps and lines, emptied sacks of globes dotted the bloody grass. He listened for the sound of firing from the upper valley; yes, there were still isolated shots.
His forces there still held, then. He glanced again at the sky. No buttons in range. They were giving John a respite—or was it a trick? Revel's tired mind wondered if John and Nirea were dead, and the gods playing with him this way....
He felt himself, his head, arms, chest, legs. He had been burned a dozen times by energy auras, only his incredible animal quickness preserving him, giving him the power to dodge away at first touch of the burning and slay the golden globes. The zanph bites atop the thorn scratches and hound gashes were rapidly stiffening his whole torso, his left arm, his thick-thewed legs. But there were shots in the upper valley, and Revel the Mink was needed there.
Wearily he gathered his men—twenty-six of them now, all as tired as he—and trudged at a broken shuffling lope toward the light.
As he passed the rocks where the machine of John sat, he scanned it with blood-shot eyes. A score of miners, perhaps thirty at most, stood around it, and the man of the Ancient Kingdom sat on its surface, wiping his face with a white cloth. Lady Nirea stood up beside him and waved her hand as he passed. He swung his pick in a big arc to show he was still hale and hearty, though the effort cost him much.
Through his dulled brain now ran one thought, one hope. It was a chant, a prayer, a focus for his beaten spirit, for though he had won thus far, he was so death-weary that he could not conceive victory coming to him at the last.
Just let me meet Ewyo. Only let me meet Ewyo without his horse. Give me now one fair fight with Ewyo the Squire of Dolfya.
The first man he met was Rack, engaged in binding up a torn calf with strips of his shirt.
"How goes it?"
Rack turned the walleye toward him, as though he could see out of it. "We have eight or ten left. All their horses are dead or run away. We stayed them in hand-to-hand combat, but when they drew back and began to use their guns long-range, we lost heavily. Now we're dug in along that rise, and they seem to be waiting for more squires, or horses, or something. I think they have twenty or thirty left."
"Then we have thirty-five or so, and outnumbered them."
Rack let his good eye rest on his brother. "Your voice is the croak of a dying frog, Revel. You must have lost a quart of blood. Your men are like sticks and sacks and limp rag bundles. You call this force thirty-fivemen?"
"We are still men, Rack." His voice, croak though it was, rang strong and fierce. "I can plant this pick in any gnat's eye I desire. Now do you lead us to the battle front."
"Yes, Mink." Rack turned and hobbled forward. "One of the slugs has sliced half the tendons of this leg, I swear."
"That wound is in the fleshy part, and won't trouble you for a week. Is that a man?"
"That's Dawvys."
Revel started back, appalled. The man lying behind the rise was red and brown from short-cropped hair to waist, his back a mass of blood—sparkling crimson in the light of dawn, where it had freshly sprung leaks, and dirty mahogany color, where the scabs had dried and cracked and flaked. It was a back that should have belonged to a dead man; but Dawvys rolled over on it without a wince and grinned at his leader.
"Hallo, Revel, bless your soul," said the former servant. "I'm glad to see you alive."
"The same to you, Dawvys," said the Mink. "Did you have any trouble in that pit?"
"I went to sleep when the hounds had passed, and never awoke till your men found me tonight." He stretched and grunted with pain; then, "I think I shall live."
Revel looked cautiously over the rise. Some fifty yards down the valley the squires were grouped in a knot, their costumes gaudy in the early light. A few of them were looking toward him, but most watched the far end of the valley. They were looking, thought Revel, for reinforcements. Time might be short.
He scanned the terrain. Where the squires stood, the valley was narrow, scarcely more than sixty feet across. Above their knot, to Revel's left, was the open mouth of a mine; the opposite hillside was bare and rocky, without break. A familiar voice behind him said, "What's to do, Mink?"
"Greetings, Jerran. Why did you leave the machine?"
"Nothing doing there. The gods are sitting on the horizon. Have you a thought?"
"See that mine?" He pointed with his gory pick. "Isn't that the western entrance of the great mine of Rosk?"
Jerran took his bearings. "It is."
"Then the other entrance is back yonder, and through it we can traverse the mine and come out that hole-above the squires."
Jerran nodded. "The best plan under the circumstances. Let's go."
Rack said, "I come too."
"Yes, all of us save four men," agreed Revel. "They must stay here to create noise and pretend to be forty people. Give us ten minutes, and the squires will find that mine shaft erupting death all over them!"