Part 9

"You'll have your body all right," Hys grated, hurling the car viciously around a spire of rock. "Not that it will accomplish anything--but I can find no fault in killing another magter. We can fit your operation into our plans without any trouble. This is the last night and I have sent every one of my teams out on raids. We're breaking into as many magter towers as possible before dawn. There is a slim chance that we might uncover something. It's really just shooting in the dark, but it's all we can do now. My own team is waiting and you can ride along with us. The others left earlier. We're going to hit a small tower on this side of the city. We raided it once before and captured a lot of small arms that they had stored there. There is a good chance that they may have been stupid enough to store something there again. Sometimes the magter seem to suffer from a complete lack of imagination."

"You have no idea just how right you are," Brion told him.

The sandcar slowed down now, as they approached a slab-sided mesa that rose vertically from the desert. They crunched across broken rocks, leaving no tracks. A light blinked on the dashboard and Hys stopped instantly and killed the engine. They climbed out, stretching and shivering in the cold desert night.

It was dark walking in the shadow of the cliff and they had to feel their way along a path through the tumbled boulders. A sudden blaze of light made Brion wince and shield his eyes. Near him, on the ground, was the humming shape of a cancellation projector, sending out a fan-shaped curtain of vibration that absorbed all the light rays falling upon it. This incredible blackness made a lightproof wall for the recessed hollow at the foot of the cliff. In this shelter, under the overhang of rock, were three open sandcars. They were large and armor-plated, warlike in their scarred gray paint. Men sprawled, talked and polished their weapons. Everything stopped when Hys and Brion appeared.

"Load up," Hys called out. "We're going to attack now, same plan I outlined earlier. Get Telt over here." Talking to his own men some of the harshness was gone from his voice. The tall soldiers of Nyjord moved in ready obedience to the commander. They loomed over his bent figure, most of them twice as tall as him. Yet there was no hesitation in jumping when he commanded. They were the body of the Nyjord striking force--he was the brains.

A square-cut, compact man rolled up to Hys and saluted with a leisurely flick of his hand. He was weighted and slung about with packs and electronic instruments. His pockets bulged with small tools.

"This is Telt," Hys said to Brion, "he'll take care of you. Telt's my personal technical squad. Goes along on all my operations with his meters to test the interiors of the Disan forts. So far he's found no trace of a jump-space generator, or excess radioactivity that might indicate a bomb. Since he's useless and you're useless, you can both take care of each other. Use the car we came in."

Telt's wide face split in a frog-like grin, his voice was hoarse and throaty. "Wait! Just wait! Some day those needles gonna flicker and all our troubles be over. What you want me to do with the stranger?"

"Supply him with a corpse--one of the magter," Hys said. "Take it where he wants and then report back here." Hys scowled at Telt. "Some day your needles will flicker! Poor fool--this is the last day." He turned away and waved the men into their sandcars.

"He likes me," Telt said, attaching a final piece of equipment. "You can tell because he calls me names like that. He's a great man, Hys is, but they never found out until it was too late. Hand me that meter, will you?"

* * * * *

Brion followed the technician out to the car and helped him load his equipment aboard. When the larger cars appeared out of the darkness, Telt swung around after them. They snaked forward in a single line through the rocks, until they came to the desert of rolling sand dunes. Then they spread out in line abreast and rushed towards their goal.

Telt hummed to himself hoarsely as he drove. He broke off suddenly and looked at Brion. "What you want the dead Dis for?"

"A theory," Brion answered sluggishly. He had been half napping in the chair, taking the opportunity for some rest before the attack. "I'm still looking for a way to avert the end."

"You and Hys," Telt said with satisfaction. "Couple of idealists. Trying to stop a war you didn't start. They never would listen to Hys. He told them in the beginning exactly what would happen, and he was right. They always thought his ideas were crooked, like him. Growing up alone in the hill camp, with his back too twisted and too old to be fixed when he finally did come out. Ideas twisted the same way. Made himself an authority on war. Hah! War on Nyjord. That's like being an icecube specialist in hell. But he knew all about it, but they never would let him use what he knew. Put granddaddy Krafft in charge instead."

"But Hys is in charge of an army now?"

"All volunteers, too few of them and too little money. Too little and too damned late to do any good. I'll never be good enough. And for this we get called butchers." There was a catch in Telt's voice now, an undercurrent of emotion he couldn't suppress. "At home they think we like to kill. Think we're insane. They can't understand we're doing the only thing that has to be done--" He broke off as he quickly locked on the brakes and killed the engine. The line of sandcars had come to a stop. Ahead, just visible over the dunes, was the summit of a dark tower.

"We walk from here," Telt said, standing and stretching. "We can take our time because the other boys go in first, soften things up. Then you and I head for the sub-cellar for a radiation check and find you a handsome corpse."

Walking at first, then crawling when the dunes no longer shielded them, they crept up on the Disan keep. Dark figures moved ahead of them, stopping only when they reached the crumbling black walls. They didn't use the ascending ramp, but made their way up the sheer outside face of the ramparts.

"Linethrowers," Telt whispered. "Anchor themselves when the missile hits, have some kind of quicksetting goo. Then we go up the filament with a line-climbing motor. Hys invented them."

"Is that the way you and I are going in?" Brion asked.

"No, we get out of the climbing. I told you we hit this rock once before. I know the layout inside." He was moving while he talked, carefully pacing the distance around the base of the tower. "Should be right about here."

High-pitched keening sliced the air and the top of the magter building burst into flame. Automatic weapons hammered above them. Something fell silently through the night and hit heavily on the ground near them.

"Attack's started," Telt shouted. "We have to get through now, while all the creepies are fighting it out on top." He pulled a plate-shaped object from one of his bags and slapped it hard against the wall. It hung there. He twisted the back of it, pulled something and waved Brion to the ground. "Shaped charge. Should blow straight in, but you never can tell."

The ground jumped under them and the ringing thud was a giant fist punching through the wall. A cloud of dust and smoke rolled clear and they could see the dark opening in the rock, a tunnel driven into the wall by the directional force of the explosion. Telt shone a light through the hole at the crumbled chamber inside.

"Nothing to worry about from anybody who was leaning against this wall. But let's get in and out of this black beehive before the ones upstairs come down to investigate."

Shattered rock was thick on the floor, and they skidded and tumbled over it. Telt pointed the way with his light, down a sharply angled ramp. "Underground chambers in the rock. They always store their stuff down there--"

A smoking, black sphere arced out of the tunnel's mouth, hitting at their feet. Telt just gaped, but even as it hit the floor Brion was jumping forward. He caught it with the side of his foot, kicking it back into the dark opening of the tunnel. Telt hit the ground next to him as the orange flame of an explosion burst below. Bits of shrapnel rattled from the ceiling and wall behind them.

"Grenades!" Telt gasped. "They only used them once before--can't have many. Gotta warn Hys." He plugged a throat mike into the transmitter on his back and spoke quickly into it. There was a stirring below and Brion poured a rain of fire into the tunnel.

"They're catching it bad on top, too! We gotta pull out. Go first and I'll cover you."

"I came for my Disan--I'm not leaving until I get one."

"You're crazy! You're dead if you stay!"

* * * * *

Telt was scrambling back towards their crumbled entrance as he talked. His back was turned when Brion fired. The magter appeared silently as the shadow of death. They charged without a sound, running with expressionless faces into the bullets. Two died at once, curling and folding, the third one fell at Brion's feet. Shot, pierced, dying, but not yet dead. Leaving a crimson track it hunched closer, lifting its knife to Brion. He didn't move. How many times must you murder a man? Or was it a man. His mind and body rebelled against the killing and was almost ready to accept death himself, rather than kill again.

Telt's bullets tore through the body and it dropped with grim finality.

"There's your corpse--now get it out of here!" Telt screeched.

Between them they worked the sodden weight of the dead magter through the hole, their exposed backs crawling with the expectation of instant death. There were no more attacks as they ran from the tower, other than a grenade that exploded too far behind them to do any harm.

One of the armored sandcars circled the keep, headlights blazing, keeping up a steady fire from its heavy weapons. The attackers climbed into it as they beat a retreat. Telt and Brion dragged the Disan behind them, struggling through the loose sand toward the circling car. Telt glanced over his shoulder and broke into a shambling run.

"They're following us--!" he gasped. "The first time they ever chased us after a raid!"

"They must know we have the body," Brion said.

"Leave it behind--!" Telt choked. "Too heavy to carry ... anyway!"

"I'd rather leave you," Brion snapped. "Let me have it." He pulled the corpse away from the unresisting Telt and heaved it across his shoulders. "Now use your gun to cover us!"

Telt threw a rain of slugs back towards the dark figures following them. The driver must have seen the flare of their fire, because the truck turned and started towards them. It braked in a choking cloud of dust and ready hands reached to pull them up. Brion pushed the body in ahead of himself and scrambled after it. The truck engine throbbed and they churned away into the blackness, away from the gutted tower.

"You know, that was more like kind of a joke, when I said I'd leave the corpse behind," Telt told Brion. "You didn't believe me, did you?"

"Yes," Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against the truck's side. "I thought you meant it."

"Ahhh--" Telt grumbled. "You're as bad as Hys. Take things too seriously."

Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of the sandcar. Killing like this was too personal. Talking abstractedly about a body was one thing. But murdering a man, then lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an entirely different matter. Yet the magter weren't human, he knew that. The thought was only mildly comforting.

* * * * *

After they had reached the rest of the waiting sandcars, the raiding party split up. "Each one goes in a different direction," Telt said, "so they can't track us to the base." He clipped a piece of paper next to the compass and kicked the motor into life. "We'll make a big _U_ in the desert and end up in Hovedstad, I got the course here. Then I'll dump you and your friend and beat it back to our camp. You're not still burned at me for what I said, are you? Are you?"

Brion didn't answer. He was staring fixedly out of the side window. "What's doing?" Telt asked. Brion pointed out at the rushing darkness.

"Over there," he said, pointing to the growing light on the horizon.

"Dawn," Telt said. "Lotta rain on your planet? Didn't you ever see the sun come up before?"

"Not on the last day of a world."

"Lock it up," Telt grumbled. "You give me the crawls. I know they're going to be blasted. But at least I know I did everything I could to stop it. How do you think they are going to be feeling at home--on Nyjord--from tomorrow on?"

"Maybe we can still stop it?" Brion said, shrugging off the feeling of gloom, Telt's only answer was a wordless sound of disgust.

By the time they had cut a large loop in the desert the sun was high in the sky, the daily heat begun. Their course took them through a chain of low, flinty hills that cut their speed almost to zero. They ground ahead in low gear while Telt sweated and cursed, struggling with the controls. Then they were on firm sand and picking up speed towards the city.

As soon as Brion saw Hovedstad clearly he felt a clutch of fear. From somewhere in the city a black plume of smoke was rising. It could have been one of the deserted buildings aflame, a minor blaze. Yet the closer they came, the greater the tension grew. Brion didn't dare put it into words himself, it was Telt who vocalized the thought.

"A fire or something. Coming from your area, somewhere close to your building."

Within the city they saw the first signs of destruction. Broken rubble on the streets. The smell of greasy smoke in their nostrils. More and more people appeared, going in the same direction they were. The normally deserted streets of Hovedstad were now almost crowded. Disans, obvious by their bare shoulders, mixed with the few offworlders who still remained.

Brion made sure the tarpaulin was well wrapped around the body before they pushed slowly through the growing crowd.

"I don't like all this publicity," Telt complained, looking at the people. "It's the last day, or I'd be turning back. They know our cars, we've raided them often enough." Turning a corner he braked suddenly.

Ahead was destruction. Black, broken rubble had been churned into desolation. It was still smoking, pink tongues of flame licking over the ruins. A fragment of wall fell with a rumbling crash.

"It's your building--the Foundation building!" Telt shouted. "They've been here ahead of us, must have used the radio to call a raid. They did a job, explosive of some kind."

Hope was dead. Dis was dead. In the ruin ahead, mixed and broken with the other rubble, were the bodies of all the people who had trusted him. Lea. Beautiful and cruelly dead Lea. Dr. Stine, his patients, Faussel, all of them. He had kept them on this planet and now they were dead. Every one of them. Dead.

Murderer!

XIV

Life was ended. Brion's mind contained nothing but despair and the pain of irretrievable loss. If his brain had been complete master of his body he would have died there, for at that moment there was no will to live. Unaware of this his heart continued to beat and the regular motion of his lungs drew in the dreadful sweetness of the smoke-tainted air. With automatic directness his body lived on.

"What you gonna do?" Telt asked, even his natural exuberation stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated. What could he do? What could possibly be done?

"Follow me," a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could turn. Aware now, Brion saw a native move away from the edge of the crowd and turn in their direction. It was Ulv.

"Turn the car--that way!" He punched Telt's arm and pointed. "Do it slowly and don't draw any attention to us." There was sudden hope, which he kept himself from considering. The building was gone and the people in it all dead. That fact had to be faced.

"What's going on?" Telt asked. "Who was that talked in the window?"

"A native--that one up ahead. He saved my life in the desert, and I think he is on our side. Even though he's a native Disan, he can understand facts that the magter can't. He knows what will happen to this planet." Brion was talking, filling his brain with words so he wouldn't begin to have hope.

Ulv moved slowly and naturally through the streets, never looking back. They followed, as far behind as they dared, yet still keeping him in sight. There were fewer people about here among the deserted offworld storehouses. Ulv vanished into one, LIGHT METALS TRUST LTD. the sign read above the door. Telt slowed the car.

"Don't stop here," Brion said. "Drive on around the corner, and pull up."

Brion climbed out of the car with an ease he did not feel. There was no one in sight now, in either direction. Walking slowly back to the corner he checked the street they had just left--hot, silent and empty!

A sudden blackness appeared where the door of the warehouse had been, and the sudden flickering motion of a hand. Brion signaled Telt to start, and jumped into the already moving sandcar.

"Into that open door--quickly before anyone sees us!" The car rumbled down a ramp into the dark interior and the door slid shut behind them.

"Ulv. What is it? Where are you?" Brion called, blinking in the murky interior. A gray form appeared next to him.

"I am here."

"Did you--" There was no way to finish the sentence.

"I heard of the raid. The magter called together all of us they could to help them carry explosives. I went along. I could not stop them and there was no time to warn anyone in the building."

"Then they are all dead--?"

"Yes," Ulv nodded, "all except one. I knew I could possibly save one, and I was not sure who. So I took the woman you were with in the desert, she is here now. She was hurt, but not badly, when I brought her out."

Guilty relief flooded through Brion. He shouldn't exult, not with the death of everyone in the Foundation still fresh in his mind. But at that instant he was happy.

"May I see her?" he asked Ulv. He was seized by the sudden fear that there might be a mistake. Perhaps Ulv had saved a different girl.

* * * * *

Ulv led the way across the empty loading bay. Brion followed closely, fighting down the temptation to tell him to hurry. When he saw that Ulv was heading towards an office in the far wall, he could control himself no longer and ran on ahead.

It was Lea, lying unconscious on a couch. Sweat beaded her face and she moaned and stirred without opening her eyes.

"I gave her _sover_, then wrapped her in cloth so no one would know," Ulv said.

Telt was close behind them looking in through the open door.

"_Sover_ is a drug they take from one of their plants," he said. "We got a lot of experience with it. A little makes a good knock-out drug, but it's deadly poison in large doses. I got the antidote in the car, wait and I'll get it." He went out.

Brion sat next to Lea and wiped her face clean of dirt and perspiration. The dark shadows under her eyes were almost black now and her elfin face even thinner. Yet she was alive, that was the important thing. Some of the tension drained away and he could think again. There was still the job to do. After this last experience she should be in a hospital bed. Yet this was impossible. He had to drag her to her feet and put her back to work. The answer might still be found. Each second ticked away another fraction of the planet's life.

"Good as new in a minute," Telt said, banging down the heavy medbox. He watched intently as Ulv left the room. "Hys should know about this renegade. Might be useful as a spy or for information. Of course it's too late now to do anything, so the hell with it." He pulled a pistol-shaped hypodermic gun from the box and dialed a number on the side. "Now, if you'll roll her sleeve up I'll bring her back to life." He pressed the bell-shaped sterilizing muzzle against her skin and pulled the trigger. The hypo gun hummed briefly, ending its cycle with a large click.

"Does it work fast?" Brion asked.

"Couple of minutes. Just let her be and she'll come to by herself."

"Killer!" Ulv hissed from the doorway. His blowgun was in his hand, half raised to his mouth.

"He's been in the car--he's seen it!" Telt shouted and grabbed for his gun.

Brion sprang between them, raising his hands. "Stop it! No more killing!" he shouted this in Disan. Then he shook his fist at Telt. "Fire that gun and I'll stuff it down your throat. I'll handle this." He turned to face Ulv who hadn't raised the blowgun any closer to his lips. This was a good sign. The Disan was still uncertain.

"You have seen the body in the car, Ulv. So you must have seen that it is that of a magter. I killed him myself, because I would rather kill one, ten or even a hundred men rather than have everyone on this planet destroyed. I killed him in a fair fight and now I am going to examine his body. There is something very strange and different about the magter, you know that yourself. If I can find out what it is, perhaps we can make them stop this war, and not bomb Nyjord."

Ulv was still angry, yet he lowered the blowgun a little. "I wish there were no offworlders, that none of you had ever come. Nothing was wrong until you started coming. The magter were the strongest, and they killed, but they also helped. Now they want to fight a war with your weapons and for this you are going to kill my world. And you want me to help you?"

"Not me--yourself!" Brion said wearily. "There's no going back, that's the one thing we can't do. Maybe Dis would have been better off without offplanet contact. Maybe not. In any case you have to forget about that. You have contact now with the rest of the galaxy, for better or for worse. You've got a problem to solve, and I'm here to help you solve it."

Seconds ticked by as Ulv, unmoving, fought with questions that were novel to his life. Could killing stop death? Could he help his people by helping strangers to fight and kill them? His world had changed and he didn't like it. He must make a giant effort to change with it.

Abruptly, he pushed the blowgun into a thong at his waist, turned and strode out.

"Too much for my nerves," Telt said, settling his gun back in the holster. "You don't know how happy I'm gonna be when this thing is over. Even if the planet goes bang, I don't care. I'm finished." He walked out to the sandcar, keeping a careful eye on the Disan crouched against the wall.

* * * * *

Brion turned back to Lea whose eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He went to her.

"Running," she said, and her voice had a toneless emptiness that screamed louder than any emotion. "They ran by the open door of my room and I could see them when they killed Dr. Stine. Just butchered him like an animal, chopping him down. Then one came into the room and that's all I remember." She turned her head slowly and looked at Brion. "What happened? Why am I here?"

"They're ... dead," he told her. "All of them. After the raid the Disans blew up the building. You're the only one that survived. That was Ulv who came into your room, the Disan we met in the desert. He brought you away and hid you here in the city."

"When do we leave?" she said, in the same empty tones, turning her face to the wall. "When do we get off this planet?"

"Today is the last day. The deadline is midnight. Krafft will have a ship pick us up when we are ready. But we still have our job to do. I've got that body. You're going to have to examine it. We must find out about the magter--"