“All aboard,” ZORAC’s voice said from somewhere. “Anybody want to change their mind? No? Then let’s get out of here. Next stop, orbit. Calazar and Caldwell are through in the command deck via VISAR, waiting to talk to you.”
Hunt accepted a set of communicator accessories from one of the Ganymeans and attached them to his neck, ear, and forehead as they walked. “Who’s running the ship?” he asked as they approached one of the internal transit tubes.
“Leyel Torres, at your service,” a voice said in his ear.
“Quite a stunt,” Hunt complimented. “Pity about the hole in the roof.”
“I assume their insurance will cover it.”
“What’s the score otherwise?”
“Well, it seems that you’ve gone and doubled all our problems— literally. The versions of you that we’ve just extricated from that mess were only half the story. Now we have to worry about the other half.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Shingen-Hu refused to let himself be demoralized again. The higher gods had told him that he was to be their chosen instrument, and he had seen their power. Therefore the sudden cessation of the demonstration was a sign to him. It meant something. They had placed their emissaries in his charge, he had decided as the procession wound its way through the hills surrounding Rakashym, and left them stripped of their protection. All the time, the emissaries had remained quiet and subdued, obviously leaving Shingen-Hu to work the interpretation out for himself. It could only mean that the gods were entrusting to him the task of saving them. It was a test of his faith and worthiness.
Having satisfied himself of that much, he maneuvered himself into one of the corners of the cart below the two guards who were riding up front, and out of their line of vision. Then, under cover of the other bodies packed around him, he slipped from his robe one of the pieces of mobilium from the dignitaries’ carnage that he had picked up and concealed when they were back in the village square. He laid the sliver along one of his fingers and, concentrating his powers, slowly passed his finger through one of the links of the chain shackling his hands. The mobilium following behind his finger repelled the material, preventing it from rejoining behind, and the chain fell apart. He nudged Thrax, indicated what he had done, and passed him the other piece of mobilium. Thrax loosened his own chains, then worked his way across to the far side of the cart. By the time the cart had covered another mile, they had freed all five of the captives whom the gods had entrusted to them.
The train rounded a sharp bend at a point where the trail began descending, and there Shingen-Hu saw the opportunity that the gods had prepared for him. On one side, a steep gully rose into the rocks above the trail, its course littered with many loose and precarious boulders. On the other side, just past the bend where the gully spilled out onto the trail, there was a deep gorge with a stream at the bottom, and across it a cliff of crumbling, red-brown gritstone, its face patchy and veined with crystal of various colors.
Shingen-Hu waited until the cart carrying the prisoners had passed the gully, at which point the supply wagon and main body of the escorting soldiers following behind were obscured momentarily by the bend. Straightening up suddenly, he pointed at the gully with the extended fingers of both hands, singling out a large boulder that had acted as a dam and accumulated a mound of smaller debris fallen from higher up. The rock moved. Shingen-Hu sent a bolt of focused power, which he felt augmented by Thrax, concentrating beside him, and moments later a miniature avalanche came rumbling and tumbling down the gorge, sealing off the trail behind.
Ahead, the cart that the dignitaries were traveling in—commandeered from the villagers to replace the carriage—had come to a stop on a narrow stretch where the trail passed between two rock walls. As the occupants came spilling out in consternation, they blocked the way of the soldiers from the front, who were trying to get back.