There was that other entrance to the cave passages, where Red-dick’s men had broken through. But Uncle Offlas had set a double broadcast to operate a second barrier a little beyond the installation chamber. No—Roane knew it was hopeless. Yet she found herself pulling at the pack seals, lying out on the floor, in the light of a small beamer, their contents.
Food—plenty of E rations—a well-stocked medic kit, spare chargers for beamers and stunners— Nothing of service to her.
She piled all she had taken from Uncle Offlas’s kit back into it. And she already knew all that was in hers. There remained San-dar’s and she turned it out, without any real hope.
Another beamer—or— Roane turned the tube around in her hands, brought it closer to the light with a small thrill of excitement. Not a regulation beamer, and not the forbidden blaster, but an archaeologist’s hand tool which had some limited prop- erties of both. She studied the setting dial on the butt and then unsealed the charge-holding stem. If—oh, if only—
Roane hastily emptied out again all three kits, dumping their contents on the stone. In a short time she had three sets of charges lined up—those for stunners, those for two sizes of beamers. And —three of the latter fitted! One of those would not give her the highest force this tool could use, but perhaps enough. Only it would be slow in working—and she could not face either man were he armed.
She sat back on her heels. There was the repeller. Roane swung up the beamer to touch the ceiling of the cave at the point above where the machine sat. What she tried was such a gamble that the promise of failure far outweighed that of success, but she could see nothing else. And it would take time-Holding the beamer on the spot she had selected, Roane thumbed on the tool, aiming its energy broadcast at that section, moving it with precision to cut the outline of a circle in the rock.
It did slice—but so slowly! And she could tell from the vibration of the tube in her hand that the operation was using far too much power. The charge might well be exhausted long before her purpose was accomplished. But she kept at it.
A rain of small bits of stone, gnawed away by the ray, fell toward the repeller. Heartened, Roane grew reckless, bearing down on the button to send the highest intensity of beam into that cracking surface.
Back and forth she swept, weaving a maze of cracks and cuts. The powdery fall was thicker, and larger bits of rock came. The repeller had its own protective casing. She might not be able to bring down a piece large enough to crack that, but she was forcing the broadcast to use some of its energy to protect itself. And Uncle Offlas had already set it on high. He had had to, to produce the two force walls, here and down the passage.
Sweep, sweep. Pebbles fell now. Roane used the beamer to read the dial on the repeller. What she saw there was heartening. The needle was a fraction into the red-zone warning of overload.
Then a larger fragment, perhaps the size of her own doubled fist, came clanging down.
A flash from the repeller, an acrid breath of odor. Shorted! She had shorted the shield!
Until that moment she had been moved only by hope. Hope, and the desperate need to be on the move which had come from that dream. Roane unscrewed the tube, recharged the tool.
That done, she stowed it in the front of her tunic and set about making up a small pack—food, a medic kit, the third charge for her weapon-tool, a beamer, a pair of night lenses. She knotted all together in a plasta sack before she allowed herself to think seriously of what she would do.
Roane stood a moment in the dark of the cave, listening. To her alert ears the murmur of sound from the installation was steady. She picked up no hint that either of the others might be returning. But—if she left here now she was making a final choice. All because of a dream? She did not know. Perhaps it was that influence which hung here on Clio, warping her reasoning powers. She could even see clearly what she should have considered good sense, the only right pattern of living for an off-worlder. Only— Roane shook her head. She could not put name to the emotions which had shaken her out of the life she had always known, just as she could not withstand their present pull.
Taking up the sack, putting on the night lenses, Roane stepped over the repeller and walked out of the cave into a new life which she felt had been chosen for her, whether or not she consciously willed it.
Only, now that she was free, where should she go? Hitherhow was her lone point of reference. Wearing these native clothes (she had lacked another change of clothing in camp), she might be able to get into the village, learn something. That was Red-dick’s holding. Surely he would send his prisoners there. Though would they still be in the keep now?
Half the night later, as she had days earlier, Roane crouched on the hilltop to watch keep and village. There were one or two
MS lighted lanterns along the street leading from the keep’s massive gate to the highway. But the houses were all dark. She hesitated, certain of the folly of her vague plans, but just as sure she must do something.
As she lingered, she heard a sound that was not one of the night noises, a pounding in regular beat, growing louder—until two duocorns, ridden at a steady, ground-covering pace, came into view from the west, the clatter of their passing awakening louder echoes as they reached the cobbled pavement of the short village street. They were brought to a stop before the gate of the keep.
A horn sounded, one of the riders holding it to his lips, blowing a series of notes with certainly no respect for the slumbers of any in village or keep, for the harsh peal shattered the peace of the night. Men spilled into the courtyard, two of them tugging at the gate bar. Then the riders were in, one coming out of his saddle to head at a hasty trot for the near tower.
The men in the courtyard scattered, leading away the puffing, foam-bespattered duocorns. Roane rolled over on her back, pulled off the night lenses to stare up at the sky. There was a paling there. It must be later than she had first thought. And she had accomplished nothing as yet. Better get down to the village. When she looked there again there were lights in some of the house windows. The horn had done its duty to awaken the inhabitants.
Then—lights in the keep—more stirring there. From the main tower came a blast of sound greater than that other horn, one that echoed from the cluster of heights ringing Hitherhow. Men formed lines on the courtyard pavement. More and more lights appeared in the village houses.
Roane pulled the Revenian hood up over her head, drawing it about her face as best she could. It was the only anonymity she had as she went down into the village. A second blast of sound which was a summoning spurred her on.
By the time she reached the short street the people were al- ready coming out of the houses, many of them carrying lanterns, moving toward the keep. There the courtyard doors had been flung open, a line of guardsmen on either side. And from the snatches of conversation Roane overheard as she edged into the crowd, she learned that the peal from the tower was a summons which had not been sounded in years; the reason for it none about her could guess.
“War! Those Vordainians—they have always looked jealously in our direction—”
“No, we have most danger at the west—Leichstan, they have never been friendly since their king re-wed.”
“It may only be some proclamation from the Queen. She is only new come to the throne and—”
“A proclamation would be delivered at a decent hour, not when a body is jerked out of a warm bed in the night. This must be something more weighty—”
Roane fastened the bag of supplies to her belt. The night lenses she had tucked into the front of her tunic. And now her fingers sweated on the smooth tube of the tool, her only weapon. If she had to use that, it would require skill.
The crowd tightened more about her as they pushed through the gate, between the ranks of the guardsmen, to stand facing the main door of the keep. Then the horn sounded for the third time and the murmur of questioning voices died away. Three men appeared so suddenly they might have materialized out of space. They wore uniforms such as Reddick’s men had, with the addition of those badges and lacings which denoted officers. Two were colonels if she read those signs aright, but the man in the center must be of even higher rank.