The clamor from upstream on their own bank grew louder as the loader continued its fight for river passage. There, too, vegetation was being crushed. Finally they caught sight of the flamer, its nozzle covered with the same debris the loader bore, not belching flames but pointing with a slightly crooked finger obliquely toward the Waste.
Cleaned by the stream of most of its ragged covering, the loader’s treads caught on some underwater sand bar and it splashed up the bank. All the time, the off-worlders with Ayyar stood, staring straight ahead. Whether they watched at all he could not be sure. But they showed no surprise or alarm at the coming of the machines.
The flamer blanked into the open, turned to point to the Waste, began a ponderous march westward. After it, ground-eating prongs erect, a third machine, the grubber, came into view from the forest clearing and turned in the same direction. The loader made heavy business of bringing up the rear.
From over the river the shouting that followed in the wake of the loader was loud. Blazing, waving torches showed there. Then Brash came to life, as did the two men supporting Ayyar, moving away from the stream, up slope in the wake of the three machines still grinding into the Waste. They did not turn their heads to look as the torches reached the water’s edge, but Ayyar strove to do so.
He did not believe that the garthmen with their night limited sight could see the four men from that distance. The Settlers did no more than move up and down on the bank. There was a large party of them, and Ayyar saw the light shine on metal. Gleaming scythes, axes, and the long knives used in clearing brush could also be weapons in the hands of desperate and determined men.
Perhaps their party was sighted as they reached the top of the rise, passing in the rutted track left by the loader, for the shouting grew louder. But Ayyar, unable to turn in the merciless grip that held him prisoner, could no longer see what happened behind them.
However, now they were no longer alone, for, amidst the wreckage strewing the path that the machines had broken, came other men, walking with the same unseeing tread of his captors, staring before them. All wore port clothing and plainly were now controlled by some influence that did not claim him.
Ayyar stiffened, drove his booted feet as deeply as he could into the rutted track, strove to twist free from the grip that dragged him on. He might have been struggling alone to delay the loader. There was no loosing of that hold. They continued to compel him forward.
Was That summoning an army obedient to Its will?
Cries from the river! Ayyar could not see if the garthmen had conquered their hesitation or were also caught in That’s net. He could only fight for his own freedom as best he could, digging in his feet, struggling, useless though his resistance seemed to be.
Two of the company that had followed the clearing machines caught up with Ayyar’s party. Neither group looked at their new companions nor gave any sign they knew the others existed. Both the newcomers wore uniforms of the police. They were armed with blasters, but those were holstered, as if here and now there was nothing to fear. And their calm march had a quelling effect on Ayyar, as if he were being borne along in a company of men who were both invincible and deathless.
They came to the edge of a gully into which the loader had plunged and was now making violent efforts to get up. Hanfors and Steffney turned sharply to the left, bearing Ayyar with them. The other men headed for the stalled machine, put their shoulders to it, lending their strength to free it, though their efforts made no difference to the wallowing of the loader. Now came others, first port men, all blank of face, all going directly to the machine’s aid. After them, four, five, of the bearded, dully clad garthmen, all wet with river water, dripping as if they had swum the flood.
Without a word exchanged between them and the men from the port, they joined in the task of striving to free the loader. Groaning, scraping with its treaders, the machine struggled. Then those treads caught—it heaved, gained a space, another, pulled over the top, leaving behind it men who had fallen and lay panting and spent but who struggled to their feet to walk blankly onward in its wake.
VI
Behind those who freed the machine came Ayyar, between his two guards, still at that mechanical, unvarying pace. They were now at the tail of the motley mob heading into the heart of the Waste. Ayyar saw to the north the shadowed rise of the mount that was the frame of the Mirror. But it might as well hang like a moon out in space for all it would serve him now.
The way was rough, the soil soft so that the machines crawled through it slowly, leaving deep ruts. This was where the Mirror flood had cleansed and swept free the land. But it was desert still, though the evil growth that had once formed leprous patches had withered into dried skeletons.
On and on. Now and again the flying thing that was the projection of That swooped over the straggling line of men and machines. If the wytes or false Iftin also roved this land they did not show themselves.
Ayyar no longer struggled. Better to conserve his energy for any chance fortune might bring. But his mind was clearer, more alert, and he studied both the land and the men about him carefully.
It must be near midnight. The moon looked oddly pale and far away. To off-world eyes the terrain must be very shadowed. But it would seem that the purpose that united his captors made them also impervious to day or night. Now and then a man did sprawl forward in the ruts, only to regain his feet and go on, with no sign that he was aware of his tumble.
Suppose one—or both—of his captors should so lose their balance? Could he guide them into any pitfall? Ayyar began to search the ground ahead for any promising hole or unevenness. Experiments taught him that he could not vary their progress route by much in spite of any struggle on his part. But perhaps only a handsbreadth right or left might serve his purpose.
Then came another halt; men tramped around the machine just ahead, as if alerted by some signal. Ayyar caught sight of the grubber in much the same difficulty in soft ground as the loader had been earlier. The strange army gathered about it, lending their strength to aid the trapped machine. Ayyar caught his breath in a gasp of horror.
One of those pushing it had fallen under the treads of the grubber. Not one of his companions, even those nearest, made an effort to pull him out of danger. Instead, the machine lurched on and over him with crushing force. Then only did the men stand aside, their hands hanging idly by their sides, their faces blank, their eyes fixed on some point ahead invisible to Ayyar, while the grubber ground on. When the loader, too, had passed, they took up the march once again.
There had been no cry from the man who had so gone to his death. If the false Iftin were robots, then these were now even more alien for they had once been men and now were—what?
Ayyar’s revulsion for the off-worlders increased a hundred-fold. Had the Larsh been so? He strove to make memory obey his will as he had so many times in the past. In this company it would seem that Naill was growing more clear, Ayyar less. He looked upon these men and machines as Naill would consider them.
Psycho-locked! That came out of Naill memory—and just what did it mean? There were drugs, it was rumored, that could turn a living body into a mindless robot-like thing. They deadened brain and personality so completely that the thing left had even to be ordered to eat, to carry out the other processes necessary to keep the body alive and serviceable to the master. But these men could not have been drugged, at least not those with him.
Left, right, left, right— Suddenly Ayyar realized that his feet were moving in time with all the others. This . . . was . . . right . . . this was meant—let go—be one—with them—with It—
With Larsh declared another memory struggling in his mind. Not one of the Iftin-kind; they did not share minds with Larsh!
Naill—Ayyar—he was torn between the two who were one in him. Naill who would be united with this plodding company, Ayyar who felt toward such companions only disgust and fear. To be Naill now was defeat. He must cling to Ayyar as a man in a spring-flooded river would cling to a floating log. He was Ayyar, Ayyar of Ky-Kyc, once Captain of the First Ring, who had dwelt in Iftcan. That city—Iftsiga—