The Brave Free Men Page 13

  “Since, have you seen either the white-haired man or Aun Sharah?”

  “Neither have I seen.”

  From somewhere, thought Etzwane, Aun Sharah had secured a description of Ifness, in whom he had taken considerable interest. Ifness had returned to Earth; the white-haired man Ian Carle had followed presumably had been an Aesthete from one of the palaces along Middle Way.

  Etzwane asked, “What garments did the tall white-haired man wear?”

  “A gray cloak, a loose gray cap.”

  These were Ifness’ preferred garments. Etzwane asked, “Was he an Aesthete?”

  “I think not; he carried himself like a man from an outer canton.”

  Etzwane tried to remember some particular characteristic by which Ifness could be identified. “Can you describe his face?”

  “Not in detail.”

  “If you see him again, communicate with me at once.”

  “As you desire.” Ian Carle departed.

  Finnerack spoke caustically, “There you have Aun Sharah, Director of Resources. I say, drown him tonight in the Sualle.”

  One of Finnerack’s worst faults, reflected Etzwane, was intemperance and excessive reaction, which made dealing with him a constant struggle for moderation. “He did only what you and I would have done in his place,” said Etzwane shortly. “He gathered information.”

  “Oh? What of the message to Shirge Hillen at Camp Three?”

  “That has not been proved upon him.”

  “Bah. When I was a boy I worked in my father’s currant patch. When I found a weed I pulled it up. I did not look at it or hope that it might become a currant plant. I dealt with the weed at once.”

  “First you made sure it was a weed,” said Etzwane.

  Finnerack shrugged and stalked from the room. Dashan of Szandales came into the room, looking back toward Finnerack’s departing shape with a shudder. “That man frightens me. Does he always wear black?”

  “He is a man for whom the persistence and fatefulness of black were invented.” Etzwane pulled the girl down upon his lap. She sat an arch moment or so, then jumped to her feet. “You are a terrible philanderer. What would my mother say if she knew how things went?”

  “I am interested only in what the daughter says.”

  “The daughter says that a man from the Wildlands has brought you a crate of wild animals, and his beasts await you on the freight ramp.”

  The superintendent of the station gang at Conceil Siding had brought his Roguskhoi imps to Garwiy. He said, “It’s been a month since you came through the Wildlands. You fancied my little pets then; what of them now?”

  The imps Etzwane had seen at Conceil Siding had grown a foot. They stood glaring from behind the hardwood bars of the cage. “They were never angels of delights,” declared the superintendent. “Now they’re well on their way to becoming true fiends. On the right stands Musel; on the left Erxter.”

  The two creatures stared back at Etzwane with unblinking antagonism. “Put your finger through the bars and they’ll twist it off for you,” said the superintendent with relish. “They’re mean as sin and no two ways about it. First I thought to treat them well and win them over. I fed them tidbits; I gave them a fine pen; I said ‘chirrup’ and I whistled little tunes. I tried to teach them speech and I thought to reward good behavior with beer. To no avail. Each attacked me tooth and nail when I gave him the option. So then I thought I’d learn the truth of the matter. I separated them, and Erxter I continued to gratify and appease. The other, poor Musel, I set about to cow. When he’d strike out at me I’d deal him a buffet. When he’d gnash at my hand I’d prod him with a stick; many the beatings he’s earned and collected. Meanwhile Erxter dined on the best and slept in the shade. At the end of the experiment was there any difference in their savagery? Not a twitch; they were as before.”

  “Hmmf.” Etzwane backed away as both came to the bars. “Do they speak; do they have words?”

  “None. If they understand me they give no signal. They won’t cooperate or perform the smallest task, for love or hunger. They raven up every crust I throw to them, but they’d starve rather than pull a lever to get themselves meat. Now then, fiends!” He rapped on the bars of the cage. “Wouldn’t you like my ankle to chew?” He turned back to Etzwane. “Already the rascals know the difference between male and female! You should see them bestir themselves when a woman walks past, and still so young in years. I consider it a disgrace.”

  Etzwane asked, “How do they recognize a woman?”

  The superintendent was puzzled. “How does anyone recognize a woman?”

  “For instance, if a man walked by in woman’s garments, or a woman dressed as a man: what then?”

  The superintendent shook his head in wonder for Etzwane’s subtleties. “All this is beyond my knowledge.”

  “It is something which we will learn,” said Etzwane.

  All across Shant the placards appeared, in dark blue, scarlet and white:

  To fight the Roguskhoi a special corps has been formed:

  THE BRAVE FREE MEN.

  THEY WEAR NO TORCS.

  IF YOU ARE BRAVE:

  IF YOU WOULD LOSE YOUR TORC:

  IF YOU WOULD FIGHT FOR SHANT:

  YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE BRAVE FREE MEN.

  —

  THE CORPS IS ELITE.

  —

  PRESENT YOURSELF TO THE AGENCY AT GARWIY CITY.

  Chapter X

  Down from the Hwan came the Roguskhoi, for the first time marching under clear and obvious leadership, to the wonder of all. Who had instructed the red savages? Even more of a mystery: from where had they derived their massive scimitars, alloyed from a dozen rare metals? Whatever the answers, the Roguskhoi thrust north at a tireless lunging lope: four companies of about two hundred warriors each. They drove into Ferriy, to send the ironmongers fleeing in a panic. Ignoring the iron-vats and tanks of precious new cultures, the Roguskhoi swept wide into Cansume. At the border, the Cansume militia, one of the strongest of Shant, waited with their dexax-tipped pikes. The Roguskhoi advanced with sinister care, scimitars at the ready. On the open plain the men of Cansume had no choice but to retreat; scimitars hurled at close range would cut them apart. They retreated into the nearby village Brandvade.

  To lure the Roguskhoi the militia thrust forth a crowd of frightened women, and the Roguskhoi, ignoring the bellows of their chieftains, were stimulated into an attack. They stormed the village where among the stone huts their scimitars could not be hurled. Pikeheads penetrated horny red hide; dexax exploded and within minutes fifty Roguskhoi were dead.

  The Roguskhoi officers reasserted themselves; the columns drew back and continued toward Waxone, Cansume’s principal city. Along the way irregular units of the militia set up ambushes from which they fired cane arrows with negligible effect. The Roguskhoi jogged out into the melon fields before Waxone, and here they stopped short, confronted by the most imposing array the men of Shant had yet put forward. An entire regiment of militia faced them, reinforced by four hundred Brave Free Men mounted on pacers. The Brave Free Men wore uniforms after the style of the Pandamon Palace Guards: pale blue trousers with purple braid down the sides, a dark blue blouse with purple frogging, helmets of cemented glass fibers. They carried dexax-tipped pikes, a brace of hand grenades, short heavy glaywood swords, edged with forged iron-web. The militia carried hand axes, grenades and rectangular shields of leather and wood; they had been instructed to advance toward the Roguskhoi, protecting themselves and the cavalry from the Roguskhoi scimitars. At a range of fifty feet they would hurl their grenades, then open ranks for the charge of the Brave Free Men.

  The Roguskhoi stood at one end of the melon field, glowering toward the shields of the militia. The four Roguskhoi chieftains stood to the side, distinguished from the ordinary warriors by black leather neckbands supporting bibs of chain mail. They seemed older than the troopers; their skin showed duller and darker; flaps of skin or muscle, like wattles, grew under their
chins. They watched the advancing militia in mild perplexity, then uttered a set of harsh sounds; the four companies moved forward at a passionless trot. From the militia came a thin sound, and the shields quivered. The Brave Free Men behind gave hoarse shouts and the militia steadied. At a distance of a hundred yards the Roguskhoi halted and brought their scimitars down, around and back; their muscular processes knotted and tensed. In this position the Roguskhoi were a fearsome sight. The line of the militia sagged; some reflexively hurled their grenades, these exploded halfway between the lines.

  From the rear the Cansume officers, somewhat insulated, blew Advance on their bugles; the line of shields moved forward, step by step. The Roguskhoi likewise lunged ahead and more futile grenades were thrown. Shields on the left wing sagged, leaving the Brave Free Men without protection. For half a second they hesitated, then charged, plunging against the instant hail of scimitars, which cut down man and pacer before they had moved twenty feet. Nonetheless grenades were thrown by dying arms; Roguskhoi disappeared in dust and flame.

  The rest of the line sagged but cohered. A bugle blared Charge; the militia, now demoralized, faltered and broke too soon; again the shields fell aside, leaving the Brave Free Men exposed to the whirling scimitars. The survivors charged; pikes struck into copper chests. Explosion! dust, fumes, stench; a melée. Bludgeons pounded; gargoyle-faces scowled and bellowed; grenades lofted over the line of battle, generating explosions, fountains of dust, whirls of detached arms and legs. A hideous din rose and fell: furious bugles, Roguskhoi grunts and bellows, the wild braying of wounded pacers, the despair of dying men … The dust settled. Dead were half the Roguskhoi and all the Brave Free Men. The Cansume militia fled back into Waxone. The Roguskhoi moved slowly forward; then, altering direction, turned aside into Faible.

  Finnerack made an anguished report of the battle. “There lay the best of Shant, in a mire of black blood! When they might have drawn back, they refused; from pride they charged to their deaths. Freedom they had earned so well: to what avail?”

  Etzwane was surprised by the intensity of Finnerack’s grief. “We know now that our men are as brave as the men of old,” said Etzwane. “All of Shant will know this as well.”

  Finnerack seemed not to have heard. He paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching his hands. “The militia failed. They were traitors; they would go to cut withe, had I their judgment.”

  Etzwane said nothing, preferring not to divert Finnerack’s emotion toward himself. Finnerack never would be allowed judgment of anyone.

  “We can’t fight the creatures at close range,” said Finnerack. “What of our technists? Where are their weapons?”

  “Sit down; control your distress,” said Etzwane. “I will tell you of our weapons. The technists are impeded by great forces which must be regulated. A sliver of material hurls itself at enormous speed, and thereby produces a very large recoil. For use as handweapons the slivers must be made almost invisibly thin, and to absorb the recoil a ballast is ejected to the rear. The projectiles reach the ultimate limit of cold in expanding, otherwise they would instantly destroy themselves; rather, they drive a gust of hot air ahead which augments the impact. I have seen tests of fixed cannon; up to a range of a mile the guns will be most deadly. Beyond this distance the projectile erodes to nothing.

  “The guns I have seen are by no means light or compact, owing to the necessary ballast. Possibly smaller weapons can be contrived; this is not yet certain. The large weapons are possible, but these must be braced against a tree, or a great stone, or thrust-poles, and hence are not so convenient. Still progress has been made.

  “In addition, we are producing most ingenious glass arrows. The heads contain an electret, which upon impact produces an electric charge, which in turn detonates a disabling or even lethal charge of dexax. The problems here, I am told, are quality control.

  “Finally, we are producing rocket guns: very simple, very cheap devices. The tube is cemented glass fiber, the projectile is ballasted either with a stone cylinder or an impact-detonated charge of dexax. This is a short-range weapon; accuracy is not good.

  “All in all, there is cause for optimism.”

  Finnerack sat stock-still. He had become a man as different from the shaggy brown creature of Camp Three as that man had differed from the Jerd Finnerack of Angwin Junction. His frame had filled out; he stood erect. His hair, no longer a sun-crisped mat, clung to his head in golden-bronze ringlets; his features jutted forth without compromise; the mad glare of his eyes had become a blue glitter. Finnerack was a man without warmth, humor, forgiveness, and very few social graces; he wore only the black of implacability and doom, an idiosyncrasy which had earned him the soubriquet ‘Black Finnerack’.

  Finnerack’s energy was boundless. He had reorganized the Discriminators with savage disregard for old procedures, previous status or tenure, arousing not so much resentment as astonishment and awe. The Intelligence Agency became his own; in every city of Shant he established sub-agencies, linked by radio to Garwiy. The Brave Free Men he took even more completely to himself, and wore a Brave Free Man uniform (black rather than pale and dark blue) to the exclusion of all his other clothes.

  The Brave Free Men had instantly excited the imagination of all Shant. To Garwiy came men by the hundreds, of all ages and sorts, in numbers far beyond Etzwane’s capacity to de-torc. He took Ifness’ machine to Doneis, who called in a team of electronic technists. Gingerly they disassembled the case, to peer down at the unfamiliar components, the exact engineering, the inexhaustible power-cells. Such a machine, they decided, detected electron movement and generated magnetic pulses to cancel the flow.

  After numerous experiments, the technists were able to duplicate the function of Ifness’ mechanism, though in no such compact package. Five of the devices were installed in the basement of the Jurisdictionary; teams of functionaries worked day and night removing torcs from persons accepted into the corps of Brave Free Men. Finnerack himself screened the applicants; those whom he rejected often made a furious protest for which Finnerack had a stock reply: “Bring me the head of a Roguskhoi and his scimitar; I’ll make you a Brave Free Man.” Perhaps once a week one of the rejected applicants returned contemptuously to hurl head and scimitar at his feet, whereupon Finnerack, without comment, kicked head and scimitar into a chute, and took the man into the corps. Of those who attempted a Roguskhoi head and failed, no one knew the number.

  Finnerack’s energy was so furious that Etzwane sometimes felt himself an onlooker rather than a participant in the great events. The situation reflected the efficiency of his own leadership, he told himself. So long as affairs proceeded in a correct direction, he could make no complaint. When Etzwane put questions, Finnerack responded clearly if tersely, seeming neither to welcome nor to resent Etzwane’s interest: a fact which, if anything, increased Etzwane’s uneasiness; did Finnerack consider him futile, a man whom events had overtaken and passed by?

  Mialambre:Octagon had taken his Justice of Shant teams out into the cantons; Etzwane received reports of his activities from incoming intelligence despatches.

  The news of Dystar was less circumstantial. Occasionally word came from some far place, always to the same effect: Dystar had come, he had played music of unimaginable grandeur, exalting all who heard.

  Finnerack had disappeared. At his rooms in the Old Pagane Tower, at the Jurisdictionary, at the Brave Free Men camps, Finnerack was nowhere to be found.

  Three days passed before he returned. To Etzwane’s questions Finnerack at first made evasive remarks, then declared that he had been ‘looking over the countryside, taking a rest’.

  Etzwane put no further questions, but he was far from satisfied. Was there a woman in Finnerack’s life? Etzwane thought not. His actions were uncharacteristic. Finnerack returned to work with his old verve, but Etzwane thought him a trifle less certain, as if he had learned something to perplex or unsettle him.

  Etzwane wanted to know more about Finnerack’s activities
, but would have been forced to call on the Intelligence Agency for help, which seemed not only inappropriate but foolish … Must he then organize a second competing intelligence system, to bring him his information? Ridiculous!

  The day after Finnerack’s return Etzwane visited the technist workshops along the Jardeen estuary. Doneis took him along a set of benches where the new guns were in production. “Projectiles of pure Halcoid Four-One have not proved practical,” said Doneis. “They expand almost instantaneously, producing inacceptable recoil. We have tried three thousand variations, and now use a stuff which expands at about one-tenth the speed of Four-One. In consequence the weapon requires only a thirty-pound ballast. Halcoid-Prax additionally is harder and less susceptible to atmospheric friction. The new splint is still no larger than a needle … Here the trigger is fitted into the stock … These are the elastic bands which prevent the ballast from flying to the rear … The electret is inserted; the ballast is installed … The mechanism is tested … Here is the firing range, where the sights are mounted. We find that the weapon has an essentially flat trajectory across its entire range, which is slightly in excess of a mile. Do you care to test this gun?”

  Etzwane picked up the weapon, rested it upon his shoulder. A yellow dot in the optical sights, directly in front of his eye, indicated the impact area.

  “Drop the magazine into this socket, throw this clamp. When you press the trigger the ballast will strike the electret, producing an impulse which stimulates the splint. Be prepared for the recoil; brace yourself.”

  Etzwane peered through the lens, and placed the yellow dot on the glass target. He pressed the yellow button, to feel an instant shock which thrust him backward. Down the range appeared a streak of white fire, impinging upon the now-shattered target.

  Etzwane put down the weapon. “How many can you produce?”

  “Today we will finish only twenty, but we should soon triple this number. The principal problem is ballast. We have requisitioned metal from all Shant, but it is slow in arriving. The Director of Materials informs me that he has the metal but transportation is not available. The Director of Transportation tells me to the contrary. I don’t know which to believe. In any event we are not getting our metal.”