CHAPTER VI
Instead of cowering against the door or trying to get out, as they expected him to do, Wyatt sprang straight for the man in the Levis. He was easy to get at because he was leading the others by a pace or so. Wyatt hit him.
"Spy, am I?" he snarled. He was mad. The rush closed around him but he hung onto the man, who snorted and grappled with him, and they toppled over thrashing and kicking among the legs of the others. "I'll show you who's a spy," he said. The tall man he took to be an Australian bent over and started to pull at him, and he kicked him furiously on the shins. "One at a time, boy. Keep your paws off." He rolled with his enemy, pounding on a cast-iron body and getting knocked dizzy himself in return. He began to swear. He had never been much for swearing, but the injustice of this attack inspired him beyond his talents. He went on pounding and cursing until after a while he realized that his target was no longer in range and that he was alone in a small circle, surrounded by the others who were looking down at him. He crouched there, blinking, and saw the man in the Levis wiping blood off his mouth with the back of his hand and studying him speculatively.
"So I'm a so-and-so saddle tramp, am I?" he said.
"Yes, and a damn dumb one," said Wyatt bitterly. He got up, bunching his fists.
"Real fast now," said the stockman, "who was it died at the Alamo?"
"Davy Crockett," said Wyatt. "King of the wild frontier. Also William Barret Travis and Jim Bowie and a lot of other good men who never had songs written about them. Come on, let's finish this."
"No," said the other man, stepping back. "I don't reckon anybody but an Earthman could swear like that without stuttering, nor want to fight like that. What would you say, Bill?"
The Australian said he agreed.
"My name's A. C. Burdick," said the stockman, holding out his hand, "and I'm a long way from home. Sorry about jumping you like that, but we've had three guys in a row claiming to be captives like us, only they weren't, and we're getting sick of it."
Still glowering, Wyatt shook hands with him, and then with the Australian. The Arab and the Turcoman muttered and returned sulkily to their places, apparently disappointed that there had been no bloodshed. The Apache youth stood and regarded Wyatt with an unwinking stare from under his greasy hatbrim.
"This here is No-Name," said Burdick, grinning. "He was sleeping out in the hills when he was picked up—you know, some of them still find out their warrior-name by getting it in a dream the old way. He figures this is all part of the dream and is waiting till he wakes up."
Wyatt nodded to No-Name, who inclined his head briefly and went back to his bunk where he sat cross-legged, patiently brooding.
Burdick shifted from his native tongue to the language of Uryx and said, "These gentlemen are from Alpha Centauri Four."
The furred slender men clasped their hands and raised them to their breasts. One of them, who was jet black and dressed in a scarlet tunic, said in the same tongue,
"I am Thurne of Obran, a king's messenger. I was taken as I crossed a plain, carrying a message between kings. Now there will be war for all."
The others nodded sadly. Wyatt, all his anger forgotten now, said, "Yes, and for my world too."
"Well," said Burdick, "come in and make yourself at home."
The time that followed then was something of a nightmare to Wyatt, not too protracted but intense. It was a strain watching his tongue when he talked with the others, knowing that every word he said was being listened to outside. The Arab, the Turcoman, and No-Name awaited whatever thing might happen with their several brands of fatalism but Burdick and the Australian had a clearer understanding of the situation and were frantic to do something about it. He would have liked to offer them a word of hope, but he did not dare to. For the Alpha Centaurians, Wyatt knew, there was no hope, and they knew it too. With each passing hour, as the fleet roared on its way, Wyatt wished more earnestly for something evil and permanent to happen to Varsek.
It didn't. The only thing that happened was that Wyatt was hauled out away from the others at frequent intervals and questioned, questioned, questioned until he was too dazed and tired to form words any more. He tried not to tell them anything at all, but they were experts, and he suspected that they learned almost as much, if not more, from what he refused to tell them as from what he did. His only comfort was that he had no knowledge of armaments or defense beyond what any ordinary citizen might read in the papers, and which Fleet Intelligence had doubtless also read.
He sweated through it the best way he could and waited for word from Brinna.
It did not come.
Makvern came instead. He said, "Varsek wants to see you."
Wyatt went with him and they walked briskly through the corridors.
"What does he want with me?" Wyatt asked.
"You'll have to ask him," Makvern said.
"Did Loran die?"
"Yes. He died."
"Did he talk?"
"No."
"Then the Second Party's still safe."
"For the time being," said Makvern. "Only for the time being." He would not turn to look at Wyatt. His profile was as expressionless as a king's head on a coin.
Wyatt hesitated while he took three steps, knowing that if he guessed wrong he would almost certainly wind up in the pit, and that Earth quite certainly would be worse off than ever. Then, considering what he had to gain if he guessed right, he plunged.
"The Second Party," he said, "could take over if Varsek had a serious setback at Earth. Then they could take the Task Force and go home. They could start exporting some things from Uryx, like peace and stable government, instead of importing nothing but loot."
Makvern continued to walk briskly, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
"How would you propose that Earth could give Varsek a setback?" he asked.
"Get some of us back to Earth before the fleet, to give warning."
"That kind of talk," said Makvern evenly, "could get you and possibly a number of other people killed. I suggest that you stop it."
His tone was hard, perfectly cold and inflexible. Wyatt's heart sank. He had guessed wrong and Makvern was not one of the underground. And yet he had been so sure, the way Makvern had looked when Loran was suffering in the pit—
An orderly passed them into a huge room that was obviously used as an outer office, full of communic equipment, recorders, electronic files, and busy men. A second orderly opened the inner door for them, and Wyatt found himself looking at Varsek as he had first seen him on the communic screen, sitting behind the big crowded desk with his shirt open and his sleeves rolled up, the picture of demon energy.
He nodded and Makvern stepped back a little, leaving Wyatt alone, as it were, before Varsek. Varsek picked up a report and shook it at him.
"This is from Intelligence," he said. "It's not satisfactory. You're not cooperating, Wyatt."
"Would you expect me to?" said Wyatt.
"I expect you not to be a fool," said Varsek. "Look, I'm going to loot your planet. You know that, don't you? All right. Now if I know where things are I won't have to smash a lot of other things trying to find them, will I? And if there's no attempt at resistance, then nobody will get hurt, will they?" He threw the report. "You're not helping Earth, you're making it harder."
"I told everybody in the beginning," said Wyatt sullenly, "that I don't know anything more than they can find out themselves from reading a popular magazine."
"You're a native. You know more about it than we could ever find out in the time we have, and you have a scientific background. You must know approximately where the largest uranium deposits are, for instance, and the main sources of radioactive isotopes. Yet you refuse to verify our information, or correct it if it's wrong."
"That's right," said Wyatt. "I do refuse."
"Brave and stubborn," Varsek said. "Well. I know how stubborn you are. I could find out very quickly about the bravery."
"In the pit?"
Varsek nodded. "What would you say, Makvern?"
"It's up to you, sir," Makvern said, shrugging.
"No opinion at all?"
"None."
"That's not like you, Makvern."
"It's impossible to have any opinion of value concerning the advisability of—ah—questioning a man I don't know at all. I have no idea of his limits. If they're easily reached, fine. If not, he's likely to die before you know it."
"True," said Varsek. "True. And he's the best bet to transmit a convincing message to Earth when the time comes, assuring them of the futility of resistance." He leaned back in his chair and scratched his chest reflectively, studying Wyatt with his bright cold eyes, and Wyatt had an uneasy feeling that Varsek was thinking rapidly of a great number of things only remotely connected with him except that they might have an indirect bearing on his life or death.
"Well," said Varsek finally, "there's always time for the pit later on. We'll follow the customary procedure. Arrange for Wyatt and the other Earthmen to have a good clear view of what happens when we hit Alpha Centauri Four, which will be—" He frowned at a desk chrono. "—in approximately five hours. I want you to watch carefully, Wyatt. This world isn't as mechanized as parts of yours and it doesn't have nuclear power, but it's civilized. Remember that. And remember that your nuclear weapons wouldn't be much more effective against us than their explosive devises."
He jerked his thumb at Makvern. "Get him out of here now. I've got half the planning still to do for this campaign, without worrying about the next one."
He became furiously busy. Makvern ushered Wyatt out and down the corridors again. This time Wyatt did not speak at all, and neither did Makvern. They parted at the door of the prisoners' quarters.
The five hours seemed more like five centuries. The only chance for an escape, Brinna had said, would be during the confusion of the attack. He didn't know whether she had been able to arrange it at all, and if she had, whether he might have made Makvern suspicious and ruined the whole thing by his attempt to make a better deal for Earth through the Second Party. He chewed his knuckles and sweated and thought wild thoughts about escaping somehow on his own hook, but he couldn't plan anything with Burdick and the Australian because it would be overheard, or seen.
The other Earthmen were all restless and upset, as though they sensed a coming crisis. The Alpha Centaurians waited quietly, by contrast. Only their eyes shone with a terrible light. By God, thought Wyatt furiously, I'll kill Varsek with my own hands if I have to, I swear it. It was a childish thing to say even to himself, and he knew it. But he had never meant anything so much.
The Task Force hurtled on, a school of killer whales racing toward an unsuspecting victim.
The door opened and Brinna stood there. There were guards behind her.
"Come," she said. "All of you."
She stood aside while the captives filed out. As Wyatt passed her she gave him one quick fleeting glance. Hope sprang up in him. She had arranged something, and whatever it was he and the other prisoners would see that it worked.
They were marched through the corridors under guard and into a contact lock, where a small craft clung like a remora under the chin of the flagship. Here they were separated into two groups. The Alpha Centaurians were sent down first. Wyatt heard a clashing of metal, and then the Earthmen were ordered down and placed in a semicircular room which was half of an observation turret. The Alpha Centaurians were in the other half, fully visible but securely barred off by a partition of metal rods.
Similar rods slid down behind the Earthmen into slots in the deck. Wyatt stayed beside the doorway. He heard Brinna dismiss the guards. Their feet clanged on the ladder, going up. Brinna came along the corridor and stopped on the other side of the bars. She was blazing with excitement, triumph, hate, a lot of things that had been bottled up in her and which she was daring now to show.
"It's all arranged," she said, speaking rapidly but in a low voice. "All but two of the crew are my men. When we're clear of the ship, pass the word quietly to be ready when I—"
She broke off, whirling around, her face suddenly alarmed. Someone was coming down the ladder from the flagship.
It was Makvern, coming fast, and he held a stunner in his hand.
Brinna controlled herself admirably. She said, "Is there some trouble, Makvern? The prisoners are all secure—"
"I'm sure they are," said Makvern. He reached the foot of the ladder and an officer appeared as though he had been waiting for him. Makvern nodded sharply and almost at once the warning bells were ringing and the hatch was sliding shut. A moment later Wyatt felt the jar as contact was broken and the small craft fell free on its own power.
Makvern stood looking at Brinna and Wyatt. "I imagine," he said to Wyatt, "that she was telling you most of the men aboard belong to her. She was just a little bit mistaken. All of them belong to me."