The Magnificent Wilf Page 15

  “You have met our brave Captain Jahbat?” inquired the Colonel, as soon as the two Humans were seated.

  “I have indeed,” replied Tom.

  “Even among we Sldkana his courage is proverbial,” said the Colonel. “He …’” His gaze wandered and his voice trailed off.

  “Colonel!” prompted Lucy, kind-heartedly.

  The Colonel started, forked a bite of toadstool into his mouth, gulped it down and came alert again. “… Ah, yes,” he said, significantly looking at Tom, “it is courage not even to be despised by an … Assassin, shall we say?”

  “Actually,” put in Lucy swiftly, “as an Assassin, the Ambassador is required to disregard—”

  Tom interrupted her.

  “—Many things,” he said, “but the courage of a Skikana like Captain Jahbat would not be one of them. But work before pleasure, my dear Colonel. The Wockii concern me at the moment.”

  The Colonel inclined his head and signaled to a Skikana enlisted soldier, who stepped forward to carve slices from the nearest huge toadstool. He served the slices on the platters before Tom and Lucy. Lucy sniffed unobtrusively at hers. The aroma was delicious.

  “Is it safe for us to eat?” she whispered in English to Tom.

  “Til check,” whispered back Tom. The Colonel’s attention was momentarily devoted to finishing his own slice and ordering another with typical Skikana voracity. Tom had produced a small handbook from his weapons harness and was thumbing through it.

  “Let’s see . . . ‘Mul’rahr . . . toadstooloias of, large: Agarica Mul’rahrensis Gigantica, page one hundred and forty-three …’ here it is . . . ‘See Rhu, page one-thirty-eight’ …” He flipped pages. “ ‘Rhu, a widespread root system often extending over miles underground, putting forth root and tuberose projections of many varieties and types’ …”

  Tom’s voice trailed off.

  “Hmm . . .” he muttered, “interesting …”

  “But can we eat it?” demanded Lucy.

  “Oh!” Tom started, almost after the fashion of the Colonel. “Yes, I think so . . . ‘eatable by the following Races: Adjarts, Allahns … Hssoids, Hytszs …’ Yes, here we are . . . ‘Humans.’ ”

  “Oh, good, said Lucy, “it smells so appetizing—”

  A twang from high above interrupted her, followed by an approaching high-pitched drone that ended in a thud. A small black arrow quivered in the center of Lucy’s slice of toadstooloid, pinning it to the wooden platter. Shocked silence filled the hall and all eyes turned upward to discover a three-foot high, faunlike figure covered with white woolly hair and looking like a lamb, standing upright on his hind legs. This figure stood perched on one of the rafters by an open window, now reslinging a small bow over its shoulder and drawing a twelve-inch sword.

  “What—what is it?” gasped Lucy, unthinkingly, in English.

  “A Flal,” answered Tom swiftly in the same language, “supposed to be one of the barely semi-intelligent local life forms—”

  The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a bellow.

  “A Flal!” the Colonel was roaring, starting to his feet and tugging at the ceremonial sword that was the only weapon the Skikana officers had worn to the banquet. “Get it down from there! Get it down, I say!”

  With a sudden remarkable leap, the Flal left the rafter high overhead and landed on the table before the Colonel. In a twinkling the Flal’s midget sword was menacing the Colonel’s prothorax and an imperious whistle burst from the Flal’s lamblike lips.

  “Cut it down! That’s an order,” thundered the Colonel to his officers. “Never mind me!”

  But the officers hesitated.

  Taking advantage of this hesitation, the Flal turned and directed a stream of angry, musical whistling at Tom, gesturing with its free hand at the nearest toadstooloid. Then the Skikana officers dashed forward and the Flal, releasing the Colonel, dodged away, ducking into the sea of three-foot long, flashing Skikana swords, twisting, swivel-hipping and dancing on black hooves, as his own tiny blade, glittering with a speed of reflex the Skikana could not match, fenced a way for him to the nearest torch stand.

  A leap carried him to the top of the stand. From there, disdainful of the licking flame, another leap carried him to crenellations in the wall and from there to a rafter leading to an open window. At the window he turned about; and, pulling a miniature hunting horn from his belt, he paused to blow a blast like some small, elfin bronx cheer at those below. The Skikana soldiers howled in baffled fury, waving their weapons. Then the Flal had ducked through the window and was gone.

  “Sir Ambassador! Consort Lucy!” said the Colonel, gnashing his jaws but sheathing his sword and getting himself back under control—he paused to gulp a half-slice of toadstooloid—“please be seated. Forgive this minor interruption. These local life-forms—mere semi-intelligent animals—not even a language, just whistle to show their emotional state—please put it out of your mind. My soldiers will see that the banquet is not interrupted again.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Colonel,” said Tom. “I promised only to put in an appearance at this banquet and I consider that promise fulfilled now. I, my Consort, and my Hugwos will make use of that escort I asked you for, to leave for Wockiiland immediately.”

  “Of—of course!” said the Colonel, getting himself under control. “If you wish it, sir Ambassador. The escort is provided. However—” He hesitated. “I cannot permit the Consort Lucy to risk a night journey through the Mul’rahrian wilds. You and the Hugwos, of course, but—”

  “Sir!” Tom’s voice snapped him off in mid-speech. “Are you presuming to tell me where to take my Consort?”

  “I have my duty,” said the Colonel, stiffly, “as local Commander, to protect civilians—”

  “May I remind the Colonel?” Tom’s words in Skikana cut like a knife. Lucy looked at him with approval. “That the Consort Lucy will have an Assassin to escort her?”

  “Sir!” said the Colonel, stiffening in his turn. “Am I to infer a lack of trust in my soldiers and myself?”

  “Certainly not,” said Tom, without hesitation; and Lucy beamed on him for his quick thinking. It was perfectly clear that if Tom had expressed a lack of trust in the Skikana, the Colonel would have had grounds for a protest to get Tom removed as Ambassador. “I trust you and your officers and men implicitly, Colonel. It is the Consort Lucy I don’t trust.”

  Lucy stared.

  “You don’t—” the Colonel’s naturally bulging eyes seemed to bulge farther, “—trust your Consort, Sir Ambassador?”

  “Not out of my sight for a moment,” said Tom, firmly. “A purely Human situation, Colonel. I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in the details. And now, the escort?”

  “It’ll be waiting for you at the west gate,” said the Colonel, stiffly. “Captain Jahbat, escort them!” Gnashing his jaws in defeat, the Colonel stepped back and allowed them both to proceed past him, followed by their Hugwos.

  Chapter 14

  Fifteen minutes later, they were floating westward on flying platforms over the rolling, semi-wooded landscape of Mul’rahr, under the enormous single moon that made the night seem almost as bright as day. Tom and Lucy were sharing a platform, with their faithful Hugwos riding individual platforms before and behind them. Beyond and behind the Hugwos were half a dozen platform-mounted soldiers of the Skikana escort. None of these seemed close enough to be in ear-shot; but, just to be safe, Tom lowered his voice and spoke to Lucy in English.

  “Lucy—” he began.

  “Don’t speak to me,” said Lucy, staring off in the opposite direction at the shadowy woods. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

  “Now, Lucy—” said Tom.

  “If you please,” said Lucy. “I said, there’s nothing for us to discuss. Nothing at all.”

  “Don’t you understand?” pleaded Tom. “The Colonel wanted you as a hostage. I didn’t dare leave you in his hands. I had to come up with the first excuse that came into my mind!”
>
  “No doubt. It was very clever of you. Curious, is it not, though, that the first thing that should come into your mind was the idea that I am untrustworthy? No doubt that was why you, the Oprinkians, and all the other Aliens, wanted me to go along with you. To be someone you could blame for whatever you wanted to do.

  “I do not wish to make a point of this,” went on Lucy in syllables resembling splinters of jagged ice. “It merely crossed my mind. In passing, so to speak.”

  “Lucy, you know I trust you! You know it!”

  “How bright the moonlight is upon this world,” said Lucy, splintering a little more ice.

  They rode in silence for the following forty minutes or so, at the end of which Tom tried again.

  “Lucy—” he began. He broke off suddenly as he caught sight of the Skikana officer in charge of their escort whipping his flying platform about and zipping back toward the one Tom and Lucy occupied. “Yes, Captain?” asked Tom, as the officer swung about and flew alongside.

  It was Captain Jahbat, of course. The moonlight glittered in his black eyes in what Lucy, at least, could not help but feel was a very sinister fashion.

  “Sir,” said the Captain to Tom. “We approach the Wockii chiefs now. They have been signaled to meet your unexpected visit. We should meet them in the next few seconds.”

  “Excellent. Tell me, Captain,” said Tom, thoughtfully, “just as a matter of interest, I find myself curious about the Flals. The one we saw in the hall seemed to demonstrate more in the way of ability and technology than would be expected of a Race that was considered incapable of eventually graduating to the level of Civilization. Could you perhaps enlighten me on that subject? Also, in passing, was it a case of your earlier Skikana scoutship platforms seeking out the Wockii chiefs after I had said I wanted to go to Wockiiland right away? Or did the Wockii come forth on their own initiative just now to meet us?”

  “The Wockii came forth on their own, sir,” said Jahbat. “We consider it a tribute to our Skikana approachability, and honor. The Skikana honor is without stain. None may accuse us of being merciful in victory or resentful in defeat.”

  “To be sure,” said Tom. “But about the Flals?”

  “I am afraid I am no expert on potentialities for Civilization, sir,” said Captain Jahbat. “But I understand that the Flals have other failings—beside their inability to be able to acquire and use a spoken language. I would say they are hardly worth your curiosity, Sir Ambassador.”

  “I’ll keep your recommendation in mind, Captain,” said Tom. “However, aside from that—would you tell me if the Wockii are a particularly truthful race?”

  “Hardly, my dear sir,” Jahbat gave the low rasp of Skikana laughter. “We have a little saying at Fort Duhnderhef. ‘The only Wockii that don’t lie are the dead Wockii, and even they lie about being dead!’ ” Jahbat rasped again. “You follow the joke, Sir Ambassador and Consort Lucy? See, the Wockii lie when they are alive, and when they’re flat on the ground—”

  “Very humorous, Captain,” interrupted Tom. “Very humorous, indeed. But aren’t those the Wockii chiefs I see up ahead approaching now?”

  Jahbat turned and looked up beyond the head of the column.

  “You are right, sir Ambassador,” he said. And, moving his platform about, he shot off ahead to meet the group that was approaching on foot through the forest in the moonlight.

  In a moment the platforms had settled to earth and the two parties were face to face. The Wockii stood about nine feet high on average. They looked something like enormous badgers with curved short tusks; and wore heavy, six-foot long cutlasses, but nothing else except ribbons tied about their tusks.

  “Sir Ambassador,” said Captain Jahbat, presenting these hulking figures to the platform on which Tom and Lucy were still standing, “—and Consort Lucy, may I introduce Hlugar, Chief of All Chiefs for the Wockii?”

  Captain Jahbat had spoken in Wockii, which was another language, along with Skikana, that Lucy now understood.

  “All hail, Hlugar!” said Tom, in Wockii.

  “All hail, foreigner!” grunted Hlugar in a deep bass voice that seemed to shake the bones of the two humans. “Welcome to Wockiiland. My burrow is your burrow.”

  “And my burrow is your burrow. Let us go feast this happy occasion,” said Tom. In a shrewd tone of voice he added, to Lucy’s startlement, “What shall we feast on? Perhaps—some roasted Flals?”

  Hlugar’s bass bellow echoed among the trees in the moonlight of the Mul’rahrian night.

  “Never!” he roared, dropping on all fours and beginning to dig frantically in the earth before him. “Never eat Flals! Never, you hear?” He thrust his tusked muzzle down into the hole he had dug, roaring muffledly—“Never!”

  “Sir!” began Jahbat in an outburst of indignation. But before he could continue, sudden bedlam broke loose.

  Shrill whistles sounded from the tree shadows on all sides of them. Small black arrows began to drone among them. The billowing roars of the Wockii mingled with the harsh battle commands of the Skikana.

  There was a swirl of motion and little faunlike, hooved figures with gleaming swords were all about them. Before Tom and Lucy could move, some things like heavy cloths fell over their heads. They felt themselves picked up and carried off at a run.

  It was useless to struggle. They were carried for some distance and gradually Lucy felt her senses slipping away from her. The cloth, or whatever heavy material it was that was wrapped around her, seemed to give off a pleasant, faint perfume with a sedative effect. She roused herself to struggle against it, but it was too late. She drifted off into unconsciousness.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was lying on a slope of a pleasant, grassy hillside, beside a large granite boulder that until now had been shading her eyes from the sun. Dawn had just broken and the bright star that gave life to Mul’rahr was rising in the blue sky at her right. A little distance off stood Tom, facing some armed Flals. Surprisingly, only a dozen feet or so away, the faithful Hugwos also stood at attention, lance-guns in hand.

  “… It’s no use,” she heard Tom saying in Wockii to the Flals. “I can understand the meaning-symbols you whistle, but I can’t whistle them back at you. Anyway, you understand me when I speak in Wockii or Skikana.”

  Drowsily, Lucy remembered she should still be angry with him for some reason, but she felt so pleasant that she could not at the moment remember what that reason could be.

  “Tom!” she cried, trying to sit up. Tom turned, saw her stirring and hurried over.

  “I didn’t know you were awake,” he said, helping her to her feet. “You feel fine, don’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” said Lucy, surprised. “I do.” She got to her feet. “But what—”

  “What they wrapped us in was the veil, or undermembrane, of the Rhu toadstooloid, Agorica Mul’rahrensis Gigantica, the same toadstooloid they served us for dinner at the fort,” said Tom. “It appears to have slight narcotic, as well as excellent analgesic and tranquilizing properties. But never mind that now. I’m finally beginning to get the general picture of the situation here on Mul’rahr, and it’s more desperate than I thought. Ordinarily, as the Consort of an Ambassador, you’d be safe trusting to the Skikana sense of honor. But the Skikana, as I suspected when the Colonel tried to hold you back as hostage, are no longer to be trusted. They’re engaged in an attempt at actual genocide—but there’s no time to go into that now. Do you have your Consort’s credentials with you—the ones Mr. Valhinda got for you?”

  “Of course,” said Lucy, surprised, reaching down into the small belt-purse of her superbly tailored green and silver dinner gown. “Mr. Valhinda told us never to go any place without them, remember. I keep them right in—yes, here they are.”

  “Good!” said Tom, plucking the credentials from her fingers. He whipped a stylus out of its holster on his weapons harness and scribbled rapidly on the margin of the topmost paper. He folded the credentials and thrust them back into L
ucy’s fingers. “Put those carefully back where you had them—” he said.

  Lucy nodded and hid them once more in the purse, giving its lock a twirl with one finger, so that anyone not knowing the secret would never be able to open the purse.

  “If you hear that anything’s happened to me,” Tom went on, “I want you to contact the nearest representative of the Assassins’ Guild—I’ve written there how you should go about that—and then show them what I’ve written. And—”

  “Happen to you!” cried Lucy, her fingers closing tightly on the purse. “What do you mean happen to you? What do you mean, ‘if I hear—’?”

  “You’ve got to get back to the safety of the landing field and the spaceship we came in on,” said Tom. “Now don’t argue—”

  “I have no intention of arguing!” burst out Lucy.

  “And I have no intention of going! I’ll leave here with you—or not at all!”

  “But it’s important one of us get away!” said Tom, urgently. “The Hugwos will see you safely to the ship—”

  A sharp whistle from the group of Flals interrupted him. He looked over at the small hooved figures and groaned.

  “Too late,” he said. “I’ll just have to hope that the Skikana have enough sense left to spare you when they attack. Come on then, we’ve got to get together with these Flals.”

  “Slow down!” said Lucy, sharply, as they moved back toward the Flals Tom had been standing with when Lucy woke up. “Explain a few things. Why should the Skikana attack?”

  “Because,” said Tom, “this spot here is the place the Skikana have been searching for ever since they first developed technology and rose from being little more than large, predatory insects—fierce insects, to be sure, but nothing more than insects. They have legends about this place, but the Flals have kept secret the actual spot during the Skikana’s swift rise to what they considered civilization. The Wockii also lost their memory of the exact place—and the Flals refused to tell them. But the Skikana have just found out, because they coated the cover for the dueling weapon Jahbat sent me with telepathic tracer organisms—and you remember you lifted the cover?”