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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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fiber, drew deep breaths of that glorious tangy air — and knew I was once again back on Kregen, where I belonged.
Four
Jak the Drang Encounters the Iron Riders
To be perfectly honest, as I leaped up I felt my nakedness, felt it terribly. My hand went to my waist. My little arsenal had become a part of my daily round, the Sharps to hit ’em as far off as I could, the Winchester to cut ’em down as they charged, the Remington to finish those that wouldn’t go down and the Bowie to take out the last, obstinate idiot who insisted on closing to close quarters.
All this was a long way away from the Sea Service pistol of my youth, the cutlass or boarding pike, and a very long way away from the rapier or thraxter, the spear or the longsword I needed on Kregen — and needed right now, by Zair!
I was on Kregen, right enough, there was no mistaking that. All the agony I had experienced as I’d realized just where the Star Lords had flung me last vanished altogether in that moment.
The mingled opaline radiance of the Suns of Scorpio streamed refulgently about me; but there was no time for anything other than getting on with the work to my hand, presented to me in the old familiar authoritative way — I had to fight and do what I had to do, or be banished once again. Or, given the circumstances, to die messily.
It was, I thought then, all one to the Everoinye.
Judging by the frightened looks they cast over their shoulders, and the merciless plying of whip and spur, the mob of men lambasting up the draw toward me were fleeing — were running away as fast as they could make their mounts gallop. These were a mix of various saddle animals of Kregen — hirvels, totrixes, preysanys, urvivels — with only two or three zorcas mixed up in the stampede. Dust flew up in a long ochre smear.
I ducked in back of a rock out of the way of the fugitives, guessing my task lay at the interface of pursued and pursuers.
Usually I was projected onto Kregen stark naked and headlong into action. Not always — usually. This time the Star Lords had seen fit to give me a little preparatory time. Of course, they did not deign to provide me with a helmet or spear, sword or shield, and we had struck our reactions to that idea. They would guess I would regard them with less estimation — although, truth to tell, I fancy that as I grew older I might come to regret that hot and impassioned surge of pride of my youth. I had not aged a day since the dip in the Sacred Pool of Baptism; but although my body remained young I know my brain had, slowly and painfully, accreted a trifle of wisdom in the intervening years.
Drawn by six piebald nikvoves the coach lumbered into view. Its felloes shrieked as it skated over the rocks. It kicked up one helluva dust and I could see nothing down the back-trail.
Most of the fugitives were apims, but there was a fair sprinkling of diffs, and a Rapa sat up on the box and flogged the nikvoves on. This coach, these six laboring animals, the dust, the racket — well, it caught at my throat, so like and yet so fantastically unlike the scenes I had just left. Had those different alien riding animals and the draught animals all been horses, had there been no diffs — this would still be Kregen. The smell, the feel, the empathy of the world was uniquely Kregen under Antares.
I saw what must be done. Had those crazed fugitives taken a mur to observe for themselves they must have seen it, too. I was just a lone, naked man. But if I did not do what had to be done I knew what would happen. So I got on with it.
The rocks at the lip of the draw scattered away in a detritus to either side. Starting a likely-looking boulder moving started two or three others. Pebbles rattled. Dust smoked. The rocks tumbled down. I cut it fine, and a couple of fist-sized pebbles bounced into the polished varnish of the coach. But the main mass of sliding rock rumbled down, spreading, filling the bed of the draw. So much dust hung about that it
Four
Jak the Drang Encounters the Iron Riders
To be perfectly honest, as I leaped up I felt my nakedness, felt it terribly. My hand went to my waist. My little arsenal had become a part of my daily round, the Sharps to hit ’em as far off as I could, the Winchester to cut ’em down as they charged, the Remington to finish those that wouldn’t go down and the Bowie to take out the last, obstinate idiot who insisted on closing to close quarters.
All this was a long way away from the Sea Service pistol of my youth, the cutlass or boarding pike, and a very long way away from the rapier or thraxter, the spear or the longsword I needed on Kregen — and needed right now, by Zair!
I was on Kregen, right enough, there was no mistaking that. All the agony I had experienced as I’d realized just where the Star Lords had flung me last vanished altogether in that moment.
The mingled opaline radiance of the Suns of Scorpio streamed refulgently about me; but there was no time for anything other than getting on with the work to my hand, presented to me in the old familiar authoritative way — I had to fight and do what I had to do, or be banished once again. Or, given the circumstances, to die messily.
It was, I thought then, all one to the Everoinye.
Judging by the frightened looks they cast over their shoulders, and the merciless plying of whip and spur, the mob of men lambasting up the draw toward me were fleeing — were running away as fast as they could make their mounts gallop. These were a mix of various saddle animals of Kregen — hirvels, totrixes, preysanys, urvivels — with only two or three zorcas mixed up in the stampede. Dust flew up in a long ochre smear.
I ducked in back of a rock out of the way of the fugitives, guessing my task lay at the interface of pursued and pursuers.
Usually I was projected onto Kregen stark naked and headlong into action. Not always — usually. This time the Star Lords had seen fit to give me a little preparatory time. Of course, they did not deign to provide me with a helmet or spear, sword or shield, and we had struck our reactions to that idea. They would guess I would regard them with less estimation — although, truth to tell, I fancy that as I grew older I might come to regret that hot and impassioned surge of pride of my youth. I had not aged a day since the dip in the Sacred Pool of Baptism; but although my body remained young I know my brain had, slowly and painfully, accreted a trifle of wisdom in the intervening years.
Drawn by six piebald nikvoves the coach lumbered into view. Its felloes shrieked as it skated over the rocks. It kicked up one helluva dust and I could see nothing down the back-trail.
Most of the fugitives were apims, but there was a fair sprinkling of diffs, and a Rapa sat up on the box and flogged the nikvoves on. This coach, these six laboring animals, the dust, the racket — well, it caught at my throat, so like and yet so fantastically unlike the scenes I had just left. Had those different alien riding animals and the draught animals all been horses, had there been no diffs — this would still be Kregen. The smell, the feel, the empathy of the world was uniquely Kregen under Antares.
I saw what must be done. Had those crazed fugitives taken a mur to observe for themselves they must have seen it, too. I was just a lone, naked man. But if I did not do what had to be done I knew what would happen. So I got on with it.
The rocks at the lip of the draw scattered away in a detritus to either side. Starting a likely-looking boulder moving started two or three others. Pebbles rattled. Dust smoked. The rocks tumbled down. I cut it fine, and a couple of fist-sized pebbles bounced into the polished varnish of the coach. But the main mass of sliding rock rumbled down, spreading, filling the bed of the draw. So much dust hung about that it
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