C Kornbluth - His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"The baronet comes," said Kay. Ballister embraced her violently; she nearly bit a hunk out of his ear.

"Excuse me," said the noble kindly. "The mayor—Marquesch—

suggested that we inspect the landing field. He wants to know if we can offer any suggestions for improving traffic-flow. Thinks that there's going to be lots of commerce on that hunk of soil."

"May well be," said Kay, dropping her eyes with maidenly modesty.

"These wonderful people of the Republic! How do they do it?"

"Cooperation," said Ballister, straightening his tie. "They work as one man. That's the secret." He went into a brown study, trailing behind the two others as they walked along the rustic path to the waiting auto.

"Cooperation as one man," he muttered to himself more than once.

Flight

Kay sat up in bed, snapped on the light. "Who's there?" she demanded.

"Me," whispered Ballister. "Let me in!"

"What?" In spite of herself she smiled. "What on Earth made you think that I—"

"Pipe down! This isn't lust; it's terror. We've got to get moving fast!

They're onto us somehow."

The girl slipped into some clothes, threw on a coat. The moment she was through the door, Ballister grabbed her arm and hurried her out of the hostel along the street.

"What time is it?" she asked, squinting at the full moon.

"Three Ayem—wish I could say all's well."

There was a shot in the night; the long streak of flame that a rifle-barrel throws split the darkness of the street. Ballister reeled a little and cursed.

"Where to?" asked the girl, supporting him. He was hit in the shoulder.

"Garage. Hurry it up." They slunk into the darkness of a double lane of trees, slipping along like a pair of shadows. The girl was still wearing bedroom slippers; Ballister was in his stocking feet. There was no noise whatsoever and scarcely a light in all the residential area.

Again the streak of flame, again the sudden crack of the rifle. "Nowhere near," said Ballister, his voice barely audible. "Faster."

Running in the dark, making no noise at all, speeding through relatively unfamiliar ground, they made good time. The garage loomed before them, one of the squat, white, solid buildings of the city.

Ballister, flinging off her helping arm, tore open the wide wing doors and darted in. She slipped behind like a ghost.

"Light!" he said. She fumbled for the switch, snapped it on.

Kay watched as Ballister hunted for a crowbar among the little group of municipal automobiles, found one, and proceeded to bash the mechanical guts out of all the cars save one. Kay started the motor of that one.

He had hurled the bar through the last motor and collapsed beside her in the driver's seat when the custodians appeared, and in arms. One of the tall, solid Basque types raised a long rifle, took steady aim Kay hurled three tons of metal square at him and through the' door.

The pick-up of the auto was superb; its mechanical springs took up the shock of the body as though they had never hit it.

Through the streets of the city they rocketed, lightless while Ballister fumbled for the switch. The construction was somewhat unfamiliar; he collapsed totally before finding it. Kay snapped the running lights on, not daring to glance at the man by her side.

She turned onto the airport road. Behind her there was the roar of a second motor. In the rear-vision mirror she saw two pale purple circles that were the running-lights of a pursuing car.

A brief chatter of metallic slugs on the car's tail told her of a semi-automatic rifle at the least. If it were a machine gun she knew they'd never get out of this chase scene alive. The rattle sounded again. There was no whang of bullets penetrating metal. Kay breathed again, in relief.

Europeans in special cars used to hold the speed-records for ground-travel, on a straight track. That was probably because no American girl had ever bothered to enter the lists against them. Kay had teethed on a piston-ring and broken the speed-laws by the age of twelve. Since then her progress had been rapid; she knew cars backwards and forwards and overturned. She knew every trick of the throttle and gas, knew how to squeeze another mile-per-minute out of the most ancient wreck on the roads.

The municipal car was of unfamiliar make; it took her about five minutes to size up its possibilities; when she had, she sped quite out of sight of the pursuing car.

"Wake up," she yelled at the man by her side. "If you aren't dead, for heaven's sake, wake up!"

There was a vague gesture from the figure, and a dim smile on its face.

"Knew you'd do it," Ballister murmured. "Keep going, Kay. Get Sir Mallory's plane out, Kay. Back to Oslo we go—" The murmured words were stilled.

Wondering if her friend were dead, she stepped more speed out of the car, hauled up before the deserted airfield. The hangar-doors were merely latched against the weather; she swung them open and switched on the lights.

The ornate, fast plane of the noble was balanced feather-like on its dozen retractable landing wheels; she trundled it out of the shed and managed to load Ballister into it.

From the road came the roar of a motor; far in the night was the gleam of headlights. Kay fiddled with the controls, backed the plane into the wind. The car shot onto the landing field, tried to cross before the plane and force her around. She lifted a little, swung around the auto, ducked at the rattle of a gun. The control panel splintered into fragments of plastic and metal; alcohol ran over her knees.

Mercifully, the plane rose as she yanked wildly at the stick with no response. It headed diagonally up, its course quite straight. The stick and the pedals were quite dead. And there were no dual controls.

Into the night they flew, at the mercy of the wind, far above the landing field, in the heart of the jagged Pyrenees.

Their luck, such as it was, didn't last; one of the peaks loomed before them. Kay had just enough time to cover the body of Ballister, wondering if he were still alive, if he would survive this, if she would, when the plane struck.

Revelation

Someone was singing, she noticed, with an altogether inappropriate glee, an objectionable song about his Majesty, the King of Spain.

"Stow it, Hoe," ordered the voice of Ballister. "Let the lady rest."

She sat up violently. "You!" she said. "What happened—" She felt a curious weakness in the middle and sat back again. "What's up?"

Ballister approached, relief glowing all over his face. "You had us worried. You've been on a liquid diet for a week without once coming up for air. How'd you like to tear into a steak?"

"Love it," she snapped, realizing that the sense of weakness had been hunger. "Any potatoes?"

"You'll have rice instead. May I present Jose Bazasch." He led forward by one hand a shy little old man who wore the Basque beret.

"An honor," he muttered incoherently. "Fine ladies—noble gentlemen in my cave—"

"Tell your story, Hoe," suggested Ballister grimly. He speared a broiled steak from its string where it turned over the fire. A slab of washed bark served very well for a platter.

"The story? This. I am Jose Bazasch, a Basque. A dozen years ago, during the wars, there were many Basques. I was sheep-thief—outlaw. Lived here in the cave. I am no more thief because there are no more sheep.

There are no more Basques except me."

"If you'll excuse the omission," said Kay, chomping busily, "I'm eating too energetically to register surprise. Kindly explain in words of one syllable or less."

"Okay, child. Your brains would be addled after your long illness. I'll begin at the beginning. There was a slew of Iberians along about the beginnings of the Christian era who were decimated by, in rapid succession, the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Saracens and their most holy majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella.