James Gunn - The Immortals

The confidence in Pearce’s voice strengthened Harry. He did not pause to question that confidence. He mounted the motorcycle, settled himself into the saddle seat, and turned the throttle. The motorcycle took off violently.

It was tricky, riding on one wheel, but he had had experience on similar vehicles in the subterranean Medical Center thoroughfares.

His arm hurt, but it was not like it had been before when he was helpless. Now it was a guidance system. As he rode, he could feel the pain lessen. That meant he was getting closer to Marna.

It was night before he found her. The other motorcycles had completely outdistanced him, and he had swept past the side road several miles before the worsening pain warned him. He cruised back and forth before he finally located the curving ramp that led across the cloverleaf ten miles east of Lawrence.

From this a ruined asphalt road turned east, and the pain in Harry’s arm had dropped to an ache. The road ended in an impenetrable thicket. Harry stopped just before he crashed into it. He sat immobile on the seat, thinking.

He hadn’t considered what he was going to do when he found Marna; he had merely taken off in hot pursuit, driven partly by the painful bracelet on his wrist, partly by his concern for Marna and the pain she was feeling as well as her likely fate.

Somehow—he could scarcely trace back the involutions of chance to their source—he had been trapped into leading this pitiful expedition from the Medical Center to the Governor’s mansion. Moment by moment it had threatened his life—and not, unless all his hopes were false, just a few years but eternity. Was he going to throw it away here on a quixotic attempt to rescue a girl from the midst of a pack of cruel young wolves?

But what would he do with the thing on his wrist? What of the governor? What would remain of his life if he showed up at the governor’s mansion without his daughter? And what of Marna? He discovered that the last concern overshadowed all the rest and silently cursed the emotions that were dooming him to a suicide mission.

“Ralph?” someone asked out of the darkness, and the decision was taken out of his hands.

“Yeth,” he lisped. “Where ith everybody?”

“Usual place—under the bank.”

Harry moved toward the voice, limping. “Can’t thee a thing.”

“Here’s a light.”

The trees lighted up, and a black form loomed in front of Harry. Harry blinked once, squinted, and hit the squire with the edge of his palm on the fourth cervical vertebra. As the man dropped, Harry picked the everlight out of the air, and caught the body. He eased the limp form into the grass and felt the neck. It was broken, but the squire was still breathing. He straightened the head so that there would be no pressure on nerve tissue, and looked up.

Light glimmered and flickered somewhere ahead. There was no movement, no sound; apparently no one had heard him. He flicked the light on, saw the path, and started through the young forest.

The campfire was built under a clay overhang so that it could not be seen from above. Roasting over it was a whole young deer being slowly turned on a spit by one of the squires. Harry found time to recognize the empty ache in his midriff for what it was: hunger.

The rest of the squires sat in a semicircle around the fire. Marna was seated on the far side, her hands bound behind her. Her head was raised; her eyes searched the darkness around the fire. What was she looking for? And then he answered his own question—she was looking for him. She knew by the bracelet on her wrist that he was near.

He wished that he could signal her, but that was impossible. He studied the squires: One was an albino, a second had artificial lungs attached to his back, a third had an external skeleton of stainless steel. The others may have had physical impairments that Harry could not see—all except one, who seemed older than the rest and leaned against the edge of the clay bank. He was blind, but inserted surgically into his eye sockets were electrically operated binoculars. He carried a power pack on his back with leads to the binoculars and to what must have been an antenna embedded in his coat.

Harry edged cautiously around the forest edge beyond the firelight toward where Marna was sitting.

“First the feast,” the albino gloated, “then the fun.”

The one who was turning the spit said, “I think we should have the fun first—then we’ll be good and hungry.”

They argued back and forth, good-naturedly for a moment and then, as others chimed in, with more intensity. Finally the albino turned to the one with the binoculars. “What do you say, Eyes?”

In a deep voice Eyes said, “Sell the girl. Young parts are worth top prices.”

“Ah,” said the albino slyly, “but you can’t see what a pretty little thing she is, Eyes. To you she’s only a pattern of white dots against a gray kinescope. To us she’s cream and pink and blue and—”

“One of these days,” Eyes said in a calm voice, “you’ll go too far.”

“Not with her, I won’t—”

A stick broke under Harry’s foot. Everyone stopped talking and listened. Harry eased his pistol out of its holster.

“Is that you, Ralph?” the albino said.

“Yeth,” Harry said, limping out into the edge of the firelight, but keeping his head in the darkness, his pistol concealed at his side.

“Can you imagine?” the albino said. “The girl says she’s the governor’s daughter.”

“I am,” Marna said clearly. “He will have you cut to pieces slowly for what you are going to do.”

“But I’m the governor, dearie,” said the albino in a falsetto, “and I don’t give a—”

Eyes interrupted. “That’s not Ralph. His leg’s all right.”

Harry cursed his luck. The binoculars were equipped to pick up X-ray reflections as well as radar. “Run!” he shouted in the silence that followed.

His first shot was for Eyes. The man was turning so that it struck his power pack. He began screaming and clawing at the binoculars that served him for eyes. But Harry wasn’t watching. He was releasing the entire magazine into the clay bank above the fire. Already loosened by the heat from the fire, the bank collapsed, smothering the fire and burying several of the squires sitting close to it.

Harry dived to the side. Several bullets went through the space he had just vacated. He scrambled for the forest and started running. He kept slamming into trees, but he picked himself up and ran again. In one of the collisions he lost his everlight. Behind, the pursuit thinned and died away.

He ran into something that yielded before him. It fell to the ground, something soft and warm. He tripped over it and toppled, his fist drawn back.

“Harry!” Marna said.

His fist turned into a hand that went out to her, pulled her tight. “Marna!” he whispered. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think I could do it. I thought you were—”

Their bracelets clinked together. Marna, who had been soft beneath him, suddenly stiffened, pushed him off. “Let’s not get slobbery about it,” she said angrily. “I know why you did it. Besides, they’ll hear us.”

Harry drew a quick, outraged breath and then let it come out in a sigh. What was the use? She’d never believe him—why should she? He wasn’t sure himself. Now that it was over and he had time to realize the risks he had taken, he began to shiver. He sat there in the dark forest, his eyes closed, and tried to control his shaking.

Marna put her hand out hesitantly and touched his arm. She started to say something, stopped, and the moment was past.

“B-b-brat-tt!” he said. “N-n-nasty—un-ungrate-ful b-b-brat!” And then the shakes were gone.