Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

“What are your plans, Courtney Sibama?” he asked.

“We will return to Kau and rescue our Sibimi. Thereafter we will do as circumstances direct.”

“We are but a hundred and two,” said Moka doubtfully, “and the army of Kau numbers thousands. Can we hope to win through to victory?”

“A hundred men properly armed can do wonders, Moka,” I replied. “Have you forgotten the weapons which I went from Ulm to bring? They are hidden in these mountains. We will go to where they are and then make our plans. With them we will find an Alii of Ulm who has lived in Kau for years and knows their weapons. Do you think that the Kauan ship will return to watch our movements?”

“Since we are forbidden to return, I think it will.”

“I hope so. If they do, I have an idea that may enable us to reach Kaulani without a fight. The first thing to do is to get proper arms.”

My marching compass was one of the things which the Kauans had returned to me before they left us. My automatic pistols they had kept, although they were not familiar with their use. I laid off a course with the compass and, laden down with food and water, we started our journey toward the adjuster.

Moka had been right when he said that the Kauans would keep track of us. Late that afternoon, while our cavalcade was struggling wearily over the bare rocks, the transport which had brought us to the mountains sailed over us at a low elevation. The sight of our progress evidently satisfied them, for, after a careful survey of our column, they returned toward Kaulani. Night fell before we had covered more than half the distance which I calculated separated us from the adjuster, but I was confident that we were going in the right direction.

The night was bitterly cold and as we had nothing resembling blankets, all we could do was to huddle together and pass the night as best we could. The men of Ulm were unaccustomed to cold weather and they suffered horribly but none of them complained. The next morning we took up our march.

By noon I was confident that we had come far enough, yet none of the landscape was familiar. I halted the column and sent parties of scouts off in various directions. They were all ordered to reassemble at the central point before sundown.

It was a hard task to find one’s way about the rugged country, even with a compass. I nearly got lost and the sun was setting when my party returned to camp. Two of the parties were still unaccounted for. We had no material with which to make fires and all we could do was to send up occasional shouts to guide the stragglers. One party came in about eight o’clock but morning dawned without trace of the other one. I was surprised at this, for I knew of the wonderful sense of direction and location which is the gift of all Ulmites. I made some tests and soon found that this sense was not operative in the mountains. Why, I can’t explain. It just wasn’t

I held a consultation with Hama and Moka the next morning. I was sure that we were close to the adjuster and the ammunition and yet we had combed the country the day before and found nothing. I had a feeling that we were too far south and favored moving the camp, but the problem of the lost party remained to be solved. We finally decided to leave ten men under Hama at our first camp and move the rest some five miles north, keeping in touch by means of messengers. At the new camp I would send out fresh search parties. This programme we carried out, but another two days of combing the hills failed to locate the adjuster and I began to fear that the Kauans had found it and moved it. The fourth and fifth days passed in similar fashion and even my staunchest supporter, Moka, began to look dubious.

The morning of the sixth day we were about to start fresh parties out on their interminable search when a faint shout was heard from the south and we saw one of Hama’s party approaching at top speed. As he came nearer, it was evident that he was laboring under great excitement.

“We have found the place, Sibama!” he gasped as he came within hearing. “Hiko’s party found it the first day but the messenger they sent fell and broke a leg. It was not until today that he crawled into our camp, nearly dead from pain and thirst. He says that Hiko and two men stayed there, but he does not know where it is.”

The fact that the adjuster had been found near our camp was a heartening thing and we swiftly broke camp and retraced our steps to join Hama’s party. We found that Hama had sent off all his men in the direction in which Hiko had left the camp and all we could do was to wait until they found the place. We had not waited more than three hours when a man arrived and told us that he had located it. He said that they had found the cave and the boxes in it, but that there were no signs of Olua or the adjuster. I started at once with a party with food and water for Hiko’s men, leaving most of the men in camp until all of Hama’s men returned. They were to move camp and join me the next morning.

The report of the scout was correct. In the cave were the arm chests and the boxes of ammunition, but there was no trace of either Olua or the adjuster. I racked my brains as to what could have happened. The only explanation which seemed logical was that when he had returned to the larger plane at my orders, his adjuster got moved. In such a case he might easily have come down miles away and was earnestly seeking us. The loss of the adjuster was a blow, but we still had our arms and ammunition and everything was not lost.

It was a short task to break open the rifle chests and the ammunition boxes and I felt better when I saw my tiny force armed with modern rifles and pistols, even though none of them had the slightest idea of their use and I had grave doubts of their value against the fighting suits of the Kauans. The fact that they did not know how to use the weapons did not worry me especially, for I knew that I had eight days before the Sibimi of Kau was doomed to die and I had a plan which, if successful, would enable us to travel over the two hundred miles which separated us from Kaulani in a short time. The Kauan transport had flown over us each afternoon, evidently checking our movements and my plan was a no less daring one than attempting its capture. I blessed the fact that I had not completed my radiotelegraphic apparatus before I left the city.

My first task was to teach my men the use of the pistols and rifles. I had loaded a hundred rifles and thirty thousand rounds of ammunition on the adjuster together with a hundred pistols and ten thousand rounds of pistol ammunition. I felt that I could safely expend one hundred rounds of rifle ammunition per man and half that amount of pistol ammunition on target practise. We improvised a range and posted guards to warn us of the approach of Kauan ships. The Ulmites took to the guns as ducks take to water. In five days I felt my fire discipline was adequate and I anxiously awaited the arrival of the ship I had planned to capture.

To my horror, the ship did not appear on that day, nor the next day, nor yet on the next. Our food and water were about exhausted, for we had been allowed only a fourteen-day supply. Apparently the Kauans knew that we could not return to their country and had decided that we were afraid to face the Mena and thought it useless to keep further track of us. As the sun went down on the fourteenth day after we had left Kaulani, I was in black despair. That was the day set for the execution of the Sibimi of Kau and the thought of my princess at the mercy of Kapioma nearly drove me insane.

We could not possibly cover the two hundred miles separating us from Kaulani in less than five days of forced marching, even were we adequately supplied with food and water and unopposed. I had based all my plans on the capture of a Kauan ship. The morning of the fifteenth day found us with no water and almost no food and despair settled over the camp. We felt the urge to be moving but there was no place where we could go and nothing that we could do. We went through some rifle drill in the morning in a perfunctory manner and with the feeling that it was merely a waste of time.