Keith Laumer - Zone Yellow

“Sure,” I agreed. “We’ll accept,” I told Bnk. As soon as we could get the cart loaded with whatever he normally delivered to the Palace, we’d be ready to go. He took us back inside and showed us which bales and kegs to load up. Smovia fixed up the space for Swft, and I set Gus and Ben to the job while the rest of us stood guard. Gus complained until I rapped him again. He was one of those slow learners. Marie tried to comfort him, but he snarled at her. It seemed she was afraid of him.

“Whatever shall I tell the Lord Chamberlain?” Bnk inquired of a hostile universe.

“Tell him the truth,” I suggested.

“And how am I to explain yourselves?” he wanted to know next.

“We’ll get under the tarp,” I told him.

“Colonel,” Andy signed in, “do you really think they’ll let us waltz out of here with a ioad of valuable supplies?”

“Bnk has his rounds to make,” I told him, “and they ought to be willing to let him make his delivery to Grgsdn in the Palace. We’ll lie low until we’re clear of town.”

Bnk fetched a strange, hippo-sized, tapir-like animal from a leanto and harnessed it to the cart. It smelled like well-aged barnyard. Bnk was absently patting the dung-caked flank and batting at the big blue flies. There was very little room left in the cart for six people. We could let Minnie ride on the seat with Unca Bnk. She called all adult males “Unca”; she didn’t seem to make any distinction between Ylokk and human, but she had kind of taken a shine to Marie, who seemed to reciprocate the attraction. Aside from her tending to baby-talk in English, she seemed like a levelheaded ten-year old. But no doubt Smovia and Helm had started off talking baby-talk to her and had gotten used to it, and she naturally learned what she heard.

There was a stiff, smelly tarp with the cart; I arranged it so as to give us full cover but still allow a little breathing, plus a spy-hole for me. I gave Bnk his instructions: to act as if it were a normal delivery, and to expect no interference; if he got any, he was to object loudly and keep going.

It was hot, dusty, buggy and stinky as well as crowded under the tarp, and I seemed to be lying on gravel. The big thing, I realized immediately, was not to fidget and not to sneeze. With that settled, I went to sleep.

I awoke to the sounds of high-pitched Ylokk voices, yelling: “―told you no more slave-services to the bloodsuckers!” one harangued. “―the Folk’s food!” another yelped. Old Bnk was replying spiritedly: “―shall I not see the needs of the great Grgsdn? He, too, requires nourishment, and his selfless dedication to the Folk allows him no time to forage! Would you have him starve?”

After a little more of this wordplay, the alert guardians of other people’s business decided to let him pass. One of them jagged at the tarp with a pole or a spear-butt and gave me a bruise on the shoulder. Then we were bumping along, every jolt driving sharp gravel-bits into my flesh like thumbtacks. I peeked out through my spy-hole and watched the guard detail recede around a curve.

“OK,” I said to the others, “from here we walk awhile.”

Fresh air never smelled better. After a few busy minutes of flea-chasing, aided by a bottle of stuff Bnk produced from the box under his seat, we set off in the dusty wake of the cart, enjoying breathing, moving freely, the absence of aged fecal matter, and no pain except for our blisters. This lasted for a good two minutes. Then Bnk halted the cart and made frantic “down” motions.

We took to the ditch and watched until they’d passed, ten of them, dowdy-looking fellows looking more like stragglers than a disciplined squad.

“What do you think, Andy?” I asked the wiry old devil I was still used to thinking of as young Lieutenant Helm. He edged forward to get his face close to my ear. “I want that sucker with the blue stripe,” he replied.

“We’ll have to take two apiece on the first pass,” I said. He nodded. I spoke quietly to Gus and Marie, who insisted she’d like a piece of the action. Doc Smovia was game, if not eager. He put Minnie in back of a bush and told her to stay put.

“We stand up and move quietly to the trail,” I told them. “I’ll take the last two. Andy, you handle the next pair; we have to hit fast and hard.”

We selected heavy, two-foot clubs from among the lengths of hard fat pine lying all around. I sneaked out of the fringe of brush and closed in on tail-end Charlie. I didn’t do it very well, because he turned around just in time to see the club coming; he ducked, not far enough, and managed a yelp, which the fellow in front of him heard, and that one turned and went down under a solid blow between the eyes. Andy went past me and took his blue-stripe and another one, and then it was free-for-all.

One of the rats tried to run for it, but I tripped him and hauled him upright and took the starch out of him with a short jab to that glass gut.

He was simultaneously snapping at my wrist and trying to say something. Finally I caught a few words: “―three-Law. We’re not hunting you, humong! I am Major Lst, and I am of the Loyal Opposition!” He twisted in my grip and yelped at Gus, who was throttling a rat nearby, and bleeding from bites on his bare forearms.

“Mister Guz! It is I, your benefactor, Lst!” He was struggling to free himself, but I held on.

Gus, red-faced and furiously intent on what he was doing, ignored the major, but Ben came over and yelled over the din of screeching rats and cursing men. “―mistake!” he was saying. “These fellows are on our side!”

I threw Lst down and put a foot on him. He tried to bite my ankle. I kicked him under his receding chin and said “Naughty!” He stared up at me balefully, then shifted his attention to Ben and started a long, yapping speech I couldn’t follow.

Ben said, “Colonel,” then interrupted himself to fell Gus with a haymaker. “These fellows are what’s left of the royal garrison,” he told me. “They oppose the Two-Law scum, of course, and disapprove of the big slave raid. The major here”―he was helping the now passive officer to his feet―”helped us escape. They’ll help us get into town to attack the thugs.”

I took his word for it when Marie came over and confirmed what he said, taking his arm possessively, and smiling up at him. She was no beauty, but she did have a nice smile, and her club had rat-hair clotted on it. A useful trooper.

“Major Lst unlocked the cell door,” she told me quickly. “At first we didn’t trust him; we thought it was a trick to kill us while attempting to escape’ or something. But when we saw him club down the Two-Law captain, we knew he was with us. After all, he has reason to hate them; I know he’ll help us attack the rebels.”

It took a couple of minutes to restore order, with Lst’s boys, a little the worse for wear, lined up in ragged ranks, and our side, surrounding them. Smovia got busy disinfecting bites, and then I let him patch up a few scalp wounds that were leaking blood into rats’ eyes. Andy was the last to let go; then Smovia reminded him this was the same bunch they’d seen pass by their cottage in the woods and ignore it.

Lst spoke up: “I had to make a show of searching for you, after you fled the town,” he explained. “The Two-Laws suspected I’d helped you―as I indeed had. I reported no sign of you, and then, later, I helped the other slaves to escape. You may trust me.”

“Do you know General Swft?” I asked him.

“Indeed I have that honor!” he declared. “Have you seen the general?”

“He’s out of the picture at this time,” I said. “He was gravely injured by a mob at the road-house up the way. We have him with us, but I don’t know how much good that is.”