E.C Tubb: Earth is Heaven

A thought which triggered her desire and drove her against him, lips seeking, hands searching, body a sudden vibrant flame.

Then the intercom sounded its demand for attention.

"Earl?" Batrun's voice was strained. "I've spotted something odd. You'd better get up here."

The control room was alive with winks and glimmers, flashes and flickers from the blips on the screens. It was early dawn, the direct vision ports filled with a nacreous luminescence which barely illuminated the settlement.

"Angels." Batrun gestured at the screen. "They've been wheeling all night. No sign of an attack, though."

"So why sound the alarm?" Ysanne, robbed of her pleasure, was curt.

Dumarest, more patient, said, "What did you spot, Andre?"

"Something. You'll see it in-" He checked the chronometer, "-thirteen seconds." Time for him to take a pinch of snuff. As the lid of the box closed with a snap he said, "There!"

A mote traversing a screen. One limned with a scintillant haze. They all knew what it had to be.

"A ship!" Ysanne was bitter. "Of all the damned luck! Strangers are the last thing we want. Well, to hell with them. We were here first. This is our world and if they want to argue we'll do something about it."

"Fight?" Dumarest shook his head. "What would we be fighting for? Some dirt? Hills? Ruins?"

"Our dirt, Earl!" Anger quivered her voice. "Our hills! Our ruins! I don't care if all we've got is a heap of garbage-no bastard's going to take it! What we have we keep!"

Their lives-the only thing of real value. To the captain Dumarest said, "Prepare the ship for immediate flight."

"It's being done, Earl. I alerted Talion before you got here."

"Good. Have Sheiner give him a hand." On the screen the mote slowed, began to grow in size. "Tell them to hurry."

"Run?" Ysanne was incredulous. "You're going to run? But-"

"What else do you suggest?" Dumarest was savage in his interruption. "Arm the Ypsheim and hope they'll take our orders? Kill for us? Die for us? Use your brains, girl-once they get guns we'll be their first target. Andre?"

Batrun studied the screen, read the message of his instruments. "They've checked orbit and are coming in to land. They'll be here soon."

And trouble would come with them. Dumarest stared at the mote, feeling the old, familiar tension which warned of danger. The stranger could be anyone; a slaver, a trader, a vessel on an exploratory voyage, but he sensed what it would be.

A ship of the Cyclan. Following him-but how?

"Make contact," said Ysanne. "Find out who they are."

"No." Dumarest was firm. "Maintain silence." To ignore an innocent vessel would do no harm but to reveal themselves to an enemy was to act the fool. His hand slapped the intercom. "Lyle? What's keeping you?"

Sheiner answered. "Not long now. A couple of minutes will do it."

Time they didn't have.

The strange vessel landed with a crack of displaced air; thunder which scattered the wheeling angels and filled the air with transient dust. The shimmer of the Erhaft field collapsed to reveal the shape and bulk of the vessel, one of unfamiliar design, but there was nothing strange about the sigil it bore, the snouts of laser-cannon threatening the Erce .

"The Cyclan! They'll burn us from the sky if we try to leave!" Ysanne turned to face the captain, looked at Dumarest. "We can't run," she said bitterly. "And we can't fight. So what the hell do we do now?"

It was a problem which held an enticing complexity, one Avro pondered as, around him, the ship came to quiescent rest, enhancing the mental euphoria attending the proof of a calculated prediction. And yet even while he relished the success he was aware of possible complications which could render it void.

The ship was before him, the Erce -but was Dumarest with it?

Logic told him that vessel and man had traveled together and yet the possibility they had parted remained. It was a low order of probability and yet no detail, no matter how small, could be ignored, and if Dumarest was with the Erce was he inside it? And if he was…

"Master!" Weitz bowed as he came to make his report. Though young, the acolyte had the face of an old man; the voyage had been wearing to those denied the use of the amniotic tanks. "Scanners have marked all sources of infrared radiation to the horizon, the Erce appears to be sealed. Laser-cannon have been set to fire at any sign of flight." He added, "Points of aim have been selected to damage the structure only."

Unnecessary loquacity; the strain of the journey had done more than age his body. His mind too had been affected and he would never aspire to the scarlet robe. Avro felt no pity; the man had served and that in itself was sufficient reward.

He said, "What is the present situation of the crew?"

"The Erce's ? I-"

"You are relieved." Avro's even modulation didn't change but the acolyte cringed as if he had been struck. "Report to the captain for menial duties. Send Amrik to me."

Another acolyte, but one who had ridden in an amniotic tank as had Avro himself and a few others. A precaution against the unknown and one proved justified.

"Master!" The bow was a matter of ceremony, a mere inclination of the head. "Sixty percent of the crew has been incapacitated by the journey. Premature aging caused by the stress of the cascade-field together with an attendant loss of mental faculties."

The price paid for gaining velocity against which the speed of a normal ship was small. One predicted and accepted; the risk had been unavoidable. But it added another dimension to the main problem.

"Scanners show a concentration of heat sources at the area beyond the Erce . More are in the air. The former are probably humans while the latter are human-type organisms of an avian nature. The probability is-"

"High." Avro gestured with one thin hand. "Any individual sources noted?"

"None beyond the areas specified."

Which meant that if anyone was absent from the Erce they must be within the settlement or beyond the horizon. It was barely past dawn. On a strange and possibly hostile world it would be natural to stay within safe confines. If Dumarest had stayed with the ship he would now be in it or with those in the settlement. The latter probability was low but still high enough to be a factor of importance. One easily checked.

"Dumarest?" Ulls Farnham scowled as he looked at the cyber. To him Avro meant little, but he had come in a vessel and was obviously of importance. "Is he a friend of yours?"

"Answer my question."

"Why should I?"

On a myriad of worlds the question would have been ridiculous, but the Ypsheim knew nothing of the Cyclan and its power. But the ignorance was not mutual. Avro recognized the type; the one who had thrust himself forward to gain prominence when Amrik had asked for a spokesman. A man with ambition and greed who could be manipulated like wax in a flame.

He said, "To cooperate will be to your advantage. Dumarest is a dangerous man who will bring you harm. You have already had proof of that."

"Death, injuries, destruction-and the bastard left us to it!" His burst of anger verified Avro's statement. The condition of the settlement had told him all he needed to know. Weakness always blamed strength for its own failings and Farnham was weak. He said, "He could have given us weapons and the shelter of the ship, but refused both. He brought the angels down on us and is keeping them here. A male he's holding as a prisoner-why the hell doesn't he let it go?"

And why wasn't Dumarest dead and buried with the Erce in his possession, the hold stuffed with severed wings and their crippled owners busy at work in the fields? A fortune waiting to be collected. An empire to be made and all his if only he'd been given guns. Still his if this stranger could be talked into helping.