James White - The First Protector

Forbidden the company of the great thinkers, they explored the rabbit warren of low-ceilinged service tunnels reeking of lamp oil and the even more smelly and horrendously overcrowded quarters of the thousands of slaves who were forbidden to show themselves unless something was required of them, and there they learned much. They did it by turning off their translator collars, pretending that they could speak only in their native Gaelic and proving it by making many ridiculous and often humorous mistakes. But they used their earpieces to listen to the conversations of senior slaves that the speakers thought were private, and in this fashion they were able to learn more than Ma'el. But the old man had recently taken to inviting the learned and venerable Hsung Hwa, who had the finest intellect as well as being the most entertaining of his Xianese mentors, to his quarters every evening. As a result the first chance Declan had to tell him of what he and Sinead had learned was when they were outside the palace in the late afternoon of the next day, where Ma'el was to be entertained to a demonstration of kite flying and, after dark, a display of pyrotechnics.

Hsung Hwa's silk-tented chair carried by six of his servants was about twenty paces ahead, and Declan had to make a great effort of will not to arouse the suspicions of Ma'el's bearers by dropping his voice when he spoke.

"Please listen carefully, Ma'el," he said. "I have no factual information, merely the overheard gossip of highly placed servants, but the talk is that you have aroused the suspicions of the Emperor. It is said that you appeared suddenly at night outside the palace gates, and try as they will, his countrywide army of Imperial spies is unable to uncover any evidence of your journey here. To him this means that your journey was undertaken in secret, that your progress was concealed by enemies wishing to overthrow the Emperor, and that your sudden appearance means that an uprising is imminent. It is rumored that you are shortly to be taken, tortured for whatever seditious information you possess, and killed. Sinead and I are unlikely to be spared. I strongly advise that we leave here without delay."

With a thoughtful inclination of his head, the old man said, "I expected that something like this was being planned for me, but not so soon. My work here is complete and there is no excuse for extending my stay other than intellectual pleasure, so I shall take your advice. The display of pyrotechnics is something you will not see elsewhere on your world, and I would not want either of you to miss it. I do not believe that I am in any immediate danger because the Emperor thinks it would be impossible for me to escape him. But if it will ease your minds, during our return to the palace this evening, I shall make an excuse to detach myself from Hsung Hwa, and you, Declan, can stand guard while Sinead brings our vessel down from orbit."

Declan was glad that Ma'el had insisted on delaying their departure until after nightfall because the kite flying was a truly wondrous sight. Many of them were box kites whose silken sides bore brightly painted designs which, according to the old man, had a religious significance. Others took the form of outsized birds with wings permanently outspread, or giant bats or flying dragons. One of them looked like the shadow monster that Sinead had made with her hands to frighten off the sea raiders off Finisterre at what now seemed to be a long time ago. They looked particularly beautiful when the last rays of the setting sun lit them against the darkening sky. As the highest of them were overtaken by the deepening twilight, a series of sharp, closely spaced detonations dragged their eyes groundward to the lower slopes of their hill where fountains of stars in a dazzling variety of colors were bursting upward into the heavens. A thunderclap accompanied every star burst.

Declan found it difficult to take his eyes off them, but fortunately, not impossible.

"Look there," he said urgently, pointing behind them. "Men with swords, eight, no, nine of them, coming out of the darkness above the shoulder of the hill. They probably expect us to be dazzled by the fireworks and unable to see them. Ma'el, we need the space vehicle, now!"

Hsung Hwa, who had been standing beside Ma'el, turned his head to follow the direction of Declan's pointing finger. The sight of the approaching men did not seem to surprise him, for he turned away without a word and, quickly for one of his advanced years, hobbled back to his carriage shouting orders to his slaves as he came. In a moment they were running down the slope. Ma'el's bearers, who had already abandoned their vehicle, were racing after them.

Sinead looked at the men advancing toward them, the light from the fireworks reflecting like stars off their swords.

"Ma'el," she said quickly, "we need your vessel to make a transdimensional jump, there's no time to bring it down through normal space. Do you want to do it?"

Ma'el replied by withdrawing the chart and the remote-control screen from his cloak and tossing them to the ground where they were already unfolding for use. He said, "Your digits are smaller and faster than mine."

Slowly and with the confidence of their greater numbers the men advanced in line abreast, swords carried across their chests. It was too dark to see their feet, but Declan felt sure that they were marching in step. Each end of the line was curving forward into a crescent formation, the obvious intention being to encircle their victims. Knowing that was not a tactically desirable situation when there was only one defender trying to protect three, he sprinted toward the center of the line with his long-axe swinging in wide circles around his head.

They heard him coming, but now it was their eyes that were being dazzled by the fireworks display behind him while his had grown accustomed to the darkness. His first blow knocked away his opponent's weapon and, judging by the sound he made, smashed the other's sword arm as well. He continued the swing toward the next man in line, who tried to turn away and received the axe blade in the small of the back. That one dropped to the ground, immobilized by legs that would no longer work. Of the six that were left, four moved out of range of his weapon intending to encircle him while the other two began running toward Sinead and Ma'el.

Those two had to be stopped.

It took a moment and several prodigious swings of his axe to break away from the four, and Declan was still several paces behind them when one of the two men grasped Ma'el by the cowl, baring his head and bringing the sword point to his throat, obviously intent on a capture and the extraction of information rather than a quick killing. Sinead was on her knees and looking down intently with both hands moving over the remote-control screen. The other man was closing on her with his weapon raised high to bring it down on the back of her neck.

For an instant, a terrible fear took Declan as he thought of that small, beautiful body he loved being converted into bloody dead meat, with her bright, agile mind and healing skills that together had labored and coaxed and nagged and finally loved him back to life gone forever, and with them their unborn child. Unable to control his feelings, he filled his lungs and emptied them with a sound, part scream of anger and pain at her expected loss and part bellow of sheer rage so loud and terrible that it frightened even himself. The men attacking Sinead and Ma'el froze at the sound, giving him a chance to get close before both turned to look at him. It was the last thing that they would ever do because by then his axe was already sweeping toward them in a wide, transverse swing that made a bloody end to both of them.

'This is difficult enough as it is," said Sinead irritably, her attention still on her rapidly moving hands, "without you getting blood all over my control screen. Can't you move the fight away?"