John Dalmas - Return to Fanglith

It fitted. The Jav's energy shield had taken a lot of blaster charges before we'd lifted from Evdash. And I'd discovered serious fuel cell crystallization within twenty standard hours of demonstrating the scout's weapons system for Arno.

Well, I told myself, I know what to do about it now. Fingers on the keyboard, I called up parts storage and asked for a new power transfer module. It replied that power transfer modules were not part of standard parts stock on scouts. That was followed by a list of places where I could get one-any of the three Evdashian naval stations.

I muttered an expression that mom and dad wouldn't approve of.

From there I skimmed on through the rest of the articles, looking for information that might be helpful. There wasn't any. But it seemed obvious that I'd better not use the weapons system again, and in trying to establish a political and military power base on Fanglith, that would be a serious disadvantage.

"Tarel!" I called.

"What is it?" he asked, coming over. I brought the third article back to the screen-the article that explained what had happened. He read it over my shoulder.

"And there isn't any replacement module," I told him. "Any suggestions?"

"We've got hand weapons," he said. "Including blast rifles. Maybe they'll be enough, along with our speed and communicators."

"I guess they'll have to be," I answered. But I didn't feel very good about it. We couldn't have too many advantages, and we'd lost a big one. At 700,000 miles I shifted into FTL mode on a ten-hour loop, and before we returned to mass-proximity mode, all residual crystallization was gone. Back at Fanglith I parked above the north shore of Sicily at an altitude of fifty miles. The scanner located the biggest town there, a good-sized city even by Evdashian standards. Palermo was where Larn should be. From where I sat, the moon stood well above the horizon-high enough that its light paled the island. I turned on the radio receiver, checked the communicator channel, and touched the send switch.

"Larn," I said, "this is Rebel Jave-lin. Larn, this is Rebel Javelin. Over,"

He didn't answer. He doesn't have his remote on, I told myself. That's all. It didn't reassure me a bit. Why didn't he have his remote on? It was controlled with a switch on his communicator, and the last I knew, Arno had the communicator. The likeliest explanation I could think of for the remote being off was that Arno had turned it off-whether by accident, or because he'd learned about it.

"Bubba!" I called. He came over to me, meeting my eyes. "I'm going to drop low over Palermo," I told him, speaking out loud. "When we get there, I want you to scan around and find Larn. I can't get him on the radio."

He nodded like a human might, and of course he read the concern in my mind. I already had a scanner view of northern Sicily, and asked the computer for a coordinate overlay, to get the coordinates of Palermo. Then, using voice mode, I ordered the scout to park above Palermo at an elevation of five miles. We headed for it.

Larn:

When I started down from the mountaintop, I didn't have any plan, but one started to unfold for me as I went: Backtrack, then ambush the Saracens with my stunner. Not that I could stun many of them; besides its short range, the stunner had a limited charge.

They'd probably send scouts out ahead to find the way, and to draw fire if they got close to any Christian bowmen. I'd ambush them. We'd see what they thought about paralyzed scouts who didn't have an arrow or sword slash on them. If they were superstitious, they might quit till daylight. Maybe they'd even turn around and go home, though that seemed a little much to hope for.

In the dark I couldn't see our tracks, but I didn't need tracks to retrace our route. When Gunnlag had decided to move camp, we'd come down from our initial campsite, crossed a small valley, then climbed along a ravine to its head at a notch in this ridge crest. From there we'd hiked along the crest till it topped off at the knob. Even with the moon not up yet, it would be easy to follow the same route in reverse.

The "notch" was an actual sharp one, with a big rock outcrop on one side. When I turned there to start down the ravine, someone grabbed me from behind, hard, arm around my neck, jerking me back with a rough strength too abrupt to let me use hand-foot art. It took me totally by surprise.

Another man moved in front of me, knife ready, and peered into my face. Recognizing me, he spoke quietly in Norse, and the one who had grabbed me let me go.

Gunnlag had posted lookouts; I should have realized he would. "I'm going down the ravine to set an ambush," I said softly in Norman French. They didn't understand me, of course; it would have sounded crazy to them if they had. But it seemed as if I should say something to them. One of them said something back in Norse. No one had understood anyone, but I guess it made us all feel better somehow. I nodded and left them, starting down the ravine with as little noise as possible.

As the ravine got deeper, it seemed to get even darker, probably because it was exposed to less sky and less starlight. Where there were clumps of trees in the bottom, it was darker still. It got stonier, too, with lots of boulders that had rolled down from above. The upslope on my right had quite a lot of clumpy brush and scrubby trees, probably because it faced away from the sun. The other side was pretty bare, as if it faced into the sun and dried out too badly during the dry season.

About halfway down the ravine I came to what seemed like a good place. When the moon came up, visibility would be pretty good in the bottom there-no trees, no tall boulders. And on the brushy side of the ravine, the lower slope was clear along there, a slant of naked rock. I scrambled up it on all fours, to take cover above it between two clumps of stiff-twigged scrub. From there I'd have an open shot at anyone riding up the bottom, at a range of only about twenty or twenty-five yards.

Of course, I couldn't know for sure that any Saracens would come along, but it seemed as if they would. If they hadn't shown up by the first Sight of dawn, I'd just have to take off for the knob-that or hide out and try to make it to Norman territory on my own. No way was I going to tiy ambushing a Saracen scouting party by daylight, when they'd be able to spot me. And any who got out of effective stunner range-maybe fifty yards- would be able to sit back and shoot arrows at me in total safety.

Meanwhile, I had some waiting to do, and something occurred to me that I hadn't thought about before: I was going to have to stay awake. If I went to sleep, Saracens might ride past without waking me up. Right away I started worrying. Turning off my remote, I took it out of my ear so it wouldn't interfere with my hearing.

Staying awake turned out to be easier than I'd expected, because it was getting pretty cold again, and just sitting there didn't keep me warm like hiking had. After checking by feel the setting on my stunner-at this range, narrow beam and just above medium intensity seemed about right-I shoved my hands inside my cape to keep them warm in my armpits.

I wondered what Jenoor would think if she could see me here, then imagined that she could see me, and what we might say to each other. After a while I dozed in spite of the cold-dozed and wakened, dozed and wakened-and didn't worry about it. In as shallow a sleep as that, I told myself, I'd wake up if any horses came along.

Finally I awakened with a start, and thought sure some sound must have done it-maybe horseshoes on rock. I sat still, hardly breathing, but couldn't hear a thing, and after a couple of minutes decided it had just been nerves. The sky down the ravine was lighter, but it didn't seem to be the graying of early dawn. Besides, I was sure I hadn't slept nearly that long. Moonrise, I told myself. Of course. After a few minutes I could see moonlight shining on the upper slope across the ravine; the moon had climbed above the next ridge east. Now I could see quite a bit better, although my side of the ravine was out of direct moonlight, in heavy shadow.