Terry Pratchett - Tama Princes of Mercury

Jimmy did not answer. With all his force he wrenched from his captor and tried to run. But his strength suddenly drained from him. He stumbled and fell in the snow. Aflash stung his arm and burned his sleeve; and as the giant leaped on him and pulled him erect, a portion of burned fabric fell unheeded to the now beside the stump. It was the cloth which I came upon a few moments later.

Another figure gripped Jimmy. A voice, in better English, said softly, "Do not try that." And then, "They come, DorrekRoc no need this fellow." They had brought Jimmy out to revive him in the cold air, perhaps thinking they might need him to show them further details of the cabin. They hurried him now toward the nearby forest. Jimmy saw, behind him, a following group.

He saw the silver ball resting in the shadows of the forest nearby. He was led into it, flung down on the floor of the same room where he had been before. The giant sat watchfully at his elbow.

Then there were shots outside, in the distance. A flurry of footsteps in the vehicle; excited voices. Arriving figures.

Rowena and Tama were flung down beside Jimmy. Roc's voice said: "Guard them, Dorrek... . If anyone of you causes trouble, Dorrek will kill you." The lenses of the windows and the door were slamming.

The vehicle lifted, quivered. Outside the window, the forest trees were sliding downward. Then only starlight. The ball was making upward, leaving the Earth.

"Jimmyyou I" The girls clung to Jimmy. The giant seemed to ignore their whispering. Tama had been caught by Roc while she was still asleep, but the slight noise had awakened Rowena. She had seized a long dressing gown and' gone into the living room. Roc and his men had pounced upon her.

To Rowena's easy capture Guy, Toh and I undoubtedly owed our lives. Had there been a commotion Roc would probably have killed us in our beds. But with the girls captured, he retreated at once.

"I told him where you were," Jimmy whispered. "I was druggedparalyzed1 couldn't keep from telling." Tama knew the drug. It was foolproof. She named it in her native language. Roc had thrown a cloak over her wings.

She was shivering, but presently, with the friction-heat of the rapid ascent, the room began to warm.

"We're headed for Mercury," whispered Jimmy.

The giant abruptly leaned toward Rowena, plucked at her gown.

"You-the Rowena girl?" There was light enough to see his face. A great bloated, flabby-jowled, hairless face of pallid gray skin. A wide flat nose with a bridge suggesting that it had been broken. He was grinning with a leer meant to be ingratiating.

Rowena flung off his hand. Jimmy muttered an oath, but Tama gripped him.

"Waiti He is a Cold Country native; perhaps a leader."

"Youthe Rowena girl?"

"Yes," said Rowena calmly. "That's my name."

"I like you. I, Dorrek, master of the army when we capture Light Country. Soon now. And I like you. Big woman beautiful. My woman soon" His gaze devoured Rowena's figure. Jimmy was tense, but a movement of Tama's directed his attention across the room.

Behind the squatting giant, a heavy-set gray woman was standing. Her gray wings were folded behind her. She stood against the wall; the light fell upon her wide, flabby, gray face to illumine it plainly. It was contorted now with hate. The venom of a woman's jealous hate.

And all in an instant Jimmy realized that in her hand as it came up from the folds of her drab-colored robe, i long glittering knife was clutched.

The woman moved suddenly forward, uttered a piercing hysterical scream and with waving knife blade leaped at Rowena.

IV ENDLESS VOID I SAT BESIDE Guy in one of the deck corridor chairs of the Bolton Cube. A bull's-eye window was at hand. Earthlight and starlight, and mingled moonlight fell upon usthe great firmament out there blazing with a glory wondrous, amazing. The Earth hung fairly below our window. Tremendous, reddish-yellow ball, etched with the tracery of its land and water, mottled with cloud areas, white with its polar snowcaps.

To one side hovered the gloaming, sharply black and white Moon-disk and everywhere the stars blazed like points of fire in the dead black void of space. The Sun was overhead.

From this side of the deck we could not see it.

"How far out are we?" Guy asked. I had been to the dome-peak and just-returned.

"About four hundred thousand miles."

"Has Grenfell's telescope lost sight of the silver ball?"

"Yes." We had been on the voyage some ten hours. It was now, by Earth Eastern Standard Time, which we were maintaining on the Cube, about 3 P.M. on the afternoon of March 16th.

The Mercurian vehicle had departed some four hours in advance of us and now it was beyond our sight.

"But Grenfell is sure we have been making as good speed as the ball," I added. "And he hopes to do better. We'll overhaul it in a day or two."

"If it heads directly for Mercury," said Guy. "But we're following it blind." Through the window there was no movement apparent.

"The Earth and Moon were dwindling, but very slowly. The Sun was growing larger. Our velocity was now only a million miles in about nine hours. More than a month to reach the Sun at this rate, and something like twenty-six thousand years to the nearest star! For an hour Guy and I talked that afternoon on the deck of the Bolton Cube. We would overtake the Mereurian vehicle. And then what? There was a gun mounted at a presssure port on the deck of the Cube. But with Tama, Rowena and Jimmy in the ball, we could not attack it.

On the other hand, if Roc had the necessary weapons, he was free to attack us. Guy felt, however, that Roc had no long-range weapons.

"It won't be armed," Guy insisted. "They'll have hand weaponsbut that's about all. That ball was only a tender for Croat's ship." A day passed. Anxious hours, seemingly interminable. Our almost vibrationless little square metal house seemed hanging in the void. Everything remained almost the same. The Earth was still full-round, but smaller, vidth a silvery aspect mingling now with its yellow-red sheen; the Moon, behind it, a tiny white sphere. Both were level with our side windows, with the Sun and Mercury on the other side. Grenfell kept us in this position so that his telescope might most readily seek the Mereurian vehicle in advance of us.

The Sun seemed a trifle larger now. The crescent Mercury could be seen only through the telescope. And far to one side, the blazing point of light which was Venus showed in the telescope as a glorious half-moon.

Then at last we were rewarded. Five F.M. of March 17th, thirty-six hours after leaving the Earth. A shout from Toh resounded through the Cube.

"They have picked it up I It is visiblea dot against the Sun-diski Jack, come up here! Guyoh, Guythe thing is in advance of us, but not so far." We jammed into the little dome-room. Our velocity was now some five hundred thousand miles an hour. It had reached and passed the maximum of which apparently the Mercurian vehicle was capable. The ball showed as a tiny black dot against the flaming gaseous envelope of the Sun's surface.

I faced Dr. Grenfell. "Can I see you a moment alone?" He gazed up at me from beneath his raised bushy brows.

"Alone? We've no secrets here. Jack. What" But he left Baker at the telescope and accompanied me down the inclined ladder into the third and upper tier of the Cube. A small central room, with table and chairs, surrounded by a number of cubbiescontrol and instrument rooms. Guy had followed us, with Toh beside him.

I had a plan; wild, suicidal. All day the details of it had been obsessing me: I had been waiting for the sighting of the silver ball as the time to tell it to Grenfell. He listened quietly, hearing me through with only an occasional question. He sat low in his chair, his thick shoulders hunched, his eyes peering up at me; and only his thick fingers toying restlessly with the black ribbon of his seldom-used eye glasses betrayed his emotions.