The Steel of Raithskar Read online

  The Steel of Raithskar

  Copyright © 1981 by Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Tara O'Shea

  Images © Dreamstine.

  ISBN 978-1-625670-27-4

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Preliminary Preceedings

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  End Proceedings

  About the Authors

  Also by Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron

  PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS:

  INPUT SESSION ONE

  —You understand what you must do. You have undertaken and completed your training for this task. You know that what you are about to do is of the utmost necessity for the further continuance of the well-being, and perhaps the existence, of our descendants. Are you in agreement with that concept?

  —I am, Recorder.

  —Good. What goes into the Record must be of the highest quality. No truth can be absolute, but the truth of the Record must be as close to absolute as it is possible for us to make it. Do you understand and believe that?

  —I understand and believe it, Recorder.

  —Then you know that every detail, down to the slightest, should go into the Record. Every impression, no matter how fleeting; every nuance of thought and emotion; every memory that can be made available must be brought forth.

  For all that the work will be purely mental, and not physical, you will find it the hardest labor you have ever undertaken in your life. Do you willingly undertake this labor?

  —I do willingly undertake it, Recorder.

  —Are you ready, then, to begin this Recording?

  —I am ready, Recorder.

  —Then make your mind one with mine, as I have made mine one with the All-Mind …

  WE BEGIN!

  1

  Heat, pain, and blinding light, burning through my skin and my eyelids. And the taste of bitter salt in my mouth.

  The sensations filled me, rooted me in consciousness while that part of my mind which could think floated away and returned. Among the jumble of wandering thoughts, one came clearly:

  The fireball killed me. This is what Hell feels like.

  But it had no real meaning and it ebbed away into a blankness which seemed eternal.

  At last I became aware of directional sensation. The incredible heat surrounded me, but under my fingers as I moved them weakly, pressing against my left cheek, scattered in my eyes and mouth, there was a grittiness that was somehow familiar. Rationality was returning. It was sand.

  I was lying on the ground somewhere, on gritty, salty sand.

  I lifted my head and tried to spit out the sand, but my mouth was too dry and all I could do was push the sand out with my tongue. With one hand I brushed grit from my eyes and opened them.

  I groaned, and lurched up into a sitting position. I sat there with my hands covering my eyes and wept away the savage sting of salt.

  When I could open my eyes again, I did so very cautiously, shading them with my hands. At first I thought that I had been blinded in a reverse way, that instead of blackness I was destined always to see only a brilliant white glare. Slowly the light grew tolerable, and the whiteness resolved itself into understandable divisions.

  Above me a thin cloud layer diffused the sun’s light, but had no discernible dimming effect on it. Light and heat beat down on a fierce white desert, which amplified and reflected them. I had never believed that anything could be that hot.

  As I turned my head to look around, the pain in my body focused sharply. A lump on my head, above and behind my right ear, was throbbing mightily. And my neck was so stiff that I was forced to wonder how long I had been lying here, slowly frying on the floor of this desert.

  What I saw around me was a broad vista of nothing. Or almost nothing. In the flat, nearly featureless desert, two things stood out.

  One was nearby. A few yards to my right lay a man, perfectly still, with his face turned away from me. The bright yellow and green of his clothes was oddly comforting, a single spot of color in the gray-white desert.

  The other was distant. Toward every horizon but one, the desert flowed unevenly. Here and there were short bushes, spreading almost flat just above the ground. In the sand, crawling around me, were small, pale ants. Yet all this life was a part of the vast, deadly desert, blending smoothly into the endless panorama of nothingness.

  Except in one direction.

  The land rose slowly to touch the white cloud layer of the sky, and in the far distance a strip of blue, parallel to the horizon, marked their meeting. I had no way of knowing what that line of blue meant, but it was far more attractive than the grayness which surrounded me. It was the only way out of the desert, and I knew I had to move in that direction.

  That desperate need carried me clumsily to my feet, and I was instantly grateful that I had managed to stand. My clothes had been crumpled and pressed against my body, but the movement jarred them loose, and, as they fell away from my skin, the heat became almost bearable.

  A weight dragged on my right shoulder. I looked at my clothes, touched my chest, and discovered a folded strip of sturdy tan fabric supporting that weight. A baldric—and a sword?

  The sword was too heavy for my trembling hands to hold it up for examination, but behind it was hanging a small pouch. At the thought that it might contain food, I was suddenly very hungry. But when I opened it, I found only five large golden coins.

  Perhaps the other man had some food …

  The other man!

  I staggered over to him and fell to my knees. I hadn’t the faintest notion who he was, but if he were still alive …

  He wasn’t. The stiffness of the corpse as I rolled him over told me he had been dead for long. And the blood-caked shreds of his tunic made it obvious that he had not died of thirst. He was an ugly sight.

  The dry heat had desiccated what could never have been a handsome face. The supraorbital ridges were prominent beneath a high brow. The nose had a pushed-in look, like that of a gorilla, so that the nostrils showed. The chin was massive and squarish.

  The dead mouth was open. Cracked and shrunken lips had shriveled back from large, even teeth; the canines were unusually long. Ants were crawling in and out of the open mouth.

  I looked away quickly.

  But I searched the body thoroughly, hoping to find a bottle of water or some food. All I could come up with was a sword I took to be like the one I was wearing, and another pouch. This one was filled with smaller coins of different sizes, and, without thinking, I poured them out of his pouch and into mine. Some of the coins spilled over my shaking hand. I didn’t pick them out of the sand; it was just too much trouble to try.

  I stood up then, and looked around again. There was still nothing that promised change except the tantalizing blue ridge at the edge of the visible world. I started to walk toward it, but something drew me back to the dead man. His sword.

  Clumsily I pulled the baldric off the body and tried to lift it over my head—but I hadn’t the strength to lift the sword. So I set off toward the horizon, holding the baldric and dragging the heavy swor d behind me. I didn’t know why, but I knew I didn’t want to leave the sword out in the desert.

  For an endless time I stumbled across the desert floor. My feet slipped in the sand; I tripped over low bushes I was too tired to avoid; sometimes my legs just let me fall. Tiny, sharp-edged rocks, concealed by the sand, cut my hands and face. Each time I fell, the salty sand ground into my raw wounds, until my skin was on fire.

  I kept moving. The only real thing in the world was the faint line of blue, always ahead of me but never any nearer. I knew I had to keep walking to reach it, so walk I did. One foot in front of the other, struggling back to my feet when I fell, I forced my way across the desert.

  I realized dimly that I must be moving north. The sharp glare in the sky which must be the sun above the cloud layer was behind me and moving toward my left. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  I stopped once with a feeling of surprise. Why couldn’t I move? I traced the problem to my left arm—something was pulling at it. I looked down and saw that I still held the loop of the baldric in my hand. Somehow the sword had become too heavy to move. Why was I dragging it, anyway?

  I had no answer. I let go the baldric and almost fell. I started walking again, with a feeling of satisfaction that I had solved an immense problem.

  I was suddenly convinced that I was being followed. I whirled around, the violence of the turn making me stagger, and looked for the follower. Nothing. As far as I could see, the desert was empty except for me. But the sensation persisted: I was not alone.

  Now my steady, straight-ahead plodding became a zigzag course. I walked a few yards, then jumped around to try to catch whoever or whatever was trailing me. There was never anything: no movement, no sound. So I turned back and walked on—not quite in the same direction I had been going.

  So, for a time, I forgot about the blue line. My attention was behind me, and almost as if it were a game, I walked and turned, walked and turned.

  My strength failed. My legs suddenly quit, and I slammed heavily into the salt-thick ground. I simply lay there. I knew I could not stand up again.

  Could I move at all? Yes. I could crawl.

  The shock of this last fall had knocked some sense back into me. Forget the whatever-it-is that’s following; blue means salvation. I sighted the line of blue and aimed for it again, began to drag myself through the sand.

  I heard a rumbling noise behind me. I was too weak to turn around, so I rolled over on my back and dug my elbows into the sand to lift my head. I wasn’t afraid; rather, I was glad to find the answer to the mystery.

  A few yards away from me stood the biggest damned cat I had ever seen.

  No wonder I hadn’t been able to spot him. He was covered with a grayish pale tan fur that blended almost perfectly with the drab surroundings. The low coughing sound came from his throat as he paced restlessly back and forth.

  He began to walk a spiral, moving slowly around me and coming gradually closer.

  I was sure that the cat’s shoulders would have brushed my chin if I were standing. He—I had never thought of him as “it” after I saw him, and as he prowled around me, his maleness was obvious—was built like a tiger, with a powerful chest and a long, agile body. When he growled I could see well-developed canines in his mouth. The image of a sabertooth came to me, but these teeth were nothing like the exaggerated knives of that animal.

  I watched the cat watching me. He came in closer, sniffing. I became aware of his odor: vaguely muskish, not unpleasant, and somehow familiar.

  My neck was getting tired, following the cat’s circling. Suddenly he stopped and looked directly at me.

  I couldn’t defend myself against a kitten, I thought at him. You might as well come eat me. It’s better than dying of thirst.

  The cat didn’t move.

  Come ahead, I urged. You’re welcome.

  As though he had heard my thoughts, the cat let out a roar that literally shook the ground, and bounded eagerly toward me.

  I knew that I had invited him. I was even willing to let him eat me, in a tentative sort of way. But the sight of that great cat closing in for the kill drained away my remaining strength. I collapsed back into the sand and my mind slipped away from me.

  2

  Water!

  It was dripping on my lips, and I licked at it weakly. More drops fell. I licked again.

  “Not too much at first,” said a voice. “When a man has been too long without water, it is a strong shock to his system to give him too much.”

  The voice was that of a man, but he spoke with an odd, faintly guttural accent that I couldn’t place. I was fully awake now. But I didn’t open my eyes. I was perfectly content to lie there licking the water as it dripped on my lips.

  “More, Respected Father?” The voice of either a woman or a young boy. The accent was the same.

  Drip. Lick. Drip. Lick. Nothing in my life had ever tasted quite that good. It seemed that the water even smelled good. Drip. Lick.

  I was flat on my back, resting on something noticeably cooler than the desert floor. The air around me and the delicious water were cool and fresh. Suddenly the dripping seemed too slow. I wanted a drink of water. I opened my mouth.

  “See.” The man’s voice. “He responds. A little more now, Lamothet. Not too much.”

  When my mouth felt moist enough to talk, I said: “Has Keeshah water?”

  “The sha’um will take it only from you, Rider.”

  I knew what I had said, and I understood what had been said to me. But it had no meaning. I blinked and sat up. What the hell were we talking about? My mind seemed fuzzy, as if it were slightly out of focus.

  The room I was in was cool because it was protected from the desert heat by thick walls made of huge translucent blocks. Sunlight penetrated the walls and suffused the room with a soft light, which was a welcome change from the painful glare I had first seen.

  More of the large, regular blocks stood free around the room as furniture. On some of these, and hanging on the walls, were finely woven cloths, richly embroidered. One served as a pad for the man-sized block on which I had awakened.

  There were three other people in the room with me. A young boy—Lamothet, I presumed—was holding a small, delicate cup, adorned with tiny geometric designs. There was a strong-looking man who could only be “Respected Father”, and another man not quite as young as Lamothet. The older man wore authority with the same ease that he wore his long, clean, white tunic.

  My voice sounded as strange as theirs when I spoke.

  “Where am I?” I asked. “How did I get here?”

  “You are in the Refreshment House of Yafnaar, and are most welcome, Rider,” said the elder. He put gentle hands on my shoulders and pressed me back. “As for how you got here, why, you came on the back of your sha’um, of course.” He unstoppered a small-mouthed jar that matched the cup’s design, took the cup from the boy, and filled it. He lifted my shoulders and helped me drink.

  “You must rest a while longer.”

  I lay back and looked closely at the man’s face, and realized with a start that he could be related to the corpse I had left out in the desert. He was by no means as ugly, but he had the same high forehead, jutting brows, and pug nose, all a little less pronounced. Even the canines. They weren’t the pointed fangs of a movie vampire, but wide, strong teeth, more like short tusks than fangs. The other two had that same look—a family resemblance?

  I decided not to mention the corpse. If these were his family, they might think I had killed him. And it troubled me in an unknown way that I had left his sword out on the desert.

  I closed my eyes to a wave of weakness, and again an unfamiliar word came naturally to my lips. “Keeshah?”

  “You may tend your sha’um when you are more rested. He is strong—stronger than you. Relax.”

  My sha’um. Funny word. Shah-oom. With a glottal stop.

  I remembered.

  The big cat looming over me, not attacking but nuzzling in an u rgent way. Trying to get his huge head under my unmoving bulk. I understood at last, and put my arms around his neck. He surged upward, lifting me to my knees, then lay down on the sand in front of me. I fell across his back, managed to turn my body to straddle him, and again locked my arms around his neck. Then he carried me across the desert in long, loping strides. The last thing I could remember before waking here was the regular, comforting motion of the strong body beneath me.

  Yes, Keeshah was stronger than I could ever hope to be. He was a sha’um.

  Sha’um. Great cat. Or, literally: cat great. This language put the adjective after the noun, as the Romance languages did.

  What? I started from my half-doze. What the hell is going on in my head? It suddenly became very important for me to find out who I was.

  I tried to sit up and ask my new friends, but I couldn’t. That last cup of water must have been drugged. I gave in and relaxed again. I think I’m better, I told myself with crazy logic. At least I know now that I don’t know who I am.

  I dozed off, still puzzling over a language I understood perfectly, and at the same time knew damned well I had never heard before.

  I dreamed a dream.

  “The Mediterranean is beautiful on a moonlit night, is it not?” said a voice at my elbow. A woman’s voice, huskier than contralto, a voice that suited the evening. Her Italian sounded Milanese.

  I turned to look at her, sure before I saw her of what I would see. I had just been thinking of her, remembering the happy laugh I had heard across the dining room, wishing that during this cruise I might meet her on deck and share just such a lovely night with her. If I have learned anything in my long life, it is that wishes occasionally come true.

  She was tall, five feet seven or so—she would have said 170 centimeters—with the blonde hair and the svelte figure of the Lombard. Her gracefully and delectably low-cut gown had the unmistakable, expensive look of Alderuccio of Rome.

  “It is made even more beautiful by your presence, Contessa,” I said. A man of sixty can afford to be gallant, especially if its the truth.

  Her lovely laugh rang out. “I am not the Contessa, signore.”