The Destroyers Page 6

guess."

  "Sure you are," said Anketam. "So am I. Always have been. But a smartlazy man can figure out things that a hard worker might overlook. He canfind the easy, fast way to get a job done properly. And he doesn'toverwork his men because he knows that when he's tired, the others are,too. You want to try it, Basom?"

  "I'll try," said Basom earnestly. "I'll try real hard." Then, after amoment's hesitation. "Just one thing, Anketam--"

  "What's that?"

  "Kevenoe. I don't want him coming around me. Not at all. If he ever saidone word to me, I'd probably break his neck right there."

  Anketam nodded. The Chief had given Zillia to Kevenoe only two monthsbefore, and the only one who liked the situation was Kevenoe himself.

  "I'll deal with Kevenoe, Basom," Anketam said. "Don't you worry aboutthat."

  "All right, then," Basom said. "I'll do my best, Anketam."

  "You'd better," said Anketam. "If you don't, I'll just have to give thejob to someone else. You hear?"

  "I hear," said Basom.

  V

  The war dragged on. In the spring of the following year, over a hundredthousand Invader troops landed on the seacoast a hundred miles fromChromdin and began a march on the capital. But somebody had forgotten totell the Invader general that it rained in that area in the spring andthat the mud was like glue. The Invader army bogged down, and,floundering their way toward Chromdin, they found themselves opposed byan army of nearly a hundred thousand Xedii troops under General Jojon,and the invasion came to a standstill at that point.

  Farther to the west, another group of forty thousand Invader troops camedown from the Frozen Country, and a Xedii general named Oljek trouncedthem with a mere seventeen thousand men.

  All in all, the Invaders were getting nowhere, but they seemeddetermined to keep on plugging.

  The news only filtered slowly into the areas which were situated wellaway from the front. A thousand miles to the west of Chief Samas'barony, the Invaders began cutting deeply into Xedii territory, but theywere nowhere near the capital, so no one was really worried.

  Anketam worked hard at keeping the barony going during the absence ofThe Chief. Instead of _cataca_, he and Jacovik planted food crops,doing on a larger scale just what they had always done in the selectedsections around the villages. They had always grown their own food, andnow they were doing it on a grand scale.

  No news came from off-planet, except for unreliable rumors. What therest of the galaxy was doing about the war on Xedii, no one knew.

  Young Basom proved to be a reasonably competent supervisor. He wasnowhere near as good as Anketam or Jacovik, but there were worse supersin the barony.

  Anketam found that the biggest worry was not in the handling of thefarmers, but in obtaining manufactured goods. The staff physiciancomplained to Kevenoe that drugs were getting scarce. Shoes and clothingwere almost impossible to obtain. Rumor had it that arms and ammunitionwere running short in the Xedii armies. For two centuries, Xedii haddepended on other planets to provide manufactured goods for her, and nowthose supplies were cut off, except for a miserably slow trickle thatcame in via the daring space officers who managed to evade the orbitalforts that the Invaders had set up around the planet.

  Even so, Anketam's faith in the power of Xedii remained constant. Theinvading armies were still being held off from Chromdin, weren't they?The capital would not fall, of that he was sure.

  What Anketam did not and could not know was the fact that the Invaderswere growing tired of pussy-footing around. Instead of fighting Xedii onXedii's terms, the Invaders decided to fight it on their own.

  Everyone on Chief Samas' barony and the others around it expectedtrouble to come from the north, from the Frozen Country, if and when itcame. They didn't look to the west, where the real trouble was brewing.

  Anketam was shocked when he heard the news that the Invaders had reachedTana L'At, having cut down through the center of the continent, dividingthe inhabited part of Xedii into two almost equal parts. They knockedout Tana L'At with a heavy shelling of paralysis gas, evacuated theinhabitants, and dusted the city with radioactive powder to make ituninhabitable for several years.

  Then they began to march eastward.

  VI

  For the first time in his life, Anketam was feeling genuine fear. He hadfeared for his life before, yes. And he had feared for his family. Butnow he feared for his world, which was vaster by far.

  He blinked at the tall, gangling Kevenoe, who was still out of breathfrom running. "Say that again."

  "I said that the Invader troops are crossing Benner Creek," Kevenoe saidangrily. "They'll be at the castle within an hour. We've got to dosomething."

  "What?" Anketam asked dazedly.

  "Fight them? With what? We have no weapons."

  "I don't know," Kevenoe admitted. "I just don't know. I thought maybeyou'd know. Maybe you could think of something. What about Lady Samas?"

  "What about her?" Anketam still couldn't force his mind to function.

  "Haven't you heard? The Invaders have been looting and burning everycastle in their path! And the women--"

  Lady Samas in danger! Something crystallized in Anketam's mind. Hepointed in the direction of the castle. "Get back there!" he snapped."Get everyone out of the castle! Save all the valuables you can! Geteveryone down to the river and tell them to hide in the brush at the BigSwamp. The Invaders won't go there. Move!"

  Kevenoe didn't even pause to answer. He ran back toward the saddleanimal he had tethered at the edge of the village.

  Anketam was running in the opposite direction, toward Basom's quarters.

  He didn't bother to knock. He flung open the door and yelled, "_Basom_!"

  Basom, who had been relaxing on his bed, leaped to his feet. "What isit?"

  Anketam told him rapidly. Then he said: "Get moving! You're a fastrunner. Spread the news. Tell everyone to get to the Swamp. We have lessthan an hour, so run for all you're worth!"

  Basom, like Kevenoe, didn't bother to ask questions. He went outside andstarted running toward the south.

  "That's right!" Anketam called after him. "Tell Jacovik first! And getmore runners to spread the word!"

  And then Anketam headed for his own home. Memi had to be told. On theway, he pounded on the doors of the houses, shouting the news andtelling the others to get to the Big Swamp.

  By the time the Invader troops came, they found the entire Samas baronyempty. Not a single soul opposed their march; there was no voice toobject when they leveled their beam projectors and melted the castle andthe villages into shapeless masses of blackened plastic.

  VII

  The wooden shelter wasn't much of a home, but it was all Anketam couldprovide. It had been difficult to cut down the trees and make a shack ofthem, but at least there were four walls and a roof.

  Anketam stood at the door of the rude hut, looking blindly at the ruinsof the village a hundred yards away. In the past few months, weeds hadgrown up around the charred blobs that had once been the homes ofAnketam's crew. Anketam stared, not at, but past and through them,seeing the ghosts of the houses that had once been there.

  Behind him, Memi was speaking in soft tones to Lady Samas.

  "Now you go ahead and eat, Lady. You can't starve yourself to death.Things won't always be this bad, you'll see. When that oldest boy ofyours comes back, he'll fix the barony right back up like it was. Justyou see. Now, here; try some of this soup."

  Lady Samas said nothing. She seemed to be entirely oblivious of hersurroundings these days. Nothing mattered to her any more. Word had comeback that Chief Samas had accompanied General Eeler in the fatalexpedition towards the Invader base, and The Chief had been buried therein the Frozen Country.

  Lady Samas had nowhere else to stay. Kevenoe was dead, his skull crushedby--by someone. Anketam refused, in his own mind, to see any connectionbetween Kevenoe's death and the fact that Basom and Zillia haddisappeared the same day, probably to give themselves over to theInvader troops.

  A mov
ement at the corner of his eye caught Anketam's attention. Heturned his head to look. Then he spun on his heel and went into the hut.

  "Lady Samas," he said quickly, "they're coming. There's a ground-carcoming down the road with four Invaders in it."

  Lady Samas looked up at him, her fine old face calm and emotionless."Let them come," she said. "We can't stop them, Anketam. And we havenothing to lose."

  Three minutes later, the ground-car pulled up in front of the hut.Anketam watched silently as one of the men got out. The other threestayed in the car, their handguns ready.

  The officer, very tall and straight in his blue uniform, strode up