The Buttoned Sky
CHAPTER XIII
The Mink he takes his pick and gun, He ranges through the towns; His force is miners, trappers, thieves-- And a girl in gentry-gown.
The rebels ride on stolen nags, They travel on shanks' mare; The gore's awash, the heads they roll, All in the torches' glare.
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
Revel the Mink and his eight troops crouched in the dark entrance of themine. The night was black, clouds had obscured the moon, and only theoccasional pinpoints of globes drifting between the buttons above thembroke the gloom.
"What are they doing?" hissed Nirea. "Why haven't we been attacked longsince?"
"The globes move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform," mutteredJohn Klapham. "I'll wager there's something like that in the GlobateCredo."
"Almost those words." Revel glanced at him respectfully. This man of theAncient Kingdom had great mental powers.
"Sure. Every time somebody has the upper hand over somebody else,there's got to be an aura of mystery; and any half-brained action is putdown to 'mysterious ways.'" He spat. "They're so damn confused, son,that they're probably holding forty conferences up there, because theydon't dare wipe out this valley--coal keeps the gentry warm and happyfor 'em--and they want to inspect the cave down below. So they're tryin'to think of the best way to squelch you without losing too many priestsand zanphs and gentry."
"True, they mustn't lose too many servants, or their prestige is hurt,"said Lady Nirea. Now that she'd found her Revel, she had discarded therucker's clothing and was dressed in a thigh-hugging sapphire gown. Evenin the dark she was beautiful, he thought.
The Mink stood. Up and down the valley glowed the lights of god-guardsat the mines, double and treble now, since with the Mink loose not evena god was safe alone. Plenty of zanphs there too, he thought. Yet he hada few gentryman's guns, and his old pick slung at his back. Zanphs,gods, gentry, priests? Let them beware!
His thinking was done; he would retire his brains--despite the cleverJohn, Revel knew he had more than one brain--and let his brawn takeover. Only the brawn of the Mink could win through the next hours.Half-consciously he tensed his whole frame, curled his fingers and toes,thrust out his great chest. The skin on all parts of his body creaked,split back from the worse wounds, achily stretched; blood sprang fromshoulder and from other hurt places. Yet he was not only whole, but fullof eager vitality. The small pains of his hide were only incentives toact violently and forget them. He relaxed and turned to his friends.
"You two, find the nags of the gentry we slew. I hear stamping nearby.Nirea, go to your own beast and wait for me. You two, with Rack, Jerran,John and me, we'll search the mines for men. We need plenty ofthem--it's miners' guts and muscles it'll take to move thatbeam-throwing thing from the cavern. Let's begin."
He drew the Lady Nirea up to him, slapped her face lightly, kissed heropen mouth. "Quick, wench, hop when I speak!" A touch of starshineglistened on his grin-bared teeth. Then he turned and leaped off therock shelf.
* * * * *
The nearest mine was guarded by three gods, nervously jiggling up anddown in grotesque little air-dances; below them sat half a dozenhideous-headed zanphs. Revel crawled up toward the entrance. At thefirst touch of an alien mind on his own, he shot forward, pick flailing.Two gods he caught with one stroke, the third began to rise and hisbackswing took it on the underside and tore a gash as if the pick hadstruck a rubber bag: yellow gore dropped in a flood. He had no time towonder if the third globe had telepathed a distress signal, for thezanphs were on him.
Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yetthose were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base,tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of itssix legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across hisleft arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug downinto the flesh and grated on the ulna bone.
He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupillesseyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm bythe frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot,spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. Johnappeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengagethe teeth from his bloody arm.
"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love todissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into themine.
"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders."
There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly,Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. Hisblood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement.
To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there cameforty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay attheir posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry.
Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conqueringgeneral already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley,and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back.
"How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roanon the grass. She glanced at the mass of men, all those in the vancarrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?"
He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze withcircles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white andflickering yellow. _The buttons_, murmured his men behind him. _Thebuttons are awake!_
"You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old manwas as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not wastetime. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast thisvalley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if theirscience has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screenthrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now."
Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech--"Let's notwaste time"--waved his miners forward.
They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; whenthe Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one anotherfor the honor of being first to touch it.
* * * * *
It stood solidly on the floor, ten feet high, twelve wide, square andblack with twin coils and a thick projection like an enormous gun on thetop. Men jammed around it, bent and gripped a ledge near the bottom,heaved up. Loath to move, it rocked a bit, then was hoisted off theground. They staggered forward with it.
The hole in the wall was far too small.
"Miners! The best of you, and I don't want braggarts and second-raters,but the best! Tear down that wall!" Revel stood on a case and roared hiscommands. Men pushed out of the tunnel's throng, big bearded men, smalltough men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and at a word began to swingtheir picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rockaway....
Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into thetunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distantones to go up the shaft to the top.
"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had akind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the bigminer. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind whenJohn himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he,the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all hisfriends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world hadvanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things asJohn?
There was a man, by--what was the expression he used?--by god!
"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, therearen't any worries."
"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimisticcrack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby."
Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingnessyawned above for ninety fee
t, below for over a hundred. The shaft wastwenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea.
"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft,and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanismworked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in smallloads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad itholds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center;it's as tough as anything on earth."
"I see your idea," said John. "I _hope_ that cable's tough. The machineweighs a couple of tons."
"Tons?"
"I mean it's heavy!"
* * * * *
Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly theyheard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward theirlevel. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, theMink let go a yell that halted the men on the windlass like a pickaxblow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto thebucket!"
"For God's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicatething." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," hecautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work."Easy ... easy ... easy!"
The great square mysterious box thrust out over the lip, teetered thereas if it would plunge into the bucket. John with a screech of anguishjumped forward and thrust at it with both hands.
If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel's chanceto drop the buttons from the sky would be gone forever. Nobody onearth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as the_antiforcescreenthrower_ of John.
The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launchedhimself into space, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled oversideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him.
The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it andlowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gavea lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tippedgradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall ofthe shaft. Revel howled, "Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts!Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable'll be frayed in half!"
Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cablethrough its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had tobe distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righteditself, came horizontal again.
"Up!" roared the Mink. Nothing happened. "More men on the winch!" Thenin a moment they began to rise.
The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pacewith the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.
At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft.All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into thenight, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a handto John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the_antiforcescreenthrower_ was all but out of the mine. Another ten feetwould bring it clear.
Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather ofall thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felthis eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.