There came no attack, no challenge from the bush. She ran past the cover, loose stones and gravel rolling under her feet, and reached the cave mouth. There she dared to look around. A booted leg protruded from the brush. It moved feebly, gouging up the sandy soil, but that was all. She used the beam again to make sure her victim was well under.
She went on into the passage. Where before that way had been silent, now there was a continuous murmur of sound. Straining her ears, Roane tried to make out the rise and fall of voices. But this was rather a mechanical clicking. And it grew louder as she advanced. There was a glimmer of light as she came to the transparent plate. Only the panel was now gone, to leave a doorway from which issued the sounds. Roane stepped into the chamber beyond.
She stood at one end of a double line of tall columns. Each was fitted with a fore panel, lighted, on which were maplike outlines. And cresting each was something else, alien in form to the plain solidity of the pillars.
For each was literally crowned. On a small stalk on top of each pillar rested a miniature diadem, beautifully wrought, sparking with gems.
Two of the pillars in the double line were dark. On the nearer the crown was lifeless, dulled. But the rest glittered as if the metal and jewels from which they had been fashioned now coursed with energy. There were also rows of small lights above and around the map plates, and these flashed on and off with brilliant sparks of ever-changing colors.
Roane was sure now that these were no Forerunner remains. They must be connected with the experiment of Clio’s settlement. But she had only a minute or two to watch before her uncle moved out into the aisle between the pillars.
She had not come unprepared for such an encounter, fearing that she might even be rayed down by a stunner before she could protest. So her weapon was ready. Nor had she been wrong in her wariness, for Offlas also had his stunner aimed.
“Roane!” He did not speak loudly, yet his voice vibrated through the chamber, filling it, just above the muttering of the machines. He moved closer. Warned by his speech, she kept her voice even lower:
“The distorts are failing.” She gave him what she felt to be a needful warning.
“They don’t run forever.” His whispering voice was harsh, just as Basic sounded curt and hard after the softer inflections of the Clio tongue. “You—where did you come from?”
“I escaped from a keep, back in the hills. But that is not important now. They are coming here to search for the Crown—”
“How many?” he demanded. “Sandar is—”
“There are two parties, one with the Princess, one of her men alone. I don’t know how many. She is a prisoner; her kinsman wants her to take the Crown so he can get it.” She spilled out what she had to say in a torrent of words. “The Princess says only one of the Blood Royal can handle a crown—it kills anyone else—”
Her uncle had turned to face one of the machines and now Roane, moving closer, was able to trace on its pillar the outline of a map she knew—Reveny! The crown set above that was a vision of ice. She could not have named the metal of its forming—it might even be pure crystal. It was a circlet composed of a series of points which inclined toward the center, where four of them united at the apex. Those in turn supported a star set with flashing white gems. If the miniature was so impressive, what a glory the real crown must be!
“Sandar went to hunt it,” her uncle said. “He has not returned.”
He hurried to the end of the aisle, returned with a portable tri-dee recorder in his hands. “Bring that—” He indicated another instrument, set to one side.
Roane scooped it up. But just as they reached the door there came the unmistakable sound of feet in the passage. More than one person walked there. It could not be Sandar.
Should they take cover behind the pillars? But her uncle did not move, seemed so sure of himself that Roane stayed where she was. Could it be Imfry—or the Princess and her captors?
Then the Colonel stood framed in the doorway where the panel had been, clearly lighted by a torch he carried. In his right hand was one of those awkwardly heavy projectile-firing weapons. Roane felt very naked as she waited for him to turn and look at her. But his attention never wavered from the way ahead. Behind him moved his men, seemingly alert for trouble, yet none of them glanced at the doorway or the room beyond it.
“Conditioned,” she heard her uncle mutter. “An excellent example of top conditioning—additional proof, if any were needed.”
They went on. What if they met Sandar up ahead? He would have his stunner. But the Princess and Reddick—what if they were already there? Her uncle was listening, and she ventured a question:
“What if they meet Sandar?”
He glared as if her whisper had been a shout, making no answer, a tactic which formerly would have silenced her. But Uncle Offlas was just a man, not some superpower. He might be able to force a dark future on her, but she could also fight back. And she was inwardly amazed at her own surge of confidence now.
Seemingly he was undecided. They could follow the Colonel’s party, use their own stunners to clear the way. Roane wondered why her uncle did not take that course. But he was prevented from doing whatever he might have done by a change in the chamber of the pillars.
A sharp crackling drew her attention back to the machines—to the column supporting the Ice Crown. There was a wild flurry of the lights on its front—while the glitter of the miniature crown flared into a flame she could not look at. There was another loud note and the pattern of small lights steadied.
Her uncle was staring at the display and now he aimed the tri-dee recorder at it. But even the flare of the crown had speedily subsided.
Roane knew what had happened as well as if she had viewed the act. The Ice Crown had been found. But had it been claimed by the Princess? Or had Sandar taken it—or Imfry?
More sounds, loud and echoing, but not from any one of the pillars—these came from the passage. She thought she heard a shout or two also. A fight between Reddick’s party and Imfry’s men?
“What—” She appealed to her uncle.
But he was totally absorbed in taking a recording of the pillar.
“Changes.” He was talking to himself. “At least five major pattern changes! A totally new course of events!”
A new pattern! The Princess, or Reddick? But Roane was not going to be involved again—she was not!
Telling herself that, Roane went to the door. As she stepped into the passage, she dropped the equipment her uncle had ordered her to take and began to run. One half of her mind, the sane half which was Roane Hume, was in open battle with that buried part which she thought she had had under control. She did not want to go, but that inner compulsion made her.
Roane reached the end of the passage. Now she smelled an acrid odor. With her stunner at the ready she squeezed through the rough passageway, listening for any sound. She heard a muffled clamor of voices and then saw the glow of torchlight. She crept to a point from which she could view the cave of the skeleton.
There was a raw hole where earth and rock had been dug away to make an opening to the outside. Some daylight showed there, but the torches were being used to light a second tear in the wall where the crushed skeleton had lain.
In that second opening stood Ludorica. She had her hands out before her, the fingers outspread to their furthest extent, as if she would protect with her flesh what she held. It was a copy of the Ice Crown on the pillar, save that it was of a size to fit a human head.
By the torchlight it blazed fire. And the expression on the Princess’s face as she gazed upon it, entranced, was one Roane had never seen before. Greed—no—but some emotion which was alien to the Ludorica she had known—an expression which repelled, not drew as the Princess had been able to draw her into an alliance even against her own desires.
It seemed that Ludorica was aware only of what she held, not of those around her. She was flanked by a man in black who eyed her with almost as deep a fascination as she us
ed for the Crown. On her other side was Reddick. He held one of those massive hand weapons and from its barrel still rose a thread of smoke fume.
Two of Imfry’s followers lay still against the wall near where Roane crouched. And the Colonel himself—Roane’s hand went to her mouth—his back was to the rock as if he needed support. One arm hung limp and there was a dark stain spreading on his shoulder. But he was being roughly bound by two of Reddick’s men, while two more stood with hand weapons trained on Imfry’s remaining men.
“The King is dead—long live the Queen,” Reddick intoned. Then he added, touching Ludorica’s arm, “My Queen, what would you have us do with these who came to seek the great treasure of Reveny?”
She did not raise her head or look away from what she held. When she answered her voice was thin and lacking in warmth, as if she spoke from a far distance of things which mattered little.
“Since I am Queen, as all can see, let them be served as traitors, for they reached for the Crown!”
Reddick smiled. But on the faces of the Colonel and of his remaining men there was shock, as if they could not believe what they had heard.
“The King being dead, our Queen has spoken,” Reddick said. There was a solemnity to his words, as if he were some official of a court of justice relaying a lawful verdict. “Let them be dealt with as traitors. My Queen”—he turned again to Ludorica—“this is no fit place for you. Let us ride to show your people that you are truly their crowned one.”
There was a hint of another emotion on Ludorica’s face as that mask which so repelled Roane changed a little. “Yes”—now her voice was more human, eager—“let me do so! This is the Ice Crown; I hold it, I wear it, for Reveny!”
Looking neither right nor left, and certainly not at the men she had so summarily condemned, she went to the newly cut opening, the man in black beside her putting out a steadying hand now and then. For she paid no attention to her footing, only to what she held. But Reddick lingered, watching his men bind the rest of Imfry’s force. When that was finished he spoke directly to the Colonel.
“The Crown has spoken, as it always does, my brave Colonel. I think that there is certainly a new day dawning for Reveny, but I do not believe it will be greatly to your taste. So perhaps it is best that you will leave us soon. Her Majesty will give the final word as to the hour and the manner of your going. But do not, I beg you, place any hope in old friendships. It is well known that the crowns always change those who wear them. It will be most interesting to see what changes will ensue once our liege lady is firmly on her throne.”
“Mind-globe cannot hold her forever.” Some of the stupefaction had gone from the Colonel now.
“Mind-globe? Ah, we might have used such a key to bring her here—since she alone could handle the Crown. But I assure you, my brave and interfering Colonel, what has passed since then is born of the Crown alone. To rule and reign is very different from living as an heiress to such glories. I think we shall find the Princess is no longer as you have always known her, but now a Queen! We must be riding. Bring these along—but intact,” he ordered his men. “It will doubtless please Her Majesty to make an excellent example of them.”
Roane had been so startled by the abrupt reversal of Ludorica’s attitude toward the Colonel that she had watched the scene without any thought of taking a hand in the action. But now, as Reddick’s men prepared to drag their prisoners away, she readied her stunner. She might not be any longer a part of Imfry’s efforts on behalf of one who had so strangely repudiated him, but neither could she see Reddick take him to his death.
But as she raised her weapon she was seized from behind, held in a viselike grip which did not allow her the slightest movement. And she heard the softest of whispers close to her ear:
“Not this time, you fool! This is no game for our playing.”
Sandar! How he had got there—or why—Roane writhed but was unable to move any more than he allowed her. Using his superior strength, he forced her backward, so she could no longer see the cave of the Crown.
She continued to fight his hold until they reached a wider stretch of passage. There he slammed her against the wall, holding her pinned by his weight against her. There was no light, but she could hear the cold menace in his voice.
“Do you want to be stun-rayed and dragged back? I will do it if necessary. You’ve played the fool and worse. But you’re through now with such tricks. What happens to these puppets is no concern of yours. They are puppets, we’ve seen enough to know that. They are programed just like Adrianian androids to do exactly what the machines back in that chamber tell them to do. What does it matter what games puppets play? We’ve learned a lot from those installations—”
“They are not puppets!” Roane denied in a burst of real rage. “Any more than we are when we are Cram-briefed. If they did not have the crowns—if those machines weren’t running—they would be free—They are human!”
“But they are not.” He continued to hold her in that bruising grip which hurt her. “They are acting out the lives the machines decide for them. And it is none of our concern. If the Service decides later to interfere, when they have our report, that is another matter. But it is not for us to worry about. Now—are you going to walk—or do I stun and drag you?”
CHAPTER 12
THERE WAS NO STRUGGLING WITH SANDAR. She knew he would do exactly as he threatened.
“I will come,” she said dully.
He did not release his hold on her right shoulder, and so linked, they returned to the wider passage, where they were caught in the ray of a beamer. She heard her uncle give a sigh of relief.
“Hurry!” He did not ask where Sandar had been, nor what Roane had done. The beamer swung around, pointed their way to the entrance. Her cousin gave her a savage push.
As they emerged into the open a haze of mist lay in clots of shadow beneath the trees, seeping out over the country. Neither of the men hesitated, but struck a direct path back to camp, passing without note the man Roane had stunned, Sandar still holding her as if he expected her to break for freedom.
“Distorts out—all except one.” Sandar had taken a reading on his belt instrument.
“To be expected. They have not been recharged,” her uncle replied tersely. “The sooner we get off-world the better. I don’t know how much of an impression your stupid actions have made here.” He favored Roane with one of those icy stares which he had used to subdue her for so long. “We can only hope that we can lift without fully blowing cover—”
“What about the installation?” For the first time since she could remember, Roane dared to ask a question in the face of his quelling. “Are we going to—will the Service—just leave it running? Sandar says that all the people here are tied to it, that it makes them puppets. That’s against the Prime Four ruling—”
“Closed planets, as you well know, do not come under the Prime Rules. What the Service chooses to do once our report is in is none of our concern.”
He spoke as if that was the final word on the subject, and Roane knew the folly of further argument. But her cold fear of the installation stayed with her.
The Psychocrats had once forced men on unknown worlds into experiments. And when their horrible reign had been finally broken, their mind-slaves freed, the results of both the meddling and the liberation had been, for two generations now, a dire warning to all humankind. Even if she had not known Ludorica or the Colonel, had not been herself sucked into the web which enmeshed Clio, Roane would still have been aroused to anger by this discovery. Just as the people of Clio were conditioned to obey the machines their enslavers had set up generations ago, so was she armed to fight such influences. Sandar might name them puppets, which perhaps technically they were, but Roane had lived with them. And they were real people, far warmer of nature than the two now hustling her along.
Leave all major decisions to the Service—the safe, sane cry. But if this was left to the deliberation of men half the galaxy away, how soon would t
hey interfere, if at all? Certainly not in time to save the Colonel! She had no doubts that Reddick would do exactly as he promised and make very sure Nelis Imfry was removed.
And the Princess with the Crown—she had been a changed person, almost evil. Ludorica deserved better than such slavery. Roane’s thoughts circled round and round the same cheerless path as she trotted along. She did not believe that she was now under that curious influence the Princess had exerted on her. But neither could she turn aside from the probable dark future of Reveny and the new Queen.
Sandar pushed her into the shelter on his father’s heels and then went to gather up the distorts. Uncle Offlas paid no attention to her, but went straight to the com to look for any messages recorded during their absence. He put out a finger to flick across the top of the machine, as if that gesture could summon an answer. Roane guessed that nothing had been received.
Uncle Offlas sat down and drew out the recorder. He was about to plunge in the button when he had a clear view of the reading. Then, for the first time since they had left the cave, he turned to look at her.
“There has been a recording made.” Though that was a statement rather than a question, she answered him:
“I made it, when I returned here.” And Roane knew a very small flash of triumph. He could not erase what she had done, for that tape was locked with the sequence of others.
But he was not frowning. In fact there was a trace of interest in his expression, almost as if she had as much value as some small find.
“And what did you record—your meddling?” Still no coldness in his tone. It was as if he honestly wanted to know. Her spirits rose a little. It could well be that what she had fed into the records might have some influence on the momentous future decision. Though that could not possibly help what was passing now. She moved restlessly—the thought of Imfry as she had last seen him, wounded, bound, very much in the power of his enemy, was a constant prod to action. But how, when, and where?