Nine Rarities Read online

  Rann, in a small silver skiff, headed toward land. She handled the boat and looked back at Beudag all the while. She passed through the sea-beasts and touched the shore. She lifted her hand and brought it smashing down.

  Whirling, Starke swung his fist against Beudag's jaw. Her hand was already striking the blade into her breast. Her head flopped back. His fist carried through. She fell. The blade clattered. He kicked it overboard. Then he lifted Beudag. She was warm and good to hold. The blade had only pricked her breast. A small rivulet of blood ran.

  On the shore, Rann vanished upward on the rocks, hurrying to find her men.

  In the harbor the harp music paused. The ships were taken. Their crews lay filling the decks. Crom Dhu's men stopped fighting as quickly as they'd started. Some of the bright shining had dulled from the bronze of their arms and bare torsos. The ships began to sink.

  Linnl swam below, looking up at Starke. Starke looked back at him and nodded at the beach. "Swell. Now, let's go get that she-devil," he said.

  * * *

  Faolan waited on his great stone balcony, overlooking Crom Dhu. Behind him the fires blazed high and their eating sound of flame on wood filled the pillared gloom with sound and furious light.

  Faolan leaned against the rim, his chest swathed in bandage and healing ointment, his blind eyes flickering, looking down again and again with a fixed intensity, his head tilted to listen.

  Romna stood beside him, filled and refilled the cup that Faolan emptied into his thirsty mouth, and told him what happened. Told of the men pouring out of the sea, and Rann appearing on the rocky shore. Sometimes Faolan leaned to one side, weakly, toward Romna's words. Sometimes he twisted to hear the thing itself, the thing that happened down beyond the Gate of besieged Crom Dhu.

  Romna's harp lay untouched. He didn't play it. He didn't need to. From below, a great echoing of harps, more liquid than his, like a waterfall drenched the city, making the fog sob down red tears.

  "Are those harps?" cried Faolan.

  "Yes, harps!"

  "What was that?" Faolan listened, breathing harshly, clutching for support.

  "A skirmish," said Romna.

  "Who won?"

  "We won."

  "And that?" Faolan's blind eyes tried to see until they watered.

  "The enemy falling back from the Gate!"

  "And that sound, and that sound?" Faolan went on and on, feverishly, turning this way and that, the lines of his face agonized and attentive to each eddy and current and change of tide. The rhythm of swords through fog and body was a complicated music whose themes he must recognize. "Another fell! I heard him cry. And another of Rann's men!"

  "Yes," said Romna.

  "But why do our warriors fight so quietly? I've heard nothing from their lips. So quiet."

  Romna scowled. "Quiet. Yes — quiet."

  "And where did they come from? All our men are in the city?"

  "Aye." Romna shifted. He hesitated, squinting. He rubbed his bulldog jaw. "Except those that died at — Falga."

  Faolan stood there a moment. Then he rapped his empty cup.

  "More wine, bard. More wine."

  He turned to the battle again.

  "Oh, gods, if I could see it, if I could only see it!"

  Below, a ringing crash. A silence. A shouting, a pouring of noise.

  "The Gate!" Faolan was stricken with fear. "We've lost! My sword!"

  "Stay, Faolan!" Romna laughed. Then he sighed. It was a sigh that did not believe. "In the name of ten thousand mighty gods. Would that I were blind now, or could see better."

  Faolan's hand caught, held him. "What is it? Tell!"

  "Clev! And Tlan! And Conan! And Bron! And Mannt! Standing in the gate, like wine visions! Swords in their hands!"

  Faolan's hand relaxed, then tightened. "Speak their names again, and speak them slowly. And tell the truth." His skin shivered like that of a nervous animal. "You said — Clev? Mannt? Bron?"

  "And Tlan! And Conan! Back from Falga. They've opened the Gate and the battle's won. It's over, Faolan. Crom Dhu will sleep tonight."

  Faolan let him go. A sob broke from his lips. "I will get drunk. Drunker than ever in my life. Gloriously drunk. Gods, but if I could have seen it. Been in it. Tell me again of it, Romna…"

  Faolan sat in the great hall, on his carved high-seat, waiting.

  The pad of sandals on stone outside, the jangle of chains.

  A door flung wide, red fog sluiced in, and in the sluice, people walking. Faolan started up. "Clev? Mannt? Aesur?"

  Starke came forward into the firelight. He pressed his right hand to the open mouth of wound on his thigh. "No, Faolan. Myself and two others."

  "Beudag?"

  "Yes." And Beudag came wearily to him.

  Faolan stared. "Who's the other? It walks light. It's a woman."

  Starke nodded. "Rann."

  Faolan rose carefully from his seat. He thought the name over. He took a short sword from a place beside the high seat. He stepped down. He walked toward Starke. "You brought Rann alive to me?"

  Starke pulled the chain that bound Rann. She ran forward in little steps, her white face down, her eyes slitted with animal fury.

  "Faolan's blind," said Starke. "I let you live for one damned good reason, Rann. Okay, go ahead."

  Faolan stopped walking, curious. He waited.

  Rann did nothing.

  Starke took her hand and wrenched it behind her back. "I said 'go ahead.' Maybe you didn't hear me."

  "I will," she gasped, in pain.

  Starke released her. "Tell me what happens, Faolan."

  Rann gazed steadily at Faolan's tall figure there in the light.

  Faolan suddenly threw his hands to his eyes and choked.

  Beudag cried out, seized his arm.

  "I can see!" Faolan staggered, as if jolted. "I can see!" First he shouted it, and then he whispered it. "I can see."

  Starke's eyes blurred. He whispered to Rann, tightly. "Make him see it, Rann, or you die now. Make him see it!" To Faolan: "What do you see?"

  Faolan was bewildered; he swayed. He put out his hands to shape the vision. "I–I see Crom Dhu. It's a good sight. I see the ships of Rann. Sinking!" He laughed a broken laugh. "I — see the fight beyond the gate!"

  Silence swam in the room, over their heads.

  Faolan's voice went alone, and hypnotized, into that silence.

  He put out his big fists, shook them, opened them. "I see Mannt, and Aesur and Clev! Fighting as they always fought. I see Conan as he was. I see Beudag wielding steel again, on the shore! I see the enemy killed! I see men pouring out of the sea with brown skins and dark hair. Men I knew a long darkness ago. Men that roved the sea with me. I see Rann captured!" He began to sob with it, his lungs filling and releasing it, sucking on it, blowing it out. Tears ran down from his vacant, blazing eyes. "I see Crom Dhu as it was and is and shall be! I see, I see, I see!"

  Starke felt the chill on the back of his neck.

  "I see Rann captured and held, and her men dead around her on the land before the Gate. I see the Gate thrown open—" Faolan halted. He looked at Starke. "Where are Clev and Mannt? Where is Bron and Aesur?"

  Starke let the fires burn on the hearths a long moment. Then he replied.

  "They went back into the sea, Faolan."

  Faolan's fingers fell emptily. "Yes," he said, heavily. "They had to go back, didn't they? They couldn't stay, could they? Not even for one night of food on the table, and wine in the mouth, and women in the deep warm furs before the hearth. Not even for one toast." He turned. "A drink, Romna. A drink for everyone."

  Romna gave him a full cup. He dropped it, fell down to his knees, clawed at his breast. "My heart!"

  "Rann, you sea-devil!"

  Starke held her instantly by the throat. He put pressure on the small raging pulses on either side of her snow-white neck. "Let him go, Rann!" More pressure. "Let him go!" Faolan grunted. Starke held her until her white face was dirty and strange with death.
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br />   It seemed like an hour later when he released her. She fell softly and did not move. She wouldn't move again.

  Starke turned slowly to look at Faolan.

  "You saw, didn't you, Faolan?" he said.

  Faolan nodded blindly, weakly. He roused himself from the floor, groping. "I saw. For a moment, I saw everything. And Gods! but it made good seeing! Here, Hugh-Starke-Called-Conan, gave this other side of me something to lean on."

  * * *

  Beudag and Starke climbed the mountain above Falga the next day. Starke went ahead a little way, and with his coming the flame birds scattered, glittering away.

  He dug the shallow grave and did what had to be done with the body he found there, and then when the grave was covered with thick grey stones he went back for Beudag. They stood together over it. He had never expected to stand over a part of himself, but here he was, and Beudag's hand gripped his.

  He looked suddenly a million years old standing there. He thought of Earth and the Belt and Jupiter, of the joy streets in the Jekkara Low Canals of Mars. He thought of space and the ships going through it, and himself inside them. He thought of the million credits he had taken in that last job. He laughed ironically…

  "Tomorrow, I'll have the sea creatures hunt for a little metal box full of credits." He nodded solemnly at the grave. "He wanted that. Or at least he thought he did. He killed himself getting it. So if the sea-people find it, I'll send it up here to the mountain and bury it down under the rocks in his fingers. I guess that's the best place."

  Beudag drew him away. They walked down the mountain toward Falga's harbor where a ship waited them. Walking, Starke lifted his face. Beudag was with him, and the sails of the ship were rising to take the wind, and the Red Sea waited for them to travel it. What lay on its far side was something for Beudag and Faolan-of-the-Ships and Romna and Hugh-Starke-Called-Conan to discover. He felt damned good about it. He walked on steadily, holding Beudag near.

  And on the mountain, as the ship sailed, the flame birds soared down fitfully and frustratedly to beat at the stone mound, ceased, and mourning shrilly, flew away.

  Jonah of the Jove-Run.

  Planet Stories (Spring, 1948)

  Nibley stood in the changing shadows and sounds of Marsport, watching the great supply ship TERRA being entered and left by a number of officials and mechanics. Something had happened. Something was wrong. There were a lot of hard faces and not much talk. There was a bit of swearing and everybody looked up at the night sky of Mars, waiting.

  But nobody came to Nibley for his opinion or his help. He stood there, a very old man, with a slack-gummed face and eyes like the little bubbly stalks of crayfish looking up at you from a clear creek. He stood there fully neglected. He stood there and talked to himself.

  "They don't want me, or need me," he said. "Machines are better, nowadays. Why should they want an old man like me with a taste for Martian liquor? They shouldn't! A machine isn't old and foolish, and doesn't get drunk!"

  Way out over the dead sea bottoms, Nibley sensed something moving. Part of himself was suddenly awake and sensitive. His small sharp eye moved in his withered face. Something inside of his small skull reacted and he shivered. He knew. He knew that what these men were watching and waiting for would never come.

  Nibley edged up to one of the astrogators from the TERRA. He touched him on the shoulder. "Say," he said. "I'm busy," said the astrogator. "I know," said Nibley, "but if you're waiting for that small repair rocket to come through with the extra auxiliary asteroid computator on it, you're wasting your time"

  "Like hell," said the astrogator, glaring at the old man. "That repair rocket's got to come through, and quick; we need it. It'll get here."

  "No, it won't," said Nibley, sadly, and shook his head and dosed his eyes. "It just crashed, a second ago, out on the dead sea bottom. I — felt — it crash. I sensed it going down. It'll never come through."

  "Go away, old man," said the astrogator. "I don't want to hear that kind of talk. It'll come through. Sure, sure, it has to come through." The astrogator turned away and looked at the sky, smoking a cigarette.

  "I know it as a fact," said Nibley, but the young astrogator wouldn't listen. He didn't want to hear the truth. The truth was not a pleasant thing. Nibley went on, to himself. "I know it for a fact, just like I was always able to know the course- of meteors with my mind, or the orbits or parabolas of asteroids. I tell you—"

  The men stood around waiting and smoking. They didn't know yet about the crash out there. Nibley felt a great sorrow rise in himself for them. That ship meant a great deal to them and now it had crashed. Perhaps their lives had crashed with it.

  A loud speaker on the outer area of the landing tarmac opened out with a voice: "Attention, crew of the Terra. The repair ship just radioed in a report that it has been fired upon from somewhere over the dead seas. It crashed a minute ago."

  The report was so sudden and quiet and matter-of-fact that the standing smoking men did not for a moment understand it.

  Then, each in his own way, they reacted to it. Some of them ran for the radio building to verify the report. Others sat down and put their hands over their, faces. Still more of them stood staring at the sky as if staring might put the repair ship back together again and get it here safe and intact. Instinctively, at last, all of them looked up at the sky.

  Jupiter was there, with its coterie of moons, bright and far away. Part of their lives lived on Jupiter. Most of them had children and wives there and certain duties to perform to insure the longevity of said children and wives. Now, with the speaking of a few words over a loudspeaker, the distance to Jupiter was suddenly an immense impossibility.

  The captain of the Rocket Terra walked across the field slowly. He stopped several times to try and light a cigarette, but the night wind blew it out. He stood in the rocket shadow and looked up at Jupiter and swore quietly, again and again and finally threw down his cigarette and heeled it with his shoe.

  Nibley walked up and stood beside the captain.

  "Captain Kroll…"

  Kroll turned. "Oh, hello, Grandpa—"

  "Tough luck."

  "Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's what you'd call it. Tough luck."

  "You're going to take off anyway, Captain?"

  "Sure," said Kroll quietly, looking at the sky. "Sure."

  "How's the protective computator on board your ship?"

  "Not so hot. Bad, in fact. It might conk out before we get half way through the asteroids."

  "That's not good," said Nibley.

  "It's lousy. I feel sick. I need a drink. I wish I was dead. I wish we'd never started this damned business of being damned pioneers. My family's up there!" He jerked his hand half way to Jupiter, violently. He settled down and tried to light another cigarette. No go. He threw it down after the other.

  "Can't get through the asteroids without an asteroid computator to protect you, without that old radar set-up, captain," said Nibley, blinking wetly. He shuffled his small feet around in the red dust.

  "We had an auxiliary computator on that repair ship coming from Earth," said Kroll, standing there. "And it had to crash."

  "The Martians shoot it down, you think?"

  "Sure. They don't like us going up to Jupiter. They got claims there, too. They'd like to see our colony die out. Best way to kill a colony is starve the colony. Starve the people. That means my family and lots of families. Then when you starve out the families the Martians can step in and take over, damn their filthy souls!"

  * * *

  Kroll fell silent. Nibley shifted around. He walked around in front of Kroll so Kroll would see him. "Captain?"

  Kroll didn't even look at him.

  Nibley said, "Maybe I can help."

  "You?"

  "You heard about me, captain! You heard about me."

  "What about you?"

  "You can't wait a month for another auxiliary computator to come through from Earth. You got to push off tonight, to Jupiter, to get t
o your family and the colony and all that, captain, sure!" Nibley was hasty, he sort of fidgeted around, his voice high, and excited. "An' if your only computator conks out in the middle of the asteroids, well, you know what that means. Bang! No more ship! No more you. No more colony on Jupiter! Now, you know about me, my ability, you know, you heard."

  Kroll was cool and quiet and far away. "I heard about you, old man. I heard lots. They say you got a funny brain and do things machines can't do. I don't know. I don't like the idea."

  "But you got to like the idea, captain. I'm the only one can help you now!"

  "I don't trust you. I heard about your drinking that time and wrecking that ship. I remember that."

  "But I'm not drinking now. See. Smell my breath, go ahead! You see?"

  Kroll stood there. He looked at the ship and he looked at the sky and then at Nibley. Finally he sighed. "Old man, I'm leaving right now. I might just as well take you along as leave you. You might do some good. What can I lose?"

  "Not a damned thing, Captain, and you won't be sorry," cried Nibley.

  "Step lively, then!"

  They went to the Rocket, Kroll running, Nibley hobbling along after.

  Trembling excitedly, Nibley stumbled into the Rocket. Everything had a hot mist over it. First time on a rocket in— ten years, by god. Good. Good to be aboard again. He smelled it. It smelled fine. It felt fine. Oh, it was very fine indeed. First time since that trouble he got into off the planet Venus…he brushed that thought away. That was over and past.

  He followed Kroll up through the ship to a small room in the prow.

  Men ran up and down the rungs. Men who had families out there on Jupiter and were willing to go through the asteroids with a faulty radar set-up to reach those families and bring them the necessary cargo of machinery and food they needed to go on.

  Out of a warm mist, old Nibley heard himself being introduced to a third man in the small room.

  "Douglas, this is Nibley, our auxiliary computating machine."

  "A poor time for joking, Captain."