Queen of the Martian Catacombs Engraved Page 4

convulsive tremor shook her. Then she lay still.

  The girl swayed and then fell forward also, with a clashing of chains.

  The light died out of the crowns. Kynyn stood a moment longer, rigid as a statue, holding the rod which still flickered with blue lightning. Then that also died.

  Kynyn lowered the rod. In a ringing voice she cried, 'Arise, Grandfather!'

  The girl stirred. Slowly, very slowly, she rose to her feet. Holding out her hands, she stared at them, and then touched her thighs, and her flat belly, and the deep curve of her bosom .

  Up the firm young throat the wondering fingers went, to the smooth cheeks, to the thick fair hair above the crown. A cry broke from her.

  With the perfect accent of the Drylands, the Earth girl cried in Martian, 'I am in the youth's body! I am young again!'

  A scream, a wail of ecstasy, burst from the crowd. It swayed like a great beast, white faces turned upward. The girl fell down and embraced Kynyn's knees.

  Erica Joan Stark found that she herself was trembling slightly. The Valkisian wore a look of intense satisfaction under her mask of awe. The others were almost as rapt and open-mouthed as the crowd.

  Stark turned her head slightly and looked down at the litter. One white hand was already drawing the curtains, so that the scarlet silk appeared to shake with silent laughter.

  The serving boy beside it had not moved. Still he looked up at Kynyn, and there was nothing in his eyes but hate.

  After that there was bedlam, the rush and trample of the crowd, the beating of drums, the screaming of pipes, deafening uproar. The crowns and the crystal rod were wrapped again and taken away. Kynyn raised up the girl and struck off the chains of captivity. She mounted, with the girl beside her. Delgauna walked before her through the streets, and so did the outlanders.

  The body of the old woman was disregarded, except by some of Kynyn's barbarians who wrapped it in a white cloth and took it away.

  Kynyn of Shun came in triumph to Delgauna's palace. Standing beside the litter, she gave her hand to the man, who stepped out and walked beside her through the bronze door.

  The men of Shun are tall and strong, bred to stand beside their women in war as well as love, and this red-haired daughter of the Drylands was enough to stop a woman's heart with his proud step and his white shoulders, and his eyes that were the colour of smoke. Stark's gaze followed his from a distance.

  Presently in the council room were gathered Delgauna and the outlanders, Kynyn and her bright-haired king – and no other Martians but those three.

  Kynyn sprawled out in the high seat at the head of the table. Her face was beaming. She wiped the sweat off it, and then filled a goblet with wine, looking around the room with her bright blue eyes.

  'Fill up, gentlemen. I'll give you a toast.' She lifted the goblet. 'Here's to the secret of the Ramas, and the gift of life!'

  Stark put down her goblet, still empty. She stared directly at Kynyn.

  'You have no secret,' said Stark deliberately.

  Kynyn sat perfectly still, except that, very slowly, she put her own goblet down. Nobody else moved.

  Stark's voice sounded loud in the stillness.

  'Furthermore,' she said, 'that demonstration in the square was a lie from beginning to end.'

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  Stark's words had the effect of an electric shock on the listeners. Delgauna's black brows went up, and the man came forward a little to stare at the Earthwoman with profound interest.

  Kynyn asked a question, of nobody in particular. 'Who,' she demanded, 'is this great black ape?'

  Delgauna told her.

  'Ah, yes,' said Kynyn. 'Erica Joan Stark, the wild woman from Mercury.' She scowled threateningly. 'Very well – explain how I lied in the square!'

  'Certainly. First of all, the Earth girl was a prisoner. She was told what she had to do to save her neck, and then was carefully coached in her part. Secondly, the crystal rod and the crowns are a fake. You used a simple Purcell unit in the rod to produce an electronic brush discharge. That made the blue light. Thirdly, you gave the old woman poison, probably by means of a sharp point on the crown. I saw her wince when you put it on her.'

  Stark paused. 'The old woman died. The girl went through her sham. And that was that.'

  Again there was a flat silence. Luhara crouched over the table, her face avid with hope. The man's eyes dwelt on Stark and did not turn away.

  Then, suddenly, Kynyn laughed. She roared with it until the tears ran.

  'It was a good show, though,' she said at last. 'Damned good. You'll have to admit that. The crowd swallowed it, horns, hoof and hide.'

  She got up and came round to Stark, clapping her on the shoulder, a blow that would have laid a lesser woman flat.

  'I like you, wild woman. Nobody else here had the guts to speak out, but I'll give you odds they were all thinking the same thing.'

  Stark said, 'Just where were you, Kynyn, during those years you were supposed to be suffering alone in the desert?'

  'Curious, aren't you? Well, I'll let you in on a secret.' Kynyn lapsed abruptly into perfectly good colloquial English. 'I was on Terra, learning about things like the Purcell electronic discharge.'

  Reaching over, she poured wine for Stark and held it out to her. 'Now you know. Now we all know. So let's wash the dust out of our throats and get down to business.'

  Stark said, 'No.'

  Kynyn looked at her. 'What now?'

  'You're lying to your people,' Stark said flatly. 'You're making false promises, to lead them into war.'

  Kynyn was genuinely puzzled by Stark's anger. 'But of course!' she said. 'Is there anything new or strange in that?'

  Luhara spoke up, her voice acid with hate. 'Watch out for her, Kynyn. She'll sell you out, she'll cut your throat, if she thinks it best for the barbarians.'

  Delgauna said, 'Stark's reputation is known all over the system. There's no need to tell us that again.'

  'No.' Kynyn shook her head, looking very candidly at Stark. 'We sent for you, didn't we, knowing that? All right.'

  She stepped back a little, so that the others were included in what she was going to say.

  'My people have a just cause for war. They go hungry and thirsty, while the City-States along the Dryland Border hog all the water sources and grow fat. Do you know what it means to watch your children die crying for water on a long march, to come at last to the oasis and find the well sanded in by a storm, and go on again, trying to save your people and your herd? Well, I do! I was born and bred in the Drylands, and many a time I've cursed the border states with a tongue like a dry stick.

  'Stark, you should know the workings of the barbarian mind as well as I do. The women of Kesh and Shun are traditional enemies. Raiding and thieving, open warfare over water and grass. I had to give them a rallying point – a faith strong enough to unite them. Resurrecting the Rama legend was the only hope I had.

  'And it has worked. The tribes are one people now. They can go on and take what belongs to them – the right to live. I'm not really so far out in my promises, at all. Now do you understand?'

  Stark studied her, with her cold cat-eyes. 'Where do the women of Valkis come in – the women of Jekkara and Barakesh? Where do we come in, the hired bravoes?'

  Kynyn smiled. It was a perfectly sincere smile, and it had no humour in it, only a great pride and a cheerful cruelty.

  'We're going to build an empire,' she said softly. 'The City-States are disorganised, too starved or too fat to fight. And Earth is taking us over. Before long, Mars will be hardly more than another Luna.

  'We're going to fight that. Drylander and Low-Canaller together, we're going to build a power out of dust and blood – and there will be loot in plenty to go round.'

  'That's where my women come in,' said Delgauna, and laughed. 'We low-Canallers live by rapine.'

  'And you,' said Kynyn, 'the hired bravoes', are in it to help. I need you and the Venusian, Stark, to train my women, to plan campaigns, to give me all you know of
guerrilla fighting. Knighton has a fast cruiser. She'll bring us supplies from outside. Walsh is a genius, they tell me, at fashioning weapons. Themis is a mechanic, and also the cleverest thief this side of hell – saving your presence, Delgauna! Arrod organised and bossed the Sisterhood of the Little Worlds, which had the Space Patrol going mad for years. She can do the same for us. So there you have it. Now, Stark, what do you say?'

  The Earthwoman answered slowly, 'I'll go along with you – as long as no harm comes to the tribes.'

  Kynyn laughed. 'No need to worry about that.'

  'Just one more question,' Stark said. 'What's going to happen when the people find out that this Rama stuff is just a myth?'

  'They won't,' said Kynyn. 'The crowns will be destroyed in battle, and it will be very tragic, but very final. No one knows how to make more of them. Oh, I can handle the people! They'll be happy enough, with good land and water.'

  She looked around then and said plaintively, 'And now can we sit down and drink like civilised women?'

  They sat. The wine went round, and the vultures of Valkis drank to each other's luck and loot, and Stark learned that the man's name was Berild.

  Kynyn was happy. She had made her point with the people, and she was celebrating. But Stark noticed that though her tongue grew thick, it did not loosen.

  Luhara grew steadily more morose and silent, glancing covertly across the table at Stark. Delgauna toyed with her goblet, and her yellow gaze which gave nothing away moved restlessly between Berild and Stark.

  Berild drank not at all. He sat a little apart, with his face in shadow, and