Firehand # with Pauline M. Griffin Read online

  "Welcome, Lady," Ashe said, as was his right as the humans' leader. "You heard our discussion?"

  "In part," she answered in the lilting cadences of her kind's verbal speech.

  Ynvalda turned to Murdock. He could feel a shadow of amusement, provoked by his annoyance, but her voice and what he could read of her expression were serious when she spoke. "You need have no fear for our sister," she assured him. "She can protect herself and will pass through none of your people's gates."

  "Unless she chooses to do so," he responded quietly.

  The Foanna measured him for a moment. "You are right, Younger Brother," she said softly. "That decision is hers alone. I accept the rebuke."

  Ashe released the breath he had been holding. More and more frequently, Ross rose above himself, most often when the rights of others were involved. "I'll speak with her when she comes ashore," he promised, "though I think we can all be fairly sure of her answer, and that of the dolphins as well."

  Gordon's eyes narrowed even as he fought to control the hope surging within him. "You have some news for us, Lady?" It required a surprisingly strong effort of will to hold his voice steady when he asked that. The thought of home, of Terra, was an ache filling all his being…

  She slowly inclined her head in assent. "I do. The gate has formed and should open shortly, but whether it will be to admit friends or foes, that no mortal on this side of it can know or deduce."

  3

  ROSS MURDOCK CROUCHED low behind a tall, broken stone column, his heart slamming in his breast. He licked his lips with a tongue nearly as dry and clutched his weapon more tightly still with hands that already ached with the pressure of his grip.

  If the Baldies came through, they would have a fraction-second only to beat them back, throw them off balance until the Foanna could bring their stronger powers to bear. Human enemies could pose an even greater problem…

  The grid formed. It was the well-remembered pattern and proclaimed that the equipment being used to generate it, at least, had originated with their own people.

  A single, slender figure took form. The newcomer was small and seemed shorter still as he crouched down, trying to minimize the target he presented to anyone waiting to cut him down.

  The target she presented. Ross's lips parted in a surprise that would have been ludicrous had anyone removed their eyes from the gate to notice him. Although she was technically an agent, this was one of the last people he would have expected to walk out of the future to collect them.

  The woman steeled herself and straightened. "Doctor Ashe, Murdock, Trehern, in the name of whatever, don't shoot me," she said with only the barest undertone of uncertainty to betray the fact that she was not perfectly at ease.

  "All right, Miss Riordan," Gordon called out, "come on through… Who else is with you?"

  "No one. I'm it."

  Eveleen looked about her and caught sight of the younger agent at once. "Ross Murdock!" She held out her hand to him. "I am glad to see you again. Both of you," she added, "but I never had the privilege of teaching you, Doctor Ashe, and so I don't know you quite as well."

  Ross pressed her hand warmly before releasing it. Right then, he thought she was about the loveliest sight he had ever beheld, or, rather, Eveleen Riordan and that glorious, functioning gate together were.

  Not that the weapons instructor was not beautiful in her own right with great brown, heavily lashed eyes set in almost too delicately wrought features and crowned by light chestnut hair that set off perfectly her softly pale Celtic complexion. She was small and slight, beautifully formed, and she moved with the grace of a dancer. At this moment, though, it was all she represented and the fact that hers was a familiar face that drew him so powerfully, not any physical perfection.

  Suddenly, the ease and open pleasure left the newcomer. She stiffened and whirled to face the three Foanna, her eyes flashing as if in preparation for war. "Pull back!" she snapped. "Get away from my mind, now, and keep away!"

  "Hold on, Miss Riordan," Ashe intervened hastily. "These are the Foanna. They're our allies, our friends."

  Ross straightened. He, for one, could fully appreciate the weapons expert's reaction to the on-worlders' peculiar form of interrogation. "Leave her alone!" He altered his tone quickly, although there had been more of plea than command in it. "Give her a few minutes, Great Ones. We do know her."

  "Peace, Younger Brother. The Young Sister has our welcome."

  Eveleen moved closer to Murdock. She faced the Foanna, endeavoring to hold the appearance of confidence despite her racing heart. "My apology, Great Ones," she said meekly, "but we humans regard our thoughts and feelings as our own. We cannot readily endure the invasion of our minds, whatever the purpose, the more particularly since we are not accustomed to the experience."

  Ynlan smiled. "It is so with the Younger Brother as well. Be at ease. Your minds are alike in that we cannot penetrate their shields, although yours inflicts more pain in your refusal of us."

  "Thank you for that understanding, Great One." The Terran woman looked around. "Where's Karara?"

  "There was trouble here with the Baldies," Ashe told her quickly. "Unfortunately, Karara didn't make it."

  Eveleen's smile reached her eyes. "She has a remarkably active ghost in that event."

  Before he could question that remark, the Lady Yngram, the third of the Foanna, intervened. "You knew us and what to expect from us, Young Sister. How can that be?"

  The Terran glanced mischievously at Gordon. "From records left by Karara, Lady. She gave a detailed account of all that occurred here plus information on what to expect when a fullblown Hawaikan civilization suddenly appeared where none had been before. She also left instructions for your people on how to conduct themselves with us. Terrans' record of our dealings with peoples of different cultures on our own world is abominable," she added bluntly.

  Eveleen shrugged. "As I said before, we don't like anyone meddling with our minds. With the Baldies' known powers in that line, we'd been working on finding and training people to fight such assault or at least to hold their own against it. When we learned of your abilities as well, it was decided that I might be the best one to send back here. At least, I was the best available on short notice."

  "It was a wise choice," the Lady Ynvalda assured her. "You are strong, Young Sister." She hesitated. "You only mention reading of the Foanna. Are we…"

  The Time Agent shook her head. "No, Great One, unfortunately not, though your memory is highly honored. There is a fierce long age between this time and that future."

  "Can you tell us when? Or how?"

  The human nodded. "If you really want to know, Lady," she replied reluctantly.

  The Foanna said nothing for a moment. "No. You are right, Young Sister. It is best that those who are set upon life's journey do not know the hour or manner of its culmination."

  Eveleen turned her attention once more to Ashe. "You'll have to produce Karara, Doctor. There can't be any thought of our taking her back—it's four Foanna, not three, that Hawaika honors—but I must speak with her. She has to know precisely what she must record for us and for her adopted people."

  "She won't be staying alone," Murdock informed her.

  "Hardly. Hawaika's oceans of the future are filled with highly intelligent dolphins who communicate both orally and mentally with their land-dwelling placesharers. To take Tinorau and Taua would be to doom that sentient race to nonexistence."

  Ynvalda nodded. "It shall be as you will. Our sister will not gainsay you in this."

  The Foanna turned to the two men. "Would you like to speak with your Young Sister alone?" she asked them.

  "If you please, Lady," Ross answered before Ashe could reply. "Miss Riordan probably has news of our own people which we are eager to hear and maybe a new assignment for us as well."

  "That is so, Great One," Eevleen confirmed. "There's nothing we need to conceal from you, and I'm at complete liberty to speak before you if you so wish, but little of wha
t I have to say concerns Hawaika, past or future. You may enter my mind to determine if I'm talking the truth. I think I can lower my shields for you if I'm willing."

  "No need, Eevleen," she replied, her accent making a song of the name. "You radiate truth. Neither we nor ours will suffer for our leaving ye at this time. —When ye are done here, we shall bring Karara to you. Until then, farewell, and, again, welcome, Young Sister."

  The Foanna drew together. A mist seemed to gather around them, concealing them from the Terrans' sight. When it cleared once more, they were gone.

  4

  MURDOCK WATCHED THEM go with his usual sense of relief, then turned to the Terran woman.

  She gave him a wry smile. "Those three're even spookier than I'd imagined they'd be."

  "They're all right. They're good to have on one's side in a fight, and they pay their dues when it comes to putting everything up for stakes when they must."

  Ross was mildly surprised at himself for that defense, but already it seemed to him that Hawaika was history, his history. There was a future ahead of him again, and somehow he did not imagine it was going to be either simple or easy. It was not even worth dreaming that it might be safe. That was simply not part of a Time Agent's job.

  His pale eyes fixed the newcomer. "All right, Eveleen. Spill it."

  Gordon frowned. "What's wrong, Ross?"

  "That's for her to say." He caught himself. "Sorry, Eveleen. I didn't mean to put you on the rack, but you are, or were, an instructor, not an active agent. Besides, they'd have to have a damn good reason for sending anyone except one of the brains with a big degree or one of the ranking brass on what should be a pick-up trip like this, however much they want to try out your mental resistance. To my way of thinking, that means trouble."

  She sighed. "Trouble in spades," she agreed, "though not for Hawaika. I was given the job more because of my weapons skills than any unproven ability to withstand a mind takeover."

  "Let's sit and make ourselves comfortable," the older man suggested. "This sounds like it'll take a while."

  "It will, I'm afraid."

  Eveleen Riordan looked from one to the other of them. "You five turned out to be a full deck of wild cards, altering history in a major sense. For Hawaika, the result couldn't have been better, but the ramifications of the change went farther, and a planet called Dominion of the Sun-Star Virgin has less reason to be grateful for your efforts.

  "When we got there originally, we found a world of large cities and rich farms and a human population who themselves had a form of interstellar drive and who had colonized all seven of their system's planets plus several of those belonging to the stars nearest them. They also had developed transceiving equipment that makes communication between star systems as easy and clear as we get on the phone back home on Terra.

  "Their drive's not as good as the Baldies'. It's much slower, and people who make the journey out of Virgin's system generally go only one way. That's what's held them back from pushing even farther. Of greater interest to us, though, is the fact that they actually do their own flying rather than depend on journey tapes. That we want to learn from them as soon as possible and are making it part of the trade deal we're setting up with them, or we were setting up, to be more precise."

  Her face clouded. "Our settlers on Hawaika had a whole civilization appear out of nowhere. Those of us visiting Dominion of Virgin found themselves equally suddenly standing on a cinder."

  Gordon's eyes closed. "Lord of Time," he whispered.

  "Baldies?" Ross hissed.

  She nodded curtly. "Apparently. They must've hit the place with everything they had. Not so much as a spore or cell of algae remained when they left."

  The arms expert leaned forward. "They had it in for the planet anyway. According to Dominion's old history, the Baldies tried to stage an invasion, but it came some four hundred years later, and by then the locals were able to see to their own defense."

  "How?" Murdock asked.

  "A form of mental attack that left the entire assault force utterly mindless. It wasn't pretty, apparently, but it was merited."

  "How did our work on Hawaika change that?" Ashe asked.

  "We've only got our probability and possibility scenarios to go on, but we think the ship you drove from Hawaika reported that her company had been whipped by definitely off-world humans before she disappeared entirely. Either Dominion was discovered shortly thereafter and was immediately blasted as a precaution, or else they decided to give her destruction greater priority than it had formerly enjoyed. They hit her harder and somewhat sooner in her new history."

  "You keep mentioning the locals as being human. Are they, were they, so much like us?"

  "That's part of the tragedy as far as we're concerned. They could actually be us."

  "Terrans?" he asked incredulously.

  "Possibly. Way back in their history, but well within the scientific era, the Dominionites had discovered some sort of time capsule indicating that their far ancestors had been transplanted there from another planet.

  "Given the admittedly incomplete information supplied to us, we think another race, definitely not our Baldy acquaintances, reached Terra just at the time homo sapiens was starting to spread widely and lifted a few tribes, brought them to Dominion, and then artificially advanced their civilization before vanishing themselves. Possibly, they fell victim to the Baldies.

  "Anyway, Dominion was already using iron and its population was beginning to unite in small towns and states while we were still in the Bronze Age."

  "And they hadn't gotten any farther with star flight than you say?" Murdock demanded.

  She looked at him. "They developed it, friend. No one handed them a working ship to copy. Besides, they had other things to occupy them. They didn't pull straight along a high-tech line the way we have, for one thing. They moved on the mental and spiritual fronts as well, and they concentrated a long while on developing and working with the planets of their own solar system, which they managed to fully utilize without raping. Also, they followed a considerably more pacific history than ours starting shortly after what they had instead of a proper feudal period. Advances didn't come nearly as quickly without the immediacy of major wars to drive them."

  "Hold up," Ashe interjected. "You said they developed their own interstellar drive. Why didn't they just take the Baldies' ideas the way we did? They had a whole fleet of ships to our one."

  "They weren't technologically advanced enough to appreciate, much less make use of, that bounty. They just destroyed what they took. Their scientists have cursed that folly ever since, but it enabled them to go their own way, including freeing themselves from slavery to the tapes."

  Ross looked at them both impatiently. "Be that as it might, are we supposed to somehow chase off an entire Baldy murder fleet?"

  "No, that we are not. The Dominionites have to wage and win that fight entirely on their own. Under no circumstances whatsoever are we to reveal our presence as aliens, not to the invaders and not even to the locals."

  "Why?" Something in the way she said that, in the way she looked as she said it, sent the chill of his own grave through his spirit.

  "The Baldies know there are humans, albeit primitive humans, on Terra. We've survived the return of Hawaika and the destruction of Dominion untouched, probably because neither was our own history. That might not prove to be the case if they took it into those oversized heads of theirs to play it safe and serve us the way they did Dominion, which they well might do if they found themselves thwarted by off-world humans yet again."

  "We have to let her die, then?" Murdock asked sullenly.

  Suddenly his head raised in anger. "We're not expected to go back and undo everything, kill Hawaika?"

  "No!" She gripped herself. It had been a savage question, but it was a logical one. "We're not planning to leave Dominion to her fate, either."

  "We've worked out a way to prevent that?" Ashe demanded tightly. It was more statement than inquiry
. If the brass had not, it would have been pointless to carry this discussion so far, or to mention the disaster at all, at least at this time.

  "We have, or at least the possibility of a solution. A lot depends on chance." The woman leaned forward, more deadly serious than she had been even while describing Dominion of Virgin's death. "Everything hinges on the native populace's developing their mental weapon in time to beat off the Baldies' assault. They had it in their old history. This time they did not. Something blocked its development."

  Ross's eyes narrowed. "We're going to rewrite their history yet again, remove that block?"

  "We're going to try damn hard. You wild cards did it for Hawaika. Now we're about to attempt to give Dominion similar service."

  "We've found what looks like the crux point in a minor local war that took place seven hundred ten years ago, our present time. If the outcome of that can be altered properly, we should be able to leave the rest to the Dominionites."

  Eveleen drew two maps from the wide document pouch on her belt. The first showed eight large bodies of land set in six expanses of water, all of which were peppered as well with nigh unto innumerable islands.

  She pointed to one of the latter lying about two hundred fifty miles off the northwestern coast of the largest continent. "Not much to look at, is it? A little lump of real estate like that, and the entire life of the planet hangs on the outcome of an ancient struggle for control of it."

  She lay the second map on top of the first, this one a detailed study of the disputed isle. "Here's our battleground."

  "Glacier country," Gordon observed. The pattern of highlands and valleys would have made that almost a certainty on Terra, and the discoveries already made among the stars indicated that natural forces were at least similar on planets of the same basic type.

  "Yes, by the look of it. You can see from the legend that altitudes are somewhat higher on the average than in such ranges at home, but it's beautiful country.

  "The northern quarter's considerably rougher than the rest. The mountains are taller and wilder with narrow, rocky valleys separating them. The soil's reasonably good, though there's not a great deal of it, and water's plentiful, as it is throughout the whole island. The south has fewer really steep heights, and the valleys are broad and extremely fertile."