Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

lashed its body, pulling him to his knees, dragging him over the ground, and still he fought.

“Damn you,” he roared in the whirling dust and snow, “hold still!”

The jaws broke. And the monster screamed once more, and then it wasn’t there. Wocha tumbled over.

Donovan fell across him, sobbing, laughing, cursing. Wocha picked him up. “You all right, boss?” he asked. “You well?”

“Yes⁠—yes⁠—oh, you blind bloody fool! You stupid, blundering ass!” Donovan hugged him.

“Gone,” said Helena. “It vanished.”

They picked up their dead and wounded and returned to the fires. The cold bit deep. Something else hooted out in the night.

It was a long time before Takahashi spoke. “You might expect it,” he said. “These parapsychical powers don’t come from nowhere. The intelligent race, our enemies of Drogobych, simply have them highly developed; the animals do to a lesser extent. I think it’s a matter of life being linked to the primary atomic probabilities, the psi functions which give the continuous-field distribution of matter-energy in space-time. In a word, control of external matter and energy by conscious will acting through the unified field which is space-time. Telekinesis.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dass wearily. “Even some humans have a slight para power. Control dice or electron beams or what have you. But why aren’t the⁠—what did you call them?⁠—Arzunians overrunning the Galaxy?”

“They can only operate over a certain range, which happens to be about the distance to the fringe stars,” said Donovan. “Beyond that distance, dispersion limits them, plus the fact that differences of potential energy must be made up from their own metabolism. The animals, of course, have very limited range, a few kilometers perhaps. The Arzunians use telekinesis to control matter and energy, and the same subspatial principles as our ships to go faster than light. Only since they aren’t lugging around a lot of hull and passengers and assorted machinery⁠—just themselves and a little air and maybe an armful of sacrificial goods from a fringe planet. They don’t need atomic engines.

“They aren’t interested in conquering the Galaxy. Why should they be? They can get all their needs and luxuries from the peoples to whom they are gods. An old race, very old, decadent if you will. But they don’t like interference.”

Takahashi looked at him sharply. “I glimpsed one of them on the ship,” he said. “He carried a spear.”

“Yeah. Another reason why they aren’t conquerors. They have no sense for mechanics at all. Never had any reason to evolve one when they could manipulate matter directly without more than the simplest tools. They’re probably more intelligent than humans in an all-around way, but they don’t have the type of brain and the concentration needed to learn physics and chemistry. Aren’t interested, either.”

“So, swords against guns⁠—We may have a chance!”

“They can turn your missiles, remember. Guns are little use, you have to distract them so they don’t notice your shot till too late. But they can’t control you. They aren’t telepaths and their type of matter-control is heterodyned by living nerve currents. You could kill one of them with a sword where a gun would most likely kill you.”

“I⁠—see⁠—” Helena looked strangely at him. “You’re becoming very vocal all of a sudden.”

Donovan rubbed his eyes and shivered in the cold. “What of it? You wanted the truth. You’re getting it.”

Why am I telling them? Why am I not just leading them to the slaughter as Valduma wanted? Is it that I can’t stand the thought of Helena being hunted like a beast?

Whose side am I on? he thought wildly.

Takahashi gestured and his voice came eager. “That’s it. That’s it! The ship scattered assorted metal and plastic over twenty hectares as she fell. Safe for us to gather up tomorrow. We can use our blaster flames to shape weapons. Swords, axes, spears. By the Galaxy, we’ll arm ourselves and then we’ll march on Drogobych!”

V

It was a strange little army, thought Donovan, as strange as any the Galaxy had ever seen.

He looked back. The old ruined highway went down a narrow valley between sheer cliffs of eroded black stone reaching up toward the deep purplish heaven. The sun was wheeling westerly, a dull red ember throwing light like clotted blood on the dreariness of rock and ice and gaunt gray trees; a few snowflakes, borne on a thin chill wind, drifted across the path of march. A lonely bird, cruel-beaked and watchful, hovered on great black wings far overhead, waiting for them to die.

The men of the Imperial Solar Navy walked close together. They were haggard and dirty and bearded, clad in such ragged articles as they had been able to salvage, armed with the crudely forged weapons of a vanished age, carrying their sick and wounded on rude litters. Ghost world, ghost army, marching through an echoing windy solitude to its unknown weird⁠—but men’s faces were still brave, and one of them was singing. The sunburst banner of the Empire flapped above them, the one splash of color in the great murky landscape.

Luck had been with them, of a sort. Game animals had appeared in more abundance than one would have thought the region could support, deer-like things which they shot for meat to supplement their iron rations. They had stumbled on the old highway and followed its arrow-straight course southward. Many days and many tumbled hollow ruins of great cities lay behind them, and still they trudged on.

Luck? wondered Donovan. I think it was intentional. I think the Arzunians want us to reach Drogobych.

He heard the scrape of boots on the slanting hillside behind him, and turned around to face Helena. He stopped and smiled. There had been a slow unspoken intimacy growing between them as they worked and struggled together. Not many words, but the eyes of each would often stray to the other, and a hand would brush over a hand as if by accident. Tired and hungry and road-stained, cap set askew on tangled hair, skin reddened by wind and blued with cold, she was still good