These Savage Futurians Page 3

  At the same time, inland, another group of men had already received orders to pick Ventnor up.

  There were six in the patrol but it did not look like a patrol. It looked, as it was intended to, like a hunting party. The men were bearded, their clothing tattered and make-shift and their limbs, although bronzed had been artificially stained to suggest ingrained dirt.

  All the men carried weapons, most of them knives and clumsy-looking cross-bows.

  The leader, however, carried a short cutting spear which, after a cautious look round, he pushed point first into the soil.

  “Patrol G for George,” he said to the end of the spear.

  He waited and the spear spoke: “Receiving you, George—map reference, please.”

  The leader gave it and the spear said: “Hum, you won’t intercept our bird from there.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Around fourteen stroke five or, to save you looking it up, just leaving what used to be Lydden. I’m very much afraid you’ll have to trek to Hubel’s Kingdom and make peace signs.”

  “Thanks for nothing. They don’t always recognize them.”

  “Peary, we want this man badly. Not only is he a specimen but he’s shed his disc. If necessary trade your top goods, blind King Hubel with science, but get him I”

  “Will try—out.” Peary pulled the spear out of the ground and grinned twistedly. “We’ve got a mission, boys— Hubel’s Kingdom.”

  “The specimen—is he that important?”

  “Genetically and biologically I suppose he is.”

  “You hope he is.” Puttick was scowling. “This patrol always gets the dirt.”

  “And that bloody great hill,” said one of his companions, sourly. “Why do we always have to be near Charing?”

  They looked upwards.

  Charing Hill was not a big hill, not really a steep climb, but years ago there had been a lot of fighting on those slopes. Time had wiped away the scars of battle, stunted trees and coarse grass covered the churned soil, but other things remained. There were still snap-traps, chase-mines and micro-cannons. True, there was a safe path but it wound up and down and in and out until you thought it was never going to end. There were also creatures, the creatures were quite harmless but repulsive. In short, they made you sick to look at them.…

  3

  It was twilight when Ventnor and his companion reached the top of the long winding hill. Berman, obviously exhausted and weak from loss of blood had to stop frequently to rest.

  Finally he said: “Thank God—this way.”

  There was a round hole in a grassy bank and they crawled into it. Inside it was still another hole, but wider and deeper. The earth walls were held from collapse by some ancient tree trunks and some plastic boarding.

  In the fading light Ventnor saw that it contained a large bin of tubers and a tub of reasonably clean drinking water. Beyond were two straw-filled palliasses.

  Herman drank greedily of the water, helped himself to three or four tubers and crawled to the nearest palliasse. “God, I’m gowed! Sleep for a hundred years.”

  Ventnor, drank, ate three tubers and lay down himself. But before he could relax, the earth jerked and shivered beneath him.

  He sat bolt upright. “What was that!”

  “What?” Berman sounded half asleep.

  “The ground shook.”

  “Oh—yeah—yeah. You don’t know, do you? Not to worry —one of the repeaters. Elham Valley or Barham.”

  “Repeaters?”

  “Oh, brother! Look, well pass one tomorrow, tell—about it—then—” Berman’s voice trailed away and he began to snore.

  Strangely it was Ventnor who had to be wakened at dawn.

  “Come on, boy, rouse up. It’s daylight.”

  As they left the artificial cave, the ground shook again but Berman made no comment.

  They walked steadily, if windingly along level ground and Ventnor, glancing back, could just glimpse the pile of ruin on the hilltop which he had passed the day before.

  “What was that place?” He pointed.

  “Them ruins? Sage says it used to be a castle—sort of fort—story is that the Indoes made a last stand there.”

  “Castle? Indoes?”

  “Oh Gawd! Forget it, will you.”

  “Who is Sage?”

  “Oh Gawd twice over! Sage is our wise-man—can you follow that?”

  “Yes, that I understand.”

  “I’ll chalk it up and you leave it, eh? We’ve a long way to go.”

  They came to a half-dead tree, leaning sideways curiously, its upper branches torn and blackened.

  Berman made a gesture. “We turn off here, skirt round. If there’s a flash, drop fast.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “How do you get by in the villages? Listen, if I shout drop flat, you throw yourself down as fast as you can—clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Come on then.” He led the way at right angles to the road they had been following. It led across churned and blackened soil. Pale-looking grass, moss and a profusion of sickly-looking white toadstools existed in sunken hollows but on level ground it looked as if the vegetation had been burned away.

  Suddenly the bright rising sun seemed to flicker curiously and Berman shouted: “Drop!”

  Ventnor, already ‘on edge’ flung himself full length so heavily that he hurt his ribs. As he did so a searing blue-green light seemed to fill his eyes and there was an ear-splitting noise like the slamming of a gigantic door. There was a gust of burning air which rushed above him and a hail of fragments peppered his body. Something huge and heavy struck the ground a bare forty paces away.

  Berman rolled over, sat upright and brushed dust, twigs and lumps of blackened soil from his clothing.

  “All right, you can get up now but watch it. We could be safe for hours or it could blow again in the next thirty paces. They can’t be timed and they don’t give no warning, repeaters don’t.”

  Ventnor stood cautiously upright. “What was it?”

  “There you got me, boy. Blows every so often, sometimes twice a day, sometimes twenty. Sage says the Indoes put them there to stop the Engineers, there’s another in the Elham valley. Didn’t do them no good, I hear, the Engineers came up the coast at night in a fleet of boats and took them in the rear.”

  Ventnor shook his head. The words ‘Indoes’ and ‘Engineers’ were meaningless to him, but he was beginning to get the drift. “Then the Indoes hid in the castle?”

  “More or less, boy. They made their last stand there but the Engineers blew it down on their heads.”

  “What was it all about; what did they do it for?”

  “I’m a soldier, I wouldn’t know. Lot of tales about this and that. See Sage when you’re settled in. Sage knows it all and Sage likes to talk, Sage does. Job to stop once he gets going.”

  Gradually they left the blackened area behind them and then, far ahead, on the top of the low hill, there was a series of bright flashes.

  “Hello, they’ve seen us.” Berman sounded pleased. “Signal flashes they are. Won’t be long now before we meet a patrol.”

  He was right. Less than twenty minutes later, three bearded men suddenly rose from a hollow at the side of the broken road. All carried bows and the leader held a slender lance.

  “Who goes?”

  “Reccy Lieuty Berman.”

  “Password.”

  “Dawn.”

  “You’re a day out of date, Lieuty. Lucky I know you by sight—who is the intruder?”

  “Village boy. Saved me skin, he did.” Berman went into long and elaborate details.

  The others listened, looking curiously and somewhat doubtfully at Ventnor.

  When he had finished, the leader nodded. “Better send a message—tell ‘em you’re coming.” He held up his hand and the small mirror he held flickered briefly.

  From a low hill some distance away came an answering flash. “Right, he’s receiving.” The
patrol leader made a motion with the lance. “Right, pass friends.”

  They walked on, apparently by themselves, but Ventnor had the uncomfortable feeling that they were surrounded and under constant observation.

  Just after noon they climbed a long hill, descended slowly, climbed again and, at the summit, Ventnor, staring ahead, came to an abrupt halt.

  At first he had to convince himself that what he saw was a building and not, as he had at first supposed, a peculiarly shaped hill. He had never seen anything but a single floored hut and the structure he was looking at dazed him. It seemed to reach the sky and—he could find no suitable words for the building, but it stilled him strangely both by its beauty and its immensity. The tall spires against the pale blue of the afternoon sky filled him with superstitious awe and unfamiliar humility.

  “Come on.” Berman tugged at his arm. “What’s up?”

  “That—that huge hut—what is it?”

  “Hut—hut? Oh, my Gawd!” Berman suddenly burst out laughing. “That ain’t no hut, boy, that’s the Feederal.”

  “Feederal? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s just the Feederal, mate, Canterbury Feederal. Only building standing in the Kingdom, the only old building that is. Reckon it was left alone because it’s haunted.”

  “What is flaunted’?”

  “Can’t tell you proper. It’s just that behind the walls things drift around, things which ain’t got no body. They’re there but you can see right through ‘em, like mist they are. Cold winds rush at you from nowhere on a sweating hot day and sometimes you can hear people singing, sad like, a long way away.”

  He shivered. “Come on! Hubel doesn’t like waiting, Hubel doesn’t.”

  They went on and finally came to a huge and broken wall. Beneath it and stretching away into the distance were rows of crude huts. The slender spires of what Berman called the Feederal seemed to look down on them sadly and almost with compassion.

  An armed escort emerged from the hutments and conducted them back.

  “When we meet the King, let me do the talking.” Berman sounded confident. “Oh, and yeah, when he speaks to you, you call him Sire, got that? Ah, there he is—”

  Only many months later did Ventnor realize that the self-styled king was something of a character with a unique if primitive philosophy.

  At first sight, Hubel was anything but prepossessing. Hubel had once seen a picture of a clean-shaven man and had been trying ever since to acquire a similar smoothness of face. As all he possessed to achieve it was an ancient pair of scissors, he wore a hacked and uneven black stubble.

  He had little black eyes, a flattened land of nose and thick red lips. He looked ferocious but laughed frequently.

  King Hubel, despite the summer heat, wore a 1917 tin hat, shorts, two singlets, and a thick plastic raincoat. Slung over his shoulder by a strap was, Ventnor learned later, a highly polished Ross rifle, vintage nineteen hundred.

  Hubel listened attentively while Berman, with a great deal of gesticulation, described the events leading up to their arrival.

  When he had finished, Hubel made an imperious gesture with his hand. “Come here, you.”

  “Sire?” Ventnor had decided that it would be wise to be respectful from the start.

  Hubel looked vaguely flattered. “Nice I Lieuty gave him the right line ‘fore he got here; means he can learn too.”

  He looked Ventnor up and down, if not with friendliness at least without hostility. Hubel had strong reasons for disliking the villages. Years ago he had tried to take one and had lost forty-three men. Not that the villagers had done anything but run as soon as his war party had appeared but a curtain of fire had appeared between them as they ran. The fire-curtain had advanced towards them like a rain-belt. Hubel could still see some of his best soldiers puffing up in mist when it touched them.

  For months after that, his patrols had been picked off and harassed by great flying black tubes. Things that came whispering out of the sky when no one was looking. Hubel knew a show of force when he saw it. Since then he had left the villages severely alone.

  “So you was chucked out?” he said.

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Hum, well, Lieuty Berman tells me you’re a good brave boy. Berman’s one of my men and you saved him so that’s good enough for me. Tell you what, how’d you like to be one of my soldiers?”

  Ventnor had no idea what a soldier was but Hubel’s next words made it plain.

  “You’ll serve me, see? You’ll be taught to use a bow, a knife an’ things like that. Then, if I tell you to fight, you’ll fight, see? If you fight good, learn good, maybe I’ll make you a Sarnt or even a Lieuty like Berman here. Wait—” He placed two fingers in his mouth and produced a piercing whistle.

  The armed bearded men surrounding King Hubel parted to make way for a number of girls and young women.

  “Look ‘em over, village boy. If I make you a Sarnt, you can pick out two for yourself—providing they ain’t mine at the time o’ course.”

  Ventnor looked them over uneasily. Several of them were personable but none of them were particularly clean. Here, apparently, there were no standards of personal cleanliness such as were insisted upon in the villages.

  The girls looked at him with interest and giggled.

  He said, guardedly, “Thank you, Sire.”

  “Think nothing of it. I treat my soldiers well, I do. You ask around, boy, you’ll find out. On top of that you get free food, a bed and weapons. What could be fairer than that?”

  He paused and looked at the other thoughtfully. “Berman tells me you don’t know much, gotta lot to learn like. Well, fine, but listen here, what counts most in this world is staying alive. Maybe you don’t know what the Indoes were or what a repeater is but if you have to fight a chap what does and he knows less about staying alive than you, you’re going to come out on top. Survival that’s what. First thing is knowing how to survive. If you don’t know that, what good is learning to you? They’ll bury you pretty quick, that’s what‘ll happen, you and your learning—”

  He was interrupted by a thin teenage youth who suddenly appeared at his side slightly out of breath.

  “Well, messenger, what is it?”

  “Message from Samt of signal post three, Sire.” The youth closed his eyes obviously intent on repeating the exact words. “Saint says to tell you—six Maidstone boys entering territory with peace signs.”

  “Maidstone boys, eh?” Hubel frowned. “Wonder what they want, must be something very special. They don’t come this way for nothing them boys don’t.” He scratched the stubble of his cheek in deep thought. “Better tell the Samt to signal ahead and find out what they want, tell him to give ‘em safe passage until he finds out.”

  “Yes, Sire.” The youth raced away.

  Hubel stared after him lost in thought. The Maidstone boys troubled him in a way he could not quite explain even to himself. He’d fought and conquered six minor kingdoms in his life but when he’d tried the Maidstone area he’d run into big trouble and his men had taken the biggest beating of their lives. The Maidstone boys didn’t stand up and fight like normal people. The first line of attack had run into the withering fire of massed cross-bows from skilled marksmen concealed in the most unlikely places. His men had gone down in dozens.

  The next attacking wave had suffered even worse. This one had run into crossfire from more crossbows which had not revealed their presence in the first attack. .

  Realizing he was beaten, he had organized a fighting retreat but the Maidstone boys had not exploited their success. Instead voices had shouted warnings and advice.

  “Don’t try it again, Hubel, or well wipe you out to a man.”

  “You leave us alone and well leave you alone.”

  Hubel was a realist and knew what he would have done in their position. He would have followed up and taken over the entire Kingdom. To this day he still didn’t understand why they hadn’t. Instead, they’d been content to maintain t
heir borders and respect his—it didn’t make sense.

  Stranger still, after the battle, instead of disposing swiftly and mercifully of the wounded, they’d picked them up and treated them. Then, once recovered, they’d been escorted politely to the border and released.

  Hubel scowled inwardly. True they didn’t stand up and fight in a straight battle but if you managed to get hold of one it was no joke. He remembered a five-man patrol limping in with one dead and three badly injured. The five had seen a single Maidstone boy alone, hidden themselves and jumped him. One had a broken arm, another dragged his leg, the rest, apart from the dead man, had torn muscles.

  The patrol had been executed for incompetence, of course, until further incidents had convinced him that these Maidstone boys were more than a match for any of his men in a straight fight.

  They had a thing called ‘unarmed combat’ which, apparently gave them powers above the normal. Hubel was both enraged yet awed by their efficiency.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the return of the messenger.

  “Samt says, Sire, the Maidstone boys want to talk with you. They say they want to trade.”

  “Trade?” Hubel scowled. “What would they want to trade?”

  He decided there was a catch somewhere but it would be wise if he let them through and waited to find out.

  “Tell Sarnt to give them safe passage,” he said. “But tell him to double the strength of every guard post all along the route—right, get moving.”

  He became aware of Ventnor again. “All right, lad, that’s all. You run along with Berman here and he’ll show you the cookhouse and a place to sleep.”

  Berman jerked his head. “This way.”

  Ventnor followed him obediently but was studying his surroundings curiously.

  Canterbury, apart from the Feederal and the broken wall, was very much like the city by the sea. The piles of stone were more numerous but it had the same moss-covered foundations and heaps of rubble. True there were numerous pathways through the weed-choked streets and, here and there, half-hearted attempts had been made to clear the streets completely. Generally, however, the impression was the same—the skeleton of something long dead.