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And the hills which had resisted the river were almost solid iron ore, as were
many of the flanking ledges.
"Glad to get off there," Bahrank said.
Their narrow ledge had turned at right angles away from the cliff onto a broad
ramp which descended into grey-green jungle. The growth enclosed them in
abrupt green shadows. McKie, looking out to the side, identified hair fronds
and broad leaf ficus, giant spikes of barbed red which he had never before
seen. Their track, like the jungle floor, was grey mud. McKie looked from
side to side; the growth appeared an almost equal mixture of Terran and
Tandaloor, interspersed with many strange plants.
Sunlight made him blink as they raced out of the overhanging plants onto a
plain of tall grass which had been trampled, blasted, and burned by recent
violence. He saw a pile of wrecked vehicles off to the left, twisted shards
of metal with, here and there, a section of track or a wheel aimed at the sky.
Some of the wrecks looked similar to the machine in which he now rode.
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Bahrank skirted a blast hole at an angle which gave McKie a view into the
hole's depths. Torn bodies lay there. Bahrank made no comment, seemed hardly
to notice.
Abruptly, McKie saw signs of movement in the jungle, the flitting presence of
both Humans and Gowachin. Some carried what appeared to be small weapons --
the glint of a metal tube, bandoliers of bulbous white objects around their
necks. McKie had not tried to memorize all of Dosadi's weaponry; it was,
after all, primitive, but he reminded himself now that primitive weapons had
created these scenes of destruction.
Their track plunged again into overhanging growth, leaving the battlefield
behind. Deep green shadows enclosed the lurching, rumbling machine. McKie,
shaken from side to side against the restraints, carried an odor memory with
him: deep, bloody musks and the beginnings of rot. Their shaded avenue made
a sharp right turn, emerged onto another ledge slashed by a plunging cut into
which Bahrank took them, turning onto another cliff-hugging ledge.
McKie stared across Bahrank through the slits. The city was nearer now.
Their rocking descent swept his gaze up and down Chu's towers, which lifted
like silvery organ pipes out of the Council Hills. The far cliff was a series
of misted steps fading into purple grey. Chu's Warrens lay smokey and hazed
all around the fluted towers. And he could make out part of the city's
enclosing outer wall. Squat forts dotted the wall's top, offset for
enfilading fire. The city within the wall seemed so tall. McKie had not
expected it to appear so tall -- but that spoke of the population pressures in
a way that could not be misunderstood.
Their ledge ended at another battlefield plain strewn with bodies of metal and
flesh, the death stink an inescapable vapor. Bahrank spun his vehicle left,
right, dodged piles of torn equipment, avoided craters where mounds of flesh
lay beneath insect blankets. Ferns and other low growth were beginning to
spring upright after the monstrous trampling. Grey and yellow flying
creatures sported in the ferntops, uncaring of all that death. Aritch's aides
had warned McKie that Dosadi's life existed amidst brutal excesses, but the
actuality sickened him. He identified both Gowachin and Human forms among the
sprawled corpses. The sleek green skin of a young Gowachin female, orange
fertility marks prominent along her arms, especially revolted him. McKie
turned sharply away, found Bahrank studying him with tawny mockery in the
shining Gowachin eyes. Bahrank spoke as he drove.
"There're informers everywhere, of course, and after this . . ." His head
nodded left and right. ". . . you'll have to move with more caution than you
might've anticipated."
A brittle explosion punctuated his words. Something struck the vehicle's
armor on McKie's side. Again they were a target. And again. The clanging of
metal against metal came thickly, striking all around them, even on the glass
over the view slits.
McKie suppressed his shock. That thin glass did not shatter. He knew about
thick shields of tempered glass, but this put a new dimension on what he'd
been told about the Dosadi. Quite resourceful, indeed!
Bahrank drove with apparent unconcern.
More explosive attacks came from directly in front of them, flashes of orange
in the jungle beyond the plain.
"They're testing," Bahrank said. He pointed to one of the slits. "See? They
don't even leave a mark on that new glass."
McKie spoke from the depths of his bitterness.
"Sometimes you wonder what all this proves except that our world runs on
distrust."
"Who trusts?"
Bahrank's words had the sound of a catechism.
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McKie said:
"I hope our friends know when to stop testing."
"They were told we couldn't take more'n eighty millimeter."
"Didn't they agree to pass us through?"
"Even so, they're expected to try a few shots if just to keep me in good
graces with my superiors."
Once more, Bahrank put them through a series of dazzling speed changes and
turns for no apparent reason. McKie lurched against the restraints, felt
bruising pain as an elbow hit the side of the cab. An explosion directly
behind rocked them up onto the left track. As they bounced, Bahrank spun them
left, avoided another blast which would've landed directly on them along their
previous path. McKie, his ears ringing from the explosions, felt the machine
bounce to a stop, reverse as more explosions erupted ahead. Bahrank spun them
to the right, then left, once more charged full speed ahead right into an
unbroken wall of jungle. With explosions all around, they crashed through
greenery, turned to the right along another shadowed muddy track. McKie had
lost all sense of direction, but the attack had ceased.
Bahrank slowed them, took a deep breath through his ventricles.
"I knew they'd try that."
He sounded both relieved and amused.
McKie, shaken by the brush with death, couldn't find his voice.
Their shadowy track snaked through the jungle for a space, giving McKie time
to recover. By then, he didn't know what to say. He couldn't understand
Bahrank's amusement, the lack of enduring concern over such violent threat.
Presently, they emerged onto an untouched, sloping plain as smooth and green
as a park lawn. It dipped gently downward into a thin screen of growth
through which McKie could see a silver-green tracery of river. What caught [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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