Shannach—the Last
Copyright© 2024 by Leigh Brackett
Chapter 6
A hard excitement began to stir in Trevor, too big to be hidden in that secret corner of his mind. He didn’t try. He let it loose, and Shannach murmured.
“You are pleased. The ship will fly, and you are thinking that when you reach that other valley and are among your own people again, you will find means to destroy me. Perhaps, but we shall see.”
In the smoky torchlight, looking down from a sagging catwalk above the firing chambers and the rusty sealed-in tubes, Trevor smiled. A lie could be thought as well as spoken. And Shannach, in a manner of speaking, was only human.
“I’ll need help. All the help there is.”
“You’ll have it.”
“It’ll take time. Don’t hurry me and don’t distract me. Remember, I want to get over the mountains as bad as you do.”
Shannach laughed.
Trevor got more torches and went to work in the generator room. He felt that Shannach had withdrawn from him, occupied now with rounding up the Korins and the slaves. But he did not relax his caution. The open areas of his mind were filled with thoughts of vengeance to come when he reached that other valley.
Gradually the exigencies of wrestling with antiquated and partly ruined machinery drove everything else away. That day passed, and a night, a half another day before all the leads were hooked the way he wanted them, before one creaky generator was operating on one-quarter normal output, and the best of the spare batteries were charging.
He emerged from the torchlit obscurity into the bridge, blinking mole-like in the light, and found Galt sitting there.
“He trusts you,” the Korin said, “but not too far.”
Trevor scowled at him. Exhaustion, excitement, and a feeling of fate had combined to put him into an unreal state where his mind operated more or less independently. A hard protective shell had formed around that last little inner fortress so that it was hidden even from himself, and he had come almost to believe that he was going to fly this ship to another valley and battle Shannach there. So he was not surprised to hear Shannach say softly in his mind,
“You might try to go away alone. I wouldn’t want that, Trevor.”
Trevor grunted. “I thought you controlled me so well I couldn’t spit if you forbade it.”
“I am dealing with much here that I don’t comprehend. We were never a mechanical people. Therefore some of your thoughts, while I read them clearly, have no real meaning for me. I can handle you, Trevor, but I’m taking no chances with the ship.”
“Don’t worry,” Trevor told him. “I can’t possibly take the ship up before the hull’s repaired. It would fall apart on me.” That was true, and he spoke it honestly.
“Nevertheless,” said Shannach, “Galt will be there, as my hands and feet, an extra guard over that object which you call a control-bank, and which your mind tells me is the key to the ship. You are forbidden to touch it until it is time to go.”
Trevor heard Shannach’s silent laughter.
“Treachery is implicit in your mind, Trevor. But I’ll have time. Impulses come swiftly and cannot be read beforehand. But there is an interval between the impulse and the realization of it. Only a fraction of a second, perhaps, but I’ll have time to stop you.”
Trevor did not argue. He was shaking a little with the effort of not giving up his last pitiful individuality, of fixing his thoughts firmly on the next step toward what Shannach wanted and looking neither to the right nor to the left of it. He ran a grimy hand over his face, shrinking from the touch of the alien disfigurement in his forehead, and said sullenly,
“The holds have to be cleared. The ship won’t lift that weight any more, and we need the metal for repairs.” He thought again strongly of weapons. “Send the slaves.”
“No,” said Shannach firmly. “The Korins will do that. We won’t put any potential weapons in the hands of the slaves.”
Trevor allowed a wave of disappointment to cross his mind, and then he shrugged. “All right. But get them at it.”
He went and stood by the wide ports looking out over the plain toward the city. The slaves were gathered at a safe distance from the ship, waiting like a herd of cattle until they should be needed. Some mounted Korins guarded them while the hawks wheeled overhead.
Coming toward the ship, moving with a resentful slowness, was a little army of Korins. Trevor could sense the group thought quite clearly. In all their lives they had never soiled their hands with labor, and they were angry that they had now to do the work of slaves.
Digging his nails into his palms, Trevor went aft to show them what to do. He couldn’t keep it hidden much longer, this thing that he had so painfully concealed under layers of half-truths and deceptions. It had to come out soon, and Shannach would know.
In the smoky glare of many torches the Korins began to struggle with the rusting masses of machinery in the after holds.
“Send more down here,” Trevor said to Shannach. “These things are heavy.”
“They’re all there now except those that guard the slaves. They cannot leave.”
“All right,” said Trevor. “Make them work.”
He went back up along the canting decks, along the tilted passages, moving slowly at first, then swifter, swifter, his bare feet scraping on the flakes of rust, his face, with the third uncanny eye, gone white and strangely set. His mind was throwing off muddy streams of thought, confused and meaningless, desperate camouflage to hide until the last second what was underneath.
“Trevor!”
That was Shannach, alert, alarmed.
It was coming now, the purpose, out into the light. It had to come, it could not be hidden any longer. It burst up from its secret place, one strong red flare against the darkness, and Shannach saw it, and sent the full cold power of his mind to drown it out.
Trevor came into the bridge room, running.
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