Robert Coulson - To Renew the Ages

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To Renew the Ages by

Robert Coulson

CHAPTER ONE

The afternoon was sunny and pleasantly warm. Bill Ashley lounged

under a tree, avoiding the stench of the brush huts, and tried to look like a

man who had brought meat into camp and hadn't a care in the world until

the supply ran out. In reality he was planning his next move: time to be

moving on. The clan had no information for him; it had lost members to

something out there in the Wild Lands, but had no clue as to the nature of

the killer. Moving on, however, might be a problem, since he'd been fool

enough to lose his horse to that band of raiders a week ago.

Furthermore, this clan's chief, Eric, had more brains and considerably

more greed than most of the wanderers in this country, and he'd been

eyeing Bill's crossbow hungrily. Bill suspected he'd been a fool again, to

bring down that boar and prove the crossbow's superiority over the weak

longbows of the clan. Nobody out here had any scruples about murdering

strangers for their possessions.

Well, no sense in brooding over past failures. They'd be watching him

at night, of course. If they didn't jump him tonight, he'd make a run for it

tomorrow. The clan was too poor to own horses, and he was in better

physical condition than any of them. He still had a surprise or two in the

way of weapons, for that matter. With any kind of a start, he'd be clear of

them by tomorrow night. Then he could get back to what had drawn him

south from the Wyoming settlements: tracking down the rumors of a

mysterious danger.

The decision made, his mind registered the distant humming his good

ear had been reporting for several minutes. Bees? Too early in the season,

and anyway it didn't sound like bees, it sounded mechanical. But what

sort of machinery would be operating here in the Wild Lands? He shook

his head to clear it, but the humming continued. If anything, it was a trifle

louder, as if whatever was making the noise was approaching. He checked

his weaponry. Crossbow okay, plenty of bolts in the quiver, knife and

hatchet at his belt. He didn't need to check the hidden pistol, since its

hammer was digging into his lower left rib, and he had no intention of

making any betraying motion toward it. That pistol might be needed

tomorrow.

Big Andy came out of one of the huts, listened a bit, and went over to

Eric's hut, returning in a moment with the chief of the clan beside him.

Bill made a mental note; the boy with his dull eyes and sagging mouth

might resemble a hulking half-wit, but his ears were sharp, and on the

boar hunt he had slipped through the brush and rocks like a shadow.

Getting away from him wouldn't be easy.

By now, other members of the clan had appeared, all listening intently

and clutching an assortment of primitive weapons. Ethel, who had gone

partly deaf, kept inquiring what was wrong until Eric swatted at her. She

dodged out of the way and shut up. The rest looked frightened. Bill

couldn't decide whether it was fear of the unknown or whether they knew

very well what the sound was, and that it was dangerous. Old Wilse, a

tottering scarecrow who might or might not have been Eric's father, was

mumbling to himself in a sort of singsong until Eric wheeled around and

smashed a hand into his face. The old man crumpled to the ground and

lay there, rubbing his mouth silently.

Bill wished Eric hadn't been so quick to shut the old man up, though

he'd understood only a few tantalizing words of the refrain: Something

coming from the city. And then a phrase about killing. But what was

coming? The key word might have been understandable with a few more

repetitions. Fire? Fear? Flare? Language was changing; at its clearest, the

accent of the people of the Wild Lands was difficult for Bill to understand,

and Old Wilse's mumbling was far from that. Flower? None of the

possibilities seemed to make much sense.

The humming by now had become a very distant roar, like that of a

faraway mountain waterfall, or a continuous roll of thunder. Neither

seemed possible in this dry country, and neither had that definite

mechanical sound.

Bill swung his head back and forth, trying to hear better and pinpoint

the source of the noise. One ear had never worked right since his

encounter with a grizzly years ago; it handicapped him in this country

where hearing was almost as important as sight.

There it was; coming in from the southwest and, judging from the

increase in volume, coming fast. The members of the clan had scattered to

their huts, except for Old Wilse, who had struggled to his feet but still

stood in the open, rubbing his mouth absently. Bill wasn't at all sure that

any of the clan members would allow him in one of their homes, and in

any event, the brush shelters didn't look as though they'd be much

protection against whatever was coming. He prudently put one of the

larger trees between himself and the noise, wishing that he was among his

familiar mountains, where trees grew to a decent size and a man could

lose himself among them.

Then the source of the noise was in sight, and Bill realized what Old

Wilse had been saying—flier! He watched in amazement as the machine

came roaring in above the cracked concrete of the Old Days' highway, with

the overgrowing grass, sage, and clumps of greasewood whipping violently

in its wake. Fliers belonged to the Old Days; to the world before the

Blowup. As a child, Bill had been fascinated by the old books in the Popo

Agie library. One of them had contained material about the machines that

allowed man to fly like birds, and Bill had spent hours reading the text and

absorbing the strange scenes in the photographs. Even now he was able to

recognize the approaching vehicle; it had been called a hover-something.

Hoverplane? Hovercraft, that was it. And if speed like this could be called

hovering, he wondered what speeds had been like. Figures dealing with

miles per hour had meant little to a child of his age. Now he was an adult

who had never before seen a man-made vehicle traveling faster than a

good horse could run.

If any community in America had retained enough of the old science to

be able to build or even restore hovercraft, why hadn't it made contact

with Wyoming long before this?

Bill took another look around the camp. The clan members were all out

of sight except for Old Wilse, who stood in the clearing next to the

cookfire, spittle running down his chin and an arrow nocked in his bow.

His defiance might have seemed gallant if it wasn't so obviously the

product of senility rather than misplaced courage. Probably, Bill thought,

the old man didn't have any real idea of what was going on; he was

operating on memories of some dim past. As Bill watched, Eric poked his

head out of his hut and shouted something at Old Wilse, but by now the

hovercraft was so close that it drowned out the words. Trying to hide

would be no use anyway, if that was Eric's intention; the huts might pass

for tangles of brush, but the ashes of the communal cook-fire in the

clearing were too obvious to be ignored.

Then the machine had reached the edge of the trees and turned to

parallel the creek. Bill automatically breathed a sigh of relief before he had

time to wonder whether he should be relieved or disappointed.

Relief changed to shock almost immediately as Old Wilse, obeying some

obscure instinctive command, swung his bow up and launched an arrow

at the hovercraft. It bounced off the side; the clan's bows weren't powerful

enough to penetrate anything much thicker-skinned than a rabbit. Bill

flattened against his tree, hoping that the pilot hadn't noticed the impact.

The hope fled as the machine swung back toward the camp. The resulting

scramble reminded him of a hawk over a hen-roost; clan members

erupted from every hut, racing frantically in all directions. Only Old Wilse

stood firm, nocking another arrow as calmly as though he were shooting

turkeys—which he probably thought he was, Bill decided.

From the hovercraft came an eye-searing shaft of red light. It caught

Old Wilse high in the chest, and the old man stiffened momentarily, then

collapsed. The beam of light winked out and then appeared again, and

Ethel howled and sprawled to the ground as it transfixed one of her legs.

Watching and trying to think what this strange weapon might be, Bill

momentarily forgot to keep the tree between himself and the machine. It

suddenly swerved to point at him, and he threw himself flat as the shaft of

light speared completely through the tree inches above his body.

The wisest course, as he realized later, would have been to "play

possum" and hope the pilot believed him dead; there were plenty of

moving targets to attract attention. However, his temper had been

aroused by the unprovoked attack on himself, and by the pilot's violent

reaction to an arrow he must have known couldn't harm him or his

machine. Bill lay still until the hovercraft turned away after livelier game,

then sat up. He cocked the crossbow, dropped one of his precious steel

bolts into the groove on top of the stock, and swung the bow to his

shoulder. The pilot's figure was dim and wavering behind a canopy that

reflected sunlight in irregular flashes. After a moment's hesitation, Bill

aimed for the rear fan, exposed as the machine banked slightly to pursue

another member of the clan. The bolt drove into the center of the whirling

blades, there was an agonized scream of metal, and the rear of the

hovercraft began to settle.

Bill hastily recocked the bow and reloaded, but there was no need. If the

hovercraft had been a trifle higher, or moving less rapidly, the pilot might

have avoided the giant cottonwood that dwarfed the rest of the scrubby

trees in the copse. As it was, the back end of the machine dropped, and

the forward motion carried the hovercraft inexorably into the top of the

tree. Broken by the impact, the machine crashed to the ground, carrying a

good share of the tree with it.

Bill stayed where he was, sheltered by his tree, bow cocked, waiting for

any activity from the hovercraft pilot. Nothing moved inside the broken

machine, but the clan members began poking their heads out from behind

various trees to see if it was safe to return. Ethel was still wailing from

where she had rolled behind a screen of bushes near the creek. Bill realized

that instead of helping himself, he'd made matters worse. Eric would be

even more determined to obtain a weapon that could defeat such a

terrifying enemy, though he would probably be even more cautious in how

he went about it. Now that the excitement was over, Bill realized that he

should have played dead and let the hovercraft pilot destroy the clan for

him. He'd reacted to an unfair assault without stopping to consider the

practical aspects; impatience would be the death of him yet.

Reassured by the lack of activity inside the machine, the clan began to

trickle back to the clearing. Bow in hand, Bill walked forward to see if he

could glean any information from the wreckage. Big Andy and scrawny

little Harl scrambled out of his way. But Eric, feeling some obscure

challenge to his supremacy, hurried to reach the machine first. Bill let him

go; he had more important things to worry about than counting coup, or

whatever form of status Eric was anxious about. Nobody paid any

attention to Ethel's continuing screams.

Eric reached the hovercraft well ahead of Bill, hesitated a moment, saw

Bill still ambling forward, and began pawing through the wreckage. The

machine had landed on its side, and the impact had jarred the canopy

loose from the body, as well as smashing the metal and wood underside.

Eric peered into the pilot's compartment, then gave a triumphant shout;

with considerable struggle he hauled forth the pilot, who was rather

incredibly still alive and conscious, though evidently dazed.

Bill stopped abruptly, and for a moment stood with his mouth open and

his crossbow dangling in one hand.

The pilot was a woman.

She was surprisingly tall for a woman. When Eric had hauled her free of

the wreckage, her head was almost on a level with his. Shoulder-length

black hair framed an attractive face in which bewilderment was beginning

to be replaced by anger and fear. Her body was pretty well hidden by a

one-piece, brownish-orange coverall (the couple of stripes on each

shoulder made Bill think of pictures of uniforms), but what few

indications the coverall gave were interesting enough. She was young;

early twenties, he guessed. Her major attraction to Bill, however, was that

she was clean. The tribes in the Wild Lands tended to bathe whenever it

rained, and Bill hadn't realized how much the sight and smell offended

him until he saw this woman in contrast. He felt a brief wave of

homesickness.

Eric was chuckling happily. "Look what we got us!" he announced. "A

city woman!"

She tried to wrench away from him, and he tightened his grip. "Want

to leave, girlie? It's not so easy to get away from the Lindsays. Bring a

rope, Andy."

Andy nodded, licking his lips in anticipation, and turned toward one of

the huts. Bill made another hurried decision and lifted his crossbow,

pointing it at Eric.

"Looks like the man who shot her down ought to have some say in what

becomes of her," he said.

Eric scowled. "Prisoners are tribal property. You ain't even a member."

"I'm still the one who brought her down, and that gives me some say in

the matter. And I'm the one who'll finish you, if you don't turn her over."

"One man can't whip the Lindsays," Eric said.

"Maybe not, but you won't be alive to find out. Turn her loose."

At the sound of Bill's voice, the woman had looked at him, then gasped

and turned her head away. One corner of Bill's mouth twisted in an ugly

smile, the only kind he could manage these days. His face tended to affect

women that way. The right side was acceptable. In his younger days, more

than one woman had declared that his dark, hawklike features, a rangy

body, reaching a six-feet three-inches height, were ruggedly attractive, if

not handsome. The left side of his face, however, was a twisted mass of

scar tissue. That eye was gone, along with the top half of the ear. A set of

deeply indented claw marks ran from under his black hair to his jawline,

with the flesh puckered and seamed around them. Underneath the scars,

the bones themselves had been broken and healed crookedly, giving that

half of the face an almost inhuman cast. When he first came out of the

hospital, even his friends had tended to look away from him when they

talked to him. Eventually, they'd gotten over it—some of them. In the Wild

Lands he was less of a monster, but even there people avoided him at

times.

Eric flashed a look at Andy and Harl, and Bill twitched the crossbow

slightly. "You don't have a chance, if trouble starts, Eric."

Eric thought this over sullenly.

"By any rules," Bill suggested, "I'm entitled to a share in the loot, and by

most rules I get to pick first. All right; I pick the woman. You can share

out whatever else you can find in the flier. Or you can try taking what's

mine, and get an arrow in your gut. Make up your mind." He paused, as

an inspiration struck him. "After all," he added, "I'm not keeping her

permanently. You can have her when I'm done." He wasn't going to be

done until he'd got both of them well clear of the Lindsays, but Eric didn't

need to know that.

Eric squinted at him to see if he meant it, decided that he did, thought

over his chances of dodging a crossbow bolt at this range, and found them

negligible. Sullenly, he shoved the woman toward Bill.

"Take her, then," he muttered. "Come on, Andy, Mark, Harl, Jud; let's

see what we got here." He turned to paw through the wreckage.

Bill maneuvered to put a tree at his back, and kept his crossbow ready.

"Come over here," he said to the woman.

She looked around, estimating her chances of escape and finding them

poor. Then she looked at the crossbow, and her interest sharpened. Still

avoiding looking at his face, she came slowly toward him. She was

recovering from her shaking-up, Bill decided, and beginning to think.

There was intelligence in that face; she wasn't going to be easy to handle

as a prisoner. But would she accept a partnership with him?

She stopped in front of him, still keeping her eyes on the crossbow.

"This is what brought down my flier?" she asked. Bill found her easier to

understand than the Wild Lands tribes; her accent was only slightly

different from that of Wyoming.

He nodded, and then realized that since she wasn't looking at him she

couldn't see the gesture. "I put a bolt into your rear fan. It was steel, and

hard enough to wreck your rotor. What kind of a gun did you have in

there, anyway? I never saw anything like it before."

Startled at his use of semi-technical terms, she glanced up at him. This

time she shuddered slightly, but didn't look away.

"Adaptation of an industrial laser," she said, smiling faintly, "if that

means anything to you. Did you make that crossbow?"

Despite the situation, Bill chuckled. "Look, miss whoever-you-are, right

now you're my prisoner and I ask the questions. To begin with, what's

your name?"

"Tamara Bush." She looked steadily at him. "Do you have a name, or do

I just call you Master?"

Bill grinned again, and this time she did look away. He'd been told

often enough that expressions of humor made him look more hideous than

normal. He gave a quick look around to check the location of the tribal

members. The Lindsay males all seemed to be involved in a complicated

quarrel over material being stripped from the flier. Eventually, Eric would

get their attention back to finishing him off, but it would take awhile.

"The name is Bill Ashley. Friends call me Bill. And you will, too," he

added as she started to say something. "Come over here away from the

camp. I want to talk to you without any of that bunch hearing me."

He led the way to a point some distance from the huts, where his pack

rested under a bush. He'd made a point of sleeping some distance from

the clan, both for sanitary and safety reasons.

"Now, pay attention," he said, "because I haven't time to argue with

you. Eric let me have you because he's planning on having the clan kill me

anyway; he's had his eye on this crossbow ever since I've been here. I've

already planned to leave here in the morning. If you'd rather stay with

Eric's bunch, you can; I'll never get away if I have to drag an unwilling

prisoner. If you stay with me, I'll need your help, or at least no hindrance. I

don't know what your quarrel is here and I don't care. If you hadn't taken

a shot at me with that laser I'd have stayed out of the fight altogether, but

I don't take kindly to being shot at. Anyway, all I'm here for is information.

You ought to know this country pretty well; you could cover enough of it

with a hovercraft. If you come with me and provide some of that

information, I'll let you go once we get away from here."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "You don't belong with this tribe, then."

"Not by any stretch of the imagination. My home's a long way from

here."

"What proof do I have that you'll let me go, or that all you want is

information?"

"My word, take it or leave it." He eyed her intently. At close range, she

was even more attractive; even in a badly fitting coverall she did things to

his hormones. "To be honest, information isn't all I want, but I'll settle for

that. I can't watch you night and day, and I think I'd have to, if I took

anything you weren't prepared to give. Anyway, either you go with me, or

you stay here. You know better than I do what the clan will do to you."

She nodded and again looked at his crossbow. Bill recognized that look;

Eric had worn much the same expression.

"I'll come with you," she said.

Bill nodded, wondering why anyone from a city with lasers and

hovercraft would covet a crossbow. Something didn't add up.

"Remember," he said, "if you don't like the arrangement, now's the time

to say so. If you want to make a run for it on your own, I won't stop you. If

you stay now, you do what I say tonight and tomorrow; no arguments and

no questions."

She shrugged. "I said I'd go with you," she said angrily. "What chance

would I have on foot against them?" She jerked her head to indicate the

clan members. "I don't think you have much chance, either, or that you'll

keep your word, but there's only one of you."

"All right. Now, is there anything in that wreck that we can use? That

laser, for instance?"

"No." Tamara was positive. "It's too big to carry, and the power comes

from the main engine. Originally, you see, it wasn't a weapon at all, but…"

"I know the history of lasers," Bill cut in, causing her to look surprised

again. "What I don't know is your technology. There's no reason a laser

couldn't be made small enough to carry; some of them were in the Old

Days. Where are you from, by the way? Any group with your amount of

technology should be better known than it is."

Her head came up. "I am a scout for the Matriarchate of Losalam."

If she expected Bill to be impressed, she was disappointed. "Never

heard of it," he said. "And I should have. Matriarchate? You mean… Never

mind, we can get into the details of government later. What else is there in

the wreck that we can use?"

She thought a bit. "No food or clothing. We can cover such distances

that we don't need to stay out long on patrol. No power sources;

everything is powered by the engines." She eyed him carefully and added

with elaborate casualness, "There are a few tools that might be useful, if

they aren't broken."

Hand weapons, Bill thought to himself and inquired, poker-faced,

"what sort of tools?"

"Oh, various hand tools. For cutting, and, uh, for drilling holes, things

like that."

Bill nodded soberly. She certainly was a poor liar, but he'd be better off

not telling her that he knew it. "Don't you think the clan'll have your tools

parceled out among themselves before we get a chance?"

Robert Coulson - To Renew the Ages

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