So that was what lay behind the maddening language problem! Lord Leighton's computer did its usual job on his brain, and the Teacher Globe no doubt did just as well for Riyannah. But sheer bad luck drove every word of Targan out of Riyannah's battered head!
A few days later, more planes attacked the underground camp where Riyannah and her comrades were hiding, smashing it completely. One of the Kananites and many of the underground's fighters were killed. The survivors had to flee across country, taking the wounded Kananite leader with them.
«The Targans soon saw how little we knew about life in the woods. That did not make them trust us more. Then our leader Marocah died, and we buried him in the forest, far from home.» Riyannah was silent for a moment.
The fugitives eventually reached another underground camp, and were finally able to open negotiations with the underground's leaders. These negotiations didn't get far. Perhaps Chard's men had tracked the fugitives, perhaps they were just lucky. In any case, the second camp was also attacked, both from the air and on the ground. Riyannah and a handful of people escaped just before the camp fell, to run into more soldiers as they tried to get clear.
That was where Blade came in, and after that he and Riyannah were partners in their adventures.
«We'd radioed to the asteroid base, and the two Menel ships you saw were on their way to pick us up. After they were destroyed, I knew I would have to return to the ship in the mountains to the north. It is so well hidden that I do not think Chard's men have found it. I trusted you not to kill me on the way, and after that-«She shrugged.
«Yes,» said Blade. «And after that?»
«If I didn't think it was safe to take you to the asteroid base, I was going to kill you. I wasn't sure I could, but I knew I had to be ready to try. Even if I died, I could still send the ship to the asteroid on automatic control. What happened to us and what we'd learned had to get to the base.»
What they'd learned was an important development in Loyun Chard's strategy. He was pouring material and manpower into building a monstrous starship nearly a mile long, heavily armed and armored, able to serve as a warship, exploration ship, and transport for colonists all at once.
«What it will do first is attack the asteroid base. It will certainly win, and the base will be destroyed. So will many of our ships and the Menel's, hundreds of our fighting people, and any hope of keeping the Targans in their own system. We will have to meet them out among the stars. The war will be far longer and more terrible if we must do that, and we may not win.»
Loyun Chard no doubt knew that just as well as the Kananites. So he was building the great starship, Dark Warrior. The man was a formidable opponent, and peace would be in danger as long as he lived.
«If the two Menel ships hadn't fallen,» said Riyannah, «we'd already be on the asteroid base, or even on our way to Kanan. With Menel to help me, I wouldn't have needed to kill you, no matter what.»
«And now?»
Riyannah smiled and put her arms around him. «I think I can trust you to do nothing to help Loyun Chard. I do not know what else you may want to do, but if it is not dangerous to me or to Kanan, then it is your affair. I want to know more about you and your world, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.»
«How did you come to trust me?»
«I knew you could not be my enemy after you saved me from the bat-cats. Before that-you were still a mystery. You'd saved my life and killed Targan soldiers. Yet you looked like a Targan, spoke Targan well, and kept me from helping the Menel.»
«I did that to keep you from getting yourself killed, Riyannah.»
«I know that now. I didn't at the time. Also, you didn't seem to understand who the Menel were. That meant you could not be one of the Targan underground fighters.»
«And so I was a bigger mystery than before?» said Blade, stroking Riyannah's hair.
«Yes. Then the night after we came up the canyon, some of the mystery disappeared. I knew you could not be one of Loyun Chard's people.»
«How was that?»
Riyannah laughed. «I got you to take off your clothes, then watched you. All of Chard's men have a lightning bolt tattooed on their penis, and a triangle on the inside of the right or the left thigh.»
Blade stiffened, put both hands on Riyannah's shoulders, and held her at arm's length.
«A lightning bolt tattooed on the penis?»
«Yes. Down the middle. The officers have the triangle on the inside of the right thigh, the ordinary soldiers on the-«
«Riyannah, what are you-?»
«I'm telling you the truth, Blade. If you'd looked at the bodies of the soldiers, you'd have seen it for yourself.»
Blade nodded slowly. «A tattoo on the penis,» he said, half to himself. Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter until the echoes rolled around the forest.
«A tattoo on the penis,» he gasped, tears running down his cheeks. «A tattoo on the penis!» Then he reached out for Riyannah again, and she came into his arms. He felt her lips on his and her hands fumbling at his trousers. He thrust his hands inside the back of her trousers and cupped her buttocks. She laughed and tossed her head so that her hair brushed his face and neck.
Then all the delicious sensations of making love to Riyannah were coming so fast Blade could no longer sort them out.
Chapter 10
Toward dawn Riyannah fell asleep. Blade wanted to but found he couldn't. His mind was still whirling too fast from what Riyannah told him. She'd answered some of his questions, but left many others open and raised some completely new ones.
The most important question was also the least easily answered. Was she telling the truth? If she wasn't, what if Blade went with her to Kanan? He might be signing his own death warrant, as well as helping the wrong side in a war. He would be alone, against the resources of a whole planet. He could be eliminated as easily as a swatted mosquito-more easily, if they didn't teach him the Kananite language.
That wasn't the only problem he might face if he went to Kanan and found its people hostile. So far Riyannah seemed to believe his story about being the survivor of a wrecked spaceship. What about the Kananites back home? With the resources of their home planet, they might probe his brain, prove he was lying, reveal the truth, and perhaps even discover the Dimension X secret. Then what? Blade had a vision of the Kananites unleashed on the whole universe, like the Looters who'd also discovered inter-Dimensional travel and used it to destroy one civilization after another until Blade met and defeated them in Tharn.
Even assuming the Kananites didn't get the Dimension X secret, they still might get the location of Earth from him. Then a swarm of Menel and Kananite ships might descend on Earth, drawing it into a Kananite empire.
So much for what could happen if Riyannah was lying. There wasn't much he could hope to do against it, except keep alert and be ready to put himself out of reach of the Kananites. He doubted they could get much out of a corpse.
What if Riyannah was telling the truth? It would probably be safe to go to Kanan, although the less they learned about Dimension X the better. After that, what he ought to do would depend on the answer to another maddening question.
Where was he? Had he been hurled across the Dimensions to an alternate Earth, so that none of the people here could be any menace to Home Dimension as long as they could only travel in space? Or was he on another world in the same Dimension as the Earth he knew, separated from it only by light-years of space? He remembered the moment of cold and star-studded blackness all around him. Was that a leap between Dimensions, or across light-years within a single Dimension?