The Buttoned Sky Part 2

"Come off it," said Jerran urgently. "You're still thinking like a rucker."

"I am of the ruck."

"You're a rebel now, you fool! Think like one! Listen: _a man cannot kill a G.o.d_."

"The Globate Credo," grunted Revel. "_Our Orbs are everlasting, untouchable._ Crud! I've killed four today."

"Right. So stop fearing them and thinking they're omnipotent. _Our Orbs see all we do._ More crud, lad! They're telepathic, adept at hypnosis, but rock stops 'em. Get rock above you and you are safe for a while, till I can think this over and get you some help."

"The mine!" Revel barked; to his madness, his exhilaration, was added hope. "The secret cave, Jerran!"

"And of course," said Jerran wryly, "you have to take the woman."

Revel's jaw dropped. "Why?"

"You idiot, she just heard you say about six words too many. She'd lead her father's pack straight to us!" Jerran evidently knew the Lady Nirea by sight. "She knows our names, too. It's either take her or kill her."

His flinty eyes creased up. "Better kill her, at that. Less danger."

Revel looked at her. The talk of murder didn't turn a hair of that flawlessly-wrought coiffure: she was either too sure of the gentry's power, or too stunned by the G.o.ds' death, to be consciously frightened.

She was not stunned, for now she said, "You rabbit-brains, you filthy grubbers, you must have lost whatever wits a rucker has. My father will really think up something f--"

"d.a.m.n your father," said Jerran. "He eats dandelions."

"He doesn't!"

"My cousin gathers them for the old h.e.l.lion," nodded Jerran. "I ought to know. Revel, have any of those bulbous bubbles gone into the mine, that you noticed?"

"Not yet, I've been watching."

"Good. Then get going. I'll take care of the wench."

Revel saw her lips curl slightly; she didn't believe she could be hurt, even though she had a moment before been screaming at the death of her G.o.ds. She was brave, or stupid, or very confident of her untouchability.

He glanced down over her body, squeezed tight by the silver gown. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were fuller and higher than a ruck girl's, her limbs unbunched with muscles, smooth and lovely.

"No, she doesn't die," he said. "Not unless I do." He bent and picked her up and ran with her toward the entrance of the mine.

CHAPTER III

The Mink he couches underground, Beneath the earth he lies; He hears the fox's mournful yell, And knows he must arise.

"Too many lads have hunted been, Too many women slain!"

The Mink he takes his pick in hand To end the gentry's reign.

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

The Lady Nirea thought a moment--she never attacked any new problem without thinking beforehand--and then she began to struggle. This rucker who had her over his shoulder, with a death-grip on her legs and her head hanging down his back, was plainly insane. No man of his low position was _ever_ insane enough to actually harm a squire's daughter; so if she kicked and bit, he would either drop her or--

Well, it was the "or." He reached up and slapped her on the rear. Hard.

She opened her eyes wide. No one had ever before dared to touch her there. She thought again, and bit him on the side.

He was carrying her up the rocks toward the mine now. Surely there would be a G.o.d-guard on duty there? She had often seen one in place at the entrance, as she rode through the valley. Yes, peering upside-down under his arm, she saw the golden glow. Then he was shifting her a little, setting his muscles, and--great Orbs! He struck the G.o.d full in the middle with his miner's pick. This man, this astounding brute with chocolate-colored hair and a body like a wild woods lion, had dared kill four G.o.ds in as many minutes. Perhaps she shouldn't be as certain of her inviolability as she'd been till now.

"You triple-d.a.m.n fool," she said, making her voice husky so it wouldn't squeak, "the globes are watching."

"They always are." What a strong voice the beast had.

"They see you going into the mine. D'you think you're safe here?"

"Where I'm going, there's a chance," he said. His body moved lithely beneath her. She clutched him around the ribs as they began to descend a ladder. Blackness, tinged with blue, lay below. She felt her scalp p.r.i.c.kle with terror.

The little man, Jerran, said from somewhere above, "Kill all the G.o.ds we meet, lad; I'll hide or bring the bodies. And keep your emotions controlled, or they'll follow our scent like zanphs on the trail of a runaway."

"Did the globes follow us?" asked the big man, whose name was Rebel or something like it.

"They were coming down again as I ducked in. Hurry it up."

The swift plunge into the mine speeded. She deliberately worked herself up to silent panic, giving the G.o.ds a spoor to chase.

Now they were traveling on the level, and from the reflection of yellow, the brisk jerk of his arm, and the pulpy squish, she knew he had met and slain another globe. Was he inhuman, a visitor from beyond the world, such as were told of in the ancient ballads? Certainly no man was ever this bold!

"Here's the end," said Jerran. "Set the wench down, she can't get away.

Hurry!"

She was rudely plumped onto a pile of coal. She looked at her silver gown and shuddered. Her flailing legs had ripped it from hem to midthigh; the coal was staining it irrevocably.

"When I catch that horse," she thought, half aloud, "I'll beat him.

Tossing me into all this!"

They were pulling down rocks from the wall; now a black hole appeared.

The small man jumped up to a boulder and s.n.a.t.c.hed down a blue mine lantern. "Take this, Revel." That was it, Revel. An odd name, a rather nice one. The ruck ordinarily had such awful names, Jark and Dack and Orp. Revel. Not bad. It fitted the big l.u.s.ty-looking brute.

He came over. "Never mind picking me up," she said icily. "I can walk."

She peered into the hole, winced, and clambering over the rocks, losing a heel from one of her slippers, she entered their secret cavern.

Revel climbed in after her. Jerran was already piling rocks back into the breach. The lantern looked faint and incapable of lighting a chimney corner, but its blue radiance was deceptive, for the farthest reaches of the place were cast into a moonlight sort of glow. She gazed around, unable to take it in, seeing nothing at first but giant shapes of mystery, unknown things in stacks and in tumbled heaps, figures like grotesque statues, all lined in rows the length and breadth of the giant cavern.

The cave itself was square, perhaps a hundred feet to a side. It must have taken scores of miners months of work to hew it out of the rock.

Unwilling to show interest, she still had to ask, "When did you make this?"

"We didn't make it, Lady. We found it. No man alive made this place."