Patriots

"I don't know what he's doing," Amy said close to Mark's ear. "Do you?"

"I've no idea at all," Mark said, his eyes on the dirigible. The nose continued to swing. The updraft from Saunderson's burning roof shook it.

Mark's chest tightened. He cupped his hands into a megaphone and shouted, "Yerby! You're drifting over the fire! Watch the fire!"

Hydrogen had much greater lifting ability than any other gas, and because it was cheap an airship's tanks could be vented whenever water vapor started to weigh the ballonets down. The only thing that kept hydrogen from being perfect rather than simply the best choice was that it oozed through any container and burned with a hot blue flame if ignited. Normally that wasn't a problem, since leaking hydrogen rose… but so did sparks popping from bubbles of roof sheathing.

The dirigible slid forward, over the fire.

Half the roof was now covered in flames no higher than moss growing from rocks in a slow stream. The plastic didn't burn easily, but the thermite torch had raised it to ignition temperature. The blaze would continue until the trusses collapsed and poured a gout of red fire through the building's interior.

Yerby dumped his ballast. The dirigible shot skyward in a booming mushroom of steam. Mist and hot water sprayed over the crowd. Frontiersmen screamed and cursed-

And started laughing, most of them, as they usually did after a surprise. And resumed drinking, as they always did. Woodsru

It took Yerby ten minutes to recompress enough of his hydrogen to bring the dirigible back to the open square. Forty or fifty people grabbed the drag ropes to haul the vessel the last of the way down. By that time, the bottles were passing to villagers as well.

Yerby stepped from the gondola and walked to Saunderson. The bonfire gave off a smudgy light. The magistrate had been holding his wife and child since Desiree untied him. He moved away from his family to face Yerby.

"Saunderson," Yerby said, "I'm going to give you a chance to stay here. I warn you, though-from now on act like a good citizen of Greenwood, Do you understand? If this is where you live, then this better be where you're loyal to."

He waved toward Saunderson's house. The thick roof sheathing hadn't burned through at any point, but the plastic sagged inches-deep between trusses at the center of the blackened, bubbled patch.

"Go on," Yerby ordered. "Clean it up. Go back to your houses, all of you. And pray neither you nor your neighbors bring me back here, for you'll regret that if it comes!"

Villagers edged, then trotted from the square, as eager to get away from the Woodsru

"I'm glad you did that, Yerby," Mark said in a low voice. "But it was very dangerous."

"Don't guess I'll do it again sober, leastways," Yerby said. He watched the Saundersons reenter their house. The roof still smoldered, and they'd have a job getting the boat's mast out of the hole it had punched in the other side.

"But you know?" Yerby continued so softly that Mark had to lean close to hear. "There ain't so many brave men that I want to chase one off Greenwood unless I have to."

27. Bedroom Games

Noises in the corridor woke Mark from a sound sleep. It was probably just Yerby staggering drunk to the room he used next to Mark's, but… hadn't he come in earlier?

Mark glanced out his window, but he couldn't see even the outbuildings. Tertia had waned to a sliver in the Earth month since the raid on Blind Cove, and neither of the other moons gave more light than a star.

Mark got out of bed. His door opened. There were a number of people in the lightless hallway. "Yerby?" he said.

A dazzling light blinded Mark. Something heavy slapped him in the chest, knocking him a step backward. The missile burst on impact, enveloping him in a cold fog. Gas gun!

"We're attacked!" Mark said. He meant to shout but his voice was a croak. He couldn't see. He grabbed his bedside chair by memory and lifted it for a weapon. Though he held his breath, the gas was obviously being absorbed through his skin. His chest was numb and he was already losing feeling in his legs.

"Attacked!" Mark gasped as he lunged forward. He started to fall. Another gas shell hit him. Mark thought somebody slugged him on top of the head besides, but that might have been the floor as blackness absorbed him completely.

Everything was suddenly in focus, but it wasn't all in the same focus. He felt the cords binding his wrists and ankles, he saw the figures carrying him and another bundle through the gate out of the Ba

A stranger was talking. "I dumped the gas from the blimp. They'll be a day refilling it. Did Woolsey get the radio?"

All those sensory inputs were clear, but it was a moment before they integrated with the consciousness that knew it was Mark Maxwell of Quelhagen. It was sort of like shaking a box of cornflakes and seeing them settle into half the original space.

Most of all, Mark tasted the aftereffects of the gas. His mouth felt as if it were full of powdered copper, an unspeakably foul sensation. The paralysis was already starting to wear off, and he'd be immune to a reapplication of the gas for the next several days; but if this taste lasted, Mark would almost rather be unconscious.

"Somebody help me!" snarled the man holding Yerby's legs. "I swear he weighs a ton!"

"Shut up, you fool!" said Berkeley Finch. Mark hadn't recognized the man's figure, but his voice was unmistakable even when tension raised its pitch. "Until we get-"

"Hey you!" somebody bellowed from the courtyard. A light shone across the kidnappers. All but one wore tan uniforms with Zenith Protective Association patches on the shoulders. The exception was Dr. Gabriel Jesilind, who hid his face in his hands as the light caught him.

"Come on!" Finch shouted. He fired a burst from his repeller. Either Finch was a lousy shot or he was more squeamish about murder than he was about kidnapping. His pellets shattered sparkling dust from the wall twenty feet to the left of the light. The cloud of ionized aluminum from the pellets' driving skirts hung in the air, glowing faintly.

An aircar started its motors fifty yards downslope. The Zeniths carrying Yerby and Mark broke into a run. Others turned and fired their gas guns toward the compound. A Zenith with a repeller shot straight in the air, and another sent a flare streaking its red arc toward the main building.

People were shouting within the compound's walls. The light vanished when Finch shot.

If somebody fires a flashgun at the kidnappers, they've got as good a chance of hitting me or Yerby as they do anybody else… The thought should have scared Mark. Instead it just made him wonder. Maybe he was still feeling the effects of the gas.

The aircar started forward, flattening the vegetation to all sides. Jesilind threw himself into the front seat beside the driver. The big vehicle had been lightened by removal of its roof, but it still wouldn't be able to fly normally with all the Zeniths and their captives aboard.

"Shoot!" Finch said to the woman beside him. She was loading her gas gun with another clip of fist-sized cartridges. Finch fired his repeller, this time skyward.

Three men and a woman struggled with Yerby's dead weight. Another man had to join them before they were able to dump him on the floor between the rear-facing middle bench seat and the front-facing seat in back. The pair who'd carried Mark had no difficulty in tossing him on top of the big frontiersman.