Decision at Thunder Rift

Grayson sagged back into the pillow. He felt a quiver of relief in the knowledge that the shuttle had gotten away. Lieutenant Hauptman must have organized a good enough defense to keep the enemy off the shuttle, or maybe Rama Xiang had managed to hold a perimeter until the Castle forces had reached him.

His relief was quickly overwhelmed by a rising despair. If Claydon was right, Grayson had been left for dead. Though still alive, he was alone and far from safe on this hostile, god-forsaken world.

6

The city of Sarghad was laid out on the edge of the desert as concentric wheels with unevenly spaced spokes that stretched beyond the city into the encircling ocher sands. Northward, the mountains of the Crysanden Range thrust jagged ice-capped peaks against the reddish sky. The mists hung low now above Thunder Rift, while on the plain to the south, the spaceport shimmered in the growing heat Every hour, the swollen red sun crept higher above the horizon, and the dry winds from the south turned hot. The Castle crouched on Mount Gayal's western flanks, brooding above the city and its port.

It was growing hotter, though the sun would not be overhead for another 150 hours. The searing passage of Periasteron occurred at midday of Thirday, and the time of rising heat was accompanied by the boom of temporary glaciers shattering within the Rift's narrow caverns and crevasses. To the north, distant volcanos smudged the sky as Trellwan began to feel the twisting of the sun's tidal grasp.

Most of Sarghad's streets were partially covered over by massive slabs of ferrocrete or stone, heavily reinforced by arches and buttresses against seismic tremors, and strung with lights that let business continue even through the long planetary night. The planet's sun was a red dwarf so weak in ultraviolet that humans could stare directly at it without danger or discomfort, even thought its disk was over three times larger than that of Earth's sun as seen from Earth. The parent star's single danger lay in its rare but periodic flares, when patches on its mottled red surface turned white hot and scorched the surface of Trellwan with light, heat, and storms of high-energy atomic particles.

At those times, ready shade close at hand was a necessity. The design of Sarghad had originally called for it to be roofed over by a massive ferrocrete dome that would protect its inhabitants from flare radiation, and seal out the incessant sand and climatic extremes. But those plans had been drawn in a century without war, when technology promised miracles. There were places along Sarghad's rim where eggshell fragments of a partially-begun dome still rose above the sands, other places where sections of the dome had collapsed across acres of buildings now deserted or crumbling away into slums. For the most part, the people relied for shade on the protective sunscreens stretched across the city's narrow avenues and walkways.

Sarghad's usual crowds were out among the marketplace stalls that lined the Street of Merchants from the crumbling ferrocrete ruin of the Ajiani highway all the way to the fence that hedged in the palace grounds at the hub of the city. To Grayson, it seemed that the crowds were quieter than usual, less boisterious. An atmosphere of fear had crept through the streets, reflected in the voices and faces of the people there. Merchants and pedestrians clustered together in the blue-ink pools of shadow under the street shades, or hurried through the red glare of daylight.

Two more IS-hour periods had passed since he'd awakened and learned of the exodus of the remnants of Carlyle's Commandos. Though his head was still bandaged, the throbbing pain and dizziness were gone, and Grayson's strength had returned enough that he'd decided to leave the house of Berenir the Merchant.

"Where will you go?" Claydon had asked when Grayson a

"I'm not entirely sure. I have one friend in the city... the daughter of the Chief Minister. She may be able to help me, or take me to someone who can."

Berenir had frowned, stroking his stubby white beard. "It's the political ministers who've been stirring up this hate-the-offworlders sentiment lately. I wonder if it's wise for you to visit the household of one of the planet's leading politicians."

Grayson shrugged. "It's not as though I have much choice. I can't stay here."

Berenir nodded. "I won't say I'm sorry to see you go. It is dangerous for you to stay."

"You didn't have to bring me in." Perhaps it would have better had they not. Growing desperation and loss knotted Grayson's stomach.

"Don't misunderstand me, young Lord." He still used the honorific most Trells reserved for representatives of far-off Tharkad, and the near-legendary i

"But there are the neighbors to consider."

"Eh, yes. As you say."

"I'm grateful for your help."

"And I'm grateful for what your people brought to Trellwan." He smiled at Grayson's startled expression. "No, I don't mean Hendrik. But technology... science to combat superstition... education. My son, Claydon, learned much in his years working at the Castle."

"A lot of good it does me now, Father. The Commonwealth will never return."

"It did you good in the way it taught you to think, son. There are always multiple ways of looking at a problem, some good, some bad. You have learned to apply scientific method to your thought, to think critically, rationally. That is the treasure that these... these starmen brought with them. They will not take it away with them again."

He turned again to Grayson. "It is we who are grateful to you, young Lord."

Grayson had remained silent Scientific method held out little hope to a people faced with raids by bandit BattleMechs. Technology and rational thought had a nasty way of vanishing in the funeral pyres of cities.

Berenir had long been an enigma to those of Carlyle's Commandos who had followed events in Sarghad. He was one of the rich city merchants who dealt with the infrequent traders who called at the spaceport, handling their cargoes and dickering with them for shipments of Trellwan's mineral woods and spices. In the wave of anti-Commonwealth rioting and propagandizing, he had kept a low profile, but continued to deal with the men from the stars, selling Carlyle's Commandos food, oil for their machines, and commodities as varied as soap and salt. None could tell whether his attitude was one of greed, practicality, or simply a cosmopolitan acceptance of the starmen as people like everyone else.

If the population learned the whereabouts of the son of the man who had engineered the Trellwan Pact with Hendrik, Grayson might well find himself facing the brunt of their simmering resentment. The Trells were not particularly vindictive or bloody-minded, but they were human. Grayson shuddered, remembering the story he'd heard of a rapist set free in the desert just as Trell began to flare.

His first thought had been to use Berenir to contact the next offworld freighter that called at Trellwan. The merchant explained that offworld traders called but rarely this far out along the Periphery, and that he was fearful of what would happen when the next one arrived. As he rubbed his hands together the overhead lights caught at the jeweled rings on his fingers. "Business has taken a turn for the worst, I suspect."

"But a ship will come?"

"Oh, yes, eventually. But it will be a while. The trader ships do not fill the skies as they once did...”

“But they'll come?”

“Oh, certainly they'll come!"