Steppe Read online

  He was too late. The other demon's hand was already on it, turning the knob. Alp's body went dead.

  But momentum carried him forward. He crashed into the box and the demon behind it. Both toppled over.

  There was a startled cry, a crackling sound, a moment of intense pain—and Alp was free again.

  He saw a curtained window—but the remaining two Galactics stood between him and it. Alp had no bow, no arrows and no blade. He charged them anyway, kicking at one while butting the other. Then he leaped through the aperture.

  Alp had not really expected to discover the plains of his homeland outside, for he knew the land of demons differed from mortal geography. In one region there was a magnetic mountain that snatched all metal away from men who rode by; in another the sun shone brightly at midnight. So he was prepared for something unusual here.

  Still, he was amazed. The curtain was not physical, neither of wool nor horsehide; rather it was a tingling surface like that of a chill river. The notion of taking a bath was dismaying! And beyond this barrier were no trees, ger or desert sands, but a complex canyon of many colors.

  It had to be the nether region of the gorge he had fallen into, though he had never imagined it could be so vast and splendid! Bright boulders rolled along narrow channels, and lights rose and fell inside the opposite canyon wall.

  No—his new understanding told him that the boulders were cars—wheel-less wagons able to roll uphill without being hauled by horses. The lights were in antigravity elevator shafts: magic hoists that carried men up and down without weight. Demon tricks, of course, called "science." He had no inherent fear of it, but he realized that he should treat it with extreme caution. A living demon killed men for the mere joy of it, but magic science acted without joy or sorrow.

  Alp was naked, weaponless, and horseless. Was Surefoot here? He saw no bones. And of course he had already decided that his mount would not be here in hell, not even in the hell for horses. That was the nature of man's hell: to be without horse and weapon.

  His appraisal of the canyon had taken only an instant, but already the scuffling sounds in the chamber behind made it clear that the Galactics were coming after him. That was the system of hell too: perpetual pursuit, and torture upon capture. But now he knew that not all demons had the same specific objectives; most likely the other demons of this realm had other warriors to torment and would ignore him. If he could kill the four assigned to him, as he had killed the four Kirghiz, he would have no quarrel with those outside.

  Kill? Not precisely. His Galactics were associated with the Game, and in that context the act of killing did not accomplish the usual relegation to an afterworld. There were strange things about this Game—but he didn't have time to work it out now, though it was all in his helmet-sponsored memory. He had to move.

  He ran down the channel he found himself on. Above it were other channels, and below it were more, like ropes stretched the length of the canyon. This was a street in a city—neither road nor town like any he had known in life. Karabalgasun was a city, and it had streets, but the houses were not tall and the roads were flat on the ground.

  The cities of the far places he had read about were similar: Changan in China, the Middle Kingdom; Babylon in the southwest.

  Now he realized that the path itself was moving! He had stepped onto a woven mat being dragged along, and it was carrying him along with it, as though he rode the back of a monster serpent.

  As he moved, the other demons on the pathway began to take notice of him. He would have observed them sooner had he not been distracted by the awesome depths of the canyon opening below him as he moved out. There was no bottom to it!

  The females—dainty of limb, thin of face and fair of complexion—for demons—averted their eyes modestly.

  The males scowled. Nakedness was a taboo here, he realized—or a mark of subservience. That was why he had been stripped. Hell overlooked no torture! He had to get clothing, so that he could conceal his status and pass among the demons unrecognized.

  "Hey, you!" one of them called in the demon-tongue, Galactic. It was a guard, a police official.

  Alp saw that the creature was armed, so he stopped. He stepped into an alcove on the side, to get off the moving belt. They did not use swords here, or bows, or even daggers, but they had effective magic weapons nonetheless.

  Most effective! He would have to plumb his new knowledge for details, because he was already aware that the fighting instruments he had known would be almost useless in this situation.

  "What stunt is this?" the guard demanded. "You drunk or crazy?"

  Alp knew he would have to make his first speech in the new language. His own Uigur vocabulary would instantly give him away. This demon was neither friend nor enemy, but an officer of law charged with maintaining order in hell. His question was rhetorical, as there was no alcohol or insanity in this framework. A proper answer might actually place the guard on Alp's side.

  "I—suffered an accident," Alp said haltingly. "I fell—and woke without clothing. I do not know exactly where I am or how to return home."

  The police guard squinted at him. "Put out your hand."

  Alp did so. The demon slapped a disk against his palm. Its nature was not clear; this was the first tangible gap in the helmet knowledge. Had a swift arrow of information missed his head?

  "That's the truth, but not the whole truth," the guard said, looking at the disk. "Care to try again?"

  A magic truth disk! Now Alp understood. The information was in his mind after all, but he had not recognized the concept. How fortunate he had not attempted an outright lie!

  Actually, it would not be proper to lie to any of these demons other than the four he fled from, for the others were not his enemies. He could not condemn them all merely because they had the misfortune to be demons.

  Technically, he was now a demon himself!

  "I am an Uigur subchief. My family was killed by barbarians. I obtained vengeance but died while escaping the Kirghiz, and now I am in hell without horse, weapons or dress." Actually the words he used were not precisely analogous to the concepts of his people, but more than a language barrier was involved. This language of Galactic seemed to have a plethora of terms relating to vehicles and ships, but almost none relating to important Uigur matters such as "stirrup," "bowstring" or "gorge." "I escaped the four demons assigned to torture me—and there they are!" he pointed.

  The guard's round eyes widened. "That is the truth, as you see it—but there's little sign of derangement! Mister, you've been hyped! I'll nail them all!"

  The demons saw the guard and tried to retreat, but he whipped out a portable stunner. Docilely they coasted down to line up beside Alp.

  "Officer," the leader said respectfully through his obvious discomfort. "We're in Steppe. We were interrogating this man when he attacked us and plunged into the street."

  "Steppe!" the guard exclaimed, grimacing beautifully. "I should have known. What in hell are you clowns doing on this level?"

  So the demons admitted this was hell!

  "Our equipment is here. We had no intention of coming into the street, but we couldn't let the primitive run loose—"

  Alp kept silent. He was learning a great deal of value, more by the memories evoked by the dialogue than by the actual words. His new memory had to be drawn out in comprehensible segments to be useful. "Steppe" was not a land but a synonym for the Game—a game of life and half-death. A game that somehow involved Alp himself.

  "He claims you kidnapped him," the guard retorted. "Game or no Game—"

  "No, officer! We pooled our resources and fetched him from the past. He's a native of the real Steppe. We mean to interrogate him and ship him back—"

  Back! Alp's face remained passive, for there was no sense in letting them know how well he comprehended.

  Back to life, and to vengeance among the Kirghiz—

  No! This was not death, but a removal to another age of man. Back meant true death for him and true
hell!

  Better to fight it out right here; if he won, he had new life, and if he lost, he would be no worse off than he had originally thought.

  Chapter 3

  HIDING

  The guard checked the demon-leader's story with his truth-disk. Actually there was no sense in thinking of them as demons anymore; they were in fact men, like him. "Very well," the official said. "Get him off the street—and see that you don't intrude on this level again, or I'll run you in! I know you're violating Game regulations."

  "We appreciate it, officer!" the man said. "Now—"

  Alp moved with a speed and certainty unfettered by either clothing or Galactic scruples. He snatched the stunner from the officer's holster, aimed it the way he had seen it aimed, and pressed the visible stud.

  There was a snap. All five men stiffened and toppled as the invisible beam mowed them down. They fell across the moving belt and were carried away.

  Alp lowered the weapon, for which he was developing hearty respect—and his right leg went numb. The device was still operating! He stumbled, balancing on his left leg while he fiddled with the stud. It snapped up, stopping the force—but his leg remained dead.

  Other Galactics were coming toward him. Alp held the stunner well out of the way and ran awkwardly, clinging to the beltway rail for support. There was no pain in his stunned leg and no visible injury, but it would neither respond to his will nor support his weight. It had become a useless attachment that tended to drag.

  He had to get out of sight! He put the stunner between his teeth, heaved himself over the rail and climbed down outside the belt channel, using both hands and his good foot.

  There was a framework under the belt, buttressed by a pattern of beams. Alp clung to these, looking for a way down. He was in good physical shape, like any true Uigur, but climbing and hanging were not his forte.

  There was no descent. The gorge reached down sickeningly, making a drop unthinkable, and the belt support stretched twenty meters in either direction before meeting vertical supports.

  Alp was a horseman, not a bird. But there was no horse, and his leg still lacked sensation. He proceeded along the beams, passing from one to the next, hand across hand.

  Now people on the belts below were looking up. He still wasn't hiding very well! He had to get away from here and get some clothes—before more policemen converged.

  His arms were fast tiring. Alp hauled himself back up the side and fell over the rail with the last of his strength.

  He had been using his muscle instead of his brain, and that was bad.

  The five stunned bodies had been carried away. He knew they had not recovered yet because his leg had not—

  assuming the effect of the beam was reversible. A lone man was riding the belt toward him. And in the sky, above the highest to the criss-crossing beltways, Alp saw a flying shape like a monstrous mosquito, its wings invisible. A hovercraft, his new memory said. More antigravity—an opaque concept.

  He took the stunner from his mouth, aimed it at the lone man, and pressed the stud. The man fell forward, and Alp caught him. His leg gave way and they both collapsed. Alp made sure the stud had not locked down this time, so as not to deaden any more of his own anatomy, then turned his attention to the man.

  He was narrow-faced, like most of the Galactics, and had the same burned-off hair style Alp had noted passingly on the men of the lower beltways. The four demons had approximated Uigur style tonsure, with the main mass braided and thrown back from the forehead; but it seemed other Galactics declined to maintain tresses of appropriate length.

  Quickly he yanked off the man's tunic. The Galactic's bared skin was paler than Alp's own, and more hairy; the muscles were comparatively flabby, and there was some fat. Could this be a noble? Certainly the body was that of neither peasant nor horseman!

  Alp put the tunic over his own head. The material was like quality silk, light but strong. There was also underclothing; Alp had neither time nor inclination to don it himself, but he did get it off the other. The man's genitals were unusually large: yes, surely a noble!

  But an enemy noble, or at least not a friend. Alp let the man ride on down the belt, while he leaned against the stationary rail of the alcove. He was just beginning to fight with his brain.

  The insect in the sky expanded into a floating machine. A police craft. Alp had suspected it, for his new awareness told him that only officials and police were permitted the use of hovercraft within the city proper. That was why he had acted so rapidly. But now he waited.

  The craft approached the belt. The machine was hollow like a gourd, and two more guards were inside. One opened a hatch and jumped out on the belt. "There he is!" he cried. "Naked man!"

  The policeman caught up with the body and hauled it to an alcove, using a small magic rug to make it float.

  The vehicle came alongside, and the two men passed the unconscious one inside. Still Alp did not move.

  The craft departed, moving upward with no wings. At last Alp smiled. He had feared the ruse would not be successful, and that he would have to stun these police too—if it were possible to affect the one in the craft. Had they suspected his identity they could have stunned him without warning, finishing his fling at freedom. That was the gamble he had taken, not from boldness but necessity. It had worked—and almost too easily.

  But now he had to secure his position in this world. He needed better clothing, and money or barter, and a horse—or at least a moving machine. And a suitable territory to roam. For these Galactics could not be stupid; he had fooled them once, but like the Kirghiz they would be on guard the next time. Their magical resources were far greater than his.

  First, his hair. He possessed no knife to cut it short, so he would have to do it the hard way. He sat down so as to free both hands, taking a pinch of hair between his fingers with his left hand and a section of that with his right.

  He yanked. A tuft came loose, hurting his scalp despite his protective grip.

  Alp laid the black strand down and quickly unbraided the remainder. Then, yank by yank, he dismembered his fine ebony mane, leaving a ragged pasture where there had been Uigur pride. Another torture of hell—and he had to do this to himself!

  Sensation was finally returning to his leg. That meant the others he had stunned would be coming to. There would soon be a second alarm.

  He placed the mat of hair in an inner pocket of the tunic; hair could be fashioned into rope when required. He hoped no blood showed on his head; his hasty barbering had been brutal in places.

  Alp rode down the belt until he came to a crossbelt. He took that, then found a descending lift and rode that.

  The feel of weightlessness alarmed him, but he quelled his stomach. He felt more secure nearer the ground. While he traveled he used his brain some more, digesting his new information and seeking ways to use it.

  This was a remarkable land. There were no true horses and few plains. There were more people here than in all of populous China. Machines did almost everything—even thinking and copulating. Men could still do these things, but the machines did them better. A machine could spawn a human baby if properly primed; this was called

  "hydroponic insemination" or something similar. Appalling—but so it had been for generations. And the stars in the sky were no longer specks of light on the dome of the night, but bright suns—and near many of these suns were other worlds like this one.

  People were numbered. Machines provided their food. A man was limited not by the strength of his arm and the accuracy of his bow, but by the amount of intangible wealth he possessed, reckoned in points. Naturally this made for extreme laziness. The Chinese were soft, while the hard-riding Uigurs were hard—or had been, before civilization had softened them and made them vulnerable to the Kirghiz. But among these Galactics the edge of war no longer necessarily gave the hard men the advantage; the machine weapons and magic were far too strong. So there was no natural halt to the process of decay—some year the machines themselves,
like the Kirghiz, would rebel and take over. Alp well understood the process!

  Meanwhile, there was the Game. The competitive nature of the minority of Galactics was sublimated there. The conditions of times past were duplicated—crudely—and history was re-enacted—approximately. A man's fortune and reputation in the galaxy was determined largely by his performance in this Game, and the most ambitious men participated. Even women! In the Game was all the action and lust and intrigue that the mundane galaxy lacked.

  It took only a minute's thought to show Alp that he would be far more at home in the Game than in the "real"

  galaxy, for that mundane scheme was as foreign as hell to him, literally, while the Game—

  The Game was Steppe. Uigur and Chinese dominated it. Its present stage in history was about the year 830, Christian Era. Alp cared not one sheep-dropping for Christianity, but he was satisfied to orient on its time scale for now.

  Alp himself had been snatched from a time about ten years later—841. That was why the four demons—

  actually Game players—had used their machine to fetch him from the canyon just before he died at the bottom. His absence made no difference to his world, for he was dead there anyway. A complex concept of "paradox" governed that. The four players had hoped to draw information from him concerning the intervening years he had experienced

  —the years between 830 and 841. Information that would profit them enormously in the Game.

  This was important, he realized, for they had gone to a great deal of trouble for the sake of learning about those years. Why? Why should news of a decade matter that much? What good could it actually do them? Particularly when they could look it up in a history text?

  No, they could not look it up, for these Galactics were illiterate! Their machines did all their reading for them, turning it into pictures on windowlike screens. They knew only what their machines told them.

  And—the four demons did not know precisely when Alp was from! They had fetched him from their past, but they had had to take only the man whose removal could not affect their own history. So they had oriented on the bottom of the canyon, waiting for someone to fall—and few men did fall, alive, because it was in Uigur territory and Uigurs were not fools about canyons. Only the pressure of the chase had forced Alp himself to attempt that leap when unprepared. Probably he was the only man to die that way in twenty years—and possibly much longer. So the players might have wanted a man fifty years beyond Game-time—and had to settle for Alp. He was actually worth less to them than they supposed.