Williams came out from the ship in one of the work boats, a flying craft that was little more than a platform fitted with a powerful inertial drive unit. He was using his searchlight, and Grimes and the others stood up and waved as he drifted towards them. He brought the ungainly thing down to a soft landing a meter or so from where they were waiting, then asked, "What the hell's been happening, Skipper?"
The commodore found it hard to reply. He was almost overcome by a lethargy far deeper than that resulting from overindulgence in alcohol. But, with a great effort, he forced himself to reply. He finished, "And things were . . . getting out of hand. Only one thing to do . . . Put everybody to sleep . . ."
"Sure you didn't get any o' the gas yourself, Skipper? You sound pretty dopey to me."
"It was . . . the drug."
"So you think you were all drugged?"
"Think?" snapped Grimes testily. "I know we were drugged." He remembered vividly the taste and the smell of that beer-like drink, its consistency. Lucky he hadn't liked it, had downed only one mug of the muck. A concoction brewed from sacred mushrooms for special occasions? That assumption made sense.
"And what do we do now, Skipper?"
Grimes pulled himself together, gave orders. He and the others put on respirators, clambered aboard the work boat. Williams restarted the drive then cruised slowly, at low altitude, towards the village. The engine was horridly noisy in the quiet night, but nobody would hear it; the effects of the Morpheus D would take at least six hours to wear off. The fires were still burning in the village square but they were now little more than mounds of red embers, and in the glare of the searchlight no more than grey cinders. Grimes looked down and ahead anxiously; he was suddenly afraid that some of the anaesthetized revellers might have fallen into the beds of red-hot coals. But nobody had done so. The tangles of limbs and bodies were all well clear of danger.
Williams landed the raft in a narrow lane just away from the square. Grimes, followed by the rest of the party, jumped down to the ground. The drizzle had misted his goggles and he doubted if he would be able to tell, even with the aid of the powerful hand torch that Williams had given him, who were members of his own crew and who were natives. Nudity makes for anonymity.
The first body he came to was that of Maggie Macpherson. There was no mistaking her for anybody else. She still had the bagpipes, clasping the instrument to her breasts. It looked as though she were giving suck to some bloated little arthropoidal monster. Her uniform cap was, somehow, still on her unruly red curls. She still had her boots on. Grimes laughed—not an easy action to perform while wearing a respirator, but possible. This could be simple after all, so long as the others had shown the same respect for uniform regulations as had the Scottish girl.
And so it turned out to be, although some of the tangles took some sorting out. Faraway Quest's crew hadn't died with their boots on—but they had been doing all sorts of other things when the anesthetic gas hit them. At one stage Williams muttered, "I should have brought a camera . . . What a marvelous picture this would make! Twelve people in six poses . . ."
"Pipe down and get on with the bloody job!" growled Grimes. "It's quite bad enough without your making a joke of it!"
But it was Williams who knew how many bodies to look for and who kept a tally of those piled aboard the raft. It was Williams who said that Titanov was still missing, and who over-rode his superior's suggestion that the Marine be left to stew in his own juice. The big man was found at last, in one of the houses. An untidy heap of six naked girls had to be lifted off him before his body could be carried outside.
Another tally was made—of the weapons that had been recovered. Officers' side arms and the Marines' stunclubs were loaded aboard the workboat, together with a pile of discarded clothing. From this latter Sonya recovered her own uniform, got into it hastily.
Then, "We have to find the king," said Grimes.
"Why?" asked Williams.
"Because the bastard shot at us. I'm taking back his crossbow."
Carrying torches, the two men walked slowly through the sleeping village. For what seemed a long time they searched in vain. At last their lights showed two giant, huddled bodies, were reflected from gleaming steel.
One of the unmoving men was Hektor, and he was dead, his skull messily crushed. The other was Herak, with the crossbow, which he had used as a club, still in his hands.
The king was dead—and who would be the next king?
That, Grimes told himself, was no concern of his.